The Other Half Update

My rogue and I talk all the time about gear. A great rogue resource is ShadowPanther.net. I even agree with most of the twink information (there are some combinations that are better which I will not go into here). With some double checking over the last year with our own research it encourages me that the level 70 information is a good guide.

One of his most insistent issues is his weapons. Rogues get swords, daggers, maces, and fists weapons. Maces are really for PvP with the stunning effect. Good PvE rogues know how to stunlock but more importantly know when to use it, random proc from maces are not a good thing. The highest dps weapons for rogues are swords. But is it?

If the best weapons you can GET are daggers. Go dagger specialization.

If the best weapons you can GET are fists. Go fist specialization.

Swords may never drop, even then you may never win the roll or have the dkp. So get every upgrade because it is better for the guild if you take the item then to have another DE shard in the bank.

Above that … you will just look REALLY cool. Husband picked up the Claw of the Phoenix and the Talon of the Phoenix from Al’ar. He enchanted them up and specialized in fists then trounced SSC. At the same time, he had half the raid whispering him about how cool the weapons look and a few “I want to roll a ROGUE!”

Murlocs are coming

... from DC Direct.

Mouse Guard gift it, cause I said so

There gets to a point in the weekend that Comic Con International feels like work. Trying to get everything you want done in a short amount of time, without losing quality. I realized that my annoyance factor is exponentially proportional to my time on the convention floor. So I MUST break it up with panels or in a pinch one of the many Anime rooms. But it is still fun. There is so much to talk about at the Comic Con, here are some of the creators I care about...

While at lunch on Preview night at the Tin Fish I spotted one of my all time favorite comic writers Terry Moore of Strangers in Paradise and his wife. We visited him at his booth to check out his new book Echo. Also attended his panel on Friday to see what new projects he has coming up in the next year. I am enjoying the fact that he is doing things for other publishers like for Marvel’s Runaways.

One of the first people we talked to all weekend was Paul Levitz, writer and current President of DC Comics. The conversation went like this… blah blah Legion blah blah archive blah blah. At this point I was just here for the picture and to keep my eyes out for someone I wanted to talk too.

My goal for the weekend was to fulfill my inner fan-girl by hovering over Looking for Group’s Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza. I watched as two other girls asked everyone if they were single. *shiver* I did get my stack of Looking for Group comics signed by both of them. Issue #4 just came out last week and was the first copy that Lar had seen. That was a fun thing.

I met artist J.G. Jones. His art was on this years convention T-shirt. It is always a treat for the eyes. I also discovered Gris Grimley who collaborated in illustrating Neil Gaiman’s The Dangerous Alphabet. I really like his work and look forward to seeing more of it.

I highly recommend for gifts for all ages is Mouse Guard, written and illustrated by David Petersen. Talking with Bill Willingham, he is pushing for a Mouse Police (from Fables) and Mouse Guard cross over. That would be so great! This is a really great story and the illustrations are beautiful. A must read and a great gift.

Legend of the Seeker

Thursday I attended the Wizard's First Rule panel at the San Diego Comic Con. The executive producers Sam Raimi, Ken Billar, and Rob Tapert were speaking with writer Terry Goodkind about this new project. They announced a new title for the new TV series as Legend of the Seeker. The plans are for 22 episodes, the first episode is to air on November 1, 2008.

Their biggest emphasis was to be true to the characters. It will be interesting to see how they will make this epic love story into an episodic TV series. They are four days into shooting for the first two episodes in New Zealand. Rob said the fifth episode scrip just hit his desk so here is hopping they get all 22 episodes made.
Sam Rami news, he is waiting on the script for Spiderman 4, so yes, it is being made.

San Diego Comic Con 2008

San Diego Convention Center is where I will be for the next few days. As always there are more people in the convention floor then I ever believe existed.

Acquiring our badges to get in was simple since we picked them up early. We headed out to eat prior to the convention floor opening. This gave us a chance to read up on the weekends activities. Highly recommend to wear really good shoes. Eight football fields worth of convention floor is not something to approach lightly.

