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Karazhan Speed Run
We didn’t have enough for a visit to Gruul’s lair for Tuesday night’s raid, but we did have enough for two simultaneous Karazhan raids. The raid I was in had a Warrior main-tank and me as the off-tank. Warlock, Hunter, Shadow Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Paladin and Mage DPS and Priest/Shaman heals. A very balanced group.
We cleared Karazhan in less than 3 1/2 hours!
Of course we still have Illhoof, Netherspite and Nightbane to contend with, but they should pose no problem at all.
I hit full guild-member status (1000+ EP) after we downed Prince, which means I am now eligible to bid on loot. I got to use my battle rez three times. The Shadow Priest first during Shade, the Rogue during Opera (Big Bad Wolf), and the Shadow Priest again during Prince.
We were doing so well that Curator only got to do one Evocation and Shade didn’t get to polymorph/pyro blast us. We did get asploded and lost three people when somebody moved during Flame Wreath (that’s when I rezzed the Shadow Priest), but we still killed him before the polymorph/pyro blast combo even with two members down.
No good Druid loot dropped, but I can still hope for the Stranglestaff from Illhoof. The odds aren’t good considering it dropped the last time I was there for that fight. The same item dropping from the same boss fight twice in a row are very slim so I’m not getting my hopes up for it.
Vishyna’s raid didn’t fare nearly as well as mine. They only had one healer (and Vishyna doing backup heals when needed/possible). They lost a member right at the beginning to connection issues and decided to move on as a 9-man. They filled the 10th slot again when another guild member logged on, but they lost him too due to some sort of real life emergency and had to carry on as a 9-man again. They did pretty well considering the circumstances, but it was just too difficult on everybody in the raid and they called it at Maiden.
Vishyna also made it to 1000+ EP, so we are both now official members of the guild. I also hit Honored with The Violet Eye during that Kara run so I need to head down to Deadwind Pass and upgrade to the next Violet Signet.
I’ve got 26 Badges in the bank now and I’m trying to decide between spending 20 of them on the Idol of Terror (which I’ll eventually need to get either way) or saving up 34 more badges for the Ring of the Stalwart Protector. I’ll probably just grab the Idol and call it good. It will feel nice to finally be wearing some purple gear.
Tags: Karazhan
The new King and Queen of the Ogres
Last night myself, Vishyna and Rec had a quick chat with Grok in Lower City and he asked us to pay a visit to Mog’dorg the Wizened. Mog’dorg requested that we retrieve one item each from three of Gruul’s sons. That sounded easy enough.
Grulloc was close by so we went straight there to try and talk it over with him. On the way we met a Blood Elf Paladin whom Mog’dorg had also given the same task. She seemed friendly enough so we brought her along.
Unfortunately, Grulloc was not having any of this talk stuff and immediately tried to kill us all. Luckily we had brought three other people from our guild with us and we were able to teach that nasty Gronn a thing or two about respect. After Grulloc learned his lesson he decided to give us the skull that Mog’dorg wanted.
Looking over the list that Mog’dorg had given us we noticed that Maggoc - who was also nearby - had a treasure chest that was requested. We all made haste for Maggoc’s last known whereabouts. A short flight over the mountains and there he was, like he was expecting us. Again we tried to solve things peacefully and get that old treasure chest without a fight but these Gronn just aren’t into that sort of thing I guess. We gave Maggoc a close-up view of the dirt in Blade’s Edge and he coughed up that chest after all.
Next up on Mog’dorg’s list was a battle flag from another Gronn named Slaag. He lives in the Barrier Hills near Shattrath. We all made our way there and found Slaag hiding himself away in cave. I’m supposing that he had already gotten wind of us knocking two of his brothers around and didn’t want any part of a fight with us. I thought for sure he’d be more cooperative than those other guys and just hand over that flag and we could call it even.
Nope. He wasn’t having any of that either. Yet again we had to knock some sense into another Gronn just to get them to hand over one simple item to us.
