Naxxramas Plundered
Edit Update: I mistakenly have Jocy listed at completing the Naxxramas run when in fact it was Wildshard who did the clearing. Wild is level 100 with i653 gear. Wild made great use of his mass kill weapons such as Hurricane and Wild's great healing strength to bring down gobs of mobs at once and down the bosses while staying alive.
Naxxramas is one of the great raid dungeons. In Wild's heyday as a raider, tackling the many levels and bosses of the huge fortress was a formidable task. Four main wings held an array of deadly horrors, plus a bonus wing if we cleared the other four. Our raids of ten and sometimes 25 raiders were lucky to clear two chambers in an evening of combat, taking many hours and numerous deaths.
Wild returned to Naxxramas this week. His purpose was both nostalgia and practical. His level and his gear far surpasses the old place, so there was little personal danger. Wild can one-shot anything in there except for the bosses. The bosses, too, went down, just a little more slowly. It is now a place for farming frostweave cloth to make bags. Wild also hoped to pick up some old gear to finish his gear sets.
I plan to run Naxxramas again in the near future and video tape it to give readers a chance to see what the place looks like. These old raid dungeons are truly awesome. A lot of work went into the look and feel of the raid, and the monsters we fought were truly fierce in their time. Wild did a full clear, except for the final, optional boss, Kel'Thuzad. I lacked a key quest or achievement to be able to take him on. Maybe next time. It brought back awesome memories, that's for sure.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Grasping at Straws
Grasping at Straws
In recent weeks there has been a rather desperate attempt to maintain interest in the goings on of the Wild Family. November was a very bad month.
[] Fist was dragged out of her cocoon and pushed to get out of the garrison and do something "useful."
[] Tiphaine made desultory efforts to upgrade her garrison.
[] Jocy made a half hearted attempt at getting "raid ready," going so far as shaking the dust off her Holy Paladin spec.
[] Wild? Just follow the sound of snoring.
Happy is losing gold every day. The market has gone crazy stupid, selling goods for less than it costs to make them. Insane, but the prices keep falling on many of the goods Happy depends on, and no one wants to consider going back to the desperately dull process of farming materials.
The latest effort to force activity by hunting down a bunch of garrison followers was met with a tepid response.
The doldrums are truly here.
Bored with Warcraft, I can usually turn to sports for a pickmeup. The San Diego Chargers (that's a football team by the way) finally won a game last week. Not that it matters much. The team has a 3-8 record and is blatantly trying to move the team to Los Angeles despite pretty strong local fan support. Los Angeles hasn't had an NFL football team in 20 years, which should say something about the caliber of fans there, but the Chargers think they're the team that will ignite the supposed huge, slavering fan base in LA. If it weren't for quarterback Phillip Rivers (a great guy, always the optimist, eight kids to feed, and HOF caliber player) there'd be no reason to watch the Chargers play.
Winter baseball talk is growing with spring training only three months away. The San Diego Padres made a big splash last season, hiring a high energy general manager (AJ Preller) and given a wad of money to remake a team that usually lives on food stamps. Preller bought some big time talent and fans were buzzing. The buzz had fizzled before mid-season and the team finished 74-88. Now the team has traded away most of the stars they'd paid big money for, and are now trading away some of the better and most appreciated players that are left in order to build up their minor league system (which Preller decimated to get those big name players). The main lament is not so much about being a bad team (Padres fans are very used to losing) and more about seeing fan favorites traded away for what seems little in return.
San Diego has a soccer team, too. I tried to get some information, but the loading page for their website takes as long to load as a soccer game (do soccer games ever end?). I had to go to Wikepedia. I know nothing about soccer leagues, but it says that in 2015 they were 1st in the West-Southern NPSL league division semi-finals but didn't qualify for the Open Cup. Whatever that means. Doesn't soccer keep track of wins and losses?
Hmm, maybe I can find a rugby league in San Diego . . . ok, never mind.
In recent weeks there has been a rather desperate attempt to maintain interest in the goings on of the Wild Family. November was a very bad month.
[] Fist was dragged out of her cocoon and pushed to get out of the garrison and do something "useful."
[] Tiphaine made desultory efforts to upgrade her garrison.
[] Jocy made a half hearted attempt at getting "raid ready," going so far as shaking the dust off her Holy Paladin spec.
[] Wild? Just follow the sound of snoring.
