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Signing off
I’m about to turn my computer off to get it packed up for the move. I have the cable guy scheduled to meet me at my new place on Tuesday morning so hopefully I’ll be back then.
It’s raining on and off so the packing is going slow at the moment. At least I have all weekend to get it done.
Until then, take care.
Tags: Real Life
Another reason to love (or hate) Druids
I was checking out my Google Analytics traffic data just now and noticed that my post on Durn the Hungerer was getting some traffic from search engines. And that reminded me of something that I did a couple of weeks ago.
I was cruising around Oshu’gun doing the Multiphase Survey and killing Clefthooves for Clefthoof Meat for the cooking daily when I happened upon none other than old Durn himself.
Now, if you play a Druid you probably already know what I was thinking at that point. If there is one thing I pride myself on as a Druid above all others, it’s our ability to take things down that nobody else could. Solo.
So yeah, I sat down and ate some Grilled Mudfish, popped an Agility Potion, checked my cooldowns and charged in.
I used everything at my disposal to keep myself alive. Lifebloom. The amazing Barkskin/Tranquility combo. The instant cast regrowth granted by the 2-piece T5 bonus. Frenzied Regeneration. Health and Mana Potions. Innervate. The Regeneration ability on the Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet. I really went all out.
At one point I seem to remember my hit points being under 100. At another point, someone flying past stopped and looked like they were going to jump into the fight which would have totally ruined it for me. I stopped fighting and quickly /yelled “DON’T HELP!”
In the end? I got him. A couple of people had stopped to see what the commotion was all about and they all /cheered me after he was dead. I bowed and thanked everyone and finished my dailies.
Another “Yeah, I soloed that” moment under my Druid belt.
Recruit-a-Friend? Recruit-a-Myself!
A few months back, someone in our guild had invited a friend (a fully experienced raider) to roll a character on our server and join us in our raiding escapades. This friend had two accounts, rolled a Shaman and a Priest, and leveled them simultaneously in our guild.
It was neat to see his two characters progressing at the same time. I imagined how satisfying it must have been when he finally dinged 70, to have more or less leveled a Shaman and gotten a free 70 Priest out of the deal.
I had been pondering the fun and challenge of opening a second account and dual-boxing with some new toons for a good while. Whenever I could I pestered him for advice. I wanted to know what sort of setup he used to play two characters, how he handled looting quest items for both of them, how much extra work it was to have a character constantly on follow behind you, etc.
Then BAMF! Blizzard drops the Recruit-a-Friend promotion on us. Invite a friend to start a trial account and if they upgrade to a full-access account, you get cool stuff. When they pay for their first month, you get a month of game time free. When they pay for their second month, you get an exclusive Zhevra Mount.
But even better in my opinion, and regardless of how much game time the recruited friend pays for, is that you get triple experience when grouped with them. AND for every two levels that a recruited character earns, they can grant a free level to a lower level character on the account that recruited them! How the hell can I say no to that!?
I did some digging around to see if I was allowed to refer myself or if I had to do it covertly. Well, along with the official Blizzard FAQ, I found this amazing Recruit-a-Friend - Ultimate FAQ on the forums from Vrakthris. I read every detail and decided that everything looked to be in my favor and I had nothing to lose but time.
I sent out the invite to myself (the same email address that my primary account was already setup with) and opened the trial account under the same exact name and billing details. I purchased my WoW key online, then upgraded my account to The Burning Crusade. I then copied my entire “World of Warcraft” install folder to “World of Warcraft Two” and made a start menu shortcut to the copied executable.
I already had a level 10 Hunter that I had started under my primary account a few days earlier. I decided that I would stick with him and roll a (Resto) Shaman to cruise around with him and his pet and keep everyone’s health topped off and free from poisons and diseases. Of course the totems are nice to have around as well.
I loaded up my two instances of WoW, one on each of my monitors in windowed mode, pointed Firefox at Jame’s Horde Leveling Guide (free, not a paid link) and got to work. It took me a good three days to really get the hang of it. And I’m still tweaking things as I go.
So that was 8 days ago I guess and my Hunter and Shaman are now level 35 and moving fast. Factoring in the time it took me to get my macros/keyclone software/system crashes all ironed out, I probably realistically have about 20 hours of played time in them. And that is with me maintaining the primary professions on both characters and stopping to buy greens from the auction house. And don’t forget about the ridiculous quest chains that Shamans must do to get their totems. And of course my hunter has to have just the right pet.
I’ve had to skip huge chunks of my leveling guide because of the bonus experience. I bought a blue polearm for my hunter at level 20 and two hours later it was replaced by superior green gear.
Anyway, when those two hit level 60 and the Refer-a-Friend bonus no longer applies, I’m going to grant my Shaman’s levels to my level 33 Warlock. So I’ll have a 60 Hunter, 60 Shaman and 60 Warlock.
And then?
After that’s done I’m going to roll a Priest to tag along with my level 9 Rogue and level them to 60. Then I’ll get my 21 Mage up to 30 on his own and use the “Grant a level” program to make him 60 as well.
By that time, WotLK should be mere weeks away and I’ll have several options to look forward to leveling to 80. Along with my Druid as my main of course.
Unless I still have time to spare. In which case I still need a Paladin and a Warrior…
Tags: Leveling, Multiboxing
Good thing I have a big desk
The monitor I’ve been using for the past year or so is a Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP. It’s a damn sweet monitor. I upgraded from a half-decent Samsung 19″ LCD. Well, sort of. It’s not an official upgrade because it’s not actually my monitor. Vishyna borrowed it from work as they had several extras laying around and was generous enough to allow me the use of it since she had just bought a laptop and never sat at her desk. So that old Samsung is now my secondary monitor and sits to the right of the big one.
