Tuesday (6 Apr) - Another Home Project
Wild might get an invite to the guild 25 man ICC raid Tuesday night. The idea that there should be a more even distribution of boss fights between the two raid nights seems to be taking hold. Using a raid feature called Lockout, some parity between the two nights of raiding looks possible. It would work like this. Normally a raid "resets" on maintenance day (Tuesday). That means that no matter how far into ICC we got on the previous Tuesday/Wednesday, come the next Tuesday night the raid will be "fresh" and we have to start with the first boss again. However, if you use Lockout after the Wednesday raid and before the following Tuesday maintenance, the raid will not be refreshed. The bosses downed the previous week will still be dead and the raid would pick up where they left off. So instead of facing the farmable content on that Tuesday, that raid would be facing the more difficult bosses. After that Tuesday raid the guild would "unlock" the raid, allowing ICC to be refreshed, and so the Wednesday raid would arrive to a fresh dungeon, with all bosses (even the ones on farm) available to tackle. By doing this consistently week to week, both nights would get opportunities on both farmable content and the tougher progression bosses. Since Wild initiated the idea of evening up the two raid nights, there was a chance Wild might get a Tuesday invite.
There was a second, even better reason for Wild's improved chances to get into the Tuesday raid. The Tuesday raid regular druid healer had reported on the guild website that he would not be able to make the raid. He is typically the only druid healer assigned for that night. So on this night a spot for a druid healer would be available.
However, we started a new home project on Tuesday, and I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the raid.
The project - finishing the garage. We also had a side project that fit quite nicely into the garage work. We had planned some maintenance for our RV, so it would be out of the way at the RV shop while we did the garage. Everything was planned out and ready to go starting Tuesday morning.
We had rented a truck, and were planning to pick it up at 10am. Before doing that, we needed to move our 27 foot RV from our driveway to the street, to make room for the truck. That's when we had our first problem. One of the interior tires on the RV was flat. Not just low. Completely flat. The truck had to wait while we got the RV over to the tire company. We lost almost two hours time.
Once we got to the Budget rental place to pick up our truck, they originally gave us the wrong truck (10 ft instead of the 14 footer we needed), and we lost another hour getting that straightened out.
Finally, with the RV at the tire shop and the truck in the driveway, I was able to get started. My job was to completely empty the garage into the truck, so that we could start work on the garage. We have a full garage, and it included two large 4x4 kennels for two cats we are fostering, as well as a heavy treadmill, a freezer, and of course tons of junk accumulated over the years. And this was after I had spent a week clearing out stuff that we really didn't need. That took all day and then some. The tire company had bad news. I would be buying more than just one tire, and not only that there were brake problems. Adding to that is that we found an electrical problem in the garage (amazing the things you discover when moving things around) that had to be fixed before we could start work on anything else. Luckily we have an electrician we've used for years, and he made a special trip to help us out. But it cost us more time.
At 5pm I left a message on the guild website that I was not likely to make the raid. It was after 7pm by the time we finished the "getting ready" part. Wild did not make the raid.
On Wednesday the real work starts - drywalling and insulating the walls, painting, and also finishing the ceiling. We still have to get the RV, back from the tire company, to the RV shop for maintenance. I wonder what surprises are still in store.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Sunday (5 Apr) - Earthquake!
Sunday (5 Apr) - Earthquake!
Yep, on Sunday afternoon we had an earthquake, measuring 7.2 on the richter scale. We got some pretty heavy shakes at our house in three jolts over about thirty seconds. I had scampered downstairs just in time to get a good view of the master bedroom and our newly installed thirteen foot headboard set rattle and shake. I am ever so glad I anchored the bed to that thing. The mirrors undulated, but didn't break. It was the strongest quake we've felt since coming to live in San Diego. The epicenter was about 120 miles away, in Mexico. There was some damage done closer to the epicenter, but only minor damage and no injuries reported here. We've felt three minor aftershocks since then. Just another sunny San Diego Easter day.
In some quarters the blame for the earthquake was levelled at Philly. She did the unthinkable by entering the daily random dungeon, which turned out to be Gundrak. And yes, she even went as the healer. We had a DK in frost spec as our tank, with a moonkin, rogue, and mage as our DPS. We had gotten off to a rocky start as one of the DPS left right as we started on the first set of trash mobs. With one player missing it took longer to bring them down and Philly was pretty busy right off the bat. Which probably helped sooth the nerves. Philly didn't have time to be worried. We quickly got another DPS (the rogue) and kept moving.
The rogue and mage were aggro magnets. The tank was doing well, and the moonkin dropped the AoE Hurricane enough times without drawing mobs for it be clear it was the rogue and mage's fault they were getting hit, not the tanks. They were lower level than us other three, and that didn't help them avoid angry mobs, either. As long as Philly could spare the heals while keeping herself and the tank going, those two stayed alive. The moonkin hardly needed any healing at all.
Philly has been practicing her spells, and barely had to look at her cheat sheet to see what spell was where. Philly is learning to love both her Penance and Prayer of Healing (POH) spells. Penance is just awesome for single target healing and POH - well, the first time I used it, with the whole party near 50% health, the AoE heal raised them all to near full health. POH is a mana drain, and it has a long cast time, but when it hits everyone benefits.
Philly used her mana regen abilities regularly and only twice asked the tank for a mana break, and those were before the 2nd and 3rd bosses. Or maybe it was the 3rd and 4th bosses, I lose track. He was happy to oblige, and it also helped the mage, who was really struggling.
The final boss, Gal'darah, gave us a little trouble. The damage is very spikey, since the boss can whirlwind and also turns into a rhino and impales people. Philly was a little slow to realize that I should be pre-Shielding the whole group. The poor rogue decided to stand inside a whirlwind and he died less than halfway into the fight. Philly was busy keeping everyone else alive, but I don't think the moonkin rezzed him. We'd have lost more DPS from the moonkin having to stop DPSing and battle rez than we would have gained back by having the rogue alive, anyway.
It was tons of fun and we only lost that one rogue, so Philly felt pretty good about the run. No loot for Philly other than a wonderful bow that all the hunters could drool over, only there wasn't anyone in our group that could use a bow. Philly vendored it.
In terms of her healing, Philly's health per second (hps) was 1046, which I'm pretty happy with. Note that all that Shielding Philly did, absorbing incoming damage before it could become damage, is not counted in that number, which otherwise would have been higher. Philly did all of the healing for the entire fight, other than one health pot the tank used the one time he got a little nervous. But Philly had him Shielded at that moment, and the heal was on it's way, so he needed have bothered. The moonkin, the only other healing class in the group, didn't heal a single time, trusting in Philly's heals (and his own ability to avoid aggro).
Philly quibbled over the fact that she might flash heal a little too often and too soon, as that made up 49% of her direct heals. Penance, mostly on the tank, grabbed 26%. Did I mention how much I like Penance? Awesome spell, with a really cool visual as it sends three heal pulses at the target.
The moonkin (1357 dps) and the DK tank (1225 dps) did almost all of the damage dealing. The hard pressed rogue did 875 and the mage, poor soul, did 558. We got the job done, though.
I guess Philly should also mention that the Gundrak run got her 14% xp and Philly DINGED! to level 79 (Earthquake time!). One more level to go, baby. Without the earthquake this time.
Yep, on Sunday afternoon we had an earthquake, measuring 7.2 on the richter scale. We got some pretty heavy shakes at our house in three jolts over about thirty seconds. I had scampered downstairs just in time to get a good view of the master bedroom and our newly installed thirteen foot headboard set rattle and shake. I am ever so glad I anchored the bed to that thing. The mirrors undulated, but didn't break. It was the strongest quake we've felt since coming to live in San Diego. The epicenter was about 120 miles away, in Mexico. There was some damage done closer to the epicenter, but only minor damage and no injuries reported here. We've felt three minor aftershocks since then. Just another sunny San Diego Easter day.
In some quarters the blame for the earthquake was levelled at Philly. She did the unthinkable by entering the daily random dungeon, which turned out to be Gundrak. And yes, she even went as the healer. We had a DK in frost spec as our tank, with a moonkin, rogue, and mage as our DPS. We had gotten off to a rocky start as one of the DPS left right as we started on the first set of trash mobs. With one player missing it took longer to bring them down and Philly was pretty busy right off the bat. Which probably helped sooth the nerves. Philly didn't have time to be worried. We quickly got another DPS (the rogue) and kept moving.
The rogue and mage were aggro magnets. The tank was doing well, and the moonkin dropped the AoE Hurricane enough times without drawing mobs for it be clear it was the rogue and mage's fault they were getting hit, not the tanks. They were lower level than us other three, and that didn't help them avoid angry mobs, either. As long as Philly could spare the heals while keeping herself and the tank going, those two stayed alive. The moonkin hardly needed any healing at all.