In the end we got the three items that Mog’dorg was looking for, and boy was he happy. So happy that he asked us to go speak with another big bag guy and get a book from him. When we came back with the book a short while later I though for sure he would be satisfied that we were friends of the Ogres, but no. The reason he wanted us to get that book is because it would help us deal with yet another Gronn; Skulloc. Mog’dorg wanted us to go see Skulloc and bring back his skull as proof that we had.
When we came back with the skull, just like he asked, Mog’dorg proclaimed us the new Kings and Queens of the Ogres! How cool is that. Now the Ogres don’t try to hurt us anymore when we swoop down into their camps to kill and skin raptors and they even leave us alone while we mine their ores. What’s more is that we were allowed to go the most sacred of Ogre places… Ogri’la.
The Ogres up there mean business and are willing to part with some nice things if you help them. Even better is that they Sha’tari Skyguard folks from down south in Skettis have another base of operations here. Apparently it’s where they get all the Rays that they ride into battle with.
Tomorrow is a raid night. If numbers allow, we’ll be going to see old Gruul himself. When we get there I’m going to have to sit down and have a talk with him about his sons and their terrible manners.
Tags: Ogri'la, Sha'tari Skyguard
As predicted in my last post, Vishyna and I were level 69 when we logged out Friday night. Saturday we logged in and got right to questing in Netherstorm. We hit 70 that afternoon. As soon as we hit 70 we ported down to Azeroth, trained our new abilities, crafted some new 70 gear and strapped on some other gear we had waiting for us.
I had several Solid Star of Elune cut and a Delicate Eternium Ring made for me (thanks Dereyn). I made my Heavy Clefthoof Leggings and Heavy Clefthoof Vest (I had already bought the boots from the auction house). I ran around to various quartermasters and bought some of the new PvP gear that is now available when you are honored with the respective factions.
As Vishyna and I were finishing up getting our new 70 gear all sorted and checking out our new stats, the call went out to drop groups - raid invites were going out.
Somehow her and I ended up in a Kara raid that was already cleared up to Shade. Yeah I know, the T4 gloves token drops from Curator, but our guild uses EPGP for it’s loot protocol and this being my first raid with them I wasn’t eligible for loot unless it went unclaimed (and there was another feral as well as a tree Druid in this particular raid). So I’m kinda glad Curator was already down. I would have been very unhappy if that T4 token dropped and I couldn’t have it.
Which brings me to Illhoof. We handily downed him and what should drop? Yep, the Stranglestaff. And the other feral - who a) asked me “how did you get +10 stam on all your gear” and b) already has the Greatstaff from SSC - snatches it up. Sigh.
Anyway, we finished a full clear of Kara with only two wipes on Netherspite (first because nobody got the green beam in time and Netherspite was healed back to full and second because someone stepped into the red beam before I could and got aggro). We had a Paladin main-tank and I was swapping between off-tank and DPS and occasionally main-tanking bosses. I didn’t get any loot and I had to sit out for Prince, but I walked away with 10 badges and I was 300 or so EP closer to being able to take loot.
Sunday me and Vish got down to starting some dailies with Recstrech. We did all sorts of Sha’tari Skyguard stuff including half of the new and improved Adversarial Blood (old version) and achieved friendly status with those folks. I was 5999/6000 with Sha’tar from turning in all of my signets and tomes so we went and finally killed Levixus for Levixus the Soul Caller which put me over into honored with them.
We farmed some netherweb spider silk for Vish. Did a few quests. Did the cooking daily which took us to Blade’s Edge to cook something over the corpse of an Abyssal Flamebringer.
Raid time rolled around and SSC was on the schedule. Vish and I assumed we wouldn’t be attending since we are in basic blues and greens (having not done any instances aside from Shadow Labs to get the first key fragment for the Kara attunement quest chain).
It was looking like they wouldn’t have enough people for a 25-man so we started looking for folks to help us with the Ogri’la prereq 5-mans. We tried to 3-man Grulloc with Rec and although we did quite well it wasn’t enough. Right then we were told to drop our group for a raid invite. WTF? We are nowhere near geared enough to do SSC. Nonetheless we are invited and end up getting drug along into SSC since we will be number 24 and 25 for the raid.
