Rage against the Lich King

a month in pictures

2008-11-11T18:42:00.008-06:00

Claz has his gorilla, Marv.

Okole get's mouthy about Wankergirl. I stick up for her. She still has my heart.

Marv tanks Shattered Halls.

Narandia helps kill Onyxia

Then Claz gets in on the act

And GJ gets his swift flight form. BEFORE it is trainable!

Oh my god, just release that patch already!

2008-10-07T21:07:00.003-05:00

So, one week until the new patch (link will change, I'm sure) and I'm bored out of my mind. I looked forward to leveling fishing tonight, for godsake! I know I should be good and farm gold through the Dailies and stockpiling mats for leveling GJ's, Claz's and Narandia's trade skills. But, I seriously can't do it for some reason. Yesterday, I ran a lowbie guildie through Shadowfang Keep instead of farming gold.

So, let's try to strike up some interest in what I'll be doing in the month after the patch but before the expansion.

Inscription- Greatjohn will be dropping skinning and taking this trade skill. I've stockpiled most of the mats I'll need to power level.
New hunter pets. Claz will be leveling the white gorilla that's been sitting around in the stable (yes, I was very impressed with BRK's Gorilladin movie). I also want a red hyena from Scarlet Monastery.
Gold farming. This will happen while leveling the Gorilladin.

Hmmm. That's all I got. I'll probably do some PvP to get used to the new talents, but nothing all that serious.

Man, I guess I can't wait for the expansion, eh?

Okole asks a good question

2008-10-06T22:57:00.004-05:00

Okole did ask a really good question- "Where's our BLARM?"

You see, I'm not really sure if my e-Crush is all that healthy. I look forward to Wankergirl's rambles and burping with way too much enthusiasm. Sort of like when you were in high school and had physics with that girl and she ended up as your lab partner but all you could talk about was physics because she was way too cool for you even though she didn't put that out there. You know, that girl who caused you to get those stupid butterflies in your stomach like three hours before 5th period, and physics suddenly became your favorite subject even though you couldn't measure a wave to save your life?

Ok, so no, there's no butterflies. Not really. But, I admit to my e-crush and can't help but think that the guy that she chooses to hang out with is one lucky butthole.

Anyway, Wankergirl, where's the new BLARM?

and yes, I've linked you again and I bet you look to see what's written out of some curiosity. "What are those WoW-nerds saying about me?" Right?

and yes, I've made a Wankergirl label :P

EDIT: Now I feel like an ass. She put up a VIDEOCAST!

"Fishin's fer sissies"

2008-10-05T22:00:00.003-05:00

"If you ask me, the best part about fishing is its slow pace. It gives one time to think, to reflect on past events and to plan for future ones. Oh, and it's also a great excuse to drink. Heavily."
-Nat Pagle

So, I need to justify my powerleveling Cooking and Fishing; at least to myself.

You see, I really dislike fishing. Its such an obvious ploy to get people to spend hours (hours that they pay for, mind you) doing nothing but staring at their screen and clicking their mouse. Nothing get's accomplished except an inventory full of fish to cook (and, if you do what I did, you get no benefit in the moment for spending the hours doing this).

So, why? Just why?

The Magical Crawdad and baby crockolisks. I'm a sucker for non-combat pets
Food Buffs
Dailies

Is it worth it? I have no idea. I just didn't feel like doing anything all that constructive in WoW today.

I'm broke...

2008-09-30T21:54:00.004-05:00

So, with a lucky drop that a guildie wanted to buy off me and with being able to do the dailies on two toons a day, I was able to buy the artisan riding skill. Wow. Just... I'm so happy with that. After paying that huge amount of money, I did all of the quest chain for swift flight form except the last, where you need to kill Anzu. Very special thanks to the guildies who helped me get through the chain so quickly and to /hug for writing the great guide.

Now I just need to do heroic Sethekk Halls. I have no idea if I'm geared for it. Maybe there's a guild out there who want to try for the Raven Mount and would want to take me along?

I'm sure some of the people in the guild are geared for it, but... GJ? Who's only been level 70 for a week? No idea

10 days means many changes

2008-09-28T11:27:00.004-05:00

Greatjohn made 70 last week after a huge, long, drawn-out session. Afterwards, Bumwaller made me a starter tanking set and I bought the blue-level Feral PvP set.
Then I started on the dailies.

As I was working on GJ's dailies, I noticed that a lock was looking for a group to do the Dire Maul Warlock Dreadsteed quest. I quickly popped onto Narandia and joined up. We needed a tank and healer since there were three locks. It wasn't easy until I decided to appeal to people's greed and paid 100g for a level 70 pally and warrior to take us. Yes, 100g ea.
But I have my mount!

Now, I'm about 66% of the way to getting epic flight for one of my toons. Now, Claz has been waiting around for it forever, but... I'm seriously thinking of switching Greatjohn to my main and giving him the skill, which would mean Claz would probably have to wait until sometime in the expansion (probably after he's level 80) for the skill. Sucks... but take a look:

I wants it bad!!!

Updates

2008-09-18T05:47:00.003-05:00

Well, I got bored of writing "x% through level y" posts, so I stopped. (I'm 33% through 66 now).

So, Inscription will let you customize your characters to a certain extent. Great idea! I think that it will help people move away from the current cookie-cutter, min/max specs that you need to have to be "successful" in PvP and Raiding (though I don't think it will take that mindset away completely). Which inscriptions am I most excited about?

Glyph of the Forest Lynx
Glyph of the Polar Bear
Glyph of the Black Bear

The ones changing the bear forms are ok but I've never had a problem with the Tauren bear model. But the cat form as it currently looks is just... stupid. Like, short-bus looking stupid. What does a forest lynx look like?

SO MUCH BETTER!

2008-09-15T06:53:00.002-05:00

Very quick,pre-"I'm going to be late for work" post.

WowInsider ran a story that WowHead ran an ad showing the release date of the expansion.

November 13th. Now to see if I have enough vacation time to take that Thursday and Friday off...

Grinding weekend, day 2

2008-09-14T12:48:00.002-05:00

12:47PM
50% to level 65.

Was doing the quest where you set off the mana bomb in Terokkar and Braxxis' Staff of Slumber dropped. I didn't notice it until I went back to town to sell vendor trash. According to WoWWiki I'll probably be using this staff for tanking for a long time, so I got the +35 Agil enchant on it. Now I have 12k armor and ~20% dodge. My health is low at just under 8k, though.

Taking a break.

Grinding weekend, day 1

2008-09-13T09:29:00.015-05:00

9:28AM
Dinged 63 while doing quests in Zangarmash. Can now use Starshine Staff of the Beast, giant upgrade from Agamaggan's Quill. I love Druid itemization in Burning Crusade.

9:46AM
Neutral with Sporregar.

12PM
35% through level 63.

I made the mistake of listening to Kimya Dawson while playing. I love her music, the way she sounds so innocent and jaded at the same time. But... it was thoroughly depressing, too. I'm going to take a break, drop the roommate off somewhere and buy some cigaretts. Maybe read a little Harry Potter (shut up, they're good books and they reset my mood to neutral when I'm down!).

More later.

2:45P
Back and restarting the grind. No more Kimya.

3:24pm
Honored with Cenarion Expedition.
Herbalism- 376 (Tauren get +15)

4:42pm
Got almost all of the solo quests in Zangarmarsh completed. I've decided to move on Terrokar.
54% completed with level 63.
Taking a bit of a break before the evening push

10pm
Fell asleep for 2 hours.
Got up, maxed herbalism and skinning.
Hit level 64.
Time to stop for the night, I think.
4 levels until I can fly!

12 Sept- updates

2008-09-12T23:21:00.002-05:00

Didn't get to level 63 today, I ran out of steam before it happened but I'm 85% through 62. If I get up at my usual time, I'm sure I'll hit the next level by noon, and maybe, just maybe 64 by the time I go to bed. A guildie asked if I was chinese, I said, "no, I'm French German."

Bumwaller got a beta key. Yes, I've already commented how much I hate him. He's already posted pictures of his Death Knight. When the expansion comes out, I'm sure I'll roll a DK, probably a female Blood Elf, just to do the beginning quests. According to Epic Dolls and Bumwaller, the quests are very... uncomfortable. I'm looking forward to it. Depending on how annoyed I am with the glut of DKs, we'll see how much I level it (and depending on if Greatjohn is ready for Northrend).

Speaking of that, I think I would have leveled today if I hadn't had to play with the Alliance. It got to the point where the druid was getting ganked by an annoying gnome mage so much that I had to log into Claz and kill him a few times, just so he'd go away. Sure, I'm on a PvP server, sure I'm going to get ganked, but... this was getting too much. I almost even went to STV to take out my anger, but then I realized that I was turning into that guy.

So, that was the highlight of the evening. Now I'm going to go to bed and try to get up early enough to avoid the gank parties.

Quick update

2008-09-11T22:11:00.004-05:00

To the left you will see a poor fel orc being slashed by three ferals. He's having a bad day. This was from the quest "The Foot of the Citadel".

GJ hit level 62 and I'm getting very anxious for flight form. If I keep this up, I could have it in a week, but I think it will be less. I'll have 2.5 days of nothing to do but level GJ and I'm about it hit Zangarmarsh (actually peeked in there) and Terrokar. These two zones have a lot of easy and clumped-together quests.

So, the "first part" of the next patch is available on the Background downloader. When I saw that I panicked because GJ isn't ready yet. Bumwaller had a good point that they may not want to have Brewfest interfere with the new content. I guess we'll see.

Nothing even slightly amusing to say. I'm tired. RL Warning! I audited over 500 accounts today and I think I was ready to dump the computer into my bosses lap after hitting her soundly about the ears with my telephone.

No. That wasn't funny, either.

Hellfire is the new Barrens

2008-09-10T06:40:00.003-05:00

Greatjohn hit 61 last night. That's 16 levels since August 31st and I'm pretty proud of that. Even more, I resisted the urge to buy a basic healing set that I would upgrade with quest rewards and drops. It might actually be a good idea to do this, but I don't want to get into the habit of spending money on stuff since I need the 5k for either Claz's or GJ's epic flight (probably GJ's since I'm 90% sure he'll be my main in the expansion).

But, man, I'm starting to hate Hellfire Peninsula. The zone is so ugly and filled with boring and annoying mobs (I especially hate the Gan'arg, those technician guys in the Forge camps; who came up with their audio?). I'm starting to see Hellfire in the same way I see The Barrens: a zone that is so annoying that you get through it as quickly as possible to get to the more interesting areas. At least Chuck Norris jokes are missing, right? (I love Chuck Norris jokes, but they get old after the 327 hours you need to spend in The Barrens).

Not much more to report. GJ is leveling nicely and is ready for the second phase of Hellfire quests that you get in Falcon Watch. With my work schedule, those will probably take me a couple days and then it's on to Zangarmarsh, Terrokar Forest at around 63 and then my favorite zone: Nagrand. And this time, no grinding for the Talbuk!

Well, a tauren on a talbuk... that's pretty amusing, isn't it...

The question has been answered

2008-09-09T06:34:00.007-05:00

So, a few months ago I posed the question: Who is hotter, Kari Byron or Kat von D? Last night,Bumwaller and I finally answered. The answer to the question, "Who is hotter, Kari Byron or Kat von D?" is: Wankergirl.

That is all.

Planning for the future

2008-09-09T06:04:00.005-05:00

I've been giving a lot of thought about what I'll be doing when the expansion comes out. My guess is that we'll be seeing the new patch right around the time of Blizzcon, probably the Tuesday just before. I think they'll want to give people more of a buzz about WoW, get people excited and have more to talk about during the proceedings. Then, maybe a month later, Lich King will be in stores. If memory serves me correctly, this was about the timeline they used for BC. If I'm right, we have about a month before the world event (spoiler alert) to get ready. What am I going to be doing?

With my concentration on the druid lately, I've been considering making him my main and relegating Claz to more of a gatherer / farmer toon. I still love the hunter, don't get me wrong, but... Greatjohn is just so much fun to play! If I go in this direction, my overall goal will be to get GJ to level 70. But, the secondary goals (in somewhat order of importance) are:

Epic flight form- I never had this on my old druid. /Hug has a nice walkthrough on the quest. It doesn't seem too bad, though getting the rep for heroic Sethekk Halls may be an issue. I can't remember if you can get the rep through questing or if I'll need to grind some other instances.
Max out Herbalism- Since I'm really sort of excited about Inscription, I want GJ to be ready to concentrate on that skill. With herbalism being the associated gethering skill, I don't want to have to worry about having to level that skill.
Try to max out the seconday skills- Cooking, First Aid and (shudder) fishing. The worst will be fishing because I'd like to get this done before Lich King so that I don't have to spend a lot of time in Outland leveling it up later.

Hmm... not too bad.

