Happy New Years

May all of you get phat loot and many favorable rolls.....except Gevlon....for being a greedy sumbitch. 

Best wishes to you and your families.

Plague and Arachnid Quarters

We went into Naxx last night and cleared both the Plague and Arachnid Quarters. We one shotted every boss except Heigan, who took us two shots. I got a sexy new tanking ring off of the first boss in the Arachnid Quarter.

Unfortunately, I lost my roll on my shoulders to an Elemental Shaman :( I have wanted the Dreanuaght Stlye shoulders since pre BC. All of this took roughly two hours. I would have kept going,  but we had people who had to go unfortunately.

Naxx has been incredibly easy so far, and I am looking forward to more of the phat purple lootz.

Extra day off = more WoW time

I already have Thursday off, but my boss gave me Wednesday off as well. That means more WoW time for me!

We have a scheduled Naxx run tonight, and I am hoping to get in to see all of the fights and get some quality tanking gear. I really want a pair of the T7 shoulders. They are the best looking graphic in the game and the only thing that is disapointing is that they changed the blue glow on them to a yellow glow. A read glow would have looked much cooler IMO.

There are several nice upgrade for me in 10 man Naxx, but the main reason I want to go is to learn all of the fights. Once I have learned all of the fights I will be able to run my own 10 mans once the guild moves on to the 25 man version.

I am not sure which item I want to pick up next for my emblems of Heroism. If I havent received an upgrade from Naxx, then I would imagine I will be getting my T7 gloves.

As far as tanking goes, I am still having a blast. I love tanking heroics if I have a good group and tanking in general is just fun. I ran heroic Old Kingdom the other night with a very good group. We cleared it in record time with no wipes. It helps when all of the dps is doing well over 2k dps. Stuff was dying before I could really tank it. I was more baby sitting mobs than tanking them lol.

I hope everyone enjoys their time off for the Hollidays.

Doing Naxx backwards.

No, this isnt about some raid where everyone stood backwards to make Naxx more difficult. This is about my 10 man progression in Naxx. Last night I made my first trip into the 10 man version of Naxx where we actually downed a boss. The first two bosses I downed are Sapphiron and Kel'Thudaz. Both are interesting fights, but baring dumbness, they really arent that difficult.


Sapphrion: We were having several problems with 'randomness'. A few times, it would be going very well and all of a sudden two ice blocks on one side of the room, and the other group died before they could get to them. We rememdied that by standing a bit closer to the circle during air phase and we downed him the next try. I got a crappy DPS helm out of it. Gotta check and see if it is any better than my engineering goggles or else just vendor it.



Kel'Thuzad: I was the off tank for this fight. At the beginning, I just picked up the Abominations as the came in and tanked them. After KT was engaged in combat, I stayed off to the side and shot him. Yes I shot him with my gun. I did not want to get into melee range and chain ice block someone. When the adds popped up, I picked them up and tanked them over in a corner away from everyone. My first time trying it, I couldnt see the red crap on the ground and died 0_0. The next time we got him with no problem. No useful items dropped for me. He dropped the Priest etc. token, Death's Bite, and something else that I cant recall at this point.



I hope to get into the first raid this week so that I have a shot at some more loot. I am also interested in seeing all of the other fights. Currently I am at 28500 health unbuffed, so usually around 36k buffed.



Heroics: I had a pretty good run of heroics this weekend, although I am still sporting my level 70 badges bracers. I picked up the belt from Azjol'Nerub and the gloves from Gundrak within about an hour. I only accumulated 24 emblems over the weekend which puts me at 24 lol. I need 60 to get my T7 gloves which I am hoping to have by the weekend.



There are still some Heroics that I have never seen the inside of. These include Nexus, Strat, and Halls of Lighting. I dont know what it is, but I just have not been motivated to hit these instances.



I respecced my Druid back to Resto so that I can level completly thru instances. I just was not really digging the boomkin spec, especially since my crit sucked. I got him to 71 this weekend after convincing a buddy to spec his warrior prot. With regemming his old stam gems for new ones, he ended up with over 18k health which made the instances incredibly easy. I will probably get some more play time in on this toon later this week. This will be my next 80 most likey as there is a huge healer shortage and I want to reap the benefits.

Alts

It is Saturday OT again, so I am posting on another day I usually dont post on again. Today I wanted to talk a bit about ALTs. ALTs stands for alternate characters. These are the characters that you tend to play a bit less than your 'Main'.

I have a bunch of ALTs. Just to entertain myself, I am going to give a little bit of background on them.

Main- Darraxus: Level 80 Dwarf. This is my warrior, and the toon my blog is named after. I created him way back in the day when Scarlet Crusade was just a baby server. I leveled him to 48 and then just stopped playing the game at all for about 6-8 months. I came back when I started talking about the game at work with a friend who was a Horde Druid in a serious raiding guild. I leveled him to 60 as a ridiculous Arms/Fury spec by grinding mobs in WPL. Yes I was that noob. It took me 16 days /played to hit 60. When I hit 60, my buddy told me I should go protection and tank crap. I did not know what tanking really entailed at that time, but I did it anyways. I picked up a crappy green shield off of the AH, and got into a group for LBRS.

We made it all the way thru the run, but it was not easy. About half way in, my weapon broke and I ended up using a gray quality swird to tank. My sword skill was not up to par at that time so I wasnt really hitting anything. I picked up an upgrade part way thru and it went a bit better. I did not know anything about tanking. I didnt know what aggro was. I was completly and utterly hopeless. I got yelled at about not sundering.....what is a sunder? After the group, one of the group members asked me if I bought my toon off of EBAY. Because people buy terribly geared characters all the time I guess.

Anyways, I got into some good groups and learned how to tank running thru Scholo and Strat many times a night with some of the people I still play with to this day. I learned how to tank. The most raiding I did Pre BC was UBRS lol. I hit level 60 probably 2 months before the new expansion was due to come out. When BC came out, as everyone else, I was a bit shocked at the ridiculous upgrades I got right away from questing. I tanked Ramparts and BF on the first day of BC. The last boss in Ramps was a bitch and I didnt have fire resist gear at that time. Thru BC, I leveled and ran every instance and Raid up to and including BT. Then Wrath came around, I leveled again and find myself grinding heroics and doing raids for time to time.

Alt- Theladon: Level 70 Human Warlock. This was the second character I leveled to level cap at that time (70). I decided I wanted another high level toon, and my buddy at work suggested that a Warlock would be fun. I hated the first few levels of being a Warlock. I constantly died. Then I got my Voidwalker and it was cake from there. After hitting level cap, my Warlock raided everything up to and including SSC. He eventually became my PVP toon where I got into the 1700s with a Ret Pally before Ret Pallys were good. He is now collecting dust while Blizzard figures out how to make them not suck again. It took me 12 days /played to hit 70 on this toon.

Alt- Zurlock: Level 71 Dranei Paladin. This was my third level 70. Since I already had a tank and a DPS, I decided to roll a healer. I choose a Paladin because the Holy Avenger always seemed very cool to me. I leveled him as Ret and when he got to about 68 I switched him to Holy and started healing. I healed in PVP, Instances, and this was the only toon I got the achievement for killing Kael'Thas on. I enjoyed him as Holy, but I have decided to make him Ret again and have him be my primary DPS character. It took him 8 days /played to get to 70.

Alt-Rootmender: Level 70 Night Elf Druid. This was my 4th 70, and he hit 70 just before the expansion. I dual boxed him with a rogue up to 60 using the refer a friend bonus. He was resto the entire time I leveled him. I leveled him thru outlands 100 percent thru instances. I did almost no questing unless it was a prerequisite for a dungeon quest. I healed Kara at level 68 in greens and blue and outhealed the Holy Priest who was level 70 and epicced out. I specced Boomkin for leveling purposes, but really miss resto and think I will spec back and level completly thru instances with rested XP. It took this toon 4 day 8 hours to get to level 70.

Alt- Daedasar: Level 60 Human Rogue. This was the other half of my dual box RAF shenanigans. He did most of the work on the way up, but the druid was the one I was really interested in. I leveled as combat. The most he has done was run a few ramparts runs. I will get to him again eventually, but Rogues are more or less suck right now after being so OP for so long.

Alt- Durothos: Level 59 Dwarf Hunter. This was the second toon I ever made. He will probably get leveled before my Rogue as I actually enjoy leveling my Hunter. He was stuck in the low 30s forever until I used my free RAF levels to boost him to his current level. He hasnt really done much of anything, and his weaponskill is way behind. I want to level him, but he will have to wait until after some of my other toons.

Alt- Deathgorger: Level 56 Dranei Deathknight. For some reason, I find myself not incredibly interested in the DK class. I have seen so many of them that it has kinda put me off to them a bit. This will be my last character leveled if I even decide to level him.

You would think I spend all of my time in WoW with all of these alts, but no. I only sit down and really play three days a week. I log on every day to check my mail and do the cooking daily. That is it. I have two epic fliers (Warrior and Paladin).

Well, thank you for listening to my ramblings about ALTs. What alts do you have?

Pugs are serious bussiness and other Holliday Shenanigans

On Chrismas Eve, I got in a very respectable amount of playing time and made the best of it. When I logged on, one of my longtime in game friends was running a pug 25 man Naxx. I got in just in time to go kill Maexxna. We run in, one shot her and I get myself my first Emblem of Valor as well as the HAWT tanking cloak that she drops. Woohoo for freerolls.

After Spider wing, we were going to give the Abomination wing a shot, but we kept getting blasted by Patchwerk. We turned around and headed over to the plague wing instead. This is where the funny business started. The guild I am in is pretty much the same as my old one as far as messing around, joking, etc. They go out to repair, and the raid leader has a mammoth mount. He invites some people on, jumps of of naxxramas, dismisses his mount and kills them. Everyone has a good laugh. He goes back up and asks if anyone else wants a ride. One of the guys from another guild says "Yeah, I will go". He gets on the mount, they jump off of Naxxramams, rinse and repeat.

The raid leader actually offered to pay double their repair bills, but everyone from that guild just left. When the raid leader asked WTF, the last guy to leave said "We only like to do serious raids". IT WAS A PUG ON CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!! Anyways, we ended up getting a few replacements and two shotting the first boss in plaguewing before some of the other regulars had to go. All along, the guy from the other guild is messaging back and forth with our raid leader. Then the guy starts spouting off each person's repair bill to which the raid leader replies "8,9,10,12,14. Those are the c@#$ sizes of famous porn stars. Now go f$%k yourself."

