Four Bosses, Four New Items, 8 Deaths

Not sure if I should call it a win or a lose evening.

Ulduar is not my friend! In fact I'm pretty sure it hates me and means to do me harm. Okay has done me harm. We made our second attempt on the raid last night and I found about a million ways to die. Okay 8 ways to die but that was more than almost anyone else. (One of our pallys led the charge in total number) Four of those were wipes. The rest, all me.

I only finished one boss fight last night from a vertical position. Most of the rest of the time I was "decorating the floor" as we like to say. I went from full armor at the beginning of the night to mostly red. It was not a good night for warlock survival. And what hurts the most is that most of them were my fault.

We started with Flame Leviathan and I got to drive a siege engine (tanking vehicle). My very patient gunner was our druid healer. Being new to seige engines I moved in too close to mobs and managed to get myself (and the druid) killed quickly on the trash from the towers. Not my finest moment. We both released and grabbed a new machine. It took us two tries to get the Leviathan down although in our defense we were doing the achievement method. The second time went much better for us but my vehicles health was very low by the end. Right before he died, our vehicle went and both the druid and I died...again.

Then it was on to Razorscale, the giant dragon that I get to harpoon to the ground. I love this fight because I get to play a huge role (mostly because I can teleport back to the harpoons quickly). The group starts by killing the adds which pop up from three towers. That is done until the harpoons are ready to fire. Then I teleport back and fire the harpoons to bring Razorscale to the ground and we all DPS him. He rises back up and it's rinse and repeat until he is at 50%. Then he is permanently grounded and we start the full on fight. It took us three tries to bring him down. The last try everything was going well until he was finally grounded, when he resisted the tank's taunts and came straight for me. I lasted one swipe of his paw and was down for the rest of the fight. He managed to bring down two others before the tanks finally got him under control and the guild brought him down while I anxiously watched health bars and bit my fingernails.

Then on to XT. I hate this fight. I'm not kidding. This is my toughest fight and so far I have not been standing at the end of any of our attempts. When we went two weeks ago it was the only one I died on. This time I died quickly on each of our attempts. Embarrassingly quickly. One of my issues I've figured out is that I have not downloaded the new Deadly Boss Mods. So right before XT pounds the ground (causing all sorts of aoe damage) I get a DBM warning that I have to click on. I'll update that tonight and hopefully it will help a little. The problem with this fight isn't XT himself. It's the adds. The first attempt last night I was helping out with adds and actually surviving a bit. Until one of the bomb guys aggroed me and I died in a small explosion. The second death on this was my own stupidity. I was working XT only, when I saw a robot break past our hunters and head straight for him. If he reaches the boss, it will eat him and recover health. So I aggroed the robot. And couldn't get my soulshatter off in time. He came for me and killed me in two blows. Again decorating the floor while the rest of the group brought him down.

And we finished the night with the two handed giant of doom. (not his actual name. :) ) This big boy (Kologran) is a much more difficult fight than he looks. There is so much that needs to be healed. Jeff kept switching between his hunter and his shaman when we needed extra heals, which was helpful for us. In this fight, you need to kill the giants left hand, and then dps down the body. Kologran brings up adds from his shattered hand, shoots laser beams from his eyes, and grabs people and shakes them when his hand is alive. He's not the toughest fight there but he seems to give us fits. It took us at least three tries to get this one, but minutes before midnight success was finally ours. So far this fight is the only one I can can consistanly stay alive on.

So elaborate fights and many deaths would seem to make for a bad night. And it could have been. But the loot gods smiled upon the only dps cloth-wearing caster in the group. And I walked away with four new items. I've somehow become the group's master looter which is a fun and slightly nerve wracking role for me. I'm not the quickest player in the group and am pretty slow at distributing raid mats. I'm also still learning what potions and injectors go to which player. I hope to have it down by next week but I had to do a lot of asking last night. But apparently being master looter is good luck for me. I picked up a new belt (Conductive Cord), a new set of bracers (Combustion Bracers), a new ring (Emerald Signet Ring), and a new trinket (Eye of the Broodmother). Four new items, four bosses down (okay that was more the guild than me), and 8 deaths. My armor bill was awful. Not sure if I should call this is a win or loss night. But I had a great time with the guild, so I'm calling it a win.

