Tuesday (Dec 7) Part 2 - Sink or Swim

Tuesday (Dec 7) Part 2 - Sink or Swim

Wild did get to visit Mount Hyjal and collect the first series of quests there. However, Wild spent about 80% of his questing time in the underwater zone of Vashj'ir, and more specifically in the area of Vashj'ir called Kelp'thar Forest.

After being left stranded by the giant octopus attack, Wild swam around the area until he located a sunken ship that was being used as a base of operations. There were rooms where air pockets provided a little dry comfort. The first set of quests began with "A Personal Summons" which is picked up in Orgrimmar or Stormwind (for alliance). You don't actually get wet until the fifth quest, "Sea Legs." At that point the real challenges started. Wild doesn't like the three dimensional air combat, and I didn't think I'd care that much for three dimensional underwater combat, either. Actually, it was a bit easier in the water for some reason. The area was packed with players, and we all had to fight over getting quest objectives done. There was a LOT of killing, both sea creatures and various hostile groups, primarily naga and murlocs. Despite the large number of players in a rather constricted area, there were no shortage of hostile mobs. Wild nearly broke his neck trying to see in every direction - and I mean in every direction, a full 360 degrees. The good news was that Wild, dude'ed out in his moonkin form, heavily outmatched the level 80/81 mobs - the mobs died pretty quickly. The only potential concern was when multiple mobs began stacking up against Wild. I wasn't sure what was going on, but sometimes no sooner would Wild kill one mob than a new one would spawn right on top of it. With Wild usually already engaged in more than one mob, Wild found himself having to deal with half a dozen mobs at once, with a stream of new mobs constantly spawning to take the place of those killed. Wild was never in any serious danger of dying, but it was frustrating, particularly when I had already completed the quest requirements and wanted to move on. After seeing it happen enough times, it seems like there is a respawning bug that causes it to happen. It occurred most often when Wild was standing at the bottom. When Wild elevated up a few feet and hovered in the water, it seemed to happen less often. Wild also learned to kill and loot quickly, then move a few feet away. Even if a new mob spawned immediately, Wild got far enough away that it wouldn't automatically aggro on him and it broke the string of chain spawning.

Another thing to learn about the way new quests have been set up is that anything more complicated than kill or collect quests were designed to be almost infallible - unless you are Wild of course, who has to complicate even the simplest of tasks. The coolest part of the early questing was getting a seahorse mount. I'll use that quest as an example.

Wild had to ride a "wild" seahorse and tame it for his mount. He failed three times and was getting pretty miffed about it. The quest offered Wild tips - "Lean Left!" and "Hold Tight!" and things like that, emphasizing the tips with little arrows that would show up on the screen. Well, the dang thing couldn't be steered - it went where it wanted no matter what Wild did. I even tried clicking on the little arrows, which was one suggestion that I'd read. Same thing. The beastly thing ignored Wild and eventually bucked me off. The answer was simple. When mounting the seahorse a bar with three buttons popped up that I finally saw. Each button had a little arrow on it. The seahorse still did whatever it wanted to do, but whenever it said "Lean Left!" or whatever, Wild clicked the button for it. Wild was soon getting loud praise from the trainer for taming my mount, and I completed the quest and got my mount.

Proud Rider of a Seahorse Mount

Related to the seahorse escapade, I did start to have a bit of a beef with just how many quests were sort of like that. These quests take complete control of your toon, or give you just one simple task to do, and then the rest of the quest is a scripted result that you have no control over. It makes for some entertaining and interesting lore based accomplishments, but the reality was that Wild wasn't doing anything to earn it.

Another thing Wild learned was that the names of the various areas on the map had little to do with knowing where to go to get quests and accomplish them. Scattered throughout the zone are a number of caves with quest givers and in some cases even flight masters. These caves all have names, but you won't see those names on the map. The cave entrances can be tough to find as well, although the game does help with that, as all the cave entrances have very bright blue and yellow foliage that I haven't seen growing anywhere else. Just be careful when exploring a new cave. Wild almost swam right into an Alliance camp when checking out a new cave. The faction camp caves do display the faction flag, but the blue Alliance flag can get lost in all that foliage.

And that foliage is gorgeous. I didn't get a pic of the cave entrance, but here are a couple of pics of what the underwater environment looks like.

An underwater city

Growing things

Speaking of caves, Wild brought a friend into one cave. Reminded me of the movie x, where sharks brought their little fishy friends to their meeting. Not that this is NOT underwater. No, the shark wouldn't let me ride him.



There were some quests that had Wild pulling at his pelt. There was one that talked about the HUGE clams that decorated a lot of the underwater surfaces, when in fact what Wild was supposed to be looking for were tiny snails that meandered about everywhere and had nothing to do with the clams. Another one having to do with dropping little tornadoes on snakes drove several of us crazy as there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it; sometimes the thing worked, and sometimes it didn't, and it took a very long time to do it the thirty times that was required. Wild would have abandoned that quest because of the time it was taking, but it was the last quest in a link and Wild had no idea how to find the next quest (or if it would even appear) if Wild did not complete the quest. That's another thing to remember. Completing quests opens up other quests, and in some cases opens up whole new phases in an area. I wouldn't skip or abandon quests since you may very well miss out on a whole string of other quests. I have a sneaking suspicion that the game is using the scripted quests as a way to transition to a new phased area.

Here is one pic of a scripted scene that provides some lore about Cata and the maelstrom.



