The Alting has started.

After last post, I had to work a lot, so I did not do much besides garrison-stuff. Friday-evening I was set to do more. Specifically, follower-hunting...and when I was in Frostfire, my blocks electricity went awry...which took about 15 hours to fix....

So, with a Molten Core planned in the evening, I still needed to find 4 Ilvl's somehwere. And I hadn't done even any normal dungeons yet. But, luckily, after some PuGs, and some with guildies, my Ilvl reached 414.5, which is just enough to enter MC.

Oh, those dungeons went fairly fine. Some wipes due to adjustments, as in CC and Corner-pulls, but nothing new for a TBC-veteran like me....  oooh, did I saw a soulpriest? Ah yes, MC.....  But Molten Core... Innovation went in with 24 or so people, so 16 other people. Until the third boss, it was a disaster...  over-pulling, butt-pulling, trolling I guess..and a lot of skeletons. But after that, it was fine...just very long. At the end, I got myself a firey helmet, and a mount-in-thr-mail.

Sunday was alt-day. I already had my inscription-rogue Tiramuria at level 91. My Tailor/enchanter-shaman Verulani was also walking around in her Garrison. But I started with my Blacksmith/jewelcrafter Timicin. I had so much ore....  At the end of the day, all three where lvl92, and had their profession-buildings running, including a lvl2-mine for even more ore....

Q

Q - Ominipotent person in the Star Trek episodes from 1997 till 2004, played by John deLancie

QQ - Shortwriting for someone who is crying, a Q, representing a tear coming from an eye.

Queue - The place where half the World of Warcraft Players have been around 16-Nov-2015.

My last post made it clear, the Queue was there. Now, I was expecting queues. The last few weeks it sometimes popped up on Argent Dawn. But I was not expecting what would happen with Warlords. So, here is my recap of the first days of Warlords of Draenor.

The not-so black Temple

Day 1 - launch day (thursday)

I was home at around 15:33, and I hit the queue. More then 1500 before me, and it took me about 90 minutes to get in. Not that bad actually, a little longer then I expected, but not that bad. Later on I heard horror-stories of the queue, but well, I was in.

I did the normal thing, building garrisons, doing quests, around 21:00 the game couldn't handle it anymore. Before that, there where some problems with the garrisons, but at the end of the night, there was no NPC to be seen in the whole of Shadowmoon valley. I ended the night at around 91.7 level.

I did log in on all Alliance characters to start the rested-buff.


Day 2 - Halfing the servers (friday)

I logged in before work, to do some garrison stuff. I returned from work around 17:00 that day, and I entered the Horror-Queue. Argent Dawn already had a 2-hour queue before the servers max was halfed, so I was now looking at 2600 orso people in front of me, with an estimate of 12 hours....

The queue dropped rather quickly to around 1300 people (2 hours in), but after that..well... about 1 per minute was the droprate....   around 22:00 I quit, and went to bed.

Moons over Draenor

Day 3 - No WoW for me (saturday)

I again tried to log in early, before I had to go do some moving-stuff. But I hit the maintenance, so no garrsion-updates for me. When I returned in the evening, well.... I did put myself in...  but I stopped somewhere.

Day 4 - Finally (sunday)

I was an early bird, at around 6 in the morning I logged on, and didn't leave before 22:00, when I fell sleeping of my chair. Because of lost time, and all the alts that will follow, my mind entered levelling-stage. I did register what the Lore was about, but mostly it was about orcs, and shadowcouncil stuff. At the end of the day, Mardah was 98-something, about to enter Nagrand.

Mental Note: Do not skip SMV-quests, else you will sometimes not reach next level later on. Unless you do some of the random-quests that pop-up, which I almost didn't do. I also got my garrsion a long way, including a lvl2-mine (so much ore), a lvl2 tannery and a lvl2 Mill (more resources). At the end of the day, I had 1800 resources pooled for the lvl3-garrison...planning ahead

During one of the many hickup, I got my Scribe, Tiramuria the Rogue, her own garrison, including a level, and a scribe-building.

Day 5 - Normalising? (monday)

Again, a pre-work-garrison-thingie... I returned at around 16:00, had a queue of 20 minutes!! ans started the last bit in Nagrand. Around 20:00 the server borked with garrisons, so I got my tailor/enchanter, Verulani the Shaman, her garrison, sans the buildings though. The idea for this is that the passive resource-gathering from your chest is happening.

At around 22:30, Mardah was done, reaching level 100. The next two hours where clean-up time. Lvl3-garrison was founded, some new buildings, a quick trip to the Proving Grounds, where Mardah got silver without much hassle, and off to bed.

