Tuesday (29 Mar) - Power Packed Fun
Tuesday's evening of pvp battlegrounds was among the most spirited that the Hunter Fortress Alliance team has had in awhile. The team had to wait a very long time before getting a Warsong Gulch battle, though - almost forty minutes.
It was worth it, though. At first it looked like the alliance had a solid edge, capping the first flag early on despite fierce fighting. The battle raged back and forth across the field and inside both faction home bases. There was very little free-for-all fighting. Instead, both sides worked effectively in small platoons. After a particularly intense exchange the horde caught up, capping our flag. With the score tied 1-1 both sides made repeated and daring moves to get that second flag cap, which we knew would probably be the winner. It was the alliance that finally capped the second flag, and that took the wind out of the horde sails. The battle raged on, but after 11 intense minutes we capped the third flag for the 3-1 win. I was actually surprised to see that the Alliance had taken the top five spots in damage dealing. The Horde sure made the most of their opportunities. See got a flag save and Speak capped one while Shevils led with 20 KBs.
The second match popped within a couple of minutes of the first. I thought we might be facing a pre-made group, considering the speed in which got a match, but it was just coincidence. As with the first match, the fighting was intense and initially well balanced. For more than half the fight the two sides were tied 0-0 and we had each taken the other's flag and expertly defended it. The Horde decided not to hide our flag from us, but waved it openly just beyond their graveyard.
Shevils and Bean were returning to the fight after dying, heading up past mid-field to join the alliance group keeping the horde from getting past us and after our own flag carrier. We saw Speak peel off and head for the horde base via the hillside path instead of into the tunnel that bored directly into their flag room. Bean and Shevils peeled off as well and followed Speak. See had had to leave after the first WSG, so it was just the three of us heading into the horde stronghold.
We paused out of range of the horde players that were rezzing at their graveyard. It is extremely rare in these battles for there to ever be a pause. One side or the other or both initiate immediate attacks. This time was different. We watched each other - three alliance hunters facing the horde flag carrier with three defenders, plus more horde players rezzing at the nearby graveyard. Speak moved us forward a few more yards and again paused. I could see a couple of horde off to our left, close enough that Shevils could have put a few arrows into them. But they hung back and Shevils restrained herself. Poo made some ammo.
We moved a few more yards closer and paused a third time. I was expecting them to attack, but they had apparently decided to wait us out. It was a mistake. During a moment when the graveyard was empty, we attacked. It was still the three of us versus the four of them, but we didn't have to kill them all. We only had to kill the flag carrier in order to give our own flag carrier a few seconds to cap the flag he was holding on the other side of the battle.
It was a titanic battle! We held our own, hammering at the flag carrier and harassing the healer that was trying to keep him alive. They had no where to go other than off the cliffside, where other alliance were down below ready to pick them off. Horde who were killed below rezzed at their graveyard and joined the battle against us. But we never let up, and the horde flag carrier fell. Mere seconds later we capped the horde flag for a 1-0 lead. Then all three of Hunter Fortress beat feet off that cliffside as the place was crawling with horde. That battle turned the tide and the alliance went on to win it, 3-0.
Speak led in total damage, although Shevils still edged him out in KBs. Shevils credits Poo, his monkey combat pet, for all those kills. One look at the nasty stuff he was hurling at them had them fleeing in horror - the smell alone was as deadly as a warlock's DoT. It's the over-ripe bananas he eats. That's his secret weapon.
Despite the challenge of moving up into a new bracket last week, Hunter Fortress remains undefeated.
Hunter Fortress closed up shop for the evening and night crawling Kire and Sista came out to play. As told by Kire:
After all the kiddies hit the hay, Sista and Kire got together for some dungeon run fun. Rather than using the random dungeon finder for extra loot neither of the two needed and getting a random dungeon, they decided to select a dungeon they wanted to, and had yet to, run. The dungeon we chose was Dire Maul North, which is the Ogre wing, and the highest level of the three DM zones. We queued up and almost instantly got a group, and we started the dungeon well despite some minor glitches that would come back to haunt us later on. Kire was a little worried about how low the paladin healer was allowing his health to get even against trash mobs and at some point during one of the boss fights Kire died. Luckily the boss was almost dead and Kire got a lovely battle res from Sista and was able to regain aggro and finish the boss off. Kire rarely dies in dungeon runs since level 30 as the tank, and dying against a boss that really wasn’t hard was a bad sign, but it was a sign of things to come. It all went downhill when we got to the second to last boss.
The second to last boss is named Captain Kromcrush and he has some very nasty ability combinations; he fears everyone within 10 yards, calls two additional mobs, has a mortal cleave, which wounds the target causing damage and reducing healing effectiveness by 50%, enrages and counterattacks. Here is an excerpt from wowhead with other’s experiences with him:
"I have trouble on this guy every time. Yesterday was the first day i had done this instance in over two years and i had no clue what this guy did. So when he feared us i was right at the end of the tunnel so i got feared into a group in the courtyard area, no problem i could tank them and the healer was doing fine, then he spawned the adds and i hadn't noticed in time so when i got to them the healer was dead. This guy imo is a bit too hard when you don't have reliable crowd control. MS + Fear + Adds...it's just all too much."
In short, this was way too much for our poor group to handle. We ended up wiping on him at least 5 times, which included several attempts to both kick the tank (Kire) from the group and to kick the healer from the group, both being unsuccessful. We tried many different strategies all being equally unsuccessful. After 6+ attempts on him someone finally decided to put on the optional ogre suit to allow us to talk to him and pass by him without fighting him. It saved our evening, and we waltzed by him and took on the last boss and destroyed him with no problems. It was a rough experience though, and probably the most trouble I have had with a dungeon since probably Sinstar’s early days.
We had also tried a quick Arathi Basin bg before running the dungeon, and both Kire and Sista discovered that they weren’t up to par in pvp and we were part of an alliance team that got slaughtered by the horde.
The only thing that made the night successful for the twosome was the last dungeon run of the night in Zul’Farrak. We breezed through that dungeon killing all of the bosses and completing many quests. It was a fun run. Both Kire and Sista started the night at level 46 and Sista finished the night at 48 and Kire finished at 49. It is time to try new dungeons!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Weekend (28 Mar) - Java's Latest Adventures
Weekend (28 Mar) - Java's Latest Adventures
On Saturday night Java moved out of the city of Exodar - for good. It was just too far from the action. Java took up residence at the Inn in Stormwind City, and that is his new base of operations.
Once settled in, Jave queued up for the battlegrounds and then grabbed a flight heading to the Arathi Highlands. I forget the name of the Alliance Outpost there; I just remember thinking how much smaller it was than the large stockade the Horde have called Hammerfall. The small alliance post had a lot of quests to hand out, and Java gathered them all up. There were officers from the Arathi Basin BG there as well, and Java took advantage of that, buying a very nice pair of Highlands boots from the quartermaster.
Java's questing was pretty easy, as the majority of the hostiles were in the high level 20s. Good for decent experience but easily dispatched. Java rounded up as many as five at a time to kill. Java had been questing for about twenty minutes when he got an invite to Warsong Gulch. The battle was already underway and the Alliance was already losing 0-1. Java waded into the fray, but it was soon pretty obvious we had no chance. Half of the alliance players were turtled up inside our home base and spent the whole match complaining at how bad the offense was. The horde had our flag and guarded it well at the top of their base. In frustration Java twice attacked the flag group solo, and got razzed for it by the cowardly BG leader, telling Java he should group up, but not offering any help at all. Those not hiding at the base were running around mid-field looking for KBs, and the Horde accommodated them. No more flags were taken by either side, and we lost 0-1 when time ran out. Has to be the stupidest BG I've ever been in.
Java did some more questing and got a second WSG. This alliance group at least tried. We had four paladins on the team, a priest healer, and various others. The Horde came at us with four hunters, and five minutes into the battle Java had a very good idea just how terrifying a Hunter Fortress like team can really be. The Horde got a 1-0 lead and then played mid-field, daring us to get by them. We managed to grab their flag five times, but were never able to get it back to base through the withering hunter fire. Java carried the flag on our last shot at capping it for a tie. Java had a healer with him and one other. We beat back the first couple of horde attackers, running along the western edge, and pushed past the mid-field mark. Most of the help we had hoped to join us were dead on the field or still at the graveyard. Java used his "save me" spells but consecutive stuns from the hunters and their pets kept Java moving at a crawl. Java still had more than half his health, but was ganged up on by pets and I swear they must have coordinated Kill Command strikes as suddenly Java went from hopeful to dead. We lost 0-1.
Java wrapped up the evening by DINGing to level 33. At least that went well.
In other news Wild has decided to rethink his stats and make some changes. The standing wisdom for resto druids prioritizes stats like this:
intelligence > spirit > haste > crits > mastery
So, the most important stat is +int and the least important is +mastery.
+Int comes with every piece of healing gear, so the only thing to remember is just get as much of it as you can.
+Spi provides the in combat mana regan that Wild must have, so Wild looks for gear that has +spi, and if he gets gear that doesn't he reforges lesser stats to get it.
There are volumes of often conflicting information about +haste involving breakpoints, and raid buffs, and lots of detailed mathematics. Wild loves +haste, so while he knows his breakpoints he doesn't live and die by them like some seem to do. Theoretically, Wild should have a 1573 rating and stay at that rating until/unless he becomes geared enough to get to 2004. Wild is at 1584 haste rating (after his tinkering), and can't get to 2004 yet, so is happy to leave it right where it is.
All of the above is fairly straightforward. Where things get the most fuzzy, however, is what to do about +crit and +mastery. There is a camp that favors +crit, and there's a camp that favors +mastery, but nobody has a clear idea of how much of each you should have. As a general rule, folks say that if you are a raid healing druid, then +crit is better; but if you are a tank healing druid, then +mastery is better. The reason for that is that +mastery increases the amount of healing when casting heals on a target that already has a heal over time (HoT) on it. Since tanks should ALWAYS have HoTs on them, Wild's tank heals will be better with higher +mastery. It's pretty much a guaranteed bonus.
In raid healing, however, the chances of getting the mastery bonus are lessened unless you are very smart about the order you heal, who you heal, and when you heal them. That's way to much work for Wild, and it hurts his cow brain to think about it.
After studying over it for a bit, Wild came to a very simple conclusion. And I've learned that the simplest answer is very often the best answer.
Wild's playstyle (and the needs of the raid) includes significant tank healing even if his primary role is raid healing. When raid healing Wild uses Wild Growth pretty frequently, and that spell puts HoTs on up to six raiders. Seems to Wild that there are plenty of opportunities there to take advantage of the mastery bonus healing. The downside is that Wild would have to reforge +crit (ie, lower his crit stats) to get more mastery.
The actual numbers are meaningless until Wild compares the results - healing a raid - between last week's raid and the next raid. Wild buffed up his +mastery stats by a good bit, and was surprised that it didn't really hurt his +crit that much. Oh, and it didn't hurt that Wild picked up [Hide of Chromaggus] Sunday night, an i359 shoulder piece with a ton of +crit Wild turned into +mastery. It replaced his i333 shoulder and moved his gear score up to i349. Wild's healing gear is all i346 or better except for his bracers (i333). There isn't much in the way of leather bracers to choose from, and none of it is easy to get:
[Manacles of the Sleeping Beast] - i359, BWD's Chimaeron (5th of 6 bosses)
[Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Bindings] - i352, 1250 honor points
[Armbands of Change] - i346, Heroic 5 man BRC boss drop
And now, ladies and germs, it's time for an episode of:
Wild Is Stupid!
Did you notice the i352 pvp bracers listed above? While the +resilience on those bracers are useless to Wild, they do have +sta, +int, and +spi, all good things to have. Wild wondered how long it would take him to get the needed 1250 honor points to be able to buy them? Then he wondered how many honor points he already had? Well, that bag of honor points was buried so deep in Wild's closet (he doesn't pvp much, we all know, and none at all since Cata) that he almost couldn't find the tiny, moth eaten bag.
Wild opened the bag and spilled out the contents. He counted each one, and then counted them again to make sure he had it right:
Honor points - 1292, that's, um, larger than 1250, right?
Wild could have been wearing those bracers - well, on the day he turned level 85.
Wild is wearing those bracers now. His gear score is i350.
On Saturday night Java moved out of the city of Exodar - for good. It was just too far from the action. Java took up residence at the Inn in Stormwind City, and that is his new base of operations.
Once settled in, Jave queued up for the battlegrounds and then grabbed a flight heading to the Arathi Highlands. I forget the name of the Alliance Outpost there; I just remember thinking how much smaller it was than the large stockade the Horde have called Hammerfall. The small alliance post had a lot of quests to hand out, and Java gathered them all up. There were officers from the Arathi Basin BG there as well, and Java took advantage of that, buying a very nice pair of Highlands boots from the quartermaster.
Java's questing was pretty easy, as the majority of the hostiles were in the high level 20s. Good for decent experience but easily dispatched. Java rounded up as many as five at a time to kill. Java had been questing for about twenty minutes when he got an invite to Warsong Gulch. The battle was already underway and the Alliance was already losing 0-1. Java waded into the fray, but it was soon pretty obvious we had no chance. Half of the alliance players were turtled up inside our home base and spent the whole match complaining at how bad the offense was. The horde had our flag and guarded it well at the top of their base. In frustration Java twice attacked the flag group solo, and got razzed for it by the cowardly BG leader, telling Java he should group up, but not offering any help at all. Those not hiding at the base were running around mid-field looking for KBs, and the Horde accommodated them. No more flags were taken by either side, and we lost 0-1 when time ran out. Has to be the stupidest BG I've ever been in.
Java did some more questing and got a second WSG. This alliance group at least tried. We had four paladins on the team, a priest healer, and various others. The Horde came at us with four hunters, and five minutes into the battle Java had a very good idea just how terrifying a Hunter Fortress like team can really be. The Horde got a 1-0 lead and then played mid-field, daring us to get by them. We managed to grab their flag five times, but were never able to get it back to base through the withering hunter fire. Java carried the flag on our last shot at capping it for a tie. Java had a healer with him and one other. We beat back the first couple of horde attackers, running along the western edge, and pushed past the mid-field mark. Most of the help we had hoped to join us were dead on the field or still at the graveyard. Java used his "save me" spells but consecutive stuns from the hunters and their pets kept Java moving at a crawl. Java still had more than half his health, but was ganged up on by pets and I swear they must have coordinated Kill Command strikes as suddenly Java went from hopeful to dead. We lost 0-1.
Java wrapped up the evening by DINGing to level 33. At least that went well.
In other news Wild has decided to rethink his stats and make some changes. The standing wisdom for resto druids prioritizes stats like this:
intelligence > spirit > haste > crits > mastery
So, the most important stat is +int and the least important is +mastery.
+Int comes with every piece of healing gear, so the only thing to remember is just get as much of it as you can.
+Spi provides the in combat mana regan that Wild must have, so Wild looks for gear that has +spi, and if he gets gear that doesn't he reforges lesser stats to get it.
There are volumes of often conflicting information about +haste involving breakpoints, and raid buffs, and lots of detailed mathematics. Wild loves +haste, so while he knows his breakpoints he doesn't live and die by them like some seem to do. Theoretically, Wild should have a 1573 rating and stay at that rating until/unless he becomes geared enough to get to 2004. Wild is at 1584 haste rating (after his tinkering), and can't get to 2004 yet, so is happy to leave it right where it is.
All of the above is fairly straightforward. Where things get the most fuzzy, however, is what to do about +crit and +mastery. There is a camp that favors +crit, and there's a camp that favors +mastery, but nobody has a clear idea of how much of each you should have. As a general rule, folks say that if you are a raid healing druid, then +crit is better; but if you are a tank healing druid, then +mastery is better. The reason for that is that +mastery increases the amount of healing when casting heals on a target that already has a heal over time (HoT) on it. Since tanks should ALWAYS have HoTs on them, Wild's tank heals will be better with higher +mastery. It's pretty much a guaranteed bonus.
In raid healing, however, the chances of getting the mastery bonus are lessened unless you are very smart about the order you heal, who you heal, and when you heal them. That's way to much work for Wild, and it hurts his cow brain to think about it.
After studying over it for a bit, Wild came to a very simple conclusion. And I've learned that the simplest answer is very often the best answer.
Wild's playstyle (and the needs of the raid) includes significant tank healing even if his primary role is raid healing. When raid healing Wild uses Wild Growth pretty frequently, and that spell puts HoTs on up to six raiders. Seems to Wild that there are plenty of opportunities there to take advantage of the mastery bonus healing. The downside is that Wild would have to reforge +crit (ie, lower his crit stats) to get more mastery.
The actual numbers are meaningless until Wild compares the results - healing a raid - between last week's raid and the next raid. Wild buffed up his +mastery stats by a good bit, and was surprised that it didn't really hurt his +crit that much. Oh, and it didn't hurt that Wild picked up [Hide of Chromaggus] Sunday night, an i359 shoulder piece with a ton of +crit Wild turned into +mastery. It replaced his i333 shoulder and moved his gear score up to i349. Wild's healing gear is all i346 or better except for his bracers (i333). There isn't much in the way of leather bracers to choose from, and none of it is easy to get:
[Manacles of the Sleeping Beast] - i359, BWD's Chimaeron (5th of 6 bosses)
[Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Bindings] - i352, 1250 honor points
[Armbands of Change] - i346, Heroic 5 man BRC boss drop
And now, ladies and germs, it's time for an episode of:
Wild Is Stupid!
Did you notice the i352 pvp bracers listed above? While the +resilience on those bracers are useless to Wild, they do have +sta, +int, and +spi, all good things to have. Wild wondered how long it would take him to get the needed 1250 honor points to be able to buy them? Then he wondered how many honor points he already had? Well, that bag of honor points was buried so deep in Wild's closet (he doesn't pvp much, we all know, and none at all since Cata) that he almost couldn't find the tiny, moth eaten bag.
Wild opened the bag and spilled out the contents. He counted each one, and then counted them again to make sure he had it right:
Honor points - 1292, that's, um, larger than 1250, right?
Wild could have been wearing those bracers - well, on the day he turned level 85.
Wild is wearing those bracers now. His gear score is i350.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Friday (25 Mar) - BH ... BWD ... T4W ... BoT
Friday (25 Mar) - BH ... BWD ... T4W ... BoT
Since the beginning of Cata Wild has been teased and tantalized by the new raid dungeons. At the same time there has been huge frustration as the guild drama played out and raiding became an iffy, rare event. Wild once raided four times a week, two nights in a 25 man raid and two more nights in a ten man raid. Now, Wild feels fortunate to have a chance to raid once a week.