Overall it was a wonderfully fun time besides the little crybabies from that other "serious bizness" raiding guild.

Afterwards, I did a few heroics and got my T7 chest!!!! I am still noticing a severe lack of healers. I mean seriously, they are all basically gone, out DPSing somewhere. I have to scoure LFG channels to find one and hope they are not saved to the instance we are running.

On another note, I went back a specced fro Deep Wounds again in the cookie cutter build. I saw better results, but not the 12-14 percent of you total damage that was being touted by other sources. I was seeing anywhere from 4-6 percent. Overall, it was still pretty nice as that dot keeps on getting aggro while you are pounding away at your main target. I would recommend it, but it is not the OMG BEST THING EVER, like I was seeing on other sites. I would still recommend it, and I think it will be even better as you get gear upgrades.

I hope everyone had Happy Hollidays! For Christmas presents to all of my ingame friends, I made them Mechanical Squirrels and sent them Tasty Cupcakes with them along with a personalized message. In game, I received the winter boots and a frostweave bag! It really is all about spreading the cheer.

Happy Hollidays!

Happy Hollidays to all those other bloggers out there like the Hercs, Zanderfin, Phaelia, Megs, etc., etc., etc. You make coming into work a lot more fun! Best wishes to you and yours!

Make that cash!

My blog isnt a money making blog, but I usually make a decent bit of money when I want to. This doesnt include dailies and such as those are usually covering my repair bills and a bit more (plus I hate them, Im not even honored with Hodir yet :( ). Most of my money comes from gathering. Everybody needs raw materials if they are a crafter.

On Darraxus, I am a miner and an engineer. Believe it or not, these are both gathering professions. While mining, I pick up ore, gems, and crystallized pieces. With my Zapthrottle mote extractor, I can pick up all of the little clouds floating around that nobody can get. This is where I make a decent amount of money. In well under and hour I can usually get several stacks of Saronite (which sells for less than Cobalt now, but is very plentiful) about 10 or so Eternal Earth and Shadow (which doesnt really sell for crap, so I am saving them hoping someday they have value, 2-3 eternal water and air, and usually between 4-7 eternal fire. Thanks to Gevlon at the Greedy Goblin, this has become a big money maker for me.

Eternal fires on my server sell for about 32-38 gold a piece. I take my Eternal Fires (or theirs if I decide to buy them instead of farm them), break them down and sell them as Crystallized fire. Crystallized fire sells for about 6 gold a piece on my server. I break it down and sell the Crystallized Fire in stacks of two. I can put my stacks for a bit more per Crystallized fire and still sell them all due to the size of my stacks. People dont just look at money per item. They look for what is cheapest. A stack of two going for 12.5 gold is cheaper than a stack of 5 going for 25 gold. This is what many look at, and also look at their needs. Some people only need 1-2 crystallized fires. They dont want to spend more on excess items. This is why I use stacks of two. It is small enought that it looks like a decent price and it is a useful size. All that means is profit for me. This will obviously vary per server, but I think that this is the norm.

Trendy Tank.

No, not a trendy tank....like a woman's shirt. This is about the new trendy spec in tanking. The newest craze with the crazy kids down at Tankspot is the Deep Wounds spec. This spec is supposed to do crazy amounts of damage and threat. The key is to have a decent crit chance. Remember when picking your talents that Deep wounds can also proc off of Thunderclap.

For the most part the Deepwounds spec looks something like 15/5/51. The 5 points in Fury go 3/3 into Armored to the Teeth and 2/5 into cruelty. The crit is needed, but it is hard to justify going 5/5 cruelty and 0/3 Armored to the Teeth due to the fact that you lose A LOT of attack power. How much is A LOT? Well if you have 24K armor at 3 AP every 180 armor, that is 24000/100= 133.33. Then 133.33 times 3= about 400 attack power. Yeah....that is a pretty sizeable loss of AP.

I tried out a different spec, and to be honest I should have gone with this spec. You really need the ability crit talents for it to be at its best. Without them, I was only getting like 2-3 percent of my damage as Deep Wounds. Other tanks are reporting 12-14 percent of their damage from Deep Wounds. I will respec to this spec on Weds and give a better account of how it performs.

Weekend Update.

I had a pretty busy weekend in WoW this weekend. If I wansn't running Heroics, I made sure I had something to do. The weekend started off rather annoyingly as I could not log into my main toon. For some reason I could still log into my other toons, just not the one that I really wanted to play. For the first 1.5 hours, I ended up playing around and doing some quests on my Druid in Howling Fjorde. Then, I was finally able to log on to Darraxus with out getting DCed!

I had big plans to run Heroics all night, but that plan was not to be. There were no healers on and we ended up pugging a terribad healer in Old Kingdom. After several wipe on the first boss we finally got him dow *facepalm*. The healer was usually out of mana about a minute into the fight. Priests should not be running out of mana that quickly. After that, we cleared to the second boss and took him down very easily. At this point, our UBER DK had to go, and with two bosses down, good luck actually getting replacements.

So we dropped group, and we reformed without of DK who logged and the undergeared priest. We pick up another pug priest and an Elemental Shaman to continue on. About 3 pulls in, I get a whisper from someone in the Priest's guild because they need to use her to heal the last boss of Heroic Azjol'Nerub. They ask my permission like it really matters. So the priest leaves, after about 5 minutes the Shaman leaves and we end up just disbanning. This is completely retarded. If you are in a group, you should finish what you are doing before taking off. Last night I got a tell to do Heroic Strat for the daily, but I was already helping some friends get their Red Winter Hats, so I declined.

That evening was incredibly annoying, and I think I finished up just doing some fishing.

The next day I got a decent amount of things done. I did some more fishing and got it up to 440. I also did the cooking daily and picked up the recipe for Huge Feast. Tons of stuff went on the AH. I took a page from the Gevlon over at the Greedy Goblin and put up some crystallized fire on the AH. The eternal fires were down into the 38 gold range, but I was selling crystallized fire for 6g 30s a piece. Profit!!!!

Besides my side stuff, I actually did my first complete raid. I was just putting around on my way to level some weapons on the banished mob in SMV when I got an invite from the Guild's raid leader. They needed and offtank for 10 man Sartharion. We did it with no drakes, and didn't even have a death on the boss himself. I was in charge of going into the portals on the drakes and picking up all of the adds on Sartharion himself. Besides the emblems, I also got a hot new tanking ring!

After that, I hit some heroics, but ended up 11 emblems short of my T7 chest. I will probably be able to pick up that badboy on Wednesday.

With all of this, I also managed to get my Ret Pally to 71. The Pally is a lot of fun to play despite the fact that I actually have received Northrend green item upgrades. I kill stuff very fast and blow the questing. I prefer my Paladin to my Druid for questing. Boomkin is just boring. I am thinking of speccing back Resto and just healing my way thru instances to get to level 80. Leveling is actually slower than it was on my Prot Warrior. I can have a ton of mobs beating on me with no effect like I did on my warrior. This is probably due to the fact that my warrior came to Northrend with high avoidance, a lot of armor, and over 16k health unbuffed. My Pally and Druid are at around half of the hitpoints that my Warrior had.

There is still a dire shortage of healers. I can seemingly never find a healer, and when I do, they are often times saved to the instances I want to run. Being a healer right now is pure profit.

Sad Pandas work on Saturday :(

A rare Saturday post from me as I am working today. Didnt find out until about 2 hours before I went home yesterday either. Normally today would be the one day I can spend with my lady without either of us having to work. Oh well, the big check will be greatly appreciated for Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, my family decided to do Christmas today 0_0. At least I dont have to suffer thru more turkey and mashed potatoes and other not delicious holliday fare. We decided to go Mexican this year. I am bringing Tamales...MMMMMMMM.

On a WoW related note, I just barely got the acheivement for completing a daily 5 days in a row despite the fact that I have done the cooking daily every day for like the last month or so. Cant wait till I get some play time tonight. Hopefully there will be someone who needs a tank for a raid so that I can get some phat loots. If not, I will just be running tons of heroics so that I can get my T7 chest. See you guys on Monday!! Here is a picture from a while back in BC.....funny what you can see when you look around while on the Gryphon.

WTF COOKING!!!111one!!

My Northern spices did not sell for the first time because a lot more people got in on the action and undercut me :( So instead I bought a ton of Rhino meat and the Mighty Rhino Dog Recipe to get the last two points of cooking so that I can make a Feast. Little did I know that 46 Might Rhino Dogs later I would still be one point away. DAMN YOU RNG. I did put them on the AH for 10 gold a pop and hop to make a nice little chunk of cash from them.

In other news, while doing my cooking daily this morning I got to revered with Kirin Tor lol.

Besides my usual Heroics and Dailies, I have found that I am a half-ass achievement hunter. It is like achievement ADD. Ohhh, what are all these people fishing in the fountain for *casts line*. What is this? A coin....oh there is an achivement to catch all of them. *Fish, fish, fish, fish* OK IM BORED. Lets go see if I can get Old Ironjaw in Ironforge. *Fish, Fish, Fish*......BORED AGAIN STUPID DROP RATE!!!! Hmmmm what can I do with these low level fish? I KNOW!!!!! So I sent all the fish that I caught in IF to a former guildy who had always been a complete douchebag....individually. About 80-100 fish filling up his mail box. Back to Emblems I guess :)

Blitzing Heroics and the New Guild

Well, last night I said goodbye to my long time guild which has been falling apart at the seems lately. I ended up joining a guild which had several of my old guild members. Go figure lol. Anyways, I started out doing some Hodir dailies when I got a tell from a former guildy to do Archavon. I get summoned there, we kill trash.....there is no boss. Somebody who had already been saved came to the instance. DOH. So we disban and I start doing Heroics.

We start with Heroic VH where I get my pants to drop finally :) They tried to make me work for it as we got the Voidwalker boss and Xezozz (the Ethereal guy), but we 1 shotted both of them.

Next up was Heroic Drak'Tharon which was also the Heroic daily. We blasted thru in in absolutely no time thanks to a great balanced group. I got a DPS chest upgrade off of the Lich boss.

Then we headed off to Heroic Azjol-Nerub and one shotted all of the bosses there with no problems.

