Special - (29 Aug) Wild and His Resto Gear
A raider with the guild recently posted on the guild website his assessment of guild raiding. He didn't paint a very pretty picture. This is a raider who has done theorycrafting for the Elitist Jerks site and counts himself an elitist player who tired of it - which is how he came to be in our guild.
He offers a wealth of knowledge about raiding, providing you are willing to put up with serious attitude issues and accepting abuse along with the advice. This is second hand knowledge, I admit, but from more than a couple of sources. This raider claims intimate familiarity with many classes and specs, including resto druid. Wild is considering getting some advice, as much to see whether he is actually being helpful to those who seek him out as I am to see if he has anything to tell me I don't already know. Wild accepts good advice no matter how it comes to me.
One good outcome of that post is that Wild knew he should take a look at all aspects of his game before coming to see that raider. Wild's first look is a gear check. Short of Firelands gear or Heroic Raids, where can Wild still upgrade? I used the Wowhead site to check out available upgrades, and this is what I came up with.
Slot - Current - Upgrade
Head- i353 Amani Headdress - i359 Stormrider's Helm (Nefarian Token)
Neck - i365 - Nightweaver's Amulet - i378 Firemind Pendant (1250 VP)
Shldr - i378 Flickering Shoulderpads - None
Back - i378 Flowing Flamewrath cape - None
Chest - i359 Scorched Worming Vest- i378 OA Robes (2200 VP)
Wrist - i378 Smolderskull Bindings - None
Hands - i359 Stormrider's Handwraps- i378 OA Gloves (1650 VP)
Also BH Occu'thar drop
Waist - i378 Firescar Sash - None
Legs - i359 Stormrider's Legwraps - i378 OA Legwraps (2200 VP)
Also BH Occu'thar drop
Feet - i359 Fading Violet Sandals - None
Ring1 - i365 VG Band of Dominance - i378 Soothing Brimstone (1250VP)
Ring2 - i359 Security Measure Alpha - i365 Spirit Fragment Band (Molten Front)
Trnk1 - i365 Moonwell Chalice - None
Trnk2 -i359 Darkmoon Card: Tsunami - not really, Brewfest
Weap - i365 Lightforged Elem. Hammer - i378 2H Spire of Scarlet Pain (maybe)
OH - i365 Globe of Moonlight - None
Relic - i365 Relic if Elune's Light - i378 Singed Plume of Aviana (700VP)
OA = Obsidium Arborweave T12 resto druid set
Ethereal Leathwerworking requires both chaos and living ember, out of reach.
VP = Valor Points
So, 17 slots. Seven of those slots are solid. The other ten can still be upgraded.
If Wild runs Baradin Hold (BH) every week, he may one day win the T12 gloves and legs. Then there are 4 items that Valor Points will buy, at a total cost of 3200 VPs. Finally, Wild has to decide if buying the 2H +hit on the AH is actually better than the Hammer/OH combo Wild already has.
Wild can earn a max of 1250 VP per week. That requires a minimum 11 Heroic runs, combining ZA/ZG and Heroic Dungeons. Wild has about 900 VPs, from raiding. In fact, Wild could buy the i378 relic right now. But I would think the Chest piece would be the more valuable buy, a week's work at minimum.
Three weeks of maxing out Heroics would give Wild more than enough VPs to buy all the T12 pieces that he cannot get any other way. Wild HATES Heroics. It's a gut deep HATRED that causes the sweats when he even thinks about signing up for one. There is NOTHING in those dungeons that Wild cares anything about except for the VPs the final boss kill offers. It's mind numbingly boring while still deadly enough for there to be wipes and problems.
I really wish we were farming raid content, because that is how I prefer to get VPs. We'll know how it goes this week.
Wild got into Mf's BWD/FL raid on Monday. Wild was happy to get a spot in the raid, but after two weeks of very good attendance, the raid was back to it's old tricks. It took us 45 minutes to fill the raid even though ten guildies had signed up that they were coming, but in order to fill we had to bring two under geared DPS into the Firelands because half the signed up raiders didn't show - including the raid leader. We two-healed it with no problems, but after clearing trash for a couple of hours and bringing Shannox out to play, we were short a healer and lacked the DPS to take on the Firelands Boss. Wild's shaman friend from FS, Bf, finally moved over to the MM2 guild. It's funny. It was Bf who first jumped guilds, and Wild who followed. Now he's following Wild. I remember Bf more as a resto shaman than a DPS, but when Wild asked if he wanted to switch to healer so we could try Shannox, he said no, that his healer gear was not good enough. That ended our raid.
Mf's raid will try again on Tuesday, but Wild is signed up for Lady Hunter's raid on that night. I have no idea who will show up or where we will be going, if anywhere. We are in that terrible place where the guild is bored with current content (BWD/BoT) but isn't good enough for the new content (Firelands). And until the guild brings down a boss in Firelands, it is going to be hard to convince guildies to raid.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Weekend (28 Aug) - Zerg Zerg Zerg Choo Choo!
Weekend (28 Aug) - Zerg Zerg Zerg Choo Choo!
A couple of notes from Friday ... I forgot to mention that the Firelands trash run on Thursday night included tackling some turtles. No Firelands raid that Wild has been on has attacked the turtles - until that run. When asked why, most raid leaders simply said that they were a huge pain and not worth the rep to kill them. Well, our raid group on Thursday seemed to become mesmerized by those turtles. Every time we'd pass by a clutch of them raiders would start chanting Turtles! Turtles! Turtles! Finally, the raid leader said - Ok, you want turtles, let's go get some turtles. Wild can now vouch for the statement that turtles are a real pain, for two reasons. One is that turtles can do a spinning move that hits anyone that gets in the way - kind of like a melee AoE. The other ability that causes trouble is that turtles can Shield, protecting itself from damage but also trapping any raiders next to it inside the shield where the turtle can still attack them but trapped raiders can't be healed. We lost a tank several times that way. We did end up killing a few turtles, but I think we got that idea out of our system.
The other note of significance is that there was a Bastion of Twilight raid on Friday night. Wild could not attend due to visiting friends. Wild did get in game about 8pm on Friday, and the raid was still in progress. What surprised me was that the raid leader, Bd, did not make the raid, either. The makeup of the raid didn't look much like Bd's raid, with most of the raiders coming from Mf's raid group. There had to be at least one of Bd's raiders in there, though, in order to be able to use the saved raid and go after Cho'gall. About a half hour after Wild logged in, the guild got our first Cho'gall kill, as I predicted would happen. Wish Wild had been there.
The "Call to Arms" battleground for the weekend was Alterac Valley (AV). Each weekend a BG gets singled out like AV and offered greater rewards/honor. AV is a 40 man per side contest that Wild remembers as a large scale battle that can take up a lot of time to win or lose. The AV battles that Wild was part of this particular weekend looked like nothing Wild had ever seen. Yes, it's been awhile.
The first set of AV's that Wild got in on used the "Zerg" strategy. Every time Wild zoned in to an AV that was the first and last thing that spilled out of BG chat - Zerg! It's a simple strategy, easily understand, and seductive because the battles are very quick. The basics are this. Each side has a home base, and each side has an enemy boss on the opposite side of Valley that wins the match when killed. Some towers and graveyards have to be destroyed/captured once to make the enemy boss kill easier, but even that part seemed somewhat arbitrary. There is a LOT of other things going on, but for the Zerg strategy 90% of those things are simply ignored. There is no defense of captured objectives, either. They are immediately abandoned as soon as taken.
