Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Monday, December 30, 2013

There and Back, Again

Here it is, at the end of the year, when I finally get back to my long neglected blog. I have finally figured out a workaround which will enable me to post again. A lot has happened since my last entry, both in and out of game. Since this is just a gaming blog, we’ll stick with WoW news.

When I last posted, my raid group had two more lockouts to try and down the final boss of ToT before the new patch. Our main tank was unavailable for the first night, but we were able to get a sub from our mega-guild that had downed the boss previously. The night was just one wipe after another. Our normal tank was back on the next night, and we got him on our first attempt. Our “casual” raid team was “Ahead of the Curve” at last!

We’ve been raiding on pretty much our normal schedule, even though we are now two healers short of a full time team. We are, however, 11 of 14 in the new raid.

My 11x90 is finally complete! I finished up my Monk last week, and with the Timeless Isle drops most of the characters can get into the latest LFR. The few that can’t are only about 10 ilevels from being able to queue for it.

I decided to take advantage of the current sale and start up a multi-boxing group again. I did this for two reasons – one is to get the latest recruit a friend mount, and the other is to boost the “new” 11x90 team. I miss having access to my own ‘personal guild’ of max level characters on my raiding main. I’ll post a guide for boosting teams soon – I’ve been taking notes this time. Things have changed since the last time I did this, and figuring out the optimal route is a fun pastime for me.


Original 11x90 server                                  
"new" team


Hunter  90                          
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                          
Hunter 55
Mage 90                           
Rogue 42
Druid 90                            
Mage 42
Warlock 90                        
Druid 70
Priest 90
Warlock 40
Warrior 90
Priest 33
Paladin 90
Warrior 18
Shaman 90
Paladin 16
Monk 90
Shaman 24
Death Knight 65
Monk 21

Thursday, August 29, 2013

The Wall

We seem to have hit it. After reaching the final boss on ToT and spending an extended lockout, we regrouped and started over from a fresh run. We had some issues with raid team members MIA or unavailable due to scheduling conflicts and had to pug healers or DPS for several weeks. We did manage to finally get a few new players to fill out our roster full-time, but we've spent the last two weeks extending the raid and wiping over and over to this final boss. We have two more weeks until the new patch, which gives us four nights of attempts. The best we've managed is getting him down to 30%. We're close, so close. Blogger editor is giving me problems, so this is going to be a quick post. In 11x90 news, my Priest, Warrior, and Shaman have all reached 90 - only two more to go!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

2/3

Last week we had to pug a tank and healer for raid night two due to real-life issues, so I had to take on the role of main tank. During the previous night, we had cleared up to Tortos. He still gives us problems with the bats and the turtles flying about. The fill-in tank didn't have any experience with Mags, but after a multiple attempts we were able to get the kill. We were debating going on to the next boss due to raid time getting short, but we decided to press on. Our reward for continuing was a nice shiny purple drop from the trash. We made a few attempts, but failed to get the boss down. We decided to lock the raid in order to get some real progression time with Dumuru.

This week we used the raid lock of our main tank, as there was still gear to be had from Mags. One attempt, one kill. Same with Ji-Kun. We spent the rest of the raid getting some quality time with Dumuru. By which I mean he repeatedly killed us, although we did get him further along with each attempt. On night two, we finally downed him. We blew through Primordious, getting him on the first attempt. Dark Animus initially kicked our respective tails, but we may have all the kinks worked out and should down him next week. We will again extend our lockout and try to get further into the Throne of Thunder.

I didn't spend a lot of time on my alts over the past two weeks. After running ToT in LFR on my main, I mainly rotated my other 90s and my Warrior (now 89 - Ding!) through the holiday boss for a shot at the pet and the capes while catching up with my Netflix queue.