I know what you all really want to know, though. What's the loot like!? Wild's first piece of Cata gear was a pair of leather leggings called "Shipwrecked Leggings." Let me remind folks that pre-Cata gear pretty much topped out at i264, assuming you weren't doing Heroic ICC. Most of the MM guild raiders had a good collection of i251 gear which mostly came from ICC ten man. A few, like Wild, were mostly in i264 gear. So, when those leggings dropped, and they were rated i272, Wild got pretty excited. However, Wild's i264 leggings are Tier 10 and were in fact better than the Cata i272 leggings. Wild would discover over the course of the night that not a single piece of quest gear, no matter what ilevel it had, could match up with the top end gear Wild already had. That didn't bother Wild so much, because that just showed how well geared Wild already is. However, the quest gear selection really did start to annoy me. Almost every gear reward that offered something Wild could equip was made up of cloth healing/caster gear and leather feral/tanking gear. Wild gets bonus stats for wearing only leather gear, yet there was almost no leather gear tailored for either healing or for DPS casting. This has been a long time problem that dates back to prior expansions. I thought that was being addressed, but the early gear showed the same lack of consideration for druids, who need leather caster gear for ranged DPS and healing. Wild got pretty sick of seeing all that +agility leather gear. Sure, Wild will use some of it to play cat or bear, but neither are his main spec.

Back to the level of gear in Cata, I think that most casual players (ie, those that haven't spent weeks and months in Icecrown Citadel) will see awesome upgrades right off the mark. Wild saw a lot of eye popping plate gear, DER. And some truly "to die for" cloth caster stuff that will have shadow priest Lao drooling (so level up girl!). Some of the stats on the modest level green gear is stunningly good. Players like Wild, though, will have to wait for the higher level zones to start seeing major upgrades. What that really means is that a toon like JB, who hasn't acquired anything but the most basic of level 80 gear, can go quest in Vashj'ir or Mount Hyjal and come out of that with gear almost as good as what Wild took literally more than a year to acquire. It's a great equalizer, but once players reach level 85 and start raiding, all that will change again.

So, what about Cata dungeons? I thought you'd never ask. We got some face time with the likes of Bonecrusher, Steelbender, Lord Obsidius, and others in Blackrock Cavern. Let ya know how that turned out in the next post.

Tuesday (7 Dec) - CATACLYSM!

Tuesday (7 Dec) - CATACLYSM!

Amazing! Awesome! Stupendous! Blizzard has truly made something special this time around. I had purchased, downloaded, and installed the digital version of the Cataclysm expansion pack a week ago. Cata went live at Midnight Monday night. All of us night owls started attempting to login right at the stroke of twelve. I was on vent with about a dozen or so guildies who were also still awake. Several attempts at logging in later, I was no closer to logging in than getting the message "You have been disconnected from the server."

But a couple of guildies made it in game, and at ten minutes past midnight so did Wildshard. Wild had cleverly positioned himself close to the Orgrimmar flight trainer and his first order of business was to pay the 200 gold required to get his Flight Master's License. That license enabled Wild to use his flying mount in the old world of Azeroth, including the city of Orgrimmar. Of course, several hundred players had that same clever idea and it was like Black Friday and a horde of shoppers trying to get at the big discounts. The flight trainer was swarmed so thoroughly it took several minutes before Wild could get enough of a glimpse of him to make the transaction.



What was so stunning about this release is that the servers held up under the barrage of players logging in. Unlike every other expansion release, it did not take hours of attempting to login, and once in there were no server crashes despite the crush of players. There have also been remarkably few bugs, and no major issues with play at all. A major software release doesn't get much smoother than this.

[Quick note - Lao attempted a login early Tuesday morning, and it appears the time to download, install, and login to the expansion is approaching those long wait times we are used to seeing in big releases. I thought the crush would come at midnight, but maybe Wild got lucky and a lot of players decided the game would not be playable and waited until the morning]

Wild's plan, once he had taken care of flight training, was to head for Mount Hyjal to begin questing in the new zone. However, he was kind of waylaid by a new feature of questing. When Wild logged in a quest immediately popped up in it's own little window that would eventually lead Wild to the new harbor outside the gates of Orgrimmar. Wild hadn't asked for the quest, it just appeared all on it's own. There was also a very well done script included. Scripted scenes have a much larger role in questing than I'd seen before, and it's pretty cool.



A series of short, easy quests later Wild found himself on a boat headed for the new zone of Vashj'ir, along with an overcrowded deck of other adventurers. Well, thought Wild, looks like it will be Vashj'ir first before Mount Hyjal.



The boat reached it's destination, which as far as the rest of us could tell was the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. We were promptly attacked by a gigantic octopus and our ship was crushed and overturned. Cold, wet adventurers clung to top of the capsized craft and wondered what to do.



Wild, knowing that the "land" of Vashj'ir was at the bottom of the ocean, shifted to aquatic form, slipped into the water, and went exploring. There was a LOT to see.

Wild's questing in Vashj'ir lasted long enough for him to get his "sea legs," which taught Wild how to breath underwater without having to shift into his aquatic form. It also increased his swimming speed. Both are critical in this underwater world. It's beautiful, but also deadly, with creatures of every sort not just in front and behind, but above and below as well.



Wild would have been content to stay in Vashj'ir and continue questing, but Wild's friend Bk had already started asking in vent if anyone had located the entrances to the new dungeons. No one had, and no one quite knew how to find them. Wild did. Sort of.

Wild swam back to the surface and scrambled back aboard the foundered ship. Wild shifted to flight form and started a long flight to the southwest. Wild's boat had left Wild in the Vashj'ir zone of Kelp'thar Forest. Wild was leaving that area and heading for Abyssal Depths, the second of the three mini-zones in Vashj'ir. It seemed to be a long flight, with nothing but ocean beneath him. Wild was looking for Abyssal Breach, a great whirlpool of immense size. However, from the air Wild could not tell one wave from another. So Wild plunged in. And was met with the deep, deep blue of the ocean, and not much else.



It was kind of scary swimming around with no landmarks or points of reference to refer to. All Wild knew was that he was supposed to go DOWN. Wild kept swimming, going deeper and deeper, and the ocean water turned a deeper and deeper blue. A faint outline started to appear far below Wild. Was Wild's eyes deceiving him, or was there something down there? Wild recalled the great sea creature that had destroyed the boat. Whatever was down there was likely even bigger. Then the vague outline took on a more solid shape. It was a maelstrom of water, a huge funnel of churning froth tugging harder and harder at Wild as he continued to swim ever deeper.