When the battle started all forty pvpers burst from our base and scrambled to get to the opposite side of the valley. Occasionally, horde and alliance tangled with each other as we passed each other going in opposite directions, but mostly we just ignored each other. Graveyards/towers may or may not be taken on the way. Once we reached the enemy boss, Vann, and cleared away the hostile npcs around the area ... we waited. We wait to see if enough towers/graveyards are down, and we wait because the tanks and sometimes the healers that are supposed to lead us against Vann take their own sweet time getting there.
Meanwhile, the Alliance army is doing the same thing. Only, as was said in chat any number of times, the Alliance does not have to go quite as far to get to the horde boss, so they have a slight advantage over horde if both sides are using the Zerg strategy. The Alliance had one more thing going for them - they were less stupid than the horde. Want to know how stupid us horde were? Wild joined TEN AV's in his first set of BGs. We lost eight of them. Did we alter the strategy? No. Did we get any better at the strategy we were using? No. The Alliance did only one thing differently than the horde - after the horde abandoned objectives we had taken, they sent a couple of allies and retook it - it was easy, because there wasn't any horde there defending them. Did the horde start defending them? No. The horde bet EVERYTHING on getting to and killing Vann before those objectives started to fall back into alliance hands. It was a recipe for failure, but the horde was totally incapable of changing anything.
Now, there were some positives. The matches went very fast - 5-10 minutes max, which is fast for such a large scale BG. And, of course, even losing, there was a nice batch of honor points won since AV was the weekend special BG.
Wild did another set of ten AV's later on. There was virtually no waiting - within a minute a new one would pop after the completion of the previous one. The horde lost nine of them. Just imagine the Alliance players on the other side - these horde guys fall for the same trick EVERY SINGLE TIME! Wild got bored and wandered around trying different things and going places that I don't get to see when Zerging through. Sometimes Wild tried - unsuccessfully - to battle the Alliance at the horde base where OUR boss was being assaulted, or just slow them down, but there were never enough of us for that. Wild defended objectives sometimes, but mostly it was just Wild there, and there wasn't much Wild could do against a pair of allies beyond staying alive just long enough to irritate them a bit before I died. Once it was Wild and a feral druid defending, so we both stealthed. Three allies came to take it back, taking on the feral druid, and Wild gave them a start when I popped into view to heal the feral druid. All three allies piled on Wild, though, and Wild didn't stay alive long enough to know how the feral druid did. Not good, probably. I could have been miserable about the losses, but hey, the honor points were piling up, and that's what Wild was after.
Wild did one more set of AV's, 11 this time, and the horde lost ten of them. Final tally: 4 horde wins, 27 alliance wins. There must have been some really stupid alliance for them to have let us win four matches. Or maybe they were just too exhausted from all the victory dancing. I don't even want to think about how much honor the alliance racked up.
Anyway, Wild is trying to figure out what he plans to buy with the honor points. I wish I had figured out a long time ago how fast it was to farm honor (I know, erik, you've been telling me, I just don't listen). Wild will have to check around and see who still needs heirlooms.
Wild did his heirloom check. In fact, I reorganized it completely so that I could see what I had. We needed less than I thought. The only "important" needs were Bean's. She could use a Sharpened Scarlet Kris and the Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders to fill out her gear. I may double up on the daggers so that both Bean and Shevils have a pair (of daggers, those two girls already have a "pair"). That will take some more pvping, though. Jocy is happy enough with her holy heirlooms, although they're more cloth and leather than anything else. I haven't decided on a whether she needs an heirloom weapon.
I had forgotten that 4,000 is the max honor I can have, so I'm spending what Wild has and will have to get some more. There's a few more hours to the weekend. :-)
A couple of notes from Friday ... I forgot to mention that the Firelands trash run on Thursday night included tackling some turtles. No Firelands raid that Wild has been on has attacked the turtles - until that run. When asked why, most raid leaders simply said that they were a huge pain and not worth the rep to kill them. Well, our raid group on Thursday seemed to become mesmerized by those turtles. Every time we'd pass by a clutch of them raiders would start chanting Turtles! Turtles! Turtles! Finally, the raid leader said - Ok, you want turtles, let's go get some turtles. Wild can now vouch for the statement that turtles are a real pain, for two reasons. One is that turtles can do a spinning move that hits anyone that gets in the way - kind of like a melee AoE. The other ability that causes trouble is that turtles can Shield, protecting itself from damage but also trapping any raiders next to it inside the shield where the turtle can still attack them but trapped raiders can't be healed. We lost a tank several times that way. We did end up killing a few turtles, but I think we got that idea out of our system.
The other note of significance is that there was a Bastion of Twilight raid on Friday night. Wild could not attend due to visiting friends. Wild did get in game about 8pm on Friday, and the raid was still in progress. What surprised me was that the raid leader, Bd, did not make the raid, either. The makeup of the raid didn't look much like Bd's raid, with most of the raiders coming from Mf's raid group. There had to be at least one of Bd's raiders in there, though, in order to be able to use the saved raid and go after Cho'gall. About a half hour after Wild logged in, the guild got our first Cho'gall kill, as I predicted would happen. Wish Wild had been there.
The "Call to Arms" battleground for the weekend was Alterac Valley (AV). Each weekend a BG gets singled out like AV and offered greater rewards/honor. AV is a 40 man per side contest that Wild remembers as a large scale battle that can take up a lot of time to win or lose. The AV battles that Wild was part of this particular weekend looked like nothing Wild had ever seen. Yes, it's been awhile.
The first set of AV's that Wild got in on used the "Zerg" strategy. Every time Wild zoned in to an AV that was the first and last thing that spilled out of BG chat - Zerg! It's a simple strategy, easily understand, and seductive because the battles are very quick. The basics are this. Each side has a home base, and each side has an enemy boss on the opposite side of Valley that wins the match when killed. Some towers and graveyards have to be destroyed/captured once to make the enemy boss kill easier, but even that part seemed somewhat arbitrary. There is a LOT of other things going on, but for the Zerg strategy 90% of those things are simply ignored. There is no defense of captured objectives, either. They are immediately abandoned as soon as taken.
When the battle started all forty pvpers burst from our base and scrambled to get to the opposite side of the valley. Occasionally, horde and alliance tangled with each other as we passed each other going in opposite directions, but mostly we just ignored each other. Graveyards/towers may or may not be taken on the way. Once we reached the enemy boss, Vann, and cleared away the hostile npcs around the area ... we waited. We wait to see if enough towers/graveyards are down, and we wait because the tanks and sometimes the healers that are supposed to lead us against Vann take their own sweet time getting there.
Meanwhile, the Alliance army is doing the same thing. Only, as was said in chat any number of times, the Alliance does not have to go quite as far to get to the horde boss, so they have a slight advantage over horde if both sides are using the Zerg strategy. The Alliance had one more thing going for them - they were less stupid than the horde. Want to know how stupid us horde were? Wild joined TEN AV's in his first set of BGs. We lost eight of them. Did we alter the strategy? No. Did we get any better at the strategy we were using? No. The Alliance did only one thing differently than the horde - after the horde abandoned objectives we had taken, they sent a couple of allies and retook it - it was easy, because there wasn't any horde there defending them. Did the horde start defending them? No. The horde bet EVERYTHING on getting to and killing Vann before those objectives started to fall back into alliance hands. It was a recipe for failure, but the horde was totally incapable of changing anything.