They're also saying that leveling from 60 - 70 will get sped up after Lich King, which means the lock will be leveled pretty quickly when I get back to her. Man, I don't know how you people with multiple 60s leveled them when Outland came around. That's a serious investment of time. My goal is to have 3 80's six months after the new expansion (Druid, Hunter and Lock). How did you guys do that? Any suggestions? What I'd like to do is level them up one at a time so that I can enjoy the new quests without getting burned out on them. I have a fear that I'd start to hate WoW if I had to repeat the same quests three days in a row on different toons.

My eyes have melted and are running down my cheeks like hot wax

2008-09-07T23:19:00.003-05:00

I have not had a grind like that in a long time. Even leveling mining on Claz (2x) wasn't as bad as that herbalism grind. It helped to get the fast kodo (isn't that an oxymoron?). I went from Hillsbrad to STV to Swamp of Sorrows / Blasted Lands and finally Un'goro.

I seriously think I would have rather leveled fishing.

2008-09-07T15:51:00.003-05:00

Yep, today Greatjohn made it to level 60 in the Eastern Plaguelands. At level 58 I did pop over to Hellfire Penninsula and did a couple of the first quests to get the massive gear upgrades. But I realized that I was underpowered at level 58 to be there without a whole lot of frustration. So I finished the last two levels today. I can't believe the difference between 58 and 60.

So, I hit 60, trained, went and bought my Great White Kodo and the skill, then back to the Penninsula. Much easier.

If you're trying to powerlevel, I do recommend listening to something other than the game's music and sound effects. I got caught up on the Epic Dolls and BLARM! (not WoW related and VERY not for kids) podcasts. For some reason listening to podcasts makes grinding so much easier.

Ok, taking a break for an hour or so, then back to leveling!

Outland awaits... but it needs to be patient

2008-09-06T19:28:00.003-05:00

So, today Greatjohn dinged level 58 and is eligible to go to Outland. I took him to Thrallmar and did the first three or four quests to get the rewards, but then decided that I'm going to level herbalism to 300 before really starting the leveling again. The way I see it, I'm going to have to do it sometime soon anyway and I'd rather level the gathering skills as I level the character. You see, I've decided that GJ is going to be an Inscriber and herbalism is the gathering skill connected to that profession.

Having changed Claz's professions a couple times and countless times on the old Druid, I've decided to try and plan things out a bit better. Besides- I want to be a Polar Bear! (I know, you can be one anyway, but... I needed to end on something very slightly amusing)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

2008-08-31T20:47:00.004-05:00

First
Well, Claz is back to a beastmaster spec. I got an invite to pug Kara and I didn't want to embarrass myself or make a bad name for Limited Warranty. I just don't know how to raid as a MM spec. As it was, my crits were pulling aggro off the tank, so I think I made a good choice.

Second
I've gotten serious about farming gold for my Epic-level flying skill. I really want the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (and of course, I've always wanted an Onyx Netherwing Drake, ever since I found out that they existed). In three days of serious dailies and farming, I'm now 20% of the way there.

Third
As Bumwaller wrote, Limited Warranty is in need of tanks. The need is such that he is willing to put together a tanking set and respec his druid whenever we needed him to. I salute his dedication, but... I don't think it's really fair, especially since he's told me that he isn't that excited about melee fighting. Now, personally, I love tanking. I tanked on my old druid all the time, and, I was told, I was good at it.

The other day, Vashj went down and I was bored (and with my anxiety levels lately, I needed to play). I rediscovered Hirnek on another server! Out of boredom I played around with him. He was level 45, which means that the feral tree really starts to be fun (maximum fun comes with Mangle), and let me tell you, I had a lot of fun.

So, I paid for a character transfer and now Hirnek is moved. Well, someone ganked his name on Vashj, so my level 48 druid is now Greatjohn. When I'm not farming gold, I'll be power-leveling this toon up to the point where he'll be able to go into Wrath right away and will be ready for tanking. I don't think I'll get him ready before then, there's just not enough time because I want to get Claz flying fast.

This means that I'm going to be putting the lock on the backburner for awhile. As much fun as she is to play, I want to help the guild out more and we really don't need another DPS.

PvP and the lock

2008-08-24T22:13:00.003-05:00

So I tried PvPing with the under-powered warlock in my quest greens and blues and... I only died once. I played AB and helped take and then defend the blacksmith. There's something very satisfying about cursing 4 different players, fear bombing and the sucking the life out of them until they're dead, dead, dead.

Want to hurry that toon to level 70. I want Vengeful Gladiator's Dreadweave Hood.

Yes. For the wings. /sigh.

5 months? Wow...

2008-08-24T16:52:00.002-05:00

It has been just over five months since I posted last. Wow. I did take a couple months off (sort of, I leveled a couple toons and then played Age of Conan for a month (the game was way too buggy). But I'm back now. But man have I changed things up!

Claz is now Marksman/Survival for PvP

I dropped leatherworking and skinning for Engineering (Goblin) and mining (for PvP)

I PvP a lot.

I'm doing the PvP for a couple of reasons. First, we're all just waiting around for the expansion and Limited Warranty is busy leveling alts, gathering mats and stuff like that. Basically, we're treading water just waiting around for something to do. Second, if the opening of Wrath is going to be anything like the opening of BC, there's going to be a lot of ganking after a week. The BC opening was weird, there was a strange truce between Alliance and Horde and everyone was concentrating only on seeing the new content and leveling (or maybe it was like the old west- all those players working around you and you didn't want to step out of line or you'd get killed in about 5.5 seconds. Maybe Heinlein was right- a well-armed society is a polite society...). I want to have some sort of survivability. Third, with the MM/SV build, I get a huge kick out of seeing those giant crits.

I'll post some screenshots of Claz being in the top three on the charts for some of the battlegrounds. No, I didn't take screenies of when I messed up. I should, though.

Arenas week 2

2008-03-17T21:28:00.003-05:00

So, as you can see my 2v2 partner and I cleaned up this week. We were 11-0! Sure, there were two teams who just sat there while we killed them and another team that kept leaving the arena when they saw that it was us (or, you know, they just got disconnected...). But, those matches where the other team tried, we still killed them.

I then joined a guildie 3v3 team and, well, we didn't do so hot. One amusing match, though: our warrior was feared out of the arena and couldn't get back in. We sat there watching that team run around trying to find him, laughing our asses off.

Ah well, it's all points, right?

More lootz

2008-03-14T23:03:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I did Heroic Mech. I finally was able to complete the quest to get the Arcatraz Key, and I got the Telescopic Sharprifle. I think this is less of a numbers upgrade, but I like guns so much more than bows.

Tonight we ran Black Morass and Hourglass of the Unraveller dropped for me. This is so much better than the green trinket I had before.

Tonight in Kara, I got nothing. The Opera Event was Oz, not BBW. Oh well.

I wanted to post more (I have one brewing about what I'd like to see in the expansion), but I need to be up tomorrow for work at 4:30AM.

Gear Analysis 11March08

2008-03-11T10:48:00.005-05:00

I am sick. I think I finally got hit hard with the stupid flu that's been ripping through the office for the last few months. I am good for nothing much more than occupying my brain with thoughts not related to running to the bathroom in fear that what ever orifice is in need won't be able to hold "it" back. I must be sick, I don't even want to apologize for that. And, as luck would have it, I'm sick on maintenance day, so I can't even farm between bouts of spewage. /sigh.

I'm starting to love Be Imba!. I learned about it from BRK and have been using it ever since as a guide as to what I need to work on with my gear. There is a problem with the site and Wow's Armory site. I think Blizzard was upset that the site was so much cooler than anything they've done that they got pissy. No evidence of that, just a feeling. So, if you've not been to that site to check your character out, I'm not sure if it will work for you. When I go there, I have to click on the cached character link and it works. Here's Claz's analysis.

The graphic above shows the raid progression that Claz should be comfortable at and where the gear upgrades will be coming from. As you can see, according to this site, I'm almost ready for Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair and the gear upgrades for me are towards the end of Karazahn.

(Forgive this, I'm in a haze of fever daze and vomit stench...)
HOLY MOTHER OF THRALL

/cough

Ok, getting back to the task at hand. Sure, it's nice to know where I am with raid progression but what can I do to keep inching up? This site has a nice listing of unenchanted items and low-level items. How am I doing?

First off, you'll notice that it isn't listing my new boots, but the point still is made: I need enchants! Yes, I've already made a spreadsheet for the enchants and the mats that I need and I've been keeping an eye out for enchanters who can do these (a guildie got the Major Agility enchant for the weapon when we did a kara key frag run and decided to keep going). I won't be enchanting the Blackened Spear, though since I'm about two weeks from the Vengegul Gladiator's Waraxe.

Now, low level items. /sigh. You'll notice that Claz was cached with the Riding Crop in slot. This is less embarrassing than what I have been using (the name escapes me, but it is a green-level quest reward that ups my attack power a bit). But, with the links to upgrades I'll be able to direct my time better and I should be able to upgrade these items pretty quickly.

All in all, I'm pretty content with Claz's gear. Now, I just need to practice kiting and trapping...

Another short post- gear I gots

2008-03-10T23:50:00.002-05:00

I just picked up the Fiend Slayer Boots from the chest event. Nice.

*Dur! Of course I meant Chess Event

I'm glad I didn't enchant my other boots!

Karazahn 10March08- What I learned

2008-03-10T18:12:00.003-05:00

What I learned from Curator and the mobs after him:

Whiskers needs Arcane resistence. Badly. This is one of the reasons I think I was only number four on the DPS charts- I had to keep rezing or mending her to keep her on the Astral Flares

DPS charts are fun, but not the purpose of running. When Curator goes into his Evocation Phase I was still helping to clear out the flares and couldn't get me some of those juice crits the other people were getting. That is good! I was doing the right thing.

Getting the Tier 4 gloves was a "good thing".

We might be doing the chess event tonight. Better log on and see.

On the road to T4 gear

2008-03-10T00:31:00.003-05:00

Limited Warranty downed The Curator tonight, and lookie what I got: Demon Stalker Gauntlets.

Here is the anonymous report for the fight. I'll have to comment on it later but I will say that I'm not happy coming in #4. :(

Chess event is next. We're hoping to get to it tomorrow before the instance resets on Tuesday.

Changing your mind is expensive

2008-03-09T09:45:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I was able to finally craft the Ebon Netherscale armor set and gem it all up to where I'm not embarassed anymore. The set seriously rocks and if you go to my cached version of Claz's Be Imba! profile (I think Blizzard is doing something to block these sites), you'll see that I'm firmly geared for Kara and Heroics.
But, you see, I didn't have the Primal Nether to craft the Netherdrake Helm, that was going to be my next item, but wasn't too terribly excited to farm it because it wasn't that big of an upgrade over the Dream-Wing Helm I was wearing. I turned to grinding money for the epic flight skill so that I can get that damn dragon mount (I haven't been this crazy over a mount since Amantara and my stupid grind for the Winterspring Frostsaber that I was about two weeks from getting before deleting her).
But then, I found out about the Storm Helm. Sweet mother of pearl! I asked around the guild to see if anyone could make me one, but no one had it. I went to the AH and saw that the recipe was 400 gold. GRRR. I couldn't expect the blacksmiths in the guild to drop that kind of cash for me, could I? No, not with a clear conscience.
So, I kept farming for the gold, thinking of the bad-ass looks of the that helm and how fugly the Netherdrak Helm is. But, I always looked at the plans on the bank alt whenever I was dropping of ores and one day it was 200 gold!
Without thinking twice I bought it and sent it to one of Limited Warranty's tanks with a message: "The mats will be with you soon, please, can I use one of your Nethers?"
Not only did he agree, but he offered to farm the Hardened Adamantite Bars for me.
So, now I'm broke again but almost have all the Primals I'll need. Then I need to grind money for the gems (I'm so hurting for stamina that I've plugged in some armor kits). Then, I can get back on track for the mount.
Why the title for this post? I really shouldn't have spent 500 gold on the Netherdrake Helm pattern. :(

Kara 4March05

2008-03-05T06:34:00.008-06:00

We ran Karazhan last night and I was pretty happy overall. Well, honestly, I wasn't happy with the run, but I did get that last badge off of Attumen the Huntsman and I now have the full Netherscale set (more about that on another post).

The raid started out poorly. People were late, didn't show up, wanted to get in one more BG before coming out to Kara. You know, the stereotypical problems that raids have when people don't seem to take it all that seriously. *Sigh*.

We worked towards Attumen but got the repops just as we pulled Midnight. *sigh* Wipe. I feigned death but one of those stupid Chargers feared me out of it and I died.

After much explaining of what happened and why we can't sit around and rez people who don't know how to control their aggro, we went through the whole process again and downed The Huntsman. Dropped gear (from memory):

Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation

Bracers of the White Stag

I didn't roll on the gloves because: 1) I thought the feral druid was able to get them (he died and someone looted before he could get back inside) and 2) I have Crystalhide Handwraps.