Wild tried to put away a thought that if this was not where he was supposed to be, he could be very near death right about now. Chasing that thought was a warning: Wild was starting to get fatigued, and could be in danger of drowning. If panic was starting to set in, Wild hid it well, even when the maelstrom took full hold over Wild and sucked him down. Wild had no choice now.

When it was all over Wild washed up inside a deep cavern with a pocket of air keeping the ocean out.



Wild had reached Throne of the Tides, one of the two starter dungeons for level 80 players. Wild made sure he'd gotten credit for finding the entrance, which would allow him to port to it directly in the future. Wild most definitely DIDN'T want to have to take the maelstrom path the next time he came there.

Bk was ecstatic at Wild's find, and we started thinking the unthinkable - do we want to get a group together and explore the place? There was too much going on at the moment, though. Too many sights to see and new things to do and ...

Well, Wild decided that since I'd been the first in the guild to find Throne of the Tides, I might as well hunt down the other starter dungeon, Blackrock Caverns. This one was an easy one. Blackrock Caverns is part of a huge complex of dungeons and raids built deep inside Blackrock Mountain. The mountain saddles the zones of Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes. Wild knows the area well, having spent a good part of his level 60 life battling the denizens of that place at Blackrock Depths, Upper and Lower Blackrock Spire, and of course Molten Core.

It had been a long time since Wild had entered into the mountain, though, and once he reached the inner ring which circled the deep well of lava that burned and flowed deep into the bedrock, Wild felt that familiar twinge of awe and fear. Here is the place of the greatest foe of the early days of WoW - Ragnaros. Here is where, each week, Wild had to cross a narrow chain stretched between the inner ring and the central core - a long, slippery trek that raiders fell from with regularity. Getting out of that lava pool after a fall like that was desperately difficult, even in death. Here is also the place where Wild had to learn the tricky jump from a jut of rock to a narrow ledge that fronted the entrance of Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS). Missing that jump was embarrassing, and it took a lot of practice to perfect it.

On this trip Wild made a surprising find. Not only could Wild fly outside of Blackrock Mountain (BRM), he could fly inside as well! Wild couldn't resist soaring up and perching on the ledge that had sent many a raider tumbling to the rocks below, the hoots and jeers of raiders from both factions following him down. Wild didn't fly over the lava pool itself, though. Wild "knew" it would be safe . . . but still.

The entrance to the new dungeon, Blackrock Cavern (BRC), was down the same corridor where LBRS still stood since the beginning of time. Partway down that corridor a new tunnel was cut through the mountain. Wild made a right turn and entered that tunnel, and a short way down was the entrance to BRC. Wild had found the entrances to both starting dungeons, the first in the guild to do so.

Bk was more determined than ever to run a dungeon, and with Wild guiding them in, we soon had a five man group standing outside BRC. We knew we would get slaughtered. But we just HAD to see it!

More to follow . . .

Sunday Night (5 Dec) - Will It Happen?

Sunday Night (5 Dec) - Will It Happen?

As I write this it's 4:45pm server time. In less than two hours Wild will once again be standing in Icecrown Citadel facing the Lich King. This is it. I wonder how this all will end . . .

It's now 6:30pm. Wild is in game. The Group 2 raid is assembling. We have our top healing team - Wild, Pl (holy priest), and Tk (paladin). Our two tanks are Rs (druid) and Fn (paladin), both regulars. We have the same set of DPSers as we had Tuesday and Wednesday. Lady Hunter leads the raid. Bk runs the battle. We've all been here before. We all know the strategies. There is no need to explain anything. We are ready.

I'll take things one attempt at a time.

Attempt #1: The battle started and Phase 1 went smoothly. Infest and Necrotic Plague was kept under control by the healers and Tk's dispelling. Wild was lucky and didn't get the plague, which allowed me to measure out the healing without burning up my mana.

At 70% we shifted to Phase 1.5. We repositioned to the edge of the platform and began taking greater hits. Wild was forced to go to his high cost Regrowth spell many times more than I wanted to, and Wild's mana dipped down to under 40%. For one second I thought Wild had lost his main tank, Rs, from a sudden burst of damage from the Lich King, but Wild cast his one emergency spell and saved him. I could see from the healing meters of the other healers that they were also strained as we headed into Phase 2.

Wild was still under 50% mana entering Phase 2. Healing was focused on the two tanks. LK cast Quake, destroying the outer rim of the platform. We had already moved toward the center of the platform to avoid falling to our death. The first val'kyr spawned and grabbed Wild as it's target. Wild was lifted into the air and the val'kyr flapped it's way toward the rim. The DPSers focused fired on the val'kyr and brought it down. Wild landed hard, but immediately dumped healing on the struggling main tank, then on himself. We were all still in the fight. Defile struck, but it was well placed away from the center and was avoidable. Another val'kyr struck. Somewhere in there Wild had cast Innervate to recover mana, but I was again draining it fast. Three minute cooldown before I could cast it again.

We entered Phase 2.5. LK cast Remorseless Winter, beating us all down with the massive AoE until we could retreat to the reappearing outer edge of the platform. We fought to get our health back up and the battle continued with another round of Infest, val'kyrs, and Defiles.

The Lich King's health fell steadily as the DPS maintained a merciless attack. LK fought back with the Defiles and Val'kyrs. LK's health hit 40% and we entered Phase 3.

Our greatest concern in Phase 3 was to keep away from the many spirits that deal damage and then explode quite nastily. Wild seemed particularly prone to getting wiped out by them. This time Wild kept his cool, stayed on the move and in range of healing his tank. No more val'kyrs, but the Defiles kept coming. Pl was targeted by the Lich King and was the first into the phased battle with LK's sword Frostmourne. Wild and Tk held things together healing wise until she was tossed back out. There may have been others pulled in, but Wild was too busy to check. Wild was also targeted for the phased battle, but ... well, Wild died right as he was pulled in. The good news was that because of the timing LK did not get the big damage bonus he would have gotten if wild were killed inside the phase. The bad news was that Wild was dead and could no longer help his guildies.