Now, there were some positives. The matches went very fast - 5-10 minutes max, which is fast for such a large scale BG. And, of course, even losing, there was a nice batch of honor points won since AV was the weekend special BG.
Wild did another set of ten AV's later on. There was virtually no waiting - within a minute a new one would pop after the completion of the previous one. The horde lost nine of them. Just imagine the Alliance players on the other side - these horde guys fall for the same trick EVERY SINGLE TIME! Wild got bored and wandered around trying different things and going places that I don't get to see when Zerging through. Sometimes Wild tried - unsuccessfully - to battle the Alliance at the horde base where OUR boss was being assaulted, or just slow them down, but there were never enough of us for that. Wild defended objectives sometimes, but mostly it was just Wild there, and there wasn't much Wild could do against a pair of allies beyond staying alive just long enough to irritate them a bit before I died. Once it was Wild and a feral druid defending, so we both stealthed. Three allies came to take it back, taking on the feral druid, and Wild gave them a start when I popped into view to heal the feral druid. All three allies piled on Wild, though, and Wild didn't stay alive long enough to know how the feral druid did. Not good, probably. I could have been miserable about the losses, but hey, the honor points were piling up, and that's what Wild was after.
Wild did one more set of AV's, 11 this time, and the horde lost ten of them. Final tally: 4 horde wins, 27 alliance wins. There must have been some really stupid alliance for them to have let us win four matches. Or maybe they were just too exhausted from all the victory dancing. I don't even want to think about how much honor the alliance racked up.
Anyway, Wild is trying to figure out what he plans to buy with the honor points. I wish I had figured out a long time ago how fast it was to farm honor (I know, erik, you've been telling me, I just don't listen). Wild will have to check around and see who still needs heirlooms.
Wild did his heirloom check. In fact, I reorganized it completely so that I could see what I had. We needed less than I thought. The only "important" needs were Bean's. She could use a Sharpened Scarlet Kris and the Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders to fill out her gear. I may double up on the daggers so that both Bean and Shevils have a pair (of daggers, those two girls already have a "pair"). That will take some more pvping, though. Jocy is happy enough with her holy heirlooms, although they're more cloth and leather than anything else. I haven't decided on a whether she needs an heirloom weapon.
I had forgotten that 4,000 is the max honor I can have, so I'm spending what Wild has and will have to get some more. There's a few more hours to the weekend. :-)
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday (25 Aug) - Wildshard Does PvP
Thursday (25 Aug) - Wildshard Does PvP
So. Wild is not much of the pvp type. Yes, some of the Wild Family has come around to the idea of murdering the opposing faction. And yes, Wild has sent JB and Philly out into battlegrounds and Wintergrasp primarily to earn heirlooms. When Cata hit Wild planned to get the shaman, JB, to 85, and she would be Wild's stand-in for pvp. But JB stills sits at level 84, and doesn't appear all that interested, at least for now.
Wild has virtually no pvp gear; ie, gear with resilience. Reading up on that a bit, it seems that a resto druid can get away with healing battlegrounds in pve gear, but why go to all that trouble to pvp if not for some cool pvp gear? Wild did have SOME pvp gear, enough for about 300 resilience. Well, it was start. Wild is also a tailor, and can craft two types of cloth pvp gear, each of which have a 2-piece set bonus that awards even more resilience. Well, that was no sooner thought of than Wild made and equipped the gear. Wild also poked around on the AH looking for bargains, and when all was said and done Wild had improved his resilience from 300 to 1588.
Wild wasn't sure how long it would take to get a BG on a Thursday morning, so he queued up and then started putting together enchants and such. None of his new gear had any modifications yet. Wild didn't get a chance to do any of that as a BG popped almost right away.
The BG was the Battle For Gilneas. This is a Cata battleground. I wondered when the last time Wild had been in a BG or Wintergrasp. I went back more than a year and still couldn't find a single reference to pvp involving Wild. That's a long time.
The Gilneas fight wasn't a lot of fun. The BG is very like Arathi Basin, but Wild never got to see anymore than the first base right outside the dock we departed from. The Alliance already had that base well defended, but a group of us assaulted it auld nauseam the whole time. We controlled it maybe 20% of the time; the rest of the time Wild was mostly dead once they figured out Wild was the only healer.
Wild also got into a Warsong Gulch match and that was a LOT of fun! Wild picked out the one hunter in the group and determined to be his pocket healer. There was a warrior in the group as well who led many of the assaults, and he got a lot of Wild's attention as well. The two sides fought each other to a standstill over maybe the first ten minutes of the fight, each of us holding the other's flag. We finally took back our flag, capping theirs for a 1-0 lead. We were able to hold them at their base for the most part, but there was a small but determined group of Allies after our flag, and precious few of us trying to stop them. Wild and his hunter friend tangled with one Allie hunter that I have to give great credit to. The guy just wouldn't die. He quickly figured out he couldn't drop the horde hunter with Wild around, and came after Wild with a vengeance. Wild's hunter partner did what he could, but even with Wild DoTing the allie up and hitting back with Stomp, Entangle, and Cyclone, he just kept coming. He couldn't kill Wild, though. I'm sure the new resilience gear helped tamp down the violence being directed at Wild, but I could out heal anything he could do to me. Still, we couldn't bring him down, either. The allie hunter fought his way into a hut (can you heal in there?) and expertly used LoS to frustrate the horde hunter. When he went to ground in the hut even Wild poured DPS on him as well as the hunter. We drove him down under 20% I don't know how many times, but he somehow was able to recover some of his health and keep fighting. I'd like to be able to say we finally finished him, but Wild was ambushed by an allie rogue that distracted Wild for a bit. The allie hunter killed my hunter, and then he and the rogue killed Wild. It was one heckova fight, though! Wild also tangled with an obsessed death knight who chased Wild long enough to use his Grab (or whatever it's called) some six times on Wild, plus a few Chains. Wild healed through everything and then got bored with him and catform/sprinted away. It was good practice, though, and I hope that death knight has his own nightmares about that un-killable druid he faced. We won the WSG 1-0.
Wild doesn't have any visions of glory in pvp. He knows that when he is successful it's only because the opposition sucks even worse than Wild does. But it was definitely fun, no pressure entertainment and Wild will be doing more of it.
The BoT raid on Thursday was a mixed blessing. We are slowly moving our focus toward the Firelands, but we also want to finish off Cho'gall. I was really hoping we would go after Cho'gall Thursday night, but the raid leader decided to make our first official Firelands raid. Wild has done any number of Firelands trash runs, so this was old hat. The raid leader was experienced as well, but we had a few raiders who were getting their first look. We had no problems with the mobs, though, doing a thorough clear on our first run through. The raid leader then gave us a choice - reset and farm more rep from the trash, or take some shots at a Firelands boss. Wild strongly advocated to go after a boss - we had a really solid group and I thought we had a chance at Shannox. Sigh, the majority needed rep to pick up the gear that was available at Friendly and Honored, so we farmed some more. We did go deeper into the area where the spider boss is than Wild had gone before. Matter of fact, we cleared all the way to the boss, Beth'tilac (I think that's how it's spelled). Wild wanted to go after him, but we trooped back out and farmed some more. There were no gear drops off of any of the trash, which disappointed a lot of folks. It was fun, but Wild had hoped for more.
The raid will go after Cho'gall Friday night. Wild won't be there, though. Those friends of ours aren't leaving until Saturday and we'll be out with them on Friday night. I'm very sure this group is capable of dropping Cho'gall, given they'll have the whole evening, and I doubt that once he's down the guild will bother with BoT anymore. I love our friends, but couldn't they have decided to go home on Friday instead of Saturday? Sigh.
