Sooo ya!

It has been many moons since I have graced this page with the meandering and musical notes of my typing prowess. I have been through hell and back, got T-shirts to prove it too. I have injured my back, been on workers comp, returned to work and have been laid off since I posted last. This is not to say that these are the cause of my long silence, just a re-cap of events outside of the game that have occurred since my last write.

After my last post I was sure I would never return to WOW on a regular basis or at least anything near my then habitual 8+ hours per day. I was lucky in that when I hurt my back and was out of work for almost 10 months, my wife allowed me to return to Azeroth seeing as I could do little else while either doped up to my gills or in so much pain I couldn’t even see straight. SO I played quite a bit then and was able to continue playing after returning to work. I was playing less yet still having a good time playing and digging the new content. I still am.

I went back to work for almost a year before being laid of due to government cutbacks. So as I languished at home lamenting my lost job and very few prospects for a future job right away, I played more WOW. I was excited for the launch of CATA, and have been playing it since launch. Hell I was playing it before launch. I have to say I am impressed with the way they handled this expansion. It went off with very little trouble and not too many glitches. Those glitches that did occur were quickly fixed and no one even had time to QQ about them. There are still a few lingering, but I’m not sure that they are even worth mentioning since they don’t seem that common.

Since we do not have a ton of money we only have one account active and it happens to be the original account created in the very beginning of my WOW time. It contains my second character Jolygreen and his friend Coat. Now while I was hurt and out of work I managed to get him to 80 and geared very well. I then stopped playing him in order to level a Holy Paladin, I missed playing a pally.

I made him Holy and it turned out to be really fun. His name is Kerfluffle. As I started playing they completely revamped the way the characters can allot skill points and changed the trees for cata. It came at a good point for me in that I was not all set in how I healed. I was able to learn the new way of healing quickly. For this pally I took full advantage of the new random dungeon systems as soon as I was high enough level. I leveled Kerfluffle almost exclusively inside dungeons using mostly dungeon quests. Applause to Blizz for putting the quest givers into the dungeons and having some quests activate and get turned in on the fly inside the dungeons. I managed to get to 70 or so before having to quest outside the instances, mainly for gear as I was getting very few pieces of decent gear inside them. I screwed around a bit an got geared enough to do the 70+ instances and then continued to heal inside dungeons until 80 and left them again for gear.

Kerfluffle got to 80 very quickly. I actually dinged 80 before cata was released. I was also 80 for a few weeks after it got released but meh. I was 80 for some time really and was able to gear him up for and beyond heroic level instances long before cata dropped. After I became pretty epic at heals I decided to explore ret a bit more and began gearing him up for it. He does ok but still isn’t what I want for dps. Gear will come eventually I guess.

Cata dropped and I had to wait for a few weeks to afford the game. I decided to go for the collectors ed for the swag. Here’s where I will end this post so I can continue the next with my first impressions of cata.

Extended Hiatus.

This is one of the hardest posts i have had to write. I stopped playing WOW not long after I posted last. It wasn't the game driving me away. I found that while playing the game I was losing my family. I decided it was time for a real change in my habits.

I was pretty much as close as you could come to losing my wife, no scratch that, she was leaving. No joke. I believed her, and still do. I know it’s not only possible for her to leave but real, where there would be no going back. I decided after I was given the news that she was leaving that I would not give up with out a fight. She did not set any conditions for staying. She was leaving. I took the initiative on my own to prove that I was not just a lump, that I could in fact maintain a relationship with her. I was under no impressions that what I was doing would win her back; I did it because it was the right thing to do. I made a promise to myself that I would be a better husband and father. She would have none of the husband part. She liked the better father part but basicly told me to leave her out of it. Focus on the kids was all she wanted from me. So I did.

It was rough the first few weeks, knowing that she was leaving and nothing I could do would stop it. I was miserable all the time. Amazing how much you miss something when you know it’s going to be taken away from you. I lost a ton of weight since I couldn't eat and felt like shit. Part of it was prolly the loss of anything worthwhile to take my mind off my troubles. I canceled my account and deleted all WOW files off my computer just to make it harder to restart playing. I wouldn’t even watch the damn game if someone else was playing.
Another side effect of no WOW, I actually left my computer room and played with my kids. Weird, I didn't know what I was missing. Now I do. I felt an feel that I can’t really return to WOW fully, or as fully as I can with my new life schedule, until I can regulate myself properly as befitting a logical and responsible parent/husband. I am working toward that. I still want to play WoW, it’s a damn fine game and nothing I have found in 8 months measures up to the satisfaction and emersion and pure entertainment of WoW. To bad for the other guys. I would have returned to console games if there had been anything to spark my interest.

I have managed to reconnect with my kids. I spend more time with them now then I have in a long time. I have learned and will keep learning how to be a better father. I have taken steps to make sure that perhaps my kids wont be as big into video games as I have always been. We have never liked them watching TV or playing on the computers all that much before and now its been even more pressed upon them to get out an play in the yard or down the street with the neighbor kids. Anything to get them active and outside. With the wife working mostly nighttime shifts it has been me who has been fixing dinner and putting the kids to bed. I have gotten used to no leisure activities for me until after 8pm or so. Usually I will stay up till midnight just for some time to myself.


I did not foresee what else would come from my being away from WoW would do, and what being a better father and man would bring me. By not trying to do anything to force a mind change on my wife an just being what I should have been all along, I managed to catch my wife's affections once again, mostly by being here and stepping up to the responsibilities that are part of being a Father and Husband. I listen and actually hear her when she tells me about her day. I don’t give her sarcasm at every turn if she complains about something. I am genuinely interested in how her day was.

In the beginning it was for show, I admit. I was to far into my own depression to really worry about anyone else. My selfishness was quite paramount in my worldview, meaning there was really no one else but me in my little torment world. Gradually I came to accept that she was leaving and that it was in fact my fault for not living up to what I had promised. Once I was sure it was over and nothing I could do would stop it, I started doing what I should have done before, i.e. the listening and hearing and being a friend. Doing the little things that sometimes get dropped from long-term friendships and associations. Hugs and touches, smiles and kind words. Doing things just to be nice or to make someone feel happy just to do it. I started doing all the things that had attracted my wife to me in the first place. It was hard continuing it since every time I did do something that sparked her interest in me, she would reiterate that she was leaving. This hurt alot, not that I figured a few good days would reverse all the pain and anger, but it wasn’t understood by her that I was not doing all this stuff in order to change her mind. It didn't help any that she couldn't keep her hands off me. I would go all day with just a small touch or brush of her fingers on my arm. Pathetic I know, but a really do love my wife an I felt the distance keenly. No amount of telling could convince her that I was doing what I was doing because she deserved it from me. Plain and simple. I dropped the ball and no one else was to blame.
I continued with what I set out to do, being a better father and husband, even though one would stop and the other would be a once every few week’s deal. I maintained what relationships I had with my kids and tried to salvage a friendship I didn’t want to lose.

Somewhere alone the way my wife fell back in love with me. She tells me its different this time and I believe her. I feel different too; I don’t feel like the person I was before. I still spend the majority of my days with my kids, but now my nights are more taken up with spending time with my wife as we rebuild our marriage. It is still a marriage. We do things together, we have time just for us without the kids or our work or games or any thing that could interrupt us just being together. She has shown me that she trusts me again, even letting me play a little toon on her account; btw she rarely plays anymore either. Mostly cuz she’s spending so much time with me. I think its great. We still have some wounds to heal, but that are doing that. Healing. I love my wife an kids. I love WoW, but not as much as I used to. Maybe in that I will one day be able to crank up my old account and wreak havoc on the legions of the enemy.

I have jumped online to talk to guildies a few times and all keep asking when I will return, those that knew of our marital problems ask after that. I tell them all the same thing, yeah I will return to WoW, but not anytime soon. I have set myself a date perhaps two months after WotLK goes live. Maybe.

I'd have to go dig out my copies of the game or fork over forty to sixty buck for a new copy. Meh, digging through all my storage junk is not very appealing so I will prolly fork over the cash.

Before I left the game I had gone ahead with a respec. I may write up another entry about my adventures as a Prot pally at some point before comming back. Yeah I went prot on Gawds and got geared enough to tank Rage in Hyjal....for the last 20 secs of the fight. Yeah bitches. Gawds rocks ass. We shall see what the future holds for a Prot pally named Gawdsicon and a Gnome rouge named Mindkiller, perhaps a long overdue entry concerning a lost hunter named Jolygreen and his bear Coat.

Ret is dead, soon at least.

I haven’t been enjoying my Ret Pally all that much recently. The sigma of not being a tank or a healer is getting to me. Working on itemization has shown me that to make a ret pally perform will take an inordinate amount of time and effort. I have also been told that some decent gear is to be had from the Season 1 arena gear.

PVP, I cast my spite at thee.

So I have been giving serious consideration to respeccing protection. No healing for me. I like the tank role. On my warrior I so enjoy taking the hits and dishing out the aggro. Only problem now is I have to completely revamp my armor and weapon itemization. I am hoping that some of the stuff that Darstar can make with Blacksmithing will work as a temporary fix till I can get some real gear. I will not be getting rid of any of the gear I have just in case that doesn’t work out. Hell I’ll be able to use most of it to help in grinding if needed. Sure as hell not gonna get rid of my HOD. I still would like to get the hammer of naruu, and it will be a bit before I actually respect, need to have the gear ready to go for the change.

I got Darstar up to 50 this weekend and with it I respecced full prot sos I could spec down to devastate. Oh what an evil skill that is. Sunder armor and damage based on how many sunders are up. SO it increases in damage the more you use it till sunders are stacked 5 times. Very fricking cool. I topped the damage meter in a few ZF runs after I got this thing rollin. Poor enchantment shammy couldn’t figure out what had changed. I had run with him a few time before I had devastate and he kept pulling aggro. Not any more.

More good news from ZF. I had gotten Jang’Thraze to drop off the chief on Friday last week. Now I was stoked. It's decent main hand, it has a nice shield proc that will take maybe 1 hit from an attacker, plus it looks bad ass. (I need to get the thing enchanted.)

Now I have run ZF over 300 times, really I’m not kidding. 4 characters over 42 all went to ZF from 42-50 or so. MANY TIMES RUN’ED THERE IN. So I can pretty much fight through there in my sleep…and have done so…a few times. In the beginning it was just for the exp and a few quests…nothing in there really sparked my fancy, till I saw Sul’Thraze. This was my obsession. Yeah was. I have falling off of it a few times. Usually when the character I was trying for it on leveled past 50. I figured it would be the same on Darstar, until Friday when Jang dropped and every one passed on it.