When Wild died that left seven raiders standing. LK was down to 18%. When Pl died, leaving the raid with only one healer, LK was at 14%.

Then it was 13%.

Then it was 12%. The main tank was hit with a massive strike from LK. He was about to go down with his health at 1%. But paladin Fn used his Lay on Hands to save Rs. It was a masterful stroke and Rs was able to hold on and continue tanking.

LK's health dropped to 12%. This was as close as we'd ever been to beating the Lich King.

Then it dropped to 11%.

Then it dropped to 10%. And the the Lich King roared in triumph! Fools! He cried. You have played right into my hands! And with those words the Lich King wiped the raid.

We were all dead.

The Lich King began channeling a spell, striking all of our corpses.

He says to Tirion Fordring: "Watch now as I raise them from the dead to become masters of the Scourge. They will shroud this world in chaos and destruction. Azeroth's fall will come at their hands -- and you will be the first to die. "



Fordring, still frozen, as he has been since the start of the fight, prays to the Light: "Light grant me one final blessing! Give me the strength ... to shatter these bonds!"

Fordring breaks free! He turns on the Lich King and attacks!



Tirion Fordring then resurrected all of us at once. The ten members of the Group 2 raid joined Fordring in raining damage down on the Lich King. Wild abandoned his healing and blasted away along with everyone else.

And it was done. The Lich King was dead. We had done it on our first attempt of the night.



Wild had bought two cakes for the occasion many weeks ago, not realizing how long I'd have to wait to be able to serve them. Finally.

In the celebration that followed we almost forgot that killing the Lich King also meant loot. LK dropped a very nice crossbow that Lady Hunter won. Appropriate, I'd say.

The main hand mace [Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer] also dropped. Wild and Tk rolled on it. This might be the hammer that LK wields, but the lore also mentions that it could have belonged to Uther the Lightbringer, who was a mentor to Arthas when he was young and of course long before he became the Lich King.

Wild won it. Tk was devastated. I looked the Gavel over, remembering fondly a great Gavel that Wild had earned and used for a long time back in his level 70 days, and which might still be buried in his bank bags somewhere. There is nothing like being able to brag that you carry a weapon taken from the Lich King.

However . . .

Since this was ten man ICC, the Gavel was rated as ilevel 258. Wild's current weapon, [Frozen Bonespike] was won in ICC 25 and rated at i264. Wild's weapon was better than the Gavel.

Wild made a friend for life when I passed the gavel to Tk. Wild was satisfied to wear the Kingslayer title, and know that he'd wrested that weapon from the Lich King and held it in his hands.

There were pictures of course:

Top of stairs at LK's Throne

Close Up (Wild is to the right of the chicken :-) )

Wildshard the Kingslayer

To wrap up: Wild got his first look at the Lich King on 4 Nov. That was the first of nine nights of battling the Lich King over 32 days. We fought the Lich King a total of 77 times before finally bringing him down on our 77th attempt.

Wild will be grinning from ear to ear for days. The expansion Wrath of the Lich King has been defeated; it's final, greatest boss brought down. Someone made a very interesting observation. Arthas and the Lich King have been around since the single player RPG days of Warcraft I, II, and III in addition to vanilla WoW and the two expansions. The real time it has taken to finally defeat and truly kill the Lich King covers nearly ten years.

And in two days, all of that will be in the past. And it will all start again with a new nemesis.

Deathwing.

I love this game.

Weekend (5 Dec) - Weekend Cornucopia

Weekend (5 Dec) - Weekend Cornucopia

As Cataclysm approaches Wild has had to shift his focus from killing the Lich King to mapping out a plan for leveling in the post Cataclysm world. The Lich King is still casts a large shadow over Wild's preparations, but I don't want Wild to be fumbling around on Tuesday, either. These preparations are focused on what Wild needs to have ready when Cataclysm hits.

There are many important things to get done:

* Clear bank bag space to store Wild's current set of gear. Not since Wild acquired his full Tier 1 set back in the day has Wild been as well geared as he is right now. Wild is equipped with Tier 10 now (although not a complete set). Every piece of gear is at the highest non-Heroic level (i264 or better) with two exceptions: necklace and bracers, both at i251. Wild wants to keep all 17 pieces for posterity and comparison with the new gear he'll be getting in Cata.

* Get flying mount training to be able to fly in the old world. Flight trainers are supposed to be located near flight masters in all the major cities. Note that this is trainable at level 60 and costs 250 gold. Wild will be positioned in Orgrimmar to pick up this ability right by the flight master.

* Map out where to start questing and set a route to get there. The two starter zones for level 80s are listed below. Of course, there are higher level zones to get players to level 85, but Wild has to decide which of the first two starter zones for level 80s he wants to begin at, and whether he should do both zones before moving on or move to higher level zones as soon as he is able. If Wild follows past practice, he'll spent a lot of time in the first two zones to reach a playing level that will make getting the higher level zones easier to do:
* Mount Hyjal (78-82) in Kalimdor. Wild should also make sure he finds the Firelands in this zone, which is an outdoor raid featuring the return of Ragnaros from Molten Core. The Twilight Hammer figure prominently in this zone.
* Vashj'ir (78-83) is an UNDERWATER zone off the coast of Loch Modan on the Eastern Continent. Vashj'ir is made up of three zones to quest through, starting with Kelp Forest. I suspect most players will start here as this is the first fully underwater zone and offers the ability to breath underwater and swim faster than ever before.

Wild made the decision to start in Mount Hyjal. The zoned is located in Kalimdor and can be accessed via a portal in Orgrimmar (for Horde), which makes it easy to get there. Maybe Blizzard is making this too easy. Ok, so no one knows where the portal in Orgrimmar is located.

* Reputation - the game now offers special tabards to increase rep grinding with each city. Yep, not only can one grind all kinds of faction rep, city rep is yet another time sink that players will be after. This is already available with the Shattering, but Wild hasn't decided what city tabard he wants to start with. Rep from tabards come from doing dungeons.

