A Pony?

     
Picture from MMO-champion 




So, I only see the Pegasus, the Paladin flying mount....  


And yeah...   I took it. Like I am NOT going to play another year at least.

Mists of Blizzcon

So, Blizzcon has happened, and yesterday was the lore/art en general question-hours. Let me fill you in on somethings I found remarkable or strange.


First of all, the did not mention one possible legendary, but two. One is probably the Crown of Menethil, which would be the first non-weapon legendary? And there was some talk about a legendary Shield, but... wel, they will be coming soon®, like most news....


There was some talk concerning altism. First, sending heirlooms accros servers is something they want to do, but is technically very difficult, ..our servers don't speak well with each other.. And then there was this:

I have 10 characters, will you add an 11th slot so we can have all 11 classes?
Not sure just yet, might keep the current character cap but let you have them on any realm, so you can have many many charaters on one realm.

Really? Reaaally? Would that just make server overcrowded, or are they expecting people will not run to popular servers. Well, they could do that now I guess. This would at least let me use my heirlooms again on an army of alts.

Some more news about hurricane also be usable in Lunar, well, they better buff the damage then. Currently Hurricane is not that good (understatement), although I sometimes use it, when I am feeling lazy, and just want to watch for several seconds...before I need to replace shrooms.

Some talk about moonkin-form, and looks from all the races, but that doesn't seem to have a high priority.

They are also eleminating all ranged slots (thrown/relics/wands/bows/guns), and removing hunter-melee (finally). How that works out, we'll have to see. They did mention something about quivers and relics becoming visible, so they may become like guild-tabards? Something you wear for something else then stats?

There was some definately NO said about getting other size raids (like 15/20-mans mentioned on the blogospehere), so they seem to stick to the 10/25 sizes, with 3 raid-difficulties.

Mmm, I was sure I read somewhere something about Pandaren Druids. Because Pandaren do not hate, how can they be warlocks, and not be Druids. The answer was something regarding other descisions, and slapping the team on monday.... I am going to start praying now  :p

MoP, Ragnaros, Class act and 250...

Oh my, 250 posts. I don't know if I should congratulate myself or /facepalm myself. So what to write about....  mind you, I have been thinking about that for 2 weeks now. But yesterday Blizzcon started, and now news is all flowing around, and I had some things done last week. So let's put some random screenies up.

I present to you, the Tauren Monk. A new class, and a new race, but no Pandaren Druids, damn. I had hoped to get out of Nelf-form someday. The Nelf female form is the one I find the least stupid, so.  Monks seem to be a melee-type healer with energy/focus. So, not only do I feel like a Rogue when I am playing with Holy Power, but now I can actually be a Paladin-Rogue?


Some other things worth mentioning is the fact that obscure achievements, like 'Champion of the Naaru' (I hope) will become account-wide. Oh, and of course the revamped, tuned down talent-tree, so there will be no more cookie-cutter specs....yeah...right... I don't believe that for a moment. There will be talents that will be much more helpfull on different bosses, so methinks we will meed different specs for different bosses, hello theory-crafting.

New heroic versions of Scholomance and Graveyard+Cathedral and Armory+Library. Yes combined. That will be fun, especially the posts that'll be coming because someone pulled the boss in cathedral without clearing the adds. Or the melee that will be dying to whirlwind.


My first reaction is mildly positive towards the whole panda-concept and other changes. But, I think there will be a lot of tweaking ahead. Especially for the druid-talent-trees. As 'Restokin' noted, a talent that automatically transforms me to a cat, while I am tanking.... oops.

Yup, that's me, looking strangely at the hat sitting on my spot. Who put that there? Oh, holiday...great. Like I want to do that, well actually, I did some on my now lvl74-holydin for the extra xp. And that buff for using the bonfire is nice. But really, take that hat away, that's our hang-out spot blizz....

Oh look, Ragnaros. I finally killed him last tuesday, on 10. In 25 to many people where dying to .... welll... I don't really know. With one hour left, the raid was converted to 10, to get the loot. And I was selected, Yay. Only, they didn't tell me they had a different strat on 10, so I had to learn that on the run. But, I only died once prematurely.  On the actual kill. Oh yeah, druids can also detonate the traps... right...kitty went splat  :(. But I was B-rezzed, and no one died after that.

This is Innovation, on 25, preparing for Ragnaros.... something tells me, we may have a little too much druids in the raid. Hint: It's not because a mage decided to mirror one, it's the other seven....  like seven sins. That would make me...ooh, let's not go there  :). But, with that in mind, I did started levelling a holydin. Maybe I will go that route in MoP. But that depends on a lot of things, do we need one (at this moment I would say yes), how are they gonna play, how are boomers going to be... and it is still a ong way till that... so the future is wide open... tanana...nanana...naaa.


And closing this 250th post of me, I'd like to thank an old WoW-friend of mine. Apparantly he had a redeem-code he wanted to give away, so I got a little present, although now it seems to pop up on all my alts also  :)

Oh yeah, maybe I should tell something about that class-act....  one picture is higher up. But it is fun to do lower dungeons with guildies, and picking up some guildfirst  :). But we are overpowdered. Lower dungeons are not made for a group of people who know each other, and so we are normally running the highest dungeons we can enter. And that all for an extra bank-slot.... and the fun ofcourse.

Happy second Blizzcon-day, let's see what more info will be thrown at us.

Rolling on.

Remember this one?

What is it with me getting back to sometimes long forgotten alts? Oh yeah, severe case of altism. Mariandel has had a rocky road. I don't even remember which server she started on, but I do know I sent her away to another server and brought her back. Last 6 months she was my AH-alt, but...well..brewfest happened.

So, after some runs to Coren, she had two trinkets and two beerkegs to hit stuff. And because she is also a skinner/enchanter, I went looking for dust/essences and shards, completing all zones in cata. With that combination of professions she is a very good supporting character for Mardah. And the fact that Mariandel is a mail-wearer, Mardah can do something back....

