In Deep Slumber Part 2

In Deep Slumber Part 2
Destromath Still a Problem

Sista has yet to kill the pit boss, Destromath, making six more attempts and trying different approaches. That makes fourteen failures so far. Sista is getting better at her healing but still has trouble keeping both the tank and Lyessa alive. One or the other always dies. She tried focusing heals on Lyessa as if she is the tank and just do general healing for the rest. That makes sense, because when Lyessa dies, it's immediately game over. But that approach didn't work, either.

Not giving up, Sista formed a new plan. How about handling the fight like a real five man dungeon run? She hasn't been able to bull her way through it. Sista has to learn to heal properly. Swallowing her pride, she asked Wildshard for help. Wild has his reservations, but he couldn't deny the twinge of adrenaline that coursed through him, something he hasn't felt in a long time. That adrenaline came with the taste of fear as well. 

Wild made a personal assessment of his own willingness, and found that he wanted to help, in whatever way he could. He mentally dusted off the cobwebs. Proper healing rotations and use began slowly coming back to Wild. He then passed on the knowledge to Sista. Unlike many specs which changed drastically in Legion, the resto druid spec is still very close to what Wild learned many expansions ago. Wild tutored Sista on when to refresh Lifebloom on Lyessa. That is critical. Second, Wild chided her for completely ignoring her mana levels. She can't heal if she has no mana. Both shortcomings can be improved using addons, one to track Lifebloom, and another to watch her mana. She may still die, but at least she'll know why.

Sista also has to learn the fight. She watched video to gain additional information on how to handle it. She learned that her "group" includes a guardian druid (the tank), a moonkin and another DPS. She learned that there are seven stages. Stage five is the most difficult. She'll be taking hits from Destromath, plus waves of fire on the ground and groups of stalking minions. During this phase Lyessa must be kept alive. Then, at stage six, if she can get to it, the DPS will start to overwhelm the pit boss. That assumes Sista has kept her DPSers alive. Destromath is forced into the air above the ground, helpless. Then Lyessa is able to be cleansed in stage 6 and gets her win in stage 7 by picking up the G'hanir artifact. That's what "should" happen.

Sista hasn't been able to survive stage 5. She worries about whether her gear should be better. Then there are the other members of the group. Is the guardian druid really doing what a tank should be doing? Are the DPS staying out of the fire and avoiding the minions? Sista has her doubts. Given the video of the fight, the battle is all on Sista's shoulders. She wins or loses on how well she can heal her group.

So, Sista calls on the talents of Wildshard again. In Wild's early years he used addon mods such as Healbot as an aid. Sista may decide to try one of those mods, but there is a learning curve to using them and often difficulties in getting it set up properly. As Wild became more confident in his healing skill, he stopped using canned mods and began crafting his own healing "mods" using macros.

For example, this is the macro for casting Lifebloom
/cast[@mouseover,nodead,help][@player]Lifebloom

The macro checks a number of things automatically that you don't have to worry about. Using the macro is a matter of simply hovering over the character (using the side panel) and then clicking the Lifebloom button. You don't have to go look for the character to heal him/her, and if there is no target it automatically casts the heal on herself.  Wild has macros for all of the heal spells. Sista needs to learn the spells, what they do, and which buttons to click.
Finally, there are the Lifebloom and Mana addons Sista will use to track those key items.

Players who run dungeons and raids routinely know all of this. It's second nature. Wild used to be one of those kind of players. Not anymore. But both Sista and Wild hope that between the two of them they might triumph at least once and kill this pit boss. It would be great for Sista to get that accomplishment, and it would bring back great memories for Wild. And PS - Don't stand in the fire!

In Deep Slumber

In Deep Slumber

At some point in a series of quests, Sista picked up her restoration artifact weapon, a nice staff with a long-winded name: "Corrupted G'Hanir, the Mother Tree." I don't have a record of exactly when that occurred, so some of the events that follow may not be in the exact order they should be.

The quest "In Deep Slumber" has become the most frustrating of any quest I have attempted in recent memory. This is a mandatory quest with an as yet unknown ending. All I know is that it is part of Sista's journey to becoming a full resto spec druid.