Happy is losing gold every day. The market has gone crazy stupid, selling goods for less than it costs to make them. Insane, but the prices keep falling on many of the goods Happy depends on, and no one wants to consider going back to the desperately dull process of farming materials.
The latest effort to force activity by hunting down a bunch of garrison followers was met with a tepid response.
The doldrums are truly here.
Bored with Warcraft, I can usually turn to sports for a pickmeup. The San Diego Chargers (that's a football team by the way) finally won a game last week. Not that it matters much. The team has a 3-8 record and is blatantly trying to move the team to Los Angeles despite pretty strong local fan support. Los Angeles hasn't had an NFL football team in 20 years, which should say something about the caliber of fans there, but the Chargers think they're the team that will ignite the supposed huge, slavering fan base in LA. If it weren't for quarterback Phillip Rivers (a great guy, always the optimist, eight kids to feed, and HOF caliber player) there'd be no reason to watch the Chargers play.
Winter baseball talk is growing with spring training only three months away. The San Diego Padres made a big splash last season, hiring a high energy general manager (AJ Preller) and given a wad of money to remake a team that usually lives on food stamps. Preller bought some big time talent and fans were buzzing. The buzz had fizzled before mid-season and the team finished 74-88. Now the team has traded away most of the stars they'd paid big money for, and are now trading away some of the better and most appreciated players that are left in order to build up their minor league system (which Preller decimated to get those big name players). The main lament is not so much about being a bad team (Padres fans are very used to losing) and more about seeing fan favorites traded away for what seems little in return.
San Diego has a soccer team, too. I tried to get some information, but the loading page for their website takes as long to load as a soccer game (do soccer games ever end?). I had to go to Wikepedia. I know nothing about soccer leagues, but it says that in 2015 they were 1st in the West-Southern NPSL league division semi-finals but didn't qualify for the Open Cup. Whatever that means. Doesn't soccer keep track of wins and losses?
Hmm, maybe I can find a rugby league in San Diego . . . ok, never mind.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Finding Followers
Finding Followers
Happy is glum in a down cycle for the Auction House. Nothing to do but wait it out, which leaves him with little to do. Jocy and Tiphaine are bored silly earning apexis crystals et al and do nothing but putter about the garrison. Wild's single contribution of the day was to tear down his Spirit Lodge, which turned out to be less than worthless to him, and built a War Mill. Despite Wild being the first to get a garrison, his followers lack even the basic gear. With the War Mill he can start making improvements. Fist is active within her garrison, but even she feels the duldrums blanketing the family.
While the family frets, I decided to make a full accounting of garrison followers and see if I can get all four of the level 100s to the current follower max of 25.
Jocy has the most followers with 23, Tiphaine with 20, Wild with 19, and Fist with 18. I have a chart that shows who has which followers.
There are only eight followers that all four have in their garrisons: Ahm, Kimzee, Lantressor, Mulverick, Olin, Rala, Ulna, and Vivianne.
The total number of known followers in the family is 32. There are many more followers that none of the family has, but for now I'll focus just on getting all of the family to the 25 limit using those followers we do have.
The Plan is to just go alphabetically. If a follower proves difficult to get I'll just skip him and move on. There are far more followers than room to collect them, so I'm hoping it won't take long to max out.
What about getting the best followers instead of the easiest? No, because my experience is that at this level there is little difference in which specific followers are used in missions, as long as there is enough with the right stats to fill that mission. Quantity trumps talent in my view, except where a follower has minimal traits and abilities, but I can't control that, or change the limit of 25 total active followers. The best followers have a total of five traits and abilities, the worst have only two. PS - Yes, I know there are those who put a lot of work into follower missions and that there are some pretty nice things available if one wanted to put in a lot of extra time and effort. Maybe a time will come to pursue that, but for now the family is just trying to manage what they can manage. Missions have on occasion provided gear upgrades, which is nice, so getting followers into the higher ranks is needed for those upgrades to appear.
Tiphaine's followers are particularly bad. She has only one follower with five traits and abilities (I call them"Fives"). Of the rest, she has 16 Threes and three Twos. That is a miserable combination. Fortunately, her one Five is Tormmok, for whom Tiphaine is very, very pleased to have. Without Mock she would have wound up with bodyguard Vivianne, who is only a Three.