Talking about Mardah,

I had a very succesfull raid last thursday. I picked up a nice looking staff, got revered with the Avengers of Hyjal, and got my tier-pants. Although I forgot to bid on a necklace.... nature called, and I didn't noticed it in the loot, probably because it is not BiS, but alas, can't have it all.

After I got the staff, we had a break, and a quick trip to the reforger, almost reforging everything to haste, and my first 'free' enchant from the guild, I was a staff-wearer Tsj-kin. Innovation wiped two times on trash... the trash before Alysrazor, yeesh, large aggro-range on those. But we managed to do the first five bosses without much hassle.

With my new pants, I broke my T11-bonus. I don't know yet if that is a good thing, or that I should keep it. It would be much easier if I got my hands on one of these new LW-recipes, but the AD-AH doesn't seem to have them, and they didn't drop for Innovation yet. And no, I am not paying 24k for the ready-made things.

I had a little break from raiding last week due to work-stuff, but Innovation did down Majordomo, and killed ragnaros on ten. So if I get to raid Sunday and Tuesday, I'll probably also see their deaths.

Oh, and let me just hit a little remark on the new patch... A lot of quests in Outlands will now be available inside the dungeon..thank god. I really was getting bored flying all over the place to get those. Now I only hope that they are going to do something about the escort-quests still present in some dungeons. It is frustrating to follow Thrall, while you are not on the quest, because someone was selfish.....

Adding up....

Sheep the Diamond

Ok, let's see

Argent Dawn
With my former main Gowron (153d4h2m) and my current main Mardah (55d8h6m), AD clocks in at a grand total of 268 days 23 hours and 10 minutes (probably more by the time anyone reads this).

The Sha'tar
One of the send-away realms, Lamars the rogue is there with almost 12 days, and it's clocking in at around 12 days.

Steamwheedle Cartel
Another send-away realm. Cymar the lock (8 days) and my undead hunter Vornik (1 day 19 hours) are staioned there, clocking in at around 11 days.

Ghostland
My former main realm. Most of it is gone, but still around 15 days.

Others
And then there are the realms where I only have 1 character, or there are the chars I have disbanded (most notably a 72-paladin and a 40-mage). And the fact that I also had access to another account sometimes. Let's estimate that on around 15 days, seems reasonable with the levels gained.

So, that would made it around...mmmm...310 days I played world of Warcraft..... that's about 10.5 months.

End of summer, or....

So, the nerf-bat hit Firelands. And Innovation finally killed some more bosses with 25 (or 22). The problem is two-sides, do I think we needed the nerf? The answer is both yes and no.

No, we didn't needed the nerf.

To understand this, you first have to know the guild, which I think I do now, after 9 months. Innovation has a lot of ex-HC-raiders. People who don't actually want to be put in that situation anymore. Been there, done that. And to top that of, there are a few parents in the guild. So on a normal raiding night, Innovation has a lot of breaks. I think we normally only pull a boss thrice an hour, and that is considered fast then.

Actually, thinking about trash, 2 an hour is probably more logical. That means we are not fast, and we are not looking at heroics. We just want to kill some internet-dragons sometimes. Keep in mind, this is not an excuse to not perform! We just have a very relaxed pace. And with that pace, we had 3 bosses down, before the nerf. But, we were also running T11 till 2 weeks ago to gear up people. We would have been further probably, but...

Yes, we did need the nerf.

It's not like we couldn't kill Alysrazor. It was the high turnover that prevented us. As mentioned, Innovation was 3/7 pre-nerf, but only Shannox was killed with 25 (first kill even with only 21). Both the spider and the big guy where done on 10-man. The last few weeks had only about 18 people signing on. So our fearless leader had no choice to go with 10-mans to actually get some raiding done.

Interlude: Kudos to our fearless leader to actually bench herself last monday. Not many guildleaders/raidleaders do that.

I think the 10-mans had around 12 pulls on the bird before the nerfbat hit. And we were almost there, so the guild didn't needed the nerf.... but the guild also needed it. Last thursday we had a full 25-man raid to Firelands for the first time in a long time. And we killed 4 bosses, picking up the 25-kills for the spider and the big guy with a one-shot. And a genuinly first guild-kill, after 4 wipes, of Alysrazor.

Yesterday, we had a new boss to try, the fire-dude. And after some jokes about 'Thou shall not pass', and 4 wipes later, we downed him. The kill itself was messy, with 3 soakers and one tank going splat, but we did it, with 22 people... so... again, some short.

I have a nagging feeling why that is happening... I think I have seen that before.

On another note,
I hit the transmogrification-band-wagon, and am now the proud owner of the T2-recolered TBC-set. It may turn up on some of the screenies on the guild-website.....

It's coming....

Of course, within 24 hours of my 'what is coming post', the information is starting to leak :P

First up was Ghostcrawler with the threat-change (which is already live). At first I was sceptical about this, more stuff to make it easier on dps, now they don't even have to watch their threat. But then I thought of the amount of times I was threat-capped in heroics, because I overgeared the tank that much, that my third thick from Moonfire almost pulled aggro of him.

This change makes it easier for tanks to hold aggro, and not get that 'what-did-I-do-wrong'-feeling. It may even be more effective then the extra rewards for tanks, because they can hold aggro, and not get blamed by the overzealous dps for losing it.

Then there was an interview on a german site, mmo-champion has the translation. First surprising news for me was that patch 4.3 will bring Deathwing. So, unless they do a Sunwell on us, that will be the last patch, and patch 5.0 should come a lot earlier then late 2012 then, probably in the summer?

There was some talk about an Abyssal Maw-raid, but that's been cancelled. Now, I don't know when it was cancelled, but probably some work was done to it. I also would like to know how long it takes to make an expansion. Both TBC and Wrath lasted for almost two years. I suppose 4.3 will come out around december, just like the ICC-patch did in wrath. So normally speaking, patch 5.0 should be out in the summer. If Cata is also going to last almost two years, prepare for another ICC-summer, where alts will be flying around.

