Saturday (13 Mar) - Tea Green, "Outing" the Alliance

Saturday (13 Mar) - Tea Green, "Outing" the Alliance

Family ties got a little more interesting over the weekend. It all started with Daethbot, the Alliance druid and member of the DER family. "Yep, I'll admit it, I came out of the closet first. So blame me." Daethbot was talking about his high profile victories in the pvp battlegrounds, becoming the most public of the Alliance among the Families of DER, Sis, and Wild. Many days ago Daethbot had also teased Wild's allie hunter Chaitee out of her quietly boring life in Bloodmyst Vale for a night of pvp revelry, but only for the one night. Wild was busy, and frowned on yet another family member taking up time.

The genie was out of the bottle, though, when Daethbot openly challenged the status quo. "Won't let Chaitee out to play? How about I play AGAINST the likes of Evuh and Jocy?"

"Bring it on!" was the first response from those two, and then they joined the chorus in lobbying for Chaitee's return. DER backed his outspoken allie relative and Wild, recognizing the inevitable, acquiesced.

On Friday night, Chaitee, elated with the news, quickly rounded up her partner, Javajoo, to prepare for their return. "Et tu, Javajoo?" was Wild's initial response. But Wildshard, warming up to the idea, was the first to suggest that the excited young allies should consider forming their own guild. Once the idea had been brought up, it took firm hold and there was no stopping them. Other than geography.

Wild and the rest of horde family were completely ignorant of Alliance geography, other than knowing (now) what zones to avoid. Wild, as a youngster questing in Ashenvale in his twenties, had once tried to enter the city of Astranaar because it looked like a fun place. The Alliance guards at the bridge weren't so welcoming, and only Wild's travel form escape saved him from certain death. So of course there was no one to teach Chaitee and Java about the Alliance world. Chaitee and Java were together at a small town called Blood Watch on a smallish island called Bloodmyst Vale. But they didn't know where that was in relation to anything else. Wild had never taught them, because Wild didn't know.

Daethbot was in Darnassus. That's a sizeable alliance city. I guess it is, anyway, having never been there. Sis was also going to introduce an alliance family member as well, and that one would be off in some starting zone hinterland somewhere. If this guild thing was going to work, someone has to get a guild charter, and someone has to get guild signatures on that charter. In person. Daethbot volunteered, and was unanimously elected Guild Master at the bright young age of level 28, and was unanimously told he would have to do all the work, and the rest of us pledged our undying affection. But don't let it go to your head, they told him. ;-)

Daethbot initially asked Chaitee and Java to meet him at Exodar, a city on the southern coast of Bloodmyst Vale. I think. The two were so uncertain of the direction, though, Daethbot eventually met them halfway, travelling all the way from Darnassus to get the two to sign the guild charter. Daethbot then spent the rest of the evening cajoling all would would listen to sign the charter so that we could form the guild. The silver tongued druid did a fine job of it, too, and got the needed ten signatures. The guild name, "Tea Green", was the brainchild of Sis. We loved it, and we settled on that name even before Sis realized that caffeinated drinks were in the blood of the allie side of the Wild family.

Deathbot, Chaitee, and Javajoo made up the initial core of the guild, but waiting in the wings to earn their tabards are Neekia (related to Sis) and a Wild family newcomer, the female night elf Raktajina. For the first time, after more than five years of calling Azeroth home, Wild finally rolled a female night elf hunter, the most common combination of race, spec, and sex in all of the Alliance. Raktajina means Klingon coffee in the language of that race. But of course. I considered Klingon tea, but the freshly minted night elf was not enamoured of the Klingon word for tea, which is dargh.