So. Wild is not much of the pvp type. Yes, some of the Wild Family has come around to the idea of murdering the opposing faction. And yes, Wild has sent JB and Philly out into battlegrounds and Wintergrasp primarily to earn heirlooms. When Cata hit Wild planned to get the shaman, JB, to 85, and she would be Wild's stand-in for pvp. But JB stills sits at level 84, and doesn't appear all that interested, at least for now.
Wild has virtually no pvp gear; ie, gear with resilience. Reading up on that a bit, it seems that a resto druid can get away with healing battlegrounds in pve gear, but why go to all that trouble to pvp if not for some cool pvp gear? Wild did have SOME pvp gear, enough for about 300 resilience. Well, it was start. Wild is also a tailor, and can craft two types of cloth pvp gear, each of which have a 2-piece set bonus that awards even more resilience. Well, that was no sooner thought of than Wild made and equipped the gear. Wild also poked around on the AH looking for bargains, and when all was said and done Wild had improved his resilience from 300 to 1588.
Wild wasn't sure how long it would take to get a BG on a Thursday morning, so he queued up and then started putting together enchants and such. None of his new gear had any modifications yet. Wild didn't get a chance to do any of that as a BG popped almost right away.
The BG was the Battle For Gilneas. This is a Cata battleground. I wondered when the last time Wild had been in a BG or Wintergrasp. I went back more than a year and still couldn't find a single reference to pvp involving Wild. That's a long time.
The Gilneas fight wasn't a lot of fun. The BG is very like Arathi Basin, but Wild never got to see anymore than the first base right outside the dock we departed from. The Alliance already had that base well defended, but a group of us assaulted it auld nauseam the whole time. We controlled it maybe 20% of the time; the rest of the time Wild was mostly dead once they figured out Wild was the only healer.
Wild also got into a Warsong Gulch match and that was a LOT of fun! Wild picked out the one hunter in the group and determined to be his pocket healer. There was a warrior in the group as well who led many of the assaults, and he got a lot of Wild's attention as well. The two sides fought each other to a standstill over maybe the first ten minutes of the fight, each of us holding the other's flag. We finally took back our flag, capping theirs for a 1-0 lead. We were able to hold them at their base for the most part, but there was a small but determined group of Allies after our flag, and precious few of us trying to stop them. Wild and his hunter friend tangled with one Allie hunter that I have to give great credit to. The guy just wouldn't die. He quickly figured out he couldn't drop the horde hunter with Wild around, and came after Wild with a vengeance. Wild's hunter partner did what he could, but even with Wild DoTing the allie up and hitting back with Stomp, Entangle, and Cyclone, he just kept coming. He couldn't kill Wild, though. I'm sure the new resilience gear helped tamp down the violence being directed at Wild, but I could out heal anything he could do to me. Still, we couldn't bring him down, either. The allie hunter fought his way into a hut (can you heal in there?) and expertly used LoS to frustrate the horde hunter. When he went to ground in the hut even Wild poured DPS on him as well as the hunter. We drove him down under 20% I don't know how many times, but he somehow was able to recover some of his health and keep fighting. I'd like to be able to say we finally finished him, but Wild was ambushed by an allie rogue that distracted Wild for a bit. The allie hunter killed my hunter, and then he and the rogue killed Wild. It was one heckova fight, though! Wild also tangled with an obsessed death knight who chased Wild long enough to use his Grab (or whatever it's called) some six times on Wild, plus a few Chains. Wild healed through everything and then got bored with him and catform/sprinted away. It was good practice, though, and I hope that death knight has his own nightmares about that un-killable druid he faced. We won the WSG 1-0.
Wild doesn't have any visions of glory in pvp. He knows that when he is successful it's only because the opposition sucks even worse than Wild does. But it was definitely fun, no pressure entertainment and Wild will be doing more of it.
The BoT raid on Thursday was a mixed blessing. We are slowly moving our focus toward the Firelands, but we also want to finish off Cho'gall. I was really hoping we would go after Cho'gall Thursday night, but the raid leader decided to make our first official Firelands raid. Wild has done any number of Firelands trash runs, so this was old hat. The raid leader was experienced as well, but we had a few raiders who were getting their first look. We had no problems with the mobs, though, doing a thorough clear on our first run through. The raid leader then gave us a choice - reset and farm more rep from the trash, or take some shots at a Firelands boss. Wild strongly advocated to go after a boss - we had a really solid group and I thought we had a chance at Shannox. Sigh, the majority needed rep to pick up the gear that was available at Friendly and Honored, so we farmed some more. We did go deeper into the area where the spider boss is than Wild had gone before. Matter of fact, we cleared all the way to the boss, Beth'tilac (I think that's how it's spelled). Wild wanted to go after him, but we trooped back out and farmed some more. There were no gear drops off of any of the trash, which disappointed a lot of folks. It was fun, but Wild had hoped for more.
The spider boss
The raid will go after Cho'gall Friday night. Wild won't be there, though. Those friends of ours aren't leaving until Saturday and we'll be out with them on Friday night. I'm very sure this group is capable of dropping Cho'gall, given they'll have the whole evening, and I doubt that once he's down the guild will bother with BoT anymore. I love our friends, but couldn't they have decided to go home on Friday instead of Saturday? Sigh.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Tuesday (23 Aug) - Plowing the Fields of BWD
Tuesday (23 Aug) - Plowing the Fields of BWD
Lady Hunter has returned to the fold and made a point to call on Wild for her raid Tuesday night, even though Wild had not signed up for it. When Wild joined the raid as the second healer (Fl, a superb pally healer was the other healer), Lady Hunter announced that she now had two "sick" healers and that was all she needed. "Sick" is supposed to mean "good" I guess, but I'm not up to speed on the slang these days.
We went with a two healer, two tank setup and got started only a half hour late, which is ahead of schedule for this raid. The last time this group raided we dropped Nefarian in Blackwing Descent for the first time. The plan on this night was to clear all of BWD and then start on Bastion of Twilight. Quite an ambitious plan.
The first boss, Magmaw, went down smoothly on our first attempt. Wild has been part of at least three different strategies for Magmaw, but Wild liked this one best. Wild just stood and moved with the melee near Magmaw while raid healing and providing some backup for the tank healer, who really didn't need the backup. Easy as could be. Wild also picked up [Scorched Wormling Vest]. It's an i359 chest piece and although Wild already has an i359 chest, it's a better piece with two sockets instead of the one socket chest that Wild was currently wearing. A small but nice upgrade.
The second encounter, the Omonotron Defense System (the robots) also went down on the first try.
We went to Chimaeron next. Wild had done this fight only once before, and since it had special rules involving the healers I asked for a refresher. In this fight the boss knocks raiders down to 1% health throughout the fight, and health has to be maintained at something like 10% instead of trying to heal to full. More special healing on the tanks, but Wild was asked to focus on the raid and the pally would handle both tanks (with a little help from Wild). It was a really crazy ride. We lost one of the tanks pretty early on, but with both healers going at max we kept things going. We plowed into phase two, but we were bleeding raiders as Wild was having cooldown trouble with his AoE heals as well has having to help keep the lone tank alive. The pally healer died. Wild got a rez on him, but it cost Wild his life to do it. The raid entered Phase 3 with four raiders - three pallies and a rogue. It was an awesome thing to see. The pallies stayed alive with their myriad save me spells while the rogue became a one man wrecking crew. Chimaeron went down.