Philly has been practicing her spells, and barely had to look at her cheat sheet to see what spell was where. Philly is learning to love both her Penance and Prayer of Healing (POH) spells. Penance is just awesome for single target healing and POH - well, the first time I used it, with the whole party near 50% health, the AoE heal raised them all to near full health. POH is a mana drain, and it has a long cast time, but when it hits everyone benefits.
Philly used her mana regen abilities regularly and only twice asked the tank for a mana break, and those were before the 2nd and 3rd bosses. Or maybe it was the 3rd and 4th bosses, I lose track. He was happy to oblige, and it also helped the mage, who was really struggling.
The final boss, Gal'darah, gave us a little trouble. The damage is very spikey, since the boss can whirlwind and also turns into a rhino and impales people. Philly was a little slow to realize that I should be pre-Shielding the whole group. The poor rogue decided to stand inside a whirlwind and he died less than halfway into the fight. Philly was busy keeping everyone else alive, but I don't think the moonkin rezzed him. We'd have lost more DPS from the moonkin having to stop DPSing and battle rez than we would have gained back by having the rogue alive, anyway.
It was tons of fun and we only lost that one rogue, so Philly felt pretty good about the run. No loot for Philly other than a wonderful bow that all the hunters could drool over, only there wasn't anyone in our group that could use a bow. Philly vendored it.
In terms of her healing, Philly's health per second (hps) was 1046, which I'm pretty happy with. Note that all that Shielding Philly did, absorbing incoming damage before it could become damage, is not counted in that number, which otherwise would have been higher. Philly did all of the healing for the entire fight, other than one health pot the tank used the one time he got a little nervous. But Philly had him Shielded at that moment, and the heal was on it's way, so he needed have bothered. The moonkin, the only other healing class in the group, didn't heal a single time, trusting in Philly's heals (and his own ability to avoid aggro).
Philly quibbled over the fact that she might flash heal a little too often and too soon, as that made up 49% of her direct heals. Penance, mostly on the tank, grabbed 26%. Did I mention how much I like Penance? Awesome spell, with a really cool visual as it sends three heal pulses at the target.
The moonkin (1357 dps) and the DK tank (1225 dps) did almost all of the damage dealing. The hard pressed rogue did 875 and the mage, poor soul, did 558. We got the job done, though.
I guess Philly should also mention that the Gundrak run got her 14% xp and Philly DINGED! to level 79 (Earthquake time!). One more level to go, baby. Without the earthquake this time.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Weekend (4 Apr) - Rolling Through the Week
Weekend (4 Apr) - Rolling Through the Week
More home projects crowded out WoW over the past few days and will continue through next week. It involves emptying out the garage and a lot of other hard labor better suited to prison chain gangs. And baseball season is nigh upon us and the Padres are making things interesting enough to distract me further. One would think I actually have a real life.
Still, there was some modest action going on in game.
Philly came close to maxing out her pvp honor, but finally got around to visiting the pvp gear npcs, buying level 80 pvp gear to add to her set once she hits level 80. She bought bracers and cape. Her next purchase will likely be the belt, although she is looking at trinkets as well. In addition, Philly and Wild have been making gear for both pvp and pve via Philly's jewelcrafting and Wild's tailoring. Recently Philly added a ring [Runed Mana Band] and a necklace [Sky Sapphire Amulet] to her collection of crafted gear waiting for Philly to get old enough to use them. Philly is 70% of the way to level 79 as of Saturday morning.
Speaking of tailoring, Sis gave Wild a challenge when she asked Wild to make a pair of [Shadowweave Pants]. The level 37 trousers were for Lao. Wild checked his tailoring patterns and he didn't have it. Usually that means there was some requirement (faction rep, dungeon run, quest, etc) required to get it, which Wild must have never got around to doing. Wild did some digging around, which led him to the Undercity. There is a cubbyhole in the Magic Quarter of the Undercity where the tailor npcs hang out. Wild was very familiar with them, though, and knew that he already had every tailoring pattern they offered. Yet Wild's research showed there was another npc there that Wild had never heard of. Wild found the npc on the opposite side of the canal from where the rest of the tailors were (a canal runs in a circle through the Undercity, bisecting the lower floor into an inner section and an outer section). Wild located the npc, and discovered that he offered a whole set of shadowweave gear, including the pants Sis had asked for. Wild has no idea if that npc has always been there, but because he wasn't located where the rest of the tailors were, I never knew to go look for him. Or the npc could have been added after Wild was long past looking for patterns when he arrived there. In any event, Wild got some new tailoring patterns and Sis got her pants for Lao.
Wild is also now working on crafting the largest craftable all purpose bag available, called a [Glacial Bag]. Bags come in a large range of sizes, starting as small as a 4 slot bag. As the game has progressed, bags have gotten larger and larger. Every player gets a standard sized backpack with 16 slots, and has room on his gear to tote another four bags. Probably the most commonly used bag for levelling players is the 16 slot Netherweave bag, which is a cheaper version of what was once the premiere bag in the game, the 16 slot Mooncloth Bag. Note that these bags are the same size as the backpack. The backpack size has never changed, but bags have continued to get larger. Imbued Netherweave bags have 18 slots, and were the largest common all purpose bag in the game until WotLK came out. The new bags with that expansion include the Frostweave Bag, which has 20 slots and is the bag of choice for most level 80 players. The Glacial bag was also introduced (breaking tradition by NOT calling it an Imbued Frostweave Bag, which is kind of what it is). The Glacial bag has 22 slots, and is VERY expensive, in the 500-700 gold range.
With patch 3.3.3 the making of Glacial Bags changed. Prior to the patch the moonshroud and ebonweave mats for the bags could only be crafted once every four days, so it took considerable to time amass the mats needed to make one. That restriction is now gone, and Wild can make as many of those mats as he can afford. However, there is now a restriction on making Glacial bags. A tailor can only make one Glacial Bag - per week. Wild will make his weekly bag, but I haven't decided whether to just sell them, or use them myself.
Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there is an even larger all purpose bag out there, the largest in the game. There is no crafting involved, and no effort involved in getting your hands on one other than stopping by to visit and paying the price. The bag is sold by Haris Pilton, located at the World's End Tavern in Shattrath. Yes, you read that name correctly - Haris Pilton. Along with some very expensive, useless jewelry, she sells a 24 slot bag called [Portable Hole]. I know it's cheap fun thinking up the worst kind of punch lines for that, but of course I would never do that. By the way, it costs 3,000 gold, or about the cost of five 22 slot glacial bags. Some folks just have to get hold of at least one or two of Haris Pilton's holes, though.
Wild recently stopped by the tavern to say hi to Haris (not that there is anything going on there).
On Friday night we had a short but pretty intense pvp evening. Philly, Sis, and DER fought an excellent Wintergrasp battle. We were on offense and I think taking the fortress by storm is always more fun than defending it. Then the teens crew came in game (Neeky, Staar, and Java) for a Warsong Gulch match that was pretty intense. We crushed them, even though Neeky struggled with lag and Staar struggled with an uncooperative user interface. At the end of the match Staar unexpectedly DINGED to level 20, and his days as a teen pvp god were over.
Philly, Sis, and Sin returned for a 70s bracket WSG. The match was already in progress. The fact that all three of us got into the match meant that the horde team had been short that many, and the results were pretty obvious as the horde was already down 0-2 in flag caps. We made the alliance work hard for that last flag, and gave them some desperate moments as we fought to capture the allie flag, but the match had been long lost before we ever got there.
Wild's suggestion to the guild to rotate raiders between Tuesday and Wednesday nights has generated a few comments, including one that might actually work out so that the Wednesday raid could see those earlier bosses the Tuesday group always clears. Some of the other suggestions were in the area of speeding up the raid in general, and focusing even harder on getting the content down. Wild's suggestion may end up ninjaed by other raid concerns and suggestions, but at least guildies are talking.
More home projects crowded out WoW over the past few days and will continue through next week. It involves emptying out the garage and a lot of other hard labor better suited to prison chain gangs. And baseball season is nigh upon us and the Padres are making things interesting enough to distract me further. One would think I actually have a real life.
Still, there was some modest action going on in game.
Philly came close to maxing out her pvp honor, but finally got around to visiting the pvp gear npcs, buying level 80 pvp gear to add to her set once she hits level 80. She bought bracers and cape. Her next purchase will likely be the belt, although she is looking at trinkets as well. In addition, Philly and Wild have been making gear for both pvp and pve via Philly's jewelcrafting and Wild's tailoring. Recently Philly added a ring [Runed Mana Band] and a necklace [Sky Sapphire Amulet] to her collection of crafted gear waiting for Philly to get old enough to use them. Philly is 70% of the way to level 79 as of Saturday morning.