I have JANG” I wsp to all the people who knew I was questing and had been questing for it. I equipped that bad boy and proceed to kick even more ass cuz NOW imamtankwithJANG. Yeah I was frickin happy. I gladly went on back there a few times with a guildy willing to run to the basilisk boss and try for Sang. We tried 5 times in 2 days and no Sang; I was disappointed but willing to let it go. I had just dinged 50 and knew the second sword would only get used in solo runs, hell even Sul would only me a soloing weapon. This weekend the wife had a bit of downtime between raids and decided to run ZF on her 43 priest and asks me ifin I would be willing to tank a group through ZF. I say sure another shot at Sang, plus I get to play with the wife who is cranking out some mad healz.

She gets a group together and I get summoned to ZF. We set up and dig into ZF and maul through it. We had along an Enhancement shammy (Same one as above, good player) and a mage and a ret pally (giggle, he was wearing a shield and a 1 hand mace, idiot) I had asked him at one point why he was 1 handing it instead of swinging a skull-crushing 2hander…he never responded. The ret pally kept breaking the mages sheep but that wasn’t all that bad as I had no problem keeping aggro. We smash our way to the basilisk boss where we tear through him and his adds. Guess what dropped…SANG FUCKIN THRAZE. I about shit myself. In all the times I have run this place I have seen Jang 3 and Sang 2 times. This was the second Sang. Before I can ask “ohpleasepleaseprettypleasecanineedonthatIhavepentmyentirelifelookingforthatsword!” the wife types in for people to please pass since I have been waiting for it AND have the other half. The mage and shammy have no problem with that and the wife passes also…that leave the Pally. Now I know he was salivating, so I type in

“Dude I’ll pay you 20g to pass on that.”

Pause
Pause
/slash eyeball

He passes, I got it! Fucking yeah baby. I have been to the mountain and seen the virgins and they serve BEER I fucking got them damn blades!! So yeah I am pleased. I tell the pally straight up thank you and if he sticks around after the sun I can send him the cash. Darstar was a little broke but the bank I have has plenty enough to cover that. The wife decides to not let him wait and was gonna pay him for me, but he refused the trade. I don’t understand it but oh well. I got the blades and they look sick together. I’m gonna have to look real hard at the stats for Sul before I decide to join them. I really like the way they look together and they will be good for keeping sword skill up being a matched pair. I will have to see how my damage is solo with a 2hand using devastate to really see if it would be worth it. Till then I have a nice pair of swords that need enchanting.

Now for the new character I made this weekend. Yeah another. I have a few friends that adopted a mascot for their house. It is a little plastic alligator toy they have named Wally Gator. Now there is a cartoon character named this, but this is not the derivation of this mascot. No, it is from an episode of The A-Team where Murdock adopts a baby alligator and names him Wally Gator. Now according to Murdock “Wally Gator knows about war” and since my friends play a lot of first person shooters about wars they immediately felt a kinship with Wally Gator and thus the house mascot was born.
My wife and I were discussing the cleaning up of our accounts and getting rid of older characters we will never play again, so we freed up a few slots on the account I play on. I was looking for a cool name and “Bigdaddykingthunderstick” would not fit in the name box…I tried…several permutations…unsuccessfully. Sigh. So the wife hit on the idea of making a Wally Gator. It took me all of 2 secs to figure out that Wally had to be a Draeni. Since my other Draeni shammy is now the Guild leader/banker of my private stash, I can no longer play him and keep him easily near the important things, ah/bank. So I picked a male Draeni shammy since I still want to see how these guys play and named him Wallygator. I got him to 12 in little under 6 hours. My banker Draeni only ever made it to 14…over 24hours. Yeah I played Wally a bit this weekend. I’m gonna move him to IF to crank some easy quests there then prolly over to SW for those as well. I’m gonna quests his ass off, when ever I have the time. Pretty soon Darstar will be ready for the plunge into BRD and the goodness therein, and with the guild tooling up for some serious runs at TK and perhaps SSC I might get in on those. I really want to get into ZA, which might come about after a respecc. We shall see.

No Hammer, but nice legs there bud.

Now I left KOW then almost immediately got re-invited back to Honor. Much jokes an ribbing were sent my way for leaving in the first place. Now I still felt I left for valid reasons, yet I’m also willing to change my attitude toward dealing with what the guild has become. This means I will actually sign up for raids that I intend to attend. I don’t think I’ll be getting back into Kara since the times for raiding it are still too early for me. I will however be able to attend the SSC, TK, Gruul, and perhaps ZA raids as they tend to happen later in the day or on the weekends.

I happen to be invited to go on Honor’s first run at TK: Eye The plan was to see if we could clear to Void Reaver and take his ass down. We had some scary moments on the dragon hawks pulls and a few deaths to cleaves on the bigger blood elves, but all in all no more then a 30% death toll on the bad pulls, which only happened 2 times due to unfamiliarity and a sheep breaking without notice. We tightened up the strats as we went and made it to Void I decent time. We wiped once on the pulls immediately around Void due to a lock taking a really bad hit. Again we tightened up the strat and went on to clear the room for a shot at Void. As we were setting up for the fight, some one accidentally aggroed void and the race was on to the door. I was last one in and actually took a hit from Void as a parting shot. I lived.

The dead release and run back and we set up for a try at Void. Strats are discussed and we attack. We did a damn good job. We got him below 45%, can’t remember the exact number but it may have been as low as 29%, before the poundings took their toll and kill off the melee dps. We were using the in/out strat, but it ended up costing us too much dps. We wiped but still learned what to expect. I was dead at around 70%.

We set up for another run, this time the melee will stay in and have 2 dedicated healers. The tank was not taking any really big hits so the healing could be eased up from him. So most melee stay in for the pounding and rely on the heals. I didn’t listen as I figured it be more effective to trade off who runs out and who stays. This time I lasted till 30-34% before a bad bomb got me after a pounding. During the fight we could see the trash was re-spawning near the entrance. We reset and discuss what to refine as the strat. People were summoned form the entrance for a final shot.

It was decided that the dedicated healers stay, but the melee try to in/out if needed. Low health or out of position to the healer dictating movement. As we are setting up for the 3rd run we can hear the trash respawning behind us and getting closer. We knew this was our last shot. We set off for the third try. Every one knows what going to happen now. No surprises any more. We settle in for the long fight and tough it out.

VOID REAVER DOWN.

We kicked his ass. We hurried for a pic before lewting the goodies. We kicked his ass. I know we can do it again too. We got the heals, the tanks, the dps. We Cracked his Skull.

Honor has also been working on ZA progression. Lots of nice stuff there to be had. Last night they completed their first complete clear of ZA. Hells yeah. This just after a complete run of gruuls. Yeah we made HKM our bitch. We had one partial wipe setting up on HKM, and one true and a partial wipe on gruul due to some one deciding to res people instead of releasing and runnin. My hammer did not drop, but I’m sure he was just polishing it for next week for me. Its ok, I can wait. We went on and showed gruul that he may slay dragons but he is just a bump on the road in front of the juggernaught that is HONOR.I managed to snag a winning roll for my t4 legs. Oh how nice it will be whenever I get 2 then 4 of the pieces. Very nice bonuses. I’ll run gruuls over and over again. It is a quick fun run.

Me can has posts?

A little updating to be had.

I have been back in my “Old” Guild for 2 weeks, Yeah I went back.

I found that KOW, while seeming a fun loving group of people, are really lewt hungry adolescents with an over-inflated view of their own importance to the world. Yeah, a buncha dick heads. Seriously, I did not go on one raid with them, by choice. I could have asked for a slot and if an item dropped that I could use, I may have had a shot at it if no one wanted/needed. I chose to sit out raids not because of the slim chance at lewt, but because I really didn’t want to be the guy they blamed wipes on. I prolly would have just based on the attitudes they get over the wife’s vent when they do wipe. They seem more interested in placing blame then fixing the problem in an adult manner. So any who, what really got me to leave was a combination of a former guildy’s lobbying and some comment from the GM to my wife (Not to me, OH no. Don’t speak to the person who might be doing something wrong in an adult manner and work to address and fix it.) I will admit I do tend to type what is on my mind; however I play to the feel of the “room” and audience. I don’t go out of my way to be a dick, if I do it’s defiantly intended and a few have felt my succinctly barbed digs. So during a converse in KOW gchat I seemed to piss some people off. How? I don’t know or care really. Some people are too damn sensitive and mistrustful of snappy and intelligent dialog. Yeah it was actual conversation dealing not with lewt or specs, but with our mutual love of movies. The other party in the converse was perhaps my junior by at least a decade, so we traded movie quotes and guessed at them. Now bare in mind this was really late at night and not much was goin on. No raids, pvpin, or setting up for a heroic run. Nothing was being said in gchat. So we filled it. Apparently this is NOT what gchat is for.

So after a highschoolesque note passing session between the wife and the GM, my wife turns to me and says the GM had got complaints about my converse that evening. I was quite frankly disgusted. First that something that affected like all of the 5 people on at that time, was that important that the GM had to get involved, but at the same time I wasn’t given any heads up that maybe I don sofin so rong. So I tell my wife that I’ll leave the guild the next day. As I lay down to sleep I realized that waiting till premium time would be overly dramatic, unintentional, as it would have been based on my schedule. So I cranked my puter back up, logged in and left Kings of War. I won’t miss them, they won’t miss me. They are welcome to their psychosis. The wife gets a little upset since it was she who pestered me to join. I shrug it off as a lesson learned. I have little tolerance for drahmah and high school tom foolery. It should have ended there, but it didn’t.

The wife went out of town this past weekend to have a girl’s night out. I figured it be a great time for some dual-boxing. Her rouge and my warrior and a ZF full of lewtz. So I set our comps up to maximize viewing fields and log onto both accounts, the wife’s character on mine and my warrior on hers since he will be following and wont need much actioning. I see the ghcat but ignore it. Her character gets a few tells and I politely inform them of my true identity. I have done this a few times in the past and have had no drahma from it. I was on for maybe an hour when a comment in gchat grabs my attention and I am compelled to respond. It was a play on words on a question someone asked. No vulgar or offensive remark at all. As soon as it gchat people start saying hi to the wife’s character. I then identify myself and not the wife, but the hubby. 5 seconds later an officer demotes the wife’s character. Now I can understand why, but it was handled in totally the wrong way. I simple message in gchat or wsp saying something like “ For security reasons we will be demoting all “The Wife’s” characters till she returns.” No not good enough for the children apparently. People freak out and I get really pissed. I msg the idiot with my opinion of his mental capacity, in wsp btw since I can no longer type in gchat, yeah they took the character down well beyond any access to officer stuff. In fact I think he did it purposely just to piss me off with out any real worry about the gbank. This guy is a dick head simply put. I knew that before I joined the guild from hearing his dickhead ass on vent. So I call him a few names in wsp and he gives me some shit about how I would have been treated like a guildy ifin I was still in the guild and shit. Fuck him and his fucking guild for fucks sake. Now the funny part is…it took them 20 minutes before they decided to demote the wife’s other characters. In 20 minutes I could, if I really wanted to, have lewted every piece of gold worthy item from their bank. I knew I had access, really I had seen the ranks. I knew I had, through my wife’s characters, access to a raiding guild ‘lewt from a tousand werlds’. Yet I never considered doing the bad things they think I’m capable of doin. First and foremost, these were my wife’s characters and would damage her position in the guild, much more then me just being her husband. Hell I went out of my way to make sure there was no confusion between me and the wife. Second of all, there is nothing, from what I saw over the wife’s shoulder; in that bank that would net me any thing in gold or items that I couldn’t get on my own with minimal effort. Pretty much the same amount of effort it would take to lewt a bank it what it would take for me to duplicate what they had. Maybe not the amounts but defiantly the content. I have been self sufficient from day one. I don’t rely on any one to get me stuff than I know I can get on my own. It is only the high end stuff, raids/heroics that I even would ask for help on. This is how the game works.