Then it was Maloriak's turn. This was another fight Wild had only done once before. Once the raid leader started talking I started to remember it better. The strategy had been tweaked in Wild's favor, too. There first time Wild had done Chim there were positioning issues that worked against Wild getting to the center for the big AoE. This time Wild could stand pretty much wherever I wanted and Wild had no problems other than an occasional raider drifting out of range - but they figured out pretty quick that they needed to move when they started taking damage that wasn't being healed. Maloriak went down on the first attempt. Wild was hoping for the [Leggings of Consuming Flame] to drop, but no luck there.
Next up was Atramedes. Wild has seen this fight before, too, once, but we weren't able to bring him down on that run. This time, we had one false start that caused a wipe, and then killed him on our second try. That was Wild's first kill of Atramedes, and it triggered the Achievement for clearing BWD (since I already had a Nef kill).
We had made it to the final boss in BWD, defeating five encounters, in a single night.
We did make two attempts on Nefarian, but we had to ask our shadow priest to turn healer for the fight, since it pretty much requires three healers for the pedestal phase. We didn't too well, but the raid will have all night Wednesday to bring him down. Wild will not likely be there, as we will be visiting friends. But we'll hopefully be back in time for Hunter Fortress!
Lady Hunter has returned to the fold and made a point to call on Wild for her raid Tuesday night, even though Wild had not signed up for it. When Wild joined the raid as the second healer (Fl, a superb pally healer was the other healer), Lady Hunter announced that she now had two "sick" healers and that was all she needed. "Sick" is supposed to mean "good" I guess, but I'm not up to speed on the slang these days.
We went with a two healer, two tank setup and got started only a half hour late, which is ahead of schedule for this raid. The last time this group raided we dropped Nefarian in Blackwing Descent for the first time. The plan on this night was to clear all of BWD and then start on Bastion of Twilight. Quite an ambitious plan.
The first boss, Magmaw, went down smoothly on our first attempt. Wild has been part of at least three different strategies for Magmaw, but Wild liked this one best. Wild just stood and moved with the melee near Magmaw while raid healing and providing some backup for the tank healer, who really didn't need the backup. Easy as could be. Wild also picked up [Scorched Wormling Vest]. It's an i359 chest piece and although Wild already has an i359 chest, it's a better piece with two sockets instead of the one socket chest that Wild was currently wearing. A small but nice upgrade.
The second encounter, the Omonotron Defense System (the robots) also went down on the first try.
We went to Chimaeron next. Wild had done this fight only once before, and since it had special rules involving the healers I asked for a refresher. In this fight the boss knocks raiders down to 1% health throughout the fight, and health has to be maintained at something like 10% instead of trying to heal to full. More special healing on the tanks, but Wild was asked to focus on the raid and the pally would handle both tanks (with a little help from Wild). It was a really crazy ride. We lost one of the tanks pretty early on, but with both healers going at max we kept things going. We plowed into phase two, but we were bleeding raiders as Wild was having cooldown trouble with his AoE heals as well has having to help keep the lone tank alive. The pally healer died. Wild got a rez on him, but it cost Wild his life to do it. The raid entered Phase 3 with four raiders - three pallies and a rogue. It was an awesome thing to see. The pallies stayed alive with their myriad save me spells while the rogue became a one man wrecking crew. Chimaeron went down.
Then it was Maloriak's turn. This was another fight Wild had only done once before. Once the raid leader started talking I started to remember it better. The strategy had been tweaked in Wild's favor, too. There first time Wild had done Chim there were positioning issues that worked against Wild getting to the center for the big AoE. This time Wild could stand pretty much wherever I wanted and Wild had no problems other than an occasional raider drifting out of range - but they figured out pretty quick that they needed to move when they started taking damage that wasn't being healed. Maloriak went down on the first attempt. Wild was hoping for the [Leggings of Consuming Flame] to drop, but no luck there.
Next up was Atramedes. Wild has seen this fight before, too, once, but we weren't able to bring him down on that run. This time, we had one false start that caused a wipe, and then killed him on our second try. That was Wild's first kill of Atramedes, and it triggered the Achievement for clearing BWD (since I already had a Nef kill).
We had made it to the final boss in BWD, defeating five encounters, in a single night.
We did make two attempts on Nefarian, but we had to ask our shadow priest to turn healer for the fight, since it pretty much requires three healers for the pedestal phase. We didn't too well, but the raid will have all night Wednesday to bring him down. Wild will not likely be there, as we will be visiting friends. But we'll hopefully be back in time for Hunter Fortress!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday (22 Aug) - On A different Subject
Monday (22 Aug) - On A different Subject
The World of Warcraft has been a dull place for the last several days, with very little transpiring in Wild's world. Wild's last raid was Friday night last and we did NOT kill the final boss, Cho'gall, in Bastion of Twilight - again. We will not be starting over again this week, as the raid leader saved the raid so that we could start with Cho'gall on Thursday and spend the whole evening with him. Tea and crumpets, and then we kill him ...
Wildshard has managed to avoid pvp since he beginning of the Cataclysm, but, being bored to distraction on Monday night, Wild found himself in Tol Barad at the Horde encampment of the Hellscreamers faction. Wild did the six dailies available to him. Guildies blinked in surprise and offered limp "Gratz" when Wild made it to Friendly reputation (every other level 85 in the guild are already at the max rep of Exalted). Wild has a vague plan of collecting enough pvp honor points to exchange them for Justice Points to buy a new helm or pants, the two pieces of gear that Wild still needs to upgrade.
Now that I've caught up on what little news there is, it's time to go off on a tangent.
I don't know if anyone out there has an ereader device, like the Kindle, Sony, or Kobo. I read quite a bit, and have always loved the feel of a book in my hands. I was pretty skeptical about these ereader devices, but I was tempted by the ease in which books could be downloaded and be instantly available, not to mention that I could have hundreds of books on that one device. When I travel I usually bring 4-5 books with me to make sure I don't run out of things to read. In our one walk in closet, half the space is taken up with boxes of books I that knew I would want to read again someday.
So, a few months ago, I hinted strongly to the Mrs exactly what I wanted for my birthday - a Kobo ereader. I chose Kobo for two reasons - I wanted a basic reader that excelled at just letting me read. I didn't need a color screen, or a keypad, or 4G connectivity, or other bells and whistles like playing games - I just wanted to read books.
Oh, that second reason? My favorite bookstore was Borders, which was allied with Kobo and I could buy my books directly from Borders, even using the wireless connection to buy them online while actually in the store. Neat!
You probably know that Borders recently went out of business. Kobo didn't go under with them, though, as Kobo is it's own company (in Canada). Kobo provided a transition from the Borders site and desktop apps to the Kobo site and desktop apps. Unfortunately, that's when things went very wrong.
In a nutshell, the transition was poorly done. While I didn't lose any books, I lost all my bookmarks. Since I am often reading more than one book at a time, losing my place in all of them was pretty irritating, and there are no folded down pages to get me close to where I was. Even worse, the Kobo desktop app that I now had to use to order books for download to the Kobo is about the worst I have ever seen. No "shopping cart" to put books I might want to buy - each book must be purchased one at a time. The Search feature is so laughable I want to cry. Imagine NOT being able to search and sort by author. I can't. Kobo Support is by email only - no phone support at all. When I complained about a synching issue recently, it took three days to get a response.