Cata Raids:
Baradin Hold (BH). Baradin Hold is a raid dungeon on the isle of Tol Barad. It is in the middle of a pvp zone. BH is not open during battles, and when the battle ends only the victorious faction has access. BH has a single boss, although there are already lairs built within that will house future Bosses, much like Vault of Archovan in Wintergrasp. Baradin Hold's first and so far only boss is Argaloth.
On Friday night Fn's MM Raid assembled and got invites started promptly at 5:45pm. We had two tanks and two healers, along with four DPS. Counting noses, that put us two short. On every previous Friday night, we ended up with PUGs filling those spots or, on a lucky night, we found friends or friends of friends to join us. On this Friday night the number of guildies in game reached 15, and with some sifting and shifting of mains and alts we made this raid an all guildie raid.
The Horde won Tol Barad, and by 6pm we were all inside BH facing the first trash mob. Time to go to work and have some fun!
We stayed with a two tank, two healer set up. We beat Argaloth last week with that makeup and saw no reason to change. The raid leader Fn (and main tank) did concede Wild to be the healer for the second tank, Rs, which made Rs very happy. Wild had added a pair of i359 boots to his gear this past week, and his overall gear score inched up to i348. The other healer, the paladin Fe, is better geared and a very good healer. Wild and Fe make a good team, too.
We wasted no time, clearing the trash in minutes. We all knew our roles against Argaloth as the raid leader set up the groups, Wild and Rs in group 2 and ready on the right, with Fn and Fe in group 1 and ready on the left.
A saying that I once heard almost every day suddenly came to mind, something I hadn't thought about in years: "Ready on the Right!? Ready on the Left?! Ready on the firing line!" On the rifle and pistol range I once practiced at I heard those words over and over. Everyone would quiet down and we'd settle into our shooting positions, waiting for the final two words. "Commence firing!"
We engaged Argaloth. We commenced firing. And Argaloth fell. On our first attempt. There was mail gear and a leather feral piece that went to a rogue. We had two rogues with us tonight.
Blackwing Descent (BWD). The Fn MM raid (hmm, might I call it the Efnm raid?) has been beating our heads against the first boss, Magmaw, on every one of our precious raid nights and we seemed to be going backward rather than forward. Fn wanted a change of pace, and changed the target dungeon for this week.
Throne of the Four Winds (T4W). T4W was our target this week, and Wild spent time going over the strategies and watching youtube videos of the fight against three Djinns (genies). The fight required movement between platforms using a wind tunnel effect, a coordinated killing of all three bosses within one minute of each other, and even a chance for a healer to tank! It sounded like huge fun.
After we finished off Argaloth, however, Fn had a change of plans. We were not going to T4W. We weren't going back to BWD, either. What did that leave us?
Bastion of Twilight (BoT). Fn has been sick with a nasty cold all week, and just hadn't felt up to learning the strategies for T4W, which he had very little experience with. Thinking of BWD just made him feel sicker. Fn had wiped a time or two in BoT, so he knew at least the basic strategies involved. Wild has also seen the inside of BoT. In the pre-MM2 days Wild was in two raids with raid leader Bd and we wiped a few a times against the first encounter there. They were fast wipes and we were way overmatched. But this is a different raid group, and time has passed and we've gotten better.
There are a LOT of trash mobs in BoT. And they come in large numbers. Crowd control was a must, but having two rogues made that all so much easier. And they weren't the usual crazy rogues Wild was used to seeing, either. These two rogues were like professional assassins, SAPing at will and then cutting throats when it was time to kill. Twice we had mobs aggro due to pathing issues, and both times it was lightning action by the rogues that kept whole rooms full of mobs from descending on us. It was a pleasure healing those two.
BoT is a favorite of PUGs and guilds because these trash mobs can also drop BOE loot. We did get a gear drop while clearing the trash mobs - an i359 gun that wound up in the hands of the DPS warrior. Our one hunter already had one just like it.
We moved out of the large chamber of mobs - corpses now - and entered an even larger cavern. The cavern is surrounded by rock on three sides that come together at a high roof. Opposite the entrance where we stood a good distance away was open sky. Standing at that opposite edge was Halfus Wyrmbreaker and his pet dragon. Around the edges of the room were five more dragons. A random three of those dragons are also part of the fun. The three dragons we faced this night were Slate, Time Warden, and Storm Rider. These dragons are chained down, and if we don't bother them they won't bother us. But during the battle those three dragons give Halfus powerful abilities throughout the fight, forced to do Halfus bidding.
There are good reasons for rattling the chains on those dragons, though. If we freed them, they would be required to fight against us, but they would also try to help us by counteracting some of the abilities given to Halfus. For example, Time Warden gives Halfus fireballs to throw at us that hit instantly and which we can't avoid. But if we free Time Warden from his chains, he'll slow down those fireballs so that we can see them in time to avoid them. Of course, Time Warden, once freed, will still be forced to try to kill us.
An even bigger reason to free the dragons is that killing these dragons doubles the damage dealt to Halfus with each dragon killed.
That was just the obvious stuff. We still had to figure out who was doing what, which dragons to free and in what order, and on and on. This fight is fascinating because there are so many different ways to go about it.
We started with the following strategy. The main tank, Fn, would run to the center of the cavern with the hunter with him. The hunter would miss-direct Halfus to Fn while the second tank, Rs, ran to the far end of the cavern to engage Storm Rider. We had decided to free Storm Rider first because the ability he gives to Halfus is the nastiest of the three. Storm Rider gives Halfus Shadow Nova, a powerful attack that can't be avoided or interrupted and which also knocks raiders back. When Storm Rider is freed, he slows the cast time of Nova and it also becomes interruptible. We had a mage in the raid, and his job was to counter and interrupt that Nova every time Halfus tried to cast it. Better said than done.
The rest of the raid was told to bunch up in the center so that we couldn't get too scattered by the Nova knockback. Halfus himself doesn't do that much damage, but don't forget that the other two dragons are also granting him abilities - the fireballs from Time Warden, and a stacking Mortal Strike from Slate which makes life hell for healers trying to keep the main tank alive.
Healing assignments were for Fe to heal the main tank and Wild to heal Rs, with Wild also having primary raid healing duty. Our first attempt was laughably short. We had barely gotten started when Wild was struck by a Nova knocking me halfway across the cavern and consuming almost a third of Wild's health. Fireballs rained down for a few seconds until Rs engaged Time Warden. Then pulsing pools of light started appearing all over the floor of the cavern, target points for the fireballs that we could now see and try to avoid. Rs had also freed Storm Rider, but the mage was having trouble interrupting the Shadow Novas, which were devastating the raid. Slate's Mortal Strikes were also crushing the main tank. Wild had his hands full as well, healing Rs with two dragons on him while trying to heal a raid that was taking damage from every direction. We wiped, of course, but the whole thing was so much fun we were all laughing as we rezzed and headed back in.
Our spirits stayed high over the next two hours. We wiped over and over while making innumerable changes to our strategy. There is no cookie cutter approach to this fight. We just had to find the best match of raider talents to overcome the specific set of abilities we were facing off against. It was really exciting to put our combined will into figuring out how to beat this fight instead of just following a "how to" guide.
After our tenth wipe Wild got a whisper from Lao. We were on a repair break, but only had a few seconds before we'd be gathering our strength for another shot. Wild sent her a quick reply, "10 wipes so far, getting better, in BOT."
As an afterthought Wild sent a second whisper back to Lao, "BOT, Bastion of Twilight."
Lao whispered back that she now knew how her Mom felt when she used a bunch of acronyms that didn't mean anything to her, and she had to spell them out for her. Wild got a chuckle from that, but didn't have time to respond as the raid leader was calling us all to action. Don't worry, Lao, your time will come to experience BoT.
We had made adjustments a couple of wipes before when our warrior had to leave. We brought in a shaman guildie to add a third healer. We had hoped the extra DPS would speed up that first dragon kill, which we desperately needed to happen to get that 100% damage buff, but we just couldn't stay alive long enough. The third healer made an immediate improvement on our survivability, but losing a DPS extended the fight. At the same time Fn had also moved Wild over to main tank healing to focus entirely on keeping Fn alive, with the pally healer using his Beacon spell to reflect additional healing to the tank. We were improving, but we hadn't killed anything yet.
The healing, no matter how we did it, was completely insane. Wild went out of mana more than once, having burned his innervate as well as quaffing a mana potion. We didn't have our shadow priest to help with mana regen on this night, either. The shaman helped a lot, but he just couldn't put out the level of healing that Wild and Fe could.
On our 12th attempt we again decided to try freeing two dragons. The mage had gotten the hang of interrupting the Nova's. The raid as a whole was starting to get a feel for avoiding the fireballs, and Wild and Fn were thinking with one mind on managing those Mortal Strike stacks. But our strategy hinged on one thing - kill one of those dragons fast.
We had also learned early on that pre-fight we could meander all over the cavern without aggroing anything. Halfus had to actually be attacked to start the encounter. So, for this 12th attempt, we all trotted into the cavern and took up our positions. Fn was again holding court in the center, and the hunter started the fight by miss-directing Halfus to Fn. Rs was standing next to Storm Rider and began freeing him. Wild started spamming heals to keep Fn alive as the Mortal Strikes started coming. The mage hovered around Storm Rider to interrupt the Novas. The rest of the raid had spread out into whatever position they felt comfortable with, but we no longer bunched up because it was too hard to see the fireball targeting pools and other things when we were standing on top of each other. Wild, who hates fights where he has to move a lot, discovered that if he kept moving he would see the fireball pools sooner and that it was easier to avoid them. When he stood still I tended to stare at the raid screen instead of the floor, and that got Wild hit by fireballs. Movement is good, I say, even if Wild objects.
Wild was utterly focused on his role. He never stopped healing Fn, who could go from 100% health to near death in mere seconds. Rs, with two dragons to deal with, got to scarily low levels of health as well, and Wild would throw some heals his way, too, even though it tightened Wild's gut knowing it was a heal not going to Fn.
With five mobs in play (Halfus, his pet, and the three dragons) it was impossible to know how we were doing. Just stay alive. Just keep everyone else alive.
Storm Rider died. No more shadow novas. We were shocked at the suddenness of it, and Time stood still for a moment. Then we all cheered! We'd dropped one of the dragons! New energy coursed through us and the DPSers suddenly saw their damage dealing DOUBLE.
The DPS turned on Time Warden, and Rs freed Slate. Time Warden died. No more fireballs. Damage dealing went up another magnitude. Slate fell as well, and now there was no more Mortal Strikes.
All the power and might of the raid turned on Halfus. Wild was still healing like crazy, but the pace had eased up slightly. Wild had also earlier adjusted his healing approach so that I could get two innervates cast instead of just one, and that had proved critical in not running out of mana.
We battled Halfus down to under 50% and entered Phase 2. Wait a minute - after all that there is another phase!?
Halfus began using Furious Roar, a raid wide stun that pulses three times, dealing damage, knocking raiders down and interrupting all action other than instant spells. Halfus used that spell a lot. And the fireballs and shadow novas were back. Halfus was using Shadow Nova on us and his pet kept blasting us with fireball barrages. Halfus also had a truly incredible amount of health even at under 50%.
The DPS blasted away with everything they had, in between getting knocked about in earthquake like hammers from Halfus' Roar. Wild tossed his instant heals out there during Roars and then caught up the healing on the tank in the few seconds between. It was crazy and exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
"Thirty seconds until Enrage!" called out the raid leader. Come on, give us a break! "If you still have any cooldowns left, use them now!"
The enrage timer ticked down to 12 seconds. And Halfus died.
Beyond the win itself, it was also hard to believe that no one had died. Had we lost a single raider, we would not have beaten Halfus.
Halfus dropped a pretty holy paladin item, which Fe was delighted to get. He also dropped a very nice leather feral tanking item which went to Rs.
The MM guild has their first boss kill in BoT, and we now have two Cata boss kills. And I have to point out that MM2 still only has the one BH kill.
We still had a little time, so we waded through even more trash mobs looking for loot - and got another drop, this time - surprise (yea, right) - another leather +agi item, a helm. The rogues had a good night for gear. We took a look at the second boss encounter - another pair of dragons - but we were out of time. Still flushed with our success, we headed back to Org to brag about our conquest.
The most important thing about this night, though, will hopefully play out over the next several days. An MM raid has killed a raid boss in BoT. The raid came out of there with incredible loot - FOUR i359 items. Maybe, just maybe, that will get other guildies to thinking - perhaps I should sign up for the raid next week? Or, maybe there's a spot open in the Saturday raid that is on the calendar? This is how it starts.
Since the beginning of Cata Wild has been teased and tantalized by the new raid dungeons. At the same time there has been huge frustration as the guild drama played out and raiding became an iffy, rare event. Wild once raided four times a week, two nights in a 25 man raid and two more nights in a ten man raid. Now, Wild feels fortunate to have a chance to raid once a week.
Cata Raids:
Baradin Hold (BH). Baradin Hold is a raid dungeon on the isle of Tol Barad. It is in the middle of a pvp zone. BH is not open during battles, and when the battle ends only the victorious faction has access. BH has a single boss, although there are already lairs built within that will house future Bosses, much like Vault of Archovan in Wintergrasp. Baradin Hold's first and so far only boss is Argaloth.
On Friday night Fn's MM Raid assembled and got invites started promptly at 5:45pm. We had two tanks and two healers, along with four DPS. Counting noses, that put us two short. On every previous Friday night, we ended up with PUGs filling those spots or, on a lucky night, we found friends or friends of friends to join us. On this Friday night the number of guildies in game reached 15, and with some sifting and shifting of mains and alts we made this raid an all guildie raid.
The Horde won Tol Barad, and by 6pm we were all inside BH facing the first trash mob. Time to go to work and have some fun!
We stayed with a two tank, two healer set up. We beat Argaloth last week with that makeup and saw no reason to change. The raid leader Fn (and main tank) did concede Wild to be the healer for the second tank, Rs, which made Rs very happy. Wild had added a pair of i359 boots to his gear this past week, and his overall gear score inched up to i348. The other healer, the paladin Fe, is better geared and a very good healer. Wild and Fe make a good team, too.
We wasted no time, clearing the trash in minutes. We all knew our roles against Argaloth as the raid leader set up the groups, Wild and Rs in group 2 and ready on the right, with Fn and Fe in group 1 and ready on the left.
A saying that I once heard almost every day suddenly came to mind, something I hadn't thought about in years: "Ready on the Right!? Ready on the Left?! Ready on the firing line!" On the rifle and pistol range I once practiced at I heard those words over and over. Everyone would quiet down and we'd settle into our shooting positions, waiting for the final two words. "Commence firing!"
We engaged Argaloth. We commenced firing. And Argaloth fell. On our first attempt. There was mail gear and a leather feral piece that went to a rogue. We had two rogues with us tonight.
Blackwing Descent (BWD). The Fn MM raid (hmm, might I call it the Efnm raid?) has been beating our heads against the first boss, Magmaw, on every one of our precious raid nights and we seemed to be going backward rather than forward. Fn wanted a change of pace, and changed the target dungeon for this week.
Throne of the Four Winds (T4W). T4W was our target this week, and Wild spent time going over the strategies and watching youtube videos of the fight against three Djinns (genies). The fight required movement between platforms using a wind tunnel effect, a coordinated killing of all three bosses within one minute of each other, and even a chance for a healer to tank! It sounded like huge fun.
After we finished off Argaloth, however, Fn had a change of plans. We were not going to T4W. We weren't going back to BWD, either. What did that leave us?
Bastion of Twilight (BoT). Fn has been sick with a nasty cold all week, and just hadn't felt up to learning the strategies for T4W, which he had very little experience with. Thinking of BWD just made him feel sicker. Fn had wiped a time or two in BoT, so he knew at least the basic strategies involved. Wild has also seen the inside of BoT. In the pre-MM2 days Wild was in two raids with raid leader Bd and we wiped a few a times against the first encounter there. They were fast wipes and we were way overmatched. But this is a different raid group, and time has passed and we've gotten better.
There are a LOT of trash mobs in BoT. And they come in large numbers. Crowd control was a must, but having two rogues made that all so much easier. And they weren't the usual crazy rogues Wild was used to seeing, either. These two rogues were like professional assassins, SAPing at will and then cutting throats when it was time to kill. Twice we had mobs aggro due to pathing issues, and both times it was lightning action by the rogues that kept whole rooms full of mobs from descending on us. It was a pleasure healing those two.
BoT is a favorite of PUGs and guilds because these trash mobs can also drop BOE loot. We did get a gear drop while clearing the trash mobs - an i359 gun that wound up in the hands of the DPS warrior. Our one hunter already had one just like it.
We moved out of the large chamber of mobs - corpses now - and entered an even larger cavern. The cavern is surrounded by rock on three sides that come together at a high roof. Opposite the entrance where we stood a good distance away was open sky. Standing at that opposite edge was Halfus Wyrmbreaker and his pet dragon. Around the edges of the room were five more dragons. A random three of those dragons are also part of the fun. The three dragons we faced this night were Slate, Time Warden, and Storm Rider. These dragons are chained down, and if we don't bother them they won't bother us. But during the battle those three dragons give Halfus powerful abilities throughout the fight, forced to do Halfus bidding.
Storm Rider and Time Warden
There are good reasons for rattling the chains on those dragons, though. If we freed them, they would be required to fight against us, but they would also try to help us by counteracting some of the abilities given to Halfus. For example, Time Warden gives Halfus fireballs to throw at us that hit instantly and which we can't avoid. But if we free Time Warden from his chains, he'll slow down those fireballs so that we can see them in time to avoid them. Of course, Time Warden, once freed, will still be forced to try to kill us.
An even bigger reason to free the dragons is that killing these dragons doubles the damage dealt to Halfus with each dragon killed.
That was just the obvious stuff. We still had to figure out who was doing what, which dragons to free and in what order, and on and on. This fight is fascinating because there are so many different ways to go about it.
We started with the following strategy. The main tank, Fn, would run to the center of the cavern with the hunter with him. The hunter would miss-direct Halfus to Fn while the second tank, Rs, ran to the far end of the cavern to engage Storm Rider. We had decided to free Storm Rider first because the ability he gives to Halfus is the nastiest of the three. Storm Rider gives Halfus Shadow Nova, a powerful attack that can't be avoided or interrupted and which also knocks raiders back. When Storm Rider is freed, he slows the cast time of Nova and it also becomes interruptible. We had a mage in the raid, and his job was to counter and interrupt that Nova every time Halfus tried to cast it. Better said than done.
The rest of the raid was told to bunch up in the center so that we couldn't get too scattered by the Nova knockback. Halfus himself doesn't do that much damage, but don't forget that the other two dragons are also granting him abilities - the fireballs from Time Warden, and a stacking Mortal Strike from Slate which makes life hell for healers trying to keep the main tank alive.