Earlier this week after the wife returns from her carousing, she gets informed by the GM/Officers, that in order for her to have restored/keep her officer status, she would have to limit MY access to her account. (Btw the account she plays on is the original account I started playing on. The account I play on was purchased for her, but since her one of only 2 characters over 40 are on that account, she plays on that one. Because of our schedules at the time we started playing, it kinda borked how our 2 accounts were set up. With one playing the one while the other is playing an alt. It’s really confusing any way. Some day I'll clean up the accounts so there’s a definite separation.) So they want her to limit my access to the account and characters, so to them me having characters on that account that I might play(how the fuckers fucking know?) doesn’t, mean shit. Now again if you sat my ass on her character, with officer/gbank privileges, in front of the gbank which is ideally located next to a mail box, I still would rather run my alt through ZF. Nothing, FUCKIN nothing in that bank even come close to being so fucking fanfuckingtastic that I would soil myself with the shit of stealing a fucking electronic bit of fucking data!!

So with a heavy heart I will appease the fucks and delete the characters on that account….huh what am I saying? Actually they can go fuck themselves. There is one character I will be deleting off there but only because he’s obsolete now that my warrior is nearing 50. He was my first character but I don’t ever see myself playing him. I'll sell of all his shit for a bit of cash and get rid of him. I’ll see if I can make another character on my account with the same name. The names special…the character in this case isn’t. I won’t be deleting any of the character and I won’t be limiting my access to the characters that are mine, i.e. I put in the time to level/learn the toon. I will how ever steer clear of the wife character that are in the guild unless perhaps I can make arrangements with the GM to have them demoted ahead of time if I am looking to dual-box when the wife is away. Meh. Not gonna sweat it all that much. I was really pissed at first at the childish behavior, but as I look back on all the conversations I over heard (lets see them limit my listing in/reading that shit) they are really a fucked up bunch of people. Small minds and dwarfed by inflated egos. If the decide to take their angst out on the wife they will confirm my lowest opinion of their integrity. She busts her ass keeping the fucked up dkp system they use updated and accurate, and she doesn’t get shit out of it besides criticism and whining. Assholes, the lot of them. They can fucking die in a fire. They Fucking fail. Game fucking over. (Oh btw they are paranoid about spouse goin off and lewting the bank cuz one did do it after some other piece of ego charged, supposed insults. I won’t say I laughed, I didn’t then, but now? Fucking priceless. Karma is a bitch)

I have seen the Hammer, and it is good.

A few notes, maybe it will grow into something more.

So I quit my old guild almost 3 weeks ago. I will say I did remain solo for those first 2 weeks. I am focusing on getting my new warrior up to 70. More on that in a bit. My wife finally convinced me to join her guild, with the blessing of the GM. Sorta. Seems the GM is worried that if/when I leave that I’ll take the wife. She seems to ignore the fact that my wife has been in her guild for a while now and I have not. Maybe we don’t act like those other drahma hors. If I leave this new guild it will be for my reasons and I will not be dragging my wife away from a guild she seems to be enjoying. Plus she is now an officer officially now, where before she was just the DKP person. Seemed to me she should have been an officer in name and deed the second she took over the crap that is DKP. Anyway. So I rolled Gawdsicon, my 70 ret pally into Kings of War. I haven’t been to any raid with them, but I have earned standby dkp. Yay. Still suffereing from the raid timming and the fact that if KOW is raiding, so is the wife. Having 2 parents raid at the same time and nearbouts the same time as dinner or bedtimes; a little difficult. We may be able to work it out, but I’m in no hurry. I have received a few tells from people from my old guild asking for my return….ok just one person seems to be. He is a friend though so I take it seriously.

Speaking of my old guild. They have worked out a weekly deal with a few other interested guilds to run AQ40 and perhaps Naxx on Saturdays just for giggles. I was invited and accepted a slot on the weekly runs, where ever they may go.
We ran into AQ40 last weekend and it was a blast. Even though we had a decent number of 70’s, we sprinkled it with a few 60-65’s. Hell some o the gear in AQ40 will be decent enough for them. I’m not sure how many we had but it was prolly around 30 or so people kicking in there for a few hours. Most, I think, had a blast. I know I sure did. Seeing a part of the game I had never seen before.

It got me in the mood to check out how far I was from getting attuned to Naxx. Turns out I was revered with AD, so it only cost me the price of 30g and 2 nexus crystals as I had a stack of arcane crystals in the bank. So being attuned I then decided to find Naxx and enter it to check it out. After running around EPL for 45 minutes I went to wowwiki to find the entrance. Yeah, its in the middle of Plaguewood. So I invite the wife to a group, change to raid and enter. Wow, this place if huge. I wondered around the first room and then decided to challenge one of the big green guys. I might have taken down one, if he wasn’t linked to the other three. In 5 hits I’m smooshed. Oh well I can get here now and will be back there some day.

Back to my old guild. Last weekend I was invited on a sorta progression run into ZA. Yeah I’m not in the guild and now I get invited to ZA. So I go and we get to the bear boss with 7 minutes left on the timer. Jesus that fight is loooong. We wiped on the first attempt so now extra loots. We got him on the second try. Nice fight, pretty simple on the strategy as long as you have the heals and tanks. The rest is burning down fast and getting there in enough time to do it before the timer runs out. Afer catchin our breath we tried for the bird boss. That gauntlet is rough lemme tell joo. We attempted 4 times without getting all the way through. They then decided to trade out one of us for a bigger AOE. So who has to go? Me of course. Oh well. I thanked them for the run and switched over to my warrior for the rest of the night.

Yesterday I log in and get a tell from an old guildy asking if I wanna try Gruul with them. I’m like “ Dude, I get more raid invites now then I did when I was IN the guild.” He then asks me if I had thought about returning, I gave him a truthful answer of no. I have not been thinking about it mainly just so I don’t have to think about it. Not quite ready for that line of thought yet.

So since KOW had already smooshed Gruul this week and I was not in on that, I was free to go to Honor’s run. We smashed through the trash to HKM, and sat and chilled while instructions were spoken…..and spoken…..snore….Oh! and spoken. I’m heading out for pizza.

After a lengthy discussion/summation/pandering, we finally make the first attempt. It flopped horribly as the main healer was way out of range of the tank on HKM. We wipe spectacularly. Reset, then again, more words. (I’m all for strategy, but being DPS I just want to be pointed and shot at what ever needs killin) We try again and make better progress. We wipe a second time due once again being placed wrong for heals. The third attempt was going well until the main on HKM took some real nasty hits from the lock after tour hunters lost their healer. It was like a domino affect. The main healer just could not compete with HKM and the lock beating on the tank. The main tank went down just before we took down the third guy. We kept at it just for giggles and manage to get down 3 of the five guys in the room. Not bad really, it gave the rest of the raid what we needed, confidence that we could do it. We reset our selves and waited for the respawns. Buffed and thrashed through the trash to HKM once again. It went flawlessly on the fourth try. Only 3 people died and 2 of those were dps. We got the king down and much joy was had. He dropped the Hammer of Naruu and 2 sets t4 gloves for pallys and rogue. Since I wasn’t guildy I didn’t expect anything, but that hammer looked noice. The only other pally rolls, I wait for others to roll. No one does, then they tell me to roll too. “I’m not guildy”, I says. “Fuck that shit, you’re here and you helped. Roll fucker!”

So I roll to. The other Pally got the win by 15 points. Oh well maybe some other time. I had fun, and wasn’t there for gear any way. I was compelled to roll on the t4 gloves and didn’t get those either, again no big deal. I’ll be going back Monday when they make a run on Gruul hisself. So I have been to AQ40, Naxx(touring the first room) ZA, and HKM.

Shit, can I call my self a raider yet?

Maybe I’ll wait till I get the hammer.

Alone again.

Well it finally happened.

I have left my guild.

Well it’s not MY guild any more. Honor. That was the name of the guild. I’m not sire if I have ever talked about it on here before. Prolly have in passing but not specifically. Now I will.

I joined a guild some few months after I started playing wow. That guild was called Kaos. It was a guild on Duskwood server. I joined because my wife was in it and she recommended it to me. Besides I wanted to play with the wife and being in the same guild would facilitate that easier. Now Kaos had a lot of good people and players. Those 2 things not being mutually inclusive either. Yet enough of them in the guild were both to make it a nice place to hang. Or so I thought. A few months (or days, can’t remember) after I joined that guild it imploded.

Several of the good ones started another guild for the other good ones. This guild was named Honor. I joined them around the 3rd day of Honor’s life. The GM was an older guy named Ressager. This guy really knew how to treat people. He was a GM people would defend and listen to. Yet he wasn’t a domineering kind of guy. He led us by example and it seemed to work. People differed to him when disputes arose over anything. He made it clear that Honor was a casual guild that was looking to raid, but not jam ass into hardcore.

So we didn’t advance as fast as the other guilds. Yet we advanced at a steady pace. The guild did all the pre-bc raids and were quite successful. We never had a guild only Rag kill, mostly due to the pre-reqs, but we could go in there and smash it up pretty good. We advanced enough to tackle ZG, AQ20, and even dipped into BWL and Ony. I think a few even made it into Naxx. All this was pre-BC of course. When BC was about to hit we lost a lot of members due to the fact that we were laying off raids and only doin impromptu attempts at the higher dungeons. Most came back after BC and joined the run to 70.