Chaitee and Java had been banished to the distant Bloodmyst Isle for so long it took a good part of Saturday to get just one of them, Java, into some semblance of shape. The level 14 paladin had just enough gold left over from his more active days to update a bit of gear, once he found his way to the only city known to him (or the entire Wild family, for that matter), the city of Exodar. It's a confusing place for a young allie pally, and with no way to travel except by foot, everything and everywhere seemed very far away. But Java eventually stumbled over the Inn, the Bank, and the Auction House. It took time to locate the paladin Trainer as well. And then more searching to turn up the cubbyhole where the Weapon Master hung out, as Java needed to learn how to use a nice two-hand sword that was starting to rust in his bags. And Oh! those bags! Yeewww! Talk about moldy, decomposed, and smelly! Java threw most of the contents out and reorganized what could be salvaged.

On the technical side the user interface the two were still using harkened back almost to vanilla wow days. A quick fix was in order, so JB offered her profile as a template to at least make the UI usable again. Chaitee is going to have to go through that same wringer when I get around to her.

The next order of business, once Chaitee is taken care of, is a bit more ticklish. The world does not make correspondence between horde and alliance factions easy. After all, we are in the business of war. There are huge resources on the horde side of the family that could help out the fledgling guild. Getting those resources to the alliance side is the challenge.

At one time Wild had arranged for an underground connection between his horde and allie relatives that was based in the neutral town of Booty Bay in Stranglethorn Vale. There is a Auctioneer there that is willing to make Auction House transactions available between the two factions. It is a bit risky, since items placed there could be bought by anyone, and the whole thing tends to be a bit on the unsavory side. But used cautiously, it works to move gold and gear between the warring sides. Wild tapped eager (and naive) Slash on the horde side, and Rakta on the allie side, to be the go betweens. Now all Wild had to do was get them to Booty Bay.

To reintroduce Chaitee and Javajoo, both of whom are of the Draenie race, they agreed to share a couple of photos:

Chaitee and Javajoo shortly after their arrival at the Inn in Exodar:

Chaitee and Javajoo proudly showing off the new

Tea Green guild tabards designed by Daethbot:

Thursday (11 Mar) - Who's Screwing With My Raid?

Thursday (11 Mar) - Who's Screwing With My Raid?

Wild was in game Thursday night getting a little crafting done and watching the trade channel for anything interesting that might be going on. There was no MM group ICC ten man, and Wild misses it - he even misses waiting around and shooting the breeze with MM friends even when no raid developed. In Trade chat there were a couple of players advertising for more players for ICC10 PUGs, and one of them caught Wild's attention. The raid was being formed by an MM guildie. I didn't know that raider, but I wondered if it might be one of their regular raids that just needed a couple extra players? Wild checked his Friends list, but there was no one I knew from MM in game. I have a pretty large list of MM guildies that Wild has run with, so it was likely a PUG run and not an MM guild raid, so that lessened Wild's interest. A call for raiders for a VoA25 run came up at the same time, and since it was already close to 10pm, I decided to grab the shorter VoA run instead of committing what could be several hours to an ICC10 run.

Wild asked for an invite to the VoA25 run, and got a quick reply given that Wild was a healer. The raid started filling pretty quickly, but raiders were scattered about and as with most PUGs, it took awhile to get everyone assembled. While we all milled around, a trio of alliance players made the wait a lot more fun and interesting. The three parked themselves just outside the entrance to the main hall in Wintergrasp where the portal into VoA is. They were on their riding mounts, rising out of range when they needed to, and then swooping down to engage raiders that weren't paying attention. There were a LOT of horde players in the main hall, so those three allies died every time they attacked. But they managed to take out 1-2 (and sometimes 3) horde players each time they tried, likely because they were in full pvp gear and the horde players they were attacking were likely geared for the VoA run (and weren't wearing pvp gear).

But it was a fun distraction, particularly when knots of horde players switched into pvp gear and ambushed them, knocking them off their mounts and then eviscerating them.

Raiders started to file into VoA, but got a rude welcome. "You are about to enter an instance that is already in progress (1 of 4 bosses down). Do you wish to continue? You will be locked to this instance." When Wild saw that I immediately left the instance. Someone in the raid had already killed a boss in VoA this week, and that boss was 99% likely to have been Toravon, the one boss we wanted to kill ourselves. The raid leader started asking in raid chat who was already locked to the instance. When there was no reply he asked again, telling the raid to check their raid calendar, which displays any and all dungeons that the player is locked to. When still no one responded . . . well. Guess who it was? The raid leader, who had somehow forgotten he'd already killed Toravon earlier in the week.