Last, we did Heroic Utgardde Pinnacle and blitzed thu the instance, only dying once when the third boss landed right on top of our healer and one shotted him. We collected our loots and were done for the night.

The healer was my favorite Druid healer from my old guild. He is now in my new guild. We got a bunch of badges, and I am less than 40 away from getting my T7 chest. I am thinking that I may be able to get it this weekend. After that I will be going for the gloves for my two piece set bonus (but will be grinding out the Kirin Tor rep for those tanking gloves until then.

My new guild seems a lot like my old guild when my old guild was good. It makes me happy that most of the people I liked are now in this guild. Sometimes change isnt really change at all....besides getting more purples :)

Arena Season 5: Staying Prot.

EI am going to stay prot for arena season 5 for several reasons (assuming I still have my uber ret pally partner).

1) He does enough damage, and with all of the support abilities I will have as a prot warrior, he should be able to smash them into the ground. Some of the abilities that I really like for PvP

a) Gag Order: If you are specced into this, you really are a caster's worst nightmare. You can silence them from a distance with heroic throw, or while you are up close with a good ole shield bash.

b) Warbringer: Charging in combat from any stance is hawt. Having it break snare effect such as frost nova is extra hawt. A warbring charge followed by a sheld bash is BAAAAAADDDDD for casters.

c) Concussion Blow: Not only does it stun the opponent, but it hits for a very good amount of damage. Mine crits for over 3k.

d) Shield Slam: Besided being a prot warrior's big damage ability, it also takes a buff off of the target. Get a few of these in and you opponent will be practically naked.

e) Shockwave: A nice chunk of damage and an even better AOE stun.

f) Improved Spell Reflect: It will be more deadly for casters to focus fire now. Improved spell reflect not only reflects for you, but you teammate. Frostfire bolt in your FACE.

g) Damage Shield: Watch and laugh as a rogue beats himself to death.

h) Other nice abilities for warriors: Enraged regenration is a nice self heal, and intimidating shout is a nice interrupt. Lets not forget that retalliation and shield wall are now on seperate 5 minute cooldowns and shield block will come in handy against rogues.

It aint bad to be prot in PvP anymore.

Dusting yourself off and starting again.

Within the last week or so, my guild went from a formerly BT raiding guild to pretty much extinct. There were problems with people not showing up to the raids when we finally had the bodies to raid as well as people being impatient and getting saved to other raids.

All of our officers ended up leaving first, followed by the GM kicking all of the ALTs. Then we had several more key members leave that had been there since the beginning. I was one of the final crew to leave the burning ship.

In a way, it is very sad for me. I have been in this guild in one way or another for over 2 years. The first incarnation of the guild ended when the then GM decided to G-kick everyone. We reformed as Reborn and continued doing what we did. Eventually, the GM of our former guild ended up joining on as well. We raided up to and including BT before the expansion. Towards the end of BC, raiding really started to die off. Then we all started leveling in Wrath. The first ones to 80 bolted and went to guilds that had already started raiding. Then the other problems set in. Not only had we lost good players to other guilds, we lost several tanks and healers who just didnt pick up the expansion.

At the same time, I kind of feel a bit of relief. There had been too much drama lately, and that is not how the guild rolled. We were a bunch of bullshitters just having fun together. If we couldnt even be that, then perhaps it was time to move on.

R.I.P Reborn. I will remember you fondly and dedicate my first phat purplz to your memory. Thanks for the good times.

Naxx fails, Guild fails.....but I did save money on insurance by switching to Geico!

So, a lot of new in my world (of warcraft) over the weekend. First thing is that the guild I have been in for the last 2 plus years basically fell apart. Not getting the people they needed fro Naxx runs, the GL left followed by the old guild leader announcing that the guild would no longer be a raiding guild. This was met by

A) A mass exodus of people who still want to raid.
B) The new (old) guild leader kicking out everybody's alts.

There are now less than 35 people in guild. At this point, my arena buddy offered to get my into his guild as they are short on Warrior tanks and are the 5th ranked raiding guild on the server. I am leaning towards joining them. Most of the people I have played with over all of this time have now moved on and we don't even have a single healer in Guild. Another plus is that the new guild would have raid nights that are compatible with my real life schedule. I think I have already made my decision, it is just hard to let it go.

On a less gloomy note, I got my Red Sword of Courage over the weekend finally! Those damn pants out of Heroic VH still havent dropped yet :( I run that heroic pretty much daily and have yet to see it drop. Cloth bracers seems to drop just about every single run.

I did my first foray into Naxx in a pug, and it did not go well. The tank were good, the healers were good, but the DPS was terribly low. It did not help that the raid leader brought along an extra tank :( The top DPS in the run was at about 1400 dps. That is very bad for Naxx. That is good at level 70 running SSC or something. Not level 80 running Naxx. Needless to say, we were unable to get Anub'Rhekan down and it costed me roughly 50 gold in repair bills.

I finally did some questing and such in Northrend with my other toons. I respecced my Druid Boomkin and headed to Howling Fjorde, then I respecced my Paly ret and headed out to Borean Tundra. So far so good. I got about half a level of XP on both and then went back to my warrior.

I have noticed since the expansion that there seems to be a great lack of healers. Before my guild fell apart, there were probably on 3 healers for the whole guild. Everybody else went DPS to level and just seemed to never spec back. When I try to pug heroics, I also find that the channels are just filled with a few tanks and a bunch of DPS. Im guessing that most of the healers are doing guild runs and arent really pugging anything.

AOE tanking. Not just for Paladins.

When you first hit Heroics, you won't generally be completely AOE tanking. You will probably need at least one CC because the mobs can hit damn hard. With that said, with the changes to the warrior class, there is not excuse not to be able to AOE tank. Thunderclap is pretty awesome now and for me crits for over 1000.

Thunderclap is probably your most important ability for AOE tanking. Not only does it do some decent damage, but it also reduces the attack speed of things hitting you. Getting hit less=good (at least in content you dont outgear by a ton).

Shockwave is the new hotness for Prot Warriors. I does a bunch of damage and also stuns the targets for a short amount of time. My Shockwaves crit for well over 3k damage. The cooldown on this ability is not incredibly short, so you will have to choose when to use it.

Demoralizing Shout is still as important as ever when AOE tanking. Making things hit you less hard is good. If you get smashed, so will the rest of the group.

Cleave is one of the old standbys for AOE tanking and is still a good option.

Glyph of Sunder will also help a lot when AOE tanking. It will place a sunder on a nearby bad guy when you sunder your main target. Its like the old tab target AOE tanking only dumbed down.

Generally what I like to do it charge in, thunder clap, backup, and then Shockwave. While they are stunned you can throw up a demo shout. Follow that with another thunderclap, and do you regular threat rotation on the main target. You can always tabe sunder if you like or throw in a cleave or two. If the AOE pack is getting read to go down, dont blow your Shockwave cooldown again. Make sure to wait until the next group for that nice big chunk of AOE threat.

AOE tanking is just that...AOE tanking. You are using your AOE and the DPS is probably doing the same. If you want them to focus fire a target, make sure to state that or mark it. If you dont, and they pull aggro, it is your fault Mr. Tanky.

As always, tank responsibly. This message has been paid for by Darraxus for President.

All Aboard the Fail Boat: A Guide How Not To; Heroic Violet Hold

That pretty much explains more horrible, horrible luck with heroic VH last night. The biggest fail part is the we got the eyeball boss and the aarokoa boss. Yeah....easy ones. The moral of the story is to always get a good healer, but then we knew that. Lets take a spin in the time machine and see how we got to this point.

So, I log on after work figuring I will get a very quick Heroic VH run in before the Gym. We go in with a Mage officer, his GF (a druid healer), a RL mage buddy, and a Ret Pally from Guild. We get in, everything is going fine, and then we wipe on the eyeball boss. Why? Because they kept DPSing during the optical focus phase. So we run back in, and we start over. We kill the first two bosses quite easily. We are on the 15th wave of trash, and a blue caster offhand drops. The Druid healer wants it. While she is busy checking out the shiny new blue item, wave 16 slowly beats me to death. Wipe....on trash......FAIL.

I head off to the Gym, come home, spend some time with my lady, and try to get the run going again. We get our healing lead officer (priest, who BTW had to be in bed shortly), a different officer playing the other officer's mage, a freshly dinged 80 warrior from guild, and the same ret pally from earlier. We start killing the mobs and notice that we get the Aarakoa boss first....I didnt put i back on Heroic......FAIL. Our priest has to go to bed, and I finally convince out original druid healer to come back.

First try with the new healer.....dead on the first boss....again. She whispers me that she will give it one more shot. We clear everything up until the last boss. As the last boss spawns, out ret pally dies. The fight is long and the Druid runs out of mana. The Mage is dead. Did we pull it off? Hell no. I die, the pally reconnects, doesnt bubble and gets killed, warrior is dead, healer dies with the last boss sitting at 3500 health. Demoralizing.

I give it a rest for a bit and decide to go and mine some nodes and crap to make some cash and to also not want to kill myself :) My former arena partner Mura finished 25 man Naxx and offered to come along. The only problem is we couldnt find a healer at first. Then I got a tell from a level 80 priest that he would heal it. So it is Mura, our Warrior, the Mage DPSing, and the PUG priest healing....or not healing is more like it. We get to the first boss. Fail....the priest either had horrible lag or terrible reaction time because we were not getting many heals. After the wipe, he says he has to go and jets.

At around this time, I see that my favorite Heroic Healer is finished with a 25 man Naxx that he was involved in. I hit him up and he comes in to heal. We get it that time with no wipes and no real serious danger at all for that matter. Goes to show how much a good healer means to a group.

Helping out your Healers

A tank helping out their healer can go a long way. It makes people want to run with you, and you will make new healer friends that invite you along to their runs. This goes for guild healers as well as pug healers.

One of the easiest things a tank can do to help is use his cooldowns. In the AOE fest that was the end of BC, people stopped using common sense and cooldowns. Now that we are back to heroics and raiding, this can be bad. There are a number of things you can do to help your healing brothers and sisters out.

1) Use your trinkets: If you have trinkets with on use abilities, they should be on your tool bar. Better yet, make a macro that charges, then uses one of your trinket uses. This gives the healer a moment to get his bearings straight and start healing you. If you don't have on-use trinkets equipped (like me atm), then disregard this.