So, I know you're all wondering how I did? I am, of course, Phobos.

And here's the detail:

I'm very happy with my performance last night. I was even able to chain trap the stablehands (for the most part) (and yes, I'm paranoid about my trapping abiliites), and of course I'm happy about being on the top of the charts. We're raiding again tonight and I should do even better since I upgraded three pieces of gear with major upgrades.

Impressions/wishlist for raiding:

Our feral off-tank did very well for his first time in Kara. So well that we didn't miss the Pally tank all that much. Just kidding, Pyro! But we were all able to adjust our strats around the change in tanking styles. BUT, feral tank, I love you, but please please please get Omen!!!

BE PREPARED! Be there on time, ready to go and stocked up on everything you need. Don't expect us to wait while you run to Org for vials for your potion making. Read the fricken guild website to know that we're running Kara! Read the damn guild announcement that fricken pops up when you log in! The information is there, utilize it! *cough*

Listen to the raid leader on where you're supposed to stand. When he says, "bunch up or the chargers with charge you", fricken bunch up!

If you die during the boss fight and can't get back in, type "How's the fight going?" Don't keep asking while we're trying to kill through voice chat. Please.

Don't loot while in combat. Don't loot until everyone is rezed and/or has run back. The feral tank got screwed out of those nice gloves because someone got antsy.

Hunters do a LOT of damage.

That is all. Have a good day and wish us luck on Moroes and the Maiden (and Opera? Do I dare dream that we'll get there tonight, that the wolf will be there and that he'll drop the sniper rifle?)

BBB and raiding- USMC style

2008-03-04T05:34:00.002-06:00

First off, I'm not in the military nor was I ever in the military. I was almost enlisted in the USMC, but, by my way of thinking, that's like saying a woman was almost pregnant. No, you either are or you're not, and I am not (pregnant or a Marine). For those people who served, I have nothing but respect for your service to this country.

I posted a while ago about how you need a military mindset when you're raiding. Well, BBB posted about this topic, and (naturally) in a much better and more coherent manner. He plans out a raid on Gruul's Lair as if it was an operation, and I swooned a little. In a very hetero way, of course.

Read it, learn in, live it.

Gear progression, well... sort of

2008-03-02T00:08:00.002-06:00

I'm almost ready to craft:

The Netherdrake Helm

The Ebon Netherscale Belt

The Ebon Netherscale Bracers

The Ebon Netherscale Breastplate

This will replace my Felstalker set and Dream-Wing Helm. Properly gemmed, this will be a nice and major upgrade, and expensive.

All I need is two Primal Nethers, a couple Primal Shadows and fifty or so Primal Fires. To help finance all of this I dropped Skinning and took up Mining, as planned. Oh my god, I can't believe how much money I've missed out on. I'll be keeping Mining at the very least until I pay for my epic flying skill, which I'll be saving up for after the above are crafted and properly gemmed.

Other than that the only news is that I wasn't able to play as much as I wanted due to some internet issues. But the friendly Comcast man came out and replaced the cable jack and now... no drops while fighting bosses, or BGing, or... you know... walking around Shat.

Arenas are kind of fun

2008-03-01T23:53:00.003-06:00

So, today I saw a request in city chat while dropping off my latest load of ores for a partner to just farm arena points. I thought, "Hey, I want the Merciless Gladiator's Decapitator, and I don't care if I win or not."

I pst'd the mage and joined up and we did eleven arena matches. As you can see, we did much better than we expected. Of course, we were matched up with other lower-rated teams and one team didn't seem to try the first time we went up against them. But a mage/BM hunter is badass against clothies. Sheep the other mage, burn down the 'lock, switch to the mage. Done. Whiskers was picking out 'lock gristle from his teeth after each match. Unlike BRK I don't have the memory or note-taking abilities that he has, so I won't even try to do a recap.

All in all, not a bad night. I have no idea how long I need to do this to get my axe, though.

1st night of Karazahn

2008-02-23T01:05:00.002-06:00

Soooo very sleepy, but I wanted to post Limited Warranty's progress into Kara. We downed the first two bosses and got the Maiden down to 25% before one of our healers gained wife aggro and had to go.

Not too shabby :)

You can't always get what you want...

2008-02-21T20:12:00.004-06:00

300 points short! A measly 300 more points and I would have had my Veteran's Chain Sabatons! I woke up this morning (insomnia...) at 0430 and logged in and couldn't believe my eyes. Ah well, I just ran the daily BG and that will put me over the top.

Then I spent the night doing the daily cooking (more manaberries) and then farming leathers and Nether Dragonscales. I now have all the heavy knothide that I'll need and am 41% of the way through the Dragonscales. After that, it's mining time (I think).

The thing is, leveling skinning isn't that difficult; just invest the time and effort and you can go from 1 - 375 in two days, three at the most. So, if I decide that mining is stupid, I'll be able to get back in no time. Well, after leveling mining, which is a pain.

And we have Kara tomorrow!

Phat lootz and planning

2008-02-21T05:20:00.004-06:00

Last night we ran Heroic Hellfire Ramparts and we cleared it (first time I've cleared a heroic, by the way). I did pretty well loot-wise: Averinn's Ring of Slaying and with the rep I finally got the Blackened Spear. By using the spear I'm taking a slight hit to my crit chance (well, if 1% is a slight hit) but I'll be able to make it up with the Major agility enchant and come out a bit ahead from the Crystalforged War Axe that I was using.

Yes, yes, Claz's gear is coming along nicely.

Now that I'm running heroics a little more often, I'm going to have access to primal nethers, either through drops or badges. Which means I'll be able to craft the Ebon Netherscale armor set and the Netherdrake Helm. W00t!

I'm also playing with the idea of changing from skinning to mining, after I've farmed all of the mats I need for the armor set (I need 24 Heavy Knothide and 100 Nether Dragonscales). There are a couple of reasons. First, it will make getting the 54 Primal Fires I need for the armor set and helm a lot easier. Second, ores sell really, really well and I still want to make that 5k gold for the riding skill and really start working for the Netherwing Drake mount. Yes, a guildie just got his...

I would go with skinning and mining and drop leatherworking, but I have a few really nice recipes that some guildies like now and then, and I need the skill to be able to wear the armor set I'm wanting to craft.

All in all, it was a good day playing WoW. AND we're running Karazahn tomorrow!

Again with the druid

2008-02-20T17:51:00.005-06:00

So, I played a new druid alt that I started on the Vashj server. He's only level 13 but still a lot of fun to play. I decided that if I wanted to play a druid bad enough with Limited Warranty, I'd level the alt up instead of paying the extra money to transfer the level 45.

I took some advice from Big Bear Butt's WI articles about how to level a low-level druid. Like, don't just run up to something while in bear form and start whacking, do: wrath, moonfire, switch to bear, enrage, THEN start hammering away.

Yep, I'm a noob with druids, too. :P

All-in-all, I had fun leveling a couple times with Grendirk (or whatever his name is...) and may keep leveling him now and then.

For Claz, I did get a bunch of the food I wanted to grind and I even did the Thrallmar PvP daily. Too bad the Alliance on Vashj rarely take the fortifications away from us. Not that I'm a big PvPer, but I did enjoy wiping the floor with a 64 gnome rogue.

Getting ready for Kara

2008-02-20T13:59:00.001-06:00

PvP Boots. Just finished the last AV for the honor. I'll now have enough honor for the PvP Boots I want.

Food. I'm going to try to have 3 stacks of Warp Burgers for myself, 3 stacks of Kibler's Bits for Whiskers or Pixel (depends on if I want the kitty or the ravager), and a few stacks of various foods to share, mostly the ones that affect spell crits or whatever it is.

Potions. I have none. I need many healing and mana pots.

First Aid. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't leveled my first aid. I'm going to try to power level it.

Enchants. I think my gear is good enough now that I won't mind spending the gold on enchanting most of it, especially the feet and hands. I don't think I'll do anything with the other slots for now, unless I really suck it bad in Kara.

Research. I want to know all about the boss fights, especially the first three (I would be very, very surprised if we get past the first three. Not because we're not capable, but because this will be completely new to most of us). There's some good information at WoWwiki and there are videos out there (like BRK's)

I think that should get me reasonably ready to succeed in Karazahn. There's a lot of gold I'll need to farm in the next couple of days, especially for the enchantments, I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to get it all (I probably won't), but... I think it will be better to be a bit under prepared than to try and burn myself out getting to 100%.

Holy great mamma-jamma!

2008-02-12T23:40:00.002-06:00

Limited Warranty is going to take our first stab at Kara on Friday! Oh my god am I excited to go!

Hmm... can I get that last 3k in honor for my PVP boots? I'd need to get it by Thursday so that I'd have the honor to spend on Friday. My guess is no, since I need to farm gold to buy some potions, farm mats for food and... holy crap.

/dance!

Balancing WoW and RL

2008-02-11T21:09:00.000-06:00

Another post idea from Blog Azeroth.

WARNING: I'm going to get into some personal stuff here, so if that bores you (not that anything here will be that interesting to anyone else but me), just stop reading. Also, if you're going to be an asshat, well, I'll give you a preemptive "STFU" and "FOAD".

Three years ago I was diagnosed with dysthymia with protracted periods of clinical depression. What this basically means is this: take a graph of a "normal" person's mood and then shift it all down into the "sad" part of their graph (this is the dysthymia), so basically my highs are about where a normal person feels depressed; add a bout of "regular" depression and I enter into what is known as "double depression".

Yeah, I'm the life of the party, let me tell you.

So, my life consists of going to work at a job I despise but it pays the bills, Warcraft and hanging out with my friends once or twice a week (though in the last month I've actually started dating a couple people here and there). But, because this post is about balancing WoW and Real Life, how do I balance them if, in fact, I really do?

According to my shrink, I should play WoW as much as I want or feel I need to as long as I don't sacrifice my RL relationships. When I expressed to her that I was concerned that my weekends were becoming hours-long grinding sessions, she replied, "Well, you got out of bed, right?" Point taken.

As a very depressed person, one of the major things I try to overcome is the sense that nothing I want can be accomplished, that every goal is always out of my reach, that anything I plan for is in vain because life, people, god, whatever will come along and stomp over my plans. My life is a constant struggle against fighting the nameless void that I feel sucking at me all the time.

Enter Warcraft.

I first started playing Warcraft after a major breakup with a woman I had been with for five years. This breakup sent me into a spiral that threatened my sanity. I don't say that lightly. I was going crazy. I would spend days at my friend's house just sitting on his couch, eating shitty food and drinking about a case of coke a day (I also smoked two packs a day, which is why I didn't gain any weight and I'm actually still underweight).

He suggested that we play an online game together for something to do other than argue who is hotter: Kari Byron or Kat Von D (Kat is by far hotter, but Kari is someone you'd want to meet your mother, by the way). I was open to anything at the time, just to give me something to think about other than my trainwreck of a life. And, since the only computer I had at the time was an iBook, it had to be Warcraft.

Warcraft worked for me. This is a game where I have almost absolute control over my toon (well, until I rolled on a PvP server... which I think might have been a mistake in the long run). The goals are easily achievable if you put in the time (I mean, c'mon, who doesn't feel like you accomplished something when you ding?) and with all of the resources out there, it is easy to plan where and what you want to do.

Leveling Amantara to 60 (the level cap at the time) was a therapy that affected me almost as much as the talk therapy. The shrink would monitor how much I was playing and would make sure that I wasn't missing plans with family or friends to play the game. When this did happen, our session would almost all be about why I ditched out on plans to play the game and a few times she showed me how that was unhealthy and how it really set back my mood (and one time, I had a dangerous set-back when I realized that the date I ditched to raid MC wasn't just going out with my because she pitied me, but because she liked me... insecurities suck).

Getting back to balancing real life and Warcraft. Real life can be such a horrible and huge black wave threatening to drown me that I need to indulge more in something that can balance my moods. At work, I know that if I just get through the day I'll be able to hop on Claz for a couple hours and farm gold or run something or just BG. When my life seems to be completely out of focus, this game can focus me and not just when I'm playing. It has helped me see that I can plan stuff out and achieve those plans. I know that I can do something new and not have to be perfect the first time I do it (my first hunter has +strength axes...) but if I apply myself and learn and be patient and keep my perspective, I improve.

I think this post explains some of the low-key hysteria that underlies many of my other posts. You now know why I'm constantly making lists of gear, why I'm constantly worried about raiding progression, and why I hate BGs and PvP (loss of control in this very controlled environment drives me crazy).

Shiney new pants!

2008-02-10T19:39:00.000-06:00

With a very kind and generous loan from a guildy (though I did farm 90% of the gold) I finally got Leggings of Beast Mastery. The ravager and I now fight to see who is top DPS. Part of it is that the pants slightly gimped my AP. I need to put on a Cobrahide Leg Armor (I don't have the rep for Nethercobra yet), and that might help it out a bit more.
Now, all I need is to buckle down and get my PvP boots and I'll be reasonably comfortable going into Kara.