Patch 4.3 will also include three new dungeons, including one in Caverns of Time, and they shouldn't be revamps. I wonder, will they require Ilvl352 orso to enter? Just like the Troll-heroics have a higher entry-gear-level?

And there was some news on the ethereals. The Transmogrifier will let you change your gear-appearance. Now, I don't know about this one. Will it be a complete rainbow in raids? And the news about the Void Storage can maybe be included in this one, a place to store absolute gear. So, you can transmogrify your gear to your voidstoraged gear?

Personally, I don't see the need for the voidstorage, but that's because I already deleted so much gear in the past.... If this would have come earlier, Gowron could actually have used it. Mardah is completely different, because I only started playing her at the beginning of cata, she doesn't have much gear... well, she does have the Druids of the Fang-set :p

...waiting for more news...

What is coming?

I don't think I have been in this position before, the utter lack of information of stuff to come. In all the time I have this blog running, I always had some info what was coming in the next patch/expansion, but it seems there is so little information out there, that I just have to sit back... and relax.

What do we now know about the future?

Mists of Pandaria
Ok, we do now the name of patch 5.0. There are two camps it seems. One hoping for a Pandarian-race, and one expecting a Hero-class healer, like the Death Knight was in Wrath (Monk anyone?). My money is on the hero-class for two reasons. First, we already had two new races in Cata, and second, who to give the pandas, alliance or horde??? One will feel shafted. Of course, with the screenshot-guys, the other new race could be ethereal....

The screenshot-guys
Look it up, it has 3 Ethereals standing in what appears to be a house in Stormwind. The most interesting of the three is the 'Void Storage', will this be an inter-realm-Bind-on-account-bank?

Patch 4.3
Blizzards stated that there will be a new dungeon and a new raid, but to where, no idea. This one is most surprising, normally we have a lot of information about what is coming in the next patch, but not now.

Patch 4.last
We kill Deathwing. Being the poster-child of this expansion, we know we are going to kill him sometime... soon®.

That's it, 4 little pieces of information... t-t-t-that's all folks.

Keep Asking Mr. Robot

So, now I am inclined to do a follow-up post. My last post was semi-scrutinized my Mr. Robot on some faults I made. Let's see if he is right :P

3. Mr. Robot does handle mastery right, and I believe the rounding issues with mastery have all be patched out of the game now.

This one had me scratching my head, did I miss a patch-note somewhere? Now I could try to find it, or I could just watch at the numbers of wrath when I was in solar, and reforge something to mastery, while staying in the 13.5-14% range.... oops, he is right. It seems the damage indeed in-/decreases, even with just a little more/less mastery in the 0.5% range.

2. Mr. Robot does not favor, or disfavor socket bonuses, it all comes down to math for him

Well, I actually knew this, I just...rrrmm... seem to forgot it when I made the post, because I actually put that under the 'use-brain'-catagory... But let's get to this a bit better then. You can actually set how important each stat is. Default gives intellect a 2.97-rating, while spirit is on 2.4. That is not a big difference, and with these numbers 30 spirit will be better then 20 intellect, hence why it seems Mr. Robot favors gem-bonuses.

Now, as a Boomkin, I know my most important stat is intellect, the priority goes something like 'Intellect > Spirit/Hit (till 17%) > Haste >>> Mastery >>>>>>> Crit >>>>>>>>>everything else'. with that notion, all guides say; gem intellect and reforge to hit. Don't gem for hit, unless the socket-bonus is 20 intellect per non-red gem. This is also important, because you can't reforge to intellect, the only way to get more intellect is getting higher Ilvl-gear, or red gems.

Each class has his own very important stat. Melee-plate has Strength, Hunters/Enhance-shammies/Rogues have Agility, and all caster-dps has intellect. So to make this stat more important, you should give it a higher rating in Mr. Robot. I just set the number for intellect on 5 (twice as high as spirit), so that he will always favor red gems, unless of course the gem-bonus is 20 int/non-red socket. You can do the same for you premium-stat.

I now only have one little problem, it is called spellpower. Now SP only sits on weapons and trinkets these days. On weapons it doesn't matter, but with the trinket-slots it becomes more important. Do you want a trinket w/o intellect, but with more spellpower, or one with intellect, with a mastery-proc.

My personal favor always goes to having at least one Intellect-trinket, because, you can not reforge to intellect. And it seems that with putting the number on 5, Mr. Robot agrees.... but maybe I should also put a higher number on spellpower, because of the same reasoning. Use your brain...

1. Mr. Robot does actually account for set bonuses. When it comes to druids, resto/boomkin often do trade off - it's all a stats game

I already said that the stats on the resto-pieces seem to be better then the balance-pieces, the difference is the bonus. 2pT11 gives a 5%-crit bonus to your Moonfire and Insect Swarm. So I found it hard to believe that the resto-pieces where better. So I digged a little deeper, and found that Mr. Robot favors the chest and legs over the resto-pieces, so you do get the bonus. (I concur that the current 4pT11-bonus is not worth taking). Also, if you put the filter on T11-gear only, the whole thing shifts again, and indeed goes towards the balance-set. So the problem lies with T12.

Current theorycrafting says that you should go for 2pT11+2pT12, which seems ok. The problem lies that the 2pT11 bonus probably is not worth taking on a single target, but increases with more targets. My guts tells me that the difference on single-target is probably only about 100dps, so unless you are in a Hardcore-raiding guild, it is probably not that high of a difference.

TL;DR
1. They are right with their corrections.
2. I am still right with my hit-comment, but that's another discussion.
3. It is an excellent tool. Mr. Robot gives you a setup with your current gear which min/maxes you. It tidies up your reforges, which will get out of control, if you don't do a total-reforge once in a while, and it also does the little things, like reforging mastery->hit on one piece, while doing hit->mastery on another to get you closer to hit-cap. But do set your premium-stat high.

Ask Mr. Robot

Because of the recent FL-raid, I looked again at my gear, and where I maybe could improve even more. Now I had been aware of a site for sometimes, but really never used it that much. The site is Mr. Robot.