The raid leader had to switch to an alt and then we all had to leave the raid and get re-invited. It's a good thing the raid leader had shown himself to be a pretty good guy, apologized for his screwup, and we only had to replace a couple of raiders who quit the raid.

The VoA run itself went mostly as expected. We wiped on our first attempt at Toravon, but we'd gotten him to 1% and if any one of three shaman in the raid had bothered to use Bloodlust we'd have killed him. He went down easily on our second attempt. No druid loot dropped. The raid slipped to 20 raiders as folks left, but that was plenty to take on Koralon, and we killed him, too. Two leather pieces dropped, an ilevel 245 DPS shoulder and an ilevel 251 pair of pvp caster gloves. Since no one else was interested, Wild took them both. That's now two pieces of pvp gear for Wild, and who knows? Maybe Wild will go kitty DPS some day.

JB had some fun, too, as she wrangled herself a spot in the weekly frost raid on Flame Leviathon. JB's gear is sprinkled liberally with pvp gear, and that would likely keep her out of most of the weeklies. But for Levi experience with the fight is a lot more important than gear, and JB got her invite. It was a quick rout, too, getting JB 5 frost and 5 triumph emblems. And she also won an upgrade off Levi, beating another raider in the roll, 97 to 83. JB now has a new chestpiece, [Firestrider Chestguard].

Philly didn't get her full run in yesterday, but what she was able to do got her 8% of the way to level 78.

I also looked at that website you mentioned, erik. I like it! Some excellent discussions, including the one about heirloom gear and the forthcoming changes to pvp BGs in the next patch. By the way, pre-patch downloads started with the maintenance this past Tuesday, so Patch 3.3.3 has gotten a step closer.

Wednesday Night 2 (10 Mar) - Of Plagueworks and the Crimson Hall

Wednesday Night 2 (10 Mar) - Of Plagueworks and the Crimson Hall

On Tuesday the raid had cleared six encounters in ICC25, the four in the Lower Spire, and the first two in the Plagueworks. There are only three bosses in the Plagueworks, the last being Professor Putricide. They had taken some shots at him on Tuesday but did not down him.

On Wednesday the raid opted to bypass Putricide and head into the Crimson Hall, the third wing of ICC. Wild had never seen this wing before, much less either of the two encounters in there. Our regular healing leader was absent, and Wild found it somewhat odd that none of the other three regular healers in the raid picked up the role. Surveydrood, one of the two raid leaders, took over that role instead. Even though Wild hasn't raided ICC that often, I can monitor what is going on with the healing by watching the assignments posted in the healing channel. Wild's role as the one druid healer (they generally only want one), is to maintain HoTs on all the tanks (as many as three) and raid heal as needed. Two to three other healers were dedicated to raid healing, so Wild's raid healing pickens were often pretty slim.

We cleared through some initial trash mobs with no problems, and then paused in front of another group of trash mobs of 5 or 6. "Hmm," said the tank, Rh. "They have pets with them this time." A pregnant pause as other raiders who'd been this far absorbed what they were seeing. After a moment, someone asked, "Are we going after the dragon?" Then it dawned on us. "Oh, no, we're not. This is the wrong hall." We had stopped outside the Frostwing Halls, where the dragon Sindragosa has her lair. No, we really didn't want to go in there.

We shifted over to the Crimson Hall and set up for the first encounter in that wing, the Blood Prince Council. The Council is three bosses. They are lined up along a raised stage opposite where we enter. Their names are Valanar, Keleseth, and Taldaram. The three bosses all share the same health pool, but only one boss can be attacked at a time, and that rotates between the three princes throughout the fight.