 11x90                                   "new" team

Hunter 90                            Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                            Hunter 36
Mage 90                             Rogue 29
Druid 90                             Mage 22
Warlock 90                        Druid 24
Priest 88                             Warlock 20
Warrior 89                          Priest 21
Paladin 85                           Warrior 15
Shaman 86                          Paladin 16
Monk 84                             Shaman 19
Death Knight 63                  Monk 17

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

At the Halfway Point

We downed Mags on the third attempt, and then made our way through the next batch of "fun" trash to Ji-Kun. The big bird bit the dust on the fourth attempt, but just barely. I was the only one left alive, and I managed to utilize the few remaining cool downs that I had left to outlast the boss. Plus tier pants to boot! We had enough time left to get a few pulls on Durumu before calling it a night. We're now 6/12, and looking forward to possibly getting the raid finished before the next patch drops.

Last night I managed to get all of the world bosses done, and was back to getting nothing but gold again. Even with the bonus rolls on Sha and Gal. I had time to queue for LFR, and with my tank gear pretty squared away I can focus on my lacking DPS set. Zoned into wing four and got a fresh run for a change. Iron Qon - loot! Twin Consorts - loot! Lei Shen - loot! I hit the trifecta! No tier gear, but solid upgrades none the less.

I hopped on my new lowbie priest and queued for a LFD run before bed. I zoned into a Ragefire Chasm run already in progress. The tank seemed to be a little bit lost, which is expected in the lowest level dungeon. As he made his way around the loop of mobs that surround Slagmaw, the DPSers got bored and engaged the boss about 3/4 the way around. I was running back and forth healing both groups until the tank finally caught up with everyone else. The tank did eventually die, but only because he ran off the ledge and into the lava right after the boss died. Because I zoned in on a run in progress, I missed out on the quests. I wanted that sweet XP, soI manually selected the same dungeon and got a fresh run. Feeling a little more confident with this character, I started DPSing between shield cool downs. I ended up on in the number two spot, right behind the DPS warrior (who also had heirlooms)! These things are going to be crazy overpowered once we can use the good enchants in the next patch.

11x90                                   "new" team

Hunter 90                            Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                            Hunter 33
Mage 90                             Rogue 25
Druid 90                             Mage 20
Warlock 90                        Druid 23
Priest 88                             Warlock 15
Warrior 88                          Priest 18
Paladin 85                           Warrior 15
Shaman 86                          Paladin 16
Monk 84                             Shaman 16
Death Knight 61                  Monk 15

Monday, June 10, 2013

50

50 attempts and Tortos finally went down. With the "One-Up" achievement to boot! We spent the previous (2 weeks ago) raid trying to down him, getting to about 20% on our best attempt. Last week, we started the second night on him, and downed in on the first pull which left us the entire night to work on Mags. We were getting almost through the last rampage before wiping on our best attempts. We came into this week with high hopes. We two-healed Jin and got him down before the third throw. Horridon also fell quickly. We tried to two-heal the council, but went back to three after having some issues with people standing in the bad too much. We got to Tortos, and he decided to slow us down. We did eventually get him down on the twelfth and final attempt of the night. Tonight is Mags again, and hopefully we'll get the kill.

My new army of alts is slowly but surely leveling, and I managed to get their main professions leveled up to 75 across the board so I could get the Darkmoon Faire profession quests done on them.


11x90                                   "new" team

Hunter 90                            Death Knight 90
Rogue 90                            Hunter 33
Mage 90                             Rogue 25
Druid 90                             Mage 18
Warlock 90                        Druid 23
Priest 88                             Warlock 15
Warrior 88                          Priest 15
Paladin 85                           Warrior 15
Shaman 86                          Paladin 16
Monk 84                             Shaman 16
Death Knight 61                  Monk 15

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Progression

In our last raid before the patch, we changed our strategy and dropped the Council. Instead of trying to keep Malakk and Mar'li apart and killing the healing loas, we grouped Malakk, Mar'li, and Sul together. This allowed us to avoid having the tanks too far apart for timely taunts, and out cleave damage managed to get Sul down and take care of the empowered boss. We only worried about the shadowed loa and ignored the blessed ones. One of our members had to leave with about 30 minutes left on our raid time, so we only managed to get one pull on Tortos on the first raid night. We spent the next night wiping on Tortos, with our best attempt getting him just down below 60%.

