Friday Plus (20 Oct) - Durn The Silly Hungerer

Friday Plus (20 Oct) - Durn The Silly Hungerer

As much as Wild loves Nagrand, the only things that Fist are going to remember there were how bugged Outland was and the emasculation of the elite prey that was the cornerstone of the Nessingway safari. In Wild's day Durn the Hungerer was a very dangerous elite that strode a path through Nagrand, keeping everyone at bay. Durn had a train of other mobs with him, and killing him was truly a feat. Durn, like all the other elites of Outland it seems (outside of dungeons), has been neutered down to a normal level 67. It's actually pretty sad and pathetic.

The "bugs" in Outland are of the computer kind. Four times now, the game has frozen up while in Outland. A complete reboot is required to get it running again. This is very frustrating and time wasting. I don't know if this is a known issue, but it really needs to be fixed. Fist has reached level 68 and has access to Northrend. She's tempted to move on out of Outland. She's already done (or mostly done) her three favorite Outland zones: Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, and Nagrand. I'd rather Fist already be level 70 before hitting Northrend, but ... we'll see what Fist wants to do.

Saturday Morning - Well, the Cardinals failed to clinch the National League title last night, throwing all of my World Series plans off kilter. The next game isn't until Sunday, just three days before the start of the Series. Hopefully, I can get a late flight at a good price; otherwise, I could be doing some very long driving.

Anyway, the good news is that Fist could now do some questing on Saturday, at least. Fist warily returned to Nagrand in Outland after getting her daily one hour monk buff. I think the Zen Masters are getting tired of losing to her ... Fist has started to hear murderous grumbling under their breath with each defeated bow.

Back in Nagrand, Fist had two last animal kill quests, which she completed. That set the stage for Emet Nessingway's big safari - four special beasts. It's the highlight of Nagrand. All four of those monster elites were dumbed down to normal, not elite, taking all the life out of the hunt.

That wrapped up the questing in Nagrand. Fist got through it without a computer crash, and turning in that last kill got her to level 69.

It's time for Fist to move on, leaving the Burning Crusade's Outland and pushing forward into the Wrath of the Lich King's Northrend. It should prove challenging.

But wait!  Fist remembered a suggestion Sin had made to level through dungeon runs. One way would be for Fist to queue up for random dungeons. She probably wouldn't be too awfully bad, and it would be good practice. Another way would be get some help from the Wild family. JB volunteered. The two decided to start with something simple. Fist's first dungeon would be The Underbog, one of three dungeons in Coilfang Reservoir, Zangarmarsh. JB and Wild were both very familiar with that dungeon, and Wild had even made a video of him soloing it (a long time ago).

My first mistake was to use the same computer for both Fist and JB. That meant I had to do screen swapping, and could only operate one of them at a time. I didn't think that would be an issue, unless Fist got tangled up. Fist did just fine. However, screen swapping was pretty slow, and it made cutting through the dungeon a much longer slog than expected. The two cleared the Underbog easily, though. Fist, freshly minted as a level 69, padded her way behind JB to earn 24% progress toward level 70. Hmm, almost an hour for 24%. Hmm, again.

Fist said she was having fun, though, so they decided to delve into the second dungeon in Coilfang, The Steamvaults. I like the changes that have been made with the dungeon maps. The static, unchanging maps Wild was used to are gone, replaced with interactive maps that show player position, boss locations, and even quest points. Very nice. The Steamvaults have a little quirk that I'd forgotten. The first boss is behind a locked door. JB figured correctly that they would need to kill the other two bosses first, and they proceeded to do that. They even remembered to set the main switch (or something) on the Mechanar fight. JB and Fist trooped back to the first boss, but the door was still locked! Darn. Ok, now I remember, there is another switch behind the other boss we had already killed. JB told Fist to hang tight outside the locked door (we had cleared all the trash mobs and the patrols in the area). To speed things up, JB dropped into wolf form and trotted off.

That worked almost perfectly. Almost. When JB tripped the second switch, the locked door not only unlocked, it opened. That's good, right? Yea, except that four elites marched out that door, and JB was a long way from making it back to Fist. Fist didn't stand a chance. Fist had to run/swim back to Coilfang from the graveyard. JB met her at the door of the Steamvaults, and they went back and killed that third boss. Steamvaults got Fist 49% of the way to level 70.