The guild practiced this fight on Tuesday but did not down it, although they might have won this encounter in previous weeks. It was all shiny and new to Wild. Healing assignments were made over vent, instead of in the healer channel as is the custom. Wild was assigned as main tank healer for a DK tank that would be responsible for Keleseth. Keleseth was on the left side of the stage, and all Wild had to do was stand in range of the tank and heal him. The other two tank healers were given similar instructions, and all of us were advised that the tank healers really didn't even need to move other than to avoid the nasty things that were sure to happen when we started. Ok, I'd read up on what types of attacks that would be used; hopefully I'd learn to recognize them and react as the fight developed.

On our first attempt we did pretty well, although we were losing DPS raiders faster than we could overcome. Wild's tank had a special role. He had to gather large purple balloons that spawned around the room called dark nucleus. The balloons provide shadow damage protection and he needed 4-5 of them to stay alive through the damage Keleseth delivered. They were easily kited and the idea was that ranged DPS would grab any that were too far for the tank to go after and bring them to him. All of that was going swimmingly, but when the tank lost two of his balloons (they do dissipate eventually) Wild misjudged the amount of additional damage he would take and the tank died. The raid leader called a wipe, as battle rezzing a tank in this situation would not stop the wipe from happening.

We began again. Wild's tank went down in the first two minutes of the fight. Another wipe. Tank movement was supposed to be contained to the front left of the room, and off of the stage. However, when the tank couldn't pick up enough balloons he ran up on the stage - and out of range of Wild's heals. With only two balloons for protection he died before Wild could get back in range. That was lesson #2 for both Wild and the tank. Overall the raid leaders were additionally concerned about the positioning of the DPS, and so we spent some time going through all the positioning for the fight.

A third try. This time Wild got to experience all the "joys" of this encounter. Twice Wild was blocked from healing when kinetic bombs dropped between Wild and his tank. Those bombs are supposed to be killed by the DPS before they touch the ground, but sometimes they didn't get to them and Wild got hit and knocked back. Another knock back came from a shock vortex. Both times Wild scrambled and got heals to the tank (and himself). There are a number of different kinds of attacks, from high damage lances to balls of flame that target individual players. Those balls of flame are deadly if it hits the target at full force, so when a ball forms the target kites the ball while other raiders come in range and take a little damage, diminishing it's strength when it explodes.

Wild's tank couldn't contain himself to the area assigned, but Wild stayed on him, chasing him down wherever those balloons led him. And we defeated the Blood Prince Council. No druid gear dropped. Wild did bid on a pair of cloth gloves, but a clothie got it as I expected.

We made one attempt on the trash mobs fronting the second encounter, Blood-Queen Lana'thel. There were quite a large group of mobs, and what was supposed to be a pull of three brought the whole group down on us. We hung in there for quite awhile, but the damage proved too high and raiders started dropping. We wiped. The two raid leaders must have conferred with each other, as they then changed direction and headed back to the Plagueworks to take on Professor Putricide.

I lost count of how many times we attempted the Professor. Wild tried very hard to find the flow of the fight, that point when it became second nature in moving from position to position depending on the phase and the condition of the area you were trying to reach or trying to avoid. I didn't find it on this night.

There are three phases to the fight, although we never got past the first two. Within those phases there are also "green" periods and "orange" periods. Wild liked the green periods. Wild knew where he was supposed to be and could improvise when that area was swamped with puddles of unhealthy goo of one kind or another. If you can't stand getting sticky messes all over you, this is not the fight for you. I never quite figured out the orange period, though, particularly when Wild was hit with the orange beam Gas Cloud. That beam loved Wild, knowing how much I loathed it, and I got it again and again. That cloud had to be kited, supposedly in a direction that took it in an arc around the group of ranged DPS that would kill it before it reached it's target and did raid wide damage. No matter where Wild ran, however, it was always the wrong direction, or so the raid leader was frantic to tell me in vent. I swear I knew where those DPSers were supposed to be, and that I was headed their way, but when that group has to move to avoid other kinds of damage Wild became completely befuddled. We even tried having one of the most experienced raid healers marked so that the rest of us could see where he was standing as a guide, but the mark always fell off the raider short minutes into the fight. The raid leader yelling "come to us, come to us!" didn't help, either, since where "us" were depended on what was going on around them. And with the blistering haze of combat all around us in flashing shades of bright yellow to deep red, Wild could barely make out those next to him vice trying to see someone across the room.