I did the first new scenario last night, and then popped into LFR. The raid group one-shot all three of the bosses of the last wing, and I picked up tier shoulders! I managed to time my $10 purchase of the battlechest and its 30 free days to get my "new" team on the new server to high enough levels to get into LFD. I healed a LFD run on my druid, and even though the tank was pretty clueless about the dungeon (Shadowfang Keep) I managed to keep everyone alive. I reconfigured my VuhDo layout and bar layout after the run to work with my Nostromo; we'll see how that pans out. I've had it for months, but I've been reluctant to use it. Now that I have new "fresh" characters with limited spell choices it should be easier to learn to use the device.

With the new leveling requirements for Pandaria, I should have more progress on my 11x90 project. Both of my higher level pre-90 characters are much closer to a ding after the patch.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Mage 90
Druid 90
Warlock 90
Priest 88
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 84

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Dino Down!

Our first weekly raid on the new server had our first kill of Horridon, and I won the tanking helm! I've started to set up shop on the new server, bringing almost all of my heirloom gear over for my next army of alts. I am still going to finish up my 11x90 project on the other server, but I can't stand having all those empty character slots on the new server. I did pick up the digital WoW battlechest when it was on sale, and I have been multiboxing a few DPS pairs. I was going to make a bunch of Worgen in various classes, but after going through the starting zone twice...

The zone is nice and all, but it just gets boring. I think I'm just going to stick to races that aren't locked down in a phased area and use the ones that are done to grant them enough levels to just start hitting the LFD. I did successfully dual-box a few stockades runs with my hunter twins, but my free 30 days will run out soon and I really don't see me extending the time on the new account. If I can tank or heal, that's what I'll do to get quick dungeon runs.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Mage 90
Druid 90
Warlock 90
Priest 88
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 84

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Some Progress

Just a quick note to update my 11x90 progress. While the raid team is getting ready to server transfer to a more "raid friendly" server, I've been doing dungeon runs daily on my highest low-level characters and managed to get two more to level cap. I now have three end-level characters that just miss getting into the first LFR.

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Priest 88
Mage 90
Druid 90
Warlock 90
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 80

Monday, April 15, 2013

Looking for loot in all the wrong places

Timing is everything, I guess. After running all of the LFR dungeons and using bonus rolls on the ToT bosses that drop tier gear, I ended up valor capped on my DK and winning nothing but gold. On Wedsnesday, I took my Hunter through the last two wings of ToT and got gear off nearly every boss. Go figure. Even my Druid had better luck, picking up two drops from ToT and one from MSV (still trying to get that last sigil). My last 90, the Rogue, is still too undergeared to join LFR. I got my boots from the Sha and a nice chest from the auction house, but I'm still 13 points shy.

My two level 89 characters are coming along nicely. The Warlock is one bar away and the Mage is past the halfway point. My other characters are moving along, albeit slowly due to limiting them to one PUG a day. I did run a bunch on my Monk, because the queue times were so short. Most of the runs in both LFR and LFD were pretty uneventful. There was some asshattery, but things were mostly ok. There was a vote to kick a player because they were AFK according to the person spamming raid chat, but my meter showed them in the top five dps for the last fight. I guess facts are for chumps though, and he was kicked. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. My favorite asshat was the gogogogogo Rogue that spent most of the dungeon run fighting the floor boss. He was added to the ignore list before the run was over. The funniest thing was the Monk tank that had a fishing pole equipped the entire run. It ruined his DPS, but he was able to keep threat. I whispered him before the second boss "been fishing?", but it didn't seem to matter to him.

Our Sunday raid was called on account of not enough people, and tonight's doesn't look to promising. I'll most likely push into 90 with the Warlock and try and get some more gear for my Rogue is the raid falls through.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Priest 87
Mage 89
Druid 90
Warlock 89
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 79

Monday, April 8, 2013

Ding!