Mardah reaches level 100

Day 6 - ???? (today)

Log in before work, do garison-stuff...yeah..I am seeing a Trend here...back at 17:00...in the queue...wait no queue..allright....

Warlords of Draenor : The Argent Queue

Yes, at home, let's play the levelling game again....

..oh..

Countdown to Warlords : Goodbye Pandaria

If you have been here last two days, you may have noticed something new on the right. Yes, ...through wiping, we learn. now has a stream. I will probably be streaming a lot, although maybe not with sound at first. I am still figuring stuff out, and I do have to level up tomorrow, so it may take a while before I can really dive into stream.

The main reason for the stream, is for my guild. With the new raid-sizes, I foresee more people on the bench, then the normal 1 or 2 that we used to have. At least now they can watch the rest fail..with a 20-25 second delay though.

I will probably log on today for a while. But my Mists of Pandaria is already done. Tuesday we took down Mythic Garrosh. within 5 pulls even. That is including the two double-star-wipes we had on phase 1, and a 1% wipe as number 3.

Tonight, at midnight, Warlords start..I will be sleeping then. Tomorrow around 1700 hours I will start. And I do not have many weekends free coming up. I expect some people at 100 before I logon tomorrow, ah well, I hope i am behind the masses, although, I do expect an Argent Que. My bags are clear, more than 100 free spaces, tomorrow, I will build my Garrison. 

Goodbye Pandaria

Countdown to Warlords : The Cloak(s)

This cloak, this legendary cloak. 

The mists pivotal gear.

Your character needed it.

This precious cloak...

At the moment, I have completed the quest-line on 5 characters. I could have gone for a sixth, or maybe even more, but I decided enough is enough. I just got bored with it, and having so many, really didn't feel legendary anymore.

My last cloak.

My cloak-carriers are Mardah, Verulani, Gwaednerth, Lorinthe and Timicin. Yes, I completed the cloak on two different paladins. What I heard, they will be handy till about I enter heroic dungeons at lvl100. So, not a complete waste of time, considering I mostly stopped playing them after the cloak. And then they can start on a questline for a ring...

Is it really a Legendary Item, if everyone has it? That's s remark I read a lot, and I tend to be in that camp. I do like the idea of a long questline for an overpowered piece of gear, but if, in the end, everyone has it..it does not feel legendary, maybe they should just make it another class of gear.

So far, WoW has three different kinds of legendary items. The aforementioned long questline is one. Then we have the static drop, like the warglaives from Illidan. And then we have the gathering-Legendary, where one member of the raid has to gather a lot of stuff, like the staff from cata.

With the latter two, the amount of legendaries is not that high during current content I must add. But Blizzard is steering WoW more and more towards everyone can get everything. And that's a completely different discussion,

Kristenveldt, healing-leader, gets the cloak.

For now, I am actually looking forward to replace the cloak. It may be nice and all, but that graphic display of wings.. that is really starting to annoy me, especially when it sometimes conflicts with things on the ground. I am looking at you Malkorok's Bubble-spawn. Now hoping that the ring does not do lensflares.

Countdown to Warlords : Cho.

I have no real memory what I thought the first time I heard about Mists, I can not even find that on my blog. I do know that I was partially indifferent about Panda's, although I didn't like that there would be no Panda-Druids (Come on, they are already beers...)

Thinking back over the last two years, I did enjoy Mists. Most of the quests where nice, some patch-stories where very good. The raids where mostly entertaining...except for the bugs. The Boss mechanics were mostly quite interesting. All in all I rather enjoyed this Expansion.

There is just one Panda, that just keeps pushing all the wrong buttons. I think he is personally responsible for us getting in trouble with half of the raidbosses. He is also THE NPC, that in my humble opinion, is the embodiement of Mists of Pandaria.

Lorewalker Cho

Keep on writing Cho, of all the things we did. I do not expect us to sea each other soon, considering you are so bound to that island in the mist. Have a good life, so long, and thank you for the words.

Countdown to Warlords : Blogging

This is a blog, and sometimes it is time to look back at what you have done... so, let's look at the last two years on this Blog. Through wiping, we learn... during Mists of Pandaria

On the 18th of september, I wrote my cataclysm farewell post. The next post I would write would be about Mists of Pandaria, this took a while, my driving-urge was very, very low apparantly. Almost FIVE months later I wrote a post about what I had done sofar in Mists. But my blogging was still very low. After April, another FOUR months went by, without me writing anything.

I think there where a lot of reasons why my writing was down. I wrote some down in my first august post. There were probably more reasons, but after this my postcount went up again. This was mostly fueled by World of Lae. She started an Alt:Apprecation theme which I completed.