What I didn't even talk about was the fact that one of the tanks has to become an abomination for parts of the fight, and must eat and vomit the most disgusting stuff. Be sure to volunteer for that part. Yea, right.

Wild certainly made his contribution to our many wipes, but I wasn't alone. Overall the raid made some good progress, and we were particularly happy with the smoothness of the transition between the first two phases. The general damage being dealt to the raid wasn't that bad, either, except that mistakes in this fight were very unforgiving, causing high damage AoE hits that wiped out whole chunks of the raid at a time. Putricide enters phase three when he hits 35% health. Our best effort got him into the low 40% range. This is an extremely difficult fight, one of the most difficult in ICC.

Wild did ok on the healing, but I was hoping for a better performance.

#1: pally, 5069 hps, 20.1% of the healing
#2: priest, 3968/17.2%
#3: shaman, 3368/12.7%
#4: Wild, 2587/11.1%
#5: shaman, 2638/10.8%
#6: pally, 2552/8.5%

I was totally wrung out at the end of the night. Tackling new bosses is hard. But Wild is very thankful and happy to have been there.

Wednesday (10 Mar) - Faces of Doom

Wednesday (10 Mar) - Faces of Doom

As I write this it is still a couple of hours before the Wednesday night raid. So perhaps there will be some raiding news later tonight, or maybe not.

Philly got some serious game time earlier in the day, though. I was able to finish assembling the video work I've been doing ahead of schedule, so I gave myself the afternoon off.

Philly has a routine. Her first order of business is to pick up three quests in Dalaran - the JC quest, the cooking quest, and the fishing quest. She checks to see where the JC quest (which changes each day) will take her, and where the day's fishing needs to be done. The cooking daily can always be done in and around Dalaran, so Philly will do that one whenever it was convenient. Philly still can't use her flying mount, so her next stop is the Flight Path Master. Philly heads for Moa'ki in Dragonblight, a short, one hop flight from Dalaran. In Moa'ki Philly picks up a daily quest to save some cubs (by killing their mothers, first. Go figure.) It's on the way and it's an easy 25k xp. If she feels like it, she'll travel to Unu'pe (another one hop flight) and do the daily quest at Kaskala as well.

Philly then gets a flight to wherever the JC quest is, gets that done, and then hearths back to Dalaran. The fishing daily this time is in Sholazar Basin, but Philly doesn't know the flight path there, and isn't about to try to leg it on horseback, because she'd probably get lost, and possibly get herself dead as well. She knows a shortcut, though. For whatever reason, there is an npc up in the flight path area of Dalaran that offers a quest which allows Philly to use a heliocopter (well, that's how I intend to spell it and pronounce it, so get over it) to fly to Nessingway's camp in Sholozar Basin. The heliocopter got shot down, however, before reaching the camp. Don't worry, that's part of the script, and close by the crash zone is another npc hanging from a tree in his parachute. It was easy enough to complete the quest, but that left Philly in the middle of a jungle a good distance from the camp. The Basin is a mid-70s zone with lots of jungle beasties, from 20 foot alligators to rhinos the size of dinosaurs, not to mention the sabre tooth cats and the snakes that sliver at a height above Philly's head.

Philly got her bearings and managed to find the camp, getting only a little bit muddy and bloody from the creatures she shooed out of her way. Philly got her fishing quest done, and even did a couple more quests which were required to get the flight path in working order at the camp. After another stop at Dalaran, Philly ported to Shattrath, and from there ported to the Isle. Philly has her Isle ten quest dailies down to a science, but science is sometimes not enough. Mucking up her routine was a level 70 alliance DK, who insisted on getting in her way. When Philly first encountered him he was near dead, having aggroed a few too many demons. Philly helped him kill the last couple of demons, and then I went on my way. Or tried to. No good deed goes unpunished, or so they say.