I have already seen some fun stuff. … like a familiar demon.
Lady Vashj is looking well.
Friday is the World of Warcraft panel. I may be more about the card game then the online game. We shall see.

1337 happens

At 32 I am 1337.

Mounts! Mounts! Mounts!

My hunter alt on a PvP server got a black chicken. My warlock alt got her flaming horse.
She also got an invite to get a mechanical chicken.
Then there is Iuncusia (and friend) in mount form.
Wait maybe this one…
Okay she is being obstinate.
/Y Why ride cat when I can BE a cat.

Pally Judgement

Yes. He carries the whole set around even to Mount Hyjal.

... you're Aurum?

Apparently I suck. (... I just heard a chorus of guildies say "very well I hear." ... they shall be ignored.) This is not something someone else has told me. It is a self assessment of my current abilities. I have said many times that skill and strategy separates real twinks from someone that just has enough gold to have agility enchants.

Agility 187 ... pfft
Attack power 258 ... whatever
Crit chance 30.00% ... loser
Dodge 52.03% ... you better.

I cannot find my trinket keys. My gouge timing is off. I went for a warrior first instead of the rogue. My ultimate failure was I let a hunter kite me.

On top of it all ... Eviscerate? What does that do again. *reads tooltip in book*

It is not natural.
It is not smooth.
It is not smart.
It is not skilled.
It is NOT me.

The last few months I have spent a lot of time behind a desk in a suit counting gold. The 10,000 gold is nothing to sneeze at. I have spent so much time working on Hydra's banking I lost all the skill I once had out in midfield and arena.

I never thought of myself as one of the best. But at times I could give some of the best in the battlegroup something to worry about. Maybe I should hang up my blades permanently on the wall as a memorial ... A marker of past glory and prowess. *sigh*

What I saw last night ... was embarrassing ... made me almost cry. If anything it broke my heart.

To turn this around there has to be more dueling, more arenas, and more WSG. If I can just figure out what was keybound to what ... anyone have an instructions manual?

L2P nub.

Storybook Love

Hello my name is Inigo Montoya You killed my father, Prepare to die.

Haliscan Jacket, Haliscan Pantaloons, and Don Carlos' Hat from the Nice Hat quest.

Finished off with the Adamantite Rapier.

I just have to say... How you doin'?

New Soulwell!

It arrives from above. WHAM!
It then dissipates with bubbling swirls.

I need to kill something…

So after a long Blizzard GM conversation, I was at a loss. This player was using a similarly named toon to infiltrate other guilds. I was talking to another guild leader while I was talking to the Blizzard GM. This guy has stolen 400G and hundreds of gold in goods by using this confusing name.

Kestrel said I should have asked to elevate the issue. That is totally “Get what you want from customer service 101.” *smacks forehead*. I am still reacting emotionally to this situation. He also suggested I should go to the Customer Service forum and post about it there. Well here is hoping.

Evil Check: WoW Identity Theft

Long time readers may remember the person I dubbed Jack. Since then he has forgotten that I never really cared for him. He tended to whisper me occasionally to gloat about something. When he does it is like a CRT monitor in sleep mode. You know what I am talking about, there is that buzzing of it still on you can barely hear. It is annoying. For me, prolonged exposure gives me a mild headache, same with this kid.

You may wonder why I don’t /ignore him. Well he is a known ninja on our realm. He has picked up items to vendor where someone else in the group could use it. I have more than once been able to warn people about going on Kara PuGs with him. He seriously whispers me “Hey I just got two people from your guild to go to Kara!” Then I warn them. It is an easy system. This kid is bad news in any group.

My friend Rushie is co-GM of Farstriders Elite (FE). He is known in the Emberstorm battlegroup. Has over thirty-thousand kills in the 19 bracket. And right now is in the Army and hasn’t been near a computer in about two months.

So after I get out of Mount Hyjal and SSC, after three plus hours of raiding… I snuck over to another server to get my level 30 her mount. Husband runs into my room. “Rushie’s account just got hacked. They may have disbanded all of FE!” I got shivers. I immediately switched over to Aurum. This was our friend. His toons are in all my guilds. My chest was tight at the thought of his toons being pillaged. Husband was freaking out on me. I needed to focus him, had him open a GM ticket.