This site does about the same thing the now abonded be.imba.hu did, except for the whole guild-scan. It shows you where you maybe should use other enchants/gems/reforges. And as extra, also has a nice list of BiS-items. Here's the link my character:

Mr. Robot breaking down Mardah

Now there are some things to remember. Most Importantly: Do Not Leave Your Own Brains At The Door. There are a few problems with Mr. Robot, not that bad though.

If you look at the BiS-slot of some of the tier-slots (head/shoulder/chest/hands/legs), Mr. Robot has the tendency to place the resto-kit higher then balance-kit for Balance-druids. So, it doesn't take into account the set-bonus. Let's look at the legs, according to Mr. Robot, the Resto-legs should give a potential dps-increase over the balance-legs by 90dps. Which I should remember, if I ever get flooded with Valorpoints... then I should probably purchase them.

Through some testing, it also seems Mr. Robot favors gem-bonuses, in my link, you see a red square around the 2 red gems in my chest. If I optimize, Mr. Robot puts two Purified Demonseyes in there, lowering my Intellect with 30, but gaining 40 spirit. I myself don't consider that a good trade-off, so I kept the reds, and didn't reforge my Off Hand away from hit. Which also presents another problem of Mr. Robot.

In some of the set-ups I tried, Mr. Robot lets me reforge/gem towards 1740/1741 hitrating, while I need 1742 to be capped. Now you can speculate a lot about whether a 0.01 or 0.02% chance to miss will actually matter, but I just can't live with that. Murphy's Law clearly states that 'If something can go wrong, it will go wrong', so here my brains took over, and edited the result of Mr. Robot. So I am now at 1750 hitrating, which means I loose 8 stat-points, but at the same time, I know I will not miss for sure.

And last hiccup has to do with mastery. Now mastery works in a strange way. You only get an increase in bonus at every half-point percentage. so 13.51% mastery will give the same bonus as 13.99%. That is something Mr. Robot doesn't see, he thinks mastery is better then crit (which is true), and will want to reforge you to highest percentage mastery as possible. So if you find yourself close to such a breakpoint after reforging, consider to actually lowering your mastery, for some extra crit probably.

Now, I didn't only spot little mistakes my Mr. Robot. I also had some little surprises. First off, according to the BiS-list, the Darkmoon Card: Volcano is listed as the best for even T12. Now I wasn't tempted to buy it pre-patch 4.2. My Dps was high enough, but with the min/maxing state I was in.... and it only costed me 4.5k.

The other strange thing was that Mr. Robot favored the Helm of the Blind Seer over my T11-head (and the resto-head even higher). Now I don't have 4pcT11, and to be honest, the bonus was nerfed that hard, that I actually don't consider taking it even (not that I have the shoulders, but alas). But at first sight, I would say the Seer-helmet is worse then the T11-piece, because the latter has a lot more haste. The problem lies in the fact that it also has no spirit. If I equip the T11-piece, I should reforge my haste away on the DMC:Volcano, and some mastery on other sets, resulting in a 0.24% haste loss, and 1% mastery-loss. So the seer-head is better in my current-gear setup.

I also considered buying the resto-head, but next week I will buy my T12-gloves, and then the T11-head comes back for the bonus. The result of two days min/maxing and theorycrafting, and the fact that I got my T12-chest last night, is an increase of around 60 intellect, 2,4% Haste, 2% Mastery, and a loss 1.75% crit. Now don't think that comes mainly due to the T12-chest. That one is mostly responsible for the int-increase. After replacing the Scorched Wormling Vest with the T12 last night, the net gain was 0.34% Haste and 1% Mastery, so most of the Haste-increase came to smarter reforging.

TL;DR
1. Mr. Robot doesn't see Set-Bonuses
2. Mr. Robot tends to favor gem-bonuses
3. Mr. Robot doesn't always put you over hit-cap
4. Mr. Robot doesn't understand Mastery
but most importantly off course, I tend to get a bit confused after reforging every time, and Mr. Robot will clear that up for you. First time I checked, almost all my reforges where red. This comes mainly due to getting new gear, and not reforging all your gear, but only some to get over the hitcap again. Leaving you with a sub-optimal setup.
5. Mr. Robot will clear up your reforges
6. Don't leave your brains at the door.

[RED: due to the response I had, I re-read my article, and should state that I indeed not counted for the statweight-option although 'use brain' accounts for that a little, read the response :p]

Going into Firelands: Shannox

And there is the wall again.

After two weeks farming trash, pulling some bosses just to see them (spider and steering giant). And also clearing BoT and BWD to get some more gear for people, last night we had our first real Firelands-Raid. Target:Shannox.

At the end of the night, some conclusions where made. First: we where making progress, but Second: to low dps from the raid, so we went over the 10-minutes mark.....ouch.

At the end someone threw the number of 23k dps average around, which made me and Gunho go into a little theorycrafting. First that number 23k is unreachable at the moment. At our last attempt, I think I made almost no mistake. Focusing on Rageface till second spear, then dotting all three up, with almost all the spells cast at the right time. I may get 500dps more if it was earlier on the evening (hey, I am human after all), but that would be it. I had 15.8k dps, and was the highest of the raid, with Gunho following closely, and 3/4 others also around that 15-16k dps-range.

But that 23k is way to high. I took my calculator, and came to a raid-average of 17k with 15 dps, and the 3 tanks doing 15k. Well, that number is reachable methinks. This week some people will probably get 2pT12 (not me though), and than 18k is doable. Problem is, 18k is the average.... and we still have some people with to low gear, because of some new recruits.

But, there are some problems we face now. The most important is players getting Iceblocked. On our last attempt, I turned around to DoT Shannox, and saw three, yes THREE iceblocks, that weren't there 5 seconds before. I don't know the exact hp of the blocks, but they will probably cost you 500dps-average methinks. So getting out of these traps should be a high priority, forget everything, run out of them.

And then there are the times Rageface jumps into an Icetrap, RNG happens. I saw that that Iceblock was also targeted for destruction. It shouldn't. He will get out of it, and all dps on that iceblock is wasted. Everyone should ignore rageface for those 5 seconds, and hit Shannox probably.