2) Mark targets for CC: It is not old and outdated. It is still good practice, and hit keeps you from taking 15k damage in a second. Marking has been around forever. Once again, people forgot about it in BC-AOE. Marking targets is also important as it make you learn what each mob does. Knowing your shit is part of being a good tank, and not a face roller.

3) Use your cooldowns: Pre Wrath, you didnt really need to use your cooldowns or special abilities. Shield wall was on a very long timer, and it was usually a given that shield block would be up all the time. Well, times have changed. Shield block is now on a 45 second cooldown. This is a huge change as you can no longer spam it. It is best used when pulling, then charging into a group. You take a lot less damage and give your healer a chance to catch up. Shield wall is now 5 minute cooldown and reduces all damage by 60 percent. Pretty nifty as it can be used on EVERY boss fight. Last stand is another nice OH SHIT button with pretty short cooldown. A new one is Frenzied Regeneration. This is basically a pretty powerful warrior hot that can help out a lot. If you notice you are taking alot of damage, it would be very useful help to the healer for you to pop it. It has a 3 minute cooldown.

4) Silence, and Stun, and reflect OH MY!!!!: These are normal abilities that should be used on a regular basis to help out your healer. Pretty much every tank should be specced into Gag Order. If you are, this gives you two silences. Heroic throw will silence casters as will shield bash. This is win. You can pull caster mobs with Heroic throw and have then run straight to you without having to LOS. Make sure that you are silencing caster mobs when you can. Spell reflect is also a very nice ability. If you are specced into the improved version, then you can reflect spells cast at your buddies as well. They will tank you for it.

5) Communicate: It is all well and good to use the abilities given to you. The last thing you can do to help out a healer is to let them know that you are popping a powerful ability. This may give them a chance to regen a little mana, or heal up an injured party member. In all relationships, communication is key. This includes the Tank-Healer relationship.

On a side note, I tried to mostly pug heroic VH last night, and it was not happening. I had a terrible DK for my guild who was doing under 1k dps, a pug hunter who was all kinds of dumb doing around 1k, and a very good pug hunter doing about 2k dps. The healer was also very good and a pug. Unfortunately, we got the Ethereal boss that drops the orbs, and the DPS kept doing dumb shit. The boss will enrage if his orbs get to close and hit me for 10-12k damage. Well, I would be kiting him along, and then all of a sudden, a bunch of ghould pop up and TAUNT the boss. He stays there whacking ghouls, the orbs catch up, he come back after me, and smashes me to bits.

We wiped 4 times on that boss before I logged off in disgust. I am probably going to talk to some officers about the DK, before he gets into a raid and sucks it up. During BC, he was an extremly well geared shadow priest that struggled to do 800 DPS. Now he is a level 80 DK and was only doing 800 DPS. He is well below the curve for similar geared DKs, and I fear he doesnt really know how to play. His terrible DPS was always tolerated because a) everyone likes him (he is a very nice guy), and b) he was a SP which gave mana to everyone. Now he is a DK which are a dime a dozen, and he really doesnt stack up.

Speed Gaming

Unless is is a designated WoW night, I need to speed game in order to get anything done. I usually log on quickly before work, do my daily cooking quest and check the daily heroic and regular instance daily to see if it will be something I am interested later in the week.

Some days when I get home from work, my fiance is still in class so that gives me a limited bit of time to play as well. Yesterday I took advantage of that by blasting thru Heroic Violet Hold with a guild healer, a guild DPS who I out damaged, and two pugs. We got thru it with zero problem (although my stupid tanking pants still didnt drop.)

I previously posted a post about things you can do with very limited time. Heroic VH is one we can add to the list. It takes probably less that 30 minutes, gets you 3 Emblems, and the chance to get an epic. Plus it is in Dalaran, which is extremly convenient to get to (via Hearth or whatever method you like).

Heroics

That is basically what I did this weekend. Ran heroics. I probably ran around a dozen or so. I ran Utgarrde Pinnacle, Utgarrde Keep, Azjol-Nerub, Drak'Tharon, Violet Hold, The Oculus, etc. etc. I got enought badges to get the Chained Millitary Gorget, which is very nice. I will be saving up for my t7 chest next.

I picked up a decent number of upgrades over the weekend, but not a single plate tanking epic dropped in any of my heroics. The Sword from UP still has not dropped for me either. Items I got include the Essence of Gossamer (111 stamina trinket from Heroic Azjol-Nerub), the Titanium Plated Shotgun (made by myself), Titansteel Tempered Treads (made by a BS), the Revered Chest from Wyrmcrest, and the Honored Leggings from Argent Crusade. I am going to continue grinding AC rep for the nice head enchant.

I also did a decent amount of questing, unlocking the Sons of Hodir dailies and finishing the Drakuru quest lines.

We had plans to run Naxx on Saturday, but I think it may be best for some of the people to obtain some decent gear. The Guild poked their head in on Sunday evening and downed the first boss in the spider quarter.

I have now been healed in Heroics by every class other that a Shaman. I must say that Druid Healers are still my favorite followed by Priests and Paladins. I ran with a very good Paladin healer last night in Heroic UP in a 100 percent PUG. I still have not decided what toon I am going to level next. I think perhaps the Paladin, but again, I am not sure.

Does anyone know where some good tanking shoulders drop for an 80 warrior? I know that some nice ones drop from Patchwerk in 10 man Naxx, but we havent quite made it there yet.

My stats are looking pretty good atm. I am at 540 defense without having to use a defense trinket, 25500 health unbuffed, and 23000 armor. My dodge is close to 19 percent, while block and parry are around 15.5 percent (yes I know that Block is not an avoidance stat).

Mission: Impossible

Do you ever have a theme song running in your head when you are doing something? I logged in this morning to do the cooking daily before work. As soon as I log on it say "11 minutes until server reset". I pick up the Mustard Dogs daily and realize I only have 2 Rhino meat and I need 4!!!!!

Queue Mission: Impossible theme music.......... I hop on the Griffin to Borean Tundra and wait. About 5 minutes later im in Borean and hop on my epic flier. I fly over to a large patch of Rhinos and gather all 6 of them. I proceed to smash them to bits and get 4 meat out of it. I hearth back to Dalaran, and make the dogs. I then start my mad dash back to the flight point area where I have to turn in the quest.

Queue the "The Final Count Down" by Europe. I run up the stair, turn in my quest, get my reward, then bam DCed from the server. More like Mission: You aint stopping me from doing my daily cooking quest BEATCH!!!!!

So yeah. That was my morning, now I am at work. Fun day ahead which consists of work, gym, dinner, sleep. Yay.

First Heroic

Besides doing alot of farming last night (got my engineering to 446 off of a yellow and then green level up to go along with tons or Eternals) I got to run my first heroic!

Utgarrde Pinnacle was the Heroic Daily yesterday and there is a chance it will drop my HAWT tanking sword. I picked it up, grabbed some DPS (Rogue buddy, Enhancement Shaman Guildy, Arena partner Ret Pally, and a pug Holy Priest. This was my first level 80 isntance tanked, let alone Heroic.

The run with pretty smoothly with the obligatory one wipe on each boss so I could really get the hang of it :( The first boss is pretty easy as long as you stay out of the candles. The second boss is also very easy as it is a bunch of beasties that come in waves. The third boss was the toughest as you have to fight a bunch of waves of baddies before you get to fight him, then he does a very nasty whirlwind. Probably lasted a bit longer since all of our DPS was melee and had to back out of the whirlwinds.

The last boss wasnt incredibly difficult. He makes you cower in terror and runs up to a Vrykul boat where he usually summons some type of mob. He also has an ability that he casts where you can hit in while he has it or it does a ton of damage to you. At the end, the stupid mail DPS belt dropped and no tanking sword for me. The priest put me on his friends list and said if I ever need a healer just holler.

Hopefully, the next time I play, I will have the time to get my engineering to 450 and make my damn shotgun. This weekend, I am planning to run Naxx, but if we dont have the bodies (like I suspect will happen), I will just end up running a bunch of heroics instead. I think I may get the belt as my first piece of badge loot, but im unsure. I want the chest the most, but I think that the belt is possibly the biggest upgrade atm.

Woot get to play tonight!

Ah Wednesday. A non-snuggle WoW night. I get to sneak a few minutes in during the week, but it isnt the same as actually getting to sit down and run some instances and such. I will prolly get my defense enchants then hopefully will be over 540 defense. I also want to fly around Sholazar basin and gather up a bunch of nodes and crap. I need 20 saronite bars, 15 eternal air, and 15 eternal water still for my shotgun. I was just going to buy the air and water until I saw what they were charging for it. Instead, Im gonna run around with my mote extractor.

The choice between farming and doing instances is a tough one. On one hand, I can get my shotgun. On the other, I can grind my Wyrmcrest rep to get my chest. I think that instances may be the way to go as I can usually find some time to farm but not to instance.

Anyone have any recomendations healthwise unbuffed for a tank, Im sitting at around 22k atm with about the same armor. I also have over 2k attack power :)

Getting things done with limited time.

As I have said before, I have pretty limited time to play. It is mostly on Weekends and on Wednesday. I usually get a few minutes here and there and like to try and get something done. Here is a small list of things you can do in a very limited amount of time (10-20 minutes).

1) Cooking Daily: If you done have cooking, then you are a damn slacker :) If you do (and you should), pop into Dalaran and do the cooking daily. They are very easy and net you some spice and a dalaran cooking award (or two if you are lucky). It will also grab you 16k XP and a I believe a bit of cash as well. This is time well spent. Beside the Northern Spices (which are needed for making the top foods), you will get some funny parody spices from time to time as well. These include Old Spice (which you put on yourself or somebody to make them smell better) and Baby Spice (shameless Spice Girls reference, but it allows you to shrink people to adorably small sizes. Best used on Gnomes, Bear Droods, and Boomkin).

2) ANY DAILY: If you have any plans on doing any kind of raiding or running of heroics, all of the major rep factions have some nice gear waiting for you. You obviously dont have time for an instance, so go and do a few dailies for your faction of choice. All that rep will add up and you will make a bit of cash to boot.

3) Gather: This one is only convenient if ou logged off somewhere other than Dalaran. An epic flying mount is also prefered. Herbalist or Miner doesnt matter. Get on your mount, fly around the zone and collect your nodes. When you have time to sell them or craft them, it will have been worth it.