First thing I checked was FE. It was still a guild. Length of time Rushie last was on was a VERY long time. I couldn’t demote him because I was one step below in rank. First time I ever regretted NOT demanding the official rank I was suppose to have.

Two of his toons had full access to a large amount of twink gear and pure gold. I took screen shots of contents. I then proceeded to the website to make a copy of the guild bank list in on the website. I at least had an inventory. But a hacker could wipe us clean and I had no way of stopping it.

I talked to Ms. Rush who was freaking out in War Machine guild chat. Husband was talking to her. I did too. I asked if she tried changing his password on the website. She went off to do that and was able to. I started to breathe.

Jackyll with GM rights in FE finally logged on. I filled him in and was able to get Rushie’s toons demoted just in case.

What connects this kid to my friend’s potential account hacking? Identity theft.

You heard right.

This kid made a twink 19 human rogue named “Rushìe”.

… you see what he did …

He used the lowercase “i" with a grave above it. Then proceeded to think it was okay to recruit for a twink guild using said toon on MY server in the trade channel. This kid was using the real Rushie’s reputation to recruit and pretended to be him. The unsuspecting would believe him.

Most knew the real Rushie was away. No one should be on that account so the first thought was “account hacking” which triggered damage control. You had an entire raid guild and twink guild thinking a friend’s account got hacked.

I was whispering everyone letting them know that was not the real Rushie in trade and that it was this kid. Then I found out the kid and a friend of his stole a bunch of twink items from a friend’s son’s guild just the other day. The kid even admitted to stealing from our friend’s son’s guild to Jackyll. The kid then threatened Jackyll with making a toon using the likeness of his name. *yells incoherently at the screen.* This kid is a piece of work.

But is this against Blizzards terms of service? All I could think of was that it maybe against a RP realm’s naming convention to use special characters in the name. Weak I know but it was 2 am server time at this point. So I went with that in the GM ticket.

I am livid. No one messes with my friends.

Here is the thing. What if they don’t make the kid change his name? How would you feel running around Azeroth with someone with your name, using your reputation. Possibly destroying the good reputation you have built.

Evil Check: Here’s the deal. I am giving Blizzard 48 hours to make the kid change this toons name. After that… what I am going to do you ask?

I am going to have a little contest and post it on the forums. Any horde that can SS this Rushìe having more than 3 deaths then anyone else in a BG will get 70 gold. After that each SS is worth 20 gold. Not much, but maybe enough to keep it interesting. Plus I will need to earn it on some realms.

It is not totally evil because I am giving him an out… maybe mildly evil. After the worry he caused my friends, I don’t care, he is lucky to get a chance. I am refraining from doing many other things. I am holding onto them for another day.

Patch 2.4.3 Mounts at 30! Who cares about the rest.

Patch notes from the World of Warcraft site. Condensed down to the ones I care about and my thoughts.

General

• Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance. Hunters Arcane Shot attempt to remove buffs like Master Demonology. This will increase chance of a buff being removed. Even more important to put up Unending Breath and Detect Invisibility on your team. If I don't have the time, like in AV, I hit as many potential healers as possible.
  
• Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold. With new and improved lower price!
  
• Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown. Get your drunk on 10 times faster!
  
• Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item. There goes some of my multitasking while banking. I typically summon demons and the like staring at my bank.
  

Rogues

• Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes. Death Coil DoT DoT DoT DIE STUN LOCKING ROGUE!!
  

Warlocks

• Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed. I think they should have kept the name. We are masters of Shadow. Leave the elements to the druids.
  
• Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire. Only need to bring one malediction lock on raids now to have the benifit of shadow, arcane, fire, and frost.
  
• Demon Skin, Demon Armor, and Fel Armor are no longer Magic effects and cannot be dispelled.
• Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
• Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
• Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

PvP

• The time available to accept the option to “Enter Battle” for a battleground has been reduced to 1 minute and 20 seconds (previously 2 minutes) in order to give each side more time to get a full complement of players before the battle begins.
• The Warsong Gulch flag can no longer be picked up at the same time as a flag is capped. So many times this has happened to me. I am glad it is fixed.
  