The Greatstaff drops on the first trash pull and our main bear tank takes it. After a few more trash pulls I’m told to get into my tank gear so I can take some of the pressure off of the other tanks. I tank my assigned mob just fine for a few trash pulls. We sneak past Hydross for a few more trash pulls. Pattern: Boots of Utter Darkness drops and nobody else can use it so I take it. Then I fall into the water. Along with about 7 other people. There’s a little gap up there you have to watch out for. I shifted into Aquatic Form and made it for dry land as quick as I could but those damn fish are nasty. I actually made it to where the Lurker fight takes place and got up onto the ring but I died as soon as I got out of the water. Those who died in the water have to run back but I am able to be resurrected.
So we finally make it to Lurker and give it about 5 tries before it’s too late and people have to start logging. Lurker is a really tough fight for anyone, let alone someone in blues and greens. For the first few tries I was in DPS gear and assigned a platform along with a Rogue to take out the Naga that swim up. We were having trouble with the guardians that spawn wiping out the healers and ranged DPS though. So I went bear tank for the last two tries to help soak up those guardians. On the first try I got spouted off into the distance as I wasn’t quite far enough under the water. On the second try the guardian owned me. Then the trash started respawning and people started logging off so it was time to call it.
Another 300+ EP closer to taking loot. I’m just short of 700 EP and the guild requires you to have 1,000 EP to become a full member and take loot. By the time the next raid is over I should be over that or very close to it.
Tags: Karazhan, Netherspite, Serpentshrine Cavern, Sha'tar, Sha'tari Skyguard, The Lurker Below
Droods and Spriests
Now that Vishyna and I are very close to 70, I think I can safely say - with at least a little bit of authority - what I’ve been thinking all along.
Feral Druids and Shadow Priests make awesome duos.
We don’t tend to shy away from anything that crosses our path. In fact, I’m eager to attack anything and everything that we see. We usually take down elites without casting any actual heals. Vishyna will use Vampiric Embrace and I do get some health back from Improved Leader of the Pack and that’s usually plenty to get us through most fights.
We did some group quests to finish up Blade’s Edge Mountains last night. With my old Prot Warrior I wouldn’t have even considered doing them without a dedicated healer in the group. Vish and I made them look easy though.
I do need to learn to pay more attention to her health and mana though. The mana part I’m getting better at. She used to always have to remind me to innervate her or let her get the killing blow so Spirit Tap can proc. As a Feral Druid, I can just keep going and going though. One fight after another, with no more than a few seconds in between to get my energy back to at least 80. And I do that quite often, leaving her with no mana. I’m getting better though. Mana is rarely a problem until we fight the big fights.
Health however, I still need to work on. I’m just not used to being able to heal other people other than with First Aid, and that only happened in some extreme cases with my Warrior.
We’ll finish a long string of fights where Vishyna has backed up into some mobs or had some patrols wander into her. We kill them all and I’m ready to go as soon as we’re done looting. Then she has to remind me that she is very close to being dead from the aggro that she had. Then I feel bad because had I not gotten the aggro off of her when I did she probably would have died. And I didn’t even notice.
Now, she could just heal herself. But then she’d have to pop out of Shadowform - which costs 32% of your base mana to cast - then heal herself using more of her mana. Then she’d have to sit and drink to get her mana back.
Or I could just heal her and pop back into Fite form.
We’re well over halfway through 68 now. We’ll be a good bit into 69 by the time we’re done tonight. On Saturday Vish has some studying to do. She’s gonna put me on /follow and I’m going to farm Thick Clefthoof Leather and Netherweb Spider Silk for the both of us. I need about 50 more leathers to finish my clefthoof set and she needs infiniti more netherweb to make… I don’t know, some lame cloth stuff.
Whatever gap we leave between 69 and 70 tonight will be considerably smaller by the time I’m done farming that stuff tomorrow. That means you can expect a post about us doing the Shatari Skyguard and Ogri’la daily prerequisites soon.