What you love/hate most about your class

2008-02-10T14:58:00.000-06:00

From Blog Azeroth.
Loves

Pets. The first main draw I had to the hunter was that we get these cool pets that follow us around. And I like how we can customize them to a certain extent with their resistances and other abilities. It "helps" my OCD tendencies.

Relatively safe DPS. I had a rogue up to level 60 (yeah, I deleted her) and I loved the raw DPS that I could put out. But I hated how often I died when I was soloing. With the hunter you can put out a lot of damage and as long as you watch your threat meter, you're not going to get touched. Just keep Mend Pet going.

Utility. I love Misdirection pulls onto the tank (and, I admit, the threat of Misdirecting bosses onto asshats). I love tracking humanoids in BGs. Hunters are a great utility class without the jack-of-all-trades unfocusness (not a word) of druids.

Hates

Trapping. I don't hate trapping so much as I hate how much I suck at it. I know, I know- practice makes perfect.

Being called a "Huntard". Ok- I suck at PvP; I suck at trapping; I sometimes forget the debuffs that Arcane Shot and Aimed Shot give an enemy... oh. Wait....

Tanks who don't believe I can dump a ton of aggro on them if they would just let me pull.

Tanks who mark and pull without giving me time to set a trap down at all much less giving the cooldown on the traps time to expire.

Oh, oh.

2008-02-09T19:43:00.000-06:00

So, I sent an email to Scott Andrews who writes Officer's Quarters for WoW Insider and he just emailed me to tell me that he's using it for his next column.
Of the one person who reads this blog, you won't be surprised by what you read, it's all been written about here. I didn't bad mouth anyone (directly), but I'm a little worried about how he (you) will react. Maybe I'm just borrowing trouble. Maybe we'll get some good advice. Maybe I need to keep my fricken mouth shut.

Things I want (and sometimes get)

2008-02-09T19:21:00.000-06:00

Leggings of Beast Mastery. Currently on the AH for 400gold. I have 100.

Recipe: Kibler's Bits. Just got from the cooking daily. YES!

Thrallmar reputation. I want: This and This.

Some new boots. I'm 3k honor away. I should just run Eye of the Storm over and over since I can stand that BG and it's the holiday weekend.

Sigh. Just... *sigh*

*DROOL*. But not a priority, I guess. And I need money for the riding skill.

Claz sucks... well, I suck playing Claz

2008-02-09T18:46:00.000-06:00

So, yesterday I ran the first bit of Heroric Ramps with Limited Warranty. Before I received a call ("GET OVER HERE NOW, I'M ABOUT TO EAT ALL MY PILLS AND DRINK ALL THE GIN I HAVE IN THE HOUSE!") and had to leave, I sucked it. Badly. I don't know if my mood affects my playing that much or if I've reached the limit of my skills, but I have to tell you that I cannot trap to save my fricken life (which is what it amounts to in a heroic. Those bastards two- or three-shot me each time).

Thinking that it was only my mood that was the problem, I pugged it again today. After the players thinking they had to explain to me how to trap (really? Maybe you should have told me what my trap target was before thinking I was retarded), we downed the first boss. Then, yep, you guessed it. Another call. From the same person. Good thing this blog is about Warcraft and not about the drama-filled trainwreck of my life. Right?

Anyway, I'm thinking of trying out a new build. Instead of the BM/MM build I've been using, I'm wondering if I should try to do a BM/SV build. like so. I'm thinking that this build will gimp my DPS badly. But I really don't know what else to do to get this trapping crap right.

The problem isn't my trapping ability. The problem is that in a heroic, the traps last for about three seconds before they break and the groups I've been in haven't really been that understanding about letting my trap cooldown expire before pulling so that I can have another trap ready. Or, the mob resists the trap. Then I die. Then I need to be rezzed. Then I look like a huntard.

So much to do... not sure I want to, though

2008-02-06T21:01:00.001-06:00

So, I did some quick calculations on what I would need to do to get purpled out in PvP gear. I would need:

185,816 Honor points

41 WSG tokens

36 AB tokens

164 AV tokens

-23 EotS tokens (I've done too many)

Is it worth the annoyance of BGs for this gear? I don't know. I do know that this is pretty daunting.

And.... I'm back.

2008-02-04T19:14:00.001-06:00

That was a bad weekend, life-wise and wow-wise, but I'm back. I respecced Claz back to Beastmaster and I'm so happy to be back to it that I don't think I'll ever change it. Well, I'm wondering what a BM/SV build would be like.

You see, yesterday we ran Heroic Ramparts and my traps are about as secure as a damp paper bag. Not to mention that I kept telling the pally tank that I can't peel my target off him when he uses Avenger's Shield to pull with a Consecration follow-up. Unfortunately, when he listened to me, he would mark the furthest target for trapping. Nine times out of ten that was a caster or archer. *sigh*

We also only took down the first boss and wiped a lot on the second. No loot dropped for me, either, except the Badge of Justice from Gargolmar.

But, you know what? I had a fricken blast running it. This is why I play Warcraft. I don't mind wiping time after time and paying 25 gold in repairs. I don't mind the frustration. We were learning and I was experiencing something that I hadn't before. I was a happy hunter.

But I also think I'll keep working on the PvP gear. This is probably some of the best gear available to me until Limited Warranty starts running heroics (and... maybe... Kara?) more often. Sure I can craft some nice stuff, but for most of it I need primal nethers, which means heroics. and I'm wondering if the PvP gear would be better. If so... maybe to make more money I should get two gathering professions after I gear up through PvP.

Ah well.

And, yes, I'm playing with my new Wowhead toys.

If you can't beat them...

2008-02-02T17:11:00.001-06:00

...join them, right?

I respecced to a MM/BM build and I'm sure its a noob build (15/44/2), but I think its already better for PvP than the BM build I had before. I'm already enjoying shutting down casters with Silencing Shot and Scatter Shotting rogues and warriors is pure joy. I do miss Intimidation, though, but I think I was using it as a crutch in trying to get away from mobs and Alliance, I need to remember that I have wing Clip.

I ran about 10 BGs today, and I have to say I like Eye of the Storm the best and Alteric Valley the least. I'm about 3k honor away from upgrading the boots to Vetern's Linked Sabatons.

I've given into the darkside.

Alt-itis, or the danger of getting frustrated

2008-02-01T16:59:00.000-06:00

So, I found myself wanting to play on alts, and this is not a good thing. I started a Troll Shaman, an undead Rogue, a Blood Elf priest and played on Hirnek for about the time it took me to go from Orgimmar to Swamp of Sorrows before I logged off in boredom. This is exactly the same thing that I did when I was getting frustrated with Amantara, my old Nelf Druid. The results with Amantara were, well... not good, and I've fought the urges to do the same with Claz. (Don't worry Limited Warranty, I don't think I'm going to just disappear with only a few mailings of gold to let you know I'm gone).

Not only have I been playing alts, I've been toying with the idea of changing my professions. On Amantara I was famous for people having to ask what my professions were that week.

All in all, these are bad signs. So, instead of just acting out, let's see what is bothering me and maybe someone (if there's anyone reading this) can suggest something.

PvE progression. Or really, the lack of it. Limited Warranty seems to be in a slump. Sure, six more people in the guild got keyed for Karasahn, but in all honesty, the guild needs some of the others to be keyed who don't seem to be that interested in it. We have a lot of Mages and Warlocks keyed but only one tank and one healer. The priests in the guild seem only interested in PvPing and seem to think that if they're specced shadow they can't heal. Personally, I think they don't want to heal and aren't interested in PvE progression, which is their prerogative, of course. But the lack of healing is going to put such a damper on raiding that I'm not even sure if we should bother.

Farming. I need to farm rep. I need to farm money. I need to farm mats for the epics I can now craft. I need to farm to level my boar to 70 and my Ravager to "Best Friend". But I'm getting so sick of wandering in circles killing everything that I found myself more interested in watch Family Guy DvDs that I've seen 24 times before than concentrating on what I'm doing. Throw into that the fact that I need to farm the same places everyone else farms that I'm lucky to get one kill in before I'm called a chinese farmer that I need to log off before I start swearing at the person and get banned. Also, the farming spots lead to...

Ganking. I was ganked twice today. I know, I know, that doesn't seem like a lot, but Vashj is a very low-population server and the Alliance seems to be very outnumbered that this is a really high number of ganks. I have no idea just why I rolled a toon on another PvP server. I HATE ganking with such a passion that when it happens to me, I want to punch my monitor. And, since I'm so horrible at PvP, I'm nothing but free honor and cheap thrills for the moron on the other side.

PvPing. I HATE PvPing in the Battlegrounds. It is the most boring, stupid annoying thing that Blizzard is putting time and energy into. I understand how easy it is: there's no trying to get a group together, the time investment in play is very small, the gear rewards are huge for the amount of effort you need to put into getting them, etc. I seriously think PvP is ruining WoW. Even BRK is PvPing. When we ran ZG a couple weeks ago, the druid who was main tanking quit after the bat boss because he wanted his next epic.

So, all-in-all, WoW is starting to annoy me. Any suggestions on how to break this bad mood?

I like WoW Web Stats, too

2008-01-27T16:46:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally followed BRK's guide on how to use WoW Web Stats. This is our last Shadow Labs run. Claz is the only hunter. The best thing about this is that when they were running damage meters during the run I was always #3. Yes, set your damage meters to include hunter pets or don't bother posting them.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my performance. Though I'm thinking that my performance had more to do with my gear than with any special skill I may have. The best thing is that you'll see that I'm not missing too much on the mobs in Slabs and will start concentrating more on +crit gear/enchants/gems.

I know Slabs isn't that big of a deal, but I want my Sonic Spear!

I like dailies

2008-01-27T16:29:00.000-06:00

No big raids, no big drops; just a lot of grinding. I decided to level cooking and just hit 375 this morning. I went from 100-something on Thursday to mazed today, without fishing. Well, I tried fishing and leveled it to 130 before I wanted to punch someone in the throat just to liven things up. I ended up having to go to Silithus and doing the stupid cooking quest (the sandworm one) to get over the 250-300 barrier. Once I hit 300, it was a snap. Then I gathered all of the recipes I could get and did my first cooking daily (I got the hot talbuk steak, or whatever its called) and got nine gold for my trouble. If all of the cooking dailies are easy like that, i'll be happy. It was one where I had to go to the area where I do the daily bombing run anyway (remember, its all about being efficient) and get a wing from one of those circling birds that you dodge when trying to pop their eggs.

Truly, all I want is the gold and the Kibler's Bits recipe. After that, it will just turn into my daily quests process. I really need to just grind out the Skyguard rep to open up other dailies. I really wish I could find some reliable group to run the daily heroics with.

So, right now I can do: cooking, egg bombing and BG dailies with no problem. Sometimes I can get a group from Limited Warranty to do the daily normal instance. That's three, sometimes four dailies.

Next, I need to save up money to get my epic riding skill to open up the Netherwing dailies (and get that badass mount that everyone seems to have).

And there are many more that I hope to get to.

Zul'Gurub

2008-01-21T05:32:00.000-06:00

Limited Warranty did a fun run raid on Zul'Gurub last night. We wanted to run it to get some raid experience as a group and to get any gear for some of our lower-level 60s. It was pretty rough, to tell you the truth, but not too bad considering most of the raid had never been there. We downed:

Bat Boss

Snake Boss

Spider Boss

Bloodlord

Tiger Boss

The Panther Boss kicked our ass because by this time we were down to maybe twelve people and didn't have enough tanks to take the panther adds.

Gear? I have no idea who got what or even what dropped at all. I was raid leader and had enough on my plate trying to remember strategies and getting people to stay where they're supposed to stay before the boss pull. Ok- not enough time to get in too much depth, so another quick list of impressions:

When people say they're going to raid and they tart talking about how they'd rather be PvPing, just replace them; even if they're the main tank.

Bring a crap-ton of arrows/ammo.

If your guild's main tank isn't on, be prepared to AOE attack everything and rely on your level 70s' uber gear to kill and defeat pulls that would have mopped the ground with you at level 60

If a pally is in the raid and says "WTF" when you ask him to off-tank something... be afraid, be very afraid.

Buy a headset. People can't won't read instructions unless they're in th Raid Warning

But, all-in-all I think it was a good experience for people to see the frustrations of a raid, but the bosses went down so easily for us that we didn't get that awesome sense of accomplishment you get.

PS- I finally got the Crystalhide Handwraps. They went from 500gold to 390gold on the AH. I put in some +8 agil gems and viola! I'm one more step closer to being Kara-ready.