Tiphaine, of course, wants to get more and better followers, but for some reason she was stuck at a max of 20, instead of the 25 the others have. Hmmm. I was curious what would happen if Tiphaine went out and brought back a twenty-first follower. How would that be handled? I quickly found out. Tiphaine brought back Abu'gar, an easy follower to pick up that Fist had found. Abu'gar joined the list of followers without a problem, and Tiphaines follower list showed 21/20, one over her max. What changed is the follower list turned RED and all missions were shut down. Uh Oh.
After doing some research I learned that we can have as many followers as we want, but the maximum that can be activated is 25. So why is Tiphaine's followers limited to 20? Tiphaine forgot to build up her Barracks to level three, that's why. That was an easy fix, and her followers now show as 21/25. All is well. I also learned that followers can be deactivated, so, for example, if a 26th follower is added a follower could be deactivated. There is no limit on how many deactivated followers one has. Any follower can be re-activated by paying 240 gold.
Adding followers is a time consuming process, but eventually every family member should have every follower that's been found.
Happy is glum in a down cycle for the Auction House. Nothing to do but wait it out, which leaves him with little to do. Jocy and Tiphaine are bored silly earning apexis crystals et al and do nothing but putter about the garrison. Wild's single contribution of the day was to tear down his Spirit Lodge, which turned out to be less than worthless to him, and built a War Mill. Despite Wild being the first to get a garrison, his followers lack even the basic gear. With the War Mill he can start making improvements. Fist is active within her garrison, but even she feels the duldrums blanketing the family.
While the family frets, I decided to make a full accounting of garrison followers and see if I can get all four of the level 100s to the current follower max of 25.
Jocy has the most followers with 23, Tiphaine with 20, Wild with 19, and Fist with 18. I have a chart that shows who has which followers.
There are only eight followers that all four have in their garrisons: Ahm, Kimzee, Lantressor, Mulverick, Olin, Rala, Ulna, and Vivianne.
The total number of known followers in the family is 32. There are many more followers that none of the family has, but for now I'll focus just on getting all of the family to the 25 limit using those followers we do have.
The Plan is to just go alphabetically. If a follower proves difficult to get I'll just skip him and move on. There are far more followers than room to collect them, so I'm hoping it won't take long to max out.
What about getting the best followers instead of the easiest? No, because my experience is that at this level there is little difference in which specific followers are used in missions, as long as there is enough with the right stats to fill that mission. Quantity trumps talent in my view, except where a follower has minimal traits and abilities, but I can't control that, or change the limit of 25 total active followers. The best followers have a total of five traits and abilities, the worst have only two. PS - Yes, I know there are those who put a lot of work into follower missions and that there are some pretty nice things available if one wanted to put in a lot of extra time and effort. Maybe a time will come to pursue that, but for now the family is just trying to manage what they can manage. Missions have on occasion provided gear upgrades, which is nice, so getting followers into the higher ranks is needed for those upgrades to appear.
Tiphaine's followers are particularly bad. She has only one follower with five traits and abilities (I call them"Fives"). Of the rest, she has 16 Threes and three Twos. That is a miserable combination. Fortunately, her one Five is Tormmok, for whom Tiphaine is very, very pleased to have. Without Mock she would have wound up with bodyguard Vivianne, who is only a Three.
Tiphaine, of course, wants to get more and better followers, but for some reason she was stuck at a max of 20, instead of the 25 the others have. Hmmm. I was curious what would happen if Tiphaine went out and brought back a twenty-first follower. How would that be handled? I quickly found out. Tiphaine brought back Abu'gar, an easy follower to pick up that Fist had found. Abu'gar joined the list of followers without a problem, and Tiphaines follower list showed 21/20, one over her max. What changed is the follower list turned RED and all missions were shut down. Uh Oh.
After doing some research I learned that we can have as many followers as we want, but the maximum that can be activated is 25. So why is Tiphaine's followers limited to 20? Tiphaine forgot to build up her Barracks to level three, that's why. That was an easy fix, and her followers now show as 21/25. All is well. I also learned that followers can be deactivated, so, for example, if a 26th follower is added a follower could be deactivated. There is no limit on how many deactivated followers one has. Any follower can be re-activated by paying 240 gold.
Adding followers is a time consuming process, but eventually every family member should have every follower that's been found.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Time to Fish or Cut Bait
Time to Fish or Cut Bait
Part One - From Happy's perspective the Auction House has reached crisis. Admittedly, Happy helped it along. As mats got harder and harder to get . . . as the cost of those mats rose and rose . . . Happy waded in, selling off his huge stash of materials . . . and selling . . . and selling . . . and selling. What was once close to a thousand felblights is now at . . . zero. Yes, Happy has many bags of gold piled outside the vault. He may need a bigger vault just to house it all. To add another boon, two steelforged items that Happy needed to sell so that Jocy could improve her Holy spec gear finally sold. Two pieces for 37,000 gold.