Since the allie had killed the demons I usually take out for parts of three quests, Philly had to take a little extra time to round up and kill some more. The second stage moves to the bridge next to the demon area to kill just the right number of hostile pallies, mages, and hunters. This quest requires three hunter kills, and there are only three hunter mobs, all lined up in a little row. The allie DK was already there taking aim at those hunters. Philly managed to tag two of them, but with his head start he managed to grab the third. Philly glowered at the allie, knowing she was going to have to circle back again later to get that third hunter kill.

Philly moved on to the third area, for more kills and to clear a ley line. But Philly was distracted, still grumbling about the allie DK, and forgot to do the ley line part. So she'd have to come back there again, and kill the respawned mobs again, to do that part.

The allie didn't show for the three quests at another area of the Isle, so maybe he didn't know about those dailies. Philly swept through the area, killing quickly and efficiently, and completing the requirements of the quests. The final two quests were the easiest ones, and after redoing the parts she missed the first time through the circuit, Philly started turning in quests. The allie DK was hanging around, obviously done, and Philly grinned at him, knowing he'd missed more than half of the quests that he could have been doing. He could only watch as Philly turned in quest after quest (I turn them all in at once at the end).

Philly made one more trip to Sholazar Basin to complete three more quests she'd picked up there. She took her time, for once enjoying her ground mount, and not minding when she had to dismount to kill something in her way. She knew it was the last time she'd be forced to travel by ground mount in Northrend. When she had completed those quests, Philly DINGED! to level 77. Sis, who is still level 78, should be looking over her shoulder. Phillie is right on her heels.

Philly returned to Dalaran, plunked down 1,000 gold, and purchased Cold Weather Flying from the npc up on the flight line. She immediately hopped on her flying mount and buzzed around the outskirts of Dalaran, revelling in her new freedom. Ahh, so nice to be able to fly in Northrend.

PS - Wondering about the title of the post? After Philly reined in her flying mount, she ported to Orgrimmar to see what new goodies she might be able to buy. The only upgrade offered by the Auction House was the off hand gear [Faces of Doom]. The level 77 piece was a definite upgrade for Philly. They wanted 150 gold for it. Philly got quite a laugh out of that. She was still in a jolly mood when she opened up her Inscription kit and crafted her own [Faces of Doom]. Philly is one of the few toons in the Wild family that have gotten excellent use from gear she's crafted herself. Both Inscription and Jewelcrafting have served her well. She has another three level 78 pieces already crafted and waiting for her to get to that level.

Now, about that guild raid. Well, Wild is starting to believe that he should rant every week about his lack of raiding time. Every time he does it, even when it's only these pages, Wild gets a raid invite. Wild was a standby and a non-invite on Tuesday, but when I logged in before the raid on Wednesday, I quickly learned that Wild was a Confirmed invite. No need to wonder if that raid invite was coming, Wild was in. Two other healers that made the invites this time were not regulars, either, but we were all they had on this night. Coming up in Part 2.

Tuesday (9 Mar) - High and Dry

Tuesday (9 Mar) - High and Dry

It was Tuesday night, and Wild would not be raiding once again. Wild should change his name to "Standby." Wild wasn't the only one. Three other healers also were tapped as standbys.

At the beginning of February we had the arrival of the group of raiders from another server and into the guild, along with the new EPGP dkp loot rules, and the assignment of Tier 1 and Tier 2 raider designations. Since that time, guild raiding has blossomed with success, while Wild personally - well, I took a look at what Wild's 25 man raider accomplishments looked like since then, working backwards from Tuesday night:

