Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Monday (21 Nov) - A Lazy Week

Monday (21 Nov) - A Lazy Week

Mf's Mon/Tues raid is on this week, and they had their regular crew running Firelands Monday night. Wild didn't pay much attention, but Beth'tilac remains unbeaten. Bd's Wed/Thurs raid is not scheduled so there will be no raiding for Wild unless I decide to help out with "Amateur Nights" planned for Fri/Sat/Sun to help guildies with alts and gear in BoT and BWD.

Wild thought he was pretty well done with getting gear until Patch 4.3. Happy, however, came across an i378 Chelley's main hand dagger on the Auction House. Normally the dagger costs around 20-25k gold, but the upcoming patch is forcing gear prices down and it was up for sale at 14k gold. Wild has an i365 one hand mace. Comparing stats, not only is the dagger a higher ilvl (it has better sta/int stats) the rest of the stats on the dagger is a better fit than the mace, increasing mastery and crit without giving up any haste. The only thing that made Wild cringe was that enchanting the dagger with Power Torrent cost him 1500 gold. That's one expensive enchant. Wild's gear is now officially i370 equipped. Wild is as ready as he's going to be for the new dungeons and raids in the patch.

I guess I should congratulate World of Warcraft for it's SEVENTH birthday this past week. I'm not sure what that says about those of us who have been there since the beginning and are still playing the game. Blizzard thought so highly of the accomplishment they've given every player a 7% increase in experience and reputation leveling. That would be pretty impressive - except that the xp/rep gain is only good for one hour.

I might be able to make Wednesday's Hunter Fortress if there is interest. And have a great Thanksgiving!

Wild and all the Wild family will be out of action next week. We are leaving for Las Vegas on Sunday, 27 Nov, and will return the following Sunday.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Thursday (17 Nov) - Spider Work

Thursday (17 Nov) - Spider Work

[Note - must be getting old, forgot to post this!]

When Bd announced that he was raising the dead - ie, his guild raid - I was curious as to who in the guild would join us. As far as I knew there was only Wild, Bd, and Lady Hunter on his short list, but I figured he would be calling in favors with many of the old guard who were still in the guild. What can still amaze me is that after two guild splits - from FateSealed to Mayhem and then from Mayhem to Meitha - it seems we still have two distinct groups in our guild. One group is led by Mf along with Pk, both of whom have at some point held at least a co-guild leader spot. I couldn't tell you whether they are still co-leaders or only officers. It isn't very clear. The second group is led by the named guild leader, Bd, and Lady Hunter. I still sense that these two groups, while not actively opposing each other, don't generally mingle. We seem to have brought all of our baggage with us each time we broke up and formed new guilds. Wow.

Back to Bd's raid and who would come to it, Wild waded through the guild roster and came up with a larger number than expected - I put the names of 12 guildies on my list, including our starting three. Most were old guard, ie, part of the "cabal" that I thought had finally dissolved with the long absences of Bd and Lady Hunter. But there were some new faces, too, those that I knew were active in the guild but not raiding with Mf's group.

On Wednesday night the raid Bd fielded included eight players I had predicted would be in the raid. The only two surprises were both newer guildies bringing an alt to the raid - resto druid Fu and mage Sen, both of whom were guildies I knew, but didn't know they had alts they wanted to raid with. 

On Thursday night, we had eight raiders from Wednesday return for the second night. Two raiders did not show and did not inform Bd they would not make it. One was our third healer, Fu, and he likely gets the benefit of the doubt as he has proven to be pretty good guildie. The other was Bf, a long time cabal member who has a long history of uneven attendance. Bf also had the highest DPS in the raid on Wednesday night.

It took us until about 7:15pm to get replacements. The healer, Pr, another cabal member and wife of one of the other raiders in the group, brought her priest. She's a good healer but the least geared even including the missing Fu. We also snitched a newer guildie who normally runs with Mf, but he had a warlock alt he could bring. This guy, Gm, has like four raid level toons and is pretty good.

The focus of the night was on Beth'tilac, and I'd like to say that we killed her, but ...