Note: this post was supposed to have been on Friday, but for some reason it saved to draft instead of publishing.

It turns out that my rogue was only two dungeon runs away from hitting 90. In other news, eight stacks of determination seems to be what it takes to down Durumu in LFR. It took me a few tries to understand the "maze" portion, and with a constsnt influx of people dropping and joining there was always a large group of people dead. The ninth attempt gave us a huge buff and enough people who made it through the maze to finally kill him. The other bosses weren't as wipetastic, with them going down after five and three wipes. Three rolls and one bonus later my usual loot luck prevailed - nothing but gold. Perhaps I'll fare better this weekend.

 11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 90
Priest 87
Mage 89
Druid 90
Warlock 89
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 75

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Our Raid Kills Bugs Dead

We had a mixed crew on our Sunday night raid, and the schedule was to kill Jin'Rokh and head over HoF and work on the final boss. Jin'Rokh went down after a wipe to a bad focused lightning drop, but otherwise he is on farm status. For HoF we had to swap out a few people due to raid locks and missing guildies. Our main tank moved over to healing, and we had a pug tank and a few other lineup changes. This is still a "new" fight for most of the raid, and it took us the rest of the night to finally get Shek'zeer down.

We moved on to ToES on Monday with our regular raid team. We did the "hard" version of the first fight for the 503 gear, and got it on the second try. Tsulong was a little harder, and took a few more attempts before beating him. We had some issues with Lei Shi, and spent the majority of our raid night on this boss. We finally managed to get a win and had a little time to spend on the final boss. We managed a few pulls, but couldn't get a group back from cackle before the next group was pulled. Overall though, it was a great couple of nights of progression for our guild raid team.

With the new wing of the new raid open, I'll be spending more time on my three level 90 characters in LFR and less time on my lower level toons. I'm going to try to run a dungeon per day on the level 89 ones and perhaps the others as well, but I'm going to have to play it by ear. The weather is getting warmer and life outside of WoW is calling.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 89
Priest 87
Mage 89
Druid 90
Warlock 89
Warrior 87
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 75

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Back to Killing Bugs

Our raid group has hit a roadblock in the new raid. We would go in and kill Jin'rokh, sometimes with a wipe due to an unlucky focused lightning. We would then take care of the lovely trash mobs before wiping on Horridon for the rest of the night. The second raid night would be more wiping on Horridon, with the bonus of killing the trash mobs again. We tried multiple strats, and settled on one that showed the most promise; I would tank the boss the entire time and our raid leader/main tank would take the adds from the doors. Between doors while the boss was stunned, one of the paladins would bubble me to reset the triple puncture stacks.

It worked quite well, as our main tank is more experienced and can pick up all of the adds better than I can. I was able to focus on using my cooldowns as the stacks built, and keeping the boss in the proper general area. The only issue we were having was that the adds weren't going down fast enough and by the time we got to the third door, we would get overwhelmed and wipe. With one hour left on our raid, the raid leader made the command decision to go back to HoF and get a few more items for our raid team. I think that we all agreed that it was the best course of action.

We entered HoF and one-shot the first two bosses. Garalon gave us some issues, and we wiped twice before calling it for the night. We came back on the second night and two-shot him. We almost one-shot Mel'jarak, with a 3% wipe. After another wipe or two due to people setting off wind bombs, we got our first kill. We moved on to Un'sok and wiped a few more times learning the fight. Another guild first kill, and I won tier gloves off a bonus roll. We had time to make a few attempts on the final boss before calling it for the night. We are keeping the raid lockout so we can get the last boss down and get into ToES.