The quest looks easy on the surface. Sista must go down a winding tunnel called the Tel'Andu Barrow. At the bottom is a circular room with many cubicles, each with a sleeping patron. Naralax is at one of the cubicles. He directs Sista to drink a special cup of moonwater and Sista falls asleep. When she wakes, she is "on the other side" in a dream. She has to reach the target of the dream, the corrupted mothertree, G'Hanir.

The dream barrow is full of nasty monsters. The dream is on a countdown timer so speed is important. The way to the upper floors is now blocked. Between the attacking monsters, the short timer, and the difficulty in getting through the blockage, Sista has died or failed the quest a half dozen times.

So she did some more research and tried again. There are many suggestions and ideas on how to beat this quest, but so far none of them have worked for me. On this round Sista made it past the blockage once, mostly by accident, but failed the quest when the timer expired. Supposedly, Sista should have the help of Bashana Runetotem, but she has yet to encounter him. She's back to square one. She must get past the blockage, and then take on whatever comes at her beyond that point. 

Sista kept at it. Abandoning all the guidance, she fought her way to the blockage again and again until a she could leap past it without getting killed. On the other side, there were more monsters and the floor was lined with a bloody trail that she had to stay out of. She kept up a steady stream of heals (remember, she is in restoration spec). She reached the turn in the tunnel that led to the surface. Once past the entrance, though, she discovered new obstacles outside that rooted her, stopping her progress. Again and again and again. Each time she was rooted Sista changed shape to break it. Time was running out, but she could see the path ahead of her and where it ended. Still spinning her heals, Sista labored forward. She made it. Quest complete.

And then she learned that her trial was not yet over. She was taken to Nordrassil under the command of Lyessa Boomwatcher, Gaurdian of G'Hanir. Sista was given a new challenge. Kill Destromath, a dungeon level demon.

Sista blinked and complained. "I'm resto spec! Let me kill him in bear form!"
"You misunderstand," Lyessa told Sista. "You are the healer. I will join your group, along with my three companions. Together, we must defeat Destromath."

Awe, come on! Sista is going to have to actually heal a dungeon group? For the love of Wildshard, Sista has been avoiding that exact thing ever since she reached max level! Wild was the last in the family to take on the healer role in a real dungeon. Will Wild be able to make Sista into a decent healer? Is Wild even capable enough to teach her?

No one saw this coming.

I will give Sista some credit. She tried. She accepted the healer role and did her best to keep her group alive long enough to kill Destromath. Sista made four attempts. All failures. Frankly, she sucked.

So. More research is needed to see where this quest thread ultimately leads, and whether its one she has to complete. Sista/Wild also has a decision to make. The healing spec has long been abandoned. A great deal would have to be done in terms of the addons needed, re-learning spells and how to use them in a group setting, even practicing movement and "don't stand in the fire!" warnings. So much knowledge lost. So much muscle memory and reflexes in decay. It may not be possible to raise the dead spec. But Sista hasn't completely given up. Time will tell.

Gone off the Rails

Gone off the Rails

Monday's take from the Auction House over the past week was one of the best Chaitee has pulled off in her time managing the guild's funds. Bag sales bring in the bulk of those profits. It may be for naught, however.  The weekend brought a flood of cheap bags, upending the expected pricing for the three key bags: frostweave (20 slot), embersilk (22 slot), and silkweave (24 slot).

Chaitee had pulled off a near miracle over many weeks and months, bolstering the prices of bags ever higher and sucking in the profits. Something had to give, and it did. Two sellers, Shykiller and Dumbledor, did most of the damage, but they weren't the only ones. Chaitee saw prices swoon and her sales shrivel. Frostweave bags plummeted from 275g to 200g. Embersilk bags folded, falling from a high of 515g to 350g. Silkweave bags selling for 524g were the worst off, unraveling at 340g.