Should we do another, Fist asked? Why the hell not, the last one is right next door. Fist and JB entered the Slave Pens. That one went slowly, too, but easily. There was one quest where we had to find two npcs, but they weren't hard to find.

Fist finished the Slave Pens 69% of the way to level 70.

The two could have gone back and done the dungeons again, but with all of the one time quests completed, the xp would have been less than the first runs. Both rested xp and the monk buff had expired as well.

Fist got to keep all of the quest rewards and boss drops, but the RNG didn't give her much. Ten bosses total, I think, and she got one usable piece for her healing gear, but nothing for her DPS gear. Mostly the gear was mail, which JB would have loved to have - 15 levels ago. Fist seemed happiest with the pretty blue cape she kept for her Towny garb.

The next time I try to two toon it, I'm going to use both computers and see if that speeds things up. Of course, I'll need to update the game on the second computer. Wonder how long that will take. After updating the launcher, it went into "reconfiguring game files . . . "

Maybe NOW Fist will make that trip to Northrend?

There was a little bit of work going on with other members of the Wild Family. JB and Philly both had to sort through a ton of old, really old, and soon to be old gear. Philly was the most practical. She made sure she had equipped the best pieces of gear, and vendored the rest. The only extra gear she kept was her pvp gear. However, since all of Philly's new MoP gear is much higher level than the pvp stuff, I imagine she will toss pvp stuff and use her regular gear for pvp, until she can get the MoP pvp stuff. Philly is not into transmogging, but she did hold on to three weapons she likes the look of, just in case.

With JB it was a whole 'nuther story. JB really likes the look of her Cata gear, and intends to use that gear for a transmog set. However, the Auction House has not been kind to JB, and she is still forced to use a lot of her Cata gear. JB had held on to a lot of other stuff, too, so it took considerable time to sort out what gear was for enhancement spec, what gear was for elemental spec, what gear was not being used but was needed for transmog, etc. JB's bags were a mess, too, since her mailbox was being constantly flooded. A flooded mailbox was a good thing! but JB struggled to process it all.

At the end of the day, though, both JB and Philly had well organized sets of gear and a cleaned out set of bags - should the impulse to pvp or pve suddenly overtake them.

Noticed that Wild wasn't mentioned? Wild's situation is even worse, since he started into MoP before doing any housekeeping. Wild was able to stave off the girls by declaring that they hadn't done any cleanup, either. Now that's not true anymore, and Wild is going to have to work harder - at finding places to stretch out his hammock away from meddling JB and Philly. Wild does want to get at that, and plans his own transmog set, but Wild knows he is going to have a heck of a time deciding what gear to give up. Of course, there is Void Storage. A hundred gold to open it, and 25g for each item placed in it. Imagine someone who filled all eighty slots - that's 2,100 gold to store useless items with "sentimental" value. Yea, Wild will probably open a void storage.

Late Saturday Night - Fist was too fidgety to call it a night, and groused at the wasted time JB and Philly spent. She pulled up stakes at Shattrath, took the portal back to Org, and grabbed the zep to Borean Tundra, Northrend. The fortress of Warsong Hold was under perpetual bug assault, and Fist was just another foot soldier (also known as cannon fodder) thrown at them. Fists first encounter with a level 70 bug took some extra shots to cut down, and Fist had a moment of worry that things had become a few notches tougher. Her second kill cleared Fist's head of such notions - that bug went down quickly, and soon Fist was stacking the oozing exoskeletons three and four carcasses as a time. Her health took a teeter downward on some of the more lively battles, but Fist didn't back down.

After turning in a bushel of quests, Fist DINGED! to level 70. Another milestone. Tired and gooey, Fist accepted a flight to Dalaran, the major city of Northrend. There she set her hearth at The Filthy Animal Inn (appropriate, given the state of her gear). Just outside the inn was a convenient portal to Orgrimmar. Same setup, just a new zone and a new city. The march to level 80 begins.