• Zoning into an instance on a PvE realm will now drop your PvP flag. We used the getting on a flight anywhere and summon back to the instance. This fixes that anoyance.
  

Professions

• Tailoring
  • Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags. Anyone else take preorders for this? Good gift too for your favorite alchemist.
    
  • New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons. Must get and make!
    

Dungeons and Raids

• Players can now be summoned to raid instances from heroic dungeons. mor summon meh
  

Items

• Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again...without attacking people in the arena. Well... they’ll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean. It was a warlock mandate to bring these to raid. Much fun is had ... but then something bigger is needed and we summon a Doomguard.

User Interface

• Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer’s local time. Alarm clock will be nice to set prior to raid. Also, to help mange farming and daily time better too.
  
• The new stopwatch feature can be accessed via the /stopwatch, /sw, or /timer slash commands. Inputting a time into the slash command will make the stopwatch count down. For example, /stopwatch 1:0:0 will make the stopwatch count down from an hour, /stopwatch 1:30 will make it count down from 1 minute, 30 seconds, and /stopwatch 30 will make it count down from 30 seconds.
• Added the following macro commands: /targetenemyplayer, /targetfriendplayer.
• Added key bindings for tab targeting players.
• Ctrl-Tab and other target nearest friend functions will no longer target you.
• Targeting using /target will prefer live targets over dead ones.
• You can no longer click the minimap to cast ground targeted spells.
• Invisible players with Hunter’s Mark can see the hunter that put the mark on them.
• Vendor items now show their Duration in Inventory.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum. I am sure there are important ways to use these... let me know when you figure it out.
  

Bug Fixes

• Warlocks: The heal aspect of felhunter Devour Magic will now display in the Combat Log.
• Warlocks: The Succubus will now behave properly while under the effects of Lesser Invisibility. They behaved improperly?
  
• Warlocks: Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death. Warlocks will still be able to resurrect with the pet they last summoned (non-sacrificed pets), even if it has since died. So anoying to be brought back without a minion. I hope this really did fix it.
  
• Nightbane will no longer become unresponsive and unkillable during his air phase. DPS agro management.
  
• Corpses with money on them will now be able to be looted even when all party members opt to pass on loot. We have been leaving money on the corpses! I have been robbed and didn't know it.
  
• Passive pets will no longer attack due to AoE taunt spells. This is what has been happening. I figured my minions were just being insane.
  

Minion Abuse

Now that I have Demonic Sacrifice, I found random times to use it. My chest tightened a little seeing Sloodhon and Demora lying dead on the ground. I caused that. I mourned a little.

Then I got over it.

Need to hit the gong in ZA? Sacrifice a demon.

Waiting on a battleground to pop? Sacrifice a demon.

Standing in Shattrath City? Sacrifice a demon.

That blood elf looked at you funny? Sacrifice a demon.

Summon a demon.

Sacrifice a demon.

I suggest repeating for own amusement.

PvP, I didn’t do it

More random SL/SL PvP things…

Soul Link is now on all the time. I now know you don’t want it to go away. Soul Link should be active when your minion is out. Being me, when I activated it I tried to remove it. You cannot click off the buff or smash the button to make it go away. Is this something that Arcane shot removes? I am not entirely sure.

I am a self buff counter. Not including consumables, I use to have only three, Fel Armor, Detect Invisibility, and Underwater Breathing. I now have extra buffs. I have to say they confuse me by just being there, Demonic Knowledge, Master Demonologist, and Soul Link. I am not use to seeing them displayed on me. With the new buffs it is a total of six. I am getting use to them.

I have been using the addon Proximo. It is primarily for arenas. I am going to try it out in battlegrounds. I would like to get use to using it. See if it helps me put up my dots faster. Even just being more enemy aware. Make 5v5s feel less chaotic. I want it to be something I naturally use in a glance.

When I am in damage mode, I run around putting up my dots. Which is still the case… but I need to stop and drain life more. This is actually completely different then how I normally play. Only time I ever stand still while fighting is in AV when I am just trying to do massive damage with seed. So I am working on moving less and draining more.