It then came to pass that our leader, Ressager, had to take some indefinite off time to do some moving and house building. We all understood and wished him well. Most assumed he would be back after a few months. During the time he was away, many left the guild due to having no direction or solid leadership. The guild deteriorated into almost a feeder guild or a guild just for alts. A lot of the key players took their “mains” out to join raiding guilds for gear and experience. No one seemed willing to make the big decisions that would turn around the guild and bring it back to the Pre-Ressager’sleaveofabsence. The attitude of the guild slumped and many rules that were enforced before were let slide. The guild became, in my opinion, a swampy shadow of its former self.

After a period of time when we didn’t hear from him, he was contacted by other means. It was decided by him and his Vice GM that he would give up control of the guild to the Vice GM, Borvoh. This guy was the right hand and a proper choice for a replacement GM. So no one thought anything of it. In fact most heartily endorsed it. Now Bor set about returning the guild to its former glory, hell at one time people were clamoring to get into Honor since our rep for fairness and fun were renown across the server. He re-enforced the rules and listened to the officers to institute others. Oh yeah did I mention that at some point I became an officer or equivalent. Hell I was up for Class leader just before those positions were removed. Since I was an officer and interested in the guilds long life, I helped out where I could. With pride and fairness I helped police the guild for idiots. Never abusing my powers, and I had some decent ones too. There was plenty of friction when we started to raid Kara. We lost a few more due to misunderstandings and friction.

The guild weathered the trials that Kara presented. After a period of unsettling conflict we pulled through and became a guild that could field a successful Kara group. It wasn’t long after we started having weekly success in Kara that a lot of the old guard returned from their wanderings. Soon we suddenly had enough members to realistically run 2 Kara groups and expect them to perform well. And they did, and it was good. Well not so much for me.

Due to time differences and actually having a life (yeah kids do need tending sometimes) I was unable to run with group 1. Also at the time my only 70 was my Rogue. Dps wasn’t a big need so he was very rarely needed; besides there were plenty of DPS that hit harder then him. So I started a pally just to see how it plays. I loved it of course. It wasn’t long after I got to around 40 on Gawds that I decided that he would be a raider, DPS of course as I cant stand to be in the background healing. I should have realized at it was a pipe dream. Not only is DPS not hard to come by, it is in overabundance. While healers and tanks are still scarce.

Soon after Gawds reached 70 there was a call for a second group for Kara. I was excited. Here was my chance to break in and do some damage in Kara. I didn’t know at the time that there really isn’t all that much gear in there for a ret pally. (Turns out that heroics is prolly the best place for decent ret pally gear, if you can stomach wearing mail. Ick!) Yeah I say. I was still willing to go an help other get some goodies. My first attempt to get into group to failed miserable. The time it was set to go was almost an hour before I could realistically get home from work. Dayam. Next attempt was tolerable better only because it was delayed until key players logged on to give the group a chance to work. I watched as the group slammed through the first few bosses and then failed to get past Curator. Why? DPS wasn’t high enough. Since ret pallys don’t have fast ass DPS, I bowed out and let a mage come wail. That was the last time Gawds went into Kara. That was prolly 3 weeks ago, maybe more, I’d have to check.

After ZA was introduced the guild set up a progression group, whether it was set I don’t know, I was never asked for participation. So I have yet to see the inside of ZA. Shrugs.

I left Honor for various reasons. Some I have yet to state some I may never state, but the bottom line is: I no longer felt my presence in the guild amounted to anything. I couldn’t raid, wasn’t included in heroics when I expressed interest(mostly due to preplanned excursions), was flat out ignored when I asked to get in on a ZA run and generally left to twiddle my thumbs. I was excluded from playing with the people I had come to love playing with. I rarely saw any of the people I enjoyed playing with face to face (in game). All I have had for the past few weeks is reading in /gchat all the guilds exploits in Kara and ZA. Yeah. I’m happy. Shit. I will miss the guild a lot. Hell Honor, for me, was my only guild. Nothing will come close to it I think. No. I know nothing will come close to it. Yet I find that leaving wasn’t as hard as it should have been, coupled with the fact that when I left I got all of 2 people asking why I left. So yeah I quietly disappeared from everyone it seemed. I considered goin to the wife’s guild, but the chance even though the chance to raid is there, the chance at gear is slim to none based on the rules they have about raiding/loot.

There have been slim opportunities for me to raid, shit, same thing happened pre-bc. I have been tinkering with a prot warrior. After 2.3 it has become disgustingly easy to level, and with 2 high level characters to finance, I can afford the best gear to make it even easier. I started this game solo, so it seems I have come full circle. I’m solo again. I don’t know how long I will stomach playing solo or whether I will keep playing till WoTK graces us with its presence.


So with a heavy heart, yeah it does hurt a bit, I bid farewell to Honor. I will miss alot of people. Can’t say if I’ll ever go back. Future is uncertain.


Mindkiller
Gawdsicon
Darstar

More Altism, I have it in spades.

I was a little premature in thinking that I would be raid lots and lots on Gawds. Seems even though Ret pallys have increased in utility, they are not all that wanted in raids. Or perhaps its just this persons pally that is not welcome. I’m being bitter, the one time I have gone to Kara on Gawds we can’t kill Curator. I bowed out so they could bring in another dps. They get him down and what drops? T4 pally gloves , with no one there who could use them or need them. Yeah. I have been unable to get into any other raids due to the time slot they seem to shoot for. It is just as I get home if I don’t make any stops. If traffic is heavy, I’ll be late. We don’t get penalized for not showing up on time, but it means they have to look for some one else and maybe that person needs stuff in there. Couple this with the fact that I have been told that the gear in Kara is not a big draw for Ret pallys, yeah again. So in order for me to get gear I have to do Heroics for drops and badges. Well after the long haul to 70, I find myself with out purpose. I can spend time in heroics for a small chance something good will drop, or just farm badges to make a nice epic set out of that. I have yet to decide what to do.

I still get a lot of tells asking me to heal or tank on Gawds. I see a lot of players assuming Ret is a broken and worthless tree. I’m glad they are wrong. Our damage is based on crits and procs, but both are tied and can be enhanced easily. Well easily within the games mechanics, ie farming for drops and badges. Same as most characters. The only thing I see as what they are complaining about is that to be truly effective you need to stick almost soley to the ret tree. Not like healing or prot where you can diddle in and out of 2 or 3 of the trees. Myself I went with 10/0/51 to gain the maximum amount of dps per swing as well as the nice boost to stats from the 10% to str and int. It means I can’t heal heroics or the harder dungeons for more that a few heals. Yet I didn’t roll pally to heal. I made him to get those insane crits I see in all the PVP videos where a pally rolls through 20 guys before the screen goes blank. Can a rogue do that? Sure, but you damn well better have some beastly equipment. Mindkiller doesn’t, and won’t. He just does not have the utility people look for in raids. I am disappointed that a character I really loved leveling to 70 turned out to be only worth using as a farmer. Maybe I’m playing him wrong. I don’t know, and I’m tired of tryin.

I have also taken a break from Gawds. I’m really thinking about moving him to my wife’s guild. If they will have me, not sure as I have not applied yet. I have started and leveled to 26 a brand new Human Warrior named Darstar. I decided finally to make a tank. My luck will be such that when ever he reaches 70, the tanks will all be druids or Prot pallys. It will also give me a slim chance of playing side by side with my wifes preist. If only I can get her to play at all with me instead of raiding. I can burn oast her so fast due to my ability to smash through areas and their quests in no time at all. Coupled with tha fact of my memory retention of all the quests I have done for various reasons. Hell I have done the human, gnome/dwarf, Night elf, and Drani quests on a few characters. Some just for rep at 60 or 70. I know where I need to go for this or that quest. She has limited herself to playing only NE for so long she only knows those quests, whil I prefer the gnomes and dwarves. Still I have ploughed through the Teldrassil and darkshore stuff a few times just for the beefy rep you get. An ill do it again on Darstar sos he can have a cat at 60. We will see if we can meet up for some play time. Might not be for a bit though as packing will have to come first. My time for the next few weeks will be at a premium as I have to move me and the family out of the apartment we are in.

Numer Two 70, But #1 Character

Well Gawds has been 70 for 5 weeks now. The final push was real quick. I just finished out some of the easier quests in BEM befor heading into Netherstorm for the 68-70 quests. I knocked out a few of the quests. I’ll edit this with the specific area I dinged in someday.

I entered 70 well ahead of the game. I had been trolling the AH for an upgrade to my Helreaver. It was getting much harder to kill things quickly, that usually means its time for a weapon upgrade. I was purusing the AH for a suitable replacement and was decided on the Oathkeeper for the 68+ questing and to take me into Heroics and Kara. Hell a 70 pally guildy had his until last week when he got Gorehowl off of Prince. He’s been 70 since a month after BC….or less. Well I was at 65 when I decided on the upgrade shopping. So into the AH I go and I see a lot of good things…cept they are for 66-68 and not gonna help me. I finally decide to go with a pole arm that had some very nice stats. I asked my guildies for some advice and the concesus was to go with OathKeeper. A guildy even offered to give me one at a tremendous discount. (Yeah for something like that I have no problem paying a guildy.) As I was deciding wether to take him up on the offer I see a spam in /2 for the Hammer of Destiny. Guy wanted 1.2k. So I asked the guild if it was worth that much. Most agreed it was worth more like 800. So I messaged him with the 800g and he said he would take that price if I traded other things for it. (It seems to me now that this guy was an ex-Diablo 2 Player. A lot of transactions in that game revolved around trading items as gold was so easy to come by and items were not soul bound. Lots of times it was gold + item trades. This was the first time I had seen it as an option in WOW. Item for Item, sure. Money for Item sure. Just not both.) Where ever this guy came from it didn’t change the fact that I only had 924g on that character ( yeah others had more) But I was not gonna pay more then 800. I could walk away and not be upset. He would be out 800 he didn’t have. So I tell him I only have the gold and no tradable items as I have been saving for an epic. (True but the real money is elsewhere). He says he will keep me in mind. He spasm his ad 2 more times, I suspect now that some guildes messaged him and offered him an amount lower then the 800, yeah they would do that, cuz in less then 5 minutes he msgs me back. He says he’s having a good day so he was gonna pass on the joy. (If he had giving it to me for 500 that would have been some serious joy). We meet and I hand over the cash, he hands over the Hammer. I then had an epic that is widely said to be the best pre-raid epic weapon. Tell you what, I think they are right. See my priority here? I have a 3 sentence paragraph stating how I got from 65-70, in 3 days mind you, while the weapon gets a huge chunk o space. I am not a lewt whore really, but I am jazzed that I got the hammer. I slapped Savagery on that bad boy as soon as I found a chanter with it learned.

It languished in the bank till I neared 70 then was immediately equipped once I dinged. 114g later I trained all the skills for 69 and 70. I was ready for dungeons…um no. I still needed rep in a few places for the heroic keys.