Looking for Group

It's not often that I get to say this. I completely adore a sadistic, egotistical, violent, undead warlock. As most of you know I'm a pacifist, vegetarian, wouldn't hurt a spider kind of girl. So I'm not sure why Richard of Looking for Group comics struck a chord with me. His first act in the comic series is to incinerate a bunny. And it only gets worse from there.

A friend of mine turned me on to the series over the weekend when he lent me his copy of the book. I devoured it in one afternoon. The action adventure series is hilarious. The story follows Cale, a blood elf (hunter?) who is looking to make things right in the world. He is joined by a alignment questionable Troll priest, a sweet and bookish Tauren, a dwarven bard/warrior, and of course Richard. All of the character have their own humor but it is Richard that makes me laugh out loud. He is just so downright evil.

At one point in the series he is shrunk down and mistaken for a child. He's taken to one of the local nurseries. When the team pulls him out he simply can't understand why he couldn't stay at the buffet. Or when he incinerates two suspects and then tries to interrogate them. Eventually ending with a sad downcast look and the words "interrogations are hard".

The story is mostly sequential so if you start reading it you will need to start at the beginning. The writing by Ryan Sohmer is brilliant and any fan of Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft will love the humor. The art, which is done by Lar deSouza, is just hilarious. His take on characters like Tim, the dim witted orc who follows Cale around calling him chicken, is wonderful. The images are colorful and cartoony and somehow that makes the absurdity of the scenes and the violence of Richard funny. These guys are brilliant. You may already have read their Least I Could Do webcomic which is also hilarious, although I'll warn you--not work appropriate. But Looking for Group has to be one of the best new webcomics I have found in a while. I'm already looking into purchasing printed copies. For a taste of the series, or to read the whole thing, head to Looking For Group. And don't mind Richard, he's chaotic evil. It's all in his alignment.

Pally Fun

If it seems like I never talk WoW anymore that is because I've hardly been playing at all. I've been trying so hard to concentrate on my writing and drawing that I've hardly allowed myself any play time. I think of the fact that I've wanted to be a published writer since I was 14. And I will be. I know that for a fact. Being the best Warlock in the WoW universe has never been a goal for me although I have a great time playing. So I keep thinking about where my priorities should lie. Mostly nowadays I play for the social aspect. My guild is a ton of fun and when we raid it's just great. My sister laughs at me for saying that I'm "hanging out" with the guild, since we're spread out throughout the country. But for me it does feel like hanging out with friends.

But to be completely honest, I'm bored of my warlock. I have no more quests to do, almost no more profession levels to get, and hardly any instances that I haven't explored. I'm not big into achievements so I have little to do with the character. And grinding money and rep is starting to feel more like a job than play time. So I haven't touched Myraina in weeks, except to instance and raid with the guild. Instead I've focused my little play time on my new Paladin. And I just love her. It's so much fun to be leveling again. And with a tank like character. My 42 paladin doesn't break a sweat unless I'm either killing 46 level mobs or 4 level 40 mobs at a time. She can heal herself and still take damage. It's just too much fun.

The only problem I've found with being a paladin is that everytime I log on, I am invited to instance within a matter of minutes. I am whispered constantly by complete strangers with an invitation to one dungeon or the other. I was retribution specced but that didn't seem to stop the invites. Most of the time I've begged off saying that I'm just interested in leveling. But last night I got a request to help with Scarlet Monastery. I figured why not. It is well below my level and would be good practice. I ended up tanking since I was surrounded by much lower level characters. And I loved tanking. It was frantic, engaging, and tough. I really enjoyed the challenge of it, particularly since I'm not tank specced. After the instance (we only completed two quarters before everyone had to go) I ran to Ironforge and duel-specced. I'm going to be a tank. And I'm so incredibly excited. Instances here I come.