With no instant Howl of Terror I need to learn to STOP running up into the middle of Horde. I did this all the time. HoT and DoT everyone while running. A partner would try for the flag while I worked on kiting the Horde away from the flag. It doesn’t work very well now with a cast time that can be pushed back.

I did find Dreamspirit. I am going through the videos. She did a commentary video and then another. I found them helpful.

To SL or not to SL

I kill things. It is what I enjoy. I have killed animals, elementals, machinery, and demons the same way for over a year. I am an AFFLICTION lock. It is the way I enjoy playing.

Early on in my 70s I played with a demonology and destruction build. I didn’t like either very much. I speced out of both so quickly I didn’t even blog about the experience. I just didn’t like it.

…

So there is this PvP thing. You know where you kill other players. I am sure you have heard of it.

The most common build for warlocks in PvP is SL/SL build. You go into the affliction build to get Siphon Life and into the demonology to get Soul Link. The focus is outlasting the opponent (but isn’t all PvP?). Increasing your stamina, improving your life draining abilities, and reduce your damage taken.

I am trying this out for a few days. I lost some things that I am getting use to not having. Dark Pact providing a mana battery out of my minion. Unstable Affliction silencing dispell happy mages, pallies, and priests. The talent I miss the most is my instant Howl of Terror. *cry*

New spells I get to play with are Fel Domination, Demonic Sacrifice, and Soul Link. I don’t even know WHEN these are helpful. But I am trying to understand the strategy behind the play. I have this feeling that I am over thinking it and what I am trying to actually do is manage my pet more.

I am going onto battlegrounds learning this new spec with the intention of doing arenas this weekend. I am still focusing on what I don’t have anymore. My first thoughts after one day…

• I have no idea when to use Soul Link.
• Demonic Sacrifice seems to be a talent point to let you get Soul Link. It doesn’t look helpful in PvP.
• Fel Domination is only useful if minion is killed. Talking to another lock this happens a lot. I never found this to be true but that maybe because I was not demonology spec.
• I need to use drain life more.
• Before it was Corruption then Siphon Life. Now the first dot up needs to be Siphon Life.
• Not having instant HoT with a stun locking rogue makes it impossible for me to survive.
• I am trying NOT to hate it. Just haven't started to LIKE it.
  

After some reading on Arenajunkies.com there is spellstone!! I haven’t used that since I picked up the spell… and ran around Desolace with it pre BC. Should I be starting with a spellstone in my wand slot then once it is used change to my wand? Not sure.

I would love to find a lock video that is narrated like this mage one. I will keep searching maybe I will find something fun.

Since my Arathi Basin marks started going to the mail. I found the list on wowwiiki.com showing the cost of arena rewards by season very useful. I rewarded myself with my first Season 4 gear the Guardian's Dreadweave Belt.

Like I have said … Hydra doesn’t PvP. I just kill things.

Warlock vs Rogue

All locks and rogues were harmed in the making of this video. I thought it was a great use of vanish and it would have worked if not for that quick response time of the lock.

My PvP Reputation Proceeds Me

I was on vent discussing stuff with one of my 5v5 team. Talking about different gear, strategies, ways we can improve our play, and how much fun we have been having. She mentioned her friend…

[PvP partner] My housemate has been really enjoying the game lately. She has built a 29 twink. *with excited respect* She has joined up with this really intense dedicated twink guild. They spend hundreds of gold on just one enchant. They play hard.

[Me] What is the guild name? (I have seen many 29s floating around, I didn’t want to assume.)

[PvP partner] It is Farstriders something

[Me] Farstriders Elite?

[PvP partner] Yea! That is the one. They have been really helpful to her and it is amazing at how much they know. Freely helping out and making recommendations.

[Me] *uncontrolled laughter*

I informed her that I was an officer of said guild. Which lead her to get her housemate.

[PvP partner] Hey you know that girl’s voice you have been hearing coming out of my vent while I PvP, running Kara, and in the 25s, that is Aurum from FE.