Chaitee tried to tip the scales by buying up many of the low cost bags, but the glut continued and then slipped into a lull with prices too low to sell, but too high to buy anymore. As the day wound down, prices did rally slightly, but there are still way too many cheap bags sitting out in the AH. The biggest concern has to be the silkweave bags. She has been able to deliver a steady stream of bags by keeping the single silk price at 4g, or 360g per bag. Pretty nice, when they were selling for over 500g. Not so good at 400g, with no guarantee she can push that price back up. There is a domino effect as well, should the price of 22 slot embersilk bags become more expensive than the 24 slot silkweave bags. That is the situation Chaitee is looking at right now. Embersilk bags are currently posted at 376g. Silkweave is at 400g. The cost difference is dwindling. The profit margin is even worse.

Chaitee delivered several thousand silk to Sista to make silkweave bags, and more stored in expectation that prices rise again, but that leaves her with a lot of unsold bags. She decides to wait it out. Embersilk bags take time to make, so there's time to see if prices rise. She may lose out on the frostweave bags, though. Chaitee had levered them up to that 275g peak, but she can't sustain that price, as the market already shows, selling right now at an underwater 224g.

Tuesday Morning Update on Bags:  The AH remains flooded with cheap bags. Prices are stagnant, although embersilk bags did rise in price slightly from 376g to 385g. On the positive side, cloak enchants, which had fallen under 1000g to 915g, rallied this morning and regained position above the 1000g mark.

I know everyone is riveted on the ways and means of bags and enchants, but there are some other things going on.

The Dominos addon Profiles are working as hoped. Pulse had some great fun on the beach in Azshara. She dicovered she could tag up to five or even six enemy adds with spells and just let them die over time while she went after other targets. Pulse quickly reached level 22. And then level 23, and then level 24. She's still is Azshara, though, and getting a little bored.

She's been thinking about the Boost.

Hitting the Reset Button

Hitting the Reset Button

Well, the inevitable came to pass. My Dominos addon could not be fixed. A complete cleansing was required. I removed the Interface, WTF and Cache folders, loaded Dominos, and then did a restart. Dominos successfully loaded in it's base mode. The unresponsive commands and stuck bars and buttons were now working.

I chose Chaitee to be my test case. I chose her for two reasons: One, at only level 32 she had fewer buttons and spells and stuff to deal with; and Two, I needed her to be fully up and running so she could keep the gold flowing from the Auction House with minimal disruption. Once things looked good I used the Dominos feature, Profiles, to copy Chaitee's setup  to the rest of the 11 family members. It worked a lot better than I thought it would. Not only did buttons and bars set themselves in the right spots, the preset spells remembered where they were supposed to be as well. I haven't tested much, yet, so there may still be some gotchas to fix, but Chaitee and Pulse at least are fully functional. A quick look at the other characters looked good, too, though I will need get them some action to be sure. The end result is that for the first time I have a standard setup that I can use for all my characters. I not only fixed the problem, I improved on it.

Pulse managed to stay engaged despite all of the addon construction going on. She is now in Azshara, level 19, and close to getting her mount. She is still using Affliction spec.

Getting the Hang of Things

Getting the Hang of Things

Pulse eventually got off the Lost Isles and worked her way to the grand city of Orgrimmar. It was exciting to add a fresh horde member to the family. Since she has not yet reached a point where she can use a mount, Pulse chose to set her hearthstone to The Broken Tusk, an inn just inside the gates of the city in the Valley of Strength. Oddly, the hearthstone didn't appear, something Pulse will have to figure out. It seems the hearthstone becomes invisible when the automatic "clean up bags" is used. It eventually reappears.

There is a convenient Auction House right next door as well, should Pulse need anything. The bank is a fair march, though.

Pulse turned 16 while leveling on the outskirts of Orgrimmar at the Rocketway Exchange. On a complete whim, she decided it was time to switch to Demonology. Bad decision.
Ouch. Pulse's first expedition with demonology spec did not go well. She was too heavily armored to get killed but . . .  I really didn't like it. She is back to Affliction for now.

The addon author for Dominos has not been able to fix the problem that has locked the bars and buttons I use for every character. The good news is that all characters except Pulse can continue to use the setup they already have. The problems will come if I ever need to make changes. Pulse is stuck in vanilla version using the vanilla bars and buttons. Usable for now, but it will get more complicated over time if I don't get it fixed.