But ... we didn't have the DPS to take her out on Wednesday, and our overall DPS dropped on Thursday. We did go back to the normal strategy of sending raiders up into the web. Bd, who was obviously a bit rusty still, struggled up in the web and some of our attempts fell short due to mistakes up in the web. Overall, the ground troops have this thing down, but we just can't deal enough damage. We did improve, though. On Wednesday we got Beth down to 40%. On Thursday we moved the bar to 33%, making ten attempts. Wild and Fu pretty much matched up heal for heal on Wednesday, but Pr (as good as she is) didn't have the AoE throughput Fu had. On average Wild doled out 15.8k hps with Pl at 11k and Pr at 9.5k. It wasn't the healing that sunk us, though. No DPSer reached 14k DPS on the night.

Next week is Thanksgiving. Bd plans to set raid nights for Wednesday and Friday, but ... you know how holiday periods are. And Wild will miss the following week as well. It's likely going to be December before Wild sees his next raid.

There is a little news about Patch 4.3. MMO Champions are predicting that 4.3 will drop in two weeks, and they are usually a pretty good predictor. That would mean that I'll be out of town when it happens. That, more than anything, tells me that 4.3 will arrive on 6 Dec 2011. Count on it.  :-)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Wednesday - (16 Nov) This Just Might Work

Wednesday - (16 Nov) This Just Might Work

[Note - Sorry for missing Hunter Fortress night! Our raid ran late and I totally forgot]

The newly reconstituted Bd/Lady Hunter Wed/Thurs guild raid was officially launched on Wednesday night. It only took us about a half hour to fill, but that was partly because we allowed the raid to carry four hunters in with us. Warrior Bd and death knight Cth were our tanks, both veterans of Lady Hunter raids. Wild and paladin Pl were also Lady Hunter vets in the healing department. The third healer was another druid, Fu, and alt of a warrior guildie. Wild checked on Fu and was delighted to see his gear was i374 - then I noticed that his "equipped" gear score was i364 and he was wearing three pieces of pvp gear (although one was his staff, perfectly acceptable in a raid). Wild's equipped gear score is i369, with one piece of pvp gear (ring).

Bd made the call that we were going after Beth'tilac because none of our guild raids had brought the spider down, yet. Bd wanted us to be the first. We took care of the trash without any issues, going directly to the spider boss. It quickly and smoothly. Bd, who had not seen the inside of Firelands since the early days when it was first released, was excited and having a blast.

For our assault on Beth Wild would have sent Cth and Pl up into the web as they have done those roles before. Bd wanted to do it, though, and tapped Fu to be his healer. The rest of us stayed on the ground, Pl tending to Cth's healing and Wild raid healing.

We made two attempts on the spider. The work at ground level went very well. The four hunters did the best job at taking out the spiderlings and other nasty's Wild had seen in any of the guild's raids. Bd and Fu, on the other hand, learned first hand the tricky nature of the battle up in the web and Bd died before the first Smoldering Devastation on both attempts.

We were doing so well at ground level, though, that Bd hatched a new plan. That's one of the things I like about Bd, he is always thinking and he is willing to try different things. He wondered aloud, what if we ignored Beth up in her web and just concentrated on downing the trash on the ground? The advantage is that we don't have to worry about Beth healing herself since she'll already be at full health. The disadvantage, of course, is that she'll enter phase 2 at full health and would have to be killed very fast - before the spider's slow enrage becomes too powerful to survive.

On our first attempt using the new strategy we cleared all the trash in phase one and, after her three Smoldering Devastations, Beth'tilac dropped down from her web to begin phase 2. We weren't in the best of shape by that time, and only got the spider to 98% before wiping, but hallelujah! we at least made it to phase 2.

After that it was a matter of refinement. Wild and Fu laid out how to maximize our Tranquilities and Tree of Life cooldowns. We tried to remain near a central point where the hunters could still do their thing and our AoE heals could be most effective. On our second attempt we got to 68%, a marked improvement. Then 54%. Then 40%. We made one more attempt but I didn't get the percentage as Wild disconnected near the end. That was the second DC of the night for Wild, and two other raiders also had a DC. I have to believe this is due to the maintenance being done to prepare for patch 4.3.

We will be focusing on Beth'tilac all evening on Thursday night. It remains to be seen if our healing and DPS can stretch far enough to bring that spider down.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Monday (14 Nov) - Let the Whining Begin

Monday (14 Nov) - Let the Whining Begin

Sigh, I should know better by now. On Monday night there were 11 signed up for Mf's Mon/Tues raid. We had both of our regular tanks and all three of our regular healers. The raid leader managed to get off work early enough to make it in game exactly at the 6pm invite time.