Healing assignments were for Fe to heal the main tank and Wild to heal Rs, with Wild also having primary raid healing duty. Our first attempt was laughably short. We had barely gotten started when Wild was struck by a Nova knocking me halfway across the cavern and consuming almost a third of Wild's health. Fireballs rained down for a few seconds until Rs engaged Time Warden. Then pulsing pools of light started appearing all over the floor of the cavern, target points for the fireballs that we could now see and try to avoid. Rs had also freed Storm Rider, but the mage was having trouble interrupting the Shadow Novas, which were devastating the raid. Slate's Mortal Strikes were also crushing the main tank. Wild had his hands full as well, healing Rs with two dragons on him while trying to heal a raid that was taking damage from every direction. We wiped, of course, but the whole thing was so much fun we were all laughing as we rezzed and headed back in.
Our spirits stayed high over the next two hours. We wiped over and over while making innumerable changes to our strategy. There is no cookie cutter approach to this fight. We just had to find the best match of raider talents to overcome the specific set of abilities we were facing off against. It was really exciting to put our combined will into figuring out how to beat this fight instead of just following a "how to" guide.
After our tenth wipe Wild got a whisper from Lao. We were on a repair break, but only had a few seconds before we'd be gathering our strength for another shot. Wild sent her a quick reply, "10 wipes so far, getting better, in BOT."
As an afterthought Wild sent a second whisper back to Lao, "BOT, Bastion of Twilight."
Lao whispered back that she now knew how her Mom felt when she used a bunch of acronyms that didn't mean anything to her, and she had to spell them out for her. Wild got a chuckle from that, but didn't have time to respond as the raid leader was calling us all to action. Don't worry, Lao, your time will come to experience BoT.
We had made adjustments a couple of wipes before when our warrior had to leave. We brought in a shaman guildie to add a third healer. We had hoped the extra DPS would speed up that first dragon kill, which we desperately needed to happen to get that 100% damage buff, but we just couldn't stay alive long enough. The third healer made an immediate improvement on our survivability, but losing a DPS extended the fight. At the same time Fn had also moved Wild over to main tank healing to focus entirely on keeping Fn alive, with the pally healer using his Beacon spell to reflect additional healing to the tank. We were improving, but we hadn't killed anything yet.
The healing, no matter how we did it, was completely insane. Wild went out of mana more than once, having burned his innervate as well as quaffing a mana potion. We didn't have our shadow priest to help with mana regen on this night, either. The shaman helped a lot, but he just couldn't put out the level of healing that Wild and Fe could.
On our 12th attempt we again decided to try freeing two dragons. The mage had gotten the hang of interrupting the Nova's. The raid as a whole was starting to get a feel for avoiding the fireballs, and Wild and Fn were thinking with one mind on managing those Mortal Strike stacks. But our strategy hinged on one thing - kill one of those dragons fast.
We had also learned early on that pre-fight we could meander all over the cavern without aggroing anything. Halfus had to actually be attacked to start the encounter. So, for this 12th attempt, we all trotted into the cavern and took up our positions. Fn was again holding court in the center, and the hunter started the fight by miss-directing Halfus to Fn. Rs was standing next to Storm Rider and began freeing him. Wild started spamming heals to keep Fn alive as the Mortal Strikes started coming. The mage hovered around Storm Rider to interrupt the Novas. The rest of the raid had spread out into whatever position they felt comfortable with, but we no longer bunched up because it was too hard to see the fireball targeting pools and other things when we were standing on top of each other. Wild, who hates fights where he has to move a lot, discovered that if he kept moving he would see the fireball pools sooner and that it was easier to avoid them. When he stood still I tended to stare at the raid screen instead of the floor, and that got Wild hit by fireballs. Movement is good, I say, even if Wild objects.
Wild was utterly focused on his role. He never stopped healing Fn, who could go from 100% health to near death in mere seconds. Rs, with two dragons to deal with, got to scarily low levels of health as well, and Wild would throw some heals his way, too, even though it tightened Wild's gut knowing it was a heal not going to Fn.
With five mobs in play (Halfus, his pet, and the three dragons) it was impossible to know how we were doing. Just stay alive. Just keep everyone else alive.
Storm Rider died. No more shadow novas. We were shocked at the suddenness of it, and Time stood still for a moment. Then we all cheered! We'd dropped one of the dragons! New energy coursed through us and the DPSers suddenly saw their damage dealing DOUBLE.
The DPS turned on Time Warden, and Rs freed Slate. Time Warden died. No more fireballs. Damage dealing went up another magnitude. Slate fell as well, and now there was no more Mortal Strikes.
All the power and might of the raid turned on Halfus. Wild was still healing like crazy, but the pace had eased up slightly. Wild had also earlier adjusted his healing approach so that I could get two innervates cast instead of just one, and that had proved critical in not running out of mana.
We battled Halfus down to under 50% and entered Phase 2. Wait a minute - after all that there is another phase!?
Halfus began using Furious Roar, a raid wide stun that pulses three times, dealing damage, knocking raiders down and interrupting all action other than instant spells. Halfus used that spell a lot. And the fireballs and shadow novas were back. Halfus was using Shadow Nova on us and his pet kept blasting us with fireball barrages. Halfus also had a truly incredible amount of health even at under 50%.
The DPS blasted away with everything they had, in between getting knocked about in earthquake like hammers from Halfus' Roar. Wild tossed his instant heals out there during Roars and then caught up the healing on the tank in the few seconds between. It was crazy and exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
"Thirty seconds until Enrage!" called out the raid leader. Come on, give us a break! "If you still have any cooldowns left, use them now!"
The enrage timer ticked down to 12 seconds. And Halfus died.
That was pure AWESOME!
Beyond the win itself, it was also hard to believe that no one had died. Had we lost a single raider, we would not have beaten Halfus.
Halfus dropped a pretty holy paladin item, which Fe was delighted to get. He also dropped a very nice leather feral tanking item which went to Rs.
The MM guild has their first boss kill in BoT, and we now have two Cata boss kills. And I have to point out that MM2 still only has the one BH kill.
We still had a little time, so we waded through even more trash mobs looking for loot - and got another drop, this time - surprise (yea, right) - another leather +agi item, a helm. The rogues had a good night for gear. We took a look at the second boss encounter - another pair of dragons - but we were out of time. Still flushed with our success, we headed back to Org to brag about our conquest.
The most important thing about this night, though, will hopefully play out over the next several days. An MM raid has killed a raid boss in BoT. The raid came out of there with incredible loot - FOUR i359 items. Maybe, just maybe, that will get other guildies to thinking - perhaps I should sign up for the raid next week? Or, maybe there's a spot open in the Saturday raid that is on the calendar? This is how it starts.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday (24 Mar) - It's Javajoo Time
Thursday (24 Mar) - It's Javajoo Time
Java hardly knew where to start. He'd been sitting around in the Exodar for so long . . . well, he'd frequented the Inn often enough he had his own key to the ale cellar, and was on very friendly terms with the waitresses. The Exodar was a backwater palace, though, a city built by Java's alien brethren and then all but forgotten. Java longed to get out of there.
He took the gold that Lost passed on to him and began straightening out his affairs. Lots of work to get his bags and bank into shape. His gear was a messy mix of strength and agility gear, only some of it plate. He had his Corpsemaker weapon, though, with the Crusader enchant, as well as three heirlooms borrowed from Melashand. Java was Retribution specced and decided to stay that way until it made sense to consider the shockadin spec. Java did pick up his dual talent specialization and selected a pure Holy spec for his off-spec. His healing gear, though, was downright pitiful and will take awhile to get into shape.
While working on all that Java signed into the BG queue. Java was starting to think about calling it a night when a Warsong Gulch match popped up. Java stayed in retribution spec and accepted the invitation.
Java was as rusty as one would think he would be after literally months of non-activity. The alliance "team" Java was on wasn't much of one, and they mostly preferred to hang around mid-field. The Horde got off to a quick 2-0 start. The first time the horde flag was captured Java was there to defend the flag carrier, but we didn't get a lot of help and soon lost it. The second time Java led the way into the Horde base and took the flag himself to keep the horde from capping that last flag, which they were close to doing. Java had a healer and a rogue with him and we fought our way across the field with horde players hanging all over us. Java made it back to the home base and we held off several attacks, hoping our teammates would retake our own flag. Java held the flag for more than five minutes, but the attack was relentless and Java finally fell. We lost 3-0.
Java was happy to see action again, but really wasn't expecting much as far as how well he did. He was only level 32 in a 30-34 bracket, and was mostly guessing at what spells to use. Java never ran out of mana, though, and he was definitely tough to kill.
When I pulled up the results after the battle I nodded in understanding on seeing Java down in the 5th spot in damage. Not bad, all things considered. Then I looked closer. After all those battles with Shevils on the horde side I immediately associated all those red colored pvpers as Java's teammates - but red is for horde, not alliance. Java was fifth in damage, yes, but the four pvpers ahead of Java were all horde. Java led the alliance in total damage, was second in healing, and delivered 8 killing blows, one short of the warrior who led with 9.
Java began the evening with 67 honor points and ended the night with 78. He gained 3% experience with the 25% heirloom bonus. It's a start.
Java hardly knew where to start. He'd been sitting around in the Exodar for so long . . . well, he'd frequented the Inn often enough he had his own key to the ale cellar, and was on very friendly terms with the waitresses. The Exodar was a backwater palace, though, a city built by Java's alien brethren and then all but forgotten. Java longed to get out of there.
He took the gold that Lost passed on to him and began straightening out his affairs. Lots of work to get his bags and bank into shape. His gear was a messy mix of strength and agility gear, only some of it plate. He had his Corpsemaker weapon, though, with the Crusader enchant, as well as three heirlooms borrowed from Melashand. Java was Retribution specced and decided to stay that way until it made sense to consider the shockadin spec. Java did pick up his dual talent specialization and selected a pure Holy spec for his off-spec. His healing gear, though, was downright pitiful and will take awhile to get into shape.
While working on all that Java signed into the BG queue. Java was starting to think about calling it a night when a Warsong Gulch match popped up. Java stayed in retribution spec and accepted the invitation.
Java was as rusty as one would think he would be after literally months of non-activity. The alliance "team" Java was on wasn't much of one, and they mostly preferred to hang around mid-field. The Horde got off to a quick 2-0 start. The first time the horde flag was captured Java was there to defend the flag carrier, but we didn't get a lot of help and soon lost it. The second time Java led the way into the Horde base and took the flag himself to keep the horde from capping that last flag, which they were close to doing. Java had a healer and a rogue with him and we fought our way across the field with horde players hanging all over us. Java made it back to the home base and we held off several attacks, hoping our teammates would retake our own flag. Java held the flag for more than five minutes, but the attack was relentless and Java finally fell. We lost 3-0.
Java was happy to see action again, but really wasn't expecting much as far as how well he did. He was only level 32 in a 30-34 bracket, and was mostly guessing at what spells to use. Java never ran out of mana, though, and he was definitely tough to kill.
When I pulled up the results after the battle I nodded in understanding on seeing Java down in the 5th spot in damage. Not bad, all things considered. Then I looked closer. After all those battles with Shevils on the horde side I immediately associated all those red colored pvpers as Java's teammates - but red is for horde, not alliance. Java was fifth in damage, yes, but the four pvpers ahead of Java were all horde. Java led the alliance in total damage, was second in healing, and delivered 8 killing blows, one short of the warrior who led with 9.
Java began the evening with 67 honor points and ended the night with 78. He gained 3% experience with the 25% heirloom bonus. It's a start.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday (23 Mar) - Guild News (of a sort)
Wednesday (23 Mar) - Guild News (of a sort)
Well, Wild couldn't stand it anymore. Things are so quiet in Wild's guild I sometimes wonder if there's anyone still playing. I rarely see more than 3-4 guildies in game. Things are deathly quiet in the MM2 guild, too - at least to Wild's ears. What the heck is going on over there? Wild decided to do a little sleuthing, since he couldn't catch anyone in game. It was pretty easy to find the MM2 website, and just as easy to register with the site. As long as you don't make waves I've never had any guild get upset at non-guildies on their website. Wild is still registered with FS, too. Most guild websites have guild only sections that require the site manager to authorize access, but that's fine. Wild just wanted to check out the site and see what was being said.
Wild found out some interesting things. Sh, the shaman who started the MM2 guild after leaving MM, is now co-guild leader with Wild's friend Bd. I knew Bd was a high ranking officer, but co-guild leader? Nice. Then Wild ran across a post from Sh about "raid penalties." The discussion centered around using a penalty system to punish raiders who do something wrong in the raid. The idea is that penalized raiders would work harder and pay closer attention. I tend to look at things from the perspective that this is a game and that "for the most part" everyone is trying to do their best. Personally, I get very embarrassed when I screw up, and having it pointed out and having fines/penalties assessed would greatly damage my raid enjoyment. Positive feedback works a whole lot better than negative feedback. Those trying their best but coming up short need personal attention and help to get better, not a penalty. Raiders that aren't trying their best likely won't care whether they get penalties or not. Those raiders should not be raiding until they get themselves straightened out. It's just under discussion so far, but the irony of this ... well, consider this:
The original FS guild that Wild spent most of his leveling and raiding life in was a balanced social/raiding guild. At its peak FS fielded three raid groups while it continued to have a strong social/casual element that injected a lot of fun into guild life both in and outside of raiding. During the Wrath expansion the more hard core raiders eventually drove out the social side of the guild. FS became more of a pure raiding guild with two strong willed raid leaders, and then soon after split into two raid focused guilds, FS and WC, when the two raid leaders parted ways. The driven out social element of the original FS joined the MM guild. MM, as our guild leader aptly pointed out some time ago, is a social guild that raids. The emphasis here has to be on "social," however. Then, in what was mostly a personality dust up between groups in MM, a group of MM guildies left and formed MM2. In my opinion MM2 wants to be a raiding guild with a strong social element. They at least have a core element of players who have raided together in the past and who personally know each other. But here's the irony - MM2 is largely composed of social/causal oriented players. How could they not be given the way the various guilds were formed? Yet, before they have even begun to raid regularly, MM2 is already bringing up raiding rules that lean toward the hard core raiding side. MM2 had better be careful, or they could recreate the situation in FS that caused the social side to break away the first time. Molding a guild composed of largely casual players into a functioning, serious raid group is a difficult challenge. If MM2 succeeds, they will have resurrected the original FS. And things will have come full circle.
In other MM2 news Lady Hunter has resurfaced and announced on the website that she will begin running raids again. Her work schedule has changed and the raid days are expected to be Monday and Tuesday nights. Should Wild get an invite, I'd be happy to sign up for Monday nights. Tuesday would be on a case by case basis. There's no conflict with Hunter Fortress as Lady Hunter has no problem with raiders who have hard stop times, which Wild will insist on for Tuesdays. The Friday MM raid is still Wild's first priority, and Wild will bow out of the Tuesday raid to avoid lockout issues if MM2 and MM end up raiding the same dungeon.
PS - Sh just announced that there will not be a penalty system. I think he got a lot more feedback offline than was evident on the website. Instead, there will be a Raider's Bill of Rights - basically, a list of things that guildies who want to raid should be doing to be fully prepared to raid. The initial Bill looked pretty practical and reasonable.
Well, Wild couldn't stand it anymore. Things are so quiet in Wild's guild I sometimes wonder if there's anyone still playing. I rarely see more than 3-4 guildies in game. Things are deathly quiet in the MM2 guild, too - at least to Wild's ears. What the heck is going on over there? Wild decided to do a little sleuthing, since he couldn't catch anyone in game. It was pretty easy to find the MM2 website, and just as easy to register with the site. As long as you don't make waves I've never had any guild get upset at non-guildies on their website. Wild is still registered with FS, too. Most guild websites have guild only sections that require the site manager to authorize access, but that's fine. Wild just wanted to check out the site and see what was being said.
Wild found out some interesting things. Sh, the shaman who started the MM2 guild after leaving MM, is now co-guild leader with Wild's friend Bd. I knew Bd was a high ranking officer, but co-guild leader? Nice. Then Wild ran across a post from Sh about "raid penalties." The discussion centered around using a penalty system to punish raiders who do something wrong in the raid. The idea is that penalized raiders would work harder and pay closer attention. I tend to look at things from the perspective that this is a game and that "for the most part" everyone is trying to do their best. Personally, I get very embarrassed when I screw up, and having it pointed out and having fines/penalties assessed would greatly damage my raid enjoyment. Positive feedback works a whole lot better than negative feedback. Those trying their best but coming up short need personal attention and help to get better, not a penalty. Raiders that aren't trying their best likely won't care whether they get penalties or not. Those raiders should not be raiding until they get themselves straightened out. It's just under discussion so far, but the irony of this ... well, consider this:
The original FS guild that Wild spent most of his leveling and raiding life in was a balanced social/raiding guild. At its peak FS fielded three raid groups while it continued to have a strong social/casual element that injected a lot of fun into guild life both in and outside of raiding. During the Wrath expansion the more hard core raiders eventually drove out the social side of the guild. FS became more of a pure raiding guild with two strong willed raid leaders, and then soon after split into two raid focused guilds, FS and WC, when the two raid leaders parted ways. The driven out social element of the original FS joined the MM guild. MM, as our guild leader aptly pointed out some time ago, is a social guild that raids. The emphasis here has to be on "social," however. Then, in what was mostly a personality dust up between groups in MM, a group of MM guildies left and formed MM2. In my opinion MM2 wants to be a raiding guild with a strong social element. They at least have a core element of players who have raided together in the past and who personally know each other. But here's the irony - MM2 is largely composed of social/causal oriented players. How could they not be given the way the various guilds were formed? Yet, before they have even begun to raid regularly, MM2 is already bringing up raiding rules that lean toward the hard core raiding side. MM2 had better be careful, or they could recreate the situation in FS that caused the social side to break away the first time. Molding a guild composed of largely casual players into a functioning, serious raid group is a difficult challenge. If MM2 succeeds, they will have resurrected the original FS. And things will have come full circle.
In other MM2 news Lady Hunter has resurfaced and announced on the website that she will begin running raids again. Her work schedule has changed and the raid days are expected to be Monday and Tuesday nights. Should Wild get an invite, I'd be happy to sign up for Monday nights. Tuesday would be on a case by case basis. There's no conflict with Hunter Fortress as Lady Hunter has no problem with raiders who have hard stop times, which Wild will insist on for Tuesdays. The Friday MM raid is still Wild's first priority, and Wild will bow out of the Tuesday raid to avoid lockout issues if MM2 and MM end up raiding the same dungeon.