I know this sounds stupendous, but prices are still rising, mats are hard to come by, and Happy is MISSING OUT on those big payouts! Never could Happy have imagined actually running out of things to sell. The rise in prices for key mats has continued unabated, but Happy is concerned that buying at such high prices could leave him high and dry when prices finally collapse - and they will, it's only a matter of when.
More than half of the mats Happy deals with are enchanting mats, and to a lesser degree, tailoring, both managed by Wild. Happy wants to double down on that market, not only because of the current run, but as a means to increase the amount of mats available. In short, Happy wants another family member to take up the Enchanting profession. Two enchanters would double the amount of mats crafted for sale. That is currently being discussed.
Tiphaine may be part of the answer. She has an open small plot in her garrison that could support the Enchanting profession. Her two current professions are Blacksmithing and Smelting. Tiphaine has yet to do anything with Smelting, and is agreeable to take on Enchanting. Jocy also has Smelting, so the family would still have access to that profession if needed. Yes, Blacksmithing and Enchanting is an odd combination, but in the world of garrisons such things are possible and even needed.
Profession Success! Tiphaine has built a Level 3 Enchanting Hut. Getting it into full production will take a little time because of the ongoing issues with Followers. Tiphaine doesn't have a follower to help her run the Enchanting Hut. Only one follower has that ability - Ahm. Tiphaine didn't have Ahm. Fortunately, Ahm was easy to find. Also fortunately, Tiphaine had one spot available for another follower. The man has been standing out in the snow just outside the garrison. Poor guy was near frozen and is only at level 95. It will take a few days to get him up to full strength and take over the garrison Enchanting job.
Part Two - Jocy tried fishing . . . once. She raised her fishing skill to 100 (max is 700). It's not for her. She was very relieved when Fist got the task of being the second fisherman in the family, behind Wild. Jocy isn't going fishing, she's going to do the proverbial cutting bait and dip her pole in the Proving Grounds.
Part Three - Long ago Jezzibel (aka "JB") was the ultimate Wild family killing machine. She is making her case that she can be that again. She gained two levels in Pandaria (going from level 85 to 87) just to be able to gather herbs and enjoy some of the wonders of Pandaria (without getting killed). Out of the rest of the Wild family, JB is the most likely to plow her way to level 100 well before Legion comes.
The idea surfaced during the moving around of professions and, of course, Jocy's re-imagining herself as a healer. If Jocy can make radical changes, so could she. For JB, it's not so much a re-imagining but more of a rebirth of herself. She has been a healer and a ranged DPS, but her favorite is Enhancement Shaman, comfortable with killing in close quarters. She wears mail armor, lighter than Jocy and Tiphaine's heavy plate but far tougher than Fist's leather. She also has healing skills to keep herself alive. Should the idea take hold, JB would keep her Alchemy profession and likely invest in Inscription as her second profession, although Philly already claims that profession. That could cause trouble, but Philly is only level 85 and would need to catch up. JB has the upper hand.
JB remembers Karazahn. She was in elemental spec at the time, at level 73, just above Kara's Level 70. What, you don't know that JB once raided? Check this post from September 14th, 2009:
http://wildfamilytales.blogspot.com/2009/09/weekend-part-2-jezzibaels-night-out.html
Part One - From Happy's perspective the Auction House has reached crisis. Admittedly, Happy helped it along. As mats got harder and harder to get . . . as the cost of those mats rose and rose . . . Happy waded in, selling off his huge stash of materials . . . and selling . . . and selling . . . and selling. What was once close to a thousand felblights is now at . . . zero. Yes, Happy has many bags of gold piled outside the vault. He may need a bigger vault just to house it all. To add another boon, two steelforged items that Happy needed to sell so that Jocy could improve her Holy spec gear finally sold. Two pieces for 37,000 gold.
I know this sounds stupendous, but prices are still rising, mats are hard to come by, and Happy is MISSING OUT on those big payouts! Never could Happy have imagined actually running out of things to sell. The rise in prices for key mats has continued unabated, but Happy is concerned that buying at such high prices could leave him high and dry when prices finally collapse - and they will, it's only a matter of when.