Week 6: 10 Mar - Accepted, ?
---------9 Mar - Accepted calender invite, assigned as Standby, not invited
Week 5: 3 Mar - Declined calendar invite to raid with MM group
--------2 Mar - Accepted, assigned Standby, not invited
Week 4: 24 Feb - Declined calendar invite to raid with MM group
--------23 Feb - Accepted, INVITED as moonkin, downed six ICC bosses
Week 3: 17 Feb - Tentative, INVITED late, downed 2 ICC bosses
--------16 Feb - Accepted, assigned Standby, not invited
Week 2: 10 Feb - Accepted, no raid as there was a server crash
---------9 Feb - Accepted, assigned Standby, not invited
Week 1: 3 Feb - Accepted, not invited
--------2 Feb - Tentative (hand), but was available, not invited

In the past 11 opportunities to raid 25 man, Wild has gotten invited into the raid two times. Of those other nine raids, Wild reported himself mostly unavailable three times. That works out to Wild being ready to raid eight times, and actually getting invited twice. And to be brutally honest, both invites were pressure invites where they needed Wild's moonkin aura on one night, and were short healers on the other night. Even though Wild can now sign up for both raid days each week, Wild is already far enough behind the other raiders who have been getting to raid every week that he would likely stay as Tier 2, what is clearly a "fill in" spot and not a regular opportunity. Wild's prediction that he would get to raid 25 man only once every three weeks is looking to be depressingly accurate.

There was no raid calendar announcement for the MM group for Wed/Thurs, and I do not expect they will be raiding this week - or perhaps at all any more. I have been trying to track down Lady Hunter as she may be able to get Wild into one of the other MM ten mans. We'll see. Wild signed up for the guild 25 man raid for Wednesday, but it is highly unlikely that Wild will see an invite.

In the somewhat upside down world of PUG raiding at level 80, Wild may be in even less demand. Used to be PUGs were made up of players trying to improve their gear so they could get into guild raids, or they were running alts, or had no guild to help them out. PUG raiders were generally less well geared than guild raiders and many were still learning the boss fights. With Dungeon Finder and badges that has changed. Any player can get geared nearly as well as a guild raider by endlessly running heroics and buying gear with badges. PUG raid leaders by and large now demand a level of gear and experience often even higher than what guild raid leaders would accept. A great many PUG raid leaders won't invite a player unless they meet a "Gear Score" requirement, plus a minimum DPS level for damage dealers, and also require players to prove via Achievements that they have already conquered the content. Think of that - a pick up group that won't accept raiders who haven't already done the dungeon the PUG is aimed at. Wild's one advantage is in being a healer, but even then Wild has not cleared ICC content and without those achievements might still be denied a spot in PUG raids. Like I said, this is upside down from what PUGs used to be. Wild isn't sure yet what his next move will be.

That said, Wild did get the weekly frost raid done. It was Flame Leviathon in Ulduar, which took us under ten minutes from start to finish. Wild has just 21 frost emblems, though, a good ways short of the minimum 60 I'd need for another badge upgrade. Wild has 49 triumph badges, but already there are fewer and fewer things Wild needs from those badges.

Philly has maintained her levelling pace, getting her dailies and a little extra questing done. She's now 69% of the way to level 77. She has yet to dip her boney toe into random dungeons, but that is coming, or so she keeps telling Wild. At level 76, she is eligible for all of the WotLK dungeons in normal mode.

JB still transmutes a new gem for Philly every day, and catches the odd Wintergrasp battle, but the rest of the Wild family has been laying low.

Weekend (7 Mar) - Movie Madness

Weekend (7 Mar) - Movie Madness

This past Saturday was the second day of the Showcase, where crazy people like me spend entire days and most of the night watching movies at the local theatre. I stayed for all five movies this time, getting to the theatre about 10am and leaving just after 11pm that night. The Showcase crowd was larger and rowdier than last week's group. The noise got pretty deafening in between flicks, but we were true movie nuts and everyone settled down once the shows started.

They started us off with "An Education." You were right, erik, that coming in I wasn't very interested in this one. A British flick, about the seduction of a High School girl by a hustler in his thirties, had all the earmarks of a typical glacially moving and endlessly boring movie, including Emma Thompson playing the school dean. Much to my surprise, the movie was actually very good. I really liked the lead actress, Carey Mulligan. The movie was entertaining and likeable, although there were few surprises.