Shattered Halls, how I love thee. And hate thee, too

2008-01-20T07:02:00.000-06:00

On Friday Limited Warranty (LW) ran Shattered Halls with the help of a very awesome mage from Turbo Sunshine Friends.

I ran it before on Amantara as a bear tank about four or five times, but this was the first time as a hunter. Our main tank hadn't run it before (or the rogue, I don't think), the healer only a couple times I think and the mage said he'd been trying to farm it for a recipe of some sort.

It wasn't the smoothest of runs. In my defense it was Friday night after a very long week at work and we didn't get started until semi-late for me. Ok- a list of what I learned from my screw-ups:

When you're critting like a mofo, slow down! Don't try to rely only on feign death to control your aggro. I was seduced into the joy of seeing the big giant flashing huge numbers of doom I was inflicting on my enemies.

Don't trap near the tank! Thunderclap + Ice trap = panicked hunter trying to make sure the blue square is aggroed him and not the tree.

When aggroed- run to the tank and away from the healer. Told you, I'm a noob.

Keep your fricken targets straight. Don't shoot the sheep. Just... please... don't.

Skyfire Hawk-Bow did not drop. I did not get a primal nether (and I'm very glad that it went to the TSF mage).

Gear progression

2008-01-17T19:07:00.000-06:00

Ranged weapon- Valanos' Longbow. Check

Melee weapon- Crystal Forged War Axe. Check (though I want the Sonic Spear so bad!)

Wrist, Waist Chest- Felstalker set. Check, check, check

Legs- Beast Lord Leggings. I've not seen Leggings of Beast Mastery on the AH, so I'm not hopeful to get hold of them. *sigh*

Hands- Crystalhide Handwraps are on the AH for 400 - 500 gold. I'm 20% of the way there. *double sigh*

Shoulders- I got Gladiator's Chain Spaulders on Monday. VERY easy to get. Check

Back- I bought Cloak of the Craft on the AH- 50 gold! Check

Finger #1- We ran Botanica and I got Ring of Umbral Doom. I think that this is as good as or slightly better than BRK's suggestion of the Pathfinder's Ring, so I'm going to give it a Check

I still need to get the enchants on the "checked" items (except the axe, I'm going to make a stab or five for the sonic spear). I'm pretty happy with the way things are going with Claz's gear. I just need a LOT of gold to get the gems I want, the enchants and the gloves. But... I have the time, right?

Scary times, they are a-comin'

2008-01-16T20:02:00.000-06:00

Limited Warranty is just starting to go through a phase that I think all guilds go through when the membership as a whole starts hitting the level cap and starts wondering what they want to do. You see, LW (Limited Warranty, not Leatherworking) is a casual guild is a (directly from the site):

Horde guild on the Vashj server. We are a casual guild that tries to have fun questing and running instances together. We are not currently a raiding guild, but we are working our way through the 5-man instances and working on getting geared up for Heroic 5-mans and maybe, just maybe, we will eventually make it into the 10-man raids.

Well, we can now boast at least six or 7 level 70s on a night (I know, not THAT big of a deal to you people who've been raiding for a long time) and have probably twice that in guild. I've noticed something about these people- they don't seem to have anything to do, as a group, I mean. We all have our own personal goals, but why do you join a guild? Because your goals coincide with a group of other people's goals and you can work together to achieve them. According to our mission statement, LW's goals are to gear up, run instances and progress as far as we can go.

Yesterday I brought up an idea to the Guild Master and Co-Leader, one that I knew could perhaps open up a big can of worms, one that I've seen almost destroy my old guild, but I knew that I needed to present this idea if I wanted to stay happy in LW (I know, that sounds selfish, but remember I'm a prick). The idea seems pretty small but the ramifications for the membership could be large and could be terrible for the guild as a whole. But, in my defence, they could also be very, very good.

I asked the leadership what they thought about assembling a progression team in the guild that would dedicate themselves to learning the instances and the tactics, spending the gold on repairs and consumables, and be ready to wipe on Shattered Halls forty-five times before calling it a night (again, I understand that SH isn't big-time for you uber-raiders, but we're small fish in a big pond). This team would run instances, gear up, learn tactics and then in turn, the members would run the other guildies through using our experience as a tool to help the people who may be less geared or less experienced in instances. I also told them that in the future we should add another tier, a second group who would progress on their own and would only need help once in a while from the first tier. Both groups get progressed enough- bang! We have our Kara raid.

Seems like a win-win situation to me. Of course, I have certain views on what a person's attitude should be about raiding: have fun, yes! But listen to instructions, put the ego away, and enjoy the new content. See, I tend to forget the human element.

The following has not happened! I'm just putting my concerns out there.

Here are the problems:

Gear envy. When the Scarlet and Gold team start getting that harder-to-get gear that the non-members won't have access to, people are going to wonder why they're in the guild if they're not getting the lootz (note, I said lootz, not "Why they're not progressing").

Cliquish-ness. The people on these two teams are going to get to know each other very well, they're going to learn each other's strengths and weeknesses and play styles. Now, what will happen when one of them want to start on their Netherdrake rep grind? 20-1 odds that they'll ask the other members of the team to help when needed. This won't be on purpose. We don't have assshats in LW. But it will be a sub-conscious decision.

let-out-ness. "Hey guys, can a couple 70s run me through Ramparts?" "Sorry, kid, Gold Team is running Arc." "Sorry, Scarlet Team is running Manatombs!" "Sorry, the rest of us are questing in Nagrand- we need to kill Durn!" And the poor level 61 is going to have to PuG Ramps, get frustrated and wonder why they're in LW when we really want them there.

"This guild has changed! We used to just hang out and have a laugh!" All i can say to this is, "Read the mission statement."

Those are the concerns I have with this scheme to encourage progression. It all but killed B O O M S L A N G when we tried to get people through Molten Core and Zul'Gurub. At first people were excited that Boom was actually getting its stuff together and doing something. Then we would wipe on the Bat boss for the 15th time and the raid would fall apart. I understood then and understand now that beating your head against a wall isn't the best idea for fun for many of the players in WoW. But what I don't get is the incessant bitching about everything that happened afterwards. The people that quit the raid were the first to start calling people names, were the first to say that Boom changed, were the first (interestingly enough) to complain about loot. Eventually, and this is after I deleted Amantara, Boomslang fell apart and became an alt-guild for the players who moved their mains to other progression guilds.

Solutions
1. Have set progression run nights, post them and keep them. Only run the progression instances on those nights. The other nights should be left open for farming, fun-runs and running the lower level characters through whatever they need or helping them quest.
2. Transparency. Post the results of the runs on the guild forums and not just who got what drops, but impressions, lessons learned, and any of teh funniez that happened. I think this will show the guild that it isn't just a few people selfishly running stuff to the exclusion of helping the other folks. This will let everyone learn from mistakes and accomplishments.
3. Repair costs from the guild bank. I'm a BIG SUPPORTER of helping our tanks out with the repair costs. Plate armor is a hefty investment and I want to keep our meatshields happy. To fund this? Maybe make a guild fun-run also a farming run. If a lowbie needs a drop, let them have it, otherwise it goes into the bank for sharding, selling or vendoring.
4. Set-up new teams as needed / shuffle the teams periodically. This should stop the cliquishness and would open up more progression teams to people who want.

Thoughts?

How to seriously have fun (no... seriously)

2008-01-13T17:06:00.000-06:00

In Warcraft, I think I'm a Type A Personality. What I mean is that I need a goal for everything I do in the game, preferably everything I do should have at least two goals. Ok, so I work in the Quality Control field, I'm concerned about efficiency, I'm concerned with things being done a certain way (my way? Ugh, I hate to admit it, but yes. But it isn't that bad- I don't expect other people to do things my way, but I need to do things my way). So, this is a guide, not instructions.

How to be efficient while WoWing

Set your major goals- What are your goals in the game? What is fun for you? Personally, I want to be a raider and see new content as soon as possible. PvP gets to be so boring for me because I get set into a pattern (whether it's the right pattern or not); in Eye of the Storm I always go to cap the Blood Elf Tower then either ride to the Draenai Ruins if other people are going, or I go to fight for control of the center. Very rarely I'll go to try and cap the alliance side. Do that twenty times and I'm ready to either fall asleep or rip my eyes out.

Identify the steps needed- So, raiding is my goal. What are the steps I need to get there? Attunement to Karazhan (done), gear up, get enchants. Now, this is where you'll see how anal I am. I have two (so far) spreadsheets that help me track things. One is for the mats needed for the Ebon Netherscale armor set, the other is for the mats for the enchants I want. While farming I update the spreadsheet as I go. This helps me have a sense of accomplishment and mitigates the boredom of killing the same air elementals over and over and over. I always know where I'm at in fulfilling my goals.

Be efficient- If you can farm for your enchants or craftables or consumables while questing, do it. If you can level your Leatherworking while doing the Nessingwary quests in Nagrand, do it! Make sure to check if you can quest in an area where you need to farm, then, while you're going back and forth questing, stop and farm in the right area. Right now I need some cobra scales and I have a lot of quests in Shadowmoon Valley. Every time I fly near that Naga village, I'll stop and kill the snakes and then continue on.

Prioritize!- I want a Netherdrake Mount so bad that I can taste it. I wanted it on Amantara bad enough that I dropped everything just to try for it (and I did the same for the special Wintersaber Mount) to the point that all I was doing was farming rep, only that; just that. I wanted to raid with Amantara, too. But all my time went to farming rep for something that, really, would be nice to have but not essential to what I determined to be my priority. On the flip-side, if you need to farm and there's no quests or your not going to get any mats for anything else... well, bite the bullet and do it. If you REALLY, REALLY need the Sonic Spear and there's nothing easier to get that's almost equivalent, well, run Shadow Labyrinth over and over until you get it. You'll get sick of seeing that bastard Murmur, but you'll get your Spear. BUT, you'll also get reputation for Lower City, and if there's a reputation reward you want from them, all the better- you're being efficient with your time and effort. But, if you don't really need the Sonic Spear and there's no reputation reward, why are you going to see Murmur for the 872nd time?

How do your goals fit in with other's?- So, since raiding is my overarching goal and you can't raid alone, I need to see where my guild is in progression and help out as needed. We want to run Kara but not everyone is keyed. When a person needs to run Steamvaults for the frag, I'm in. I'll drop everything and go. Because, you see, this is efficient for me and my personal goals- I need Cenarion Expedition reputation for my Nethercleft leg armor pattern (which I'll be using myself and the guild for raiding). But, more importantly, the closer someone gets to their Master's Key, the closer I amd in going, too. The best way to interact with the people in your goal is when everyone's goals dovetail and everyone can work together towards them.

Recognize when something costs too much- This is where I'm going to come off as a bastard, sorry. Deal with it. When someone asks you to help, you must weigh the costs and if they're too high, don't help them. Apologize, help them out some other way, be cordial, but don't bother spending your valuable time where the pay-off isn't going to be high enough. Ok, if one of your goals in WoW is to help people, hang out, become friends, that is awesome, you're a better person than I am, but I'm not one of you. Too many times I've helped lowbies only to have them leave the guild, be ungrateful and generally take for granted the time and effort you put into your own toon as if you've leveled to be there for them. I will not help people when they've not leveled into Outland yet; the time it takes going from Nagrand to Winterspring, STV or Un'Goro helping with a quest that will take 25 mins and then waiting for my hearthstone's cooldown to pop just isn't worth my time. And I'll even consider who wants my help. If someone is leveling a healer, I'll drop everything and run them through Ragefire Chasm if they need me. We need healers that bad. If a rogue needs me to run them through Sunken Temple, sorry, find a group, you'll get more experience without me and why are you running it when the time spent could be done questing for more experience and any gear you'll get out of there will be replaced at level 58.
And, this is even more honest (no names), but there are people that I won't help no matter what. They're morons, they don't know their class and are unwilling to learn, they're obnoxious in party chat, they play so badly that if you weren't there on your 70 they would wipe the group. These people are lost causes and unless their attitude changes, I have no time for them.
I'm a bastard, I'm elitist, I'm selfish.

So, there you have it. Define, plan, research efficient methods, know others' goals, don't pay too much for a low pay-off. Then, do it.

More progression

2008-01-13T12:38:00.001-06:00

Ok, so things slowed down with Claz a bit, at least until last night. I ran Black Morass with another guild (Vengeance) and, yes, I'm now attuned to Karazhan!

Then I got all worried again about being properly geared. What did I do? I did research! Big Red Kitty did an article for WowInsider. So, where do we stand?