Don't get me wrong, I like my Kobo ereader, even if it is slow to load and sometimes randomly changes my font. But not Kobo the company. Not long after I got my Kobo, I got the Mrs the ereader SHE wanted - a Kindle. She loves it. I love it, and I'm jealous. Christmas is a long ways off yet. Sigh.
In a final bit of news, we went to a San Diego Padres game on Sunday. Trevor Hoffman's Number 51 was being retired and we had a chance to go see it. The team did a really superb job and it was great fun. There were a lot of players, managers, and coaches all the way back to his earliest days in baseball that came to pay tribute. Both of his brothers were there, and all four of the other players who have had their numbers retired by the Padres were there as well - Steve Garvey, Randy Jones, Tony Gwynn, and Dave Winfield. They even had a clip of Trevor's father singing the National Anthem at one of Trevor's minor league games. What a treat! Trevor made a very nice speech and of course the team gave him a car - a 1958 Cadillac convertible. The only flaw in the whole ceremony was Bud Selig's taped congratulations - mind numbingly long and boring.
The game itself was against the Florida Marlins. The Padres are a pretty bad team this year (last place going into the game), but they have brought up virtually all their young talent and it was fun to watch the youngsters play. The Pads had won all three of their games against the Marlins so far in the four game set. Lead-off hitter Will Venable smacked a line drive homerun in the first and we entered the 2nd inning with a 3-0 lead. That ended Padres scoring, the Pads being so shocked at scoring three runs they remembered they weren't supposed to be able to hit. In the top of the 9th the score was 3-2 Padres, closer Heath Bell was on the mound, and he'd struck out the first two Marlins hitters. Mike Cameron, formerly a loved Padre, was in the box for the Marlins. He ripped a "no doubt about it" homerun into the left field bleachers to tie the score. Bell got the third out.
Things got really interesting in the bottom of the 9th. The first batter, catcher Nick Hundley, ripped a triple that hit the 400 foot sign in centerfield. With no outs and a runner at third we needed only a big fly to win it. With the #8 hitter at the plate, manager Jack McKeon brought in a lefty reliever and then ordered him to walk the batter. In the pitcher's spot, manager Bud Black brought in a righty to hit. McKeon ordered him walked as well. We now had the bases loaded and no outs. With lead-off left-handed hitter Will Venable waiting on deck, McKeon put a wild shift on. He moved his shortstop AND an outfielder to the right side of the infield at infield in depth. There was no one in centerfield and only the third baseman on the left side of the infield. Virtually everyone in the stands figured that Bud Black would pinch hit for Venable, who regularly platoons and starts mostly against right-hand pitchers, and who generally hits to the right side. McKeon was going all in for the double play ball.
Bud Black sent Venable to the plate. That had to be one huge confidence builder for Venable, given a chance like this. Venable fouled off the first pitch. He drilled the second pitch - to the right side - but over the heads of the infielders - AND over the head of the leaping right-fielder. Game over, Padres win 4-3! It was that much sweeter later in the day when the Dodgers lost their game, and coupled with the Padres fourth straight win, we are now out of last place. What a beautiful day for some baseball.
The World of Warcraft has been a dull place for the last several days, with very little transpiring in Wild's world. Wild's last raid was Friday night last and we did NOT kill the final boss, Cho'gall, in Bastion of Twilight - again. We will not be starting over again this week, as the raid leader saved the raid so that we could start with Cho'gall on Thursday and spend the whole evening with him. Tea and crumpets, and then we kill him ...
Wildshard has managed to avoid pvp since he beginning of the Cataclysm, but, being bored to distraction on Monday night, Wild found himself in Tol Barad at the Horde encampment of the Hellscreamers faction. Wild did the six dailies available to him. Guildies blinked in surprise and offered limp "Gratz" when Wild made it to Friendly reputation (every other level 85 in the guild are already at the max rep of Exalted). Wild has a vague plan of collecting enough pvp honor points to exchange them for Justice Points to buy a new helm or pants, the two pieces of gear that Wild still needs to upgrade.
Now that I've caught up on what little news there is, it's time to go off on a tangent.
I don't know if anyone out there has an ereader device, like the Kindle, Sony, or Kobo. I read quite a bit, and have always loved the feel of a book in my hands. I was pretty skeptical about these ereader devices, but I was tempted by the ease in which books could be downloaded and be instantly available, not to mention that I could have hundreds of books on that one device. When I travel I usually bring 4-5 books with me to make sure I don't run out of things to read. In our one walk in closet, half the space is taken up with boxes of books I that knew I would want to read again someday.
So, a few months ago, I hinted strongly to the Mrs exactly what I wanted for my birthday - a Kobo ereader. I chose Kobo for two reasons - I wanted a basic reader that excelled at just letting me read. I didn't need a color screen, or a keypad, or 4G connectivity, or other bells and whistles like playing games - I just wanted to read books.
Oh, that second reason? My favorite bookstore was Borders, which was allied with Kobo and I could buy my books directly from Borders, even using the wireless connection to buy them online while actually in the store. Neat!
You probably know that Borders recently went out of business. Kobo didn't go under with them, though, as Kobo is it's own company (in Canada). Kobo provided a transition from the Borders site and desktop apps to the Kobo site and desktop apps. Unfortunately, that's when things went very wrong.
In a nutshell, the transition was poorly done. While I didn't lose any books, I lost all my bookmarks. Since I am often reading more than one book at a time, losing my place in all of them was pretty irritating, and there are no folded down pages to get me close to where I was. Even worse, the Kobo desktop app that I now had to use to order books for download to the Kobo is about the worst I have ever seen. No "shopping cart" to put books I might want to buy - each book must be purchased one at a time. The Search feature is so laughable I want to cry. Imagine NOT being able to search and sort by author. I can't. Kobo Support is by email only - no phone support at all. When I complained about a synching issue recently, it took three days to get a response.
Don't get me wrong, I like my Kobo ereader, even if it is slow to load and sometimes randomly changes my font. But not Kobo the company. Not long after I got my Kobo, I got the Mrs the ereader SHE wanted - a Kindle. She loves it. I love it, and I'm jealous. Christmas is a long ways off yet. Sigh.
In a final bit of news, we went to a San Diego Padres game on Sunday. Trevor Hoffman's Number 51 was being retired and we had a chance to go see it. The team did a really superb job and it was great fun. There were a lot of players, managers, and coaches all the way back to his earliest days in baseball that came to pay tribute. Both of his brothers were there, and all four of the other players who have had their numbers retired by the Padres were there as well - Steve Garvey, Randy Jones, Tony Gwynn, and Dave Winfield. They even had a clip of Trevor's father singing the National Anthem at one of Trevor's minor league games. What a treat! Trevor made a very nice speech and of course the team gave him a car - a 1958 Cadillac convertible. The only flaw in the whole ceremony was Bud Selig's taped congratulations - mind numbingly long and boring.
The game itself was against the Florida Marlins. The Padres are a pretty bad team this year (last place going into the game), but they have brought up virtually all their young talent and it was fun to watch the youngsters play. The Pads had won all three of their games against the Marlins so far in the four game set. Lead-off hitter Will Venable smacked a line drive homerun in the first and we entered the 2nd inning with a 3-0 lead. That ended Padres scoring, the Pads being so shocked at scoring three runs they remembered they weren't supposed to be able to hit. In the top of the 9th the score was 3-2 Padres, closer Heath Bell was on the mound, and he'd struck out the first two Marlins hitters. Mike Cameron, formerly a loved Padre, was in the box for the Marlins. He ripped a "no doubt about it" homerun into the left field bleachers to tie the score. Bell got the third out.