*blush*

I apologized to the housemate because I think I was terribly rude to her on FE Vent earlier that day. My curtness had no excuse but I was trying to get something done because my 5v5 team was calling me in. That was when she told me she was glad to have met me because everyone talked highly of me. *grin* It is funny how small a server can be.

She knew of me. I have “reputation”.

Then the three of us chatted about PvP. I realized this was a girl chat. The three of us were talking a mile a minute about PvP, gear, other players (mostly the guys on vent, yes I did call Jackyll a sweetheart. Shhh. Don’t tell him.). Asking and answering questions with ease. You know what I mean, right? Where you flow from one topic to another faster then the thought of any man listening.

I was so proud of what we had built in this twink guild of core friends. Because the excitement I heard on her voice told me that she was having fun. The respect I heard on my PvP partner made me proud. Over all I was impressed and reminded that this guild of mine is special.

Doom in AV for Horde

It is alway nice to run into someone you know.

LF Ranged DPS, Have Tanks and Healers

Tuesdays night’s raid was canceled. We have had trouble filling a full raid of 25 Tuesday thru Thursday. Even though people say they would be available they are not signing up. Making it hard for the raid leaders to plan since those were the nights everyone said they would be able to attend. From other blogs and talking with other guilds it looks like this is prevalent in all raiding guilds. I think it is just a summer, WotLK, and Alt thing.

Our only raiding prot pally says in guild. [G][Pally]: Kara badge run!”

Then one of our priest said they would go… and a warrior.

Well that sounded promising. I announced my interest too. Seems with 22 people on we could make a quick Kara group to farm the place for badges. I might even get my hat!

I waited a few minutes. No one was doing invites. No one was taking initiative. *sigh* I have a feeling it is not going to happen if I don’t organize this.

So I start inviting.

A hunter would like to take their dps warrior. Another hunter would like to take their rogue. And second hunter had a friend that could heal. A healer who wanted to take their hunter.

I sent invites. I got whispers “I am not taking this toon.”

I need to know where we stand with bodies. What classes we need to fill. I have NEVER paid attention. I just sign up for these things. I don’t lead these things. Here I was with four people whispering me. Trying to ask questions myself on how many tanks and healers we need. How geared each new-to-me character was. I even looked up our guest in armory! I needed to know if I needed a third healer or not.

I didn’t sign up for this position. But I was looking at a raid of eight. With me as lead.

By this time my rogue was going to be home in 20 minutes. So I would make him the ninth. I have some pull there. *grin* But with two rogues and a dps warrior we were a little thin on ranged and casters. So that is what I had to fill.

It took me 20 plus minutes to fill that tenth raid spot. Friends talked to people and other people. I whispered to guildies. Finally when my rogue logged on I received a whisper from one of the other guild locks. YES! Off we went.

The healer friend was the only one who had never been all the way through Kara. He had coaching. Form his friend, the other healer, and the healer on her hunter. So I didn’t worry. Lots of loot was picked up for healer friend, alts, and fun to play around with. So we actually didn’t shard as much as I thought.

We had a hitch with Moroes. Mostly because I never pay attention to who gets killed first, shacked, trapped, and tanked. My solution?

[RL] [Me]: You all mark the one you CC.

They did, everyone agreed and we cleared up the kill order for everyone and proceeded. We did end up killing the shacked mob before Moroes because it got dotted. No, it wasn’t me. *shrug* Moroes still died.

I made fun of prot pally for going off and giving the healers heart attacks by almost dieing. To the point I put a raid icon on his head so we could keep track of him. From then on the icon kept changing. And they reduced their healing so he didn’t get mana back so fast so they could get theirs.

We took a peek at Nightbane. I finally got my urn. Our hunter switched out to her healer. But we still didn’t get him down. I know we could. I wanted to finish up the quest to get it out of my log. But this was a farming run and it was decided to move on quickly. We wanted Prince since he had the most loot on him for the raid. I restrained myself from being disappointed. I was really hopping to get that done.

We got Big Bad Wolf for the Opera event. No hat for me. But my rogue picked up the Big Bad Wolf's Paw to play with.