Speaking of tailoring, Sis gave Wild a challenge when she asked Wild to make a pair of [Shadowweave Pants]. The level 37 trousers were for Lao. Wild checked his tailoring patterns and he didn't have it. Usually that means there was some requirement (faction rep, dungeon run, quest, etc) required to get it, which Wild must have never got around to doing. Wild did some digging around, which led him to the Undercity. There is a cubbyhole in the Magic Quarter of the Undercity where the tailor npcs hang out. Wild was very familiar with them, though, and knew that he already had every tailoring pattern they offered. Yet Wild's research showed there was another npc there that Wild had never heard of. Wild found the npc on the opposite side of the canal from where the rest of the tailors were (a canal runs in a circle through the Undercity, bisecting the lower floor into an inner section and an outer section). Wild located the npc, and discovered that he offered a whole set of shadowweave gear, including the pants Sis had asked for. Wild has no idea if that npc has always been there, but because he wasn't located where the rest of the tailors were, I never knew to go look for him. Or the npc could have been added after Wild was long past looking for patterns when he arrived there. In any event, Wild got some new tailoring patterns and Sis got her pants for Lao.
Wild is also now working on crafting the largest craftable all purpose bag available, called a [Glacial Bag]. Bags come in a large range of sizes, starting as small as a 4 slot bag. As the game has progressed, bags have gotten larger and larger. Every player gets a standard sized backpack with 16 slots, and has room on his gear to tote another four bags. Probably the most commonly used bag for levelling players is the 16 slot Netherweave bag, which is a cheaper version of what was once the premiere bag in the game, the 16 slot Mooncloth Bag. Note that these bags are the same size as the backpack. The backpack size has never changed, but bags have continued to get larger. Imbued Netherweave bags have 18 slots, and were the largest common all purpose bag in the game until WotLK came out. The new bags with that expansion include the Frostweave Bag, which has 20 slots and is the bag of choice for most level 80 players. The Glacial bag was also introduced (breaking tradition by NOT calling it an Imbued Frostweave Bag, which is kind of what it is). The Glacial bag has 22 slots, and is VERY expensive, in the 500-700 gold range.
With patch 3.3.3 the making of Glacial Bags changed. Prior to the patch the moonshroud and ebonweave mats for the bags could only be crafted once every four days, so it took considerable to time amass the mats needed to make one. That restriction is now gone, and Wild can make as many of those mats as he can afford. However, there is now a restriction on making Glacial bags. A tailor can only make one Glacial Bag - per week. Wild will make his weekly bag, but I haven't decided whether to just sell them, or use them myself.
Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there is an even larger all purpose bag out there, the largest in the game. There is no crafting involved, and no effort involved in getting your hands on one other than stopping by to visit and paying the price. The bag is sold by Haris Pilton, located at the World's End Tavern in Shattrath. Yes, you read that name correctly - Haris Pilton. Along with some very expensive, useless jewelry, she sells a 24 slot bag called [Portable Hole]. I know it's cheap fun thinking up the worst kind of punch lines for that, but of course I would never do that. By the way, it costs 3,000 gold, or about the cost of five 22 slot glacial bags. Some folks just have to get hold of at least one or two of Haris Pilton's holes, though.
Wild recently stopped by the tavern to say hi to Haris (not that there is anything going on there).
On Friday night we had a short but pretty intense pvp evening. Philly, Sis, and DER fought an excellent Wintergrasp battle. We were on offense and I think taking the fortress by storm is always more fun than defending it. Then the teens crew came in game (Neeky, Staar, and Java) for a Warsong Gulch match that was pretty intense. We crushed them, even though Neeky struggled with lag and Staar struggled with an uncooperative user interface. At the end of the match Staar unexpectedly DINGED to level 20, and his days as a teen pvp god were over.
Philly, Sis, and Sin returned for a 70s bracket WSG. The match was already in progress. The fact that all three of us got into the match meant that the horde team had been short that many, and the results were pretty obvious as the horde was already down 0-2 in flag caps. We made the alliance work hard for that last flag, and gave them some desperate moments as we fought to capture the allie flag, but the match had been long lost before we ever got there.
Wild's suggestion to the guild to rotate raiders between Tuesday and Wednesday nights has generated a few comments, including one that might actually work out so that the Wednesday raid could see those earlier bosses the Tuesday group always clears. Some of the other suggestions were in the area of speeding up the raid in general, and focusing even harder on getting the content down. Wild's suggestion may end up ninjaed by other raid concerns and suggestions, but at least guildies are talking.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Wednesday (31 Mar) - The Good news and the Bad
Wednesday (31 Mar) - The Good news and the Bad
Wild is beginning to feel a bit like a regular raider - at least on Wednesdays. Wild was again a confirmed invite for the 25 man ICC raid. Tuesday's raid had cleared the Lower Spire (4 bosses) plus two in the Plagueworks (Rotface and Festergut). The Tuesday raid also took some shots at Putricide as well, but didn't get him, so our guild has still not downed that boss.
For Wednesday, we decided to leave Putricide for another time, and moved purposefully to the wing called the Crimson Hall. We got off to a little bit of a late start as we were short two raiders. We eventually cleared the trash with 24 raiders, and then waited a bit more for our 25th.
The first boss encounter of the night was the Princes. Wild is getting some good experience on this one. On previous visits, Wild has been both a raid healer and the tank healer for Prince Keleseth. On this night Wild was the tank healer for Prince Taldaram. The battle went pretty smoothly and the Princes went down on our first try.
The other encounter in Crimson Hall is the Blood-Queen, but the raid leader opted to bypass her and go instead to the fourth wing, the Frostwing Halls. Perhaps I should explain how the wings work in ICC. The first wing, Lower Spire, must always be cleared first before any of the other wings will open up. Once that is done, the other three wings become available and the raid can choose whichever wing they want to. However, all four wings have to be cleared before we can access the final encounter in the Frozen Throne - against the Lich King. So, since Lower Spire was cleared on Tuesday, we could go pretty much anywhere we wanted with the exception of the Frozen Throne.
The raid leader chose to go after Valithria Dreamwalker. We had shocked even ourselves last week when our Wednesday raid got a guild first when we won this encounter for the first time. We were hoping we could do it again. Wild learned a lot more about how this fight works, too.
Dreamwalker is a dragon, already near death. The Scourge use her for ghastly experiments and our job is not to kill her, but to heal and free her. I didn't really understand this last week when I was an "outside the portal" raid healer. As usual, three healers were chosen to go into the portal along with other raiders. Instead of DPSing the boss down like we do in 99.9% of all boss encounters, it's the task of the three assigned healers to heal the dragon from 50% to full health while waves of mobs attack her and the rest of the raid. Wild was assigned as a tank healer this time, and had to run half the length of the chamber to get into position at Dreamwalker's tail on the northern side in order to heal the tank. This is one of the rare times when standing at the dragon's tail is NOT a bad, bad thing to do. Essentially, two tanks must get aggro on every mob that comes calling to keep them from attacking Dreamwalker. There are five different types of mobs and the DPS has to know the kill order to ensure the most dangerous mobs die first.
On our first attempt Wild kept his tank alive, even though it got a little tricky at times. Late in that first attempt the tank mentioned that he needed someone to dispel a stacking disease debuff that was causing the damage he was taking to spike higher and higher. So that's what was happening. Wild can't clean diseases, but the raid healer on Wild's side of the room was a shaman who could drop a cleansing totem.
We wiped on our first try. I wasn't sure of the details, but apparently there is a stacking issue with the healers that wasn't going well. Inside the portal are Nightmare Clouds that stack additional healing, damage, and mana regen. The three healers must keep a full three stacks up at all times inside the portal, and there were some problems with that.
On our second attempt Wild had no trouble keeping up the tank, and even had time to help raid heal as long as the cleansing totem stayed up. We wiped again, however, when the southern side of the assault came unglued.
For attempt #3, the raid leader swapped healers around, asking our cat druid to switch to healing and take over for a paladin as one of the three portal healers. I'd never seen him heal, before, and he was impressive. The raid leader was pretty hard on the paladin that was swapped out to raid heal, but the raid leader's a pretty gruff guy anyway (usually). We got Dreamwalker up to 96% health but just didn't quite have enough to save her, wiping a third time.
While we were setting up for a 4th, and what the raid leader said would be our last attempt on the dragon this evening, the raid leader whispered Wild.
"You're healing is pretty low, is there something wrong, or something I can help with?" Frankly I was a bit worried about that, too. Part of the issue early on was that I was getting used to how to heal the tank for this particular encounter, and I am pretty conservative about throwing heals elsewhere until I'm sure I have the measure of the tank healing I need to do. It's also in part that I tend to heal what needs healing, unless I'm raid healing where I can spam heal without worrying about keeping a tank up. Third, I had changed Wild's gear around and I wasn't sure how that was going to work out. I'm getting really frustrated at how slowly Wild heals compared to other healers who have double and more in +haste than Wild has. So I intentionally lowered Wild's base spell power and mana regen to add some +haste. Based on the results, that didn't work out too well. The added haste wasn't enough to overcome the loss of spell power, and I found that Wild needed both his innervate and a mana potion to keep my mana up. The raid leader offered some suggestions (he's a druid moonkin/healer too) which did help on the next attempt. We plan to get together to talk about gearing, tactics, fight mechanics, etc, which I think would be very worthwhile.