At 6:15pm everyone was still milling about in Orgrimmar. 

At 6:25pm I checked again and eight guildies were in Mount Hyjal. Mount Hyjal is where the Firelands are located. The only reason for that many guildies to be there is that invites had started and a guild portal had been used to get everyone out there. Well, not everyone.

Wild was still without an invite, and I had not heard a word from Mf. I whispered him: "Are you full or are you still inviting?" It took a couple of minutes before he responded. Mf's answer was that the raid was full, and his excuse was that he had 15 people sign up for the raid. From where I was sitting both of those statements were lies. Even if 15 people did want to come to the raid, only 11 signed up, and Wild was one of those who did sign up. Second, I can count, and he didn't have a full raid. Third, the obvious third healer taking Wild's spot was an i363 disc priest alt who joined the guild about a month ago. So much for being consistently dependable, on time and ready. Now, if the raid leader wanted priest, pally, druid healers instead of pally, druid, druid I could have understood that logic, despite Wild being the better healer than either the other druid or the priest. But he didn't say that. /Shrug.

It's pretty clear that the raid leader doesn't want Wild as a regular in his raid. I'm through with being a fill-in for him. That's the last time Mf will see Wild's name on his sign up. It's too bad, really, but it really pissed me off.

There might be a silver lining to all this. I think I mentioned that Lady Hunter recently moved her Tues/Wed raid to Wed/Thurs, but due to work has not been able to get it running. The guild leader, Bd, announced tonight that there would definitely be a Wed/Thurs raid with either Lady Hunter or Bd leading it. One way or another, Bd said there would be a second raid. I have a lot of experience with raids that include both Lady Hunter and Bd. In all cases it's Bd that lays out strategies and takes tactical control of the raid, which is very much to Wild's liking. Lady Hunter knows how to get a raid filled with good people. Wild offered his services, and Bd said that Wild would get an invite. Later in the evening the second raid for Wed/Thurs was posted and Wild signed up.

Mf's raid got as far as killing Shannox, and no further. Wild didn't miss much.

I hope that wasn't too much whining. Now I'm going to get back to my writing.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Monday (7 Nov) - There Really Was A Raid

Monday (7 Nov) - There Really Was A Raid

Wild almost missed the raid on Monday night. My car battery died on me. Fortunately, it happened in my driveway, so the only place I was stuck was at home. I am the world's worst mechanic. I have absolutely no skills in that department, but my neighbor across the street used to build his own race cars and he loves it when I come over and ask him to teach me something. It was late in the afternoon and I wanted to get it fixed before my neighbor settled in for Monday night football.

I can and have changed out our RV engine battery before, but in my car the battery is buried under the fuse box and the chassis frame. That was more taking apart of stuff than I was comfortable taking on by myself. Plus, my neighbor has a garage full of cool tools we can use. I borrowed the Mrs car and went off to buy a new battery while my neighbor gathered up his toys. The job shouldn't have taken very long, but then sometimes the simplest things can get complicated.

We had a hard time getting the fuse box out of the way so that we could unbolt a section of the frame to get at the battery. Once we had that taken apart, and removed the piece of frame in the way, we were able to pull the old battery out. The trouble started after we dropped the new battery in and started screwing in the bolt that holds the battery to the frame. The under bolt, which is held in place by a heavy plastic pad, failed when the bolt was tightened down. We then had to remove the plastic pad to get at the under bolt. The plastic around the bolt had broken and we could not anchor down the battery.

My neighbor doesn't let such things bother him. Me, I would have called Pep Boys or someone and tried to buy a new pad for the battery. Instead, my neighbor carted the bolts and pad back to his garage. First we retooled both the under bolt and the top bolt because the parts had been stripped ("we" because I was standing next to him while he did it). He had tools to clean and re-groove the bolts. That took some time, and all the while my neighbor was explaining what each tool was called and how it was used. It was all very fascinating, but I knew I wouldn't remember any of it.

After retooling the bolts, we tackled the thick plastic pad. My neighbor found some pieces of plastic, charged up his torch, and with my help (holding the plastic pieces with a pair of pliers) we melted that plastic around the broken areas so that the under bolt wouldn't turn when we tightened it down. That took awhile, too, when you consider I managed to break the half repaired pad before it had cooled enough to harden. So we had to do it twice.