More than half of the mats Happy deals with are enchanting mats, and to a lesser degree, tailoring, both managed by Wild. Happy wants to double down on that market, not only because of the current run, but as a means to increase the amount of mats available. In short, Happy wants another family member to take up the Enchanting profession. Two enchanters would double the amount of mats crafted for sale. That is currently being discussed.
Tiphaine may be part of the answer. She has an open small plot in her garrison that could support the Enchanting profession. Her two current professions are Blacksmithing and Smelting. Tiphaine has yet to do anything with Smelting, and is agreeable to take on Enchanting. Jocy also has Smelting, so the family would still have access to that profession if needed. Yes, Blacksmithing and Enchanting is an odd combination, but in the world of garrisons such things are possible and even needed.
Profession Success! Tiphaine has built a Level 3 Enchanting Hut. Getting it into full production will take a little time because of the ongoing issues with Followers. Tiphaine doesn't have a follower to help her run the Enchanting Hut. Only one follower has that ability - Ahm. Tiphaine didn't have Ahm. Fortunately, Ahm was easy to find. Also fortunately, Tiphaine had one spot available for another follower. The man has been standing out in the snow just outside the garrison. Poor guy was near frozen and is only at level 95. It will take a few days to get him up to full strength and take over the garrison Enchanting job.
Part Two - Jocy tried fishing . . . once. She raised her fishing skill to 100 (max is 700). It's not for her. She was very relieved when Fist got the task of being the second fisherman in the family, behind Wild. Jocy isn't going fishing, she's going to do the proverbial cutting bait and dip her pole in the Proving Grounds.
Part Three - Long ago Jezzibel (aka "JB") was the ultimate Wild family killing machine. She is making her case that she can be that again. She gained two levels in Pandaria (going from level 85 to 87) just to be able to gather herbs and enjoy some of the wonders of Pandaria (without getting killed). Out of the rest of the Wild family, JB is the most likely to plow her way to level 100 well before Legion comes.
The idea surfaced during the moving around of professions and, of course, Jocy's re-imagining herself as a healer. If Jocy can make radical changes, so could she. For JB, it's not so much a re-imagining but more of a rebirth of herself. She has been a healer and a ranged DPS, but her favorite is Enhancement Shaman, comfortable with killing in close quarters. She wears mail armor, lighter than Jocy and Tiphaine's heavy plate but far tougher than Fist's leather. She also has healing skills to keep herself alive. Should the idea take hold, JB would keep her Alchemy profession and likely invest in Inscription as her second profession, although Philly already claims that profession. That could cause trouble, but Philly is only level 85 and would need to catch up. JB has the upper hand.
JB remembers Karazahn. She was in elemental spec at the time, at level 73, just above Kara's Level 70. What, you don't know that JB once raided? Check this post from September 14th, 2009:
http://wildfamilytales.blogspot.com/2009/09/weekend-part-2-jezzibaels-night-out.html
Monday, November 23, 2015
Interface Crash and Holy Paladin
Interface Crash and Holy Paladin
There was a moment in the Wild family when it looked like all of the player settings for every character had been wiped out. I was playing around with the Icy Veins recommended addon ElvUI. The addon is a complete replacement of the standard user interface. I didn't experiment on any active character. I tried it on Javajoo. Java is a paladin, like Jocy, and I wanted to experiment with a Holy spec using the new interface. Bottom line - messing with the interface is dangerous, particularly one that takes over completely. I got things set back where they should be without having to do anything drastic. That should have given Jocy the hint that maybe she should let things be.
But she won't. Somehow the bug to attempt the art of healing has lodged in her brain. Why would whe even bother trying a Holy spec? The idea just won't go away. Guilds, Bosses . . . uh, well, Raiding. There, she said it. She's got the itch. Maybe. Maybe not, but she's curious.
Meitha Guild is also thinking about it, planning it out. "You want to raid, get your gear to iLevel 680. Be ready." Jocy decided to, at the least, check things out.
First of all, she couldn't show up at a raid in her mushed together protection spec/DPS mode which she uses for solo work. It won't work in a raid environment. Jocy also has no intention of trying to be a tank, her own raiders would kill her for incompetence. She "might" consider retribution spec, but in all likelihood the guild will have more than enough DPS raiders with far better skills than Jocy.