I hopped into LFR after our raid for another shot at a Sha-touched weapon. I was hoping for some love from the RNG gods and I wasn't disappointed. Bracers from the first boss, trinket from the third, and the Sha dropped my weapon! It was a great week for loot, as earlier in the week I finally got Attumen to cough up his mount. I had been trying for the mount off and on for some time. It finally dawned on me that I had at least ten shots a week for it with all of my alts. I was rotating the through one at a time with no luck on my alliance characters. I made the trip over from Orgrimmar on my Tauren pally, and it finally dropped! Look out Kael'thas - you're next!

I had a few older items on my old main's bucket list that I took care of since my last post. When I first started raiding back in BC, my guild didn't make it very far past Kara. We would occasionally group up with another ten man guild and kill Gruul, but that is as far as we ever progressed. We had Naxx on farm and were progressing on Malygos before the guild imploded. When the achievement system started, I never got credit for Gruul. I had gone with members of my current guild and revisited most of the BC raids already, but Gruul and Mag were sitting there undone. Let's just say that as a 484 ilevel hunter, the hardest part of the fights was waiting on getting from one flight point to the next. Outland Raider finally complete, along with some old tier gear for transmog one day.


11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 89
Priest 86
Mage 89
Druid 90
Warlock 89
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 75

Monday, March 11, 2013

Transitioning into 5.2

On our last raid before the patch, we managed to kill Garalon which brought our progrssion to 3 of 6 on HoF. We had spent a lot of time trying to get him down, but we usually wiped to the enrage timer. On our last attempt, we killed him on his way down from Massive Crush. It was that close. We had enough time left to make a few attempts at the next boss, but we were unable to down him.

I spent the first night of the new patch in the new zone with my Hunter. My internet was acting up, and the lag was horrible. I managed to get through the new daily quests and to the new VP vendor, but it was painstakingly slow. On the next night I was still having internet problems, but it was slightly better. I managed to get my Death Knight though the daily quests and over to the vendor for a new tanking neck. Thursday night was back to horrible internet again, so I thought I'd head over to Stormwind on my Rogue and play around with pet battles where lag didn't matter. I didn't know about the XP "bug", and didn't seem surprised at the amount of XP that a level 87 rogue was getting with fighting the low-level critters around Stormwind. I was getting around 125K to 180K XP, depending on my team level. I rotated in my various low-level critters and reached 89 after a few hours. The next night, I hopped on my level 87 Warlock and plugged away at the Stormwind squirrels and bunnies. My internet lag was still there, and I was able to watch TV and level without any issues. I had the day off on Friday, so I logged onto my level 87 Mage and began the critter genocide anew with my morning cup of coffee.

There was a server reset notice coming up, and that was where my easy leveling plan lost its steam. Blizz hotfixed the pet battle XP rate, and for most people that would be where the story ended. After checking the forums to find out why the XF was nerfed, I was kicking myself for not using my level 70 Monk to level. It seems that the lower level characters were getting a metric ass-ton of XP for these low-level pet battles. Now the low-level pet battles weren't nearly as lucrative for low level characters, and high-level characters such as my now level 88 mage weren't getting squat.

I still had lag issues, so I decided to take my favorite pet team and continue leveling them up. As I went from zone to zone, I notciced the XP slowly starting to creep up. By the time my pets were level 15-16, the pet battles were giving nearly as much XP as before, although at this level they bring a friend or two which makes the battles take a little bit longer and the distance between pets was greater. I went from zone to zone, moving into Outland as my team increased in level. My Mage hit 89, so I hopped on my Monk and moved to Northrend. The pet battles were giving questionable XP on my level 70, so I queued for a few pugs.

The first run was a random, and was Utgarde Keep. The healer dropped after the first boss, I guess what he wanted didn't drop. We proceeded through the trash sans healer, which wasn't a big deal. We got one just in time for the next boss, and he actually stayed with us for the remainder of the run. The Paladin tank was doing a good job, with the exception of a few group pulls towrds the end. It looked like he wasn't dropping consecration, and a few of the mobs got loose. They were picked up and killed, but one of the DPS - a rogue, I think - started to get nasty and confrontational very quickly. There was no need for the venom he was spewing, and when a vote to kick came up just before the last boss I had no problem sending him off on his merry way. He also made my ignore list. I was nearly 71 at that point, so I queued up for Nexus.