By the time we were ready to go back to the car it was starting to get dark - and it was pretty cold, too. I was still in shorts and sandals. We worked by flashlight and the time was getting close to the raid invite of 6pm. We got the pad back into place, dropped the new battery back in again, and after some twisting and turning we got the battery anchored to the frame. The melted plastic "fix" worked just fine. It was even harder to get the fuse box back where it belonged than it had been to take it off, and we almost forgot to ratchet down the piece of frame we'd had to remove. That would have been a real bummer as we'd have had to take everything apart again. We caught ourselves in time, though. With everything back in place, I started the car and everything was fine.

I helped pack up the tools and walked back to the garage with my neighbor. I owe him a big favor. I got to my computer five minutes before the raid was scheduled to start.

Invites didn't go out until about 6:15pm for the raid, and Wild was in game by that time. The Mrs had a hot bowl of soup ready for me and that hit the spot all the way down to my frozen toes (ok, so 50 degrees isn't "frozen" but hey it's California!). We were short a couple of raiders who had signed up but never showed up. This is an ongoing issue, but raid leaders are at least starting to put pressure on guildies to meet their commitments. There have been guild website posts requiring a reading and signature of the raid rules, and raid leaders have been a lot more vocal about being on time and prepared. While we worked on finding two more raiders, we had an unexpected problem. A power outage took offline both the raid leader and his roomie. That lost us another thirty plus minutes. We were about to call the raid at 7pm when the raid leader and the roomie made it back in game. We had found takers for the other two spots while we waited for the raid leader, but then almost lost one of the raiders who had signed up. An elemental shaman said that he had to go to work early, and could only stay for another hour so he could get some sleep. Normally we would just live with that, but the raid leader read him the riot act - if you sign up you sign up for the whole raid, not part of it, the shaman was told. Yes, we are late getting started, and yes, you live in Arizona and don't get the benefit of Daylight Savings (so it's an hour later in AZ now than in CA now), but that is no excuse as you have read and signed the raid rules. The shaman agreed, and agreed to stay.

The Firelands raid went pretty well considering our pretty dismal past progress. Wild's healing partners were another druid who is still learning but getting better with every raid, and our very good regular pally healer. We had our regular tanks. Trash kills went smoothly and Shannox, the first boss, went down on our first attempt, although a couple of raiders died. We made three attempts on the spider boss, Beth'tilac, getting a really good first shot at him until the raiders up in the web started having trouble. The last two attempts were pretty forgettable.

It was a good night for gear, as not only did raiders get some nice drops from Shannox, we had two pieces drop from the trash, one of which was the i378 two-hand Scarlet Pain weapon. Wild would love to have rolled on that, but it is really a DPS caster weapon, not a healing weapon. The warlock that won it was so happy he disenchanted his old main hand and off-hand on the spot.

I haven't done healing numbers recently, so here are the night's numbers:

Overall Healing:
#1: Wild, 10.6k hps, 40.8% of all healing
#2: Gn (pally), 9.3k/29.3%
#3: Vl (druid), 5.8k/19.8%

Shannox:
#1: Wild, 16.9k/46.6%
#2: Vl, 8.0k/22.2%
#3: Gn, 8.6k/16.7%

Gn was the tank healer for Shannox and that pretty much consumed her so that may be why her numbers were down. Vl was the raid healer while Wild kept up with the dog tank as well as running back and forth to heal the raid and back up Gn. Wild actually enjoys the Shannox fight now.

Wild really loves the way his healing has ramped up with the changes made to the stats to reach the magic 2005 number for haste. Wild can keep Harmony up almost full time now with speedy Nourishes and can also use Nourish a lot more often for normal healing, saving Regrowth for OOC procs and real needs. Trash was particularly fun tonight, too, as our raid leader (also a tank) started running ahead of the group to pull new mobs - Wild caught on to what he was doing (trying to get us moving faster) so Wild started following after him, even though most of the rest of the raid initially lagged behind. Once the raid leader knew he had a healer with him, he'd pull and let the rest of the raid catch up. It was great!