Tags: Druid, Shadow Priest
The Smallest Creatures
Vishyna and I are about halfway through Blade’s Edge Mountains now. We dinged 68 last night which means I got to train Flight Form, woot!
We did one of the coolest quests in the game too: The Smallest Creatures. If you’ve never done it, check out the item description on the Kodohide Drum (an item for the quest) to get a idea of what you’re in for. You get to take control of a ridiculously cute little Marmot and use him to poison the Ogre’s brew kegs. He can toss acorns to distract ogres or even go stealth if they are in his way.
The night before I had stopped in at Halaa to see about turning in my 40+ Oshu’gun Crystal Power Samples. It was owned by the Alliance, but lucky for me there was a raid forming to reclaim it for the Horde. There were about 30 other Hordies there all waiting to flag for PvP at once, and only about a dozen Alliance players.
Someone was kinda calling the shots and when he said “Now!”, we all flagged and destroyed the Alliance players that decided to stay and fight. That was my first PvP experience as a Druid and I had a blast. It’s a considerable difference from trying to fight as a Protection Warrior (my other character).
I ended up with three Halaa Battle Token and two Halaa Research Tokens from the fighting and the powder turn-ins. So I only need 97 more Battle Tokens and 18 more Research tokens for my Dark War Talbuk.
2.4.2 Patch Notes
I was digging around on WoWWiki.com yesterday and found some early notes about Patch 2.4.2. Today however I see that the full notes have been posted to the official patch notes page at worldofwarcraft.com. Here are some of the points that I found interesting.
Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.
Although the required mats for the Glove Reinforcements are absolutely ridiculous, I was pondering using them to get a few more points past 365 (I’m at 363 right now) once Heavy Knothide Armor Kits turn grey. Beyond skilling up my leatherworking though, that glove enchant might actually be useful to me as a bear tank and with reduced mats it will be even more appealing.
All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.
I’ve never had a tradeskill that had any of these cooldowns so I don’t personally know the agony of waiting weeks (or spending lots of gold) to completed a frozen shadoweave set, but I do get to hear about it all the time.
Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons.
That means dual wielders now have more options. Useless to me as a druid, but still cool.
Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
Fighting Shade in Karazhan will be a bit tougher now for those that can’t down him before he gets under 20% mana. In case you haven’t fought Shade and don’t know what I’m talking about, here it is: When Shade gets to the 20% mana mark, he polymorphs everyone and sits down to drink and get his mana back. When he’s done drinking he does a huge pyroblast that hits everyone for about 7k. Normally you would be back to, or close to full health due to the healing effect of polymorph and you would be able to survive that. After this patch, you’re probably just going to die.
Priest Spell: Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
Having grouped with Vishyna every day for the last month, let me tell you, that gets annoying. I’m glad they fixed it.
The dragons in Blade’s Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.
That has always annoyed the piss out of me. I don’t know how many times I’ve died from hitting the ground while trying to do the bombing daily in Blade’s Edge and getting slapped down by one of those dragons. Good riddance to that.
Tauren weapons while sheathed have had their graphic readjusted to their pre-patch (2.4.0) state.
This one doesn’t really affect gameplay, but I wasn’t very happy about the decision to shrink Tauren weapons, so it’s cool with me. Blizzard said that Tauren weapons were shrunk to fix some clipping issues. If they want to fix clipping in their game there are plenty of other places to start that job then on Tauren weapons. How about the boat that docks at Booty Bay? You know, the one that drives right through the walkway that comes down off the dock. Or what about the Zeppelins that severely clip the docking towers?
Tags: Leatherworking, Patch Notes, Shade of Aran
Vishyna and I finished up Zangarmarsh, then moved into and cleared Nagrand over the weekend. Well, almost.
Towards the end of our Nagrand circuit was the quest to kill Tusker, The Ultimate Bloodsport, the last of the Nesingwary series. When we arrived there were two other players already headed for Tusker. We watched them down her (barely) and sat to wait for her to respawn.