4) Fishing: Fising in WoW is nothing like fishing IRL. In real life, you sit there for hours on end, may not catch anything, and (in my case) throw them back. In WoW, you can catch several fish per minute. Catching these fish will level your fishing skill. Leveling your fishing skill means you dont have to do it later. WIN. Also, you can take all of the fish you catch, cook it, and use it for raids or sell it on the auction house.

5) Auctioneer: Play the economy. Log on. Go to an auctioneer. Scan. Alt-tab and enjoy Darraxus the Warrior. Check the auction house for good deals after the scan. Buy then and resell them for more. Profit. This one isnt really incredibly fun, but when you see the cash rolling in, you will thank me.

I hope this is helpfull for all of those WoW fanatics out there who have a very limited amount of time to play like I do.

Ding 80!!!! About damn time.

Well, with my limited playing time, I dinged 80 last night in Sholazar Basin. It is a pretty fun zone that is basically a remake of Ungorro minus the annoying patrolling elites. I ended up spending a crap ton of money leveling my engineering, but I did obtain my Titanium Goggles. My engineering is now 441. It seemed like almost every node I flew by in Sholazar had someone on it. I even saw players as low as level 71 out ther mining...WTF?

I did some equipment swapping, and I am now at 520 defense. Still 20 away from the magic uncrittable number, but I havent even got any defense enchants on my gear, so hopefully that will cover it. After I finish my last quests in Sholazar, Im going to head to Zul'Drak and start doing the questing there. I am very excited about "championing" for rep and cant wait to run all of the 80 instances and Heroics. If everything goes well, I plan on running our first Naxx 10 man next Saturday.

Ding 78!!!

I hit 78 last night in some very limited playing time. Did the quest chain to stop the furbolg and kill the corrupted bear god. The best part is that I didnt even have to kill the corrupted bear god. I just waited for the Horde Druid and Shaman to take him down and then cleansed his body afterwards. I think I missed out on him talking to me but meh, I can do that when i level my next toon.

I have been doing my cooking dailies religiously. If I get 5 minutes to play, that is what I do. The baby spice you get is pretty fun. Shrinking gnomes is the best. Then they are easier to punt.

I should easily hit 78 sometime tommorow I would guess. Make a push to hit 79 tonight then 80 tommorow so that I can get to working on my trade skills and make myself some sexy epics. I hit 78 and I am only about half way done with Grizzly Hills. Next up is Sholazar Basin and Nessingwary goodness.

Misc. WoW thoughts

After every expansion, it is tough to get used to what everybody can do. This especially goes for professions. Learning what enchants are best for each slot, what professions can make you some nice gear etc. takes a bit. I still dont know all of the new tanking enchants. I was told there is a 20 defense to shield. I would imagine that alot of the other ones got buffed as well.

Does anybody else know the sheer number of quests that blizzard has made that involves bodily excretions of some sort whether that be feces or vomit?

My all time favorite poop quest is the one that results in you getting Nagrand cherrys. That quest should really show you who the real RPers are and who just want to blitz the game as quickly as possible. If you are playing in character, there is no way that you pop one of those in you mouth. You just dug them out of crap....unless you RP as a filthy unhygenic brute.

What zone do I start getting saronite and crap instead of Cobalt. I am questing my way thru Grizzly Hills and have still yet to find a mine that isnt Cobalt. IMy mining is about 436 and my engineering is in the low 400s. I guess thats what I get for wiping out most quests in each zone as I go.

We really took our flying mounts for granted. Its kinda like that 80s song "Dont know what you've fot, till' its gone." Zipping around the zone instead of running saves me a whole bunch of time. Not to mention being able to drop right on top of the named mobs I need rather than fighting my way to them. That helps me save the rested xp I got for the actual quests.

I am thinking about clearing out every single zone of quests. It will be good money, plus the acheivements wont be too bad either. I have two quests for Zul'Drak now, and I will probably finish those off when I am done with Grizzly Hills to make sure I dont have to go back in if I dont want to.

I already have the epic crafted BS shield waiting for me when I hit 80. I just need to get it enchanted. It costed me 2500 gold, but I took that off of my other toons. As soon as I hit 80, I will equip that and be looking to get the mats to make my new goggles and the Titanium plated Shotgun.

Tanking is the best thing in this game as far as roles go. Period. I have raid healer, dpsed, and tanked, and I find that I love tanking most of all. Big E-Peen DPS number are nice, but tanking is by far the most fulfilling.

100th Post!!!

This is my 100th post. It has been alot of fun writing about my life in WoW and hearing from all of you about your experiences. Is there anything you would like to see more of from my blog? What parts do you like etc?

Got a bit of time to play yesterday on Thansgiving and completed a bunch of quests in Grizzly Hills. Of course there was another poop related quest. This zone seems to be alot about trolls and Worgen. I havent seen whats his face from Shadowfang Keep, but you get the feeling he is around there somewhere. I am so glad I have my flying mount for this zone. It saves so much time.

I have been religiously doing my cooking dailies. Not only do you get the Dalaran cooking awards and a variety of spices, but you also get 16k or so XP. Seems like a win in many ways for me.

Server down for a few

Questing out in Grtizzly Hills before the server went down. If they make me kill one more fricking bear we are gonna have to just start calling it the Hills. Minus those douchebags Heidi and Spencer obviously.

Questing as Prot

For those of you who are questing as prot, this is one of the easiest specs to quest as. There is virtually no downtime. There are slightly differnt strategies for a solo target as opposed to a group of targets.

If you are only doing one at a time, I usually charge/shield slam/revenge (if you are a tank you better have the Glyph of Revenge for the free Heroic Strike)/Heroic Strike, Devastate, etc. Use revenge every time it lights up, and be on the look out for Sword and Board procs for free Shield Slam goodness.

For an AOE pull, I usually like to charge, thunderclap, back up a bit and Shockwave. I will generally go thru the same single target rotation while throwing in a Thunderclap when it is off of cooldown. You can also cleave to dump rage in this situation if it is coming in faster than you can spend it. If pull a bunch (like 10 plus), and are starting to lose a bit of health, you can use your Enraged Regeneration (which is one a 3 minute cooldown). This is one of the abilities that also makes it so easy for prot to solo elites if they need to.

Prot DPS is way up, and you should remember to keep battleshout up as much as possible.

Prot....the elite soloing spec

I have pretty much soloed every elite I have run into at this point. The only exception was the 5 man giant in Dragonblight. Last night I logged on for maybe 45 minutes, and went and killed a level 75 elite with 120 k HP by myself. The quest is for Rageclaws Flipper in Drak and it will net you an awesome tanking weapon if you havent done it yet. It was a DPS upgrade, small stamina upgrade, and a huge strength upgrade for my Mallet of the Tides out of SSC. This quest is a must for any tank......well anyone for that matter. It is a one step quest that nets you a nice blue item. Anyone know if there is a new tanking weapon enchant?

Warrior tanking reminder

You will now need 540 defense at level 80 to be uncrittable. This may not seem like alot, but defense rating has changed and it takes alot more to get where you need to go. Plan on gemming for defense and enchanting to defense until you hit that magic number. You dont want to go into a heroic and start getting critted for 8-9 thousand.

This should be the first priority for all of you warrior tanks out there. Effective health will come in time. Make sure that your healer isnt running out of mana on every pull.

Such a busy weekend in WoW

Man I seemed to do alot in WoW this weekend. I did a few instances, but mostly I quested.....A LOT. I finished up Howling Fjorde for the achievement and headed on over to the Borean Tundra. I did all of the quests the and got the zone questing achievement as well as the D.H.E.T.A's Little P.I.T.A for doing all of the tree hugging quests out there. I finished the zone doing the quest line that ended in "Last Rites". Me and a DK took down the boss for the quest and my tanking inspired him to repspec his warrior Prot.

Next I headed to Dragonblight. This zone is awesome and packed full of lore. I got the achievement in this zone as well, so I obviously completed Wrath Gate and the Battle for Undercity. These quests were amazing and epic. I also did the quest line that shows Arthas ordering the boats be burned down and when he grabbed frostmourne. Towards the end of my questing in the zone, I had a 3 man quest called "A Big Worm" or something like that. It was a three man group quest and the worm had 74k HP, but I easily soloed him.

By the time I finished Dragonblight, I dinged 77 and went and got my cold winter flying. Thank god I can fly again. I got to revered with three different factions during my questing in these three zones.

I also got in a little bit of PvP. I havent tried Lake Wintergrasp or the new BGs yet, but one of my DK buddies and I completly owned a flagged Horde Mage and Warrior duo. They didnt even try to come back and retaliate.

I have also been leveling my professions as I go. I am over 400 engineering now, about 420 or so mining. 435 first aid, 385 fishing, and 410 cooking. The most irritating one is of course engineering.

I also did the new Ring of Blood quest over the weekend. It was incredibly easy and I got myself a big shiny new axe.

I think that next up for me will be Shalozar Basin. I want to do the last Nessingwary quests, and people in guild advised against Grizzly Hills as it is apparently very spread out.

Whew, did I mention it was a busy weekend? Anyone else have any suggestions on where to go next?

Tanking over your head

It seems like it is very easy to tank over your head in the new expansion. At 72 last night I tanked Drak'Thar or whatever that troll instance is called. Most of the mobs were level 76. I also had a level 70 healer healing me who was falling asleep at her keyboard.

I did get a few nice things out of the instance (altough no new gear). I got two cooking recipes (including one for cupcakes....nom nom nom) and I got the recipe to make heavy frost weave bandages. I love being able to tank things that are very high above my level. It gives a sense of accomplishment.

Hopefully this weekend, I can do the Old Kingdon and get that instance out of the way. I picked up a level 73 BOE blue shield off of the AH that will be replacing my Merc Gladiators Shield Wall.

Getting the Fiance to play, day 2

So we actually had a chance to play WoW together again last night and we did some questing in the Goldshire area. We went from 8-11 in levels. In a way, I almost think it would be better to let her play by herself so she can figure out how to use the map etc. We had a good time, but she said it felt like we were just running in circles. This is probably because I told her everything to do. Get this quest. Go here. Now go here. We need to kill x of these.