Patch 7.1.5 launched this morning. Many, many changes. I focused on damage dealing and life saving changes. Most of the family saw improvements. Sista, though, saw reductions in her Gaurdian spec. The patch did not cause any issues that I am aware of, but patches are another obstacle that could affect my button and bar setups.

Make Room for Pulsefyre

Make Room for Pulsefyre

Pulsefyre ("Pulse" for short) is the new Horde Goblin Warlock. Goblin Happyface has a true smile on his face. He'll take take the young lass under his wing once she finishes her training. Pulse is learning the ropes at the Kezan starting area in The Lost Isles somewhere. There's a mailbox there and Happy has been sending her heirloom gear to get her started
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Not so good is a problem with the Dominos addon. It is central to my setup. The addon has been in place for a very long time and works just fine - as long as I don't try to change anything. I didn't know there was a problem until I started setting Pulse up. I discovered that many of the Dominos commands no longer work. This is going to complicate getting Pulse ready for action. I posted the problem with the addon author. He no longer builds addons, but he still provides support for Dominos. I hope there is a solution that doesn't require re-installing the addon. In that case I would have to manually rebuild my setup on every character. I've done it before, but it takes time. A lot of time.

As one example of the issue, a quest required swimming underwater to save a bunch of baby fish. Not only was the Dominos addon cluttering up the screen, the artifact bar covered the button that showed her underwater breathing level. She died once when miscalculating how much air she had left.

I am going to test running without Dominos for awhile. At her current level she doesn't have many buttons to deal with so it should be okay. For awhile
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Meanwhile, Pulse works around the outside troubles and focuses on progression. She has reached Level 12. With two ranged attack spells and her minion coupled with heirloom gear, she can't be killed unless she gets reckless. By the way, she could only use Affliction in the starting zone. Now she can change over to Demonology but I'm holding her back until the addon mess is fixed. The same goes for the Boost. Until the addon mess is fixed Pulse will continue to level the old fashioned way.

Broken Addon

Welcome a New Additon

Heirloom Heaven

Warlock Madness

Warlock Madness

Tiphaine is frustrated and annoyed. Keya and Sista are at work on achieving Flying in Legion. It requires a huge effort of time and commitment. Now, after long months of idleness, the horde guild has suddenly decided to interfere. Even more damning is that dimwitted Wild sent Tiphaine's own daughter, Plumrosefist ("Fist") to do his dirty work.

Wild was cagier than Tiphaine figured him to be, for someone who has let his guild slip badly to Tiphaine's eyes. She couldn't refuse Fist, though, who asked only that her mother talk to Wild about the resurgence of interest in the horde guild.

Wildshard had spent a long winter brooding in Orgrimmar, unsure of the guild's course. The unusual cooperation of horde and alliance guilds was intended to help both, but once Tiphaine was given a leg up, all support from the alliance came to an end. Wild was determined to get his guild back on track.
Giving his blessing to Fist to begin leveling again was the first step. Tiphaine's relationship with her daughter was fraught with emotional entangles that could blow up at any time. Wild knew, though, that Tiphaine would not interfere with Fist.

The talks between the two did not go well.

"Just because we've stayed quiet doesn't mean that we have retired or plan to." Wild glared at Tiphaine and banged his staff, Kihrawr's Scratching Post, for emphasis. He was tired of fruitless arguing.

Tiphaine didn't hide her flash of contempt. "You don't even have an artifact weapon, and you think your guild is ready for Legion?"

Wild rounded on her. "We have an agreement! We helped you transition to a new guild, worked with you to get it set up, gave you GOLD to help Chaitee get on her feet!"

"Come on, Wild, why rouse yourself from your cosy hibernation?" Tiphaine showed her death knight smile. "You as much as gave up your guild a long time ago."

"No we haven't." Jezzibael ("JB") pressed into the argument. "We are following the agreement. I have a right to improve my skills as the melee shaman representative of both guilds. Don't forget that."

"You know where you can shove that pitiful pair of shaman axes." Demon hunter Keya snorted, flashing her pair of Aldrachi Warblades. "You're still mucking about in Draenor!"

"This is going nowhere," Wild growled.

"You got that right, at least," Tiphaine shot back.