PS - Sh just announced that there will not be a penalty system. I think he got a lot more feedback offline than was evident on the website. Instead, there will be a Raider's Bill of Rights - basically, a list of things that guildies who want to raid should be doing to be fully prepared to raid. The initial Bill looked pretty practical and reasonable.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday (22 Mar) - Sorting Out Toons
Tuesday (22 Mar) - Sorting Out Toons
We mighta shoulda coulda gotten in three Warsong Gulch matches on Tuesday night, but Shevils became a one woman rain delay with Hunter Fortress. After preaching to Bean to ensure that she had all of her gear, potions, bandages, and other assorted requirements ready for the evening, Bean and Shevils were dancing in Org when Speak came in game. Shevils sister Sista (sounds like one of those tongue twisters) once did an entire dungeon without her dagger. Speak's brother Kire remembers that and the first thing Speak did after getting in game was to check Shevils gear. "Where'd all your health go, Shevils?" he wanted to know. Shevils popped open her gear and sure enough she wasn't wearing any of her heirloom gear. Oh dear, hmm, so who had it? JB!
At that moment See logged in and Speak signed us up for the Battlegrounds queue. Shevils, meanwhile, logged out to find JB and get her gear back. Shevils was in a hurry and rushed JB to strip off her gear and get it in the mail back to Shevils. Only when Shevils checked her mail there was no gear. What? Back to JB. Where's my gear, Shevils demanded! JB checked. Oops, I sent them to Happy. Happy!? You rushed me, JB exclaimed! Shevils had to roust Happy out of the Auction House and the grumbling goblin located the gear and sent them on to Shevils.
Shevils popped back in game, hurriedly donned her gear, only to find that WSG had popped and the Hunter Fortress team was already heading inside. Shevils was too late. But Speak and See were able to back out of WSG, leaving Bean to wonder where everyone else was. The match started and what to do? Leave, Shevils advised. The "rain" turned into a downpour when Bean left the match and was hit with the "Deserter" tag. We were locked out of the battlegrounds for fifteen more minutes.
"I thought someone said "dessert," not "Deserter," Shevils said, making a limp attempt at a joke. Ha.
Shevils waited out her sentence with the rest of Hunter Fortress, and we then turned the Alliance upside down, sideways, and every other which way in our first Warsong Gulch match in the level 15-19 bracket. The top 5 damage dealers were on the horde side, with one amazing hunter getting 25 killing blows and leading in damage. Speak and See came in second and third in damage dealing. Shevils was 6th overall in damage and managed to be hanging around to pick up the most honorable kills, and Bean was right up there with Shevils. We won 3-1.
See had to leave after the first match, but Speak, Bean, and Shevils got in one more match. We won 3-0 in a battle that was a little closer than it looked. The alliance held their own and had hold of the horde flag numerous times. But our team would not let them keep it. Shevils and Bean personally killed the flag carrier on one occasion. Meanwhile, Speak was getting a match leading 18 killing blows with Speak and Shevils going one-two in damage.
Despite Shevil's "rain delay" it was a fine night of combat and the Hunter Fortress Team remains undefeated.
Family Matters -
The "I wannas" are starting to get thick within the Wild family on both the horde and alliance sides. There are a few key priorities:
#1 - Raiding - Wild's first priority
#2 - Hunter Fortress - Horde teeny bopper Battlegrounds
#3 - Alliance Dungeon Conquests - Kire/Sista
Beyond that things get a bit muddled:
- Wild wants to get Tailoring to 525 skill
- JB wants to get to level 85 and then ?
- Philly just wants to find some sanity amidst an ocean of mats
- Achieving level 85 with an alliance toon
That last one is getting dusted off and given another hard look. Sista has the inside track right now, but is in no hurry to get there. Farther behind is Shevils, but reaching level 85 isn't even on her radar screen, she's having way too much fun in Hunter fortress. And just thinking about starting a new toon makes me want to go take a nap. There is also DER's Daethbot, level 70 alliance killing machine, who would love some company.
One thought is to talk level 63 Melashand into switching faction to Alliance. That would be the fastest path, even though it would cause some shifting around of other toons to take on Mel's duties. She would be far behind from a pvp perspective, though, in terms of honor and resilience gear, and I prefer a healing toon in pvp, particularly at higher levels (exempting Shevils, of course).
My other thought is level 32 alliance paladin, Java. It would take time to level him, including as many battleground matches as possible. To keep gear requirements from getting out of hand I was thinking he would be specced holy for dungeon runs, but his main spec would be the hybrid shockadin for pvp and pve leveling. I've been reading up on the hybrid spec. It's based on the holy spec but with more DPS abilities taken. That way Java would have talents to help with DPS but could also heal BGs and be able to use the same gear for both.
Yes, retribution spec for Java is much better for pure leveling purposes, but then Mel would be a better choice than Java if I went that way. For now it's just thinking out loud.
We mighta shoulda coulda gotten in three Warsong Gulch matches on Tuesday night, but Shevils became a one woman rain delay with Hunter Fortress. After preaching to Bean to ensure that she had all of her gear, potions, bandages, and other assorted requirements ready for the evening, Bean and Shevils were dancing in Org when Speak came in game. Shevils sister Sista (sounds like one of those tongue twisters) once did an entire dungeon without her dagger. Speak's brother Kire remembers that and the first thing Speak did after getting in game was to check Shevils gear. "Where'd all your health go, Shevils?" he wanted to know. Shevils popped open her gear and sure enough she wasn't wearing any of her heirloom gear. Oh dear, hmm, so who had it? JB!
At that moment See logged in and Speak signed us up for the Battlegrounds queue. Shevils, meanwhile, logged out to find JB and get her gear back. Shevils was in a hurry and rushed JB to strip off her gear and get it in the mail back to Shevils. Only when Shevils checked her mail there was no gear. What? Back to JB. Where's my gear, Shevils demanded! JB checked. Oops, I sent them to Happy. Happy!? You rushed me, JB exclaimed! Shevils had to roust Happy out of the Auction House and the grumbling goblin located the gear and sent them on to Shevils.
Shevils popped back in game, hurriedly donned her gear, only to find that WSG had popped and the Hunter Fortress team was already heading inside. Shevils was too late. But Speak and See were able to back out of WSG, leaving Bean to wonder where everyone else was. The match started and what to do? Leave, Shevils advised. The "rain" turned into a downpour when Bean left the match and was hit with the "Deserter" tag. We were locked out of the battlegrounds for fifteen more minutes.
"I thought someone said "dessert," not "Deserter," Shevils said, making a limp attempt at a joke. Ha.
Shevils waited out her sentence with the rest of Hunter Fortress, and we then turned the Alliance upside down, sideways, and every other which way in our first Warsong Gulch match in the level 15-19 bracket. The top 5 damage dealers were on the horde side, with one amazing hunter getting 25 killing blows and leading in damage. Speak and See came in second and third in damage dealing. Shevils was 6th overall in damage and managed to be hanging around to pick up the most honorable kills, and Bean was right up there with Shevils. We won 3-1.
See had to leave after the first match, but Speak, Bean, and Shevils got in one more match. We won 3-0 in a battle that was a little closer than it looked. The alliance held their own and had hold of the horde flag numerous times. But our team would not let them keep it. Shevils and Bean personally killed the flag carrier on one occasion. Meanwhile, Speak was getting a match leading 18 killing blows with Speak and Shevils going one-two in damage.
Despite Shevil's "rain delay" it was a fine night of combat and the Hunter Fortress Team remains undefeated.
Family Matters -
The "I wannas" are starting to get thick within the Wild family on both the horde and alliance sides. There are a few key priorities:
#1 - Raiding - Wild's first priority
#2 - Hunter Fortress - Horde teeny bopper Battlegrounds
#3 - Alliance Dungeon Conquests - Kire/Sista
Beyond that things get a bit muddled:
- Wild wants to get Tailoring to 525 skill
- JB wants to get to level 85 and then ?
- Philly just wants to find some sanity amidst an ocean of mats
- Achieving level 85 with an alliance toon
That last one is getting dusted off and given another hard look. Sista has the inside track right now, but is in no hurry to get there. Farther behind is Shevils, but reaching level 85 isn't even on her radar screen, she's having way too much fun in Hunter fortress. And just thinking about starting a new toon makes me want to go take a nap. There is also DER's Daethbot, level 70 alliance killing machine, who would love some company.
One thought is to talk level 63 Melashand into switching faction to Alliance. That would be the fastest path, even though it would cause some shifting around of other toons to take on Mel's duties. She would be far behind from a pvp perspective, though, in terms of honor and resilience gear, and I prefer a healing toon in pvp, particularly at higher levels (exempting Shevils, of course).
My other thought is level 32 alliance paladin, Java. It would take time to level him, including as many battleground matches as possible. To keep gear requirements from getting out of hand I was thinking he would be specced holy for dungeon runs, but his main spec would be the hybrid shockadin for pvp and pve leveling. I've been reading up on the hybrid spec. It's based on the holy spec but with more DPS abilities taken. That way Java would have talents to help with DPS but could also heal BGs and be able to use the same gear for both.
Yes, retribution spec for Java is much better for pure leveling purposes, but then Mel would be a better choice than Java if I went that way. For now it's just thinking out loud.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Friday (18 Mar) - Starting All Over
Friday (18 Mar) - Starting All Over
It was a pretty ragtag group of guildies that showed up for the Friday night raid. There were seven guildies and a guild friend, which made eight. One was a shadow priest (Ya! Wild loves the mana regen buffs) but was not all that well geared. We had a shaman playing a hunter, but who didn't know how to be a hunter and was really undergeared. We had a druid tank who was asked to play his boomkin offspec. And we had only one healer - Wild. But at least we all showed up, and on time. The druid tank/boomkin was Rs, Wild's good friend, who so far has stayed in MM and not joined his real life friends in MM2. Wild was very happy to see him in the raid.
We did run late after that because we could not find two guildies or friends of guildies to fill the last two spots - we needed healers. The raid leader, Fn, decided we were too close to call off the raid and went to the trade channel and looking for group (LFG) to find us two more healers. Surprisingly, we did not have to wait long, getting a nicely geared lady holy paladin and a druid healer in even better i351 gear that she said was her alt - her priest main had downed all but one boss in BWD. Her guild was the hard core raiding BlackBlades, but tonight she decided to come slumming with us.
We went straight to BWD as the pvp battle in Tol Barad had just gotten underway and Baradin Hold was not open. Since Wild was the lead healer this night, I made the healing assignments. Wild assigned the PUG paladin as the main tank healer for Fn, Wild took healing for the off tank (the warrior By), and the PUG hotshot druid was assigned raid duty.
Once we were inside BWD there was a delay when the shaman turned hunter (Cw was the name) didn't know where the entrance to BWD was. We got that sorted out. Then he asked the other hunter if he could help him set up his button bar and tell him what spells he should put on it. Oh dear. He said he had recently come back to the game after a long absence (he missed all of Wrath). It was a guild run and we needed bodies and we needed ranged DPS so we were patient. Wild did cringe a little inside, wondering what our two PUG healers were thinking.
When we were all ready to go, we killed the closest solo mob with ease. We then faced the difficult pair of trash mobs that are just in front of the boss, Magmaw. We gooned that first attempt pretty bad, wiping early. On our second attempt, however, things went smooth as silk and both mobs went down on queue. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves. Wild was getting used to being a bit of a slow starter, and it showed on the meters with Wild at 7k hps and the other druid doing just under 10k hps. The pally did 5.6k but didn't have any problems keeping his tank out of trouble.
Then we started on Magmaw. We wiped four straight times, all of it ugly. The hunter, Cw, pulled before the tank engaged on our first attempt. Wipe. We then wiped on the first Pillar of Fire on our second attempt, with Wild struggling with the timing along with the rest. The third attempt was no better. After the 4th wipe we sat back to assess. It was pretty clear that Cw was not cutting it as a hunter and he was pleading with the raid leader to switch to his enhancement shaman. We already had two enhancement shaman in the raid - but Cw was doing barely over 2k DPS (which Wild could do in his healing gear) and was therefore useless for what we needed him for. Three of our DPSers were doing fine (over 10k DPS), but the three others were falling short of 6k and there was no way we could kill all those spawning parasites without improving on that. It wasn't all the DPSers fault, though, as the rest of us could not get the timing straight on when to change positions. We let Cw switch to shaman, losing a ranged DPS, but had the warrior switch to his mage for better AoE on those parasites.
While that was going on the hotshot druid healer logged out of the game without even a wave goodbye. She'd apparently seen enough and wanted no further part of us. We were now short a healer. We then caught a small break when a guildie logged in - a pally healer. We nabbed him and got him to join us. The other PUG pally healer stuck with us.
We made two more tries, and got Magmaw to 87%. We weren't close, and Cw didn't do much better as a shaman DPS than he did as a hunter, but at least we were starting to look like a raid again.
We saw that the Horde had won at Tol Barad, and it was an easy vote to turn our sights on Baradin Hold. Our visiting pally was already locked to BH, but she offered to bring her hunter if we'd have her. Sure!
We quickly reassembled at Baradin Hold. We had one false start against Argaloth, primarily because the raid leader switched healer groups right before the start and neither Wild nor the other tank healer noticed - we were confused and couldn't figure out who was healing who. We wiped. We got that sorted out, even though Rs teasingly complained that Fn has stolen "his" healer (Wild). On our second attempt we brought Argaloth down. He dropped cloth and mail gear, so no new goodies for Wild, but it was nice to get that kill.
Fn invited our PUG pally healer to come back next week and offered to send her an invite to our raid. I hope she comes.
In some ways it was a rough night, but not a bad night. It's like the old days, with a guild just getting into raiding. MM is that kind of guild now. I'd say that there are five of us truly serious about making this work, and the other five could change week to week. Fn is trying to bring new folks into the guild who want to raid, but we have the same problem as many other guilds - players want to join raiding guilds that are already successful.
We are going to fail a lot at raiding. But then the taste of victory is that much sweeter when it comes, and all that hard work is rewarded.
Weekend Update - There was a small flurry of traffic on the guild website on Saturday. It started with a complaint about Cw, the hunter who couldn't hunt. The poster added that while it was great to get enough raiders to actually raid, some came unprepared - such has having to ask for potions and food from other raiders. The guild can now make powerful flasks that last two hours using the guild Cauldron. That should save raiders 100-200g in flask costs each week, so there's no excuse not to have everything else needed to raid.
The guild leader (GL) replied to that post, agreeing with the poster and then commenting further on the specifics regarding Cw. The story was that the guild leader and Cw had often pvped against each other back when they were level 60s (the GL was alliance at the time). Cw not only had not played Wrath, he missed Burning Crusade, too! Knowing how good he'd been at pvp as a level 60, the GL asked if he'd like to gear up for raiding. Cw said yes. What the GL never expected was that Cw would level from 60 to 85 - in a week. And then signed up for the raid. How can you not invite someone who went to all that effort when asked to help out? And that's also the reason he was so unsure of how to play his hunter - so much had changed between level 60 and 85. The GL also repeated what he had reported a couple of weeks ago - very few guildies have showed any interest at all in raiding, and many of the few that did say they wanted to raid never sign up for them. We're going to have to recruit raiders into the guild.
On the MM2 front no raids were scheduled - at least none that invited Wild, and I have no way of knowing unless they put Wild on their invite list. Lady Hunter hasn't been in game at the same time as Wild in several days, nor has Bd. It doesn't look like they are doing much or any raiding, either. MM2 has a 145 members and 59 85s now. While I didn't recognize the new members, MM2 does seem to be doing a better job of recruiting (unless they are all alts). They are at guild level 5 and have a Baradin Hold kill of Argaloth, but no progress in BWD or other Cata raid. Just like MM. MM has 285 members but actually lost 85s, dropping from 98 to 93.
It was a pretty ragtag group of guildies that showed up for the Friday night raid. There were seven guildies and a guild friend, which made eight. One was a shadow priest (Ya! Wild loves the mana regen buffs) but was not all that well geared. We had a shaman playing a hunter, but who didn't know how to be a hunter and was really undergeared. We had a druid tank who was asked to play his boomkin offspec. And we had only one healer - Wild. But at least we all showed up, and on time. The druid tank/boomkin was Rs, Wild's good friend, who so far has stayed in MM and not joined his real life friends in MM2. Wild was very happy to see him in the raid.
We did run late after that because we could not find two guildies or friends of guildies to fill the last two spots - we needed healers. The raid leader, Fn, decided we were too close to call off the raid and went to the trade channel and looking for group (LFG) to find us two more healers. Surprisingly, we did not have to wait long, getting a nicely geared lady holy paladin and a druid healer in even better i351 gear that she said was her alt - her priest main had downed all but one boss in BWD. Her guild was the hard core raiding BlackBlades, but tonight she decided to come slumming with us.
We went straight to BWD as the pvp battle in Tol Barad had just gotten underway and Baradin Hold was not open. Since Wild was the lead healer this night, I made the healing assignments. Wild assigned the PUG paladin as the main tank healer for Fn, Wild took healing for the off tank (the warrior By), and the PUG hotshot druid was assigned raid duty.
Once we were inside BWD there was a delay when the shaman turned hunter (Cw was the name) didn't know where the entrance to BWD was. We got that sorted out. Then he asked the other hunter if he could help him set up his button bar and tell him what spells he should put on it. Oh dear. He said he had recently come back to the game after a long absence (he missed all of Wrath). It was a guild run and we needed bodies and we needed ranged DPS so we were patient. Wild did cringe a little inside, wondering what our two PUG healers were thinking.
When we were all ready to go, we killed the closest solo mob with ease. We then faced the difficult pair of trash mobs that are just in front of the boss, Magmaw. We gooned that first attempt pretty bad, wiping early. On our second attempt, however, things went smooth as silk and both mobs went down on queue. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves. Wild was getting used to being a bit of a slow starter, and it showed on the meters with Wild at 7k hps and the other druid doing just under 10k hps. The pally did 5.6k but didn't have any problems keeping his tank out of trouble.
Then we started on Magmaw. We wiped four straight times, all of it ugly. The hunter, Cw, pulled before the tank engaged on our first attempt. Wipe. We then wiped on the first Pillar of Fire on our second attempt, with Wild struggling with the timing along with the rest. The third attempt was no better. After the 4th wipe we sat back to assess. It was pretty clear that Cw was not cutting it as a hunter and he was pleading with the raid leader to switch to his enhancement shaman. We already had two enhancement shaman in the raid - but Cw was doing barely over 2k DPS (which Wild could do in his healing gear) and was therefore useless for what we needed him for. Three of our DPSers were doing fine (over 10k DPS), but the three others were falling short of 6k and there was no way we could kill all those spawning parasites without improving on that. It wasn't all the DPSers fault, though, as the rest of us could not get the timing straight on when to change positions. We let Cw switch to shaman, losing a ranged DPS, but had the warrior switch to his mage for better AoE on those parasites.
While that was going on the hotshot druid healer logged out of the game without even a wave goodbye. She'd apparently seen enough and wanted no further part of us. We were now short a healer. We then caught a small break when a guildie logged in - a pally healer. We nabbed him and got him to join us. The other PUG pally healer stuck with us.