She would constantly get lost or run off in a random direction which I found to be pretty funny. She also played like a girl. I would be running up ahead and she would stop to see if I was paying attention to her. She found this to be hilarious. She said she is tired of casting wrath over and over so we will probably go get her bear for shortly.

Overall, it was a decent evening and we even got her a new haircut. AKA I showed her where is was and let her do her thing. Afterwards we played some Sodoku....which can be annoyingly frustrating.

You have failed me for the last time......

Last night was supposed to be the second night that I play some WoW with my fiance. That ended up not working out as a) She got a phone call that lasted much longer than expected, and b) She had been up since 0130 in the morning for work. We will probably give it a go tonight assuming there are no queues and the damn server doesnt keep kicking her trial account down the queue.

On a side note, while she was on the phone I took a bit of time to start doing a bit more on my DK. I really felt like a Sith Lord running around with my lightsaber like runeblade and black armor, deathgripping badguys to me.

On another side note, this weekend while running all my DK buddies thru instances, I literally LoLed as one of my friends has a macro for when he uses strangulation. It says "You have failed me for the last time (mob name here)".

WoW Domestic Disputes (Part 3)

Part of a continuous story in the life of a WoW player in a serious relationship with a non-WoW player. Last installment here http://darraxusthewarrior.blogspot.com/2008/10/wow-domestic-disputes-part-2.html

The most recent debacle has to do over the switching of playing time. Woman is a confusing creature no matter how we try, we will never understand them. They get unreasonably angry at things that a guy would just shrug their shoulders at.

So, Lich King was coming up and my fiance knew how much I was looking forward to playing it. She offered to let me play on Thrusday (a normally designated snuggle night), in exchange for the following Wednesday (one of my 3 WoW nights). I figured that the game would take forever to install and that I would probably not have time to play so I declined. Then my fiance went and bought the expansion and installed it for me before I got home. When I got home, I was very excited and asked if it was OK if I still take her up on the offer of switching nights.

She seemed OK with it until later that night. Then she went into a huge tirade about me going back on my word blah blah blah. I was like "HUH?" I had asked if it was still ok to switch nights after she had said it was ok to switch nights. Now I was suddenly going back on my word? So I said "Ok, I'll snuggle with you tonight then." To which she replies "No, just go play your stupid game".

Why would you say go ahead and play, then get pissed, and when I offer not to play, you tell me to play, only to get mad at me for playing? Is this bizzarro world that I am living in? Is this a weird backwards dimension? There was so much flip flopping going on that my head was spinning. Then to top it off, she was mad at me all the next day as well as part of the day after that. Because I did what she told me to do. CRANKY WOMEN ARE CRANKY.

I really dont get it. It isnt like I spend that much time on the game. I play on Weds, Sat, and Sunday. All of those days, I play after she has gone to bed for the night. I will play for a little bit if I get home before her. I dont see how playing this little can be such a big damn issue. She can ask for more snuggle nights, but if I ask to play my game another night it is because I dont want to spend time with her? WHA? I just spent all day with you, cooked dinner, and put you to bed. LAYING NEXT TO YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP IS NOT SPENDING TIME WITH YOU. Im sorry, it just isnt.

I will continue with my mission to get her to play WoW. Maybe I can make her a little bit more understanding in the process.

Weekend with Wrath

I got a decent amount of stuff done over the weekend in Wrath including getting to 72. Unfortunately, there are already 80s on my server and DKs who are a higher level than me. How do people have so much time on their hands?

I have been leveling all of my crafting skills as I got, including engineering, mining, first aid, and even a bit of fishing.

I reached level 72 without even leaving Howling Fjorde for more than a few minutes (I did about 3 -4 quests in the Borean Tundra. I am rather enjoying questing, and plan on more or less depleting the zone before heading on the the next one.

I spent much of my weekend doing instances. I did the Nexus once, Utgarrde Keep about 5 times, and I even did Ajol-Nerub once. I really love running the new instances, and the best part is that they are pretty short. Despite being a bit low for AN, we completed the entire instance in about 30 minutes. Next time I get a chance to play for more than a few minutes, I am thinking that I will try the instance The Old Kingdom. Trying and taming new instances is one of my favorite new parts of the game.

I think once I complete Howling Fjorde, I am going to head to the Grizzly Hills. I am interested to see what Mr. Nessingwary has in store for us this time around.

Through all of the, I also got my Druid to ding 70 finally. It took 4 days 6 hours /played to get there. I basically leveled the last half of a level healing my 4 buddies on their Death Knights thru mana-tombs and Auchenai Crypts. We wiped the floor with Auchenai Crypts despite the fact that 3 of the DKs were level 63 or 62. I have a feeling it wont be long until DKs get the nerf treatment.

With another new expansion come all of the douchebags. Courtesy is apparently not taught anymore. If you see somebody waiting for a named mob for a quest, how about instead of ninjaing it, you invite the to group so that you both get credit. Obviously, if they are the other faction, ninja away.

First Day of Wrath and the Howling Fjord

Well, I got over half way to the next level on my first day of Wrath, and completed my first instance, Utgarrde Keep. Not a terribly difficuly instance especially if you have a good group. I tanked all of the mobs and we easily made our way to each boss. We took on each boss without looking up the strategies and wiped each time. We did down all of the bosses on the second try though.

First Boss: The first boss is Prince something rather. There is a 4 pull right before him that can be pulled seperately. The boss is pretty easy. He shoots shadow bolts for most of the fight, summons some skeleton adds, and will randomly ice block somebody. If he iceblocks the tank, he will start shadowbolting someone else. The skeleton adds come from the doorway, so if you position the boss so that you are between the door and the rest of your party, you can just thunderclap or consecrate to pick up the adds.

Second Boss: The second boss is a Warlock Guy and a Warrior Guy. I think the encounter is kinda like Romulo and Julianne in that you have to kill them fairly close together. I know we burned down the Warlock first, then got on the warrior. They seemed to have a random aggro table as the Warlock would target the healer and need to be shield bashed and taunted. The Warrior will usually randomly charge off and then come back.

Final Boss: The final boss starts out pretty much as a tank and spank and goes down pretty fast. He is the rezzed as an undead and starts to do massive damage (mostly shadow). I believe he also throws around some axes like on Prince Malchezarr. There is another element that apparently silences someone for 8 seconds. Unfortunately that was our healer lol. Overall, it was a pretty cool instance with music that sounded like it came straight out of Braveheart.

Besides that, I did a few random quests, learned all my new levels of professions, and fished a little bit with Phaelia from http://www.resto4life.com/. All of my new cooking recipes are already green again...DOH. I also attempted pugging another Utgarrde Keep as well as the other starting dungeon in the Borean Tundra, the Nexus. The pug of Utgarrde was terrible as I was second in DPS and our healer was level 60 with less that 5k health. After 2 wipes on the first boss I left group. All of the DPS in the group did less than 500 dps. They must have been in Outlands Greens or something because they were terribad.

The Nexus pug went pretty decently, but once again we had some severly undergeared players. The healer was a fresh 70 and most of the DPS was under 400 DPS with the exception of a hunter who was doing around 800-900. I think I am going to have to stick to guild runs while leveling up.

W-Day and getting the lady to play

Well, today is W-Day....or Wrath Day. I didnt go to a midnight buying, and my fiance is going to pick up a copy and start installing it for me before I get home.

I got her to play finally. She created a Druid that she named Gurrtrude (there is an actual story behind the name as she used to call her mom at work and say her name was Gertrude...now all of her sisters do it). I summoned her to me on my little Gnome mage named Crispee and we started nuking stuff in the dwarf starting area. A little over an hour later, we were both level 8, in Stormwind. We both had a lot of fun....unless I looted something she killed....then she got mad at me :). To fix that I put it on free for all and just let her loot everything. She just killed everything with wrath spam, so I have a feeling that she will be going Balance once we actually get some talent points.

We will see because I still dont know how she will react to being able to shapeshift. Being the girly girl that she is, she is already complaining about her clothes. Unfortunately, we only got her a 10 day free trial for now so I cant trade her any money or gear.

I am hoping to play more with her on Saturday since we are both off on that day.

Busted Servers Ruin Fun....More at 11!!!!!!!

So last night was going to be the night that I finally got my fiance to play WoW. I go to log on after I get home from work. Servers busted. Then I get called back into work to close. When I left the damn things were still down.

So we have a plan to play tonight. Assuming that the servers arent still down.

I'm not going to the midnight opening for this expansion. I have to be at work at 6 am. My fiance has already agreed to buy the game tommorow and then install it for me while I am at work. SCORE!

Tanking in Wrath

We have all gotten a head start in learning to use out new abilities. Some classes are more or less the same. Warrior tanking has become a brand new ballgame. Prot Warriors used to put out 200 dps in their tanking gear. Now they are putting out 450 plus. Threat is thru the roof. People are AOEing entire instances. The time will soon come to once again seperate the good tanks from the bad ones.

We will be running new instances, with new mobs, with new abilities. We will probably be able to blast thru the first few with little to no effort. Once we start getting to 75 plus and replacing our gear, things are probably going to get a lot tougher.

We will be asking for players to use CC again. We will be selective on who we take on runs. What kind of utility does that class bring? If you are currently a tank and just AOE tanking everything, YOU ARE NOT PREPARED.....wait that was the last expansion.

My advice if you plan on running some 5 mans or 10 mans before Wrath is to practice running things how we are going to run them in the new future. Out CC has most likely gotten incredibly rusty. Mages aren't sheeping, Hunters aren't trapping, Rogues aren't sapping. I have and idea that this could lead to a lot of annoying wipes in the very near future. It will all even out after a bit, but starting now will make the transition that much easier.

All tanks should be able to multi-mob tank when needed, but it is also the responsibiliy of the CC to make sure that their targets stay CCed. A dead healer can't heal anyone.

Finishing up Odds and Ends before WoTLK hits

Everyone is running about, doing the random things that they want to do to gain closure on BC. Several of my guild went into a pug BT run yesterday and killed everything up to and including Mother Sharazz. I was busy trying to get my Druid to 70. I am now thru level 69 and I hope to hit 70 this Weds. I have already healed a bunch of level 70 instances with my druid, including a full clear of kara, where I was first on the healing meters at level 68. I got a ton of new gear but cant actually equip any of it unti level 70 :(. I also ran a few BGs on my Druid and got the damage control achievement when I healed for over 300k in AV.