1. Ranged Weapons- Valanos' Longbow. Check. Though I could try to save for the best scope, I don't think I will since I'm betting this will be upgraded too soon to warrant the cost.
2. Melee Weapon- Crystalforged War Axe. Check. And I have the mats for the +35agil that the good Mr. BRK ~~demands~~ suggests.
3. Wrist, Belt, Chest- Felstalker set. Check, check, check
4. Legs- I have the Beast Lord Leggings. I'm thinking that I'll need to hold onto these but will need to look out for the Leggings of Beast Mastery. The Beast Lord will only be useful for the traps cooldown reduction. Now that I know about these, I'm lusting after them a bit.
5. Hands- I saw the Swiftsteel Gloves on the AH for 500gold. Doh! I'm parying to Elune that the blacksmiths in the guild can make them.
6. Shoulders- UGH! I'll have to PVP for these. Since my plans are changing, I'm SO glad I didn't buy the PVP boots that I thought I'd need. the S1 shoulders look nice! I have the honor banked, now I just need to run AB enough to get 20 marks. I could do that this week EASY.
7. Back- I didn't even see Cloak of the Craft on the AH; and I don't even want to know what it will cost me. I'm hoping what I have now will be good enough.

The rings and trinkets... I seriously doubt if I'll ever have enough money to get what BRK suggests. Especially since I want the 300 Riding skill for a Netherdrake mount.

*sigh* Good thing there's no time limit on my getting this stuff.

Needed upgrades

2008-01-09T04:48:00.000-06:00

The other night a guildie and I got a pug together to try the daily heroic Blood Furnace as a test to see where our gear progression is at. After the second pull, we realized we have a bit further to go. So, using the Armory for research, here's a list of what I think I need in order of importance:

Feet
Have: Duro Footgear
Should get: Not much choice of an upgrade until Kara with Ferocious Swift-Kickers except for the PvP boots Vindicator's Chain Sabatons . I'm glad that all I need to run is The Eye of the Storm since I'm not a big PvPer and this BG is still new to me.

Shoulders
Have: Dragonbone Shoulders
Should get: I'm glad I have a few more choices here. Scorpid-Sting Mantle from The Slave Pens, Beast Lord Mantle from The Steamvault (which I want anyway for the trap cool-down reduction for having two pieces).

Hmm. I guess I'm not doing too badly. I mean, a new ~~attribute stick~~ melee weapon would be nice, but I'm ok with what I have. Now I need to start saving money for enchants and better gems. I was farming for my epic leatherworking set, but until I can access the primal nethers I'm just wasting my time.

Artisan Leatherworking

2008-01-06T18:13:00.000-06:00

So, last night Claz hit 375 Leatherworking. It wasn't easy or cheap, but he got there. Thank goodness for the the Sha'tar and the Drums of Battle! The mats are cheap (well, cheapish) and they'll get you up to 375.

The first thing I did was to go to the Badlands and see Mr. Thorkaf Dragoneye and pick up the patterns for the three Ebon Netherscale patterns and ganked a level 34 gnome warlock on my way. On the way back to the flightpath I saved him from three or four mobs that he could have tackled, but I thought I'd balance things out a little. No, I don't usually gank but I was feeling a little high from having the ability to make these epics and let my self-control go for a second.

Farming the mats for these pieces won't take me too long. I have all the heavy knothide and half the Nether Dragonscales. The Primal Shadow and Primal Fires will take me awhile, but not too long (plus the added bonus of about 12 gold in grey trash whenever I take a break). What's going to take a long time, I think, are the three Primal Nethers. Limited Warranty is just getting to the point where we'll be able to run heroics. Well, I can't really say that since we don't really know where we're at gear-wise since we haven't tried yet. We're going to get a group of guildies together and try Heroic Ramparts. The run should be a good gauge to see where we stand with gear and skill. Gut-wise, I think that we'll do fine.

Not much to report, I guess. Back to farming!

Quick update

2008-01-02T23:27:00.000-06:00

Very quick update, I'm too tired to actually make much sense, but I'll try to hold on as long as I can. Getting up every day at 4:30am is just... wrong.

Got the third key fragment for Kara on a guild run to Arcatraz. There was one wipe (well, is it a wipe if I feigned death?) and this was the first time most of us had been in the instance. Here's a picture showing the party standing proudly over the body of Harbinger Skyriss. Oh! And Ariki got a Primal Nether. Claz got experience with more Misdirection pulls (and the party loved them).

Claz finished the Felstalker armor set and I put some crappy gems on it. Mostly +agil, but I'm a noob and I have no idea if that's what I should be doing. This should hold me for awhile until I can craft the Netherscale Armor. I cheated a little on the farming and used the gold from farming and finishing a couple quests to buy the mats. Oh well. I hate farming.

Yep, that's all that I did tonight. Tomorrow? No idea. If I concentrate on Claz, I need to run Old Hillsbrad (Durn) so that I can get to the Black Morass. But I'll probably keep it low key and run with guildies to catch up on their Kara keys.

Good night!

EDIT: The BRK Forums delivers on the gems.

Claz the Leatherworker

2008-01-01T21:59:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I soloed the Fel Reaver right into Thrallmar and let the guards do my dirty work for me. I now am a proud owner of the Shattered Halls key- at the very least the Marksman's Bow will be in my grasp, and maybe the Blackened Spear, depending on if I get something better than that in my instance running.

Speaking of that, I now have the second Kara key fragment. I did a couple runs of Steamvaults with a pug (wasn't too bad) but our main tank went with (that awesome guy who gave me the Valanos' Longbowq) to get his key fragment, too. Alas, no second piece of Beast Lord.

During this run I whispered Ariki and asked him if he would mind if I practiced my Misdirection pulls with him. He said, "Of course! I forgot you had it." So, when there was no trapping needed for crowd control, the Misdirection pull went really well. When the cooldown was up, the trapping went really well. But, when I had to do both... mixed results. See, I forgot the little bit about Misdirection where it says that the next three attacks transfer the aggro to the person you cast it on. So, hunters, don't do what I did! See if you see my mistake:

Lay down ice trap

Cast Misdirection on tank

Shoot skull with Aimed shot

switch target to blue square

Shoot Distracting shot

turn off autoshoot

Scratch head

Panic

Gah. That's right, I heaped massive amounts of aggro onto the tank from the target I was supposed to trap. Ooops. But, lesson learned and with future guild runs in the making (we're all wanting to get keyed to Kara), hopefully I'll have opportunity for more practice.

Speaking of the guild: Limited Warranty is getting very motivated to start progressing towards raids. Not only did Ariki and I run SV for the key fragment, five other guildies (or was it three?) ran it themselves to get their own fragments. Nice! Guild chat was fun to read as the people who are working towards 70 were asking questions about what they need to be doing, how they can get keyed, what sort of gear they'll need. Looks like Bumwaller and Ariki have a true still-in-the-egg progression guild on their hands. It was fun.

Now, I worked on Leatherworking and got it up to 364. I've started crafting the Felstalker Armor set (just need five more Primal Airs and I'll complete the Chestpiece and be done with it) (by the way, that elemental plateau in Nagrand is an amazing place to farm these. in about three hours of farming I was able to get 5 or 6). Mr. BRK himself gave me some advice on what to craft and I'll be following it. But, the Felstalker set is a slight upgrade (less slight when I get the gems slotted) than my current gear and it also gives me some very needed skill upgrades. Besides, the Netherscale Armor requires three Primal Nethers, which means I need to do heroics, which means I need to gear myself up a bit more and practice, practice, practice. Not only can I craft the Felstalker stuff, but now I can do a Riding Crop (only 7g on the AH for the pattern!) and various drums that may or may not be that good because I'm not paying attention to them yet because they won't skill me up. Also, I did the Dragonscale specialty quest.

All in all, a very productive day for my favorite Hunter. Oh, by the way, I got rid of snookims and have been using whiskers exclusively. You can see us in Limited Warranty's gallery in front of the fel reaver that I so ~~cheaply~~ cunningly killed on my own.

Alas, work tomorrow, so maybe no time to run anything. But I'll get those last Primal Airs for the Fel Stalker chestpiece and run a couple dailies for more gold. By the way, when you hit 70, the gold pours like it's raining soup- bring a bucket!

(P.S. For some reason, Bum's made me the Hunter class leader. Um... /panicmodeon! I need to do more research and start playing other specs at least a little so that if anyone has questions other than about BM hunters I'll at least know what I'm talking about. Or else, I'll point them over to BRK's forums.)

More progress with Claz

2008-01-01T08:24:00.000-06:00

So, the day after Claz hit 70 I started the quest chains for the key for Shattered Halls and to get attuned to Karazahn. I just need to kill a fel reaver for Shattered Halls and I got the first Kara key fragment from Shadow Labyrinth. Not bad for day one of being at the level cap.

I need to start working on my Leatherworking and do the quest for the Dragonscale Leatherworking specialty to craft the Netherscale Armor set, but I think that's more long term. In fact, Mr. BRK himself assured me that the Beast Lord set would be fine enough to get me into Kara. Yes, BRK seems to read this blather.

Once the realm is back up, I'm going to see if I can pull a fel reaver to Thrallmar to see if the NPCs will kill it for me. ;)

Claz dings 70! Claz dings 70!!

2007-12-30T16:40:00.000-06:00

That's right, today at about 11am (my time, not server time because I play on a server on the West Coast while I live in the midwest and there's no way I'm not an egotistical man) Claz dinged 70 while questing in Netherstorm. It was the quest where you take some orb and measure a manaforge just South of Area 52. I turned it in and *bang* dinged 70. And I announced it to Limited Warranty and everyone celebrated. You know, because I need ego stroking...

First thing I did was go to the bank and grab Valanos' Longbow that a guildie gave me. Then I realized that I needed to make myself a new quiver since I was using a gun. Had to farm 5 feathers and then I made it.

Then I hit the jackpot. A group was running The Steamvault and I got three upgrades: The Crystalforged War Axe, Earthwarden's Coif (I hate meta gems!) and... wait for it... Beast Lord Leggings! First piece of my Dungeon Set 3.

Not a bad day for old Claz, eh?

Next? I need to keep running Steamvaults for the Beast Lord legs, Botanica, The Shattered Halls (not just for the Beast Lord hands, but I want to rep stuff from Thrallmar) and The Mechanar.

I really want the Dungeon Set 3. I need to do more research to see if the Beast Lord stuff and the weapons from Thrallmar would get me ready for Karazhan. I might just be too lazy to research and ask the BRK Forums.

Today's runs in Steamvault really helped me get a better understanding of Crowd Control. It was horrible at first, but then it just clicked and there were three or four times where it went perfectly and I was pretty happy with it all.

Now I need to get Misdirection pulling down. The group I was with had feral druid tanks who preferred to use Feral Faerie Fire to pull, and, since I was half-panicked about trapping, I didn't suggest to let me experiment with pulls. Ah well, maybe I'll just go and practice it while grinding. I suspect that I need to find a macro to make it easier.

Ok- now I need to make some food.

Edit: And Claz got his first flying mount last night, too. Man, he's poor now.

O RLY?

2007-12-25T19:53:00.001-06:00

Gnome Warlock

Gnomes are strange little things. Fascinated with gadgets and shiny things, gnomes are often plotting and planning - but are pretty smart, despite all the explosions.

You're a creepy, creepy warlock. You delight in the darker things in life - such as setting people on fire, and delight in the macabre. You'd probably fake your own death just to freak people out by getting up from the casket at your funeral.

Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Leveling updates

2007-12-24T13:17:00.000-06:00

Claz
I played Claz this weekend because he had 150% rested experience and I didn't want to waste that time leveling Hirnek while the hunter's rested didn't go up. I leveling Claz and he's sitting at about 95% to 68 and still has 80% rested experience. I quested purely in Nagrand (which, in my opinion, is the most beautiful spot in the game) and grinded (ground?) on the ogres in the basin around Halaa for rep (I want my Talbuk! I know an orc hunter on a talbuk will look stupid, and I love my Wolf, but the Talbuk is... I dunno how to explain it, I guess).

My goal for Claz is to hit 70 in Nagrand or Blade's Edge Mountains and then do all the rest of the quests in Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley for the gold/rep. Level 70 should take me about a month (because I'm going to be leveling Hirnek, too) and I'll for sure have enough money for the first flying mount right when I hit 70. I'm actually about 50% of the way there now because I don't waste money on AH equipment, enchants or anything else that isn't necessary.

And then? Oh the rep grinds! There are so many rep rewards that I want, not to mention the heroics that I want to get into.

Did I tell you that a guildie gave me Valanos' Longbow? Gave it to me?

Hirnek
Short term goal: Get to Outlands! Then I'll be transferring the toon to the Vashj server and get him into Limited Warranty.

Longish term goal: I need to decide if I'll stay feral or go resto. I think it will depend on the needs of Limited Warranty, whether we need tanks or healers more. Of course I could go both and respec depending on the need of the time, but that will be so expensive.

Long term: Swift Flight Form! (which means rep grind...).

