a month in pictures

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!

I'm broke...

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

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!!!

Gear progression, well... sort of

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.

1st night of Karazahn

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 :)

Getting ready for Kara

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


2. 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.


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


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


5. 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.


6. 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!

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!

And.... I'm back.

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.

Alt-itis, or the danger of getting frustrated

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.

1. 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.


2. 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...


3. 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.


4. 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?

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

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:

1. 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.


2. 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.


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


4. 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

• 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'

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:

1. 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").


2. 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.


3. 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.


4. "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?

More progression

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.

Quick update

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.

1. 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).


2. 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

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:

1. Lay down ice trap


2. Cast Misdirection on tank


3. Shoot skull with Aimed shot


4. switch target to blue square


5. Shoot Distracting shot


6. turn off autoshoot


7. Scratch head


8. 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

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. ;)