I played around with my warrior being arms this weekend and was pretty impressed. First, I took him into some BGs where I did well. I got first in damage in an AV where I earned the achievements "Every Little Bit Count" by controlling both mines while winning, and "Alterac Valley Perfection" by destroying all of their towers and holding all of ours until the end. Somehow I didnt get the damge control achievement despite the fact that I did nearly 400k damage. I did get the grim reaper achivement for 30 HKs in a single BG.

I also took my Warrior into kara briefly where I was easily tops in damage by around 400 DPS. I was putting out over 1200 overall when I decided to call it a night.

An update on my diabolical plan. My fiance has agreed to give WoW a try via the 10 day free trial/RAF. I have already created a little gnome mage named Crispee to level with her. I am hoping that she enjoys the game enought that she will continue to want to play.

What have you been doing to prepare yourself for WoTLK?

Arms is the new fury

I decided to go respec arms and give it a try, and I must say that some of the new abilities are absolutely amazing. I dont know what a good arms rotation is yet, but i was cranking out 1200 plus DPS on the training dummies. I was mostly using MS, rend, and sunder and using overpower and execute every time they procced. With roughly the same gear pre patch, it was difficult for me to get anywhere near my fury DPS.

Anyone have any recommendations for a rotation. Should I work Slam in instead of MS due to the rage cost difference?

My evil plans near fruition!

With the arrival of my new computer, I hooked up my old computer in the living room. I left it hooked up to the internet and all that good stuff. The reason? I want to get my fiance to start playing WoW with me. I really think that this could be something very fun for us to do together. I also think that it will get me more WoW time....MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA..(cough) (hack). Stupid evil laugh.

Anyways, does anyone know if you can do Refer a friend multiple times? I have already done it once with myself, and the huge XP gains would help out a lot. Also, what class should I level with her? The only classes I dont currently have at 59-70 are Shaman and Priest. Im thinking Shaman for chain healing goodness, but I am not really sure.

I didn't realize WoW could look so awesome.

After two grueling days of downloading WoW (I had to do it online because I cant find the discs...DOH), I finally got to play it on my new computer. As much as I loved WoW before, I just can't get over how awesome it looks on my new computer. I had everything full blast, which did cause some low frame rate. I turned it down and it looks amazing.

I am also playing with in-game sound again. I went to Ramparts on my 67 druid for a few reasons. First one is that I can still get XP there. Second, I wanted to try out all the new spell effects in a dungeon. When I get there, I notice that I am missing a few spells. I was not aware that they reset talent points again (double DOH!). I respecced quickly and we smashed Ramparts in no time. The other reason I wanted to go was to hear the boss voices.

WoW is almost like a new game now. It is like leaving your apartment in the morning and coming back with all new hawt furniture and tech. It is the same apartment, only it feels alot better.

Woot. New computer!

I finally got a new computer. I also got a 24 inch widescreen HD monitor. I can now enjoy WoW the way it should be enjoyed. I previously had to turn all sound off as well as put the graphics on the lowest settings so that I would be able to play the game at a decent pace. I will get to try it out for the first time tonight!

Making Pugs Less Painful

Many pugs are so painful because nobody knows anybody else. They dont know each others capabilities or their playstyles. This usually leads to pugs that take incredibly long. Much of the time, pugs also dont bother getting onto vent together. This can lead to severe mis-communication which can in turn lead to wipes. Now, a few ideas that can help any pug group.

1) Use vent. It is much easier to just say something than it is the type something out. By the time you type it, it may be too late. When you are all on vent you can say something as simple as "Mana". This lets the tank stop pulling mobs and let you get your mana back.

2) If you are a tank, chain pull and dont ask for a bunch of CC unless it is absolutely needed. Tanking everything gives everyone that much more confidence, makes the run shorter, and keeps everyone on their toes. Waiting a long time between trash pulls can lead to complacency and wipes.

3) If you are a healer, bring your own tank, tanks bring your own healer. With a good tank and healer, you can easily get through any 5 man instance. DPS are important, but losing one usually doesnt lead to a wipe.

I think that it is very important to keep a run flowing. Alot of afks and such just add to the length of the instance. People get bored and start doing stupid things. If someone is doing something that sucks, teach them the right way. Pugs are as good as you make them.

Busy WoW weekend

Overall, I had a very busy weekend in WoW. I got my Resto Druid to level 67 and even healed Shadowlabs already. Unfortunately, you need to be 68 to pick up the quests for S-Labs. I also got a friend to help me get a bunch of necrotic runes on my Druid. I got so many that I bought all of the caster pieces, all of the trinkets, the tabard, and turned in the quest for 10 of them.

On my Warrior, I got into a pug Hyjal and downed the first boss before I had to go AFK to spend a bit of time with my fiance before she went to bed.

As per usual, when I get into a raid with the guild, good things happen. I joined attempts on Kael'thas after they had cleared the rest of the instance on my pally. We ended up two shotting him for a guild first. I can only imagine how long that fight used to be.

I respecced my Warlock to a PVE Destro spec to test out my DPS. It really hasnt changed much. I did about 1100-1200 on the test dummies in Stormwind. The one thing that I have noticed is that Destro got a whole lot more complicated. For one, instead of saccing a succubus and SB spamming, you keep your imp out and use more fire spells than anything else.

I used a rotation on immolate, corruption, incinerate, incinerate, conflagrate, immolate and mixed in Chaos Bolt on every cooldown. This is quite a bit more interaction than I am used to. I only used shadowbolt when I got an instant cast proc.

One of my friends finally logged his hunter on the first time in months and had to dowload the new patch. He specced his toon, messed around with a few things and logged off. Later, I logged onto his Hunter. I respecced him again (learn to spec noob) and we and got him a devilsaur. I then headed over to Tanaris where I started killing scourge. The Devisaur couldnt hold aggro for anything at level 65. My pet died a time or two and I had to use Aspect of the Viper to avoid pulling aggro and to keep my mana up.

I finally teamed up with a prot pally, which went very well. He would gather up a whole pile of undead and then I would volley them. Volley crits are fun. I got him enough runes to complete the quest, get the tabard, and get two of the trinkets. Next time I play his Hunter, I may go train a Gorilla or something to use as a tank.

Happy Halloween!

Have a great Holliday. Give out some candies or be a scrooge and turn off your light. Whatever you do, enjoy the day! Watch scary movies and give yourself cavities (not cavity searches unless you are into that kind of thing).

If you are playing WoW, eat sweets until you spray vomit on everyone and kick the shit out of the HH.

More Scourge Invasions means more fun

I finally got the necrotic runes I needed to get my quest done and the argent dawn tabard. I also saw 3 epics drops and I picked up the plate chest for my warrior.

It was so much easier, as I had a group of 4 and most others out there were doing it solo. I just tanked everything and they burned crap down. I am hoping to take my Druid to an invasion point this weekend and maybe be able to obtain some epics.

Wow Domestic Disputes (Part 2)

Most WoW players arent the stereotypical geek who has no friends, job, or chance at a woman (or man). I for one have a job, a fiance, and some very good friends. All of my friends play WoW, but my fiance does not understand the game at all. It is the one thing that we usually fight about despite the fact that my WoW playing schedule is based on what is best for her. I have did a previous post about some of the things you may hear if you have a non-WoW playing significant other here http://darraxusthewarrior.blogspot.com/2008/09/wow-domestic-disputes.html.

I think I won a small battle last night in the fight for WoW. My fiance hates the game irrationally. I only play on 3 designated nights, which are Weds, Sat, and Sun. All three of those days I only play when she is asleep. I play sporadically at other times when she is not there. I for one think that I have made a great compromise in an effort to spend all waking moments together, but for some reason she did see it this way. I used to play every single night. Then I cut it back to 4 days....then to its current 3. She tried to get me to play only 2 nights but I refused.

She said that she loves our "snuggle" nights, and she feels like I would rather play the game than "spend time" with her. My retort was that I was not "spending time" with her when she is sleeping. I am laying next to her doing absolutely nothing just so she wont get pissed off.

On WoW nights, I lay down with her for about 30 minutes then get up to play. Without fail, she usually gets an attitude about it. She tried to tell me that she doesnt have the same kind of outlet that I have with WoW. I countered that all of her stupid TV shows are her outlet (I didnt say stupid, but you know what I mean). She countered that I play WoW by myself and that she watches her shows with me. My arguement is that:

a) I only watch the shows with her because I know it will make her happy. I dont like watching Grey's Anatomy, The Practice, The Hills, Desperate Housewives, One Tree Hill, etc. for my health. If not for her, I would never watch a single one. I also watch them with her because I am making an effort to do an activity that she likes. We are both awake during this time and I want to spend as much time together as possible. If I got up and went to the computer during this time she would throw a fit.

b) If I treated her "outlet" the way she treated mine, we would spend no time together. I dont want to make her come sit and watch me play WoW for hours at a time. Hence why I play on designated nights when she is sleeping. Everyone enjoys differend mediums of entertainment. Mine is video games. I wouldnt watch anything besides sports or G4 if it was my choice.

I think that I got her to understand my point of view for once (even if it was reluctantly). My daily routine consists of go to work, come home, run, make dinner, watch crappy tv shows while eating dinner, and either go to bed with my fiance, or play WoW when she falls asleep depending on the night. You will notice that we do her "outlet" every single day. I do mine alone a few nights a week. Who is the person who really isnt willing to compromise. I even stopped any and all raiding to keep the peace at home.

Im sure alot of people out there share the same experiences. Sorry for the rant :)

The Lich King Offers his apologies.

I got this from Tobold and it made me laugh. http://tobolds.blogspot.com/

"My deepest apologies. It is my understanding that my invading forces, in their attempts to besiege your cities and snuff out all life on Azeroth, have inconvenienced the activities of common civilians. In the future, I will ensure that your commanding officers are informed well in advance of planned invasion times so that they may properly fortify themselves. I have also looked into the issue of my plague being too quick in its purpose and too difficult to cure. Please be reassured that I have taken the matter up personally with my top necromancers and that any further incarnations of said plague should be only a slight challenge for your natural immune systems to overcome. Please forward any additional complaints to either Kel’thuzad or Anub’arak. Regards, the Lich King Arthas."

Zombies, Arena, and Kara OH MY!