Wild and Tiphaine glared at each other. Wild finally spoke. "The agreement is broken." The two sides parted warily.

Later that day Wild set out his own orders. JB was granted time to level. He wanted to know if a melee shaman could keep up with the tanking classes. He mulled over several other ideas intended to help the guild - and that would piss off  Tiphaine.

Phillypurdue ("Philly") came to Wild with her own request. She once lived on another realm in a guild called The Grunt Foundation. The group broke up years ago, but she has never forgotten them. Wild listened and granted Philly her wish. She would travel the realms in the hope of learning what became of them.

His next action was sure to create even greater friction among the guilds. With Philly on her quest to find her friends, a spot became open. Wild has a diabolical idea. He wants something completely out of Tiphaine's comfort zone. Wild's plan is to bring in a young Warlock to eat up hours and hours of leveling time learning the skills. And then Wild will offer the warlock a Boost to level 100.

Wild dropped into bear form, stretched mightily, muscles showing his formidable strength, and roared. The hibernation was over. Wild is back.

[Note to readers - With all 12 character spots taken, a number of ideas were tossed about how to get around that and advance the story. One idea involved killing off Happyface. Another required opening the second account again and retiring a character. Yet another idea would have required a class change - until I learned that Warcraft does not not allow characters to change classes. I wanted the horde to have a period of growth for awhile, too. So, I came up with this idea - send Philly off to another realm. Simple, I hope. Just a fee to change realms is all that is needed. That makes a spot open - and we'll see if a warlock can hang with the tanking classes.]

A World of Classes

A World of Classes

Alliance Death Knight, Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Demon Hunter, Hunter: These are the classes in the Autumn Tea Green Guild led by Tiphaine.

Horde Paladin, Monk, Druid, Shaman, Priest, Warrior: These are the classes in the Order of the Dragon Guild.

Every class shared between the two guilds are level 100 or better except for Alliance Hunter Chaitee (level 32) and Horde Warrior Happyface (level 24), both of which run their respective Auction Houses. There is also an unused Boost still available.

The Alliance has chosen almost exclusively classes that can tank - all but the hunter and demon hunter.

The Horde is similar - all tank classes except shaman and priest.
The reason for this is the same with both classes: Most work is done solo and tank classes are the most survivable when working alone.
Then there are the untried classes: Rogue, Mage, Warlock

Where is all this leading? There has been increasing interest in making some changes to the status quo. Chaitee has gotten a taste of battle recently and would like to have further opportunities. Researching the Hunter class more seriously brought up some concerns. Changes brought about by Legion seems to point to a pretty broken class regardless of type. Chaitee may still get some outings, but she is locked into the AH. The rest of the alliance team is already set, needing only time to level.

What about the Horde? Happyface says he's fine where he is. But others in the horde guild are restless for action. The Alliance have a head start, but that gulf is not as wide as the alliance would like everyone to believe. The Alliance has only two max level players, Keya and Sista. No other alliance has reached higher than level 102 (Java).

On the other hand, the Horde have only Plumrosefist at level 101 while the rest of the Horde haven't done anything since Legion launched. Fist would argue, though, that if the pattern stays the same, she should be considered as the next step up given that she is the only Monk and has the requisite resume - she is a tanking class. 

Then there is Jezzibael. She does not have a tanking spec, but the family has had a soft spot for melee shaman since the early days. According to Icy Veins, a melee shaman is extremely convenient to level and good at grinding daily content.

There is yet another factor. The Horde professions are in better shape than the Alliance. Alliance professions are a mess.

If JB were selected she could bring 700/700 Fishing, 575/700 Cooking, 420/700 first aid.
Her prime professions are 700/700 Alchemy and 700/700 Herbalism.

If Fist were selected she could bring 509/700 Fishing, 655/700 Cooking, 700/800 first aid.
Her prime professions are 700/700 Leatherworking and 700/700 Inscription.

That brings up an even more important question - Horde or Alliance? Both Fist and JB are Horde. That could be changed.

Wildshard and Tiphaine talked late into the night. The final decision could come down to guild coffers. What are the guild leaders willing to spend and commit to?