And third, the Immolation-traps. Now, let's be clear, I myself am not familiar enough yet to keep the two traps from each other, although I am almost there :p. But if Rageface is alive, he should be immolated as often as possible. First of, he will be damaged by them, which helps the raid-dps. But most importantly, immolation will place a 9-second debuff on the hound, which increase damage taken by 40% (iirc). That will help A LOT. It will potentially lower the dps-average needed by around 1.5k.

With all this in mind, I actually think that he is almost beatable at this moment, it requires no mistakes though, and a high uptime of immolation on the dogs.

And for the record. My average Ilvl at the moment is 360, Innovation hasn't done any heroics, so most people will be around that now. Also raid-dps-average goes 1k up/down with the amount of dps present, so 14dps should bring 18k, and 16dps should bring 16k, and this is with a little safety-factor build in.

Mathemathics:
Rageface:33.7M hp + Riplimb:33.7M hp + Shannox:81.6M hp = 159M hp
159M hp / 600 seconds = 265k dps
265k dps - 15k dps (tanks) = 250k dps
250k dps / 15 dps-players = 17k dps-average (rounded up)

TL;DR-version:
1. Get out of the Ice-Traps
2. Don't target the Iceblock containing Rageface/Riplimb, hit Shannox.
3. Immolate Rageface whenever possible.
4. Bring 17k dps on average. (with 15 dps-players that is)

No Nef for me

So, I am not in a very fast guild, but I had hoped we could have killed Nefarian pre-4.2. Alas, the raid just finished, with Nef at 30%. We are getting into Phase 3 constantly now, but one mistake means end raid.

Now, one of our Rogues is going into Night-shift, one goes on a 2 week-vacation. And me and my friend are going to Roskilde Festival this weekend. That means that from 4 people who are normally in the top5 DPS are gone the next two weeks....

Well, I am off to Roskilde, with the only three words I know in danish: To Ol, Tak (don't know if it actually should be Tø øl :p)

Low Lock Levelling

So, after the Horde-experience, I started levelling a human warlock. So, first the spoiler warning:

Behold, Bunnies will tell spoilers ahead.

So, there she was (yes, female, I just can't stand the human male form), standing before the church, ready to go battle wolves, orcs and...mmm...wait, Aznam? An Imp, nice. So, the first zone is mostly the same, some new quests (did I mentioned Orcs), but mostly old... just a better flow. Eastvale logging camp has a FP, so you get there much faster. A lot less running around, although I have the feeling, it is still a lot. Oh, and you don't kill Hogger.

Onwards to Westfall, which completely changed. A long story is told here, with the start-point being a murder, and the end-part is actually in Heroic Deadmines... what, lore-wise, was most striking, is that the humans have a big problem, lots of unhappy citizens. If you look at ogrimmar. most orcs are rallying for battle. The humans are begging for food. Oh, and what is that big whirlwind-thingie doing in Westfall, no one told me?

After I found the killer, I went onto Redridge Mountains. There is a very nice questline here, with you being in a squad of soldiers, ready to kill a lot of orcs.... to bad the quest at camp everstill bugged out... and because I was already on the level-treshold, onwards to Darkshore...rrr...shire (see what I did there ghostlandiers).

Now. I never did this zone often. back in the days it was a lot of running, yes RUNning, between Darkshire and Raven Hill, even taking a detour to Moonbrook Village. That changed, hurray. I actually only used the road from east to west once, they put a FP in Raven Hill. With the new Gilneas-faction, the Worgen-story is more prevalent here, and a lot of quests seem follow ups from old ones. Oh, and on the old spt north-west, where some quest used to be, a rare spawn was killed.

So, after saving a soul, my lock went to the Jungle. Before I knew it, I was knee-deep in killing Kurzen's people, and slaughtering the local Wildlife for the Expedition. And they needed a page... A PAGE??, ONLY ONE??? So, I needed to find only one page, to be precise, number 14. Great... how long should that take? So I killed my first tiger and looted the page. (Insert random nightmares from pre-cata about trying to find that one page that no one had that you needed to complete the book).

And there she is now, Northern Stranglethorn (they divided STV into two zones, although it is a little strange on the map). I do have the feeling that I will outlevel N-STV, because she is lvl 29.65, and only 50% of the map is visible at the moment. Oh well, laters....

Cho'gal performance deconstructed.

And here is another attempt of mine at movies...

Looking at this (and other) movies, I came to a very logical conclusion:

Why do I need all that information.... and why do I not even notice the clutter of info? I cleared some of it up now, so I hope the battlefield will be clearer in future movies.

Somethings to note:

-Yes, I am completely trying to starfire one of our own priests.... whoops. The start was a littlefast, and at that moment I was trying to figure out if I actually had started recording.

-I think one the second ooze-spawn, I heroically forget to dps and safe the raid... or at least one, by Typhooning a stray ooze back :p

-I also noticed that I actually focus more on oozes NOT reaching the raid, then actually dps-ing them, I should actually wait a second longer to actually hit the damned slime with my shrooms. So the fight has three phases for me: 1-blast boss;2-blast adds;3-OMGaddsmustnotreachraidshroomtyphoonsunfirespam

And it seems I sometimes actually remember NOT to leave Solar, just before oozes span (pats own back)

-mmm, It seems I accidentally hit Typhoon in the last Phase. Little mistake, hey I am human....

-And for the record, it was the first pull of the evening...

Kitty Continued

I left Morshando in Feralas.

(Spoilers ahead mates)

After battling Cho'gal (see next post), I was one level to low to continue. Maybe I should not have skipped the quests in the Desolace? So, I entered the LFD for a dungeon or two. Luckily, to keep in spirits, I got Dire Maul. After completing, a level was gained.

....and Morshando entered Thousand Needles...... IN WATER.