Things got really interesting in the bottom of the 9th. The first batter, catcher Nick Hundley, ripped a triple that hit the 400 foot sign in centerfield. With no outs and a runner at third we needed only a big fly to win it. With the #8 hitter at the plate, manager Jack McKeon brought in a lefty reliever and then ordered him to walk the batter. In the pitcher's spot, manager Bud Black brought in a righty to hit. McKeon ordered him walked as well. We now had the bases loaded and no outs. With lead-off left-handed hitter Will Venable waiting on deck, McKeon put a wild shift on. He moved his shortstop AND an outfielder to the right side of the infield at infield in depth. There was no one in centerfield and only the third baseman on the left side of the infield. Virtually everyone in the stands figured that Bud Black would pinch hit for Venable, who regularly platoons and starts mostly against right-hand pitchers, and who generally hits to the right side. McKeon was going all in for the double play ball.
Bud Black sent Venable to the plate. That had to be one huge confidence builder for Venable, given a chance like this. Venable fouled off the first pitch. He drilled the second pitch - to the right side - but over the heads of the infielders - AND over the head of the leaping right-fielder. Game over, Padres win 4-3! It was that much sweeter later in the day when the Dodgers lost their game, and coupled with the Padres fourth straight win, we are now out of last place. What a beautiful day for some baseball.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday/Wednesday (17 Aug) - Wrap Up
Tuesday/Wednesday (17 Aug) - Wrap Up
There was more to Tuesday evening than just the Singing Sunflower - but not much. The second night of the Mf raid was again full without Wild and went back into BWD, which they had started after doing Firelands trash on Monday. They got as far as Maloriak, the third boss. The Lady Hunter raid group, which runs on Tues/Wed, is having organizational problems. The raid leader, Lady Hunter, was absent without notification for the second week in a row. Her backup/main tank was clearly frustrated. We could gather just six raiders and called it off after 45 minutes of waiting. Last week Wild raided every day, Mon thru Friday. It looks like Wild's regular Thurs/Fri Bastion of Twilight raid will be his only raiding this week. Pray we knock off Cho'gall this time.
With nothing else to do on Tuesday night, Wild went fishing again. The guild was out in force on the shores of Twilight Highlands, Uldum, and even Hyjal, dipping their poles into every fishing hole they could find. Wild helped out until nearly midnight, but finally went to bed. Wild learned Wednesday morning that the guild reached the "That's a Lot of Bait!" achievement of 10,000 fish fished from pools. We can now make Seafood Magnifique, the best food buff dispenser in the game, usable by multiple players. Wild bought the recipe and will help make them for raids.
Wednesday - It was yet another quiet night. Lady Hunter was again absent, and Fn, her raid leader, told Wild that she had disappeared on a trip to somewhere. There would be no raid. Wild fussed about for a bit, looking for a PUG raid, but was a quiet night. Wild did take the time to go to Hillsbrad Foothills and get his Singing Sunflower. Wild is going to keep it in game full time, so it can sneak up on unwary players and whisper it's faint, eery, La La La tune which, as Silver knows, is bound to cause chills to run up their spine.
The Wild family poked their heads back in game around 9pm and saw that Hunter Fortress was off for the night. BB did a little AH work, making about 20g (not bad for selling nothing but low level herbs).
Wild really needs to raid Thursday night.
There was more to Tuesday evening than just the Singing Sunflower - but not much. The second night of the Mf raid was again full without Wild and went back into BWD, which they had started after doing Firelands trash on Monday. They got as far as Maloriak, the third boss. The Lady Hunter raid group, which runs on Tues/Wed, is having organizational problems. The raid leader, Lady Hunter, was absent without notification for the second week in a row. Her backup/main tank was clearly frustrated. We could gather just six raiders and called it off after 45 minutes of waiting. Last week Wild raided every day, Mon thru Friday. It looks like Wild's regular Thurs/Fri Bastion of Twilight raid will be his only raiding this week. Pray we knock off Cho'gall this time.
With nothing else to do on Tuesday night, Wild went fishing again. The guild was out in force on the shores of Twilight Highlands, Uldum, and even Hyjal, dipping their poles into every fishing hole they could find. Wild helped out until nearly midnight, but finally went to bed. Wild learned Wednesday morning that the guild reached the "That's a Lot of Bait!" achievement of 10,000 fish fished from pools. We can now make Seafood Magnifique, the best food buff dispenser in the game, usable by multiple players. Wild bought the recipe and will help make them for raids.
Wednesday - It was yet another quiet night. Lady Hunter was again absent, and Fn, her raid leader, told Wild that she had disappeared on a trip to somewhere. There would be no raid. Wild fussed about for a bit, looking for a PUG raid, but was a quiet night. Wild did take the time to go to Hillsbrad Foothills and get his Singing Sunflower. Wild is going to keep it in game full time, so it can sneak up on unwary players and whisper it's faint, eery, La La La tune which, as Silver knows, is bound to cause chills to run up their spine.
The Wild family poked their heads back in game around 9pm and saw that Hunter Fortress was off for the night. BB did a little AH work, making about 20g (not bad for selling nothing but low level herbs).
Wild really needs to raid Thursday night.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Tuesday (16 Aug) - Lawn of the Dead
Tuesday (16 Aug) - Lawn of the Dead
There is this "popcap" video game called Plants vs Zombies. Until recently I'd never heard of a popcap game, or a game called Plants vs Zombies. Yes, I'm old. Popcap Games is the company that developed Plants vs Zombies, along with their biggest selling game, Bejeweled. Sorry, I'd never heard of that game, either.
I might never have heard of or thought about any of the above until I started seeing these little flowers following players around. How cute! How do I get one? Well, apparently Blizzard designers are big fans of popcap games, and Plants vs Zombies in particular. There is a quest chain available that anyone who has reached level 20 can do, and the final reward is the Singing Sunflower companion pet.
I set out to get that flower. The guinea pig for the effort was Shevils. The beginning quest is called "Basic Botany" and is offered by Brazie the Botanist in the Hillsbrad Foothills. When looking at the map for the quest, Shevils noted that the npc was close to a place called Sludgeguard Towers. When Shevils arrived at that spot, there was no npc at the Tower. However, a short distance away is a farm, and that is where Brazie can be found.
What is interesting about the five quests in this chain is that all the action takes place in a phased area. You don't have to worry about other players being around. Once a quest is accepted, you are on your own. These quests are not like regular WoW quests, either. Blizzard constructed a mini-game of Plants vs "Undead" (instead of zombies) that plays very like the popcap game.
The point of the game is very simple. The game is played on a checkerboard lawn. I would come to think of it as a lawn with five bowling lanes. The player has to earn energy to create little plant creatures, which are placed on the board. Those plant creatures have to defend against waves of undead, who advance on your plants in the lanes that they spawn in. Kill enough undead without losing all your plants and you win. Simple rules, simple game ... but it can be very addictive fun.
The five quests are designed to help players learn the game. The early quests introduce the types of plants the player can use and what their abilities are. When Shevils first tried the game I kept trying to move her around to go pick up the little balls of yellow energy that dropped onto the lawn. Wrong. There is no player movement in the game. The yellow balls of energy should be right-clicked on, and they then fly into a jar to help fill it up with energy that is expended when you create something. There is also an action bar where plant types to use can be selected and placed on the board. As Shevils progressed through the quests she learned more and the waves of undead became more deadly and more numerous.