* Guild Leveling - Wild will not likely play a significant role in the new guild leveling system. Only the top twenty ranked players in the guild count toward leveling and Wild is somewhere down in the 40-something range. Wild can help the guild reach goals by helping with group achievements, however.

* Addons - I need to make sure that all my user interface addons have been updated to work in cata. Most already are, but a final check is essential to minimize any initial login problems with addons. The last thing I want to spend my first hours in Cata on is fixing addons.

Wild also had to make some adjustments on the Auction House front. Happy has run out of room to store things as sellers fill the AH with items at throw away prices. Happy is betting he will profit from the sales both before and after Cata on select items. There are a number of items that Happy keeps on hand for Wild as well. Happy's storehouse is full to overflowing.

Wild suggested that Happy get an assistant. Happy wasn't too keen on the idea at first. Wild mentioned that Happy already has one assistant, Lost, who handles all of the Alliance AH stuff. That has worked out quite well. Another possible concern involved the fact that the Wild family was made up of two accounts. Wild's account was set for Cata. The account Happy is in will not get Cata immediately. That should not impact Happy's AH business, but "should not" and "won't" are too different things. If Happy can't operate the way he needs to, Wild needs a toon on his own account that can. Happy eventually came around to the idea.

Wild had an additional motive for wanting a new toon. His good friend and druid, Rs, a Tauren like Wild, decided to change his race. With the Shattering, trolls were given the ability to be druids, a class they were not allowed to be before. Rs changed his race from Tauren to Troll, and had to show off. Troll bears and cats look REALLY cool! One quick funny story - Rs "lost" himself more than a couple of times when his eyes kept looking for a tauren instead of a troll. Anyway, Wild wanted a troll druid, but Wild did not want to switch races. What better way to serve all purposes than to create a troll druid to be Happy's assistant.

Even more fun is that trolls have a new starting zone (before the Shattering trolls shared a starting zone with orcs), so the new toon will get to experience that zone for the very first time. The new troll druid will get a separate post soon, but much work has already been done in getting Happy's assistant fully ready and employed.

In other news Melasahnd joined a few battleground matches over the weekend, looking to raise her level to join Lao in the 65-69 pvp bracket. Melasahnd did the best she could, winning a Warsong Gulch match but losing two Alterac Valley matches on Friday night. She raised her experience from 10% to 51% of the way to level 64. Melasahnd also learned that she really sucked as a death knight. Just about any caster that could stay out of Melasahnd's melee range could burn her down in short order. The few times Melasahnd was able to catch that mage or that shadow priest - well, it was worth watching them die. Still, I felt kind of like Fin must have felt - I'm pressing a lot of buttons but I don't have a clue what I'm doing.

Thursday (2 Dec) - Stretching It Out

Thursday (2 Dec) - Stretching It Out

It what might have been our last and final attempt to bring down the Lich king - we came up short.

We did not have our paladin healer/dispeller on Thursday night. Another holy priest joined Wild and our regular priest healer, Pl. The new priest had some LK experience, but he had not run with our group before and had to be brought up to speed on our strategy. Pl would be our dispeller, so the bulk of the healing would have to come from Wild and the new priest.

We made nine attempts. Our attempts seem to follow a pattern. We start out slow, ramp up to a quick peak, and then slide back down on the back half of the evening, unable to get back to our previous success. This night started much the same way. We had a rough first attempt, a much improved second attempt, and then got excited on our third attempt, bringing LK down to 20%.

We slipped backward on our fourth and fifth attempts. This time, though, we rallied back.

On our sixth attempt we reached 28%.

On our seventh attempt we made it to 12%, just 2% shy of beating him. Our newish priest was not providing as much healing help as we would normally have with all of our regular healers, but it was enough and I don't blame him for us coming up short. On this attempt, Wild was pretty much to blame. We had perhaps seven raiders still alive when Wild was pulled into the phased battle with LK's sword, Frostmourne. Inside that small circle Wild had to heal the Warden, keeping him alive until Wild was released back into the main battle. Despite Wild's mana issues, that part of the fight went fine. What I totally forgot was that even in this small, separate battle, Wild was still taking damage. I wasn't watching Wild's health, and Wild died. Dying while part of the sword/Warden fight is about the worst thing I could have done, because it gave LK a huge 200%+ damage bonus. With that bonus LK quickly slaughtered the rest of the raid.

On our final attempt on the evening we again reached down deep and got LK down to 23%. But now our night was over. So close. So close so many times on this night.

Could we do it if we had one more night? We hope so. We huddled together to work out when we might be able to meet. That night will be Sunday, two days before Cataclysm. Truly and finally, our last shot.

Wednesday (1 Dec) - Could This Get Any Harder?!

Wednesday (1 Dec) - Could This Get Any Harder?!

This is the last week of raiding Icecrown Citadel before the Cataclysm expansion erupts on 7 Dec 2010. If Wild is going to get his Kingslayer title, it has to come on Wednesday or Thursday night for it to be meaningful.

We got off at our usual start time of thirty minutes later than our official start time. That is, the usual raiders for G2 were ready and assembled at 6:55pm on the platform of the Lich King. We even killed the two flying mobs on the way in to save us time trying to avoid them over the course of the night. Our strategist, Bd, took another thirty minutes after that going over all phases of the fight. It had been two weeks since we were last here, and despite some grumbling about the time lost I thought the time was well used to get our heads in the right frame of mind.

On our first attempt we plowed through the P1 and P1.5 phases in very good order and got LK down to 50% before wiping. It was an excellent first shot. Wild, however, was shell shocked. Wild healed through the P1 phase smoothly and kept everyone alive using his high cast healing rotation that ensured no raider need worry about Infest suddenly killing them because they'd dropped below 90% health for longer than 5 seconds. When P1 ended and we'd started the move to new positions in P1.5, Wild took a quick glance at his mana bar. Whoa! It was at 12%! Wild hadn't seen his mana bar that low in a raid since he'd made level 80. Against the Lich King, 60% mana would be worrisome. Wild never runs out of mana - yet here he was, about to go dry and only one phase into the fight. Wild made some serious adjustments, Innervated to return some mana, and continued. But the rest of the attempt was baffling and horrendous for Wild as I weighed what heals to use and how to keep my mana from running out. The last half of the attempt Wild never got his mana back above 40%.