I spent a great deal of time in Nagrand farming the Obsidian Beads for Consortium rep till I had over 100 of them. I then headed to Netherstorm to crank out the consortium quests that would put me close to honored. It took a bit but after tuning in the beads and quests I managed to earn my key. I also had to work on my Shatar rep but the only way for that was to run TK instances. So I placed that on hold while started my Kara attunement. It took me over the course of a week to get it all done. By the time I was keyed I was honored with KOT(1 Durn FC + BM FC) and pretty well into friendly with Shatar. I still need a few more runs to get me to honored. But one problem, no one wanted to run them. I had the shitiest time putting together a run to any of the TK dungeons.

I was screwing around in Shat when I decided to turn in some signets and tomes to the Scryer people. It turns out that turning in those signets, tomes, fel armaments, and marks of Keal/Sarg, also gives Sha’tar rep. Well shit I didn’t know that. I spent some time farming some up and looked for deals on the AH and /2. Got some major steals from people looking to make some quick cash. After all my wheelin and dealing I got enough signets and tome to make a huge dent in my Scryer and Sha’tar rep. In fact I got my Sha’tar rep to 5999/6000 with all the turnins. That’s where it stopped. Shit. Still needed a rep run. I then decided to put that on hold for a short time so I could run through the quest chain for the arcatraz key which would take a character into Bot and Mech. After I ran through the quests (Btw I soloed the elite demon who held the shard in Netrherstorm, took 3 times though) I put out a call again for a run into Bot and maybe Mech. This was last Saturday and luckily there were guildies about and looking to run some Shar’tar rep up. We blasted through Bot before everyone had to run over to kill Kara. It was cool I dinged honored with the first kill in Bot. I had to wait till Sunday to run Mech. Sunday comes and I get a tell from a group already in Mech. They were at the last boss and needed DPS.

“Are you ret?”
“Fuck yeah I’m a Skull Cracker,” me replies.
“Wanna kill the last boss in mech?”
“Hell fucking yeah!”

We wipe on him the first time but destroy him the second. I got the second frag and made my key at Shat.

I am fucking Keyed for everywhere and all levels. I have run UB and SV heroic. I’ve run Bot and Mech on heroic. I’ve even been in on a disastrous SL heroic. I am loving the heroics on Gawds. Mindkiller has never seen the inside of a heroic. Mindkiller has now become a support character as I grow deeper into the Paladin. I will raid with Gawds like I never did wit Mindkiller. Oh well they both are money makers, and with my one-man guild banker I have no problem storing and selling all the stuff these two can acquire. I think I will have my epic mount money in about a week if I just put a bit of effort into it. It took me 4 months or so on Mindkiller to do that. It will prolly be a total of 2-3 weeks on Gawds.

Getting there.

I have managed to make it to Nagrand and be well into level 65. I layed the smack down on the remaining Zangar quests up to and including a few rep quest for Sporragar. They had a nice shield I was willing to grind for. It was a bit repetitive but in the end worth it for a blue shield that only cost 15 Glowcaps.

I managed to hit honored with CE while messing around in Zangar and after getting to 64 moved on into Terrokar. I remember all the quests here and picked the ones with the best rewards and exp coupled with the easiest. I also knocked out the Shat welcome quests and picked Scryers just for convienience. Not much to be had from either faction really for a Ret pally. People seem to think the grind to exalted is worth the shoulder enchants, I do not. I chose Scryer cuz you can jump off the top tier and not die, as well as its closer to the FP and I have gotton used to goin to the their bank on Mindkiller. I usually just sell any rep items I get for either faction on Mindkiller. I see me doin the same on Gawds.

I managed to plow my way through the Terrokar quests before heading into Nagrand. Now the real grind begins. I want to clear out the quests here before rolling over to Blades Edge. I had forgotten the grind that is the Nessinwary quests. I’ll still do them since they are good exp and some nice DE stuff. I decided to grind out the ogre chain quests in order to get me a new weapon. Turns out the new weapon has higher dps but isn’t much of an upgrade. Pity, it looks spiffy. I’m not sure I want to waste the mats to slam Savagery onto it to see if it is a true upgrade. I may have to do another search for an upgrade an see what I can find.

As I was questing in Nagrand a call went out over general chat for people to group up and raid Halaa and take it back from the Horde. I ignored it since I was only 65. Then a guildy happened to be in Nagrand, heard the call and asked if any in the guild wanted to come join the fracus. Seems they already had like 20 people in raid waiting to make a move. I sent a wsp and got an invite. I headed over to see whas shaking. By the time I got to Halaa there were 30 people in the raid facing off against 20-25 horde. All the allys were unflagged and the town guards had all been killed. The leader called for everyone to flag in 5 minutes and start the melee. All the horde were just waiting for a fight. Five minutes roll by an we all flag and go to town. I died in 2.3 secs and spent 2.3 minutes walking back. I shoulda just bubbled. I get back and we have pretty much smashed the defence. The battle rages for almost 15 minutes with the horde getting filleted, I managed to hit a few in the few seconds they were live. I got a nice 22 battle tokens. I may actually use them to get some gear too. I saw some decent stoof on the quarter master. No weapons though. I don’t want the mount, not into the horned goat thingy. Some day I’ll spring for the epic flyer on Gawds and start the 12 day march for the Drake. I’m certain I may be able to shave off one day if I get some lucky egg drops. That’s all in the distant future.

I actually logged onto Mindkiller a few times this week to help a guildy with his epic mount quest. The warlock mount quest simply rocks for intencity. The final fight in Dire Maul was chaos, even with 3 level 70s assisting. I can’t imagine 5 level 60’s doing this fight an not failing a few times. We killed everything and the locks were able to keep the artifacts active most of the time. After a bit of a rest the deamon horse spawned and we bitch slapped it. Its owner came after wards and was mighty pissed off that we had kilt his prized equine. We rocked his ass and made him beg for death which, as compassionate people we are, we granted. We had dragged a second lock with in order for him to get his mount quest done too. So both got some nice fiery horses to play with and I got to help out a guildy, and get what used to be some decent lewt for the level. It more then covered the repair bill with a nice little profit.

I have been using another character for AHn stoof from Gawds. It is working real well. I can send shit to him and have him collect then post it. He has already made back the opening allowance I sent him for mail and postin, I might spend a bit of time on Mindkiller mining and send the stuff over for posting as well.

Month of busy, Enjoy.

I’m looking at the dates on my posts and realize I’m not very prolific. Most times I write anything it’s in response to something some one else has said. If it’s about my in game adventures I lag like a mug in getting it all down. So unfortunately it makes for long posts and missed stories. So I’ll get to the meat.

When last I posted I was a mere 52 Paladin, now I’m 62 ½. How you say? Well let’s see if I can remember a bit of the last 25 days in game. ….ah yes I was pissed about losing out on Sul Thraze, or at least the chance at Sul, and consoling myself with Destiny. Well I never used Destiny, I had forgotten about the level 51 AV quest where you can get this awesome pole arm. The Icebarbed Spear. Very nice. I got this one easy and slapped crusader on it. Very cool. I used this bad boy all the way up till I got me an upgrade in the Outlands, more on that later. Any who, after several times trying to resell the Destiny blade I just sent it off to a mule for storage until I need it for a character or find a buyer. Soon after I got my new spear I went off to WPL and smashed through a few quests there. At some point my guildies decided it was a good time for a Strat run to farm some Righteous Orbs, and they dragged my happy level 53 ass with.

Now I had only been to a few strat runs…most times I had to leave or the group would fail after 2 pulls. This time I was with 2 70 pallys, a 70 hunter and a 70 warrior. Cake doesn’t even come close to the ease. We wiped a few times only cuz the pallys got bored and wanted a challenge…..an then had to work to make it so then shot themselves in the foot. Oh well. I got some decent exp, drops and a mess of stones for AD rep, oh yeah they boosted rep gains in Strat to at least 10 per kill. After 1 Strat run and Sholo run after I was half way through Honored with AD, and had enough stones to push me to revered easy. So we blast through the undead side in less then 45 minutes then go to the live side. We kilt the guy that goes to warn the baron of our arrival and I got my key to the city…at 52. It is then decided to try for a 45 minute baron run. No one needs it we just wanted to see how long it would take us.

We roll through the gate and the timer starts. Our pallys spread out and grab like 4 groups. They get most of them down. The spiders seem to like casting silence on the pallys. We wipe spectacularly and have to run back. Now in the old days this would be a scrap, but not with 4 70s. We roll back sans handy timer, and proceed to get serious. We blast through everything, well they do I’m just along for the exp and rep. We roll to the final room with the 20 Patchwork wannabes, and the 10 minute warning sound. Oh shit. Will we have enough time I ask? They say yeah no problem. So I watch as they pull 2-3 of the brutes at a time till none are left. We all trump back to the gates to wait the next wave, smash them and roll in for the fight. About this time we hear the timer expire and the baron offs the chick. Too bad. One pally runs in and aggros the boss while most are still out side. A pally, the warrior, and the hunter make it in before the door closes. Leaving me and the other pally outside to sit and listen. They smash him for his crimes and we roll out, 2 orbs richer.

After we get out another group of guildies decide to run sholo and want to take me along. I ask if they want me to take Mindkiller for dps, they reply no. They want to drag Gawds through Sholo. Hells yeah I’ll go. We tore through sholo, even the chick in the basement that no on wants to fight cuz she’s such a bitch. We did the whole place in like 40 minutes. I got my freaking lightforge helm and some decant gloves…too bad their both 57. So they go in to the bank. By now I have a huge stack of all 3 types of stones for AD rep. I go to the AH after and pull the mats for the rep quests in Light hope, 30 of this 30 of that. They had to sit in the bank till I was hig enough to get those quests but when I turned them in finally it gave me like 45k exp for just a few quests. I spent a lot of time in WPL and EPL over the next few levels with a quick jaunt to Felwood and Winterspring to do a few of the easy stuff in those two areas. I got to roll on a few BRD runs that were a real waste of time. Not much exp and no rewards to speak of. I blasted through some Burning Steps quests also, man I look forward to leveling my next alt after 2.3 hits. The march from 52 to 58 had some spurts an stops but I got there about a week and a half ago. Me an another guildy hit 58 at the same time so we met up at the portal and marched through together and started the first few quests. He had to log after an hour but I kept on rollin. I didn’t touch any of the real meat quests till I ran Ramparts a few times…like 15 times. Most times I was with guildies so only a few were pugs. I got some decent gear but what I was really looking for was the rep. I got it too.