I picked up my quests and as we were heading down the hallway, the tank dropped group. There was a ret pally in the group, so we proceed to kill some trash while we waited for a tank. We got a tank, and finished without any issues. Between the XP from the run and the quests, I hit 72. I logged onto my 86 Warrior and tried out the pet battles again. Strangely, the XP was slightly better. I spent the next day at a pretty good spot in Dragonblight, where there were a cluster of fast spawning critters in a small area. Just look for the vultures on the bones southwest of Wyrmrest, and you'll find a group of critters. By the time my pets were in the 23-24 range, the XP was almost as good as it was pre-nerf. It is still about 1/3 of what is was, considering you always have two adds per battle. By Sunday night, my internet was behaving better - just in time for my raid.

On our first raid of the new patch, we spent most of the night wiping on the first boss. We had to pug in a healer and although he was pretty good, he wasn't as geared as the person who normally healed for us. To be fair to the pug, the majority of the wipes were due to guildies messing up the mechanics of the fight and our raid is used to the synergy of our regular healers. He hung in there with us, and although it took most of the night we finally managed to down him.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 89
Priest 86
Mage 89
Druid 90
Warlock 89
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 72

Friday, February 22, 2013

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I started my revised schedule this week by going into LFR on my Druid. While waiting for the queue, I started running Golden Lotus and Shieldwall daily quests. The first half of MV went without a hitch. I had enough Valor to pick up a ring from the Golden Lotus quartermaster. I now had a high enough item level to queue for the entire LFR. The second half of MV didn't go very well. The boss wasn't too terrible, even though one of the tanks rushed in and was one-shot. We still managed to pull off a victory without wiping. Elegon proved a little tougher. On the first pull we had a few DPS fall down the hole. I wasn't expecting a tank to fall though. Same tank that had gotten one-shot previously. After another wipe where neither tank paid any attention to the adds, we somehow managed to down the boss. I had a feeling that there was no way we were going to down the final boss. After several wipes, it was getting late and I dropped group. If the tanks can't do the dance and the DPS won't kill the adds, it is just a waste of time.

I moved on to HoF the next day. The first half went quite well, and I picked up a new set of bracers from the second boss. I queued up for the second half and was met with disappointment. The group could not get past the second boss. It was getting late and I was getting tired. I logged for the night.

Last night was "interesting". I went back into the second half of Hof and we one-shot all of the bosses and I picked up the leg armor token. I went into Terrace and ran into the first real asshat of the week. I'm used to groups pulling both Sha on one side at the same time to save time, but this is the first time I've seen three being pulled. After the wipe, the bear tank was complaining about the healing and linked the healing meters. They were low, but I died before the tank due to lack of threat generated. I didn't pull threat, he just didn't have any. After the wipe, the tanks pull big again before everyone is buffed and knowing that healing is a bit low. We wipe again. The bear tank complains again about the healing done, linking the healing meters and going on about how he is a better healer. On the first boss, he actually changed over to his healing spec and healed the fight instead of tanking it. Enough people were sick of his antics and we finally kicked him.

The rest of the run went fairly smooth. We killed the next boss, and my Sha-touched staff dropped. On my first kill. Without using a bonus roll. I couldn't believe it. I have thirteen attempts on my Death Knight with no luck. First time through on my Druid and it drops. Go figure. After the raid, I queue for a scenario and heroic to get closer to the valor cap. The scenario was a long one, and I was fading fast. The heroic popped up, and it was one I haven't done yet - the first part of the new Scarlet dungeon. This tank didn't have a clue either, and we wiped when he pulled everything. I dropped group and called it a night. I'm very close to capping valor, and should have it done early enough to make attempt fourteen on my Death Knight tonight.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

There IS Loot in LFR

It's been a busy few weeks. The LFR gods have smiled upon my hunter and I not only have my Sha-touched boomstick, but I am also sporting four tier items. The Sha-touched sword for my Death Knight still eludes me, although Elegon did cough up Starshatter for me (but only the LFR version). We had an excellent raid this weekend, one-shotting all of MV and the first two bosses in HoF on the first night! We even had time to do a few pulls of Garalon. We made some quality progression on Garalon during the second night, ending with the pheromone swaps starting to get a bit smoother and running into the enrage timer.