In November, my 300th post on this blog coincided with Innovations Garrosh-kill. I wrote something about timetravel, warlords and Orgrimmar after the siege, but starting in december, my postcount went down, sometimes dipping to zero, but there were no longer really big gaps between posts. I also did some Blogazeroth Posts.

On the first of April I wrote 'A word for reforging' which I still stand by. What also happened was that I got a better computer, and I started to make movies again. The rest of the year was writing about killed bosses, and what is to come. This week probably ups my count a lot.

In the end, I am just not one of the people who writes a blog almost every day. I have respect for bloggers that do that, it´s just not me. If something really bothers me, or if something irks me, I'll write, not because I need to write because I have a blog to fill, but because I want to.

And for that matter, this blog was mostly written on Friday. The same day as Overpowered, sometimes I just keep typing..... and I actually used the post-on-that-time option for this one.

My goal for Warlords is to write two pieces a week. I once tried a screenshot-friday-series, maybe that's an idea gain. But to be honest, I had that 2 post-per-week idea before...and it felt through a little bit. Lets see what happens....

Countdown to Warlords : Blizzcon Tournament

Last night, I watched some Blizzcon, most notably, I watched the PvP-tournament. Two teams of three people slugging it out in an arena. I got a beer, and just watched the stream. This stream is free, although the finale may not be?

Just to give it some background, I suck at PvP...or at least I think, because I never actually do it. For me, PvP is like a LFR-raid, only with more people just minding their own business, once in a while you may get a good team, but mostly, it's everyone for themselves.

All my honorpoints on Argent Dawn.

So, last night I watched the matches, and I found it mildly entertaining. There is one huge problem, without the commentators, I had no idea what was going on. And I have a reasonable understanding of most classes, being an altoholic and all.

But just looking at the screen, with the sound of, most of the time stuff happens so fast. And it all comes down to cooldowns. Now some of them you could see coming. Manatea-stacks you can count, the trinket-cooldwon was on screen. But to really fathom what was going on, as a spectator, you really need to see all the cooldowns.  Luckily the commentators apparantly had that info.

With that in mind, half of the kills, came completely sudden. In playback, you could see what was going on, and most of the time it was because the commentators where talking about another player, and suddenly, boom, dead player.

It's like in football, when a player just kicks the ball towards the goal from midfield, and it miraculously finds the goal. There was no real attack play, it just happened. Now, if we, as spectators had all the information, we oursleves probably could see it coming, although so much is happening.

I wonder if it is really feasible as an e-sport. Even with my knowledge of classes, I lost track. And most of the times, I was actually looking more at the health-bars, then at the screenplay.

What I mostly remember from last night was Lore. The community/manager from Blizzard, sitting in the middle of the commentators. Now, I have known Lore for a long time. He once had a blog, which is still buried deep down in my follow/list, which concerned Paladins. He stopped blogging, and starting to do ´The Weekly Marmot´, him ranting about stuff. In about three years, he made a lot of show, also combining with gamebreaker, doing stuff, and then he went to work for Blizzard.

At the beginning he seemed a little bit flustered, but he came into the groove later on, but really, that working for Blizzard really exploded the hair....

Countdown to Warlords : Overpowdered

Rouges are Overpowdered. - Nagkeen

That was the forumsignature of an officer in my first raidingguild. He played a Rogue, which was considered overpowered back then by most. OP-classes, or specs, is something akin to MMO's. Sometimes a class will do things the makers didn't consider, and be stronger then any other.

These classes are also very likely to be the so-called 'flavor-of-the-month' class. Players, and people in general, have the tendecy to flock to the strongest. And we have all seen OP-stuff. Last few months I thought it was mostly Warlocks, although I may be mistaken.

You always find OP DPS at the top of the lists, and not on just one fight, but on all the fights. The last few years, Blizzard has dwindled it down, the player is more important than the class. How bossfights are is also very important. If I look back at the last months, Innovation always had the same 6 people in the top 10, but almost never the same player on top all the fights.

Having one player on top all the time...  and sometimes with a pretty big margin, that is overpowered.

So yeah, nerf Moonkins I guess, On 7 of the 8 first Mythic bosses I came in at 1. The only exception was Galakras, but I am not doing stuff there often, waiting on adds. I am also not on the towerteam. Sha als may be skewed because of different phases. But this is ridiculous, how did that happen?

So, yeah...that Starfall-buff is a little over the top at the moment, lets see what it does with 10 more levels. Juggernaut is as close as you can get to a patchwork style fight, one target, so almost no Starfall. Both Sha en Nazgrim but Starfire on top, probably because adds are not up all the time, and you can focus boss much more.