Naxx update

Two weeks ago we decided to try Naxxramas again. The plan was to start the first quarter on April 2 and see how far we could go. We cleared the first (arachnid quarter) that night. Four trips in the last two weeks and we have only three boss fights left. For a "casual" guild, this is incredible! I had mentioned how we had plowed through arachnid, then plague, then half of construct. Last night we headed back in before the reset today.

We managed to bring down Thaddius (last boss of construct) in one shot. This is by far my favorite fight. So much fun. You start up high on these platforms killing two mini-bosses. Like Romeo and Juliet, these also need to be brought down within seconds of each other. They gave us no real difficulty. Then you need to make this huge jump to get to the boss platform. From there it is all quick dps and movement. Thaddius hits all the participants with a polarity (either positive or negative). All the people of the same polarity need to be on the same side of the platform. If you stand together the buff you get is amazing (huge dps). If you stand on the wrong side, the debuff will wipe the raid. We moved when we needed to and with only five members still living we managed to bring him down. Huge!!!

Then we moved on to military. We had tried the Razuvious fight on Thursday with very limited success (read: four very frustrating wipes). This time everything clicked. The two who were mind controlling the understudies talked, switched, and managed to control him the entire fight. We one-shotted him without even a single death. Go guild. Then we moved on quickly to Gothik. I had watched the video of this beforehand and the fight seemed frantic. The group is split up. Half stands on the living side and half on the dead side. I was on the living side so have no idea how the dead side goes. Adds are spawned on the living side, in increasing numbers. Once we killed the adds they went to the dead side. Finally, after a period of time, Gothik himself comes down to fight. He switches sides (living and dead) until the last 10% where the gate opens and everyone comes in to burn him down. This has to be the easiest fight we've seen in Naxx so far. I thought Noth was quick but this was just not a challenge for us.

And finally around midnight server time (11pm for me) we moved on to The Four Horsemen. I'd been excited about and dreading this fight at the same time. The Horsemen are fought in four corners. The front two is handled by the tanks, healers, and dps. The back two are handled by one person each. Most of them recommend having a warlock do it. Luckily we had two warlocks (me and an affliction warlock). Or perhaps I should say unluckily. I was given my charge and sent to the back corner. My only job was to stay alive. Sadly I failed. Twice. Causing the entire raid to wipe. I think I was putting too much pressure on myself and simply wasn't thinking. I would try to do damage (I am destro to the core now) or try to drain life exclusively or forget to sacrifice my minion fast enough. After two attempts we called it a night and I went to bed pretty dejected. But this morning things look different. I talked with Jeff last night on strategy and think I have a good one. All I need to do is continue to raise and sacrifice my minion over and over. The moment my protective sacrifice bubble bursts I need to sacrifice again. I'll go through a ton of soul shards but those aren't a problem. I can stay alive for quite possibly hours that way. Of course we'll have to try it. But at least this way I can buy some time for the guild.

Other than that I have to say how impressed I am with the guild. In two weeks we have downed over 70% of Naxx. We've learned to use Vent to our advantage and we've learned some really tough fights. It's been a ton of fun and other than the occasional warlock slip :-(, we've all settled happily into our roles. Great tanking, great healing, and great dps. But more than anything, great fun!

I Found My Rhythm

Apparently whining and complaining does actually get me somewhere. A couple days ago I wrote a terrible blog post whining about my miserable DPS. I spouted terrible things about how awful a player I was and generally was annoying. And it apparently worked.

I had just logged on and started Sons of Hodir dailies when Jeff asked if I wanted to do a heroic. I've been wanting to get some instances in before the big patch, when warlocks will change beyond recognition and I will have to relearn to play. He mentioned Utgarde Pinnacle which has been my old nemesis. I just haven't been able to get through the gauntlet. He threw the offer out and we had a group in seconds. The plan was to do UP and UK. The first two bosses in UP went quick. None of us had ever had either with either Svala or Gortak. Then we got to the gauntlet. First attempt was too quick and we were smothered by the constant mobs. The second one was slow but the last ones did us in. The third attempt proved just as frustrating. Then one of our shamans offered to bring in his feral druid. The current tank, a warrior, took the boss after we knocked him off his high horse (ummm dragon) and the druid took the last couple adds. Down without trouble and we even got the achievement.