My guildies kept dragging me through till I got to 59 ½, and I got all the gear I could use from there. I had 6 pieces I couldn’t use till level 60 sittin in my bags. We did one more run mid week last week and my new pole arm dropped. Hellreaver. Very cool . I slapped Savagery onto the bad boy. It is one of the most awesome looking blades. I am very happy to have it and thanked the guys who ran me profusely for there help and patients. Next I’ll need to bug them for Underbog runs, not yet though I still got a few things to do first.

After I got the blade I saw that I was very near honored so I went ahead and started to blast through the Hellfire quests, I had most of them done in a day. Yeah all Saturday last weekend, I finished up a few group quests Sunday morning and decided to dip into Zangarmarsh. I picked up a mess of quests an proceeded to wail on them. I’m almost done with all the Refuge and Telredor quests. I was gona finish them up before goin to the Haborage and the chick near sporragar. I’ll have to check if it’s gonna be worth it to farm sporragar rep. CE has a nice head enchant I want so Ill defiantly be crankin some rep there. I have noticed a marked change in how easy it is to kill things. There was the same thing on Mindkiller when he moved into Zangar fro Hellfire. Another thing is some of the more obnoxious kill/collection quests seem to go a lot smoother with a plate wearer, basic, but still it’s nice to know plate is worth having. I also had a “Holy Shit!” moment when I took down bog lash solo, hell I had an add too. The add killed me but not until after I rolled Boglash.

That about rolls it all up to now, I haven’t done crap on Mindkiller cept gather mats for his epic flyer when ever 2.3 rolls out. He has been shelved until I hit 70 on Gawds. I just don’t get that excited like I used to about him. It probably the lack of progression and rewards. Spending 4+ hours every few nights in Kara just don’t blow up my skirts. The rewards are spotty and only moderate upgrades for the work it requires. If you team is decently geared and experienced then you can fly through the place, but group 2s usually have the lighter geared people with less exp. Even splitting the elites into the 2 groups make for a long run, with a minimal hope of reward. Is it bad of me to want a new shiny for my efforts all the time? I don’t think so really, but I try not to say it out loud. That would piss some people off. I’m not really a lewt whore, I like upgrades and working toward them. However the stuff in Kara is not exiting enough for me, and to make it really snap you need to get a few of the pieces or it just doesn’t have a great impact on character power. I know they are not sets, but I went head to head with the wife’s rogue, who is decked out in no less the 7 Kara Epix. We have the exact same build. I have all quest blues an greens with very few dungeon drops. We did a few tests on regular mobs solo with 2 damage meters running to catch all the goodness. I was about even with hers for most of the fights. A few times I went over her in damage, and on mobs we duo’d I pulled aggro. I do not see me needing a damn thing from Kara before WoTLK hits. I may get into it with another guild, or mine, but what I really and only want from Kara are 2 new weapons. Ill take the Ripper off Moroes and the weird named dagger off of prince. I need to figure out if I really want to go and make the time to go. I tried to get into group 2 last week. I was excited to go, even prepared by getting all my shit straight. I log on and realize I read the start time wrong. I was 45 minutes late for the start. No one cared, doesn’t make me any happier. The wife offered up a spot on her guild’s Kara runs, she has no authority to do that so I’m not holding my breath. She also keeps trying to get me to move my pally over to her guild. Maybe some day….prolly not. I’m a lump. I think I’m real close to becoming guildless. I don’t bring anything to my current guild but a few bits of humor. As dps I am ok, not fantastic, could be blamed on gear but I’m not sure that’s all that’s lacking. As a pally I do not do what is needed to make me an asset to a raid, and I will not respect to healadin or tankadin. I’ll stay a ret noob. Wow this got really depressing.

Gawdsicon;

OUT.

Just some update on a Friday.

I haven’t posted anything for awhile. Mostly due to just not having the will power to put anything down. SO I will try to get something written here now. It’s a slow day with not much going on so I can spend a few hours typing and it will look good to the outside observer.

I have not been playing Gnome Mindkiller all that much. He’s been to a few Kara raids but has received nothing but a repair bill, I’m not complaining, I got to see some neat fights and Kara is gorgeous. I did notice a lack of fun there though. I remember my first time into ZG or AQ20. ZG was a blast, even if it was hard it was still a blast. AQ20 was a lot harder and we had to be on our toes, but it was still fun. Kara seems a lot like work, maybe that’s what it was supposed to be. I don’t know. I am obviously not a “Raider” in the smallest of definition. I go, if I go, for the content. I don’t see me getting much loot out of the place. Yeah there’s stuff I could use, but they drop so little or when I chose to not go. The only way to upgrade I see is to grind rep and get me some ok gear form KOT or Consortium. I really see little use in going to Kara except to see stuff I haven’t seen. I still have never seen all of MC and just recently went through a full Strat run. We even did the 45 min Baron run in like 30 minutes. I would rather see a full ZG run then a full Kara. Pretty sad I know. Never seen Naxx and prolly never will. Very depressed about my rogue. He seems to have reached a plateau and I see no reason to push him farther. I got him an epic drake mount, so what. He has one epic piece, helmet/crafted, and a long road for any replacement daggers.

So enough depressing stuff. I started a paladin awhile ago mainly as a bank character. I had so much fun that I decided to go back to him and level him up. After a few weeks I have gotten him up to 50. With some monetary backing from Mindkiller; Gawdsicon (God’s Icon) has become Retribution pally with, more often the not, an epic weapon. Which reminds me: I need to make some time to do dailies on Mind.

The last few levels went by real fast. I was in Searing Gorge when a bored 70 guildy and friend decided to help me smash through several quest…ok 14 of them. They gave me a full level, so that pushed me from 48 ½ to 49 ½. That rocked ass let me tell you. I did a bit of questing on my own then got invited back into ZF for a mostly guild run. 3 Guild 2 PUG. 1 of the pugs was a friend of the guildy who put together the run. This guy tuned out to be a dickhead.

Group make up was as follows:
Gawdsicon, 49 Ret Pally wearing all plate.
Guildy 51 Holy Pally wearing a lot of cloth.
Guildy ~44Enhancement Shaman decent gear if a lower level then me or the other guildy.
Pug 47 Prot Pally, Shaman’s “friend”
Pug 45 Pally, no idea what spec.

Now we started ok, summons for me as I was all the way in WPL just about to lay the smack down on some undead. We go through the first 5 pulls when the Prot pally makes a comment about the Guildy Pally wearing cloth instead of plate. He spouts some shit about how HIS brother is the BESTEST PALLY IN THE WHOLE WORLD and he only wears plate. Well that’s just fanfuckingtastic and shit. Cept plate at the lower levels, pre-BC, has very little if any + to spell, healing or what ever. Cloth, however, can be found in plenty with those bonuses that make a 1.2 crit heal into a 3k crit heal, and makes them come out more often. Now the Shaman new this guy had his head up his ass and says so after this comment was tossed off. She even said to him in /pchat to just drop it or “Oh here we go again.” Some shit like that. Now I am new to playing a pally, it true I know it hard to believe an all, but I know that pallys are played by all types and with desires that we can only fathom. I started one be cause some of the best players I know play them and dish out some mad DPS, sure they have some bad ass weapons and equip but they also know how to play the class. These are my teachers. Some are even straight holy and kick some major ass on the healing charts. These are the guys that don't give a damn what you are wearing as long as you do you chosen job. No compulsory respects here dude. Play your shit the way you want to, end of story good bye and fuck all you haters.

Now back to the story, this asshole pops off with this comment and I just can’t seem to let it go so I lay into his ass with my best ‘defending a Guildy self righteousness’ and I laid into him hard. Talking about how no one gives a fuck if his bro is anything other then his fucking imagination and shit, despite the fact that he was commenting on a guildy that happens to be one of those players that can take a class and master it out the ass. This holy pally guildy was enough to later help us 4 man ZF with just him healing…so yeah cloth is ok. If the tank is doing his job the healer won’t get hit. After I give this ass the “come to jesus burn down of his illusions” he starts saying he will not protect any one but his friend (the Shaman), and how he will let us all die……..now I’m more then pissed so we (myself, the healadin, and the other pugged pally) decide to sit the next battle out and let the assholdin take on 3-4 44 elite mobs all by hissself. The shaman was healing…so he managed to pull of the fight. The shaman gets the hint and says good bye an rolls, with the protassdin in tow. Just before he leaves the party I make sure he has no misconceptions of how I feel about his brain case. I call him a dick head just before he leaves party. So yeah that better be the last I see of that idiot.

The shaman apologized to both of us guildys in /gchat for the moron’s offences. Seems this guy may have once considered applying to our guild, small favors and gods grace kept that asshat out of our hair.

We picked up a rogue and a warrior, but the warrior dropped to help out guildys so we 4 manned most of the rest of ZF including the stairs, which was a blast. It usually is for me, always loved the absolute chaos of the stair event. We had this rogue that seemed to not know how to respond to simple commands like “roll for shards”, don’t need on BOE items without asking first, and shit like that. I was for kicking him the next time he need on a BOE, but he kept his rolls to the right things, even though I needed on shit just for the sharding as the plate shit wasn’t needed by any and a shard would be worth more then the item any way.

We demolish the stairs and Bly and have the little goblin break down the walls for us sos we can kill the chief. Here's where some shit happens:
I have been farming ZF since level 40 with the help of guildys, my wife, the occasional pug, and dual-boxing while the wife was at work. The whole purpose? Sul’Thraze. In all those levels and like 40 runs, I had never seen even one half of the blade. The haves being Jang’Thraze and Sang’Thraze. Guess what dropped off the chief? Jang’Thraze. I tell the group I’m gonna need on it. I tell them it was my purpose of coming besides helping a guildy. My Guildy has it already so its cool, the pug pally has no interest in it…they both pass and congratulate me.

The rogue…need’s on it.

…..
…..
…..

I need on it….the rogue wins the roll, leaves party and hearths.

The only thing keeping me from tracking this asshole down, murdering his family, and making him watch as I do it and as I delete what ever this asshole has for characters on WOW, before I feed him slowly into a chipper shredder: I had been scouring the AH for an alternative to Sul for a week before this dropped. I found the alternative I had been looking for and got it for a measly 250g, that morning. Destiny. Yeah, I can’t use it till 52, but its more juicy then Sul. If the proc on it is even slightly nice it will make some nice slice and dice Ret pally action. Plus I think crusader will go nice with it. Not sure if it will stack, but even if it don’t they may setup a chain reaction where one goes of and process the other and back and forth till a battle is over. I can’t wait to see if it will work that way. I got the mats for crusader a while back at a huge discount so I’m not out muck in the way of money.