And then?
Oh man, I don't know. Part of me wants to level another alt after Hirnek gets to 70 (well, after a break from leveling, of course), but I have no idea which. I think a mage would be fun (I had a gnome mage up to mid 30s) and a warrior would be nice to have laying around, but from what I hear they're not as fun to play (your mileage may vary). But I think I probably have enough goals with Claz and Hirnek that I don't need to worry about what to do with a new toon in the near future.

L2Forums

2007-12-22T21:39:00.000-06:00

Whenever I got frustrated with Amantara I used to read the forums just to see what I was doing wrong. You see, at first I was convinced that I just sucked playing WoW and went there to get pointers. And then I started reading everything and started to buy into the "Druids are underpowered!" posts by frustrated mid-level druids and the "lol! L2Heal! Innervate me, mana-battery!" posts by... well, just about everyone else. I started to develop a chip on my shoulder and the more I read this stuff, the bigger the chip would get.

Then Burning Crusades came out. Well, then the patch before BC came out and I saw what druids could become. We were suddenly the kings of the jungle! People saw us racing by in cheetah form and would cower in fear, hoping that we wouldn't deign to notice them. Yes, we got stuck up, horribly stuck up. Then the nerf bat came and that was enough. See my introduction post to read about the stupid tantrum I threw. No, I'm not proud of it.

So, learn from me, O young cublings, learn from the mistakes of Papa Hirnek.

Mistake #1: if everyone says something, it is true.
No. Just... no. In this case, everyone was saying that druids suck, that they should just heal, that they're ok for solo boss hunting but if you're with a group, just heal. People have a tendency to post with feelings and not with thoughts, especially when they are frustrated with whatever they're trying to accomplish. You need to take that into consideration.

Mistake #2: everyone's opinion is equal
Why on Earth did I listen to the opinions on my class given by people who didn't play druids? Sure, people have druid alts, but until a person concentrates on something and learns about what they're doing, their opinions aren't as valuable as a more experienced person.

Mistake #3: everyone is helpful
Tying in with #2, I would read posts by people and think that they were trying to be helpful. When a priest would post "Druids should back-up heal and innervate, it's for the good of the raid", I would think they were thinking of the good of the raid. No. Priests don't want their mana-batteries to shred faces- that means they'd have to spend money on more mana pots and work harder keeping the raid healed.

Mistake #4: everyone posts
When I read the forums, I thought that they were a good representation of the players in WoW. No. They are a good representation of the people that post on the forums. The really good druids, they're not posting on the forums nearly as much as the mediocre and bad players- they're busy learning more about their class, researching boss fights and playing their toon!. All of the forums are in desperate need of guidance from the best players. They all need someone to come in and say, "STFU stoopid priest! Druids can tank!" or "STFU lvl 26 druid! L2Play!" We need more of these players to answer questions, point us in the right direction and just be there so that we all can know that the druid is more than viable and that the real thing that separates good druids from bad druids is the exact same thing that separates good players from bad players.

Ok- short little lesson that I had to learn the hard way. I suppose that I was lucky that I made these mistakes on the druid forums where the problems aren't as pronounced and good druids do post and are helpful.

Last bit of advice: if someone says that a druid can't do something, try to prove them wrong! Experience outweighs opinion every time.

Hirnek 29 - 43

2007-12-22T21:00:00.000-06:00

I blew through the 30s and I got Hirnek to 43 today. Leveling with all the changes in experience requirements makes leveling easy! Especially when you use Jame's updated leveling guide. Of course, because he cut out all of the grinding sessions, Hirnek still doesn't have a mount (but I have travel form, so... so what?).

What am I finding? I'm re-discovering my deep love for druids in general. I'm finding that I'm having more fun with Hirnek than with Claz (don't be sad, Claz, you'll get to 70. I promise!). I think my play style fits with the shapeshifting better than with the ranged DPS. I seriously was grinding Claz today while eating: attack mob, pop trinket, let autoshoot fire while fixing my PB&J. I came back, set down the sandwich, attacked another mob while going back to the kitchen for a coke.

No, I'm not saying that Hunters are easysauce. Well, I used to tease a hunter I was guilded with back when I had Amantara about how easy hunters were, but I never really meant it. At the time I had a lot of angst about the state of the druid class and all the love that the hunters seemed to be getting. Yes, I'm still a little raw about how ferals got a huge amount of love when BC came out and then we got nerfed. And, when I really think about it, a level 68 druid with quest reward gear really shouldn't be able to take out a level 64 shaman, 62 warrior and 62 mage. Well, I shouldn't have been able to do it, since I'm so horrible at PvP. But it was still tough to take. I mean, I stuck with Amantara through a lot of teasing because of how terrible ferals were at one point and then when the love pillow (as opposed to the nerf stick) was gently pushed up to our furry little faces...

Anyway. No, I'm not saying that hunters are easy. They're not. They take a lot of skill to properly equip, spec and learn the tactics for. Playing a hunter means a lot of backend preparation and learning before you even go into the instance.

*Cough* Not that I'm saying druids are easy. They're not. Druids take less backend preparation (because there's less itemization? Hmmm...) than hunters, but they're such that you have to be more on your toes and adjust your tactics a bit more. In my opinion!. Hunters seem to have a lot more options to recover if things aren't going the way they plan: the mob comes after you, feign death or intimidate or trap. The mob comes at your druid? Run away!

You see, I think I have a touch of ADD. I'm not a person that can sit back and zone out while I grind, which you can do with a hunter. I need to be jumping around, popping out of kitty, warstomping, moonfiring, casting a HoT, switching to bear, enraging and then pounding the living crap out of whatever dared to raise its fist/claw/tentacle against my nature-fueled fury. Can you tell I used to play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons?

Anyway, there's a lot of camaraderie in the druid community. Just look through the official forums (don't bother with the "nerf druid!!!111!1!" QQ Posts) and you'll see that, for the most part, druids help each other out. Sure, we'll tear into each other in the BGs, but if you play a druid, you're more likely than not to get a /wave and /salute from a passing highbie druid than you would if you played a rogue and another rogue happened by. This is especially true with the old school druids. Those of us that grew up through the "you need to innervate if you want to see MC" period of WoW are more likely to help each other out or at least ignore each other. I mean, go to Moonglade and you'll see a lot of silly bears, kitties, trees and hawt nelf ladies (*cough*) dancing together, lions and panthers all together in a big hippie love fest.

And I get all caught up in that. Amantara would sit and fish in Moonglade for hours. If I noticed a cow druid trying to do his Aquatic form quest, I would lead him to the right spot. I've ganked groups of lowibies but left the druid alone (and even maby do a /lick and /hug while he tried to stick up for his friends). I just get off a bit on the druid.

Ugh. I'm such a WoWNerd.

Why a druid, prt 2

2007-12-11T19:45:00.000-06:00

Big Bear Butt Blogger is now a writer for Wow Insider and his first column is about the fun of being a druid.

OMG! He's gotten me so fired up that I might level my 30ish druid on a different server than Claz is on and then do a character transfer to Vashj (as much as I dislike that server, I really like the guild I'm in.

Go. If you're thinking about rolling a druid, go read the post and you'll see why I'm doing it again.

Oh, and I'm one of the old school druids- I will only fight another druid if they throw the first "punch". Call me sentimental, but druids should stick together.

OMG I want a druid

2007-12-09T22:38:00.000-06:00

Ok- so it's been a while since I've posted, but that's ok since I'm about the only person who reads my rambling (though I think some of the people from Limited Warranty have been here).

I started to read the warcraft forums and... well, I miss my druid! No, I'm not going to delete Claz or anything stupid like that. But I am going to start leveling a druid alt who (I need to be honest about this), will probably end up as my main. I still love the hunter, but I started to remember just how much fricken fun a druid can be. Yes, they can be frustrating. No, I won't top the DPS charts (I'm a feral druid snob [not that I have anything against Boomkins or trees, I think they're just dandy. I just love shredding faces]). No, I definitely won't be a healing powerhouse. But yes, I will be having a blast.

I'm so jealous of Bumwaller's flight form that I can taste it. On Amantara (my old druid) I used to spend hours just flying around, jumping off stuff, farming at top speed and just rushing to the next farming area. I'm getting an envious taste in my mouth just thinking about it. Wait, an "envious taste in my mouth"? WTF sort of metaphor is that? My writing professor would puke if she read that, and she was so beautiful that it would be a shame to make her puke. Hmm... I wonder if she's on myspace. I'll have to find her.

Anyway, back to the Druid love.

And, Claz, this doesn't mean I'll be abandoning you. Don't get worried. You're my first high level horde character!

This is truly becoming a pathetic post. I think I'll stop now.

Leveling as an obsession

2007-11-25T13:46:00.000-06:00

I power-leveled Claz to 60 in about seven days played. No, I don't have a life, girlfriend or any other responsibilities other than paying rent and bills. Shut up.

Now, seven days played to 60 is not a record but I'm pretty damn proud of it, especially when it probably took me 40 days played to get Amantara to 60. How did I do it? I'll explain after a bit of a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER

Don't powerlevel if you're new to the game. I recommend this for a couple reasons. First, you will totally miss out on a lot of what makes this game fun (well, for me. More power to all you "twinks", PvP Gods and gankmasters, but that just isn't my cuppa). You'll miss out on a lot of the storylines that were put into the game. You'll find yourself running Scarlet Monastery and not know how these religious fanatics fit into the world, you'll find yourself wondering why Thrall is sending you on a quest to root out some evil warlocks (as opposed to the "good" warlocks?). I really feel that this turns the game into a more expensive-in-the-long-run Neverwinter Nights (and I like that game). You'll just be going through the motions and it will be easy to fall into becoming one of those outraged number-crunching bastards that no one likes but will run with because they can one-shot Ony.

Second, you won't learn your class correctly. This is an issue that I'm having with Claz and crowd controlling. I leveled this hunter so fast and mostly solo that I don't really have the nuances of traps down and it was an issue. You're going to learn how to work with a group only by working with a group. I think that PVPers don't have this problem to the extent that Raiders have it. In PVP, you need to know your class and be familiar enough wih the other classes so you know how to team up and how to take down. With raiding you need to know the player as much as you know the class.

Third, powerleveling is painful, at least for me. I wanted Claz to be level 60 so bad that I spent a lot of time working on him, doing quests that are annoying, ignoring the tradeskills and not chatting with the many cool people that play this game. It was a lonely, frustrating and exhausting experience. And god help me, I'm going to do it with a priest...
END DISCLAIMER

So, you've decided to powerlevel, how are you going to do it? If you dare to utter the words "pay", "Chinese levelers", or "I don't need to do it, I'll just buy a toon", kindly go away and please delete my blog from your links. Ok, don't. But just don't mention those words within my range of hearing. Here's what I recommend.

1. Find a leveling guide. I used Jame's guide. It is free, very coherent and he breaks things up in bite-size pieces that are completely solo-able and efficient. Live and breath this guide while you're working your character and follow to a "T" his suggestions on add-ons, gearing up, when to group and what quests are worth doing and which aren't. There are other leveling guides out there, but this one really clicked with me and it was free. I don't know about the pay guides and I really wasn't interested in finding pirated guides (and neither should you!). That is the mechanical side of things.

2. Because you're going to be spending a lot of time on things that aren't going to take your full concentration (I mean, how much attention do you need to pay when you're grinding those earth elementals in the badlands, amIright?) I recommend that you have the game's sound turned off. You're not going to need to listen to anything in the game at this point, so don't get burned out on the repetitious sound of that blunderbuss or your wolf howling every 10 minutes. You will have plenty of time to get burned out on those when you're raiding and having to split your attention between many things. Instead, have your favorite media player playing your favorite music (or podcasts. If you're over 18 Kevin Smith's SModcast is a source of much entertainment while you're grinding. Or, play a lot of DvDs. Notice I didn't say watch a lot of DvDs. You're going to be so braindead from running all over Azeroth that you need to feed your mind. I recommend getting DvDs of TV shows you like (House, Deadwood and Battlestar Galactica for me).

3. Get a comfortable chair! You will be wearing a butt-print into the bottom of your chair with all the sitting and shifting. I have a bad back and if I had an uncomfortable chair I would still be bed-ridden.

4. Tell the people in your life that you will be doing this. I am blessed with many people that love me and worry about me if they don't hear from me for a few days. Learn from my mistake- you don't want your friends and loved ones wondering why you fell off the face of the Earth or them showing up at your door with that worried/pissed off look on their face. You're friends know you play Warcraft, don't they?

5. Take a day off for every three days you're power leveling. No, not a day off from work, you need to make a paycheck to pay for internet and the monthly fees, don't you? Level for three days, then on the fourth go to a movie, take a walk with a friend, read a freaking book. Do something other than Warcraft. You don't want to have a spanking-brand-new level 60 that you can't stand to log into because this painful experience is still seared into your neurons.