Where does that leave Jocy? Raids always need healers, so if Jocy is the least bit serious, she'd better check her healing gear. In tank or retribution spec Jocy's gear level is i693. However, in Holy spec that gear falls to i679. Yes, it's close enough, if they are desperate for a healer. IF.
Jocy already has all the best gear that the Auction House can provide. However, there is something else she can do. Her Steelforged Saber of the Deft (i705) is a beautiful blade . . . but she can't use it in Holy spec. She has only a one-hand axe (i645) and an off-hand (i665) for healing. The axe is a Crafted one (1 of 6), so she could upgrade it to i705 as well, but it would be silly to combine that with an i665 off-hand that ought to be coupled with a Crafted off-hand. Jocy thought she had the right answer - get a Crafted two-hand Staff, like the one Fist has. Jocy dismally discovered that Holy paladins can't use staffs. Digging deeper, almost every weapon is outlawed to a holy paladin. No two-handers of any kind are allowed. That leaves just two one handed weapons to pick from. So, making the best of things, Jocy can upgrade her current blade to i675 and do the same with a new, Crafted shield or off-hand. Even that posed some problems, but she was finally able to maneuver her gear around to get to the magic i680.
Next, two things need to happen that don't have anything to do with gear levels. First, she has to get her addons set up for healing spec. No one in the Wild family has ever healed as a Holy Paladin. Second, she must practice. Go to the Proving Grounds and run that raid as many times as necessary to learn all of the spells and abilities and how/when to best use them.
That's as far as Jocy is ready to go so far. The third and fourth steps, if she is up to it, will be doing some LFR's (Looking For Raids) to get some practical experience after such a long lay off. It will be ugly. It wouldn't be a surprise if she were kicked from raids for a while. If she can stomach that, then she might suggest to the Meitha guild that Jocy is available for raids.
There was a moment in the Wild family when it looked like all of the player settings for every character had been wiped out. I was playing around with the Icy Veins recommended addon ElvUI. The addon is a complete replacement of the standard user interface. I didn't experiment on any active character. I tried it on Javajoo. Java is a paladin, like Jocy, and I wanted to experiment with a Holy spec using the new interface. Bottom line - messing with the interface is dangerous, particularly one that takes over completely. I got things set back where they should be without having to do anything drastic. That should have given Jocy the hint that maybe she should let things be.
But she won't. Somehow the bug to attempt the art of healing has lodged in her brain. Why would whe even bother trying a Holy spec? The idea just won't go away. Guilds, Bosses . . . uh, well, Raiding. There, she said it. She's got the itch. Maybe. Maybe not, but she's curious.
Meitha Guild is also thinking about it, planning it out. "You want to raid, get your gear to iLevel 680. Be ready." Jocy decided to, at the least, check things out.
First of all, she couldn't show up at a raid in her mushed together protection spec/DPS mode which she uses for solo work. It won't work in a raid environment. Jocy also has no intention of trying to be a tank, her own raiders would kill her for incompetence. She "might" consider retribution spec, but in all likelihood the guild will have more than enough DPS raiders with far better skills than Jocy.
Where does that leave Jocy? Raids always need healers, so if Jocy is the least bit serious, she'd better check her healing gear. In tank or retribution spec Jocy's gear level is i693. However, in Holy spec that gear falls to i679. Yes, it's close enough, if they are desperate for a healer. IF.
Jocy already has all the best gear that the Auction House can provide. However, there is something else she can do. Her Steelforged Saber of the Deft (i705) is a beautiful blade . . . but she can't use it in Holy spec. She has only a one-hand axe (i645) and an off-hand (i665) for healing. The axe is a Crafted one (1 of 6), so she could upgrade it to i705 as well, but it would be silly to combine that with an i665 off-hand that ought to be coupled with a Crafted off-hand. Jocy thought she had the right answer - get a Crafted two-hand Staff, like the one Fist has. Jocy dismally discovered that Holy paladins can't use staffs. Digging deeper, almost every weapon is outlawed to a holy paladin. No two-handers of any kind are allowed. That leaves just two one handed weapons to pick from. So, making the best of things, Jocy can upgrade her current blade to i675 and do the same with a new, Crafted shield or off-hand. Even that posed some problems, but she was finally able to maneuver her gear around to get to the magic i680.
Next, two things need to happen that don't have anything to do with gear levels. First, she has to get her addons set up for healing spec. No one in the Wild family has ever healed as a Holy Paladin. Second, she must practice. Go to the Proving Grounds and run that raid as many times as necessary to learn all of the spells and abilities and how/when to best use them.