You actually get transported to a little place where some Taurens are fighting, and then off you go to a barge in the middle of the shimmering flats...rrrr...waters? There are two major stories here, you do some pirate-stuff, and som Tauren-stuff. But the best part is:



You get your own River Boat. Just cruising along, nothing beats that to set sail to the...oh wait..only in 1K.

So, after all the Pirates, some Ice-creams, and some other old friends, Morshando was off to the desert...well...at least what was left of it. Tanaris still has you battling pirates, and killing some bugs. And there is also a quest-line explaining that two-part sword from Zul'Farrak. You also help the Bloodelves in some archaeology-digs, and have to enter the old doors of Uldum.

And some has read to much Herbert:



...and off to the Crater.

In Un'goro some things changed, but you still have to kill a lot of dino's, be aware of the Ninja-saurs. Do some mud-diving, and help a Paladin... actually a quite fun quest. The collect-the-colored-stones-quest has a new ending, which was rather well done lore-wise. But, as in Feralas, one level short to continue, so some dungeons later, I was on my way to Silithus. Mind you, this was as lvl54.

Now Silithus has a warm spot in my heart. Not because I actually like it, but because almost all my characters dinged 58 there. Some just after running through the elven village, others longer in. And, of course, Gowron has been farming here for cenarion Circle reputation.

Off all the zones, Silithus has changed the least. I didn't find a quest into the leven village, but you still have to clear the roads by killing tons of wildlife. And kill the Twillight Hammer for fun. You also encounter some bugs, and a nerfed Pincer. And when Morshando reached lvl 55.95 (just before 56), he was done....

wait a moment... I am done... two levels short of Outlands. shouldn't there be more quests here? Actually, the achievement only needs 18 quests (1 more then Alliance-Arathi Highlands). So it seems this was it.

I do hope Blizzard is going to update this zone, it just doesn't feel finished. No reference to the opening of the gates, no big AQ-storyline...

Before I am making a real conclusion, I will first finish levelling a human lock. She's now in STV, and will continue to The barrens-Dustwallow and then up north, towards winterspring.

Tomorrow: Innovations Second kill of Cho'Gal, which we one-shotted.

Low(er) level questing.

Last few days, I did something I wanted to do along time, levelling through questing. Before Patch 4.0.1 came out, I already had a heirloomed undead hunter do a lot of the Horde Eastern Kingdoms quests, now I made a Troll kitty, to see the Horde Kalimdor quests.

This time though, no heirlooms, only 10% extra xp from a guildperk. I blasted trough the starting zones, and before I continue....

There be spoilers ahead, mates.

I helped an old dragon in Azshara, which I actually never did that far in. Normally I just start dungeoning around lvl15, not this time I said, no dungeons, only quests...

(For all the new guys: Azshara used to be a higher level zone where bo one would actually go, because the quests where to far apart. Only lvl60's went there for stuff gathering... )

So, my kitty entered Ashenvale, at lvl23 or so.... which is way to high. How could that have happened? Oh, wait, there is something called rested, you know, the fact that you get 200% more xp when you logged out in an Inn and/or City... so, no more rested for Morshando then, and luckily, I have done the Ashenvale quests. So, at lvl25, I visited a board, and went to the Stonetalon Mountains.

If you think Ashenvale is a warzone, wait till you see Stonetalon, you are constantly fighting alliance there. And there is a nice end-quest here.



By the way, every zone is now made for 5 levels and has some nice end-quest, with a blue reward. There are also several in-between-blues. I did almost all quest in Stonetalon, and had a choice, either go Southern Barrens, or go Desolace. Morshando went desolace.



They completely changed this, very nicely done. Although there are more 'old' quests here than in earlier zones. I skipped those, united all centaurs, and went one level to early to Feralas.... wait.

In Desolace, there is a Troll town along the coast, Shadowprey Village at least had some quests. For all of you Horde playes, if you want a nice and quiet town, visit the Tauren retreat in Stonetalon. It has a flightpath, but as far as I know, no quests anymore.

So, Feralas, head-story here resolves around the Green Dragonflight. But of course, you still have to kill a lot wildlife and Ogres. And a new face... or old for me now, rears it ugly head, once and for all proving that you CAN sail East from the Eastern Kingdoms, and reach Kalimdor, yes the Azeroth is not flat. (Actually, I noticed more Azerothian Globes around). Oh yeah, the familiar face:



Whoops... no face... oh... and this is getting a long post, so, to actually up my posting,

To be continued....

mmm.... wOOOOOt...I guess :)

Yes, I died in the last seconds, so what :

I got the key?

Ok, I find this a little bit strange news, apparantly Blizzard wants to remove the key-ring.

So, I logged into Gowron to actually see the ring again.



I do remember having more keys, so grabbing from memory: where is my Scarlet Key? And the key to Black Rock Depths where you had to die for (jump into the lava). But, let see what is what.

The Master's Key (#1)- Gained by doing a long quest-chain, where you had to do several TBC-dungeons, including getting the key for the Mechanar (mm, where;s that one?). Which, back before the first Zul'Aman, was needed to actually do Karazhan, everyone needed their own key.

The TBC-heroic keys (#2,3,4,7,8)- Keys needed to get into the Heroic dungeons of TBC, and back then, you needed to be revered to actually but them, not honored. Which of course was a nice way of letting people actually do normals (and getting some gear), before advancing to heroics.

Key to the Focusing Iris (#5)- Key obtained from a quest that started from a drop from Naxx10, to actually get Malygos down.

The Violet Hold Key (#6)- Key obtained after a little delivery-quest, to get into the Violet Hold, actually, I never understood the reason for this key.

Jump-a-Tron 4000 key (#9) - Well, mmm, needed for some obscure quest in Nagrand, you got a nice cloak from it iirc.

Prison Cell Key (#11) - A key to open cell doors in Blackrock Depths.

Relic Coffer Key (#12) - Another key for BRD, to break into da vault, mon.

All the Skeleton Keys - Some obsidium and Titanium keys, I use to open boxes. Hey, Gow is a Blacksmith.