The reason for this sudden mana drought is The Shattering. First, Blizzard was not happy with mana-happy healers who could cast expensive spells all night long without ever running low on mana. They wanted healers to worry about their mana. They wanted us to think about using healing spells that used less mana, even if they were longer cast, instead of only using our fast, high mana cost spells. Ok, I get that. Wild gets that. The problem is that these changes for Cata are intended to operate in a Cata world where our base mana is something like twice what it is now. We've been put on mana rationing without being given a Cata level mana pool. The other primary healer, our priest Pl, was also struggling with mana issues. Our third healer and dispeller, the paladin Tk, did not seem to have that problem. Overpowered pallies. ;-)

On attempts 2 and 3 Wild tried mixing in longer cast, efficient spells, primarily Nourish. It takes just over a second to cast Regrowth, Wild's "best" heal for the amount of health it returns and the speed of the cast. Nourish only uses a third of the mana, but it takes 2.3 seconds to cast, way too long to save someone from Infest. Wild had to experiment with different spells until he could find something that would keep raiders alive but wouldn't use up all his mana before the battle was over.

Attempts 4 and 5 got Wild settled in. Wild dropped nourish as it was just too slow for this type of fight. Regrowth was again the go to spell, but only when I absolutely needed it. My instant rejuv spell, which was now 30% more costly than it was last week, still had its place, but no more could Wild spam it around the raid "just in case." That meant that DPS raiders had to be more careful and avoid damage instead of expecting Wild to heal through whatever mess they got into. On both attempts we hit 33% on LK, but that would be the highpoint of the night.

We made three more attempts, but we started having serious problems with our vent server. We use vent to call out when bad things are about to happen, when to move and where, and where raiders in trouble can yell for help. When vent became unreliable it crashed three times while even when it was "working" there were break ups in the sound and lag of 1-3 seconds. When five seconds standing in the wrong place can cause a raid wipe, waiting three seconds to find out your five second warning is getting to you with two seconds left ... well, it was just one more complication we didn't need.

Overall our spirits remained high, though, and we will come into Thursday night's raid feeling that we have a solid chance to beat the Lich King. A solid chance, and maybe our last chance, too.

Melasahnd's Training Part 4 (redux)

2008-11-25 - Melasahnd's Training Part 4 (redux)

Note: Melashnd's past is being revisited with a re-post of the finale of her training to become a full fledged death knight. It took four huge posts to document the full extent of that mind and body searing struggle.

Introduction:
Melasahnd was born on 20 November, 2008, just over two years ago. As a new class of player originally called a "Hero Class," she was created to become a minion of the Lich King and began her life like no other class before her - at level 55. Wildshard was level 72 at the time, not all that far ahead of her.

Melasahnd, like all Death knights, was "made" in Acherus, the floating City over the Eastern Plaguelands. It's a small, somewhat suffocating place of just two levels, just the kind of place favored by the Lich King, who spends a lot of his time there making sure his death knights learn to do his bidding. Melasahnd preferred to be called "Sond" (that's Sond, not Sand, not Sandy, and definitely not Mela). Melasahnd would later reject the nickname, Sond, and all others, preferring now to use her full name. But to the Lich King, she was known as Sond. The following is the final steps to her emergence as a death knight.

Melasahnd's Training Part 4:

After Sond had finished the dagger quest for Prince Keleseth, I thought that she might be getting toward the end of the training. Sond was chafing under the heavy hand of the Lich King and getting a bit claustrophobic being cloistered away from the rest of the world. It was not to be.

The Scourge had all but secured their foothold, but knew that the Scarlet Crusade had not yet been vanquished. What were their plans? Sond was sent deeper into New Avalon, where the soldiers of the Scarlet Crusade still held on and defended their base of operations, Scarlet Hold. The Scourge had already infiltrated the area, securing the Scarlet Tavern not far from the Hold. Although heavily guarded inside, enemy troops still periodically stormed it, trying to root them out (and maybe snag an ale). Sond arrived at the doorstep of this house in time to help beat back one such assault. On the second floor two Scourge leaders plotted among the decaying corpses of the interrogated.

Ordaz Bloodbane welcomed Sond to the tavern. "Don't bother me, or would you like to join the pile of corpses?" he growled. Sond shoved the orders from Mograine under his pointed nose. Bloodbane saw Mograine's seal.

"Hmmph. So, this is the best he can do? You?" Bloodbane shrugged. "Take this disguise. Infiltrate their camp. Find out what they're doing. If you fail the Scarlet dogs will kill you and Mograine will just send another. If you come back without what I want, I'll kill you and Mograine will send another. Makes no difference to me. Go!"

Sond accomplished her mission. The Scourge learned of a massive incoming assault and began planning an ambush.

In the mean time the final subjugation of New Avalon was underway. A favored Scourge leader was captured and imprisoned in Scarlet Hold. Thessarian, working with Bloodbane, sent Sond to rescue him.

Finding him proved more than a little difficult. During all the time Sond has been questing in this phased instance, the coordinates system has not worked. Using either of two addons that should mark coordinates on the map, neither functioned properly. Sond must have had a better sense of direction than Wild, because she was fairly good at figuring out where to go and how to get there from the quest tips, but in this case she was having a hard time finding a staircase to a basement room where the prisoner was being held. There were other DKs roaming the Hold on the same or other quests, but they appeared equally confused. The fast spawning soldiers in the hold were probably getting whiplashed and dizzy as they would no sooner spawn than a DK would kill them.

Sond finally located it. The doorless entry was under the second floor stairs and it was so dark under there Sond had walked past it several times without seeing it. She took the stairs two at a time, and found the single room empty. Hmmm. A few seconds later two soldiers spawned. Sond attacked, and was joined by another DK that had come down the stairs. We killed the mobs. Sond waited some more. The other DK left. After a minute or so the prisoner respawned, chained to a cot in the corner.