That's as far as Jocy is ready to go so far. The third and fourth steps, if she is up to it, will be doing some LFR's (Looking For Raids) to get some practical experience after such a long lay off. It will be ugly. It wouldn't be a surprise if she were kicked from raids for a while. If she can stomach that, then she might suggest to the Meitha guild that Jocy is available for raids.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Raiding Noise?
Raiding Noise?
Patch 6.2.3 arrived on Tuesday. From the Wild family perspective nothing changed. Some very minor improvements on some spells will help Jocy and Tiphaine. Everyone continues to pursue personal goals.
Jocy has been building up her follower levels and that resulted in a special quest, the first such quest seen by the family. Jocy had to fly out into the middle of the ocean between Frostwall and Nagrand. Jocy didn't have her underwater breathing swim trunks on but figured she could just hold her breath. Swimming straight down, it took an unnervingly long time to get to the bottom, where a bright shiny waited. She was still several feet from the bottom when she was attacked by multiple mobs. Darn, Jocy belatedly wished she'd brought Tormmok. Too late now.
She killed four of the water beasts before getting enough elbow room to grab the shiny. She headed for the surface, still battling the persistent mobs, while worriedly watching her breath slipping away. Jocy breached the surface and gulped air. She got 30g for her trouble, from Black Market racketeers who rather brazenly hinted that more nefarious work might be arranged at her garrison. Sure enough, a Black Market representative was standing outside the Main Hall when Jocy got back. Frankly, this is a ruse to get people to use the black market Auction House, where players can post and bid on stuff. Sigh. And I thought Jocy might get something good out of that quest. Still, Wild caught Happy sneaking a peek at the offerings.
***
Wild startled the whole family when he woke from a bad dream murmuring something about raiding. Wild immediately disavowed ANY interest in slogging through dank dungeons, cleaning up monster goo, or standing around waiting for raids that never form up.
Jocy was looking kind of strange, though. The other day the raiding guild that Wild is still a member of, Meitha, was chatting on the guild channel and talking about getting a raid started. Hellfire Citadel (HFC), with it's twelve bosses and a thirteenth special nasty, seem to be the focus. The recent patch offers new gear upgrades for raiders who earn valor points. Goover was going to work something out, he said. Even BK (Bloodknuckle) was interested. BK, by the way, is the tank that Wild healed for in almost every raid he ever ran up to Pandaria, when Wild stopped raiding. BK is still around. Wow.
More on that to follow. . .
Patch 6.2.3 arrived on Tuesday. From the Wild family perspective nothing changed. Some very minor improvements on some spells will help Jocy and Tiphaine. Everyone continues to pursue personal goals.
Jocy has been building up her follower levels and that resulted in a special quest, the first such quest seen by the family. Jocy had to fly out into the middle of the ocean between Frostwall and Nagrand. Jocy didn't have her underwater breathing swim trunks on but figured she could just hold her breath. Swimming straight down, it took an unnervingly long time to get to the bottom, where a bright shiny waited. She was still several feet from the bottom when she was attacked by multiple mobs. Darn, Jocy belatedly wished she'd brought Tormmok. Too late now.
She killed four of the water beasts before getting enough elbow room to grab the shiny. She headed for the surface, still battling the persistent mobs, while worriedly watching her breath slipping away. Jocy breached the surface and gulped air. She got 30g for her trouble, from Black Market racketeers who rather brazenly hinted that more nefarious work might be arranged at her garrison. Sure enough, a Black Market representative was standing outside the Main Hall when Jocy got back. Frankly, this is a ruse to get people to use the black market Auction House, where players can post and bid on stuff. Sigh. And I thought Jocy might get something good out of that quest. Still, Wild caught Happy sneaking a peek at the offerings.
***
Wild startled the whole family when he woke from a bad dream murmuring something about raiding. Wild immediately disavowed ANY interest in slogging through dank dungeons, cleaning up monster goo, or standing around waiting for raids that never form up.
Jocy was looking kind of strange, though. The other day the raiding guild that Wild is still a member of, Meitha, was chatting on the guild channel and talking about getting a raid started. Hellfire Citadel (HFC), with it's twelve bosses and a thirteenth special nasty, seem to be the focus. The recent patch offers new gear upgrades for raiders who earn valor points. Goover was going to work something out, he said. Even BK (Bloodknuckle) was interested. BK, by the way, is the tank that Wild healed for in almost every raid he ever ran up to Pandaria, when Wild stopped raiding. BK is still around. Wow.