While we were waiting I convinced Vishyna to try and down Durn for Wanted: Durn the Hungerer. Just the two of us. I knew there was basically zero chance of us being able to kill him but I still wanted to try damnit. So we tracked him down, followed him to an open area and attacked. Between DPSing Durn and trying to keep me healed, Vishyna quickly ran out of mana. I popped an innervate on her and went back into bear form (I really need to macro that one) and continued lacerating, mangling and mauling.
Vishyna again ran out of mana and I think started wanding Durn. I fired off a health pot and continued for as long as I could. When my health was critically low I tried to hit us with tranquility but it was too late. Durn slapped me down and then one-shotted Vishyna. We had beaten him down to under 70% though. Not too bad honestly.
It was at this point that I asked the guild for help. Something Vishyna and I try to avoid if at all possible. There was a 70 mage (Perdy) available nearby so she flew over to see if she could help. We thought it might go better if Vish could focus on healing me while Perdy DPSed.
We died again, but Durn evaded and ran away right after that leaving Perdy alive. Very little health left, but alive. Did we give up then? Nope. We recruited Gerhalt, a 70 Resto Druid from the guild to come help this time. The same Gerhalt who gave me the Badge of Tenacity last week, and helped us with the Ring of Blood quests a few short hours ago.
With me tanking, Vish and Perdy DPSing and Gerhalt healing it was no problem. Even with the two adds we had during the fight. Thanks again Perdy and Gerhalt!
Vishyna and I go to turn in our last few quests in Nagrand so we can move on to Blade’s Edge Mountains. When we get to Garadar to turn in the Durn quest I notice a yellow “!” on my minimap. Hmmm, I thought we had finished all of the quests here though…
Upon closer inspection, the yellow “!” is floating above the “Wanted Poster” in Garadar. There should be a yellow “?” there though, right? Even if there was another quest we hadn’t done, I’ve finished the Durn quest and that would put a yellow “?” above the guy by the poster, right?
Vishyna didn’t see any yellow “!” though…
As it turns out. Vishyna had completed all of the quests in Nagrand. But I had not.
I… somehow… managed to avoid picking up that pesky Durn quest earlier that night.
So, um, LFG Wanted: Durn the Hungerer
UPDATE: We went back and got him last night. Thanks to Drisin, Bella and Rec who came out to help!
Tags: Questing
Hernandez v. Internet Gaming Entertainment, Ltd
So here’s a new one in the gold farming lawsuit category. Instead of it being a game developer trying to stop a gold farmer, this random guy, Antonio Hernandez (a WoW player) decided to bring a lawsuit against a gold farming company.
The case of Hernandez v. Internet Gaming Entertainment, Ltd was originally filed back in June of ‘07. Hernandez wants it to be a class-action against IGE. He apparently has Blizzard’s blessing on the whole thing too.
According to this article, IGE claims to no longer be involved in the virtual gold trade. That’s odd because I visited their website and I couldn’t see anything there that isn’t related to virtual gold trading.
Who is actually to blame for gold farming though? Is it the gold farmers just trying to make a quick buck or is it the players who buy the gold? Much like drug dealers. Is it the dealers that need to be shut down or is it the users? Without buyers there would be no sellers. Supply and demand.
In Blizzard’s case what really matters is the gamers that pay their monthly subscription. If they shut down every player who was caught buying gold I bet that whole “10 million subscribers” thing would drop at least 25%. That’s a lot of revenue.
So I imagine that we’ll always see gold farming companies come and go. As long as there are users willing to buy, and game developers unwilling to punish subscribers, there will be sellers to provide.
Tags: Blizzard
Ever since I decided to roll a bear tank and began researching the gear I’d want at 70, one of the items I’ve been persistently drooling over is the Badge of Tenacity. Pretty much anyone who’s been playing WoW for more than a week knows what this item is. It’s created by combining a Depleted Badge (a quasi-random world drop) with 50 Apexis Shards. It’s BoE and sells for an average of 1,000 gold on the auction house. Generally speaking, If you play a melee class, you want one. If you play a bear tank, you need one.