We saved Dreamwalker on our 4th attempt, getting our second ever victory against this encounter.
Maybe we could go kill the Blood-Queen now? Please? She's a lot easier than the other choice we had. Nope, it would not be the Blood-Queen. We headed for Professor Putricide, who laughingly reminded us that he was still undefeated.
The raid leader had been studying this fight, and decided to change things up a bit, since we were still zero for forever against this guy. Instead of six healers, he figured he could get by with five, and add another DPS to kill things faster. The raid leader asked Wild if he had a DPS set. Wild swallowed hard and said, I do. Wild switched to moonkin for the Putricide fight, which gave us three moonkin - Wild, plus the raid leader, and also one of Wild's oldest friends, a former priest who was now a super powerful druid moonkin/occasional tank.
Wild had no idea what he should be doing fight mechanic-wise as a DPS, but I figured I could just follow the other two chickens around from a movement perspective, and I would set the raid leader as a focus and attack whatever it was that he attacked. Simple, no? No, not really. If Wild thought that this fight was a crazy mess as a healer, it was even worse as a DPS. Wild was no better at getting where he was supposed to be, and all that movement played havoc with Wild's DPS. Wild was already seriously undergeared versus the two other moonkin, but . . . well, enough excuses.
On our first attempt, a wipe, Wild did 3773 DPS, compared to over 5k from the other two druids. That was the high point - it went progressively downhill from there.
We got Putricide to 19% on our second attempt, one of our best attempts ever. Wild could have gotten us closer, as we had lost a raider I was going to battle rez, but slime pools closed up around me and Wild died before I could get it done. We tried a third time, another wipe. Wild was getting a bit better at avoiding all the nastiness going on around him - slimes pools, exploding pots, bouncing goo that chased after their targets - and that was just the avoidable stuff. Wild also had to get used to actually aiming at his target. The game is pretty forgiving of that, and one can be almost at right angles and still shoot bad guys, but Wild is used to being able to heal targets with his back to them, and this aiming thing was an interesting wrinkle when Wild was being chased in one direction and the thing I'm supposed to be hitting was going the other way.
Wild finished 18th out of 17 DPSers, being beaten in DPS by one of the tanks as well. Not one of Wild's shining moonkin moments. Just to rub it in, Wild finished at 2809 DPS, getting a pitiful 2.5% of the total DPS. The raid leader finished 13th, with 5438 DPS, and the other druid topped us both with 6116 DPS. I frankly forgot to do some things I should have been doing, like using my long cooldown attack called Starfall. The other two druids did a lot of damage with that. Wild is still basically a healer trying to learn to DPS. It was only Wild's second time DPSing in a raid.
BUT - On our 4th attempt, Putricide said the words we had been hoping to hear from the ever pleasant, happy, and insane Professor Putricide: "Bad news everyone.... I don't think I'm going to make it..."
Putricide died, our first ever guild 25 man kill.
Two sanctified tokens dropped. The raid leader won the first one. Wild won the second one. The tokens are used to upgrade Tier gear. Wild exchanged his ilevel 251 shoulders for the i264 one. It's a nice upgrade, but it didn't add any +haste.
In guild news, Wild made a suggestion in the guild forums to rotate raiders between the two raid nights. Raiders like Wild that only get in on Wednesday miss out on all the gear from the first four bosses each week, gear that has to start getting pretty old to the regulars who run it. We'll see how that goes.
Wild is beginning to feel a bit like a regular raider - at least on Wednesdays. Wild was again a confirmed invite for the 25 man ICC raid. Tuesday's raid had cleared the Lower Spire (4 bosses) plus two in the Plagueworks (Rotface and Festergut). The Tuesday raid also took some shots at Putricide as well, but didn't get him, so our guild has still not downed that boss.
For Wednesday, we decided to leave Putricide for another time, and moved purposefully to the wing called the Crimson Hall. We got off to a little bit of a late start as we were short two raiders. We eventually cleared the trash with 24 raiders, and then waited a bit more for our 25th.
The first boss encounter of the night was the Princes. Wild is getting some good experience on this one. On previous visits, Wild has been both a raid healer and the tank healer for Prince Keleseth. On this night Wild was the tank healer for Prince Taldaram. The battle went pretty smoothly and the Princes went down on our first try.
The other encounter in Crimson Hall is the Blood-Queen, but the raid leader opted to bypass her and go instead to the fourth wing, the Frostwing Halls. Perhaps I should explain how the wings work in ICC. The first wing, Lower Spire, must always be cleared first before any of the other wings will open up. Once that is done, the other three wings become available and the raid can choose whichever wing they want to. However, all four wings have to be cleared before we can access the final encounter in the Frozen Throne - against the Lich King. So, since Lower Spire was cleared on Tuesday, we could go pretty much anywhere we wanted with the exception of the Frozen Throne.
The raid leader chose to go after Valithria Dreamwalker. We had shocked even ourselves last week when our Wednesday raid got a guild first when we won this encounter for the first time. We were hoping we could do it again. Wild learned a lot more about how this fight works, too.
Dreamwalker is a dragon, already near death. The Scourge use her for ghastly experiments and our job is not to kill her, but to heal and free her. I didn't really understand this last week when I was an "outside the portal" raid healer. As usual, three healers were chosen to go into the portal along with other raiders. Instead of DPSing the boss down like we do in 99.9% of all boss encounters, it's the task of the three assigned healers to heal the dragon from 50% to full health while waves of mobs attack her and the rest of the raid. Wild was assigned as a tank healer this time, and had to run half the length of the chamber to get into position at Dreamwalker's tail on the northern side in order to heal the tank. This is one of the rare times when standing at the dragon's tail is NOT a bad, bad thing to do. Essentially, two tanks must get aggro on every mob that comes calling to keep them from attacking Dreamwalker. There are five different types of mobs and the DPS has to know the kill order to ensure the most dangerous mobs die first.
On our first attempt Wild kept his tank alive, even though it got a little tricky at times. Late in that first attempt the tank mentioned that he needed someone to dispel a stacking disease debuff that was causing the damage he was taking to spike higher and higher. So that's what was happening. Wild can't clean diseases, but the raid healer on Wild's side of the room was a shaman who could drop a cleansing totem.
We wiped on our first try. I wasn't sure of the details, but apparently there is a stacking issue with the healers that wasn't going well. Inside the portal are Nightmare Clouds that stack additional healing, damage, and mana regen. The three healers must keep a full three stacks up at all times inside the portal, and there were some problems with that.
On our second attempt Wild had no trouble keeping up the tank, and even had time to help raid heal as long as the cleansing totem stayed up. We wiped again, however, when the southern side of the assault came unglued.
For attempt #3, the raid leader swapped healers around, asking our cat druid to switch to healing and take over for a paladin as one of the three portal healers. I'd never seen him heal, before, and he was impressive. The raid leader was pretty hard on the paladin that was swapped out to raid heal, but the raid leader's a pretty gruff guy anyway (usually). We got Dreamwalker up to 96% health but just didn't quite have enough to save her, wiping a third time.
While we were setting up for a 4th, and what the raid leader said would be our last attempt on the dragon this evening, the raid leader whispered Wild.
"You're healing is pretty low, is there something wrong, or something I can help with?" Frankly I was a bit worried about that, too. Part of the issue early on was that I was getting used to how to heal the tank for this particular encounter, and I am pretty conservative about throwing heals elsewhere until I'm sure I have the measure of the tank healing I need to do. It's also in part that I tend to heal what needs healing, unless I'm raid healing where I can spam heal without worrying about keeping a tank up. Third, I had changed Wild's gear around and I wasn't sure how that was going to work out. I'm getting really frustrated at how slowly Wild heals compared to other healers who have double and more in +haste than Wild has. So I intentionally lowered Wild's base spell power and mana regen to add some +haste. Based on the results, that didn't work out too well. The added haste wasn't enough to overcome the loss of spell power, and I found that Wild needed both his innervate and a mana potion to keep my mana up. The raid leader offered some suggestions (he's a druid moonkin/healer too) which did help on the next attempt. We plan to get together to talk about gearing, tactics, fight mechanics, etc, which I think would be very worthwhile.
We saved Dreamwalker on our 4th attempt, getting our second ever victory against this encounter.