Sond tried to free him, but the man, Koltira Deathweaver, stopped her. He was too far gone, he said, and the alarm had already been sounded. Kill my Captor and take his head back to Thessarian, Koltira demanded.

That's when the Inquisitor and a rather impressive army of acolytes stormed into the room. Koltira provided some spell based help from his cot, but the sheer numbers were still threatening to overwhelm Sond, and she wasn't making a lot of headway against the Inquisitor, either. Two DKs poked their heads into the room and joined in the fun. Between the three of us we managed to finish off the remaining acolytes and the Inquisitor. Sond hacked the head off the Inquisitor and returned to Thessarian.

Sond didn't know if Koltira managed to escape or not, but Thessarian felt he had done enough and that Koltira would have been able to escape once the Inquisitor was out of the picture. Sond's reward? A promise of more mayhem. Thessarian sent Sond to the nearby Chapel of the Crimson Flame, which the Scourge were in the process of burning down. Not sure why she was needed there, Sond talked to the on scene Commander.

"Ah, yes," he said rubbing his hands together in obvious pleasure. "Next door is the prison house. Some of the prisoners have managed to survive, to my surprise, and I'll get around to killing them soon." He paused. "But! I have a prize for you. One of the prisoners is an Argent Dawn blood elf. You're a blood elf, eh?" He stared at Sond's prominent ears. "You have the honor of killing that one."

Sond entered the long bunkhouse like building. The whole length of the building had prisoners sitting or standing on both sides of the narrow room. Sond walked the length of the room. Some of the prisoners were crying, others praying to their gods. The fight had been taken out of all of them, it seemed. Sond found the blood elf. Her name was Lady Eony, and Sond knew her. And she knew Sond. And could see what Sond had become.

Eony spoke. "You were a champion of the Sin'dorei once, Melasahnd. Don't you remember the magnificence of Silvermoon City, where you were born?"

Sond could only stand there and listen, knowing what she had been told to do. Eony tried again. "You must fight against the Lich King's control! Don't let him destroy our world! "

Funny thing is I really didn't want to kill her. Sond stood there, I don't know for what.

The local Commander poked his head in the room. "What's going on in here! Get on with it, Deathknight!"

Eony spoke again. There was much pity in her eyes, pity for Sond. And just maybe a sliver of hope at what she saw in Sond. "I'm done for," Eony said. "You must kill me or the Commander will kill us both." Sond drew her sword, seemingly unable to remember how to use it. "Remember Silvermoon City, Melasahnd. Remember the things that are worth saving."

Sond didn't move. I couldn't do it. Footsteps sounded outside, the Commander returning.

"For pity's sake, put me out of my misery!" Eony pleaded.

Sond slew her.

Sond returned to Thassarian and reported the deed done. He must have seen something in her eyes, because he hesitated before acknowledging her report. He couldn't help adding, though, "You're one cold-blooded monster, Melasahnd. I salute you, sister."

Sond said nothing.

"Well," he said. "I'll open a portal directly to Ebon Hold. Report to Highlord Mograine immediately!"

Once more, I thought Sond had reached the end of her training, but Mograine turned Sond around and sent her to the Lich King, who had moved to Death's Breach to take personal command of the ambush about to be sprung on the advancing Scarlet armies, who thought they had surprise on their side.

The Lich King stood on a tall platform overlooking Havenshire and New Avalon. In the distance Sond could see that the Scarlet Crusade had reached the town and the Scourge attack was already in progress. The Lich King gave Sond a horn to call a gun equipped flying mount called a Frostbrood Vanquisher. Sond mounted up and headed into battle.

The Frostbrood could be manuevered like any other flying mount, and had a pet bar with two commands - one launched an AoE attack on whatever it was pointed at, and the other - well, if the bird gets low on health, you can swoop down on an enemy, get close enough and the bird will eat him.

What Sond wasn't expecting was just how hard the Crusaders would hit back.

Sond started high in the air, and then manuevered toward the ground to get in range of the running mobs. While chasing small clumps she quite unexpectedly came up on a whole phalanx of bowmen. Sond's whole screen lit up with purple shaded negative numbers showing the incoming damage. Sond fired at the mass of bowmen, and the purple was replace with yellow damage numbers statistically recording the carnage happening on the ground. There were also ballista about, many on the New Avalon castle walls. Sond closed on one of them. It took several rounds to take it out, and all the while that ballista was taking out chunks of the bird's health. And she was still in range of bowshots continued to stream up from below.

The bird was shockingly low on health and Sond tried to gain altitude to get out of range. But her turn put her in range of another ballista, and when it began a chaingun attack, Sond's mount died. Sond fell to earth, trapped on the dead bird, and died on impact. Died? Yep.

Sond has an Unholy spell that automatically resurrects her - as a ghoul. About a dozen elite soldiers swarmed her and killed her again.

Sond made more attempts, and here is what I learned. To complete the quest you have to kill 150 soldiers, and destroy ten ballista. Obviously, you and your mount can be killed. If you die, you will appear at the graveyard and have to run back to retrieve your corpse like normal. If you died in a bad spot, like Sond did, where elite soldiers are constantly running around; well, you may die a few more times until you can get to a safe spot.

The good news is that the flying mount can be re-summoned as many times as you need to. Find a safe spot, rez, re-summon mount, and get back in the air. The bad news is that as soon as the soldiers spot the bird they start shooting again. The aggro radius is pretty large.

Sond again found herself running low on health and the eating thing didn't seem to work too well. Another trick was to land in a safe spot, jump off the mount, and then re-summon it back with full health. When Sond tried that I discovered that there were no safe places. The Scarlet armies knew what to look for and they followed after Sond wherever he went, bathing him in a constant rain of arrows. Sond died again.

How do I get out of this? You don't. A DK cannot progress any further until she completes this quest. Just because you are getting killed doesn't allow you to run away from the fight. Back into the breach, Deathknight!

