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.