Maybe we could go kill the Blood-Queen now? Please? She's a lot easier than the other choice we had. Nope, it would not be the Blood-Queen. We headed for Professor Putricide, who laughingly reminded us that he was still undefeated.
The raid leader had been studying this fight, and decided to change things up a bit, since we were still zero for forever against this guy. Instead of six healers, he figured he could get by with five, and add another DPS to kill things faster. The raid leader asked Wild if he had a DPS set. Wild swallowed hard and said, I do. Wild switched to moonkin for the Putricide fight, which gave us three moonkin - Wild, plus the raid leader, and also one of Wild's oldest friends, a former priest who was now a super powerful druid moonkin/occasional tank.
Wild had no idea what he should be doing fight mechanic-wise as a DPS, but I figured I could just follow the other two chickens around from a movement perspective, and I would set the raid leader as a focus and attack whatever it was that he attacked. Simple, no? No, not really. If Wild thought that this fight was a crazy mess as a healer, it was even worse as a DPS. Wild was no better at getting where he was supposed to be, and all that movement played havoc with Wild's DPS. Wild was already seriously undergeared versus the two other moonkin, but . . . well, enough excuses.
On our first attempt, a wipe, Wild did 3773 DPS, compared to over 5k from the other two druids. That was the high point - it went progressively downhill from there.
We got Putricide to 19% on our second attempt, one of our best attempts ever. Wild could have gotten us closer, as we had lost a raider I was going to battle rez, but slime pools closed up around me and Wild died before I could get it done. We tried a third time, another wipe. Wild was getting a bit better at avoiding all the nastiness going on around him - slimes pools, exploding pots, bouncing goo that chased after their targets - and that was just the avoidable stuff. Wild also had to get used to actually aiming at his target. The game is pretty forgiving of that, and one can be almost at right angles and still shoot bad guys, but Wild is used to being able to heal targets with his back to them, and this aiming thing was an interesting wrinkle when Wild was being chased in one direction and the thing I'm supposed to be hitting was going the other way.
Wild finished 18th out of 17 DPSers, being beaten in DPS by one of the tanks as well. Not one of Wild's shining moonkin moments. Just to rub it in, Wild finished at 2809 DPS, getting a pitiful 2.5% of the total DPS. The raid leader finished 13th, with 5438 DPS, and the other druid topped us both with 6116 DPS. I frankly forgot to do some things I should have been doing, like using my long cooldown attack called Starfall. The other two druids did a lot of damage with that. Wild is still basically a healer trying to learn to DPS. It was only Wild's second time DPSing in a raid.
BUT - On our 4th attempt, Putricide said the words we had been hoping to hear from the ever pleasant, happy, and insane Professor Putricide: "Bad news everyone.... I don't think I'm going to make it..."
Putricide died, our first ever guild 25 man kill.
Two sanctified tokens dropped. The raid leader won the first one. Wild won the second one. The tokens are used to upgrade Tier gear. Wild exchanged his ilevel 251 shoulders for the i264 one. It's a nice upgrade, but it didn't add any +haste.
In guild news, Wild made a suggestion in the guild forums to rotate raiders between the two raid nights. Raiders like Wild that only get in on Wednesday miss out on all the gear from the first four bosses each week, gear that has to start getting pretty old to the regulars who run it. We'll see how that goes.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday (30 Mar) - Talking with an old Friend
Tuesday (30 Mar) - Talking with an old Friend
As usual Wild signed up for the Tuesday night guild 25 man raid. As usual Wild was in game and on time. As usual the horde have captured the Wintergrasp Fortress and the raid would begin in VoA. As usual Wild made his way to WG in hopes of getting an invite. As usual Wild was assigned as a standby. As usual Wild did not get an invite, and as usual the raid leader failed to let the rest of the guild know when invites had been completed - until Wild asked about it.
What wasn't usual is that an old friend and guildie who had left the game for more than a year had come back, and we had time to chat. The friend, Bf, is a shaman, and for the last week he's been working on getting into shape.
It started when Wild decided to join a PUG VoA once it was clear that I wouldn't be getting into the guild raid. Bf was already in the PUG and saw Wild join it. He whispered me, asking if I was taking the night off, assuming that I would otherwise have been in the guild raid. I explained that Wild wasn't a regular anymore, and joked that they only needed Wild on their wipe runs now against new or still unmastered bosses.
Bf and Wild go way back, before either of us had reached level 60. We grew with the guild and mastered the greatest of the level 60 dungeons in what was the heyday of our guild. Bf could be a bit of a flake, going afk and being late to come back for the next pull, not the least bit punctual, and prone to relax when the challenge was light. But when you needed the best out of him, he always delivered, and he was an awesome anchor in our level 60 raiding.
Bf asked about our old guild leader, Jo. Had Wild seen her or talked with her recently? Sadly, the answer was no. Her and her husband were rarely in game, and when I thought back it had been weeks and weeks since she'd last popped in game while Wild was around.
We reminisced a bit, and then he asked, "What what has become of the guild?" It was unrecognizable to him. Of course, a lot has happened. In short, though, I told him that the guild was now focused mostly on raiding, and had brought in new guildies who likewise put raiding first. The guild is far from being a hard core raiding guild. However, the family/casual element that once balanced our raiding is gone, because all those who had kept it alive had left the guild.
Things are what they are. The PUG we had joined downed both Toravon and Koralon, and it was a good night for mail wearers. Bf picked up two nice pieces. And Wild got some badges.
Wild also got the weekly frost raid completed, against Noth in Naxxramas. DER would be ok on this one and should give it a try. It's a relatively easy boss. Noth is tanked normally, but periodically ports out of combat range while a number of mobs spawn that must be killed. Usually an off tank sweeps up the adds to be AoEed down, but this group just zerged 'em all, throwing aggro management to the winds. Wild pulled aggro a couple of times healing all those idiots, but I could heal through it, and Noth went down. If DER gets into a 25 man and just assists one or both of the tanks on the target they are actively tanking, he should do fine.
Philly was in and out of action, looking to catch a couple of WG battles. On one battle, Philly did not get an invite to WG. There is a limit to how many players the system will admit into the raid, but that was the first time a Wild family toon had every not gotten the automated invite. I guess it had to happen at some point. Philly did get into a later WG, successfully defending the fortress and going over 70k honor. The max honor that can be carried is 75k, so Philly needs to spend some of it, and soon. She's trying to decide whether it would be better to buy two pieces of ilevel 245 gear, or one of the more expensive ilevel 264 pieces.
EZ, even in her very uneven set of gear, is liking her face bashing spec. She spent some time in Stonetalon Mountains and then moved on to Thousand Needles, questing from level 28 to level 29, and then into level 30, and getting 11% of the way to level 31. The Wild family again has a 30s bracket pvper.
As usual Wild signed up for the Tuesday night guild 25 man raid. As usual Wild was in game and on time. As usual the horde have captured the Wintergrasp Fortress and the raid would begin in VoA. As usual Wild made his way to WG in hopes of getting an invite. As usual Wild was assigned as a standby. As usual Wild did not get an invite, and as usual the raid leader failed to let the rest of the guild know when invites had been completed - until Wild asked about it.
What wasn't usual is that an old friend and guildie who had left the game for more than a year had come back, and we had time to chat. The friend, Bf, is a shaman, and for the last week he's been working on getting into shape.
It started when Wild decided to join a PUG VoA once it was clear that I wouldn't be getting into the guild raid. Bf was already in the PUG and saw Wild join it. He whispered me, asking if I was taking the night off, assuming that I would otherwise have been in the guild raid. I explained that Wild wasn't a regular anymore, and joked that they only needed Wild on their wipe runs now against new or still unmastered bosses.
Bf and Wild go way back, before either of us had reached level 60. We grew with the guild and mastered the greatest of the level 60 dungeons in what was the heyday of our guild. Bf could be a bit of a flake, going afk and being late to come back for the next pull, not the least bit punctual, and prone to relax when the challenge was light. But when you needed the best out of him, he always delivered, and he was an awesome anchor in our level 60 raiding.
Bf asked about our old guild leader, Jo. Had Wild seen her or talked with her recently? Sadly, the answer was no. Her and her husband were rarely in game, and when I thought back it had been weeks and weeks since she'd last popped in game while Wild was around.
We reminisced a bit, and then he asked, "What what has become of the guild?" It was unrecognizable to him. Of course, a lot has happened. In short, though, I told him that the guild was now focused mostly on raiding, and had brought in new guildies who likewise put raiding first. The guild is far from being a hard core raiding guild. However, the family/casual element that once balanced our raiding is gone, because all those who had kept it alive had left the guild.
Things are what they are. The PUG we had joined downed both Toravon and Koralon, and it was a good night for mail wearers. Bf picked up two nice pieces. And Wild got some badges.