I'm going to have to do a little research and math to figure out the best way to earn Valor points, because this is the second week in a row that I've gone into raid night on my Death Knight after reaching the cap. The rescheduling to Sunday-Monday raiding, while better for me IRL, has thrown my in-game schedule askew.

I didn't get a lot of progress on my alts, with only my Warlock seeing any real time played. This was mainly due to farming up motes so I could make the BOA staff for my Druid. It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but the repetitive nature gave me some time to get used to my new gaming toy; I picked up a Nostromo N52 before the weekend. I'm still getting used to it and trying to come up with a keymap setting that will work for me, but this might be what it takes to get me to stop being a "clicker". If you are ever looking to farm motes of spirit on a low level character, the area over by Pearlfin Village is great. It is even better if you are still on the quest where you have a party of NPCs with you! As a Warlock, I could just sit myself at a crossroad where the mobs would spawn or pass through and hit Harvest Life, loot, and repeat. The only thing that slowed me up was my limited bag space!

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 90
Warlock 87
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 70

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Ding!

I reached 90 on my Druid last night, bringing my max level character count up to three. It also meant that now two of the three characters with gathering professions were at max level. My skinner/leatherworker will most likely be the next 90. After flying around a bit, enjoying having my wings "unclipped", I did the starter chain for the Golden Lotus daily quests and called it a night.

On the raiding front, I'm now 5/6 in MSV. After downing Elegon, we made a few attempts at the final boss(es). Towards the end of the night, I was getting pretty good at the tank dance. The only combo I had trouble with was the 360 AOE followed by a front cleave. That combo didn't come up too often, and I was able to avoid all the attacks with the exception of two of the aforementioned combos. I may change up my strategy there, and try to use the magnetic armor mechanic to close the gap quicker. We still had to pug a healer and a DPS for the raid, but one of our regular healers is going to be joining us next week which should help with our consistency on the fights.

On my "old" main, I'll be hitting revered with the Shadow-Pan and Shieldwall factions this week. This will open up a few more options for my other two 90s, as I loathe doing daily quests for factions that I can't get the "extra" rep. My lowbie Monk has been chugging along. I hit 68 and made my way to Northrend. Doing some of the starter quests while queuing for two pugs resulted in reaching 70, where he will set for a week or two regaining the rested xp bonus.

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 90
Warlock 86
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 70

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Raiding Again

My guild was looking for another tank, and I have stepped into the role of second tank for our ten-man team. The only experience I had with tanking on my Death Knight was during WotLK where I tanked 5-man pugs. It took the beginning of the week to get my gear up to par. I got lucky in LFR and got the tokens for my chest and gloves, although I had previously bought those same slot items on the auction house. The LFR tier items were a wee bit better, and provided a set bonus as well. I have never tanked in a raid previously. We do, however, have a great team of folks and we made it through the first four bosses with a few wipes here and there. Our main tank did an excellent job tutoring me, and I was able to follow his guidance with few problems. We spent the second raid night wiping on Elegon, but the final attempt was a wipe at 11%. It was the best attempt of the night, and I think I finally got the hang of the dance towards the end. After the raid was over, I jumped into a PUG doing the Sha of Anger, and picked up a new boots for my tanking set.