We made two more tries, and got Magmaw to 87%. We weren't close, and Cw didn't do much better as a shaman DPS than he did as a hunter, but at least we were starting to look like a raid again.
We saw that the Horde had won at Tol Barad, and it was an easy vote to turn our sights on Baradin Hold. Our visiting pally was already locked to BH, but she offered to bring her hunter if we'd have her. Sure!
We quickly reassembled at Baradin Hold. We had one false start against Argaloth, primarily because the raid leader switched healer groups right before the start and neither Wild nor the other tank healer noticed - we were confused and couldn't figure out who was healing who. We wiped. We got that sorted out, even though Rs teasingly complained that Fn has stolen "his" healer (Wild). On our second attempt we brought Argaloth down. He dropped cloth and mail gear, so no new goodies for Wild, but it was nice to get that kill.
Fn invited our PUG pally healer to come back next week and offered to send her an invite to our raid. I hope she comes.
In some ways it was a rough night, but not a bad night. It's like the old days, with a guild just getting into raiding. MM is that kind of guild now. I'd say that there are five of us truly serious about making this work, and the other five could change week to week. Fn is trying to bring new folks into the guild who want to raid, but we have the same problem as many other guilds - players want to join raiding guilds that are already successful.
We are going to fail a lot at raiding. But then the taste of victory is that much sweeter when it comes, and all that hard work is rewarded.
Weekend Update - There was a small flurry of traffic on the guild website on Saturday. It started with a complaint about Cw, the hunter who couldn't hunt. The poster added that while it was great to get enough raiders to actually raid, some came unprepared - such has having to ask for potions and food from other raiders. The guild can now make powerful flasks that last two hours using the guild Cauldron. That should save raiders 100-200g in flask costs each week, so there's no excuse not to have everything else needed to raid.
The guild leader (GL) replied to that post, agreeing with the poster and then commenting further on the specifics regarding Cw. The story was that the guild leader and Cw had often pvped against each other back when they were level 60s (the GL was alliance at the time). Cw not only had not played Wrath, he missed Burning Crusade, too! Knowing how good he'd been at pvp as a level 60, the GL asked if he'd like to gear up for raiding. Cw said yes. What the GL never expected was that Cw would level from 60 to 85 - in a week. And then signed up for the raid. How can you not invite someone who went to all that effort when asked to help out? And that's also the reason he was so unsure of how to play his hunter - so much had changed between level 60 and 85. The GL also repeated what he had reported a couple of weeks ago - very few guildies have showed any interest at all in raiding, and many of the few that did say they wanted to raid never sign up for them. We're going to have to recruit raiders into the guild.
On the MM2 front no raids were scheduled - at least none that invited Wild, and I have no way of knowing unless they put Wild on their invite list. Lady Hunter hasn't been in game at the same time as Wild in several days, nor has Bd. It doesn't look like they are doing much or any raiding, either. MM2 has a 145 members and 59 85s now. While I didn't recognize the new members, MM2 does seem to be doing a better job of recruiting (unless they are all alts). They are at guild level 5 and have a Baradin Hold kill of Argaloth, but no progress in BWD or other Cata raid. Just like MM. MM has 285 members but actually lost 85s, dropping from 98 to 93.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday (17 Mar) - Bean's New Beau
Thursday (17 Mar) - Bean's New Beau
After the Warsong Gulch match on Tuesday night (in which Bean picked up level 15) she started looking at gear improvements. She had already set aside a +2 agi ring to add to her growing accoutrements, as well as the snazzy heirloom cap she got from Wild (ok, so it's not as snazzy as Lao's goggles). She was pretty happy with her shotgun, but compared to the heirloom gun/bow that the other three hunters had strapped on - well, it fell pretty far short. Wild did some research for Bean and came up with the ideal ranged weapon for her level: [Farstrider's Bow]. This bow is located in the Ghostlands and is made for level 19s, but level 15s can use it, too. It's the reward for completing the final quest of a six quest chain. This bow is good enough to last Bean into her mid-twenties.
Bean wanted that bow. And she knew how to get it. Bean tapped JB on the shoulder and said - come with me.
JB and Bean took the zep from Orgrimmar to the Undercity. From there they used the teleporter to travel instantly to Silvermoon City, and then took the flight path from there to Tranquillen, an outpost in the Ghostlands. Leaving Tranquillen on foot, the two adventurers picked up their first quest at the Farstrider Enclave east of the outpost. JB led the way, one shotting whatever passed in front of the two. Occasionally a mob would aggro on Bean directly. What was impressive was how strong Bean's pet, Sammy, was against mobs several levels higher than him. Sammy kept the mobs off Bean, giving JB plenty of time to come back and swat the pest that was bothering them.
The two then traveled north to Dawnstar Spire for another quest. JB enjoyed this one because the mobs were numerous and respawned very quickly. There were many mobs both outside and inside the building we needed to go into. Bean stayed out of the way at first but soon got impatient and joined in the fun. Again, Sammy did a fine job of protecting her master as JB ran around clearing a path.
On our return to Farstrider Enclave to turn in the quest we picked up a shadow. A level 19 warrior saw what we were doing and decided to tag along. Without a word being spoken we soon learned that he was on the same quest chain. JB had enough to do keeping Bean safe and moving along with her, but it was no trouble to include the warrior in JB's "safe zone" and helping kill whatever he engaged. The warrior knew a good thing when he saw it, and even helped by pointing out where to go for the next several legs of the chain.
The three of us completed three more quests and we were looking at making that final trek to tackle the final quest when the computer decided to dump both JB and Bean out of the game. It didn't take all that long to get both re-situated and back in action, but our shadow was gone. Too bad, that last quest suggested a group of 5 to safely handle a very nasty boss with a room full of extra mob protectors.
JB waded into the middle of all that, Bean right behind her and Sammy snapping and flapping, and in a few seconds there was nothing left but corpses - and the Boss's head, which we returned to complete the quest.
Bean has her shiny new "beau." Bean also leveled to 16.
After the Warsong Gulch match on Tuesday night (in which Bean picked up level 15) she started looking at gear improvements. She had already set aside a +2 agi ring to add to her growing accoutrements, as well as the snazzy heirloom cap she got from Wild (ok, so it's not as snazzy as Lao's goggles). She was pretty happy with her shotgun, but compared to the heirloom gun/bow that the other three hunters had strapped on - well, it fell pretty far short. Wild did some research for Bean and came up with the ideal ranged weapon for her level: [Farstrider's Bow]. This bow is located in the Ghostlands and is made for level 19s, but level 15s can use it, too. It's the reward for completing the final quest of a six quest chain. This bow is good enough to last Bean into her mid-twenties.
Bean wanted that bow. And she knew how to get it. Bean tapped JB on the shoulder and said - come with me.
JB and Bean took the zep from Orgrimmar to the Undercity. From there they used the teleporter to travel instantly to Silvermoon City, and then took the flight path from there to Tranquillen, an outpost in the Ghostlands. Leaving Tranquillen on foot, the two adventurers picked up their first quest at the Farstrider Enclave east of the outpost. JB led the way, one shotting whatever passed in front of the two. Occasionally a mob would aggro on Bean directly. What was impressive was how strong Bean's pet, Sammy, was against mobs several levels higher than him. Sammy kept the mobs off Bean, giving JB plenty of time to come back and swat the pest that was bothering them.
The two then traveled north to Dawnstar Spire for another quest. JB enjoyed this one because the mobs were numerous and respawned very quickly. There were many mobs both outside and inside the building we needed to go into. Bean stayed out of the way at first but soon got impatient and joined in the fun. Again, Sammy did a fine job of protecting her master as JB ran around clearing a path.
On our return to Farstrider Enclave to turn in the quest we picked up a shadow. A level 19 warrior saw what we were doing and decided to tag along. Without a word being spoken we soon learned that he was on the same quest chain. JB had enough to do keeping Bean safe and moving along with her, but it was no trouble to include the warrior in JB's "safe zone" and helping kill whatever he engaged. The warrior knew a good thing when he saw it, and even helped by pointing out where to go for the next several legs of the chain.
The three of us completed three more quests and we were looking at making that final trek to tackle the final quest when the computer decided to dump both JB and Bean out of the game. It didn't take all that long to get both re-situated and back in action, but our shadow was gone. Too bad, that last quest suggested a group of 5 to safely handle a very nasty boss with a room full of extra mob protectors.
JB waded into the middle of all that, Bean right behind her and Sammy snapping and flapping, and in a few seconds there was nothing left but corpses - and the Boss's head, which we returned to complete the quest.
Bean has her shiny new "beau." Bean also leveled to 16.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday (16 Mar) - Auction House Wars
Wednesday (16 Mar) - Auction House Wars
Happy gets to talk about his favorite passion, but first, some guild news.
I don't think anyone would be surprised that the MM2 raid scheduled by Lady Hunter for Wednesday night did not happen. Wild meandered in game around 6:50pm, well after the 6:30pm start time, but even so there were no MM2 guildies around. No biggy, Wild had things to do, such as working on his Therazan and guild reputation. Wild became Revered with the MM guild Wednesday night - the same night that the MM guild reached level 20. There is one very nice bonus for achieving both - Heirloom helms are now available for purchase, and Wild has the rep to buy them. At 1500 gold each Wild bought only one so far - [Stained Shadowcraft Cap], a +agi helm that both Bean and Sista can take great advantage of. With the additional xp bonus the two of them will be getting a +35% experience bonus. Wow. Unfortunately the helm is only available on Wild's side of the family. JB is working on getting to level 85 and doing the things needed to increase her rep with the guild, but it is going to be quite awhile before she'll have access to the guild goodies.
Over to you, Happy.
Happy's posts about the hand-to-hand combat on the Auction House are not very popular (ie, they tend to be boring), but every now and then Happy needs a chance to wax poetic about his passion. Either that, or Happy gets grouchy, and nobody wants to see their banker get grouchy - it's not good for business.
The good news for all us guildies is that right after Wild spent that extravagant amount of gold on the Tsunami trinket, Happy had a run of very good luck over the next several days. Not all of that gold has been recouped yet, but certainly the greater part of it has. Happy is riding a wave of sales of large brilliant shards, greater eternal essences, and (to a lesser degree) illusion dust. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for the large brilliants. Happy had socked away several stacks when they were cheap, and was now pulling in 300% profit on each shard he sold. Each time his stock is nearly exhausted, some silly player drops a bunch on the AH at the "old" price - Happy buys them up and out they go again at Happy's "new" price.
Happy's competitors come and go, but he's recently been battling one that Happy intentionally undercuts every time I see one of his posts. He is usually pretty savvy in his pricing, but Happy's consistent undercutting seems to annoy him to the point of making dumb decisions - such as undercutting Happy's prices by large margins. If he goes low enough, Happy just buys him out and then reposts at the higher price. Sometimes Happy just opts to let him sell at that below market price, saving my stock until I get the price point I'm after. That's the situation with illusion dust right now. Out of the blue Happy's competitor dropped the price in half, when it was selling quite nicely at the higher price. Happy will just wait, and will get the higher price in time.
Then there was another seller who so annoyed Happy with his 1 copper underbids that Happy refused to buy anything he sold no matter what he posted it at. Given the sheer quantities of stuff Happy buys, the guy is not around much anymore.
Greater eternals require special handling. They are not easy to farm and therefore there are usually only small quantities available. There isn't any great demand, either - but when there is, the buyers will pay almost anything for them. Typical sellers don't know this, and routinely post greater eternals for sale at 15g each or less. Happy automatically buys every greater eternal listed for 10g or less. He waits for the right circumstances and sells them at 30g each (more if the buyers are still out there). Right now they are selling at 33g apiece, although once the buyers get what they want, the demand ends and the bottom falls out of the price.
Raising prices on items takes some research as well. Most items that Happy deals with have a price point that you know will sell, a price point where sales may be a little soft but you are still getting buyers, and a price point where the buyer just says no and either does without or goes farming for it himself. Whenever the price is raised there is the risk of getting into that third category. Prices go up most often in situations where a given item is completely bought out, a seller sees that he has (at least temporarily) control of that market, and he'll post very high prices hoping some few desperate buyers will make him rich. Usually those prices get underbid very quickly. Another reason to see high prices is when there is some market manipulation going on. A seller might have a good stock of some item, but doesn't like the price he'd have to sell them at. So, for a few days or more that seller might post very high prices on that item. He knows they won't sell, but he also knows that over time he can raise the average price of the item that is listed in the various action house addons. His "High priced" item will start to look more "reasonably priced." If sellers start seeing sales at those prices, their prices will go up, too.
Happy would "never" play the market like that. Ahem. But for the past three weeks or so Happy has "encouraged" sellers to raise the price of dream shards, which had become almost junk with prices under 50 silver each. Happy has something like 20 stacks of dream shards, but he'd let them melt back into the earth before he'd sell them at 50s - or 1g, for that matter. This week Happy is getting 1g74s for his dream shards, and the buyers are happy to pay it.
Some markets can't really be predicted and so Happy has to roll with the flow. Items with an already low average cost and high demand typically see pricing all over the place. The high demand encourages farmers to drag in truckloads of the stuff, which sell briskly at first. But at the first sign of slowing demand, the price plummets as sellers try to wring that last bit of profit before the price drops too low. The farmers take a break and then suddenly there aren't enough for sale and demand spikes again. Happy rides that spike like a wave coming in off the Bonzai pipeline in Hawaii. Happy posts, it sells out, and he posts again at a higher price. Sometimes Happy can do this four or five times in a single day before demand is sated. Strange dust is like that, as are some of the low end essences like astral and mystic.
Finally, there are items that are so stable Happy rarely even looks at them more than once a day. Bags are like that. Happy selectively sells gem and herb bags which Wild makes. Happy has one major competitor in the bag market that Wild has known literally for years. We've never seen each other in game; never spoken or exchanged a single whisper. Yet we sell our stock at the exact same price - always. In two years we changed prices just once to adjust to rising prices on pre-cata mats needed for some of the bags. Other bag sellers underbid us now and then and we just let them. No one has had our staying power, as making and selling bags takes time and patience.
Happy has all the time and patience in the world.
Happy gets to talk about his favorite passion, but first, some guild news.
I don't think anyone would be surprised that the MM2 raid scheduled by Lady Hunter for Wednesday night did not happen. Wild meandered in game around 6:50pm, well after the 6:30pm start time, but even so there were no MM2 guildies around. No biggy, Wild had things to do, such as working on his Therazan and guild reputation. Wild became Revered with the MM guild Wednesday night - the same night that the MM guild reached level 20. There is one very nice bonus for achieving both - Heirloom helms are now available for purchase, and Wild has the rep to buy them. At 1500 gold each Wild bought only one so far - [Stained Shadowcraft Cap], a +agi helm that both Bean and Sista can take great advantage of. With the additional xp bonus the two of them will be getting a +35% experience bonus. Wow. Unfortunately the helm is only available on Wild's side of the family. JB is working on getting to level 85 and doing the things needed to increase her rep with the guild, but it is going to be quite awhile before she'll have access to the guild goodies.
Over to you, Happy.
Happy's posts about the hand-to-hand combat on the Auction House are not very popular (ie, they tend to be boring), but every now and then Happy needs a chance to wax poetic about his passion. Either that, or Happy gets grouchy, and nobody wants to see their banker get grouchy - it's not good for business.
The good news for all us guildies is that right after Wild spent that extravagant amount of gold on the Tsunami trinket, Happy had a run of very good luck over the next several days. Not all of that gold has been recouped yet, but certainly the greater part of it has. Happy is riding a wave of sales of large brilliant shards, greater eternal essences, and (to a lesser degree) illusion dust. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for the large brilliants. Happy had socked away several stacks when they were cheap, and was now pulling in 300% profit on each shard he sold. Each time his stock is nearly exhausted, some silly player drops a bunch on the AH at the "old" price - Happy buys them up and out they go again at Happy's "new" price.
Happy's competitors come and go, but he's recently been battling one that Happy intentionally undercuts every time I see one of his posts. He is usually pretty savvy in his pricing, but Happy's consistent undercutting seems to annoy him to the point of making dumb decisions - such as undercutting Happy's prices by large margins. If he goes low enough, Happy just buys him out and then reposts at the higher price. Sometimes Happy just opts to let him sell at that below market price, saving my stock until I get the price point I'm after. That's the situation with illusion dust right now. Out of the blue Happy's competitor dropped the price in half, when it was selling quite nicely at the higher price. Happy will just wait, and will get the higher price in time.
Then there was another seller who so annoyed Happy with his 1 copper underbids that Happy refused to buy anything he sold no matter what he posted it at. Given the sheer quantities of stuff Happy buys, the guy is not around much anymore.
Greater eternals require special handling. They are not easy to farm and therefore there are usually only small quantities available. There isn't any great demand, either - but when there is, the buyers will pay almost anything for them. Typical sellers don't know this, and routinely post greater eternals for sale at 15g each or less. Happy automatically buys every greater eternal listed for 10g or less. He waits for the right circumstances and sells them at 30g each (more if the buyers are still out there). Right now they are selling at 33g apiece, although once the buyers get what they want, the demand ends and the bottom falls out of the price.
Raising prices on items takes some research as well. Most items that Happy deals with have a price point that you know will sell, a price point where sales may be a little soft but you are still getting buyers, and a price point where the buyer just says no and either does without or goes farming for it himself. Whenever the price is raised there is the risk of getting into that third category. Prices go up most often in situations where a given item is completely bought out, a seller sees that he has (at least temporarily) control of that market, and he'll post very high prices hoping some few desperate buyers will make him rich. Usually those prices get underbid very quickly. Another reason to see high prices is when there is some market manipulation going on. A seller might have a good stock of some item, but doesn't like the price he'd have to sell them at. So, for a few days or more that seller might post very high prices on that item. He knows they won't sell, but he also knows that over time he can raise the average price of the item that is listed in the various action house addons. His "High priced" item will start to look more "reasonably priced." If sellers start seeing sales at those prices, their prices will go up, too.
Happy would "never" play the market like that. Ahem. But for the past three weeks or so Happy has "encouraged" sellers to raise the price of dream shards, which had become almost junk with prices under 50 silver each. Happy has something like 20 stacks of dream shards, but he'd let them melt back into the earth before he'd sell them at 50s - or 1g, for that matter. This week Happy is getting 1g74s for his dream shards, and the buyers are happy to pay it.