Wild also got the weekly frost raid completed, against Noth in Naxxramas. DER would be ok on this one and should give it a try. It's a relatively easy boss. Noth is tanked normally, but periodically ports out of combat range while a number of mobs spawn that must be killed. Usually an off tank sweeps up the adds to be AoEed down, but this group just zerged 'em all, throwing aggro management to the winds. Wild pulled aggro a couple of times healing all those idiots, but I could heal through it, and Noth went down. If DER gets into a 25 man and just assists one or both of the tanks on the target they are actively tanking, he should do fine.
Philly was in and out of action, looking to catch a couple of WG battles. On one battle, Philly did not get an invite to WG. There is a limit to how many players the system will admit into the raid, but that was the first time a Wild family toon had every not gotten the automated invite. I guess it had to happen at some point. Philly did get into a later WG, successfully defending the fortress and going over 70k honor. The max honor that can be carried is 75k, so Philly needs to spend some of it, and soon. She's trying to decide whether it would be better to buy two pieces of ilevel 245 gear, or one of the more expensive ilevel 264 pieces.
EZ, even in her very uneven set of gear, is liking her face bashing spec. She spent some time in Stonetalon Mountains and then moved on to Thousand Needles, questing from level 28 to level 29, and then into level 30, and getting 11% of the way to level 31. The Wild family again has a 30s bracket pvper.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday (29 Mar) - The Kids Come out to Play
Monday (29 Mar) - The Kids Come out to Play
Javajoo was bored. The once all but forgotten Alliance paladin had resurrected his career, hooked up with partner Chaitee again, took a perilous journey away from his home on Bloodmyst Isle, and resettled in the relatively big city of the Exodar. He joined a guild, enjoyed the ceremony of donning his new guild tabard, and made new friends. He spent days exploring the city. It was all so exciting and new. And then . . . nothing.
After days and days with nothing to do, Java simply walked out of the Inn where he'd been staying, trod up the the wide, winding corkscrew of the exit hallway, and found the Flight Master outside the city. He asked the Flight Master to carry him home, back to Bloodmyst Isle.
Had he given up? Was he ready to return to his old life, and obscurity? Not a chance. On Bloodmyst Isle he entered Blood Watch, a small but busy town who could well use a young Draenei willing to work hard. There were no end of challenges and tasks available there.
Java took on every task the city could throw at him. From simple clearing of the area around the town of dangerous beasts, to helping townsfolk find lost relatives, to hunting down and killing a marauding bear terrified farmers called Deathclaw, Java did it all. Java took on ever more important, dangerous missions as his reputation grew. He received a strange message in the mail that ultimately drew him to another, much smaller island, Wrymscar Island, where he met with the apparition of sea Captain Edward Hanes. His ship, along with many others, had been sunk, destroyed on Bloodcursed Reef just offshore. The spirits of many sailors lay trapped there. Java fought through the naga that had taken up residence in the waters and broken hulls, rescued the souls and gave peace to many sailors beneath those waters. Java then ended the Curse by destroying the naga shrine and slaying the naga leader.
Java had left the Exodar as a level 14. After his work at Blood Watch, Java returned to the Exodar as a level 18.
That night Java and Staar, Java's friend and level 19 hunter, entered Warsong Gulch to battle the horde. It was a hard fought match, and even though they lost, they gave it everything they had, with Staar and Java finishing #1 and #2 in kills and damage. After Staar had to leave, Java signed up for a second match so that he could continue to improve his skills in battle. It was another loss. The learning continues. But more importantly, Java is back.
The tale of the children continued with EZ. The young shaman had completely lost her way. In her teen years she was sure she would walk in JB's footsteps and become a feared melee shaman, taking the fight right into the faces of her enemy. She worked hard and built up her gear with that in mind. Her early attempts in Warsong Gulch were, well, forgettable. She discovered that her chosen set of skills, that of an enhancement shaman, were a poor choice in these matches. JB, who used her enhancement skills to quest, and who did not set foot into a match like WSG until she was far, far, older, empathized with EZ's troubles but could offer little help, knowing that EZ must find her way on her own.
EZ learned that she would need to completely change her approach, and somewhat reluctantly set aside her enhancement skills and deadly gear. She retrained herself as an elemental shaman, a ranged caster instead of a skull basher. She dutifully worked at her skills, and added a new gear set to match them. That gear was never as complete or powerful as that first set, although that wasn't the full reason that she did no better in the matches that followed the change. Her heart just wasn't in it.
She wouldn't admit that she had yet again made a mistake, however. Figuring it would get better if she herself grew stronger, she lobbied for help from her older kin and razed dungeon after dungeon. She advanced rapidly, but became obsessed with it to the point of collecting an incredible assortment of gear, much of which was either too low level or too high level for her to use. She had grown from level 19 to level 28, but she was no closer to knowing what she wanted to be.
Every now and then JB would check in on EZ. They would look over all that accumulated gear clogging every bag and bank slot, they would talk, and then they'd both throw up their hands in defeat and promise to try again later. Other members of Wild's and DER's family would occasionally try to draw EZ out. But when you are a level 28 still wearing mostly level 19 gear, and unsure who you are . . . well. EZ remained a hermit.
Come forward to today. Mery, the long time stalwart as the 30s bracket representative of the Wild family in the battlegrounds, decided it was time to move forward. Mery had delayed this decision for a long time, time she'd spent waiting for EZ to join her in that bracket. Mery could wait no longer, though, and became a level 40. That left a void. The family turned to EZ. We need you, she was told. We need you to become our 30s bracket representative. We know you can do this.
EZ woke on Monday morning at the Inn in Thunder Bluff, where she lived. Her quarters were cluttered with unkempt loot. Gear of every description. Bottles and flasks of potions from her teen days lay scattered about. Various items from incomplete tasks, piles of random junk never sorted out, and greasy uncounted coins littered her room. It had come to this.
But her family needed her. She had purpose again. She gave her room one last long look. She sighed. Time to get to work.
EZ had long known what she wanted to be, but had had to go far from that in order to find her way back again. She wanted to be what she had started out to be - an enhancement shaman. She realized that it didn't matter, at least not to EZ, that it wasn't the "best" skill set for her chosen life in battleground competition. It was what she wanted to be, and what she wanted to do.
It took a good part of the day to sort through all that junk, and with the heavy pang of a near compulsive hoarder, EZ started selling it all away. She kept the higher end gear, those items she could not yet wear. It served to remind her of what she was escaping, and also served as an incentive and a goal for growth. She took the best of the gear she could wear and gave it a frank assessment. It was awesome stuff - for a level 19. All those greasy coins, though, added up to a considerable sum of gold. For the first time in a long time, EZ went shopping, feeling something close to happiness at last. There wasn't a great deal she could afford, even with the heavy sack of gold. She got what she could, though. The set of gear she ended with was still laughably dated. But it was hers, and it would suit for now, and would get better over time.
With her room tidied up, and her new gear creaking as she moved, EZ collected the small bit of belongings she still owned and left the Thunder Bluff Inn for the Flight Master. Arriving in Orgrimmar, she visited the Shaman Trainer, and became, once again, an enhancement shaman.
EZ can now be found at Sun Rock Retreat in the Stonetalon Mountains, working on quests. She's happy and content, and she's 50% of the way to level 29.
Javajoo was bored. The once all but forgotten Alliance paladin had resurrected his career, hooked up with partner Chaitee again, took a perilous journey away from his home on Bloodmyst Isle, and resettled in the relatively big city of the Exodar. He joined a guild, enjoyed the ceremony of donning his new guild tabard, and made new friends. He spent days exploring the city. It was all so exciting and new. And then . . . nothing.
After days and days with nothing to do, Java simply walked out of the Inn where he'd been staying, trod up the the wide, winding corkscrew of the exit hallway, and found the Flight Master outside the city. He asked the Flight Master to carry him home, back to Bloodmyst Isle.
Had he given up? Was he ready to return to his old life, and obscurity? Not a chance. On Bloodmyst Isle he entered Blood Watch, a small but busy town who could well use a young Draenei willing to work hard. There were no end of challenges and tasks available there.
Java took on every task the city could throw at him. From simple clearing of the area around the town of dangerous beasts, to helping townsfolk find lost relatives, to hunting down and killing a marauding bear terrified farmers called Deathclaw, Java did it all. Java took on ever more important, dangerous missions as his reputation grew. He received a strange message in the mail that ultimately drew him to another, much smaller island, Wrymscar Island, where he met with the apparition of sea Captain Edward Hanes. His ship, along with many others, had been sunk, destroyed on Bloodcursed Reef just offshore. The spirits of many sailors lay trapped there. Java fought through the naga that had taken up residence in the waters and broken hulls, rescued the souls and gave peace to many sailors beneath those waters. Java then ended the Curse by destroying the naga shrine and slaying the naga leader.
Java had left the Exodar as a level 14. After his work at Blood Watch, Java returned to the Exodar as a level 18.