The game is seductively easy at first. But it gets pretty challenging in the later phases. There are several strategies on wowhead on how to beat the game, and Shevils tried a number of them. And she did get her Singing Flower. Shevils is going to tell you how she did it below, so if you want to sort it out on your own (which I think is half the fun), skip the below and go play Plants vs Undead yourself!
Warning! Spoilers below!
Shevils Victory Dance on the Corpses of the Undead!
This is the strategy that worked for Shevils. It will work with all five of the quests, although in the easier early quests you can experiment some and still beat it. If you lose (or complete a quest) you'll appear back at Grazie to start again or get the next quest.
1) Once the game starts yellow orbs fall to the lawn. Right click them to start filling your jar with energy. As soon as you have enough energy to make a sunflower, do so and put it on the board, starting at the bottom left corner square. Make three flowers in that first, left-most row before making anything else. Undead will spawn on the right side of the board. They will stay in their own lane (unless they reach the left-most row) and at first they will move very slowly. The Sunflowers placed on the board also earn energy, so the more of them you have the more energy you earn. The yellow balls will keep falling, too.
2) Undead can spawn in any lane and there can be more than one in a lane. When undead start to get close to the halfway point on the board you are going to need to kill them. If all you have is a spitter (a plant that can attack undead) then place one on the third square from the left in the lane that the undead is in. If the undead reach a plant they will try to kill it, but the spitters will be able to kill most of the early undead easily. Keep making sunflowers. Fill the back row and start on the second row. Make just enough spitters to kill incoming undead.
2a) HOWEVER, if you have been making sunflowers and collecting yellow orbs and are far enough into the chain, you will be able to make Vines. This is the MAIN TACTIC to follow. For those later quests, when things get really hairy, you should ignore most of the plant types. Don't make spitters. Make Vines instead. They last much longer and kill faster. They also cost more energy and have a fairly long cooldown.
3) At some point the game will announce "A wave of undead approaches!" At this point you should be close to having two full rows of sunflowers and one full row of Vines. Keep making vines to get two full rows of vines as there will be a second wave of undead, and later there will be bigger and badder undead coming with everything else.
4) At some point you will be able to make Bombs. If you have your four rows in place use the bombs to blast the bigger undead or clumps of smaller ones. Bombs do a LOT of AoE damage and can be placed anywhere on the board. Bombs have a long cooldown, though, so use them wisely.
5) If an undead reaches the left most row, you lose that lane and the undead will move toward the house behind it, where Brazie is - and kill him. You lose. So don't let an undead get that far.
6) Summary - Work toward making two rows of sunflowers. Use Vines in the 3rd and 4th rows to protect the sunflowers. Use bombs to deal extra damage where needed. And have fun!
Forgot to add a pic!
There is this "popcap" video game called Plants vs Zombies. Until recently I'd never heard of a popcap game, or a game called Plants vs Zombies. Yes, I'm old. Popcap Games is the company that developed Plants vs Zombies, along with their biggest selling game, Bejeweled. Sorry, I'd never heard of that game, either.
I might never have heard of or thought about any of the above until I started seeing these little flowers following players around. How cute! How do I get one? Well, apparently Blizzard designers are big fans of popcap games, and Plants vs Zombies in particular. There is a quest chain available that anyone who has reached level 20 can do, and the final reward is the Singing Sunflower companion pet.
I set out to get that flower. The guinea pig for the effort was Shevils. The beginning quest is called "Basic Botany" and is offered by Brazie the Botanist in the Hillsbrad Foothills. When looking at the map for the quest, Shevils noted that the npc was close to a place called Sludgeguard Towers. When Shevils arrived at that spot, there was no npc at the Tower. However, a short distance away is a farm, and that is where Brazie can be found.
What is interesting about the five quests in this chain is that all the action takes place in a phased area. You don't have to worry about other players being around. Once a quest is accepted, you are on your own. These quests are not like regular WoW quests, either. Blizzard constructed a mini-game of Plants vs "Undead" (instead of zombies) that plays very like the popcap game.
The point of the game is very simple. The game is played on a checkerboard lawn. I would come to think of it as a lawn with five bowling lanes. The player has to earn energy to create little plant creatures, which are placed on the board. Those plant creatures have to defend against waves of undead, who advance on your plants in the lanes that they spawn in. Kill enough undead without losing all your plants and you win. Simple rules, simple game ... but it can be very addictive fun.
The five quests are designed to help players learn the game. The early quests introduce the types of plants the player can use and what their abilities are. When Shevils first tried the game I kept trying to move her around to go pick up the little balls of yellow energy that dropped onto the lawn. Wrong. There is no player movement in the game. The yellow balls of energy should be right-clicked on, and they then fly into a jar to help fill it up with energy that is expended when you create something. There is also an action bar where plant types to use can be selected and placed on the board. As Shevils progressed through the quests she learned more and the waves of undead became more deadly and more numerous.
The game is seductively easy at first. But it gets pretty challenging in the later phases. There are several strategies on wowhead on how to beat the game, and Shevils tried a number of them. And she did get her Singing Flower. Shevils is going to tell you how she did it below, so if you want to sort it out on your own (which I think is half the fun), skip the below and go play Plants vs Undead yourself!
Warning! Spoilers below!
Shevils Victory Dance on the Corpses of the Undead!
This is the strategy that worked for Shevils. It will work with all five of the quests, although in the easier early quests you can experiment some and still beat it. If you lose (or complete a quest) you'll appear back at Grazie to start again or get the next quest.
1) Once the game starts yellow orbs fall to the lawn. Right click them to start filling your jar with energy. As soon as you have enough energy to make a sunflower, do so and put it on the board, starting at the bottom left corner square. Make three flowers in that first, left-most row before making anything else. Undead will spawn on the right side of the board. They will stay in their own lane (unless they reach the left-most row) and at first they will move very slowly. The Sunflowers placed on the board also earn energy, so the more of them you have the more energy you earn. The yellow balls will keep falling, too.
2) Undead can spawn in any lane and there can be more than one in a lane. When undead start to get close to the halfway point on the board you are going to need to kill them. If all you have is a spitter (a plant that can attack undead) then place one on the third square from the left in the lane that the undead is in. If the undead reach a plant they will try to kill it, but the spitters will be able to kill most of the early undead easily. Keep making sunflowers. Fill the back row and start on the second row. Make just enough spitters to kill incoming undead.
2a) HOWEVER, if you have been making sunflowers and collecting yellow orbs and are far enough into the chain, you will be able to make Vines. This is the MAIN TACTIC to follow. For those later quests, when things get really hairy, you should ignore most of the plant types. Don't make spitters. Make Vines instead. They last much longer and kill faster. They also cost more energy and have a fairly long cooldown.
3) At some point the game will announce "A wave of undead approaches!" At this point you should be close to having two full rows of sunflowers and one full row of Vines. Keep making vines to get two full rows of vines as there will be a second wave of undead, and later there will be bigger and badder undead coming with everything else.
4) At some point you will be able to make Bombs. If you have your four rows in place use the bombs to blast the bigger undead or clumps of smaller ones. Bombs do a LOT of AoE damage and can be placed anywhere on the board. Bombs have a long cooldown, though, so use them wisely.
5) If an undead reaches the left most row, you lose that lane and the undead will move toward the house behind it, where Brazie is - and kill him. You lose. So don't let an undead get that far.
6) Summary - Work toward making two rows of sunflowers. Use Vines in the 3rd and 4th rows to protect the sunflowers. Use bombs to deal extra damage where needed. And have fun!
Forgot to add a pic!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