Some markets can't really be predicted and so Happy has to roll with the flow. Items with an already low average cost and high demand typically see pricing all over the place. The high demand encourages farmers to drag in truckloads of the stuff, which sell briskly at first. But at the first sign of slowing demand, the price plummets as sellers try to wring that last bit of profit before the price drops too low. The farmers take a break and then suddenly there aren't enough for sale and demand spikes again. Happy rides that spike like a wave coming in off the Bonzai pipeline in Hawaii. Happy posts, it sells out, and he posts again at a higher price. Sometimes Happy can do this four or five times in a single day before demand is sated. Strange dust is like that, as are some of the low end essences like astral and mystic.
Finally, there are items that are so stable Happy rarely even looks at them more than once a day. Bags are like that. Happy selectively sells gem and herb bags which Wild makes. Happy has one major competitor in the bag market that Wild has known literally for years. We've never seen each other in game; never spoken or exchanged a single whisper. Yet we sell our stock at the exact same price - always. In two years we changed prices just once to adjust to rising prices on pre-cata mats needed for some of the bags. Other bag sellers underbid us now and then and we just let them. No one has had our staying power, as making and selling bags takes time and patience.
Happy has all the time and patience in the world.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday (14 Mar) - Short Take
Monday (14 Mar) - Short Take
After the "tragic saga" (Lao's comment) of the computers I figured I'd go easy on ya today. It's short with only a little math involved. :P
Wild's plan to get the Best in slot (BiS) druid healing trinket called Darkmoon Card: Tsunami was for Philly to skill up to 525 in her Inscription profession and start making random darkmoon cards. At the same time Happy and Lost would be manning the Horde and Alliance Auction Houses hoping to get lucky on the price of cards being sold. Then Wild read that the typical cost to build a full set of eight cards by random crafting was usually far higher than just buying the Tsunami trinket off the AH. Last week the Tsunami trinket was listed on the AH at anywhere between 22k and 30k. That's in thousands of gold.
So, it wasn't cost feasible for Philly to try to make the cards. I wasn't going to pay over 20k gold for a single piece of gear, either. That left Happy and Lost trying to grab underpriced cards, and the set had to be put together by last Saturday or Wild would have to wait another month for the Darkmoon Fair to come back. Happy and Lost got to work.
Over 4-5 days I learned a lot about darkmoon cards - specifically the Waves set. I learned that the cheapest and most abundant waves cards were the three, four, five and seven. The most expensive were the ace and the eight (ie, the first and last cards in the deck). Wild was very strict with his directions - keep the price of each card under 1200g. Over a couple of days the two AH hounds came up with four cards that met that criteria. Pressed for time, Wild went slightly over 1200g for a fifth card. Then things got really tough. Wild had spent 5354g total on five cards, an average of 1071g per card. That gave Wild a little bit of a cushion, so he loosened the reins, asking for prices that were at least below market value. So far we had the three thru and seven cards. Lost turned up an ace that was 1500g under it's average selling price - the price was still high, but Wild went for it. The eight card was also bought at over a 100g less than the average price. And with time running out and Wild getting impatient he sucked it up and paid market price to get the only two card available. Wild had a full deck of waves cards.
Here are the final prices:
ace - 3500g
two - 1998g
three - 925g
four - 1100g
five - 1098g
six - 999g
seven - 1232g
eight - 2700g
Total cost - 13,552 gold
It's the most expensive thing I've ever bought, but at the same time I easily saved over 7000-10,000g had I just bought it off the AH.
That might get folks to thinking. If I can build a deck for 13-14k, and sell it for 20-25k, that would be a huge profit! Yes it would. But with huge profit comes huge risk. The Darkmoon Fair is only in town one week a month. It's the only time the cards can be turned in and the Tsunami trinket created. During that week I saw as many as six Tsunami trinkets for sale. Most I believe failed to sell, although I'm sure there were a lucky few sellers. There just aren't that many players out there with both the need and the gold to buy it. I think that eventually, over time, it would sell. The question is how long to take in getting the best bargain on individual cards, and then how patient can one be holding a trinket worth several thousands of gold for it to sell?
Wild, of course, equipped his. But Happy is still musing about the potential profit of building a second set.
After the "tragic saga" (Lao's comment) of the computers I figured I'd go easy on ya today. It's short with only a little math involved. :P
Wild's plan to get the Best in slot (BiS) druid healing trinket called Darkmoon Card: Tsunami was for Philly to skill up to 525 in her Inscription profession and start making random darkmoon cards. At the same time Happy and Lost would be manning the Horde and Alliance Auction Houses hoping to get lucky on the price of cards being sold. Then Wild read that the typical cost to build a full set of eight cards by random crafting was usually far higher than just buying the Tsunami trinket off the AH. Last week the Tsunami trinket was listed on the AH at anywhere between 22k and 30k. That's in thousands of gold.
So, it wasn't cost feasible for Philly to try to make the cards. I wasn't going to pay over 20k gold for a single piece of gear, either. That left Happy and Lost trying to grab underpriced cards, and the set had to be put together by last Saturday or Wild would have to wait another month for the Darkmoon Fair to come back. Happy and Lost got to work.
Over 4-5 days I learned a lot about darkmoon cards - specifically the Waves set. I learned that the cheapest and most abundant waves cards were the three, four, five and seven. The most expensive were the ace and the eight (ie, the first and last cards in the deck). Wild was very strict with his directions - keep the price of each card under 1200g. Over a couple of days the two AH hounds came up with four cards that met that criteria. Pressed for time, Wild went slightly over 1200g for a fifth card. Then things got really tough. Wild had spent 5354g total on five cards, an average of 1071g per card. That gave Wild a little bit of a cushion, so he loosened the reins, asking for prices that were at least below market value. So far we had the three thru and seven cards. Lost turned up an ace that was 1500g under it's average selling price - the price was still high, but Wild went for it. The eight card was also bought at over a 100g less than the average price. And with time running out and Wild getting impatient he sucked it up and paid market price to get the only two card available. Wild had a full deck of waves cards.
Here are the final prices:
ace - 3500g
two - 1998g
three - 925g
four - 1100g
five - 1098g
six - 999g
seven - 1232g
eight - 2700g
Total cost - 13,552 gold
It's the most expensive thing I've ever bought, but at the same time I easily saved over 7000-10,000g had I just bought it off the AH.
That might get folks to thinking. If I can build a deck for 13-14k, and sell it for 20-25k, that would be a huge profit! Yes it would. But with huge profit comes huge risk. The Darkmoon Fair is only in town one week a month. It's the only time the cards can be turned in and the Tsunami trinket created. During that week I saw as many as six Tsunami trinkets for sale. Most I believe failed to sell, although I'm sure there were a lucky few sellers. There just aren't that many players out there with both the need and the gold to buy it. I think that eventually, over time, it would sell. The question is how long to take in getting the best bargain on individual cards, and then how patient can one be holding a trinket worth several thousands of gold for it to sell?
Wild, of course, equipped his. But Happy is still musing about the potential profit of building a second set.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sunday (13 Mar) - Beware the Serial Computer Killer
Sunday (13 Mar) - Beware the Serial Computer Killer
This is a compilation of the computer problems that have been plaguing me for almost all of 2011 so far. It's a tale that were I not experiencing it I would not have believed. I pulled all of the old posts referring to those problems and repeated them here in order to have a complete chronology of events. The repeated posts are labeled as such and you can skip down to "The NEW Stuff!" below if all you want is the latest entry.
(repeat) Weekend (31 Jan) - Got The Blues
My aging Linksys cable modem was starting to have drop out issues. They were rare (a couple of times a day) and short (just a few seconds) but it was enough to DC me in WoW when it happened. The Mrs noticed the drop outs as well. We also have a shared drive where we keep things like our image folders and backups. That drive went belly up recently and I needed to get that back into working order as well. Third, we upgraded our cable TV system this past week so that the Mrs can watch her DVRed shows in any of the three rooms where we have a TV. It also coincidentally upgraded us to full HDTV, even though only one of our TVs is Hi-Def (the one in my office). Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm thinking I already mentioned this but I don't see it in the blog. Oh well.
So, all of that took time. The Linksys modem is now gone, replaced by a wired/wireless combo cable modem from Motorola. I was also able to get rid of the separate wireless router I was using, as well as eliminate a router extender that was also hooked in. Not bad, replacing three boxes with one. And the signal has been clean and steady.
Then I tackled getting a new external hard drive connected into the network for our shared drive, and the time it took to reload all the stuff we'd had on the old defunct drive.
(end 31 Jan repeat)
(repeat) Weekend (6 Feb) - Chaitee Destroyed My Computer
Weekend (6 Feb) - Chaitee Destroyed My Computer
[Note - Between the last entry above and the one below my main computer blew a power supply which also took out the CPU fan. I had the repair shop confirm the damage and check to the rest of the hardware, which came back as fine. I replaced the power supply and CPU fan and went back to using the computer, but continued to have intermittent problems. Concerned that the hard drive could be failing, I started a chkdsk program to see if the hard drive was ok.]
It's Saturday afternoon and I am doing a check of my hard drive. That check has been in progress for most of four hours now - it's 52% complete. I'm writing this on my "old and slow" computer.
On saturday morning Chaitee was in Darkshore. When I logged on, having Chaitee in game and in Darkshore was the farthest thing from my mind. Daethbot logged in a little later and said Hi and asked how things were going.
Well, I wasn't sure, since what I thought I was doing this morning was cleaning out and organizing the horde side bank. How that task wound up with Alliance toon Chaitee in Darkshore is a long story. So of course you know I'm going to tell it.
But first, excuse me while I go off to do a honeydo. I may not have a weekday 9-5 job, but that doesn't exempt yours truly from Saturday chores.
When I came back to the computer the disk check was at 54%. Definitely taking it's time.
Before we get to Chaitee, it was JB who was the first in game on Saturday morning (after Happy and Lost did their AH business, of course; oh, and after Melasahnd and Rakta did some neutral AH work). Ok, so JB was the fifth in game on Saturday morning.
The day before, JB, Philly, Sis, and Lao all collaborated on a project that ended with most of the pre-cata jewelcrafting mats being used to make the pre-cata purple gems. With a bunch of those gems crafted, a large chunk of old, lesser gems could be vendored off to make room for the better ones. If you've already forgotten, the plan was to clean up and organize the horde side bank. All well and good.
The disk check was up to 60%.
JB decided to take the bit of bank cleaning a little further. A rather significant number of bank slots across all four tabs were mats for the cooking profession. Just about everything imaginable, from eggs and wings to meat from just about every animal that walked on Azeroth. And the fish! Gah!
Well, it was stinking up the place and something had to be done. Of course, that stuff would not be vendored. No! This was stuff that could be used. Nobody was using it, which was why it was still sitting in the bank - but that was a mere detail. It would not affect JB's plans.
JB set out to count, categorize and assign action on every piece of rotting flesh and hacked up body part. She checked the cooking abilities of every member of the Wild Clan, both Horde and Alliance. Someone had to need this stuff, and JB was determined to find out who was going to be the recipient of all this dripping largesse.
Well, all politics and behind the scene deals aside, the "winner" of JB's food bank was Sista. Sista didn't know that she was the chosen one, but again - small detail.
It was time for action. JB still had one detail to attend to, however. Nearly all of the cooking materials on hand were for recipes beginning around the 175 skill level. That was a bit of an inconvenience, since Sista was at only skill 61 in cooking. What to do, what to do?
Well, there were these crabs. They roamed all over the shores of Darkshore, and the crab meat and crab claws just happened to make pretty good cooking at the level Sista would need. Someone had to go out and kill those crabs. Sista could do it, but she was already a lofty level 35 and killing those Darkshore crabs wouldn't get her a single experience point. JB needed a better volunteer, one who could benefit from all that crab killin'.
Enter Chaitee. Level 20 Chaitee was at just the right level - high enough to make the killing fast, low enough to get some nice xp from the effort. When informed of JB's plans, Chaitee eagerly accepted. She was monumentally bored just sitting in Stormwind. Chaitee wanted to be fully equipped for the journey, so Rakta had to give up her heirloom bow, and Mery sent over her chest, shoulder, and trinket heirlooms.
The disk check was up to 65% now. Still slow, but still chugging along.
Chaitee was ready to go. Almost. See, Chaitee had not done any cooking at all. Couldn't she take just a little time to get the basics done? Without waiting for an answer, Chaitee headed for the tavern where the cooking trainer hung out. Well, to be perfectly accurate, she had to ask at least three guards how to find the place. But she did, and made flour and spice bread to get to 40 skill in cooking. Chaitee thought that was great fun. She loaded up on more recipes and then raided the guild bank - the Alliance guild bank - of whatever cooking mats it held. Coupled with some mats left over from her leveling days with Java, Chaitee got up to 60 skill, right up there with Sista.
Chaitee was in Stormwind City, by the way. So she had to take the ship in Stormwind harbor over to whatever that lonely coastal town is called on Teldrassil, and then talked a flight master into carting her to Darkshore. Chaitee and her combat pet Tazzy then walked the length and breadth of Darkshore, killing those crabs, and anything else that caught their attention. Chaitee DINGED! to level 21 and collected enough mats for her and Sista both to keep leveling their cooking.
Chaitee wanted to head back to Stormwind, meet up with Sista, and share the spoils. She splashed her way to the boardwalk in the little Darkshore town of Lor'Danel and asked the flight master to take her home - and that was when the computer froze, and the mouse, and the keyboard, and Windows refused to reboot or reload, and that's why I'm writing this on my old backup computer and watching chkdsk tic off the percentage completed on the likely mortally wounded hard drive.
The disk check was at 65% when I was called to dinner.
After dinner Chaitee gave the "old and slow" computer a chance to continue the project. She returned to Stormwind and Sista joined her shortly thereafter. Chaitee's excellent work provided the means for Sista to reach skill 181 in cooking. Sista quickly got into the spirit and decided to take on the next leg of the project. Even as Melasahnd and Rakta were preparing to start transferring mats such as Red Wolf Meat, Tender Wolf Meat, Bear Flanks, Small Flame Sacs, and Mystery Meat, Sista was making her way to the other continent.
After a bit more than six hours run time, chkdsk reported that everything was fine now. I was dubious that "fine" captured the state of that hard drive.
The chkdsk had been executed by using the Windows boot disk using the command line only. About all I could say about that was the core memory seemed ok. There was only one way to find out if the hard drive really was operational and sane. I rebooted the computer from the hard drive (instead of the boot disk) and asked Windows to go into Safe Mode. I was pretty shocked when the computer did boot properly into safe mode. This was too good to be true, but I wasn't wasting the good fortune. Not sure how long it would last, I started backing up files onto another drive. Once all the really important stuff was taken care of, I decided to do a full boot. And it worked. The hard drive is operational again. I don't trust it, though, and I haven't attempted to run WoW on it. Just running normal programs causes strange sounds to emanate from the computer. It's either the hard drive itself, or it could be the power supply. I'm hoping it's the power supply. I just had that replaced recently and it was still under warranty.
Since it looked like I was not going to be using my main computer for awhile, I mirrored my main computer WoW configuration on my backup computer. WoW runs slower and is prone to lag, but should be workable. Except for dungeons and raiding. Which puts Wild's Wed/Thurs raid plans in jeopardy.
I'm not complaining, though. A lot of work is still ahead. But it could have been oh so much worse.
(end 6 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Tuesday Night (8 Feb) - Hitting The Dungeons
My main computer is still at the shop. I'm hoping to hear back from them today, at least to find out what they think is wrong.
(end 8 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Saturday (12 Feb) - Computer Woes
[Note - Despite the thumbs up from the chkdsk I wound up taking it back to the shop for further diagnostics. Something was still wrong. ]
On the computer front things were not as far along as Wild's gear improvements. The repair shop concluded that hardware was not the problem. Everything checked out. The problem was a corrupted Windows operating system (O/S). Since the shop wanted a fortune to fix that, and even with that would leave me having to reinstall all of the drivers and programs I needed, I opted to take my baby home and nurse it back to health myself.
I had three choices: (1) I could attempt a repair of the O/S. That was the simplest method, and sometimes it even worked. The benefit is that all of my drivers and programs would still be there. More often, though, it only partially works, leaving problems that don't crop up until later. (2) Do a fresh install of the O/S. This would wipe the drive, so I would have to be VERY, VERY sure I backed up everything important. A fresh install would clean out two years worth of accumulation of small problems as well as likely improving performance. Of course, I'd still have to re-install everything. (3) Buy a new hard drive and install the O/S on that drive. The only difference between this and (2) is that I would still have the old drive available in case my backup missed something important. One downside is that my computer already has three hard drives in it and things are a bit crowded in there. Installing a new drive is also an extra step and would take longer.
One other option is to buy a new computer. However, the current computer, although two years old, still has a lot of life in it. It would benefit from a more current video card and 6GB of RAM instead of it's current 4GB, but other than that it's as good as any mid-level computer I could buy today.
I don't feel like adding yet another hard drive to the computer as I already have three terabytes worth of space to work with. And I don't think a repair will fix a corrupted O/S that's probably been suspect since that first power spike took out my power supply. So, I'm going to make doubly sure I have everything backed up, and go with option (2). Pray for me.
(end 12 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Monday (14 Feb)- Hearnoevils and the Rest of the Hunter Fortress
The big news over the weekend was getting my computer put back together and operating semi-normally.
(end 14 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Sunday (20 Feb) - Shevils Gets a Job with Naithipe's Help
[Another computer failure has caused delays in posting - this should have been posted several days ago. Additional posts will follow to get caught up. The computer has got to go.]
(end 20 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Monday (21 Feb) - Computer Tales of Woe
Over the weekend my main computer, having been renewed with a complete hard drive wipe and a fresh, pristine install of Windows XP, crashed three times. It crashed twice while in Warcraft, and a third time while doing nothing but copying files. Each time it took several tries to get the computer running again. I'd had enough.
This being President's Day weekend, I figured this was a good time to find a good buy on a computer. I would have thought that any good mid-range computer would be an upgrade to my current computer, which I bought in 2008. Well, what I'd forgotten was that I had been fairly diligent in upgrading the computer over the past two years plus, and the standard offerings came up short of what I already had. I had to go into gaming computer configurations to find something that would actually be an upgrade to my ailing computer. Worse for me was that I was feeling a bit desperate, having spent uncounted hours installing, uninstalling, and fixing things for the past several days with very little to show for it. I just wanted to get a replacement computer that I was happy with, get it set up, and get back to normal. We were also painting Judi's room and doing some heavy duty clean up of the walk-in closet/storage area in that room, so most of the upstairs was in complete disarray.
Saturday afternoon I rejected dozens of potential systems. Most frustrating was that stock systems nearly always skimp on the video card, and that wouldn't do. I ultimately settled on an Acer system that had all of the important components I was looking for, including a decent video card. It's a good system, far better than my old "main" computer. It's also very quiet and saves energy when idle. I probably paid too much for it, but it should last me a good long while.
I then spent the rest of the weekend installing and setting things up to suit me. I'm still not there as of Sunday afternoon, but I have email, and I have WoW. And a system that should work well with the video stuff I do (although that's not yet installed).