Yesterday I had jokingly asked Vishyna for 1,000 gold so I could buy one. Five minutes later we logged in to get started on the next stage of our leveling guide and what do I find in my mailbox? Well, aside from about 35 expired auction house items, 15 successful auctions and several “return to sender” mails from Vishyna. Yeah. A Badge of Tenacity of my very own.
The previous evening, one of my guildmates had completed the Shartuul Transporter event (which can be started with a Crystalforged Darkrune after you are Honored with Ogri’la) in Blade’s Edge Mountains and received a Depleted Badge. Several people chimed in with their comments. “I got one of those”, “I bought mine for 50g”, “I’m still looking for the Depleted Sword“, and so on. The thing about this particular badge is, the person who got it already had one. I assumed he would just sell it though. I made sure to express my interest in obtaining a badge eventually along with my jealousy at him having two of them, and went about my leveling. I never expected to find it in my mailbox the next day.
Thanks again Gerhalt. I owe you big time for that.
Hello World …of Warcraft
Hello. My name is Megalis. And I’m a Druid.
I started playing World of Warcraft on December 15th, 2007 on a 10-day trial account. Some new friends had invited Vishyna and I to a LAN party. They were all playing WoW, and we were playing Tabula Rasa, a game we had picked up about a month earlier.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I already new what WoW was. I had spent the last three years continuously making fun of the people I knew who played WoW. I also used to make fun of people who played Everquest. Until I started playing it myself that is.
Vishyna and I had played EQ2 together for about a year before we decided it would be best for us and our relationship if we quit. Two years later, I came home from work one day and find that Vishyna had bought herself a copy of WoW. She broke the news to me by offering me the 10-day trial card that comes with the game. I respectfully declined and she started playing it by herself. She didn’t play for very long though. I think she got to level 20. Then she heard about Tabula Rasa at work and started playing that instead. A week later I started playing Tabula as well. Until the LAN party.
So at this LAN party, seeing all these people playing WoW was nothing new. It wasn’t the excitement of seeing a game completely new to me that made me decide to start playing. That was what did it for me with Tabula Rasa. With WoW, it was just out of pure curiosity that I finally decided to give it a shot.
Without saying a word to anyone, I went to the official site and signed up for a 10-day trial. I downloaded the game launcher and started playing the streaming version. I rolled a Dwarf Paladin (yeah, the “easy class to play“). Vishyna rolled a Warlock and another friend (who caught me downloading the game) rolled a Gnome Rogue to come level with us. We got to level 12 that weekend and I had a really good time. On Monday I went to GameStop on my lunch break and bought the Battle Chest.
Now one of the reasons I didn’t want to play WoW was because I knew I would enjoy it and I knew I would become addicted to it. Alas, that is exactly what happened. I never played that Paladin again though. I rolled a Draenei Warrior instead. I leveled him into the 40’s as Fury, then swapped over to Arms. Vishyna and I had joined the guild that the people from the LAN party were in and they needed tanks. It had been my intention to try and fill that roll. So in the low 60’s I changed to Protection.
I had barely dinged 70 when I was whisked away to off-tank Karazhan. There was a Feral Druid in the guild who would be main-tanking the trash pulls, then I would main-tank the bosses. It worked out very well. We had a really solid group of players in that guild and we were doing things that everyone says you can’t do, in gear that isn’t supposed to be good enough for what we were doing, with classes that aren’t supposed to be there and without some that are.
A few weeks after I hit 70, Vishyna and I had to leave that server. We started playing on another server with some people that she works with. They needed another bear tank. So I rolled a Druid. Vishyna rolled a Priest. We started out doing our own thing. Just grinding out the levels however we could. That went on until about level 25 when I found Jame’s Horde Leveling Guide. Vishyna and I picked it up from the beginning (even though we were already halfway through our 20’s) and we haven’t looked back.
As of today we are level 62 and gaining fast.
As for this website. Vishyna had mentioned this “big bear butt blogger” to me a couple weeks back and suggested maybe we start our own WoW blog. I read that blog and found many others as a result. I really liked the idea and started looking for some good domain names right away. We came up with a solid list of interesting domain names related to WoW in some way, but we still haven’t officially settled on one. We’ll let you know when we do.