Wild also got some gear, but that was after the raid. The Shannox kill got Wild enough valor points to purchase the Tier 12 chest piece. Wild's gear score moved up a notch to i369.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Weekend - (6 Nov) "Sista"hood

Weekend - (6 Nov) "Sista"hood

Sista had center stage over the weekend. She quested through Swamp of Sorrows and added to her Cooking profession through farming zesty clams. Sista admits she's a bit tired of clams. Still, the work was good enough to get her to level 55.

From the Swamp Sista went to the Blasted Lands. That was fun and pretty easy as well, but she did have a little extra excitement. She was out killing basilisks and boars and was making very short work of them thanks to the gear from those dungeon runs. The Mrs stepped into the room for a minute and Sista stood by while we talked. I had barely taken my eye off the screen when Sista died. What the? Oh well.

A few minutes later I retrieved Sista from the graveyard and checked Recount to see what had killed her. Something called TidalFury Earth Shock. It sounded familiar but I couldn't believe that these 50-ish mobs had anything that could wipe Sista out that fast. Ok, so I'm a little slow, but I was really just focused on killing things for the quests. I even wondered if this had something to do with a Deathwing visit. Not seeing anything, though, Sista went back to work.

About ten minutes later Sista suddenly died again. Ok, I'm slow, but I do come around eventually. Since the area around Sista was devoid of life, Sista took a look at the sky. Aha! The was a horde shaman flying about. Did he kill her? Sista shook her fist at him, but of course he couldn't see that since Sista was dead. He wasn't around when Sista got back to her corpse, but I figured he wouldn't be far away.

I'm still not sure what was used on Sista. I tried looking up "tidalfury" but Wowhead didn't have any information about that. "Earth Shock" is definitely a shaman spell, of course, but even a level 85 shaman shouldn't have been able to one shot Sista using Earth Shock. Under Deaths in recount, "Tidalfury" is what recount shows as the killing blow, which took Sista from 92% health to death instantly (she has a little over 4k health, and the blow hit for over 5k). The horde shaman never returned. Sista went about her business, and made level 56.

Over the course of the rest of the weekend, Sista did Battlegrounds. I'd like to says they were exciting battles, but they were all uniformly boring. Every battle was an all or nothing affair, with one side totally slaughtering the other. I think Sista got into every battleground that she was eligible for, including Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley, and Eye of the Storm. We won the AV match 1600 to 375. We lost the AB battle with the horde holding five bases to the alliance's ZERO. The WSG was a complete rout and a warrior on our team really angered Sista. That warrior asked Sista to pocket heal for him. He was only a level 56 in the 55-59 bracket, but had impressive gear, and he wasn't a death knight (which almost every other member of the team were). Sista agreed. On our very first charge across the field he broke away from the main group (heading for the hill that leads to the upper entrance to the horde base) and headed for the ground level base entrance. Sista followed the warrior and dropped off ehr horse to heal when he was attacked by a rogue. The warrior escaped the rogue and then fled, leaving Sista to get slaughtered. He never got a another heal from Sista. Sista may have set a record for dying, though. She died 14 times. The horde had three rogues, and they targeted Sista every time she came out to play. Sista even went cat and stealthed into battles. Every time she became visible, a rogue would get her. Even the Eye, which we won easily, was boring. Most of the fight Sista protected a base with one lone mage.

The positive, though, was that the gods of experience were very giving. Sista once went from 34% xp to 80% xp from one BG. It's still only Sunday and Sista is level 58.

Wild is starting to see some progress in guild raiding. The Mf Mon/Tues raid had their sign ups in place last week and as of Monday morning we had a full ten signed up to go, including Wild. Guild leader Bd and Wild talked a bit over the weekend and he said they were actively seeking new members who wanted to raid. I'm already seeing some new names pop up in game. Lady Hunter also has a raid sign up for this week. The bad news is that she just posted it on Sunday, but the good news is that someone finally took Wild's advice and changed the raid days so that two raids didn't overlap on the same day. Lady Hunter's Tues/Wed raid is now scheduled for Wed/Thurs. That should help with attendance at both raids, assuming we actually have 20 guildies who want to raid Firelands. As much as Wild loves Lady Hunter, I'm going with Mf's raid as my main raid.

Of course, all that changes if Patch 4.3 drops tomorrow. Odds are it won't, though. The Blizzard gods have gotten pretty sneaky about slipping in the downloads for patches, but I don't recall seeing downloads big enough to be a major patch like 4.3. But we'll see.