6. If you have a boy/girlfriend, pay attention to them if they interrupt you. Always maintain your relationships outside of warcraft. Those 3,419 murlocs you need to kill to get the drop will be there in 20 minutes, your girlfriend may not after considering the priority you're placing her into. And give her a good night smooch when she leaves you for your night of powerleveling agony. Sure, this is a bit funny, but you've heard the stories of people getting divorced over one of the spouse's Warcraft habits, haven't you?

7. Remember this is a game! Yes, you're not having fun from 1 - 60, but you're setting yourself a goal and the fun will start when you get off from the leveling train and you stop to smell the felweed. If you're getting frustrated and annoyed, take a longer vacation from the game. Like I said, those 14,761,991 murlocs are still going to be there when you get back.

There, that is Claz's guide to powerleveling and managing the agony of playing a game in a way that isn't fun for the moment. But when you get to that first raid, you're going to see how it paid off.

I love my Snookims

2007-11-25T12:32:00.001-06:00

Hunters, we love out pets, right? And I'm not just talking about how much we love the Cat's DPS or the Boar's stun or the Gorilla's "please ignore that orc filling your face full of lead, pay attention to me!" AOE stomp aggro inducer. I'm talking about our unhealthy love for our animal companions.

I decided to try out a ravager (and I named the cute little hydralisk face-chewer "Snookims") and let Whiskers the Frostsaber Cub take a much needed rest in the stables. Now, I am in love with the little tyke who I'm raising to love eating mobs' faces. I think that skin is the most attractive cat skin out there, though the Springpaw [lynxskinyellow] skin is a close second. Yes, when I'm playing I make my own stories about my pets. Deal with it.

But there's a toss-up between a cat and a ravager speaking of pure DPS. Some hunters like that the ravager has a bit more armor and they swear by the Dash/Gore combo. Me? I liked the Dash/claw combo. But I was always put off by the ravager's look. I mean, that's why I used to play female toons (despite all of the offers to cyber and the A/S/L questions)- you're going to spend a lot of time looking at the back of your toon, so why not pick a toon that you're going to like looking at?

Claz, you need a girlfriend!

Shut up, you. Don't mess with my pseudo-sexual feelings for blood elves!

*cough* But hunters, we have another consideration to take into account- do you like the way your pet looks? Sure, the cat is a DPS monster and the Scorpid makes people cry in Arenas (so I've heard, I've never been), but does this DPS machine or tear-inducing poison flinger annoy you?

I don't care about looks, nooblet! I want the numbers and math! I want to squeeze out the very last fraction of DPS out of this pixelated extension of my ability to destroy other pixelated mobs who drop fake money and give me reputation with fictional groups of people that will give me the phat lootz that will give me bigger numbers so that even bigger numbers flash across my screen while I suck down Mt. Dew and Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch Doritos!

Ah, you totally fell into my trap, Mr. God-Among-Hunters! Mwa-ha-ha! For me, Warcraft isn't an extension of my Epeen. For me, Warcraft is a way for me to escape for a few hours the drudgery of everyday life. I like to play Warcraft. It's fun. It's fantasy. And to me, having an annoying pet just because he does 0.054% more damage just isn't worth it.

Take a look at the Scorpid. This thing freaks the hell out of me. And I will never have a spider pet. Never. Spiders are the embodiment of Satan's ability to affect the world. Why would I want to spend the hours I play Warcraft looking at something that gives me the heeby-jeebies?

C'Mon, Claz. Is the Ravager more attractive? I mean... look at it- it's so alien and gross and it's shriek is like nails across the chalkboard!

Yes. I know. And the cat is beautiful and it roars majestically and I will probably never get rid of Mr. Whiskers. But, my god, that ravager is just freaking cool looking! I love the animations when it attacks. And, get ready for the geek-out, the idea that this thing that looks like it is built to pounce on something, gore it a couple times and then rip out it's intestines to have a bit of a snack will consider Claz as it's best friend is just... I don't know. I just get off on it a little (weird statement, especially when you consider what I was saying about Blood Elves above).

Wait a minute! I read your post about raids and how you need to change your playstyle to fit into a raid, you military-wanna-be!

Math time!

Ravager: Best Stat: Damage (DPS: +10%, AR: +5%, HP: -7%)

Cat: Best Stat: Damage (DPS: +10%, AR: +0%, HP: -2%)

So, the DPS bonus is the same, the ravager has more armor but less health.

Claw (Rank 9): Claw the enemy, causing 54 to 76 damage. 25 focus.

Gore (Rank 9): Gores the enemy, causing 37 to 61 damage. This attack has a 50% chance to inflict double damage. 25 focus.

So, Claw and Gore are equivalent cost- and proc-wise. But look at that sweetness of the double damage chance with Gore. That means 50% of the time, Snookims will be doing 55.5 - 91.5 damage.

I'll probably follow BRK's guide to Wow Web Stats and get the actual numbers and make a more informed choice. But I think I have the time to do the testing and level them both to 70 (with myself along the way, of course) and then take a good long look. But until then, I'm still liking the idea of the ravager snuggling up to Claz at night.

Besides, have you seen them swim?

The Underbog (1st of many times, I think)

2007-11-25T10:50:00.000-06:00

Last night the guild ran The Underbog to get us noobs rep, exp and to gear us up. First off, Limited Warranty is one of the very few guilds that I've been part of that actually help you out. Sure, there are a lot of guilds that do help you, guilds that will craft stuff for you and loan you gold and are a fun group of people to chat with to help you through the tedium of farming mats to level your leather working and if you think about how you'll need to kill about 6,482,132 more Helboars just to get one more Fel Hide you'll go crazy and delete your character, donate your money and then switch sides on a new server... erm, never mind.

So, the guild ran us through Underbog and I like that we're doing these instances together. The tank and the healer are both level 70 and I'm sure they had more important things to do, but they're taking their time out to level and gear the rest of us so that we can start running the heroics and maybe take a stab at Kara. The most important thing that we're doing isn't getting the gear, exp and rep. We're learning how to work together.

Have you been in a guild where everyone is a solo artist and when you try to run stuff together you have no idea what the other people are going to do and you get the attitude of "F this, I'm going to make sure I live through this!" attitude? No, me either. *cough*

But I found myself starting to gel with the group. I started to learn how the tank/puller (until I get Misdirection, after which I'm going to convince them to let me do the pulling. See BRK's two posts on Misdirection for more info [pt.1] [pt.2])... Where was I? Oh yeah, I learned how the tank likes to pull and how the GM (an amazing Boomkin who can heal like nothing) will heal the pet (which made me more aware of keeping Mend Pet up, I don't want to be the cause of him going OOM).

Second of all, I really enjoyed myself. I really started to gain an instinctual feeling for the hunter class instead of having to process every decision and losing that 1 second to a decision rather than casting Intimidation so that Snookims can pull the mob off the druid long enough for the tank to peel him back.

Thirdly, and this is something that everyone learning their class needs to do, I asked for feedback from the GM. I did it in private chat, not because I was afraid people would rip me a new one, but because I wasn't interested in compliments or accolades, but in honest feedback. Bum told me that I need to work on my trapping and crowd control. A very fair assessment, one that I agree with 100%. So, I'll be reading more BRK (man, am I a fanboy yet?) and watching his videos and then practicing my crowd control.

Ok, who am I to scold people, what do I know since I'm still learning the hunter, and most of all, this is a game! But. When you're raiding everyone needs to know your role and shut your mouth. Nothing will kill a raid faster than someone not knowing how to change their play style for the raid's benefit, unless it's someone questioning the raid leader's decisions. Raids are not democracies. The minute you're in the instance, you need to be in a military-mindset and you follow the orders of the raid leader first, your class leader second, and no one else third. What does that have to do with the above? You cannot follow the orders of the RL or CL if you don't know your own class. The order to pull the Red "X" comes and you start fumbling for that macro or the order to trap the blue square comes and you set the trap too close to where they're going to AOE the other mobs, and what do you get? A lot of angry people, possible raid drama and you're going to be looked at in a different light.

And hunters, we're a dime a dozen- no, a dime a gross. If you mess up enough, your raid spot is going to go to someone who may not be as well geared as you but they know their class and it's role and can follow orders. And what's the point of wanting to raid if you find yourself on the back-up raid list or not on the list at all?

But Claz, what mad loot did you get?

The Tracker's Belt (drop)

Dark Cloak of the Marsh (quest reward)

Introduction

2007-11-25T10:15:00.000-06:00

This is not a blog to learn how to be a hunter. If you're looking for tutorials or answers or how-to's please check the links, especially BRK, who has taught me a lot.

Well, Claz, what am I doing here?

Well, if you like stories about noob hunters who are taking until the mid-60s to actually really learn their class, well welcome.

My first level 70 was a Nelf druid named Amantara on the Detheroc realm. But let me tell you, druids are awesome but they're a little frustrating to play, especially when you're a feral druid and people get angry at you for not being able to keep them healed when they aggro the whole instance. I didn't mind healing at all, and I even gathered a pretty respectable set of healing gear (and, despite all of the feral pride I felt and my 100% support for players to play their toon however they want, druids have to be willing to heal when called upon). But, seriously, ferals can't heal that well and you need to be with a patient group who understand that and are willing to take it easy and really watch their aggro.

Yeah. You can see where the frustration comes from, eh?

So I took a few months off, came back to Amantara and realized that I was at a dead end with her. I wasn't willing to respec because resto druids are a pain to farm with and I just don't like the attitude most people have about healers. There's a very strong tendency for people to look at healer toons as their personal walking healing pots and get very angry when you decide to heal the tank instead of the rogue. Gah. I'm getting frustrated again.

One day I decided that I wanted to join the horde. And I'm not one to do things half-way (well, I am, but in this case I wasn't) so I sharded and sold everything, dotated 1000 gold to my guild, repaid a couple people for favors that they did me, sent all the enchanting mats I had to other players as a goodbye gift and deleted Amantara.

It was the most liberating experience that I've had connected to a video game.

I've always liked hunters. My very first toon was a Dwarf hunter who is still floating around in one of the realms. I got frustrated with him, though, and at first I thought that it was because of the class (Amantara soon followed), but it was really because I was a nooblet and had no idea what I was doing or how to level or "what the hell is ranged attack power" and "why isn't my bear tearing through the mobs like that hunter's cat?".

In my new realm of Vashj (more on my frustrations with the realm later) I thought, "Why not?" and rolled an orc hunter. I was going to roll a troll, but (and this is proof that I'm not a hardcore player) it boiled down to looks. I just think that the orc hunter looks more bad-ass than the other races. And I love the background story of the horde and their struggle to find a place in the universe despite all the other races' and creatures' attempt to put them in their place. Excuse the language, but I love the horde's "fuck you" attitude.

So, Claz was born and I looked for a leveling guide. I decided early that I wanted to be a raider on a PvP server (more on my masochism later) and you just can't raid until level 70. I power-leveled Claz to 60 in about seven days played and slowed down after I hit Outlands to enjoy it. Yes, I love Outlands. I love the setting, the effort Blizzard put into the looks, the storylines, everything.

And that's the background story of Claz, the toon that I'm in love with. In a very hetero way.

Rage against the Lich King

a month in pictures

Oh my god, just release that patch already!

Okole asks a good question

"Fishin's fer sissies"

I'm broke...

10 days means many changes

Updates

Grinding weekend, day 2

Grinding weekend, day 1

12 Sept- updates

Quick update

Hellfire is the new Barrens

The question has been answered

Planning for the future

My eyes have melted and are running down my cheeks like hot wax

Outland awaits... but it needs to be patient

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

PvP and the lock

5 months? Wow...

Arenas week 2

More lootz

Gear Analysis 11March08

Another short post- gear I gots

Karazahn 10March08- What I learned

On the road to T4 gear

Changing your mind is expensive

Kara 4March05

BBB and raiding- USMC style

Gear progression, well... sort of

Arenas are kind of fun

1st night of Karazahn

You can't always get what you want...

Phat lootz and planning

Again with the druid

Getting ready for Kara

Holy great mamma-jamma!

Balancing WoW and RL

Shiney new pants!

What you love/hate most about your class

Oh, oh.

Things I want (and sometimes get)

Claz sucks... well, *I* suck playing Claz

So much to do... not sure I want to, though

And.... I'm back.

If you can't beat them...

Alt-itis, or the danger of getting frustrated

I like WoW Web Stats, too

I like dailies

Zul'Gurub

Shattered Halls, how I love thee. And hate thee, too

Gear progression

Scary times, they are a-comin'

How to seriously have fun (no... seriously)

More progression

Needed upgrades

Artisan Leatherworking

Quick update

Claz the Leatherworker

More progress with Claz

Claz dings 70! Claz dings 70!!

O RLY?

Leveling updates

L2Forums

Hirnek 29 - 43

Why a druid, prt 2

OMG I want a druid

Leveling as an obsession

I love my Snookims

The Underbog (1st of many times, I think)

Introduction

Claz sucks... well, I suck playing Claz