Now that I’m moving away, I have to give it back. And there is absolutely NO WAY I’m going to go back to using that tiny little 19″ business as my primary viewing experience on my computer. Yeah I know, monitors aren’t cheap. But with the extraordinary amount of time I spend sitting in front of this thing, I might as well do whatever I can to make the experience as good as possible right?
So I started shopping around. I considered just buying one of the 2408WFPs as the price is down to $600 (US). Then I though to myself, “If you’re going to actually spend your own money this time, you might as well do it right. Is 24″ really big enough?”
Then I found the Dell UltraSharp 2709W. I was a bit worried that the price ($1000) would drop at least $200 as soon as I bought it just to spite me. That wasn’t enough to deter me though. I settled on the bigger and more expensive one.
So yesterday I bragged to an old friend that I now work with (our IT director) that I was going to be buying a badass new monitor. I brought up the page on Dell’s site to show him the plethora of audio/video inputs on the back of it, the touch sensitive buttons, the sleek black styling, etc.
He excitedly asked me if I had ordered it yet, which I hadn’t. “Good,” he exclaimed. “I can get you a better price through our corporate account with Dell. Email me the part numbers and I’ll call them today to get a price for you.”
A few hours later he buzzes me with the good news. He can get me the 27″ for a few more dollars then the retail price of the 24″.
“I’ll have him call you to get your billing info,” he says.
Side by side that’s over 4 feet desk space.
Omigodicantwait!
Tags: Computers
Finally 5/6 and 3/4
After last night, The Asylum is now your typical 5/6 SSC and 3/4 TK guild.
On Sunday we had our first A’lar kill. We had a Warrior, a Pally and a Druid (me) take the platforms while another druid tank handled the adds. On the first shot I thought A’lar was just moving from platform 4 to 1 when in fact he was flying up for Flame Quills. I’m dead but they’re able to carry on without me. We forgot to stress the importance of staying out of the Flame Patches and we lost half the raid right away at phase two. Two more tries that end with too many people dieing in flame patches. On the fourth try everything came together and we won.
Arcanite Steam-Pistol
Fire Crest Breastplate
Phoenix-Wing Cloak
Then last night we moved forward with our first Solarian kill. I main tanked with a Pally doing adds. I had to call out “______ is the bomb!” over vent for every Wrath because it seems some people don’t notice the raid warning or the whisper they get telling them they’re the bomb. Our first try was a mess of course. Second try was amazing right up until one of our cat druids didn’t hear his name when I said he was the bomb and all of our melee blew up. Third try it was a holy priest who killed most of the ranged people. We did lose a few on the fourth try. Some people decided they were going to be smart and run away from the bomb but ended up running in the same direction as them. A couple of battle rezzes from the druids, good interrupts on the healer adds, solid teamwork from the dps to get the adds down, some great work from our healers and we managed to finish her off.
Greaves of the Bloodwarder
Solarian’s Sapphire
Wand of the Forgotten Star
Edit: I forgot to mention that our DPS warrior (the only warrior we had in the raid) left after the second try. No Sapphire for him. The greaves got DE’d too.
Tags: A'lar, High Astromancer Solarian, Progression, The Eye
Moving
I’ve been preoccupied lately getting ready to move.
My company is being relocated to the Muscle Shoals/Florence Alabama area at the end of the month. Unfortunately, not everyone who works there new it. Because most of them were being let go.
There were about a dozen of us that had been quietly invited to relocate with the company. We’ve been having after-hours meetings for weeks discussing the move and many other details about our company. Who else do we want to invite along, who should we definitely boot, how should we better handle situations that haven’t been handled so well in the past.
See, the company I work for hadn’t been doing so well. Mostly due to problems with the leadership (read: greedy, unscrupulous owner with terrible business sense and shady business partners). So a consultant was brought in to see if we could get pointed in the right direction. After about 8 months, that consultant ended up buying the company - at a bargain price no doubt.
Among the first steps in the long term plan is to purge about 75% of the employees and relocate. The previous owner loved to throw bodies at problems whenever they popped up, so we were severely overstaffed. Most of the layoffs are already done (there were a handful who were asked to stay until we move) and we are down to about 40% of the staff we used to have. And all of the work is still getting done.
So that is the main reason for the lack of action here. I have been busy tieing up all the loose ends here in Florida and making weekend trips to Alabama to find a place to live. Secretly.
I payed my deposit and signed a lease on a townhouse last weekend. I’m going to start packing and disassembling everything this weekend. I may make a quick trip next weekend to score the key to my new place and get the utilities turned on.
In the mean time, we did manage to kill Fathom-Lord Karathress. We had just killed Leo (with only 22 people in the raid to boot) and since we had never bothered to even go look at Fathom-Lord or discuss strategy before, the guild leader wanted to call it an early night.
I convinced everyone to carry on for the few more trash pulls it takes to get to Fathom-Lord (well, most everyone wanted to do it anyway, I just had to convince some of the other officers that we would be fine). The other officers and I briefly go over the strat in O chat and we give it the old dry run. Kill order is Hunter, Shaman, Priest, Karathress. When the hunter summons his pet it immediately gets away from the hunter tank and choas ensues.
“No big deal. It was a dry run. You all see how it works though? Ok, lets do it one more time.”
Frayed Tether of the Drowned
Leggings of the Vanquished Champion
Leggings of the Vanquished Champion
Leggings of the Vanquished Defender
Tags: Fathom-Lord Karathress, Leotheras the Blind, Progression, Real Life, Serpentshrine Cavern