"Services" and "Fees"

Blizzard has announced new guild services that are sure to make some players happy and others angry. These new services are now available on all North American realms:

- a Guild Master (GM) can now change the name of his guild
- a GM can now change the faction of the guild - yes, that means a horde guild can be changed into an alliance guild
- a GM can now transfer his guild to another server. That includes the bank, and the guild gets to keep it's guild rank

All three of these services cost real life money, of course. If a GM does all three, it'll cost him $65.

So, let's say that Happy wants to move his guild to, say, Boulderfist, and change the guild's faction to Alliance. Here is what happens:

GM Happy gets a free character transfer to Boulderfist along with his new guild name, guild rank (level 2), and assets.

Back on the old server, the original guild still exists. Happy has to name a new GM for the guild before he transfers. That old guild is reset to level 1 (even if it was level 25). Of course the guild bank is empty (it went to the new server). Oh, did I mention that guild members do NOT transfer with the guild? They don't. Any members of the guild that want to transfer with the GM must do their own character transfer ($25). The positive side of that is that guild members get to keep their guild rank/rep, which you can't do if you change guilds today. However, it also means that if you have ten characters in the guild, and want to transfer all of them to the relocated guild, that's $25 per character.

What if everyone in the guild besides the GM wants nothing to do with changing anything about the guild? Too bad, the GM owns the guild and he can do whatever he wants with it. That sounds harsh, but in fact GM's already have the power to do anything with their guild that Blizzard allows, up to and including selling off every item in the guild bank, booting everyone in the guild, and eliminating the guild.

Personally, I'm neither for or against these new features. Players don't have to use them, and any GM that would make such changes without the majority support of their guild probably aren't the sort of GMs you want be associated with. I do think that guild name changes should be free, even if limited, but then Blizzard is adding revenue sources to counteract subscription losses - it's a business, after all.

It certainly changes the guild drama scenario, too. Typically, when guilds start to come apart, there is an exodus of players from the original guild to go form a new guild. With these new services, it's the guild itself that could leave it's unhappy members.

Speaking of revenue sources, a new companion pet can now be purchased for $10. It's called a Guardian Cub, and the unique thing about this pet is that it flies with the character when airborne - this is the ONLY companion pet that can do this. Ten dollars for a new pet that can fly? What's the catch? Pets normally cost $20-25! Of course there's a catch. With the exception of the Guardian Cub, all companion pets are account bound. That means that you buy it once, and every character on that account gets it. The $10 for the Cub buys it for one character only, not the whole account. The cost for all ten characters to have the Cub would be $100. I expect all future pets will be single character purchase only.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Wednesday (2 Nov) - Arrival in Boulderfist

Wednesday (2 Nov) - Arrival in Boulderfist

Sista joined Bruiserbabe in Boulderfist on Wednesday. Sista wanted to get a feel for the place. She decided to do some easy farming in Tanaris to get the Cooking recipe Clams Magnifique, which she can use as buff food for both her feral and healing specs as she levels. Cataclysm destroyed the original town of Gadgetzan in Tanaris, submerging it in the ocean when the shoreline was wrenched around. The new Gadgetzan is similar to the old one, but just enough different to be confusing. Gadgetzan is a neutral town where both alliance and horde can co-mingle. On the pve server of Silvermoon players in the town would show the yellow neutral flag. On the pvp world of Boulderfist, the flag is red. That was a little disconcerting to Sista, since red flagged players can be attacked. She understood this about Boulderfist when out in contested territory, but seeing it inside a town was strange. Sista, who is level 51, entered the Inn to talk with the innkeeper. There was a level 47 horde mage in the Inn and the two of us eyed each other suspiciously. Neither of us drew weapons, although the thought occurred to Sista that she could have left the inn, shifted to cat form, gone into stealth, and then slipped back into the Inn unseen and ripped that mage into shreds. I think being on a pvp realm is starting to affect Sista's head.