Now the blue post said, that most of the keys will be useless. So I suppose TBC-heroics will be opened to everyone (with the right Ilvl I suppose). All the BRD-doors will be openable by everybody?? And the other keys will also become absolete one way or the other..... except the skeletons keys???

Now I don't have that many, only 12 slots, but these will be dumped into my normal bag-slots.... on Gowron.... where I always had (and have) a problem with bag-spaces? Well, I hope they let us stack the skeleton keys to 200 orso.

But, more to the point, and I quote:
Because of this, we’ve decided to get rid of the Keyring in order to free up some user interface space for exciting new features. This change could also potentially allow us to play around with the amount of default storage space you’re allotted down the road

So... you take something usefull from us, the always expanding key-ring. And you promise us something vagely in return, not even mentioning the word : SOON®

mmmm




But there is one more thing I almost forgot, they stated that they will remove the keys....

Just like they did with the keymaster-achievement.

And some of those key have, well, sentimental value I wouldn't say, but it does describe the feeling the closest.

Job Done

Yeah, like I really have time to also GM a Bloggers-guild.

Nope, after cleaning up the Gbank, and really looking at all the characters in the guild, I passed the reigns. No way I have time to also do that, I know where that leads.

(Insert picture of Warcraft Orcs and Humans 1994)
Job Done.

SAN: Revolution?

Yes the rumors are true.

Last Saturday, at around 10 o'clock in the morning, I send out a ticket.

Not long after that Gowron was made CEO of Single Abstract Noun, and started to get the Single Abstract Cows back into the fold.

Since them, there seem to be life again, some new, some old....some older (looks around for the Steamynose-blog).

And that just after I wrote a blog, Gowron was like... retired....

So, what now, well... have fun for sure :)

Cathedral

You would think that after 6 years of Scarlet Monastery, people would know how to do the last part there...

Right.

Right?

So why was I tanking 2 bosses and a shitload of adds there today...thrice.

Happy May?

Yes... not dead yet. I have just been busy with a lot of things lately, so actually writing in a blog came in last. So let's do a quick recap I guess.

Mardah still raiding 2/3 nights a week, we haven't downed Nef or Cho yet, but I don't know wether that is because we lack the skill to quickly clear the first bosses, or the fact that it was really hard to get 25 man online the last month. The last week seemed better, we actually had people to sit out.

It is also a little strange that I am not in control. Both in Retribution and in XII, I was an Officer. I am now just a loyal foot-soldier, or Tsjikin for that matter. And I do like it, not the burden of having to do stuff.

On the horde-side, Gowron is retired. As is all of Single Abstract Noun it appears. There are still some players who log in often, and it seems that with the absence of the Guild Leader Tamarind, some members have formed a new guild called Single Abstract Cow. But the busy guild it was, is gone. Maybe we'll really return there if there is again a year-stop in new content....

And of course I still have altism. But I noticed something strange, I remember having a real problem leveling a priest in TBC/WotLK, it just didn't click for me it seemed. But the last two characters that I got to 80 last year, are now both 85. Although one has become a gnome (Gnome shadowpriest on a Roflcopter rocks), and the other is back to dwarf. I also transferred a shaman back, and leveled that one from 72 up.

Yes, that means some other chars where send away. I have several 70+ and 80's scattered around different servers now, just doing nothing until I call them back I guess. I got two lower-level characters left on AD. A goblin disco-priest, in support of a goblin harry-in-the-warry-warrior. And a Tankadorfadin called Yurinov, heirloomed out, and already rockin in the mid-30's.

And now it is time to see if the servers are back online, and time to think about more boomkin-nerfs incoming.....

Oh, yeah, and a need a random-blog-title-generator.

......squaa....

Now where is the optimal regional stabilizer.

....

....

The colorfull round cubical shaped thingie goes into there?

....

....

What is this, ah, the sonic screwdriver... now where are the sonic screws?

....

....

That should do it... power converter...where did I leave that?

....

....

Yup, still here, just really busy with work at the moment.... and Dr. Who.... and Babylon 5.

....

....

Oh oh, think the boimetricial inducement coil is overloading, gotta buy me a new one, before the who.......

Wall of sound... ...is broken.

Wall of Sound..

...that is what Innovation is encountering now. A wall of sound called Atramedes, the blind Dragon. No Idea at the moment what is going wrong, but we cannot seem to get him below 35% with more then 20 people alive.

And of course the try where we weren't suppose to DPS, I screwed up a little. It seems his flame-wave targets the one with the highest sound, and I almost never have sound... but if everyone is so focused on getting no sound... well... I got targetted..twice in a row... that's one time to many :(

Oh well... ready for more tries on him...

Replaying 80-85, or why I already start to hate deepholm.

I did mention this in a previous post of mine, what is the replayability of Cataclysm. I made a post where I compared the different expansions to books/comics.

I recently levelled a shaman to 84, and my warrior (now named stoneheart) to 85. I didn't really planned anything, just played a little around, mostly in dungeons, and with herbing for the warrior.

When I did do quests, I didn't read them, and just went to the place I needed to go. And because i already did almost all the quests (sans Vashj'ir), it was reasonable quick. But it did got me thinking about the different zones... and the fact that most people with altism want their alt to be good geared.

You see, I want my alts to have nice gear, to actually do heroics without to much to worry. And the quickest way is to get gear through reputations. Now, as a fresh 80, you have got two choices. Goto vashj'ir, or to hyjal. Let me put it clear,
DO NOT GO TO VASHJ'IR

If you go Hyjal, you will get rep, and you will probably be almost 82 if you finish there, and a long way to revered, opening a lot of goodies. The only thing you want in Vashj'ir are the opening quests. They give you a mount, and the portal to Vashj'ir. You should also get the flight....rrr...swimming-path to where the Earthen Ring-vendor is, and (till the patch) swim down the vortex to find the entrance to the Throne of the Tides, that's all.

Now the moment you hit 82, drop all you are doing...well..hypothetically...and go to Deepholm. This is absolutely necessary, you need to do almost all the quests there to get access to the therazane-vendor, which not only provides you with a nice ring, but also the must-have shoulder-enchant.