Finally, buried about 15 posts into a discussion of the fight, Sond got a strategy that looked like it would work.

It was pretty simple, too. Don't fly.

Sond mounted up again and flew from the Lich King's perch right down to the ground. With his cannon aimed directly in front, Sond ordered his mount forward, killing everything in my path. The damage was still coming, but the ferocity was much toned down; one, because at ground level Sond was obliterating whole armies of soldiers before they could turn their bows from pointing at the sky to pointing at Sond; and two, the ballista on the towers only shot at flying mounts, not those on the ground. Sond plowed through bodies in search of the ground based ballista, and soon had her quota of both corpses and wreckage. The latest bird was pretty dinged up, but it made it back to the Lich King with Sond still in mostly one piece.

The Lich King placed [Greathelm of the Scourge Champion] on Sond's head, it's black visage completing Sond's armor.

So it's over then, Sond thought. I am a trained Deathknight.

The Lich King spoke. "There remains one final task . . . "

Here we go again. The Scarlet armies were defeated. But the Argent Dawn still remained. It was against them the Lich King now focused.

The Lich King commanded Sond to go swiftly to a Scourge outpost in the Eastern Plaguelands called the Noxious Glade. There, Sond was directed to head for a small settlement at Browman Mill.

Sond felt a bit of elation at being out under the sun again and on open ground not already soaked in blood. And out from under the direct scrutiny of the Lich King. She gave her deathcharger his head and his hooves flashed in blurred motion as he galloped south.

Sond met up with other deathknights, and we headed for Light's Hope Chapel on the quest [The Light of Dawn] to annihilate the Argent Dawn defenders.

We rallied around Highlord Mograine to get us our final orders. And we marched on Light's Hope Chapel.

The battle played out over the next ten minutes, and was a sight to behold and participate in. After a fierce fight the Argent Dawn Highlord Tirion Fordring defeats Mograine. For the first time Sond saw the Scourge fail. The power of the Light at this hallowed place seemed stronger than the darkness of the Lich King, who sent his army, but feared to come himself.

Mograine was visited by the shade of his father, and there is a re-enactment of past actions that led to Mograine wielding the great sword Ashbringer, which he carried into battle as a deathknight but which refused to deploy it's power against the Argent Dawn.

And I was wrong about the Lich King. With Mograine bowed to the ground in shame, the Lich King appears. Mograine denounces the Lich King, promises vengeance, and the Lich King laughs at him.

Fordring also curses the Lich King, who Fordring knew as Arthas, the first deathknight. And Arthas reveals his true plan. The Lich King did not care if his army failed. He wanted the great paladin Fordring, and now he was within the Lich King's grasp.

The Lich King attacks Fordring, and with a single word kills the defending Argent Dawn. All appears lost, but with the last of his strength Mograine tosses Fordring his Ashbringer. In Fordring's hand the sword blazes into life, cleansed of the Scourge touch, and when Arthas sees that he begins to retreat. Fordring charges the Lich King, who flees, promising that the next meeting would not be on holy ground.

Fordring promises all that the fight against the Lich King would continue. Mograine stands and swears that while deathknights could have no place with the Light of the Argent Dawn, he promised that all those that followed him would also vow to fight until the Lich King falls.

Mograine's final words to the deathknights around him, and I quote, "There will be no atonement for us, deathknights. We are forever damned to walk the earth as monsters. While the Lich King may have loosed his grip upon us, the specters of our past will forever haunt our memories.

We must make amends in the only way we know how: Death...

I ask you now to join me in Acherus as a Knight of the Ebon Blade. Together we will destroy the Lich King and end the Scourge."

Highlord Mograine had broken from the Lich King. We deathknights had a chance to redeem some small part of our souls. Melasahnd thought of Lady Eony.

Sond raised his sword in salute to Mograine. We may all die in the attempt, but at last there was a true cause to fight for.

Melasahnd was free of the Lich King. The training was done, yes. But there still remained yet one more task.

With the completion of the battle Sond received a Deathgate, which opens a portal to Acherus, our floating city. That city was held by the Scourge, but with the Lich King abandoning the place Mograine intended to take back the floating city.

Sond and other DKs were sent down to the second level of Acherus to kill abominations that had been left as a little surprise by the Lich King, and those abominations were led by Patchwerk, a dangerous boss from Naxxramas. Given a super damage and health buff, Sond killed her way through the elite abominations to Patchwerk. Other DK's were already fighting him. That was a good thing because a single DK would have a heck of a time with this monster even with the buffs. Patchwerk took a long time to die, but die he did. Acherus was secure and the Knights of the Ebon Blade had won their first battle against the Scourge.

So NOW is the DK quest chain over? Come on, do you really think so? There is still more.

After securing Acherus, Mograine hands each DK a letter to be delivered to his respective King. In Sond's case, to the horde leader Thrall. A portal to Orgrimmar is provided. The purpose of Sond's audience with Thrall is to gain the acceptance of the Ebon Blade knights, for otherwise all deathknights would forever be outcasts.

Sond entered Orgrimmar with Unfriendly rep. The npcs inside pelted her with rotten fruit, cursed her and spit on her. She could not use her mount and had to walk through the central square of Org, down the long Cleft of Shadows walkway and into Thrall's chamber. The hatred was further reminder of the horrors Melasahnd had committed. If you are ever in Org and start hearing the orc guards cursing and throwing things, you now know what is happening. It's a deathknight on his walk of shame.

For many reasons, Thrall, who has a terrible temper and was as like to slay those who came before him as to grant a boon, considered the request. And since there is history between Thrall, Mograine, and Fordring having to do with Thrall's lost love, Taretha, Thrall granted Melasahnd's wish.

Sond was granted enough reputation to become friendly with Orgrimmar.

And at long last, Melasahnd was both a level 58 deathknight, and free to roam at will.

For those planning a deathknight, I took probably more time than most to complete the whole thing, so here is an easy time to beat - total game time from creation of Melasahnd at level 55 to completing the quest with Thrall at level 58 was five hours and four minutes. Have fun!