I do think I have the new Balance-stuff under control now, only thing is that I will get instant Starsurges somewhere on my way to lvl100. And that level100 probably will end my overpowdered status.

Countdown to Warlords : Innovation Raiding

Tonight, Innovation will start its farewell Pandaria Raid. If we make it till the end remains to be seen, but that does not matter much anymore. Next week, we will be knee-deep in the blood of Iron Horde Orcs, instead of normal Orcs...

As Mardah, I have now done two whole expansions with Innovation. On the first day of winter, 2010, I joined Innovation, two weeks into the Cataclyms Expansion. Both expansion somewhat followed the same timestamps.

Innovation preparing for heroic Malkorok

Innovation did the first tier of raiding 'almost' in the time provided. In the second tier we did some heroics (now mythics), and the last tier was completed on the most difficult setting... in the nick of time. Halfway the expansion there seems to be a problem with the number of raiders, although Innovation didn't went back to 10-mans, like we had to do in Firelands. So we have a good pace.

This weekend we will hear more about the future, if there will be 2 or 3 tiers of raiding. Will Blizzard finally up the speed, could we actually be having a patch 7.0 before december 2015? There is also a lot of studying new bosses and raids coming up, although some old names will come along (Hello Gruul).

Innovation will probably resume raiding in januar after this week. Give people time to level up, have a nice christmas vacation. There are less bosses in the first tier of raids then last expansion, so we may be able to do it in time, we'll see.

What remains after this week are the memories of endless wiping on some bosses, I am looking at you ElegON, GaralON, HorridON. The quick and sudden kills of some bosses, like the Thunderkings Wifes, the Shamans of Orgrimmar on Mythic... That watery dude on the terrace. And of course the seemingly endless summer in Orgrimmar it self.

Luckily, we still have the pictures and videos.... 

Hellscream's Downfall

A lot has happened last week for me in raiding land. After taking down Thok, Innovation went on. Next target was Siegecrafter, that took a while.  There is just so much fire, and stuff happening. You have to run around sometimes, with no idea if you can actually get back. But, the moment our raidleader put the ranged dps on a spot inside the second fire-circle, it was game over for Siegecrafter.

Next up: Paragons. I always found this fight easy, and normal...mm..heroic, our first kill was the second pull, and I was not really expecting a very long wipefest on Mythic. So, we took them down on our first pull...with a catch. Halfway the last paragon, only our DK-tank, two retridins and a warrior where left alive. The warrior didn't made it to the end, but the selfhealing of those last three was enough to take the last one down, took a while, but the road to Garrie was open.

Now, Mythic Garrie... an extra Phase, with circles, dots, fire from the sky and big iron balls. That was new for us, never seen that before, and you had to go through all the normal phases to actually see what was happening. So, this took a while, and after one thursday-evening of wiping, Garrie was still up, sunday was next. But I had made a Video for everyone to see what was happening.

Friday came, and I logged on to my Blood Elf paladin to partake in a heroic Garrosh run. There where some problems, but once Beyond redemptions RaidLeader figured out that only 3 of the 6 healers were actually healing, Garrosh went down, and Gwaednerth got his guaranteed heirloom, a 2H strength axe, and the title: Liberator of Orgrimmar.

On Saturday I did someting new, I used the new Blizzard Premade group Finder to join a HC Garrosh run on Lorinthe, my Warlock. Why Lorinthe, well, I either would get the OH or the Staff, and because I already had one spellmace, both would be usefull. Lorinthe's Ilvl is also in the 560's, so I applied to a group, and got a direct invite. This group pulled quickly, and together with my green fire, killed Garrie in one pull, and I got the Staff, probably my togoto weapon for levelling Mardah.

And then Sunday came around. I had some pre-raid remarks for our RL (always do them pre-raid, not during), and Innovation went in again. We had a little different tactic on P4. The Malice-target had to run between groups, instead of people with blast running out, And because the Bombardment seemed partially targetting players, the tanks didn't pull Garrie to spot 2 during that.

The first few pulls brought us without much problems in P4, where the learning started. During the third or fourth try, everyone was alive after bombardment, and with one Iron Ball up [re: apparantly two where up], when someone got malice..and ran out..yeah, I think we forgot to specify what to with malice after bombardment... so everyone bit the dust again...

...almost everyone, with a little more than 1% left on Garrosh, our Death Dorf Knight Tank Moreor refused to die....

[I was actually taping, but becasue I died, I was trying to type, some hotkeys popped up character screen and spellbook, so that video was ruined...]