This is the biggest problem I have with deepholm... if you want to gear your alts good, you NEED that therazane-reputation... so..get ready to do deepholm to often.

After you are done with deepholm, you probably are into your 83's... hey..you have a choice... either continue with hyjal-rep (if you didn't finish that already), or go to uldum. Well... do at least some quests in uldum, to get the portal and the tabard. The moment you hit 84, I would suggest going Twillight Highlands.

Again... do all the quests until you can get the tabard, and the portal...see the pattern. Oh, and because every zone has better gear, you probably want to do the highest zone available. And one thing about gear... most of the times, a GREEN Ilvl 2 higher then a BLUE one is better...so, you don't have to hold onto your blues from lower dungeons...

So, conclusion: There are some alternative ways to levelling, but if you, like most altists want to gear your alt... get ready to hate deepholm.

..and yes...the same applied to the sons of hodirs..but those enchants where at least Bind on Account. And talking about BoA...if the Head Enchants are BoA...why do I need to be revered with that faction to actually use them....wouldn't that actually made the BoA-function..well..kinda useless??

Mental Note

I should try to make more posts, before this turns into a 'look-what-we-killed-today'-blog...(well, actually tuesday)


But luckily I have some more things on my mind. Like Tobolds suggestion that if you CAN tank and/or heal, you should, instead of whining about long waiting times... which is probably true, but alas, retired tank here, so I just take the long times.

And of course there is a new patch looming with lots of information, and paragon took 11 druids...QQ, and lazorchickens are doing 25k dps... which is a lot, etcetera, etcetera...

But what really caught my attention this week was this:

Honors Code : This really was the hardest button to push

Now, there have been bloggers in the past who stopped blogging because they stopped playing, like Phaelia and BRK. But what caught my eye was the reason honors stopped, he just doesn't have anything to say anymore, and (I quote):

But blogging and doing it well takes a commitment of time that I’m simply not able to give right now.

He will still be playing, but he is just not going to blog about it. This of course everyone saw coming. Honors changed his main, and had very little posts last months. And tbh, I think if I had a wife/gf (oooh, personal information), my blogging also would stop... on the other hand, this blog is more a journal of my travels through WoW, so if for months nothing happens...well then there will be no post.

I have the utmost respect for people that write a post every single day.... I could just not do it.

And for Honors, keep the blog, and just write when you like, not write because you need to fill a blog, but write whenever you like, or feel the need to it, because you can. (well, that is how I write).

..laters.

Magmaw mowned down..

After 2.5 hours, several wipes (see skeletons), I got my first raid-boss-kill in a full guildrun since a long time



We did it with only 22 people, and it took some tries to get the fire-pillar sorted. If we all got out in time, we had no problems with the little adds, but seeing a red circle spawning, between all the 'good' blue/green/whatever on the ground can be tricky, specially when a new aoe-healing-spell has just been cast. Those tend to be brighter then the red circle.

It was a real wiping-->learning fight. In the end we had one of the DK's kite the adds around, and we had divided the raid into two, screw you tactics... time to find something else. To bad I died in the end, not because of adds, or a pillar, but probably due to Triage-Healing. Not all players, where actually ready for raids, at least gear-wise.

If this continues, I think I have a good stay there :)

Bridge-exploit? or is it?

I am playing at the moment, so not much writing... well actually, I have enough time to write something, because I am trying to get the epic stuff fors casters from archaelogy, and waiting for TB to switch sides, so I can hand in quests.

So, I have a lot of time to just surf the web. I refound tankspot, found the moonkin resporitory-something, and just fly around from one dig-site to the next.

I am lucky though, I already have the Tol'vir ring..... now trying to get the Nelf-trinket, and the Tol'vir staff.... or dorf staff, but keeping to Kalimdor atm. Just flying around, digging stuff. Luckily I am a druid in a lvl9 guild. Teleport:moonglade and 15min Heartstone FTW

Now on to Tol Barad, I really started doing the dailies today, and also tried to get into a fight. Well... that went well. But I was surfing da internet and found numerous posts, and a gamebreaker-video, talking about the bridge-exploit in Tol Barad.

For those who don't know, if you que up for TB, and the raid is full, you can actually stand on the bridge for around 6 seconds before ported a few yards back. When on that spot, you are considered IN Tol Barad, and if the battle ends, everyone in TB, in raid or outside raid, just IN the zone, gets honor for completeing (win/loss doesn't matter). So the exploit is to stand on that spot when a battle ends for free honor...well free?

Let's look at it a bit closer. As far as I know, only 80 people can actually participate in a TB-battle. 40 Horde, 40 Alliance, just like an Alterac Valley. But Tol Barad is not on a different server like other BG's. Just like wintergrasp, it is server-specific. That means that on a very busy server like AD, only 80 people can actually participate in a battle, the rest has to sit-out.

Now let's look a moment at PVE-raiding. All guilds I was in had a rule that if you where available to raid, but weren't chosen, that you still got some DKP for being there. This is both an incentive to actually sign for raids, and a little compensation because you are online for the raid, while not raiding.

Now, in my humble opinion; IF you actually take time to stand on the bridge, and be ready for the battle, why not get a little honor in exchange? You already miss out the HK's, but with this you actually get something back for being available. And it's not AFK-farming, you actually have to move in/out to get it.

Now, TB itself is hopelessy unbalanced (see greedygoblin). But I did see (and participate in some) 4 TB-battles today. The horde has a simple strategy for defense. 30 people go counterclockwise around the towers, taking them with a lot of force. That leaves 10 free to simply guard the previous tower taken, until the current one is taken. Rince and repeat.

The alliance only way to get all towers is to actually have around 30 people at the same spot as the horde, while simultaneously holding the other 2 forts with around 7 people to counter the 10man of the horde, so... a quick math later. Can 24 hold 30? If yes--->win, if no--->loss.

Oh well... it is PvP... what do I care....

...

.... oh yeah..dailies for PVE-trinkets.