"The Hurt Locker" was next. This one got the Academy Award for Best Picture (as well as a bunch of other awards) Sunday night. Although I thought "Avatar" was better, "The Hurt Locker" was deserving, given the rest of the competition. This movie is "Blackhawk Down" for EOD soldiers, those men and women who have to disarm live shells, IEDs, and suicide bombers. It's intense and fast paced, and I thought it was well done.

"Up In The Air" was, eh, ok. I don't care much for George Clooney, and he didn't get any better in this movie, where not a great deal happens and it ends pretty much the way it started. It's basically young-hot-up and coming female exec thinks she knows everything until she's teamed up with the grizzly corporate veteran (Clooney) and shown how it really works. Mildly entertaining.

I was disappointed with "The Blind Side." Next to "The Hurt Locker" this was the one I most wanted to see. It's a good movie, but I guess I was expecting more from it. The movie is based on the true story of a getto black youth essentially adopted into an affluent white family and who becomes an NFL player. My one complaint is that the movie makes the whole thing look too easy. The main character seems to drift through the movie, good things happen to him, and there are few depictions of what in real life was a grim, painful, hopeless, upbringing for this kid.

The last movie of the evening was "Inglorious Basterds." I know you liked it, erik, but for me it fell flat. I was ready to rock and roll with a violent movie about a group of Jewish soldiers sent behind enemy lines to brutalize and massacre German soldiers. Unfortunately, except for the early scene in the movie that bloodily introduced the characters, this team of soldiers were mostly screw-ups. Their rise to fame and fear among Germans was barely touched on, and when they did get screen time it was to show half the team getting killed in a pub by mostly drunken Germans, giving themselves away as Americans so blatantly they deserved to be slaughtered. The rest of the crew, including the incompetent leader, Brad Pitt (that outrageous accent was the funniest thing in the movie), were captured and basically were non-entities for the last half of the movie. Having Hitler attend the showing of the movie "Nation's Pride" about a German sniper killing hundreds of Allied soldiers while that same sniper, now a movie star playing himself in the movie, made moves on the French woman who owned the theatre and planned to burn it down with Hitler inside, was a nice touch. But the inglorious basterds had little to do with any of that. As in all Tarantino movies, most everyone is dead by the time closing credits start. It was just too bad that Pitt had to survive. By then I was rooting hard for that German SS officer to kill him. Too bad at the end he turned out to be a wimp as well.

Rating all ten nominees, I would rank them:

#1: Avatar
#2: The Hurt Locker
#3: Up
#4: An Education
#5: The Blind Side
#6: District 9
#7: Up in the Air
#8: Inglorious Basterds
#9: A Serious Man

"Precious" wasn't rated because I didn't see it.

It's still pretty quiet on the WoW front. Philly is 33% of the way to level 77. Happy is still bringing in the gold. And Wild is still wondering if he will be getting into any raids this week.

Friday (5 Mar) - Sidetracked

Friday (5 Mar) - Sidetracked

Between the Mrs getting ready for another weekend trip, plus spending a good part of Friday hunting furniture bargains for some bedroom furniture, and painting two bathrooms, I zonked out around 10pm and never made it in game. I had every intention of playing, and even had Wild in game for a couple minutes a half hour earlier, but . . . Philly sends her apologies to DER and Sis for standing them up. I know you were both looking forward to some more wipes and repair bills while Philly figured out how to heal :P , but she'll make it up to you next week. As punishment, Philly will test the random dungeon thing before our next get together. Philly did get an upgrade for her helm, a sore spot with her, to the [Shimmersteel Helm], a level 72 blue helm. Still not much to crow about, but an improvement over the level 69 green thing she's been wearing. Philly is 16% of the way to level 77, which she is anxious to get to as she will then be able to use her flying mount in Northrend.

JB may have enough honor to purchase another pvp piece, as she happened to catch a WG battle just starting early yesterday. Haven't had a chance to figure out what's next on her buy list, though.

Well, I am off to the movies here pretty soon. Hope everyone has a great weekend!