(end 21 Feb repeat)
The NEW Stuff!
When Wildshard learned on Friday (11 Mar) that there was only one more day left in the Darkmoon Fair, he knew Happy and Lost would have to work much faster on gathering the cards needed for the Darkmoon Tsunami Deck. That goal would soon get swept away, though, by the gathering clouds of yet another round of Computer Woes.
This time, it was the Mrs' computer that took it's turn causing trouble. In early March an unfortunate and unintentional break in the anti-virus protection opened the door to some very nasty malware. I spent several days tracking the monsters down and killing them. But they had taken a firm foothold, locking up the system and laughing at the pitiful software I had to fight them with. I took the computer to the professionals and a couple of days later it was declared clean. I took it home. It wasn't clean. The demons had returned. Note that at no time did I allow that computer access to the internet while testing it once I got it home. I took it back a second time. They went back after it with a vengeance. Declared it clean. I took it home. It still wouldn't function. On the third trip they were finally victorious. No more viruses. I took it home. It worked fine. For a day. And the system failed again. The malware was truly gone - or at least it could no longer be detected by anything I had or the shop had. It appeared that there had been collateral damage - the Windows operating system (O/S) was corrupted. A Windows repair failed. We then did a complete hard drive wipe and clean install of Windows. The computer ran for an hour and then locked down once again. We were out of ideas. So, a second computer (this one and my former main computer) was now pushing up daisies.
On Friday, 11 March I brought home a new computer (HP Pavilion) for the Mrs. It was around lunchtime and I had several hours available to get the computer set up and all the programs and files installed. It's a slow process, but everything went fine - until I opened Internet Explorer (the web browser). It gave me strange errors, or went into waiting mode and stayed there. Sometimes it would load a page from the internet - sometimes it would return pure unintelligible garbage. My other computer connected to the internet just fine. So did Beano's computer (the one I call "old and slow"). After finding nothing I could fix, I started calling. I called Cox cable - no issues with the cable connection. I called Motorola, the modem/router company - they did some diagnostics and confirmed that there was a good internet connection even if the new computer didn't seem to understand it was there. The problem seemed to be with Internet Explorer. I don't like Internet Explorer, but I needed it to function long enough for me to download and install the Firefox browser - but it just wouldn't function coherently long enough for me to do that.
I finally called HP, the computer manufacturer. I was pleasantly surprised when I got a human person after only about 15 minutes of waiting. Her name was Sara. She would be happy to help me. Little did she know what she was in for. It was going on 4pm when Sara joined the party. Her accent was a little hard to understand, but not as bad as some techs I've talked to on the phone. The only word that really had me stumped (and Sara showing just the tiniest bit of frustration) was "tombs." Tomb's? I kept repeating, and then she'd repeat it and it again sounded like "tombs." I finally asked her to spell it, and she spelled out "tools." I could almost here the pages turning as she read the scripts telling her what steps to take, and we took every single one to try and diagnose the problem, including redoing all the steps I had already done before I called. The browser refused to cooperate, being stubbornly even harder to understand that Sara. Running a Ping to websites on the net showed a clean, error free connection to the internet. But something was stopping traffic.
Sara had more scripts to try. She was immensely patient. She left for five minutes at a time to get more instructions and scripts. It was now closing in on 5pm, and Sara asked me to disconnect the power to the computer and then to hold down the power button for thirty seconds. When I asked her why she said that we were going to do a full recovery - a complete hard drive wipe and re-install using the installed recovery software that came with the computer.
All the time this has been going on I've been walking back and forth down the hall between the Mrs computer and my own. I was trying to get that Darkmoon set completed - and now there was also the growing specter of the 5:30pm raid Wild had signed up for. At 5:15pm Wild had time to get off a quick whisper to a friend I knew had signed up for the raid, letting him know I was running behind.
Once the terabyte hard drive reformatting was underway I knew I had some time. I contacted the raid leader, Fn, and explained my situation. I could envision Fn rolling his eyes heavenward and wondering, Why me? before replying "We really need you, Wild." I told him how much I wanted to be there and asked him to give me a little more time. It was 5:40pm.
The formatting finally completed and then a long series of installs began to put the system software back to it's factory defaults. I talked to Fn once again while that was going on. He was calling off the raid. Not because of Wild, thank goodness, but because he was short three raiders. Well, that didn't make me happy, either, but at least I wasn't the cause.
Finally, everything was set back to where it was when I carried it home from the store. We opened Internet Explorer. And it was still broke.
Sara then changed from her "let's fix it" scripts to her "let's get this dude off the phone ASAP" scripts because we obviously sold him a bum computer. Sara announced that the recovery module itself must be corrupted. Sara offered the suggestion that I run the recovery module and create the three recovery discs I would need to go through a second recovery attempt, as if that solved the problem. Well, I guess it solved her problem, but not mine. I pointed out that seconds before she had told me that the recovery module was corrupted - so wouldn't the discs that it would create also likely be corrupted?
She changed tack, and offered that she could mail me a set of good recovery discs absolutely free. I politely declined, and told her that what I really wanted was to return this broken piece of you know what to the store where I bought it from and have it replaced. I'm sure her script told her not to offer that particular solution, but I guess since I did the asking, she looked over her script, heaved a great sigh, and admitted that perhaps that would work.
What do I think happened to the computer? Sara's script led her to think that a static charge had its way with the hard drive, corrupting the browser and recovery software (and perhaps other things we would have found later). The holding down of the power button for thirty seconds was how you dissipate a static charge. I never knew that. My theory is that the computer was dead on arrival, and all that effort had been a waste of time. I'd officially killed my third computer.
Not wanting to give anyone a chance to back out of the replacement option, I was packing things back into the box before she had finished her closing remarks. It was 7pm. The store was open until 9pm. The Mrs and I both jumped in the car and headed for the store.
We came home with a new computer, exactly like the first one. It's still the box. I need to recuperate, and will tackle the new computer in the morning.
Saturday, 12 March - On Saturday I killed my fourth computer. To make a long story short I reached the exact same point as I had with the last computer, and began having the exact same problems. Calling HP wasn't an option. They would just walk through the same scripted support and I already knew that wouldn't work. I called my brother, who is a software tech but who has also run and maintained the business network where he works. We tossed around some ideas and my brother suggested it might be a bad cable cord, or a bad slot on the modem. Funny, the Mrs had mentioned that earlier. A test connection using a very low speed setting seemed to indicate that there was a cable cord problem. Maybe we were on to something. To check that out, I decided to set up the wireless settings since this computer had wireless connectivity as an option. The implementation went smoothly and everything looked fine - until I opened Internet Explorer. The prior problems still persisted. It wasn't the cable cord.
The poor Mrs. She had gone to pick up one of our cats from the vet, and when she came home she saw the latest computer all packed up and back in it's box. Or coffin.
Back to the store I went. By coincidence or serendipity I was waited on by the same employee who replaced the computer the night before. Her name was Marissa. She recognized me, and she recognized the box. Her eyebrows went up. "Yep," I said, "This one is bad, too. Same problem." Then I told her about the additional testing I'd done on the cable and wireless.
I wanted a refund. However, if there was a tech available to check out the computer I'd be willing to see if there were something I missed, and that I was very curious to know what the cause could be that would affect two new computers in the exact same way. Marissa was as curious about it as I was, and she got a tech to come out and check out the computer while we watched. I had mixed feelings about what I wanted to see happen: I wanted to be vindicated since I thought I had done everything possible to fix the problem; but then again, if there were a fix I had missed then I could take home the computer I had picked out to start with.
The tech started up the computer and hooked it into the store wireless LAN. The home page popped up - well, half of it did, anyway. We watched the screen do nothing else for a couple of minutes. I kept silent. He went into the "tombs" menu (uh, I mean the "Tools" menu) and changed some settings. The new page would still not complete loading. He Pinged his LAN. All was normal. He got sneaky and installed another browser, Firefox, from his thumb drive. It complained it had no internet connection.
The stoic faced tech said "Hmmm." Marissa couldn't stand it anymore. "So, is it working?" The tech said, "Well . . . sorta no."
Why two computers of the exact same brand and model would both break with the exact same symptoms will likely remain a mystery. The tech had two theories, but they were only theories. One, the network card could be bad on both computers. Or, and most likely in my opinion, the drive image impressed on the hard drive at the factory was faulty. That would mean that every computer in the group that got that specific image would all have the exact same fault.
It was time to negotiate. I told Marissa that I was not buying another HP of any type, but I still needed a computer. I wanted a computer with similar specs as my first choice and I wanted it at the same price. I knew from checking out every computer they had for sale on Friday night that they'd have a hard time matching both features and price. Marissa talked to the head of the PC department, and he turned me over to one of his salesman to find me what I wanted.
He hunted and he searched, and he finally showed me an Acer computer in one of those slimmed down cases. The features and specs were hands down better than those on the HP. However, small factor cases present some additional challenges. First, it is impossible - or at least very hard - to upgrade these computers. There isn't any extra room inside the case, and even if you could pry something in there it would likely mess with the already restricted air flow and cause heat issues. Given those two disadvantages, I thought that I needed extra protection in case problems arose. I asked him to add their two year extended warranty to the deal.
The salesman gulped and responded that the computer was already sale priced and was worth over $100 more than the computer I'd returned. I reminded him that the returned computer was the second faulty computer that had been sold to me in the last two days. He said he'd have to talk to his supervisor. I said sure. In the end I paid $40 over the price of the HP (without the extended warranty) to get the better Acer computer and the two year extended warranty. I was very happy with that deal.
And the best news of all? I had no trouble setting it up. The internet connection worked fine and I quickly ditched Internet Explorer and installed Firefox as the browser. All's well that ends well, but what a trip!
Sunday (13 Mar) - You are starting to wonder if this adventure will ever end, right? Yep, I spoke too soon. With the computer up and running, I needed to reload all the backed up data files from the external backup drive. It had been checked out as clean of viruses by the repair shop and myself when I got it back from the shop. Being extra cautious, however, I had the anti-virus software scan the external drive again. And it found a virus. Or should I say, viruses.
But I cleaned them out and yes, I can say, finally, that the Mrs has her computer back.
This is a compilation of the computer problems that have been plaguing me for almost all of 2011 so far. It's a tale that were I not experiencing it I would not have believed. I pulled all of the old posts referring to those problems and repeated them here in order to have a complete chronology of events. The repeated posts are labeled as such and you can skip down to "The NEW Stuff!" below if all you want is the latest entry.
(repeat) Weekend (31 Jan) - Got The Blues
My aging Linksys cable modem was starting to have drop out issues. They were rare (a couple of times a day) and short (just a few seconds) but it was enough to DC me in WoW when it happened. The Mrs noticed the drop outs as well. We also have a shared drive where we keep things like our image folders and backups. That drive went belly up recently and I needed to get that back into working order as well. Third, we upgraded our cable TV system this past week so that the Mrs can watch her DVRed shows in any of the three rooms where we have a TV. It also coincidentally upgraded us to full HDTV, even though only one of our TVs is Hi-Def (the one in my office). Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm thinking I already mentioned this but I don't see it in the blog. Oh well.
So, all of that took time. The Linksys modem is now gone, replaced by a wired/wireless combo cable modem from Motorola. I was also able to get rid of the separate wireless router I was using, as well as eliminate a router extender that was also hooked in. Not bad, replacing three boxes with one. And the signal has been clean and steady.
Then I tackled getting a new external hard drive connected into the network for our shared drive, and the time it took to reload all the stuff we'd had on the old defunct drive.
(end 31 Jan repeat)
(repeat) Weekend (6 Feb) - Chaitee Destroyed My Computer
Weekend (6 Feb) - Chaitee Destroyed My Computer
[Note - Between the last entry above and the one below my main computer blew a power supply which also took out the CPU fan. I had the repair shop confirm the damage and check to the rest of the hardware, which came back as fine. I replaced the power supply and CPU fan and went back to using the computer, but continued to have intermittent problems. Concerned that the hard drive could be failing, I started a chkdsk program to see if the hard drive was ok.]
It's Saturday afternoon and I am doing a check of my hard drive. That check has been in progress for most of four hours now - it's 52% complete. I'm writing this on my "old and slow" computer.
On saturday morning Chaitee was in Darkshore. When I logged on, having Chaitee in game and in Darkshore was the farthest thing from my mind. Daethbot logged in a little later and said Hi and asked how things were going.
Well, I wasn't sure, since what I thought I was doing this morning was cleaning out and organizing the horde side bank. How that task wound up with Alliance toon Chaitee in Darkshore is a long story. So of course you know I'm going to tell it.
But first, excuse me while I go off to do a honeydo. I may not have a weekday 9-5 job, but that doesn't exempt yours truly from Saturday chores.
When I came back to the computer the disk check was at 54%. Definitely taking it's time.
Before we get to Chaitee, it was JB who was the first in game on Saturday morning (after Happy and Lost did their AH business, of course; oh, and after Melasahnd and Rakta did some neutral AH work). Ok, so JB was the fifth in game on Saturday morning.
The day before, JB, Philly, Sis, and Lao all collaborated on a project that ended with most of the pre-cata jewelcrafting mats being used to make the pre-cata purple gems. With a bunch of those gems crafted, a large chunk of old, lesser gems could be vendored off to make room for the better ones. If you've already forgotten, the plan was to clean up and organize the horde side bank. All well and good.
The disk check was up to 60%.
JB decided to take the bit of bank cleaning a little further. A rather significant number of bank slots across all four tabs were mats for the cooking profession. Just about everything imaginable, from eggs and wings to meat from just about every animal that walked on Azeroth. And the fish! Gah!
Well, it was stinking up the place and something had to be done. Of course, that stuff would not be vendored. No! This was stuff that could be used. Nobody was using it, which was why it was still sitting in the bank - but that was a mere detail. It would not affect JB's plans.
JB set out to count, categorize and assign action on every piece of rotting flesh and hacked up body part. She checked the cooking abilities of every member of the Wild Clan, both Horde and Alliance. Someone had to need this stuff, and JB was determined to find out who was going to be the recipient of all this dripping largesse.
Well, all politics and behind the scene deals aside, the "winner" of JB's food bank was Sista. Sista didn't know that she was the chosen one, but again - small detail.
It was time for action. JB still had one detail to attend to, however. Nearly all of the cooking materials on hand were for recipes beginning around the 175 skill level. That was a bit of an inconvenience, since Sista was at only skill 61 in cooking. What to do, what to do?
Well, there were these crabs. They roamed all over the shores of Darkshore, and the crab meat and crab claws just happened to make pretty good cooking at the level Sista would need. Someone had to go out and kill those crabs. Sista could do it, but she was already a lofty level 35 and killing those Darkshore crabs wouldn't get her a single experience point. JB needed a better volunteer, one who could benefit from all that crab killin'.
Enter Chaitee. Level 20 Chaitee was at just the right level - high enough to make the killing fast, low enough to get some nice xp from the effort. When informed of JB's plans, Chaitee eagerly accepted. She was monumentally bored just sitting in Stormwind. Chaitee wanted to be fully equipped for the journey, so Rakta had to give up her heirloom bow, and Mery sent over her chest, shoulder, and trinket heirlooms.
The disk check was up to 65% now. Still slow, but still chugging along.
Chaitee was ready to go. Almost. See, Chaitee had not done any cooking at all. Couldn't she take just a little time to get the basics done? Without waiting for an answer, Chaitee headed for the tavern where the cooking trainer hung out. Well, to be perfectly accurate, she had to ask at least three guards how to find the place. But she did, and made flour and spice bread to get to 40 skill in cooking. Chaitee thought that was great fun. She loaded up on more recipes and then raided the guild bank - the Alliance guild bank - of whatever cooking mats it held. Coupled with some mats left over from her leveling days with Java, Chaitee got up to 60 skill, right up there with Sista.
Chaitee was in Stormwind City, by the way. So she had to take the ship in Stormwind harbor over to whatever that lonely coastal town is called on Teldrassil, and then talked a flight master into carting her to Darkshore. Chaitee and her combat pet Tazzy then walked the length and breadth of Darkshore, killing those crabs, and anything else that caught their attention. Chaitee DINGED! to level 21 and collected enough mats for her and Sista both to keep leveling their cooking.
Chaitee wanted to head back to Stormwind, meet up with Sista, and share the spoils. She splashed her way to the boardwalk in the little Darkshore town of Lor'Danel and asked the flight master to take her home - and that was when the computer froze, and the mouse, and the keyboard, and Windows refused to reboot or reload, and that's why I'm writing this on my old backup computer and watching chkdsk tic off the percentage completed on the likely mortally wounded hard drive.
The disk check was at 65% when I was called to dinner.
After dinner Chaitee gave the "old and slow" computer a chance to continue the project. She returned to Stormwind and Sista joined her shortly thereafter. Chaitee's excellent work provided the means for Sista to reach skill 181 in cooking. Sista quickly got into the spirit and decided to take on the next leg of the project. Even as Melasahnd and Rakta were preparing to start transferring mats such as Red Wolf Meat, Tender Wolf Meat, Bear Flanks, Small Flame Sacs, and Mystery Meat, Sista was making her way to the other continent.
After a bit more than six hours run time, chkdsk reported that everything was fine now. I was dubious that "fine" captured the state of that hard drive.
The chkdsk had been executed by using the Windows boot disk using the command line only. About all I could say about that was the core memory seemed ok. There was only one way to find out if the hard drive really was operational and sane. I rebooted the computer from the hard drive (instead of the boot disk) and asked Windows to go into Safe Mode. I was pretty shocked when the computer did boot properly into safe mode. This was too good to be true, but I wasn't wasting the good fortune. Not sure how long it would last, I started backing up files onto another drive. Once all the really important stuff was taken care of, I decided to do a full boot. And it worked. The hard drive is operational again. I don't trust it, though, and I haven't attempted to run WoW on it. Just running normal programs causes strange sounds to emanate from the computer. It's either the hard drive itself, or it could be the power supply. I'm hoping it's the power supply. I just had that replaced recently and it was still under warranty.
Since it looked like I was not going to be using my main computer for awhile, I mirrored my main computer WoW configuration on my backup computer. WoW runs slower and is prone to lag, but should be workable. Except for dungeons and raiding. Which puts Wild's Wed/Thurs raid plans in jeopardy.
I'm not complaining, though. A lot of work is still ahead. But it could have been oh so much worse.
(end 6 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Tuesday Night (8 Feb) - Hitting The Dungeons
My main computer is still at the shop. I'm hoping to hear back from them today, at least to find out what they think is wrong.