I had the day off on Monday, so I was able run LFR on my Hunter. Doing all of the runs netted me a belt. Which I already had. At least I picked up some valor. I did finally reach exalted for the Golden Lotus, and almost honored with the August Celestials. I'm also sitting midway through honored with the Shadow-Pan, Operation:Shieldwall, and the Black Prince. While no longer technically my main, this will be the character I use for reaching exalted with various factions. I don't even bother with dailies on my alts if I haven't reached revered with this one first.

My Monk is now two levels away from leaving Outland. Spending a day doing the initial quests in the first zone and eleven PUGs (and the quests inside the dungeons) nearly took me through the whole expansion. My Druid was close to 89, so I did a few PUG runs Monday evening. All three were Shado-Pan Monastery, but the runs were as different as night and day. I ported into combat on the first run. It was only the initial pack of mobs, so I hadn’t missed anything. The tank seemed to know his way around, and used all the shortcuts that he could. I had to hold back a little on my DPS during any AOE phase, but that is to be expected since I have the Spear of Xuen. My AOE is incredible, pushing 150k at times. The second run was horrible. The tank could barely hold threat, even when I throttled my DPS. He died while engaging the first group of Sha. I popped into bear mode, and the healer managed to keep me alive. One of the other DPS died standing in the bad, but we survived. We had a wipe on the mobs just past the Sha boss, as nobody killed the orbs. I was the only one attacking them and it wasn’t enough. This foreshadowed the fail we had on the boss fight. With two ranged DPS, it was up to me to melee down the orbs. After the second wipe on the boss, I dropped group. There was no way to beat him if I was the only one working on the orbs. The third run went quickly. The group worked well together, and we had no issues.


11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 89
Warlock 86
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 66

Monday, January 7, 2013

A new year begins...

Prior to the holidays, my WoW time was mainly logging on to each character that was parked on the farm and harvesting the day's crop. I managed to get all of my Alliance toons, save my Monk, over to Halfhill and set up with a little four plot farm. My two 90s (Hunter and Death Knight) had the full farm. I had actively worked on getting the farm on my Hunter, but my DK reached exalted with the Tillers almost exclusively through farming. If I had time, I would do the Klaxxi daily quests on my Death Knight. When I finally reached revered and was able to buy the rep boost, I started playing on my Hunter again. The difference is amazing. I was dreading doing the rep game across my alts, but after running through the quests that led up to the Klaxxi dailys I was already at revered. I hit exalted so quickly that I was able to spend time getting my main to revered with the Golden Lotus, which is starting to open up more daily quests. I even started checking out that Operation Shieldwall thing.

All of my farmers working tirelessly provided me with enough cooking mats to finish leveling my cooking skills. Now that that is complete, it's all about using the crops to generate tokens. With my two 90s planting enigma seeds and the others planting the daily crop, my production line is working smoothly. I was originally using my DK to farm motes, which I used to make living steel. The market was always hit or miss, but I did make some profit. With so many gems and golden lotus in stock, I started making primal diamonds. Because I had been running my jewelcrafter though several pugs, I had a slew of cuts. They were selling like crazy.

With my new bankroll, I treated my main to a nice crafted chest off the auction house. With that purchase, and the VP legs from the Klaxxi, I was able to queue for the first raid. It went quite well, with only one or two wipes. I picked up a nice set of bracers from the first boss, and got the bow off the last boss with a bonus roll.

I went back to the auction house and turned some of the jewel profit into mats for my scribe. I had been creating scrolls every day, and used them to craft darkmoon cards. I ended up with three complete decks, and some doubles. I sent one deck to my Hunter, and put the other two up for sale. I saw a nice upgrade for my Hunter's green gloves which bumped my item level to 469, just shy of the next raid. I had actually capped my valor, leaving my just short of upgrading one of my epics to put me at 470. I'll just have to wait until next week.

I had shied away from pug runs with my Monk, and stuck to questing after the last few horrid runs. I hit 58 last night, and I will have to manually select Ramparts for my pugs for fear of getting one of the older dungeons using the random setting. Off to Outland I go!

11x90

Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 86
Druid 88
Warlock 85
Warrior 85
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 58