More on that to follow. . .
Sunday, November 15, 2015
For The Birds
For The Birds
Saturday . . . I'm sick of doing the Tanaan dailies. Not even the enticement of a new mount or even a gear upgrade interests me in another day of mindless slaughter. Multply that by four toons doing the same thing and GAH!
On a small scale the everyday routine of sending followers off on missions and dutifully completing profession responsibilities continues in all four garrisons. There is still some interest in gaining more followers, but it's an "eh" kind of interest.
Jocy recently acquired a Frostwall Tavern. At level one all it offers is dungeon quests. Jocy hoped that the quests didn't require a full dungeon run. Sigh, they do. The second level is a bit better, adding some random followers each week. That's being built right now. The third level offers follower treasure hunts, which sound fun, but Jocy is withholding comment until she does a couple. Jocy also upgraded her War Mill to the second level, and that will open up more follower gear as well. So, Jocy is modestly active, and even has a small chance of gaining gear. At i693, I'm not sure any follower mission is likely to drop something better, but one can hope.
Tiphaine still struggles to get her garrison in order. Her baracks is only level 2. She has no follower to man her level 3 Forge. Her herb garden is a limp level 1. All that takes gold, which she might wrestle from Happy, but it also takes garrison resources, which is still in short supply due to issues covered previously.
Fist wanted to get more interested in Treasure Contracts, which are random dailies. Unfortunately, the quests are completely random (ie, the same quests can show up over and over) and are opened on only a few random garrisons each day. That's a double dose of randomness which seems designed to make it hard even to get them, much less do them. Maybe she'll try one - if one ever shows up in her garrison. On second thought, maybe she'll just go take a nap.
As for Wild, he learned early that napping caps everything else at times like these.
Sunday . . . Fist is restless and bored. She volunteered to take Wild's place as the family fisherman and cook. Fist went heavy into cooking while she was leveling in Pandaria and the family loves the recipes. She's not even halfway to the max 700, but at least it's something she likes to do. The fishing part, though, is going to take some getting used to. Fist also has that empty Scribe's Quarters. She went to talk Philly (who has the inscription profession) about it. There is a lot to learn, but maybe it will keep her busy.
Saturday . . . I'm sick of doing the Tanaan dailies. Not even the enticement of a new mount or even a gear upgrade interests me in another day of mindless slaughter. Multply that by four toons doing the same thing and GAH!
On a small scale the everyday routine of sending followers off on missions and dutifully completing profession responsibilities continues in all four garrisons. There is still some interest in gaining more followers, but it's an "eh" kind of interest.
Jocy recently acquired a Frostwall Tavern. At level one all it offers is dungeon quests. Jocy hoped that the quests didn't require a full dungeon run. Sigh, they do. The second level is a bit better, adding some random followers each week. That's being built right now. The third level offers follower treasure hunts, which sound fun, but Jocy is withholding comment until she does a couple. Jocy also upgraded her War Mill to the second level, and that will open up more follower gear as well. So, Jocy is modestly active, and even has a small chance of gaining gear. At i693, I'm not sure any follower mission is likely to drop something better, but one can hope.
Tiphaine still struggles to get her garrison in order. Her baracks is only level 2. She has no follower to man her level 3 Forge. Her herb garden is a limp level 1. All that takes gold, which she might wrestle from Happy, but it also takes garrison resources, which is still in short supply due to issues covered previously.
Fist wanted to get more interested in Treasure Contracts, which are random dailies. Unfortunately, the quests are completely random (ie, the same quests can show up over and over) and are opened on only a few random garrisons each day. That's a double dose of randomness which seems designed to make it hard even to get them, much less do them. Maybe she'll try one - if one ever shows up in her garrison. On second thought, maybe she'll just go take a nap.
As for Wild, he learned early that napping caps everything else at times like these.
Sunday . . . Fist is restless and bored. She volunteered to take Wild's place as the family fisherman and cook. Fist went heavy into cooking while she was leveling in Pandaria and the family loves the recipes. She's not even halfway to the max 700, but at least it's something she likes to do. The fishing part, though, is going to take some getting used to. Fist also has that empty Scribe's Quarters. She went to talk Philly (who has the inscription profession) about it. There is a lot to learn, but maybe it will keep her busy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