That night Java and Staar, Java's friend and level 19 hunter, entered Warsong Gulch to battle the horde. It was a hard fought match, and even though they lost, they gave it everything they had, with Staar and Java finishing #1 and #2 in kills and damage. After Staar had to leave, Java signed up for a second match so that he could continue to improve his skills in battle. It was another loss. The learning continues. But more importantly, Java is back.
The tale of the children continued with EZ. The young shaman had completely lost her way. In her teen years she was sure she would walk in JB's footsteps and become a feared melee shaman, taking the fight right into the faces of her enemy. She worked hard and built up her gear with that in mind. Her early attempts in Warsong Gulch were, well, forgettable. She discovered that her chosen set of skills, that of an enhancement shaman, were a poor choice in these matches. JB, who used her enhancement skills to quest, and who did not set foot into a match like WSG until she was far, far, older, empathized with EZ's troubles but could offer little help, knowing that EZ must find her way on her own.
EZ learned that she would need to completely change her approach, and somewhat reluctantly set aside her enhancement skills and deadly gear. She retrained herself as an elemental shaman, a ranged caster instead of a skull basher. She dutifully worked at her skills, and added a new gear set to match them. That gear was never as complete or powerful as that first set, although that wasn't the full reason that she did no better in the matches that followed the change. Her heart just wasn't in it.
She wouldn't admit that she had yet again made a mistake, however. Figuring it would get better if she herself grew stronger, she lobbied for help from her older kin and razed dungeon after dungeon. She advanced rapidly, but became obsessed with it to the point of collecting an incredible assortment of gear, much of which was either too low level or too high level for her to use. She had grown from level 19 to level 28, but she was no closer to knowing what she wanted to be.
Every now and then JB would check in on EZ. They would look over all that accumulated gear clogging every bag and bank slot, they would talk, and then they'd both throw up their hands in defeat and promise to try again later. Other members of Wild's and DER's family would occasionally try to draw EZ out. But when you are a level 28 still wearing mostly level 19 gear, and unsure who you are . . . well. EZ remained a hermit.
Come forward to today. Mery, the long time stalwart as the 30s bracket representative of the Wild family in the battlegrounds, decided it was time to move forward. Mery had delayed this decision for a long time, time she'd spent waiting for EZ to join her in that bracket. Mery could wait no longer, though, and became a level 40. That left a void. The family turned to EZ. We need you, she was told. We need you to become our 30s bracket representative. We know you can do this.
EZ woke on Monday morning at the Inn in Thunder Bluff, where she lived. Her quarters were cluttered with unkempt loot. Gear of every description. Bottles and flasks of potions from her teen days lay scattered about. Various items from incomplete tasks, piles of random junk never sorted out, and greasy uncounted coins littered her room. It had come to this.
But her family needed her. She had purpose again. She gave her room one last long look. She sighed. Time to get to work.
EZ had long known what she wanted to be, but had had to go far from that in order to find her way back again. She wanted to be what she had started out to be - an enhancement shaman. She realized that it didn't matter, at least not to EZ, that it wasn't the "best" skill set for her chosen life in battleground competition. It was what she wanted to be, and what she wanted to do.
It took a good part of the day to sort through all that junk, and with the heavy pang of a near compulsive hoarder, EZ started selling it all away. She kept the higher end gear, those items she could not yet wear. It served to remind her of what she was escaping, and also served as an incentive and a goal for growth. She took the best of the gear she could wear and gave it a frank assessment. It was awesome stuff - for a level 19. All those greasy coins, though, added up to a considerable sum of gold. For the first time in a long time, EZ went shopping, feeling something close to happiness at last. There wasn't a great deal she could afford, even with the heavy sack of gold. She got what she could, though. The set of gear she ended with was still laughably dated. But it was hers, and it would suit for now, and would get better over time.
With her room tidied up, and her new gear creaking as she moved, EZ collected the small bit of belongings she still owned and left the Thunder Bluff Inn for the Flight Master. Arriving in Orgrimmar, she visited the Shaman Trainer, and became, once again, an enhancement shaman.
EZ can now be found at Sun Rock Retreat in the Stonetalon Mountains, working on quests. She's happy and content, and she's 50% of the way to level 29.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Weekend (28 Mar) - A Trip to the Sunwell
Weekend (28 Mar) - A Trip to the Sunwell
With all that pvping going on Wild finally had to force his way back into the lineup. A group of players were getting a Sunwell Plateau raid together that Wild just had to get in on. Sunwell Plateau is a level 70 25 man raid on the Isle of Quel'danas. It was the last and greatest of the level 70 dungeons, the last before Wrath of the Lich King. At the time it offered loot better than that of the Black Temple as well as offering the newest Tier 6 gear sets. And Wild had never set foot inside it; well, except for that one time solo, but we won't go into that.
The organizer, who would also main tank it, was surprisingly able to gather a full 25 level 80s for the run, which was really overkill for a level 70 dungeon. However, the fight mechanics against the SWP bosses (and there are nine in six encounters) was known to be tricky, and even level 80s can fail if you don't know the fights.
Wild had hoped to DPS it to wring out the bugs in my new system, but they wanted Wild to heal. We had five healers, but could have done it easily with four, or even three. The tank healer (a priest) and Wild did the bulk of the healing. The fifth healer just seemed to be along for the ride. It was really a blast and I thought I'd share it in pictures this time.
There is no attunement for SWP and raiders filtered into the instance as they arrived at the Isle of Quel'danas and rode the short distance to the dungeon. Just inside there is a clear zone where there are npcs, like there is in Icecrown Citadel, so SWP might be where they got the idea to do it with ICC.
The Sunwell is the source of power and energy for the elves. Guarded by dragons and other powerful forces, there is an ongoing battle with the Scourge to keep the Sunwell safe.
The first boss, the blue dragon Kalecgos, has been corrupted and must be stopped. He appears in both dragon form and elven form during the fight, which involves portals. The raid leader took the time to explain the fight, which helped a lot in minimizing the stupidity that seems almost inevitable in an old school dungeon run. An ice shield holds us back while a battle rages on the other side. Then the ice breaks and we can enter.
The next boss, pit lord Brutallus, can also be found making mayhem on the far side of the Isle as part of the daily quest bombing run, when he isn't causing trouble in SWP. Brutallus can't be damaged on the bombing run, but you can shoot at him and he'll yell back that such puny beings as we should gather together and come at him in force. Sure, Brutallus, and here we are, in SWP. There is a huge wall of fire that the raid cannot pass until Brutallus is killed.
The third boss is a fel dragon, Felmyst, born from the corpse of the great dragon Madrigosa, who was defeated by Brutallus.
The fourth encounter is against two demons, fire demon Alythess and his female twin, shadow demon Sacrolash. This is rated as the most difficult encounter in SWP, even for level 80s. There is a high damage AoE that hits a random player called Conflagration, and it can kill if raiders are not aware of what it is and how to handle it. Wish I'd gotten a pic of the after battle result. Ten raiders died. We basically overwhelmed the twins by pure numbers. A smaller group of level 80 raiders might have wiped.
Next up we fought a tainted naaru named M'uru, who in the second phase transforms into a void wraith named Entropius.
The final encounter is against a famous demon, Kil'jaeden, who became the leader of the Burning Crusade after several former leaders were defeated or killed. His real claim to fame, though, is that he's the demon that created the Lich King. Kil'jaeden is trying to enter and take over the Sunwell, and we arrive while he is still being Summoned into SWP, and while the Sunwell's protector, Anveena, is held at bay behind an arcane barrier.
We succeed in stopping Kil'jaeden, but Anveena sacrifices herself to aid us, and the Sunwell loses it's power.
Following Kil'jaeden's defeat, the blood elves are able to re-ignite the Sunwell during a cool post fight set piece. The raid leader, who has done SWP a number of times, seemed just as excited this time, as well. "Get ready for the light show," he told us. Most of the raid even stuck around, even though we'd finished.
It was definitely worth waiting around to see. Once the Sunwell was in full fury again Wild walked into the center. The whole screen goes brilliant white. Very cool, and a lot of fun.
The rest of the weekend was a bit more mundane, but more important to Wild's and Philly's progression.
Wild ran Halls of Lightning, a 5 man heroic, to work on his DPS. There was definitely improvement. Wild usually averages around 2500-2600 DPS on a heroic run. In HoL Wild did 2864 DPS, second to a rogue with 3240 dps. The tank was in a great hurry, and Wild did over aggro a number of times as he pulled multiple mobs constantly. The healer was fine, but struggled with all the aggro being generated, and Wild backed off on some of DPS at times to give the healer a break. Going full out I think Wild could have gotten over 3k. Not goose pimple level, but it's progress.