After this idiot ninjad, what else would you call it?, he won’t even get the full benefit out of it. Couple that with him getting a hold of Widowmaker when it dropped. Dude went away with some gear he can’t even use, did I mention he was 43; yeah asshole won’t even be able to use the sword yet. Anyway after he left I was so pissed I just fucking left, after apologies to my guildy for leaving him hanging I just turned off the game and went to bed. Early. Very fucking early for me. I hope I can help him get his gahz kill later this weekend. Hell I’ll take my rogue and burn through the place in 30 minutes.

I logged on the day after and saw that I was less the 1000 exp away from 50 so I scoured the nearby area for green level mobs and kilt a few till I dinged…yeah 50 and I never got hold of Sul. Shitty.

I feel my climb to 70 has gone into overdrive. It is time for me to head to Ungoro and knock out a few quests there before I head to WPL and kick some undead ass there.

I was in fact in Un'goro for abit last night be fore a warrior guildy decided to round up keyed members and hit Kara again…there was a run there earlier so we picked up a few that went then and hauled ass over there for a few attempts on the prince. We did the chess event, I thing this was an after though on Blizz’s part i.e. keep um coming back for free epics and shit. We plowed through the trash like butter with only one wipe due to a bad pull on the tanks part. Well not a complete wipe as I and a mage friend survived with our asses intact. We get to prince and this is the first time I have even been in this fight. Seemed pretty straight forward to me and instructions were concise and to the point. I think we did well even though we didn’t manage to get him down after 4 tries. The first 3 times we had a bad infernal spawn right along our enfeeble route that kept us from getting back to prince. Also on those attempts our tanks got critted so fast and hard that even constant healing couldn’t keep him up. He was confused as to how that could happen. Pissed actually cuz it shouldn’t have happened that way and hadn’t before.

The forth attempt was prolly the closest we came to being perfect. We all kept our head and had some lucky infernal spawns till the 6th or 7th. We had to sit out a bit near the end of the fight as an infernal spawned right next to the prince and blocked us again at like 15%. So we held of and just did ranged. We got him below 10% when some one got the idea of all running in and going balls out to try and burn him down, my wife was watching the fight over my shoulder and counseled me to not do it. We just didn’t have the dps to burn him down in the few seconds it would take for the infernal to kill us all. I held my tongue as it was my first time in this fight. We all rush in and…die…wipe…at 8%...last attempt before respawns. Night over. There are plans to go back in there tonight and get him down…if I’m invited I’ll go. I can only hope I get me the dagger, it will make the whole hour and a half fight worth it. Plus I need an upgrade badly. I haven’t had any new gear worth shit for along time. If I’m not invited I’ll be spending a lot of time this weekend (4 DAYS BABY!!) leveling my pally to how ever high I can achieve. It’s too much to hope that I get him to 58 this weekend. That would be sick. Then the shit will really pick up, this time I’m gonna do it right. All instances before any of the quests, with guildys willing to help me blast though dungeons I can get me some decent gear and rep…but not yet of course. It will come…soon.

Hirelings for WOW?

I was checking out Gitr’s latest post where he asks an interesting question. I post it here in full for effect. My response to this post grew so large I decided to post here. This seems to happen a lot and I thank Gitr for inspiring me to be overly verbose. Hell I need content just like the next guy. My response follows the article. All in quotes is Gitr's. I bolded it for clarity:

“Single-Player Mode
August 3, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Pursuant to my discussions with Lassira about private servers, I finally came up with an original content idea. Original, at least in that, as well-read as I am in WoW, I have yet to see this idea.
For those of us who have always played RTS, FPS, and the various FPS/strategy games like Rainbow Six, I have a desire to see the entire game. Obviously there are thousands, if not a million people willing or able to put the time into the game to get attuned, geared, and learned in the end-game instances to play them through to the end of Blizzard’s content.
What I propose is a single-player mode. You get a crew of 4, 9, or 19 computer-controlled players, just as you do when you assault the subway in Rainbow Six. That would enable someone who gets off work and eats dinner and puts the kids to bed to play for an hour per night to get somewhere. We don’t all have a bunch of guild whores that can drop everything they are doing to help us out whenever we log in, do we? You do!? You suck!
There would be no need for acquiring the loot directly, as you would need to take control of another player should your main die in combat. Bosses would drop tokens that represent a particular piece for your given class, which you would then obtain when you rez and take control of your main again.
The only thing missing at that point would be a save game feature for your progress through a long instance. Granted, instances don’t take 3-6 hours any more, but they are still longer when starting off than many people have. Even playing on private servers to experience end-game content won’t alleviate everyday time crunches.
Would you like to see a Single-Player mode? What things have I missed here? Would you consider playing on a private server just to have an instant 70 to see end-game content with a new class that you’ve never tried? Are you even remotely as busy as I am?
I love WoW as much as the next guy, so let me see it all. Sound off.”


Nice idea. Let’s poke some holes shall we.

The first thing to think about when making this sort of “single player” game is AI. (Big deal here) Second would be balance, encounters and rewards. How much worth would you get out of this type of game play?

How will the mobs interact with your party? How will the party interact with each other? Sure it is easy to have a set number of rules governing actions, but when does it become ‘easy mode’? You have several NPCs under you helping you along. This makes the game less MMOG; in fact it turns it into a single player game.

Working with 4-19 computer controlled NPCs means that all the encounters will have to be tuned to account for the lack of real people governing the actions of the participants of a particular instance. How high an AI will be needed and can that be regulated for zone or level? Will all levels be able to field several bodyguards? Will they be able to use them in PVP situations? Will characters be relegated to their own private instance while using NPC groups? Will these instances encompass the world or just a dungeon? How will gear and progression be affected? Can you take a +9 NPC group into Kara and expect some lewt? Will you have to level and gear your ‘special’ friends? Will you be able to use what you earn during these forays with the NPCs in the real world with other people (MMOG Style)? How will this affect balance among people who put in the time? Will raiders and the leet be able to skyrocket to the tops of DPS Meters and arena rankings using this part of the game?

This game was built on the premise of co-operation among several parties. Yeah there is single player content and the best stuff requires a team of people who know what they are doing and can adapt to changes. Does this leave out a lot of people? You damn skippy. So what? I have never seen Rag, or Strat (either) and have never even figured out where Naxx is. I may never go to AQ40. How ever I have been to Kara, will likely go to Black Temple in a few months, and someday I don’t doubt I will see Hyjal. I may even get some Phat lewts on the way.

To make a single player option like you are proposing in this here game we play will seriously undermine all that has come before to make this game as accessible as it is. Some day when the developers are in a quirky mood they will give us the tools to go back and see the content we have missed due to the requirements of needing large numbers of live bodies. I hope to hell that it does not ever come in the form of a tag-a-long team of NPCs. If you played Diable2 you know the AI involved with an NPC bodyguard is pretty limited, as it should be. No reason for you dummy to have more brains then you in any given situation. Can you imagine trying to govern +4 to +19 or +39 for the older stuff? It would be a nightmare, when would you get to see anything when you are busy micromanaging every thing from heals to dropping aggro on the hunters or laying off on the DPS from your rogues/mages/locks? Tank switching for key fights? You would have to have a degree level knowledge for every class that goes into the raid/group.

I would love this idea if I didn’t think it would destroy this game. It has so many issues involved with the implementation of it that they developers would spend more time trying to fix what this screws up then making new stuff for us to rompe through. This would be a game changing event of monumental proportions. Armageddon for WOW. Game over, the Scourge win. Thank you and good night. People will be reading about the big WOW crash of 09 or 10 or when ever this would theoretical be pushed out to the, conceivably 12million by then, players world wide. I see a lot of suicides and killings, even outside the game world. People would long for the days when it took 10-40 people to raid a dungeon. There will be guilds of NPCs just sitting in SW waiting for their Overlord GM to wake them for the evenings dungeon kill. Upside would be the decrease in gold sellers, trade spam and Barrens chat. All would be a waste land of NPCs following one lonely player on his way to raid Black Temple. Nameplates saying things like ‘Main Healer’ or ‘Off Tank2’, the only unique name plate you see is: ‘Gitr’


PS. I will note that most times when Gitr posts something that gets a responce from me, it sends me off on a rant. This is the case here. Props to Gitr for getting me out of a writing laze.

A PVP Gem of a Match.

I have to make this post as an addendum to my rant against the arenas.

It surrounds my statement of never having fun in WSG except with guildies. I now have to take that back. Last Friday I was feeling up to a little pvp. I didn’t have a lot of time or more truthfully didn’t wanna be at it all night. So I picked a WSG BG for a quick match. They usually run anywhere from 9 to 25 minutes. The longer the match the more likely it’s a horde pre-made farmin kills.

I played 1 WSG……for an HOUR AND TEN MINUTES!

I will say bar none that was the best match of any of the PVP BGs I have been a part of. This includes all WSG, AB, AV, and EOS. I love AV, still do, but I never had this much fun there. Both sides seem to be matched almost perfectly, even with people afkin out or just plain leavin. There was never at any time an imbalance that led to an easy victory.

It was a close match through out the entire hour and change play time. I didn’t see any uber weapons of death, I saw stuff from quests and drops from normal dungeons. Tactics were used on both sides and both sides seemed to be communicating with their teams the way its supposed to be. Occasionally after a stalemate we would meet in the middle and just wail on each other till enough were dead for one side to make a grab for the flag. I did not top the damage done or kills made, but damn I got 60 kills and 48 killing blows.

I was the bane of one poor hunter that seemed to think he could solo 2 level 70 rogues working together. He was wrong. While he would be occupied by one of us, the other would sneak around, disarm his freezing trap, and the stun locking would commence. Also a level 70 warrior got rolled several times by yours truly. He seemed to think cuz he could limit my run speed that it would help him…..cept I was using crippling and mind numbing poisons this time. Yeah, no getting to charge range for you baby.

I also finally got back into using gouge, haven’t used it much for a long time…never really needed it. It helps a lot in PVP though. If I feel I need more CC I’ll see about incorporating Blind back into my action bar, never used that much either. We will see. As the match progressed it seemed more likely that it would last awhile longer. I kept seeing a few people afk out yet, another would replace and get right into the action.

At about 1 hour 5 minutes we took each other’s flags, theres made it out with some heavy help from their side…ours got smooshed midfield. We ended up losing the match, I didn’t care I had a BLAST!

I didn’t go into any other BGs that night. Hell I haven’t doen any PVP since that match. I’m sure I’ll get back in there, I need 10 more marks before im through with WSG. Then comes the real nasty AB for token. Meh. EOS will be a nice change after ward. Then AV for honor.

If all WSGs were like that, more people would play them for fun….instead of marks.

I have the wings to prove it.

Might as well spill the beans.