The last boss went down quick and easy but it was already 11. We decided to just to a quick Violet Hold run. And it proved to be quick. No deaths, no wipes, just constant activity. All the drops were plate but we had a good time and our warrior cleaned up. After the run I did some enchanting for our warrior and Jeff took the time to pull up the WoW Web Stats reports. This is traditionally my least favorite thing. I always come up at 800 or so. He asked me to guess what I thought I had gotten and I said 920. When he said over 1200 I thought he was lying. But no. I did over 1200 for the whole fight and over 1400 for the bosses. Woohoo!!! I had a couple bosses where I was over 1700 and two where I topped 2000. It was amazing.

Here's what I learned. I had been watching my casting bar. It seemed to take forever to get through a spell and I was waiting on that to hit the next one. Jeff got me started looking at my cooldown bars. I had tried it outside of instances and had been happy with how fast I could cast my next spell. So last night I focused on the cooldowns and that worked. I was able to go from 75% dps time to 98-100%. I topped the damage meters on most of the fights. I was tired but happy. But this morning I'm just so excited. I finally found my rhythm. It just took my focusing on the right thing...and possibly a little whining.

DPS Envy

About two months ago we, as a guild, were pushing into Naxx. We got past the first two bosses and were feeling great. It was a huge high. I loved getting a chance to be there on the ground floor. When we came to the third boss it all came crashing down. We tried and tried and tried and nothing was working. We decided that we simply didn't have high enough DPS and that we would take a break. Instead we would run heroics to get everyone geared.

So I started running heroics. Some worked, some didn't. Utgarde Keep or Violet Hold I can pretty much farm. Utgarde Pinnacle I still haven't been able to complete. I mentioned a couple weeks ago how frustrated I was with not being able to get through some. I mentioned that I felt like I wasn't doing enough dps. Everyone told me to wait until I was geared properly. Then I would be easily doing over 1200 dps and I would be ready for Naxx. Yet each report came back with only 800 or so dps.

Two weeks ago I went to wow-heroes and checked out my gear. Apparently I'm geared for Naxx. In fact I'm geared for 25 mans. And I came to the realization that I am geared enough to be doing big dps. I've been getting frustrated and lately haven't been playing as much. (I know, counterproductive). So this weekend Jeff and I tried an experiment. He took me to the training dummies in Darnassus and I unleased hell on the heroic dummy. I'm using a rotation of immolate, conflagrate, chaos bolt, and incinerate. (with curse of elements and corruption for dots) I ran through an entire mana bar while running combat log. I came out with 880 dps. (pretty typical for me). Then Jeff did the worst possible thing. He asked if he could try. He took my character and ran through a mana bar. He did the same spells. And when we checked the log, he had 1150 dps. So now it's official. It's not my gear, it's not my stats, it's ME.

After a 30 second tutorial, Jeff managed to pull more dps than I do on the character I've been playing for well over a year. I'm envious, I'm frustrated, and I'm not sure what to do. It almost makes me want to throw in the towel. It almost makes me want to step away from the game completely. It's really hard for me to know that I have a decent character, but my character just doesn't have a decent player. I want to be a strong dps force. Warlocks can be incredible damaging. So now I have to go back to the practice dummies. And I have to practice. I have to work on my timing and work on my finger speed. The spells are right, the stats are there, the gear is good. Now I just have to figure out me.

The Only Thing More Boring Than Fishing Is....

My WoW readers are probably now incredibly frustrated. It has been weeks since I wrote anything WoW related. I haven't mentioned the heroic UP or heroic UK runs I've done recently. I haven't mentioned the somewhat regular heroic VH runs. I haven't even mentioned the very interesting regular Old Kingdom run I ran to help Jeff's shaman healer out. I haven't touched on these mostly because my focus this last week has been much more ordinary. I've been fishing.