Wild also did the weekly, which was Ignis in Ulduar, getting his five frost badges. Philly continued to crunch out xp and honor, doing a WG as well as the daily Call to Arms Alterac Valley run, both losses, though. Philly is 40% of the way to level 79.
And last but not least, Mery went dragonling hunting in Dustwallow Marsh for some thick leather and DINGED! to level 40. Her new bow and high powered shells sure came in handy. It also helped to get her tanking pet, the gorilla Sassy, from level 37 to 39. Mery can now start wearing mail armor instead of the leather she was limited to before. Mery already had a few items tucked away for this day, and will be adding more. Mery also made the trip to Bloodhoof Village to buy the faster ground mount. Mery's promotion to the 40s bracket is going to put pressure on EZ, currently level 28, to get to level 30, as there is no Wild family member in that bracket anymore. EZ is still one very conflicted shaman, who needs to get her act together.
I've been having login problems throughout the weekend. It began on Friday when I started the game and Patch 3.3.3 reinstalled itself. Reinstalls for no apparent reason are never a good thing. Since patches autoload, there wasn't any warning, so I let it finish, as stopping it midstream would have been even worse. I then started getting an "unable to validate game version" error message when I attempted to login. Computer reboots and various other checks later, I was able to login sometimes but not every time. Blizzard has a repair program that can be run, but from what I've read there are only two results by doing that - it fixes the problem, or it utterly screws you and you have to re-install the game from scratch. I wasn't going that route other than as a last resort. I had a new problem, too. The login sometimes started hanging at the blue bar, and I would have to ctrl-alt-del out of the game and try again, which usually worked the second time. Blizz has been running rolling restarts throughout the weekend, and so far today (Sunday) I haven't had any login problems, but we'll see.
Another issue has to do with the Auction House. Items for sale can be set at several time limits, the most common being 48 hours and 24 hours. Happy always places his items for 48 hours. For several days now the AH items have been expiring at 24 hours even when 48 hours is selected. It's extremely annoying to have hundreds of expired items in the mail every morning to sort through and re-post. Blizzard and the addon author for Auctioneer are pointing fingers at each other, and I hope they figure it out and get it fixed.
With all that pvping going on Wild finally had to force his way back into the lineup. A group of players were getting a Sunwell Plateau raid together that Wild just had to get in on. Sunwell Plateau is a level 70 25 man raid on the Isle of Quel'danas. It was the last and greatest of the level 70 dungeons, the last before Wrath of the Lich King. At the time it offered loot better than that of the Black Temple as well as offering the newest Tier 6 gear sets. And Wild had never set foot inside it; well, except for that one time solo, but we won't go into that.
The organizer, who would also main tank it, was surprisingly able to gather a full 25 level 80s for the run, which was really overkill for a level 70 dungeon. However, the fight mechanics against the SWP bosses (and there are nine in six encounters) was known to be tricky, and even level 80s can fail if you don't know the fights.
Wild had hoped to DPS it to wring out the bugs in my new system, but they wanted Wild to heal. We had five healers, but could have done it easily with four, or even three. The tank healer (a priest) and Wild did the bulk of the healing. The fifth healer just seemed to be along for the ride. It was really a blast and I thought I'd share it in pictures this time.
There is no attunement for SWP and raiders filtered into the instance as they arrived at the Isle of Quel'danas and rode the short distance to the dungeon. Just inside there is a clear zone where there are npcs, like there is in Icecrown Citadel, so SWP might be where they got the idea to do it with ICC.
The Sunwell is the source of power and energy for the elves. Guarded by dragons and other powerful forces, there is an ongoing battle with the Scourge to keep the Sunwell safe.
Waiting to get started
The first boss, the blue dragon Kalecgos, has been corrupted and must be stopped. He appears in both dragon form and elven form during the fight, which involves portals. The raid leader took the time to explain the fight, which helped a lot in minimizing the stupidity that seems almost inevitable in an old school dungeon run. An ice shield holds us back while a battle rages on the other side. Then the ice breaks and we can enter.
Kalcgos Behind the Ice Shield
The next boss, pit lord Brutallus, can also be found making mayhem on the far side of the Isle as part of the daily quest bombing run, when he isn't causing trouble in SWP. Brutallus can't be damaged on the bombing run, but you can shoot at him and he'll yell back that such puny beings as we should gather together and come at him in force. Sure, Brutallus, and here we are, in SWP. There is a huge wall of fire that the raid cannot pass until Brutallus is killed.
Brutallus
The third boss is a fel dragon, Felmyst, born from the corpse of the great dragon Madrigosa, who was defeated by Brutallus.
Felmyst Dies
The fourth encounter is against two demons, fire demon Alythess and his female twin, shadow demon Sacrolash. This is rated as the most difficult encounter in SWP, even for level 80s. There is a high damage AoE that hits a random player called Conflagration, and it can kill if raiders are not aware of what it is and how to handle it. Wish I'd gotten a pic of the after battle result. Ten raiders died. We basically overwhelmed the twins by pure numbers. A smaller group of level 80 raiders might have wiped.
Alythess and Sacrolash before the Fight
Next up we fought a tainted naaru named M'uru, who in the second phase transforms into a void wraith named Entropius.
The final encounter is against a famous demon, Kil'jaeden, who became the leader of the Burning Crusade after several former leaders were defeated or killed. His real claim to fame, though, is that he's the demon that created the Lich King. Kil'jaeden is trying to enter and take over the Sunwell, and we arrive while he is still being Summoned into SWP, and while the Sunwell's protector, Anveena, is held at bay behind an arcane barrier.
We succeed in stopping Kil'jaeden, but Anveena sacrifices herself to aid us, and the Sunwell loses it's power.
Victory with a heavy price
Following Kil'jaeden's defeat, the blood elves are able to re-ignite the Sunwell during a cool post fight set piece. The raid leader, who has done SWP a number of times, seemed just as excited this time, as well. "Get ready for the light show," he told us. Most of the raid even stuck around, even though we'd finished.
Sunwell Ignited
It was definitely worth waiting around to see. Once the Sunwell was in full fury again Wild walked into the center. The whole screen goes brilliant white. Very cool, and a lot of fun.
The rest of the weekend was a bit more mundane, but more important to Wild's and Philly's progression.
Wild ran Halls of Lightning, a 5 man heroic, to work on his DPS. There was definitely improvement. Wild usually averages around 2500-2600 DPS on a heroic run. In HoL Wild did 2864 DPS, second to a rogue with 3240 dps. The tank was in a great hurry, and Wild did over aggro a number of times as he pulled multiple mobs constantly. The healer was fine, but struggled with all the aggro being generated, and Wild backed off on some of DPS at times to give the healer a break. Going full out I think Wild could have gotten over 3k. Not goose pimple level, but it's progress.
Wild also did the weekly, which was Ignis in Ulduar, getting his five frost badges. Philly continued to crunch out xp and honor, doing a WG as well as the daily Call to Arms Alterac Valley run, both losses, though. Philly is 40% of the way to level 79.
And last but not least, Mery went dragonling hunting in Dustwallow Marsh for some thick leather and DINGED! to level 40. Her new bow and high powered shells sure came in handy. It also helped to get her tanking pet, the gorilla Sassy, from level 37 to 39. Mery can now start wearing mail armor instead of the leather she was limited to before. Mery already had a few items tucked away for this day, and will be adding more. Mery also made the trip to Bloodhoof Village to buy the faster ground mount. Mery's promotion to the 40s bracket is going to put pressure on EZ, currently level 28, to get to level 30, as there is no Wild family member in that bracket anymore. EZ is still one very conflicted shaman, who needs to get her act together.
I've been having login problems throughout the weekend. It began on Friday when I started the game and Patch 3.3.3 reinstalled itself. Reinstalls for no apparent reason are never a good thing. Since patches autoload, there wasn't any warning, so I let it finish, as stopping it midstream would have been even worse. I then started getting an "unable to validate game version" error message when I attempted to login. Computer reboots and various other checks later, I was able to login sometimes but not every time. Blizzard has a repair program that can be run, but from what I've read there are only two results by doing that - it fixes the problem, or it utterly screws you and you have to re-install the game from scratch. I wasn't going that route other than as a last resort. I had a new problem, too. The login sometimes started hanging at the blue bar, and I would have to ctrl-alt-del out of the game and try again, which usually worked the second time. Blizz has been running rolling restarts throughout the weekend, and so far today (Sunday) I haven't had any login problems, but we'll see.
Another issue has to do with the Auction House. Items for sale can be set at several time limits, the most common being 48 hours and 24 hours. Happy always places his items for 48 hours. For several days now the AH items have been expiring at 24 hours even when 48 hours is selected. It's extremely annoying to have hundreds of expired items in the mail every morning to sort through and re-post. Blizzard and the addon author for Auctioneer are pointing fingers at each other, and I hope they figure it out and get it fixed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