We breezed through the fights. I only brought up reminders kill sparks first, wait on mana before next pull, and don’t move on flame wreath. We did wipe. Had a bad pull on the way to Maiden.

It took three tries on Prince. On the run back I reminded them to repair at the vendor standing before chess.

I had whispers about this being the latest they could stay. Sleepy raiders get sloppy.

[RL][Me]: No more dieing allowed.

We changed around tanks and healing. Down he went.

I know I had it easy. They knew the fights. I still had to establish loot rules, deal with the whispers, the organizing, final decisions and every random thing that came up. I have always had high respect for my raid leaders. I know it is not an easy job. You are in charge of the fun and personalities of the raid. I was responsible for nine others.

I didn’t realize I was doing it. While we were raiding, after each kill, I congratulated the raid. Told people thanks for remembering things and focusing.

In the end I was excited at how much loot was distributed. Gearing alts and getting items for offspec that had no DKP cost from a normal raid. I told the raid it was fun. And they concurred.

It wasn’t horrible. We cleared everything but the two dragons. Giving us 18 badges. I have some interest to go back and clear the dragons for quests from others in the guild. So a full clear might happen. Now we will have to see if I ever do a run like this ever again.

Nice place you have Kael’thas

Guild did new trash in The Eye. The other affliction lock and I had to fear and keep UA up on the Battle Mages. It went really well. I do have to say that both of us agreed that chasing down the mob to re-fear was very odd. It would not be so bad if they were not running 300% faster then us. The Boar Speed on my boots made little difference.

Then we got our first look at Kael'thas Sunstrider.

Since I was coming in to check out the lay of the land I figured it would only be appropriate to go up to greet the host.

We didn’t take a shot at him this first night because it was raid time. One of our Mages did decide to get all up close and personal. Chaos ensued as raiders ran and hearthed. Someone stated on vent “You could have at least put up a portal to Shatt first.” I thought it was funny. It was a good ending to a Winterchill, Al’ar, and Solarian raid night.

We did go back the next night to actually attempt Kael’thas. This fight is going to take some work. No learning this boss in a night or two. The organization and timing has to be exact. I can see this fight weeding out raiders who want loot and raiders who want a boss down.

Those who are just looking for loot will stop signing up. I have watched that. Some are upfront with it. I respect them knowing their own mind. There are others that are kidding themselves with discontent.

I have some personal bets on which raiders are stronger then others. WHEN I win I get to smirk.

Tale of a Halo

I am going to punch SMACK someone in the face up side the head. I want IT for myself. Before Hydra could go to the Horde capital cities I went. I didn’t wait.

Thunder Bluff was my first target. In my 32nd season, I ran through the Barrens making a quick stop to snuff out the Crossroads flame. I went straight to Mulgore pausing briefly at Bloodhoof Village. I made it to the foot of the lift to Thunder Bluff.

Then I danced with a nice Horde druid. I dodged guards. I stealthed around vendors. I wisp explored where the fire was located. I stripped down to my pants to save some of my gear. Then had to abandon those since they we no longer helpful. I was naked in a city of Tauren.

I made it.

I snuffed out the flame and picked up the Flame of Thunder Bluff.

You asinine Hogger loving booger … (Cussing and item throwing was removed. You will have to just imagine the tantrum here. ~Hydra)
… and your dog too.

You have to be season 50 to be allowed to complete this task.

I WANTed a halo of my own. *glower*

/sigh

After Iuncusia wore herself out… I finished my notes to Aurum about her banking and how the gems, primals, and enchanting materials were selling. With Season 4 well on its way, it is going quite well. We have a hitch with some of the gems. Overall I made gold.

I made a deal with Iuncusia.

Every single one would be desecrated. No Horde fire would be unvisited. They will all be snuffed out.

I ran around putting out Horde fires and honoring the Alliance fires. Not one flame was unvisited in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, or Outland.

I had my captured flame from last year. I didn’t need to spend blossoms to get mine. Maybe I will get the complete outfit from the festival. I have not decided yet.

Iuncusia was quite happy with the results.
Of all of Azeroth I find this as one of my favorite places. The atmosphere if fantastic. Any guesses of land and subregion?