Later in the evening Sista got together with E. E is a level 70 paladin who offered to help Sista level in her new world. We hit Dire Maul, Blackrock Depths, and Sunken Temple multiple times. Silver joined us for awhile on her mage and we had a blast tearing through those dungeons. By the end of the evening Sista had leveled from 51 to 54. She also collected bags full of gear she is still sorting through, but she counted at least six pieces that will improve her gear.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Monday - (31 Oct) Sistaphilia

Monday - (31 Oct) Sistaphilia

Just a quick raid update first. Wild is back on the raid calendar again, or so they tell me. Wild is locked out of the Firelands until Tuesday, but I checked in periodically Monday night in between the trick-or-treaters. The guild was not able to get enough folks for FL. When the clock passed 7pm they decided to do a gear run in Bastion of Twilight. That petered out about 9:15pm but I don't know how far they got. The other raid, Lady Hunter's on Tues/Wed, is on the calendar, says it's for Firelands, and Wild is actually on the list. Wild signed up, and we'll see if she can pull together a raid.

Wild, meanwhile, picked up [Goblet of Anger] off the AH, an i378 off-hand to replace my i365. Wild's gear level improved to i368. The seller didn't know what he had, offering it for at least 8k less than what it was worth.

In other news - There has been a percolating discussion between various families and toons that began with Wild's dissatisfaction with the lack of raiding within his guild. That has been explained in other posts. In an effort to help Wild get more raid opportunities, invitations have been graciously extended to Wild to join the GoH guild on the pvp server Boulderfist on more than one occasion by the GoH guild leader Silver. Wild would love to be able to do that, but there are many challenges. First, there is a real life cost to changing both server and faction. There is also the issue of getting used to a pvp realm and learning the world of the alliance at the advanced age of 85. Most important, though, is that Wild has a whole family of toons established on his home server with a raft of talents and professions to keep Wild very comfortable. It's his supporting family of toons that are the real reason Wild had to decline those invitations.

Wild thought that the subject had been closed - until he got a visit from Sistaphilia. Sista is an alliance worgen druid. She's level 50 with a feral main spec, but for many months has been left to fend for herself. She wants to make a new start, and what better way to start a new life could there be than to join the GoH guild in Boulderfist.

Sista is already packing up her gear and preparing to make the big journey to a new server. She'll have friends waiting for her. Her sister Bruiserbabe (level 65 death knight) came into being on Boulderfist. Family members of both the Sis and DER families are also waiting for her arrival, as is the GoH guild leader.

Sista has taken care of most of the details, such as clearing out her mailbox and Auction House bids. She used the resources of her current guild to get her first aid up to where it should be. Lost has packed her bags with goodies she can sell once she arrives and gets settled in. She has all the heirlooms Wild could acquire for her. Her last task, however, may impact her arrival date, which she is hoping will be tomorrow (Wednesday). It's been a long time since there's been a server transfer in the Wild family, and the rules have changed since then. Philly was the last to make that journey, and she was only allowed to bring 300g with her. At level 50 Sista can bring 1,000g with her, which Lost can provide. However, at level 51 she will be able to bring 5,000g, and despite the pallor on Lost's face, that is what the Wild family wants to send along with her.

So, if she doesn't get the time to reach level 51 by Wednesday night, perhaps she will get some help from friends of the Hunter Fortress crew to get her there.

If there is anything else anyone can think of that she needs to do before embarking on her journey, let her know!

Sista Update - The Lady Hunter raid fell through but the second night of the Mon/Tues raid did head into Firelands - but without Wild. The raid leader whispered Wild that they were testing a new healer, and would Wild mind waiting around to see if she worked out? Personally, they should have invited me so Wild could check her out, but they had two other healers already in because they had run on Monday as well. Wild waited about forty minutes when real life intervened and I had to logout. Wild checked with his healer bud in the raid and he told Wild that they 100% happy with the new healer, but they would manage.

The real life issue was the Mrs car broke down. By the time I got back it was pretty late. That didn't stop Sista.

Sista headed for the Battlegrounds. She came into the tail end of an Alterac Valley battle which the Alliance were on the verge of losing. Sista was in her healing spec and helped the dying, but it was a lost cause. Then she joined a Warsong Gulch and that was even worse. We were so bad the horde took away our graveyard and slaughtered us when he rezzed. Despite that, Sista managed to lead in healing - a level 50 in the 50-54 bracket. Things finally went Sista's way in the third battle, this time in Arathi Basin. We won in a good fight and Sista was second overall in healing.

Pvp healing went pretty well but she went out of mana very fast. It wasn't until she was back in Stormwind getting the final preparations for her journey out of the way that she noticed she had done all the healing wearing her cat form gear. Sigh.

Sista made level 51, and if the transfer goes smoothly should be in Boulderfist sometime Wednesday.