Finally got to get my warrior his Brutal Chest this weekend. Stole Mura and let him carry me to over 1600. We actually started 10-1 before dropping two in a row to a Rogue-Ret Pally combo that we had beaten earlier for 24 points. It was still laggy as hell, but his burst damage with my CC abilities worked pretty well.

We went to Kara as per usual and took on the optional boss. I got the bat pet and the Arcanite Ripper from him. For those who havent seen it, the Ripper turns you into an undead Guitar player upon use. I also picked up the Hallowed Helm and the Horseman's Helm over the weekend. Yay for novelty items.

As far as the Zombies go, I am glad that they finally changed it. It was annoying getting infected by griefers. The event was kinda cool as a whole, but there were too many people who did nothing but become a zombie and infect people. The most annoying thing for me was when a scourge attack came up, I could never get any runes because whole groups of people with AOE were going out there and farming them. I think I have gotten 1 rune in 3-4 trips.

The Plague is upon us and Arenas are borked

So the new plague event started and I was actually the first in my guild to spot it. I first saw it in the Blasted Lands while killing stuff for weapon skill on my now ret pally.

I also tried out an arena skirmish and it is too laggy at this point to reliably do any real arena. I think we will be moving up when we do though.

I have turned to the dark side.

I respecced my pally as ret. I took him to the blasted lands to level up my weapon skill. Since the unkillable mobs no longer give points for it, I actually ran around killing mobs. I cant give an accurate account of how much DPS I will do since I was basically killing all of the mobs immediately. I am wearing horrible gear which includes a green or 3, some pre 70 blue items, some leather gear, some mail gear, and Gorehowl. With BoM up, I have over 1800 AP. Once I max out my weapon skill im gonna give the target dummies a try and see what I can do.

On another Paladin related note, did Galoheart's blog just up and disappear? It doesnt seem to be in the blog rolls anymore unless I am blind.

Raiding is now trivial

Raiding has become EZ mode. While I appreciate the opportunity to be able to see more content, it also can leave you with a feeling of emptiness. That boss that took you months to defeat is now being downed by pugs in one month.

My Guild is planning on going back and taking out Vasjh and Kael this week after never having done it before. We went into BT and cleared the 3 bosses we had already beaten and took down Gorefiend on our first night of attempts. I would imagine that other bosses will be falling soon.

Blizzard made things easier in several ways:

1) They reduced the HP of all Raid bosses and mobs by 30 percent. On a boss with 3 million hit points, that takes him down nearly one million HP. That is huge.

2) Bosses dont hit as hard as they previously did. This means that less healers are needed and you can stack more DPS.

3) DPS has been boosted for everyone but Warlocks. One of our Warriors did over 2k DPS in BT. Mura, our ret pally is capable of 2k plus DPS. Even tanks are doing double the DPS they were previously doing.

All of this really adds up to about a 60 percent nerf on bosses at least. I have read of people making their first trip into Sunwell and downing the first two bosses after having only downed Illidan once. People are going into SSC for the first time and clearing it. I remember how hard Tidewalker was for us. I remember having to have resist sets for the tanks. Now one tank with no resist is able to tank Hydross the entire fight.

While I am not sad about the changes, I could see how some people would be. Some people will feel like they have been kicked in the teeth. To those people: Dont worry about it. The highest raiding guilds felt the same way when they removed the attunements, allowing players into MH and BT without even defeating Kael or Vasjh first. The expansion will be here soon and BC will become a fond and distant memory.

Tanking as a Warrior, Weekend update etc.

Well, I solo tanked Kara on Saturday, and I must say WOW!. I finished 5th in damage (though my DPS was only in the 400s.). I basically pulled everything like a paladin, thunder clapped, hit them with a shockwave, and did a pretty standard rotation with Thunderclap being used every time it was up (on multi mob pulls). Mobs were going down so fast that I was in a state of shock. We did all of Kara with one tank and one healer (a pally healer at that) and had zero wipes. Alot of our DPS was sub-par as far as gear and pugs to boot.

Second place in DPS was a Shadowpriest with 800 plus. My arena partner, Ret pally beast Muralyon ran up 1400 DPS for the entire run and got over 2k on some boss fights. He also died 9 times as he couldnt control his aggro and was regularly hitting for over 5k.

All told, we cleared the entire instance in around 2 hours. For the last few bosses we had to switch healers, and brought in a severely undergeared Holy Pally wearing greens and blues. We killed Maiden in under a minute, and our longest boss fight didnt even hit 5 minutes.

Tanking has become very easy and much more fun. Damage shield is an awesome ability. Every time you are struck in combat by melee or block something, you damage (or have a chance to damage, cant remember off the top of my head) whoever hit you for like 30 percent of your shield block value. This is like a built in thorns/ret aura on steroids.

I got a chance to try out a few of the Tanking Glyph's and they are pretty cool. Glyph of Sunder armor applies a sunder to another nearby mob (it does work with devastate), and Glyph of Revenge makes your next Heroic strike free on a Revenge crit. I like Glyphs. They are generally very cheap too!

I did several runs with my Resto Druid this weekend and got him to 64 before I logged off last night. I just got lifebloom and cant wait to use it. I got Mura to run me thru Underbog. It really didnt take very long, and neither of us was ever in danger of dying. He put out 1700 dps for that run.

I spent a bit of time trying to get the exploration achievment on my Warrior. I did not realize how much I skipped while leveling way back pre-bc. I literally never even stepped foot into either Azshara or Burning Steppes, but somehow managed to have most of Sillithus discovered. Achievements are pretty neat, but they are going to be extremly time consuming I think.

Getting my toons organized

Yesterday I got a chance to play a bit and mostly spent it speccing my characters. There was alot of crap to distribute. I kept them all the same basic specs, but there are obviously new abilities in every tree.

I did Ramparts on my Rogue yesterday. I ended up 4th in damage done in what was essentially a 4 DPS and lvl 70 pally tank group. I still dont really know what my DPS rotation should be. I have been getting slice and dice up then using eviscerate after that. Anyone who has any tips for a rotation, it would be appreciated. I am combat swords.

On a side note, my fiance got me a Wii for my birthday! My B-Day isnt actually until tommorow, but she is terrible at holding surprises. She got me the last Wii in the area, another controlled, the rechargable battery/charger system along with a baseball game and Mario Kart! My shoulder hurt a bit when I went to bed last night, but the Wii is sooooo much fun.

Warrior tanking with the new patch

So far I havent got to play around with it very much. I went and tried out a few new abilities. Rage shouldnt be much of an issue anymore. Shockwave is cool, and Shield Slam is doing A LOT of damage. When I run kara this weekend I will give some more updates. As of right now my defense as dropped to 470....that is alot of defense missing that im going to have to make up somewhere.

I cant wait for this weekend.

Ran my first Outlands instance with my Druid.

Healing was very easy....mainly because i had a level 70 pally tank who took very little damage. I literally just put a regrowth up on him most of the time. I am excited to start healing like level tanks. I like the healing style of my druid a bit better than that of my Pally.

Oh, and I got one shotted on the dragon boss when the pally tank didnt pick him up fast enough :(

I did it.

I got my Druid to 60 and my Rogue about a bubble and a half away. It was alot of running around, and some friends helping with instances that got me there. I started the weekend at 50. On Saturday night, I ran around getting all of the quests for Sunken Temple and then Sohlam ran me thru. On Sunday, I gained a level via questing before getting a couple of guildies to run me thru scholomance and stratholme.

Between the instance XP and the 40k plus quest turn-ins, I went from 56-60 in those instances. I am not looking forward to healing Outlands instances with my druid. It should be alot of fun since I really havent used tree form at all. This puts me in very good position with the new patch coming up. I will try to get my Druid to 70 by the expansion, then go from there.

Have you ever wished you could use WoW abilities in real life?

There are so many WoW abilities that would be cool to have in real life. I wont go over the "violent" abilities, but here is a list of one I think would have a cool and practical use.

Mage Table: The mage table is wonderful in game, but imagine the possibilites out of game. You and your buddies have been out most of the night drinking. Instead of a drunken late night run to Jack in the Box or Taco Bell, summon your own table of food. Best of all, it is free!

Fear: Everybody loves to hate this ability in PVP. Imagine the use for it in the real world. Your boss at work is breathing down you neck....what do you do? Queue up a fear and watch as he run screaming around the facility. Bonus points if he gets stuck in the environment.

Misdirect: You are trying to watch the game (or Grey's Anatomy for the ladies), and your significant other keeps on bugging you. Can you do the dished/take out the trash/blah blah blah. Misdirect them onto their friends....or their parents. Nagging is now out of the picture!

Stealth: Besides millitary and perv uses, this could be extremly useful in many situations.You can use your imagination on this one.

Teleport: Teleporting yourself and friends around the world would be tremendous fun. Go have lunch in Paris followed by messing with cool tech in Japan. Be home in time for dinner. If someone you dont like asks you for a port, you can send them to Siberia.....or Los Angeles.

Polymorph: What better way to entertain yourselves that turning your friends into a sheep, turtle, or penguin. Sheep prefered if you are from Arkansas ;) Could also you Polymorph: Cow on Murderers and Rapists to help end world hunger.

Anyone else have any good examples?

More warlock tips

There are a lot of things you can do in arenas to become a better player. One of them is pet management. Sometimes people will completly ignore your pet. Sometimes, they try to gank it, then gank you. Most of the time, this is done by either a rogue or a warrior.

If you encounter this situation, what do you do?

Well, if you are facing a two dps team especially, use fel domination to resummon a Void Walker. The Void Walker sucks for PvP for the most part, but there are a few advantages to this method. My voidwalker has over 10k health and a bunch of armor. This will make it much more difficult to get rid of your Soul Link. Time they spend on your VW is precious time that you will be beating on them.

If they do decide that the want to kill your Blueberry, you can sacrafice it for a nice bit of damage mitigation at the last second. Bringing in the blueberry instead of another felhhunter can be the difference between life and death against a well geared Warrior or Rogue.

Another good tip is to learn how to fake cast. There is an in depth article about this by Horns at Yet Another Warlock Nerf http://www.locksucks.com/.

In general, these should be the only two pets you ever use in an arena. The Succubus CC is nice...except that most classes can two shot her. The imp just plain sucks. The Felguard is a very nice option, but then you arent an SL/SL lock if you have a Felguard out now are you?