(end 8 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Saturday (12 Feb) - Computer Woes
[Note - Despite the thumbs up from the chkdsk I wound up taking it back to the shop for further diagnostics. Something was still wrong. ]
On the computer front things were not as far along as Wild's gear improvements. The repair shop concluded that hardware was not the problem. Everything checked out. The problem was a corrupted Windows operating system (O/S). Since the shop wanted a fortune to fix that, and even with that would leave me having to reinstall all of the drivers and programs I needed, I opted to take my baby home and nurse it back to health myself.
I had three choices: (1) I could attempt a repair of the O/S. That was the simplest method, and sometimes it even worked. The benefit is that all of my drivers and programs would still be there. More often, though, it only partially works, leaving problems that don't crop up until later. (2) Do a fresh install of the O/S. This would wipe the drive, so I would have to be VERY, VERY sure I backed up everything important. A fresh install would clean out two years worth of accumulation of small problems as well as likely improving performance. Of course, I'd still have to re-install everything. (3) Buy a new hard drive and install the O/S on that drive. The only difference between this and (2) is that I would still have the old drive available in case my backup missed something important. One downside is that my computer already has three hard drives in it and things are a bit crowded in there. Installing a new drive is also an extra step and would take longer.
One other option is to buy a new computer. However, the current computer, although two years old, still has a lot of life in it. It would benefit from a more current video card and 6GB of RAM instead of it's current 4GB, but other than that it's as good as any mid-level computer I could buy today.
I don't feel like adding yet another hard drive to the computer as I already have three terabytes worth of space to work with. And I don't think a repair will fix a corrupted O/S that's probably been suspect since that first power spike took out my power supply. So, I'm going to make doubly sure I have everything backed up, and go with option (2). Pray for me.
(end 12 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Monday (14 Feb)- Hearnoevils and the Rest of the Hunter Fortress
The big news over the weekend was getting my computer put back together and operating semi-normally.
(end 14 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Sunday (20 Feb) - Shevils Gets a Job with Naithipe's Help
[Another computer failure has caused delays in posting - this should have been posted several days ago. Additional posts will follow to get caught up. The computer has got to go.]
(end 20 Feb repeat)
(repeat) Monday (21 Feb) - Computer Tales of Woe
Over the weekend my main computer, having been renewed with a complete hard drive wipe and a fresh, pristine install of Windows XP, crashed three times. It crashed twice while in Warcraft, and a third time while doing nothing but copying files. Each time it took several tries to get the computer running again. I'd had enough.
This being President's Day weekend, I figured this was a good time to find a good buy on a computer. I would have thought that any good mid-range computer would be an upgrade to my current computer, which I bought in 2008. Well, what I'd forgotten was that I had been fairly diligent in upgrading the computer over the past two years plus, and the standard offerings came up short of what I already had. I had to go into gaming computer configurations to find something that would actually be an upgrade to my ailing computer. Worse for me was that I was feeling a bit desperate, having spent uncounted hours installing, uninstalling, and fixing things for the past several days with very little to show for it. I just wanted to get a replacement computer that I was happy with, get it set up, and get back to normal. We were also painting Judi's room and doing some heavy duty clean up of the walk-in closet/storage area in that room, so most of the upstairs was in complete disarray.
Saturday afternoon I rejected dozens of potential systems. Most frustrating was that stock systems nearly always skimp on the video card, and that wouldn't do. I ultimately settled on an Acer system that had all of the important components I was looking for, including a decent video card. It's a good system, far better than my old "main" computer. It's also very quiet and saves energy when idle. I probably paid too much for it, but it should last me a good long while.
I then spent the rest of the weekend installing and setting things up to suit me. I'm still not there as of Sunday afternoon, but I have email, and I have WoW. And a system that should work well with the video stuff I do (although that's not yet installed).
(end 21 Feb repeat)
The NEW Stuff!
When Wildshard learned on Friday (11 Mar) that there was only one more day left in the Darkmoon Fair, he knew Happy and Lost would have to work much faster on gathering the cards needed for the Darkmoon Tsunami Deck. That goal would soon get swept away, though, by the gathering clouds of yet another round of Computer Woes.
This time, it was the Mrs' computer that took it's turn causing trouble. In early March an unfortunate and unintentional break in the anti-virus protection opened the door to some very nasty malware. I spent several days tracking the monsters down and killing them. But they had taken a firm foothold, locking up the system and laughing at the pitiful software I had to fight them with. I took the computer to the professionals and a couple of days later it was declared clean. I took it home. It wasn't clean. The demons had returned. Note that at no time did I allow that computer access to the internet while testing it once I got it home. I took it back a second time. They went back after it with a vengeance. Declared it clean. I took it home. It still wouldn't function. On the third trip they were finally victorious. No more viruses. I took it home. It worked fine. For a day. And the system failed again. The malware was truly gone - or at least it could no longer be detected by anything I had or the shop had. It appeared that there had been collateral damage - the Windows operating system (O/S) was corrupted. A Windows repair failed. We then did a complete hard drive wipe and clean install of Windows. The computer ran for an hour and then locked down once again. We were out of ideas. So, a second computer (this one and my former main computer) was now pushing up daisies.
On Friday, 11 March I brought home a new computer (HP Pavilion) for the Mrs. It was around lunchtime and I had several hours available to get the computer set up and all the programs and files installed. It's a slow process, but everything went fine - until I opened Internet Explorer (the web browser). It gave me strange errors, or went into waiting mode and stayed there. Sometimes it would load a page from the internet - sometimes it would return pure unintelligible garbage. My other computer connected to the internet just fine. So did Beano's computer (the one I call "old and slow"). After finding nothing I could fix, I started calling. I called Cox cable - no issues with the cable connection. I called Motorola, the modem/router company - they did some diagnostics and confirmed that there was a good internet connection even if the new computer didn't seem to understand it was there. The problem seemed to be with Internet Explorer. I don't like Internet Explorer, but I needed it to function long enough for me to download and install the Firefox browser - but it just wouldn't function coherently long enough for me to do that.
I finally called HP, the computer manufacturer. I was pleasantly surprised when I got a human person after only about 15 minutes of waiting. Her name was Sara. She would be happy to help me. Little did she know what she was in for. It was going on 4pm when Sara joined the party. Her accent was a little hard to understand, but not as bad as some techs I've talked to on the phone. The only word that really had me stumped (and Sara showing just the tiniest bit of frustration) was "tombs." Tomb's? I kept repeating, and then she'd repeat it and it again sounded like "tombs." I finally asked her to spell it, and she spelled out "tools." I could almost here the pages turning as she read the scripts telling her what steps to take, and we took every single one to try and diagnose the problem, including redoing all the steps I had already done before I called. The browser refused to cooperate, being stubbornly even harder to understand that Sara. Running a Ping to websites on the net showed a clean, error free connection to the internet. But something was stopping traffic.
Sara had more scripts to try. She was immensely patient. She left for five minutes at a time to get more instructions and scripts. It was now closing in on 5pm, and Sara asked me to disconnect the power to the computer and then to hold down the power button for thirty seconds. When I asked her why she said that we were going to do a full recovery - a complete hard drive wipe and re-install using the installed recovery software that came with the computer.
All the time this has been going on I've been walking back and forth down the hall between the Mrs computer and my own. I was trying to get that Darkmoon set completed - and now there was also the growing specter of the 5:30pm raid Wild had signed up for. At 5:15pm Wild had time to get off a quick whisper to a friend I knew had signed up for the raid, letting him know I was running behind.
Once the terabyte hard drive reformatting was underway I knew I had some time. I contacted the raid leader, Fn, and explained my situation. I could envision Fn rolling his eyes heavenward and wondering, Why me? before replying "We really need you, Wild." I told him how much I wanted to be there and asked him to give me a little more time. It was 5:40pm.
The formatting finally completed and then a long series of installs began to put the system software back to it's factory defaults. I talked to Fn once again while that was going on. He was calling off the raid. Not because of Wild, thank goodness, but because he was short three raiders. Well, that didn't make me happy, either, but at least I wasn't the cause.
Finally, everything was set back to where it was when I carried it home from the store. We opened Internet Explorer. And it was still broke.
Sara then changed from her "let's fix it" scripts to her "let's get this dude off the phone ASAP" scripts because we obviously sold him a bum computer. Sara announced that the recovery module itself must be corrupted. Sara offered the suggestion that I run the recovery module and create the three recovery discs I would need to go through a second recovery attempt, as if that solved the problem. Well, I guess it solved her problem, but not mine. I pointed out that seconds before she had told me that the recovery module was corrupted - so wouldn't the discs that it would create also likely be corrupted?
She changed tack, and offered that she could mail me a set of good recovery discs absolutely free. I politely declined, and told her that what I really wanted was to return this broken piece of you know what to the store where I bought it from and have it replaced. I'm sure her script told her not to offer that particular solution, but I guess since I did the asking, she looked over her script, heaved a great sigh, and admitted that perhaps that would work.
What do I think happened to the computer? Sara's script led her to think that a static charge had its way with the hard drive, corrupting the browser and recovery software (and perhaps other things we would have found later). The holding down of the power button for thirty seconds was how you dissipate a static charge. I never knew that. My theory is that the computer was dead on arrival, and all that effort had been a waste of time. I'd officially killed my third computer.
Not wanting to give anyone a chance to back out of the replacement option, I was packing things back into the box before she had finished her closing remarks. It was 7pm. The store was open until 9pm. The Mrs and I both jumped in the car and headed for the store.
We came home with a new computer, exactly like the first one. It's still the box. I need to recuperate, and will tackle the new computer in the morning.
Saturday, 12 March - On Saturday I killed my fourth computer. To make a long story short I reached the exact same point as I had with the last computer, and began having the exact same problems. Calling HP wasn't an option. They would just walk through the same scripted support and I already knew that wouldn't work. I called my brother, who is a software tech but who has also run and maintained the business network where he works. We tossed around some ideas and my brother suggested it might be a bad cable cord, or a bad slot on the modem. Funny, the Mrs had mentioned that earlier. A test connection using a very low speed setting seemed to indicate that there was a cable cord problem. Maybe we were on to something. To check that out, I decided to set up the wireless settings since this computer had wireless connectivity as an option. The implementation went smoothly and everything looked fine - until I opened Internet Explorer. The prior problems still persisted. It wasn't the cable cord.
The poor Mrs. She had gone to pick up one of our cats from the vet, and when she came home she saw the latest computer all packed up and back in it's box. Or coffin.
Back to the store I went. By coincidence or serendipity I was waited on by the same employee who replaced the computer the night before. Her name was Marissa. She recognized me, and she recognized the box. Her eyebrows went up. "Yep," I said, "This one is bad, too. Same problem." Then I told her about the additional testing I'd done on the cable and wireless.
I wanted a refund. However, if there was a tech available to check out the computer I'd be willing to see if there were something I missed, and that I was very curious to know what the cause could be that would affect two new computers in the exact same way. Marissa was as curious about it as I was, and she got a tech to come out and check out the computer while we watched. I had mixed feelings about what I wanted to see happen: I wanted to be vindicated since I thought I had done everything possible to fix the problem; but then again, if there were a fix I had missed then I could take home the computer I had picked out to start with.
The tech started up the computer and hooked it into the store wireless LAN. The home page popped up - well, half of it did, anyway. We watched the screen do nothing else for a couple of minutes. I kept silent. He went into the "tombs" menu (uh, I mean the "Tools" menu) and changed some settings. The new page would still not complete loading. He Pinged his LAN. All was normal. He got sneaky and installed another browser, Firefox, from his thumb drive. It complained it had no internet connection.
The stoic faced tech said "Hmmm." Marissa couldn't stand it anymore. "So, is it working?" The tech said, "Well . . . sorta no."
Why two computers of the exact same brand and model would both break with the exact same symptoms will likely remain a mystery. The tech had two theories, but they were only theories. One, the network card could be bad on both computers. Or, and most likely in my opinion, the drive image impressed on the hard drive at the factory was faulty. That would mean that every computer in the group that got that specific image would all have the exact same fault.
It was time to negotiate. I told Marissa that I was not buying another HP of any type, but I still needed a computer. I wanted a computer with similar specs as my first choice and I wanted it at the same price. I knew from checking out every computer they had for sale on Friday night that they'd have a hard time matching both features and price. Marissa talked to the head of the PC department, and he turned me over to one of his salesman to find me what I wanted.
He hunted and he searched, and he finally showed me an Acer computer in one of those slimmed down cases. The features and specs were hands down better than those on the HP. However, small factor cases present some additional challenges. First, it is impossible - or at least very hard - to upgrade these computers. There isn't any extra room inside the case, and even if you could pry something in there it would likely mess with the already restricted air flow and cause heat issues. Given those two disadvantages, I thought that I needed extra protection in case problems arose. I asked him to add their two year extended warranty to the deal.
The salesman gulped and responded that the computer was already sale priced and was worth over $100 more than the computer I'd returned. I reminded him that the returned computer was the second faulty computer that had been sold to me in the last two days. He said he'd have to talk to his supervisor. I said sure. In the end I paid $40 over the price of the HP (without the extended warranty) to get the better Acer computer and the two year extended warranty. I was very happy with that deal.
And the best news of all? I had no trouble setting it up. The internet connection worked fine and I quickly ditched Internet Explorer and installed Firefox as the browser. All's well that ends well, but what a trip!
Sunday (13 Mar) - You are starting to wonder if this adventure will ever end, right? Yep, I spoke too soon. With the computer up and running, I needed to reload all the backed up data files from the external backup drive. It had been checked out as clean of viruses by the repair shop and myself when I got it back from the shop. Being extra cautious, however, I had the anti-virus software scan the external drive again. And it found a virus. Or should I say, viruses.
But I cleaned them out and yes, I can say, finally, that the Mrs has her computer back.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday (9 Mar) - Gold on the table
Wednesday (9 Mar) - Gold on the table
With both JB and Philly working on their professions and Wild directing the acquisition of waves cards, Happy's coffers have been under assault, putting a strain on the finances. Philly, to her credit, has largely self- financed her professions push through glyph sales and the sale of the many rings and necklaces she has to make as part of leveling jewelcrafting. The rings/necklaces sell slowly because every other leveling JCer out there are making the same things, but over time most of them should sell - or wind up with Wild to disenchant for mats that he could use. JB spent a good part of her in game time on Tuesday farming herbs that Philly also needs for milling. The easiest place to farm is Mount Hyjal, and JB gets a kick out of the fact that she gets more experience farming a flower than she does killing the various mobs that try to stop her. JB turned level 83 primarily from flower picking. JB is being so helpful to Philly because, of course, they're sisters, but also because if Philly can level up her JC a bit more she can make JB a new pair of i333 weapons to dual wield. Oh, and JB is considering Vash'jir to continue leveling and herb farming. Vash'jir is a starting zone for level 80s, so she'll not get much out of that zone gear-wise, but at level 83 she should be able to crunch through pretty smoothly while taking the time to farm herbs that I hear are abundant in this zone. That should get her to level 84, which she needs in order to start questing in the highest level cata zone, Twilight Highlands. Or Uldum, which Wild says was a fun zone to quest in.
Philly's journey to transition to cata has run into a strange kind of snag - bag space. She still has huge amounts of materials from pre-cata days, all of it useful, but none of it of any immediate use. Her two professions, by their nature, require a lot of bag space to hold various things, and Philly has been having to swap bags in and out of her bank to work her professions or to farm and quest. Add to that that she has a lot of cata level gear waiting for her to level up to use them - but I don't foresee her doing much leveling until JB gets to 85. Deth's departure opened a spot for a new toon, so that might be the relief valve for Philly. Something will have to give.
For once things are quiet on the guild front. The new MM2 guild is growing slowly, now up to 124 members and 49 level 85s, and achieving guild level 2. There haven't been any new defections from MM for a couple days now. The Thursday raid that had still been on the MM calendar was cashiered on Tuesday, and MM2 did not schedule a weekday raid this week. Wild is signed up for the MM raid with the Fn group for Friday night. It was nice to see that Rs signed up for the raid, too. Rs is one of the two tanks in the Fn group, but who I thought would have jumped to MM2 by now since he's in Wild's self described cabal of close friends. He's still in MM, at least for now. MM2 did schedule a Saturday afternoon raid in the Four Winds, which would not conflict with the Fn group since we are going to be raiding BWD. Wild signed up as tentative since Saturday raiding is always a bit iffy for me.
With both JB and Philly working on their professions and Wild directing the acquisition of waves cards, Happy's coffers have been under assault, putting a strain on the finances. Philly, to her credit, has largely self- financed her professions push through glyph sales and the sale of the many rings and necklaces she has to make as part of leveling jewelcrafting. The rings/necklaces sell slowly because every other leveling JCer out there are making the same things, but over time most of them should sell - or wind up with Wild to disenchant for mats that he could use. JB spent a good part of her in game time on Tuesday farming herbs that Philly also needs for milling. The easiest place to farm is Mount Hyjal, and JB gets a kick out of the fact that she gets more experience farming a flower than she does killing the various mobs that try to stop her. JB turned level 83 primarily from flower picking. JB is being so helpful to Philly because, of course, they're sisters, but also because if Philly can level up her JC a bit more she can make JB a new pair of i333 weapons to dual wield. Oh, and JB is considering Vash'jir to continue leveling and herb farming. Vash'jir is a starting zone for level 80s, so she'll not get much out of that zone gear-wise, but at level 83 she should be able to crunch through pretty smoothly while taking the time to farm herbs that I hear are abundant in this zone. That should get her to level 84, which she needs in order to start questing in the highest level cata zone, Twilight Highlands. Or Uldum, which Wild says was a fun zone to quest in.
Philly's journey to transition to cata has run into a strange kind of snag - bag space. She still has huge amounts of materials from pre-cata days, all of it useful, but none of it of any immediate use. Her two professions, by their nature, require a lot of bag space to hold various things, and Philly has been having to swap bags in and out of her bank to work her professions or to farm and quest. Add to that that she has a lot of cata level gear waiting for her to level up to use them - but I don't foresee her doing much leveling until JB gets to 85. Deth's departure opened a spot for a new toon, so that might be the relief valve for Philly. Something will have to give.
For once things are quiet on the guild front. The new MM2 guild is growing slowly, now up to 124 members and 49 level 85s, and achieving guild level 2. There haven't been any new defections from MM for a couple days now. The Thursday raid that had still been on the MM calendar was cashiered on Tuesday, and MM2 did not schedule a weekday raid this week. Wild is signed up for the MM raid with the Fn group for Friday night. It was nice to see that Rs signed up for the raid, too. Rs is one of the two tanks in the Fn group, but who I thought would have jumped to MM2 by now since he's in Wild's self described cabal of close friends. He's still in MM, at least for now. MM2 did schedule a Saturday afternoon raid in the Four Winds, which would not conflict with the Fn group since we are going to be raiding BWD. Wild signed up as tentative since Saturday raiding is always a bit iffy for me.
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