Last night I achieved a mile stone in my WOW playing. I hit 5000 gold. With a little questing before heading to Shadowmoon I had pushed that to 5025 gold. A quick money transfer form the wife’s account an I have enough cashe to buy my EPIC TRAINING & FLYER.

I opted, after careful consideration and advice from the wife, to go with the blue griffon. This thing hauls 10 kinds of ass. Now I can fly anywhere in style and speed. Rockin baby!!! After I took a spin around the world to stretch out my new ride, I looked up the opening quest giver for the Netherdrake quest lines. After about 10 minutes I finally find him and begin the journey. I killed the rock flayers for their goblets and carcasses. Props to blizzard for making a collection quest actually fun and quick. I had 8 whole carcasses in about 15 minutes as I learned the fights with the flayers. I fed the drakes which seemed very appreciative. I went on to killing some dragonmaws, which was cake being the uber rogue I am. After collecting the crystals I was told to free some drakes. Now this one was a cool quest. You fire this sparkly thing at the drakes in the dragonmaw’s camp, they snap out of their funk and attack the nearest dragonmaw. You have to help them kill the orc guarding them and then they go free. Again props to blizzard they could have made this part a drag ass kill quest. Instead you only have to kill maybe 5 orcs to free the 5 drakes, more if one wanders too close and aggros the drake. I did all these quests in under an hour, mainly cuz I kept having this urge to buzz the wandering mobs with my uber fast griffon.

I got all the way to the quest to free the dragon-in-the-sky’s wife. I had to end the night at that point as there was no one around for helping. Maybe tonight or this weekend I can advance to where you open up the daily quests. Those seem to be cake as well. I didn’t see too many people around doing them, maybe the 5000 gold threshold is keeping them away or at least down to a trickle. I might have to enlist my guildies for the group quests.

I took a screen shot when I hit the big 5k mark. I may never get there again anytime soon. I have been grinding out the cash and scrimpin for almost….hell I don’t know, awhile at least. Some weeks I pulled in 800g while others it was a measly 50. I did it even though it took 2 characters. I have been funneling netherweave and nettherweb silk to my wife’s character. Not to mention all the DE’d equipment turned into arcane dusts and planar essences. All this in order to level her tailoring high enough to make the Imbued Netherweave Bags. Since I did all the farming for the mats we were able to under cut anyone and get our bags sold. Though this route we have made a good 500g on hers and that’s just half assed. Theres no telling how much we could make if we could put more then 5 bags up per week.

But that will wait at least a week. I’m done on the farmin for now. I will concentrate on some quests to build up a bit of cash. Also see about completing the Netherstorm quests I still have. I don’t want to start on the Shadowmoon quests, excluding the Netherdrake stuff, until the other areas are done with. I still see a lot of yellow exclamation marks in Shadow moon so I know money will still come easy. I didn’t want to reach a point where I couldn’t bang out a quest and get some cash. Though now with the daily quests that’s prolly not an issue. Still it will be nice to get back to knocking out quests primarily for the questing and not money makin.


I finally got my third key fragment, now I just need to get into Durnhold then Black Morass. After them it’s on to Kara.

Me an PVP....not so much.

I wonder if I can squeeze out a post with just random things about my time in game with out a theme of sorts. Here goes.

I have been playing Gnome Mindkiller heavily. I really want to get the need amount of money to get and train an epic flyng mount. I have been scrimping and saving all I can. I have been doing the daily quests religiously for the skettis, and if I could get a group for the last in the series of 5-mans for the ogres I would crank out their dailies too. I don’t want anything from either of these faction so its all about the money. I don’t even care if I get to kill the large beasties you need for one item drops for their faction. You can have that shit. I do want to try out the bombing quests for the ogres, the idea of being shot at by AA guns would be cool. After I get me an epic flyer it would prolly be cake, not sure though yet.

I spent the better part of the last week mining and just plain screwing around. I got an invite from a former guildie to check out the arena. We made a team with just us and tried it out last night. I will say it here now: 1 on 1 pvp and I do not like each other. I suck big time. I’m ok when there are a few more team mates around to help me out, but solo or 2 v 2, nope no dice. I’m not specced for it is a nice excuse but I just don’t have the skills for pvp. I have never used blinding powder, I rarely use gouge, and its hit and miss with stun locking people. Some of it can be attributed to lag but not enough that I can use it as a crutch. I liked the arenas for the scenery even though I barley got a look before I got smeared, they had a nice look about them, but not near enough to get me to go back. I have read about all the little details for each arena where you can do this or do that to help you and screw your opponent. Yeah, I never got a chance to even think about that crap when I’m fighting to stay alive long enough to actually hit my opponent.

The “matches” went pretty quickly. None lasting more then 30 seconds I would say. We got rolled. I was usually the last on our side standing…only because they seemed it think he was the greater threat and Focues Fire on him……yeah I’m not even insulted cuz its more then true. We got owned first by a lock/pally, then a rogue/priest then a hunter/shaman. After the first battle I knew I was not long for the arenas. After one fight I had done maybe 2k damage. That’s shit compared to any classes health at level 70specially any PVPrs. At the same time I was getting 4-5 shotted by a rogue wearing t4s. Yeah the matching system blows. I have one piece of D3, the rest aren’t even close to that level. If it was by rating…fuck it I don’t care. Just another aspect of this game I will fail to see to any degree. My team mate decided 3 losses was enough for the night. I agreed and added that I thought 3 losses in a row basicly told me I was not cut out for the arenas. He explained that after awhile we could get better gear and get better. Yeah nice wish. I am not into self flagellation, I need advancement even if its just the accumulation of virtual wealth. Getting butt raped by PVPrs is not my idea of a fun time. Why would I pay to play a an aspect of a game that rewards the narrow minded pursuit of making a fight so one-sided that the opponent has no room what so ever squeeze out a surprise victory. There was no point in the three battles that I had and thought that we could win. Not because I knew I sucked at PVP either. It was because I knew what classes are most often in the matches and what builds they prolly are and what combos are pretty much an ass kicking waiting to happen. I know I can take out a……shit I can’t take out anything since I suck so bad. That’s what pisses me off: I can’t seem to translate my ease with PVE into any thing resembling an decent showing in a PVP setting. (I told him I wasn’t gonna take this shit for weeks on end to build up enough point for piece of gear that wont increase my chance of beating the next opponents enough time to get more points for the purchase of more equipment. Naw I got some repeat/daily quests already thank you, I’ll stick with those. At least I will get gold and items from that and a better chance at weapons and armor after gaining rep with those quests,)I have even thought of respeccing and learning a new build as an alternative. I don’t think it will work though. Any spec of any class I will encounter in PVP will be catered to PVP and as such I am screwed. I hate dying, I hate it even more when it is some asshole on the other side who just 2 shotted me with a nice “Kill-Rogue” macro. I know how to use my rogue to stun lock casters in PVE but that wont work for human target since they have all kinds of nifty gadgets an then there is the twitch factor that is disastrous to the mediocre PVPr that I am. I told my guild that the next time I even consider doin arena I will quit WOW. I’m pretty sure it would happen to. I have never gotten that mad at this game since….hell never really. I quit the arena team after 3 battles and losing 40pts in standing. Fuck you arenas!

So I go to get my “free epics” from the BGs instead. At least there I can get in a few actual kills. I had assumed I would never go back here again, yet I did the crawl once to get my dagger and Knight rank so it seems to me better investment then the arenas. Plus I’m not going to be forced to play “X” amount of battles to ensure I get points.

I had farmed up a ton of marks from the different BGs pre-BC. I ended up trashing them after since they had not released the lvl 70 BG stuff yet, or if they had I didn’t see them. I plan on working toward the 3 non set epics from the BGs the honor is within reason and the marks are just a matter of showing up and getting the required amount.

I need approximately 35000 Honor Points and
40 marks from EOS
40 marks from AB
20 marks form WSG

These will get me the bracers gloves and boot. Or is it bracers, boots, belt? Crap who cares? It will be 3 non set epics that are damn nice and better then I could hope for since I have only one Heroic Key and have yet to finish the Kara Attunement crap. (I remember when I first saw the attunments for the BC, I was floored, now it don’t seem all that bad even with all the dungeon time needed. The Heroic keys are a walk in the park if you have a decent group to run theose needed lvl70 instance for rep. 1000+ per most of the time is not bad. Though I’m still behind on that too.)

I digress, I zoned into a WSG last night to get another mark toward my goal of 20, I have 8 now btw, all from losses. I look at the horde side and see……10 players from the same server…..same freaking guild, and all obviously on vent. Not that it mattered since most of the alliance afked out right at the start. How bad was it? Let’s see I did almost 3000 damage total in 10 minutes. The only reason it lasted 10 was they horde were there to farm HKs. They took the flag and capped it 2 times, then grabbed the flag and held it while massacring the alliance in the center of the BG. Just like lambs we all went there and waited to be killed. I do not understand how they can be consistently more coordinated in WSG and AB time after time. If I could figure it out I could at least find a way to beat them.

The only fun I have ever had in WSG is when 5 guildies joined me there and we just stood at the ally’s tunnel and killed anything that came near. We got 45+ kills in one match. We lost but we got the kills so we could give a shit. It looks like I will spend another 12 matches there unless we pull off a miracle. I am not looking forward to the 40 ABs, those matches cam go one for ever. I like the 5 minute Abs where the pre-made take all 5 nodes and the resources just skyrocket. Three and a half hours of five minute Abs would get me all the tokens needed.

I know I will like the EOS BG. I have been there a few times and it seems ok with several things goin on so you can just DO something at least, not like AV where there is a ton of shit to do. I think AV is much more fun then any of the others. Not because the ally’s win these more then the others but because there are actual points where team work just falls into place with out any one needing to try an wrangle everyone into the right path. A few times yeah it all falls apart but for time/reward my moneys on AV all the way. If you don’t want to fight you can farm shit there for rep with out screwing around with anyone.

Not that I need AV rep anymore. Exalted had some nice rewards….now? Not a fucking thing. I still have my lobotomizer. I just can’t seem to get rid of it. I can sell it or shard it so the only way to get rid of it is to destroy it. I’m not sure I can just toss a dagger that took me that long to grind for, money and rep wise. So in my bank it stays, along with my PVP trinket and AV trinket that I never use anymore. I prolly will use the AV one when I go back the to farm honor. Since I wont have to care about wining or loosing AV it will be a nice fun time where I can contribute my damage to a kill at certain choke points and most time get some bonus honor just for showing up. If I manage to get my ass into Kara or some Heroics and get some drop that will negate the awesomeness of the PVP stuff, then I will have to reprioritize my plans. Yet as soon as I have 20 tokens I will prolly have enough honor for my first piece of PVP gear: The bracers.
Wow for random thoughts I created a monster post. Here you got Gitr, chew on this for an update