I decided not to level my cooking or fishing at the same rate as my character leveling. I was just excited to get to the upper levels and be able to instance with the rest of the guild. I worked on my tailoring and enchanting but didn't bother with the lesser professions. And it didn't really hurt me while I was leveling. I didn't need the food. Now I'm looking at instancing and raiding and realizing that a steady supply of buff food wouldn't be bad. So starting with a fishing of 50 and a cooking of 100, I've been traveling (painfully slowly) through the older continents and leveling my skills.

Here's the problem. It is boring. Imagine watching a fishing show for hours. Now imagine that every time you catch a fish you are only one sixth closer to your level. For every six fish I catch I get a level. That number will increase as I get higher. That's a lot of fishing and a whole lot of boring. I'm seriously debating just leveling my cooking to 450 with bought supplies. But then again I've never been patient for grinding. This has been my first chance to prove that I can dedicate the time to making my character better. I've even stopped grinding rep in an attempt to get these skills up.

Now I've never been a big believer in the achievement system. It seemed like an evil plan by Blizzard to keep their 80 players interested in something. Jeff has become a huge achievement fan (achievement whore is what I call him). He worked to get his Loremaster and his World Explorer. I get the occasionally one but I don't normally push for them. But as I work on fishing (cooking is much easier), I realize the beauty of achievements. Now that I'm on the old continents, I might as well uncover my maps. Oh and I should solo some old instances. I could even make money selling old cloth on the auction house. And perhaps, if I make enough money, I could just buy my stupid fishing skill.

Light and Heavy Reading

When I say that I am always reading, please understand that it may not necessarily be what you consider good reading. I love a good classic but sometimes I just want to read something light. A friend of mine recently mentioned that he gets "long book melancholy" and we started talking about what the means to each of us. For me, when I am finished with some sort of long heavy book I have to read something light. Normally for me that means comics. 

So I'm in a bit of reading funk. I haven't been reading anything serious lately. I'm lucky I can even read my work stuff. So I've been devouring comics. This works perfectly because my mother just bought Jeff a number of books of Pearls Before Swine. So I have stolen them and am working my way rapidly through. I'm not sure why I love this strip by Stephan Pastis but I do. Perhaps it is the mix of the cynical and mean Rat with the wonderfully good-natured but dumb Pig. (Yes those are their names). Goat is a incredibly bright friend who puts up with the two and Zebra attempts to outsmart the Crocodiles living next door who wants to eat him. The strip is zany and sometimes thought provoking. The humor is really dark (lots of death jokes) or puns, both of which I enjoy. With a combination like that, I'm hooked. Both Jeff and I have been through four books in the last couple days. If nothing else, they simply make me smile. 

As for Heavy reading, that's not even all that heavy. Tonight I'm going to read through the Elitist Jerks section on Warlocks. Last night I ran Utgarde Keep and only managed to pull in an average dps of 860. Not nearly high enough. My goal is to be over 1200 dps on any instance. So I will be doing some studying tonight. And spending some time at the training dummies. And then when I'm tired and ready for a laugh, I'll pull out some comics. 

A New Look at Karazhan

So this afternoon, the guild decided to do something fun. A group of us (mostly 80s and a few 70s) did Karazhan. We started at 2 o'clock this afternoon and went in with the idea that we would see how far we got. Our guild leader was time crunched and we only had three hours. A "finishing run" was scheduled for tomorrow. I'm happy to say we won't need it. 

The ten of us started downstairs in the stables and took Attumen down in seconds. We figured that was a rare victory. We might have a little more trouble with Moroes. It took us 33 seconds to bring him and his four companions down. And we fought all of them at the same time. Maiden actually gave us the most difficulty but we used it as a grudge match for our often killed Paladin. He has been killed multiple times on Maiden before. This time, he got to walk in like he owned the room and do some damage before we all joined in. 

Curator, Netherspite, and Nightbane offered no real challenge. Nightbane was probably the longest fight but we only went through three aerial phases. Chess gave us fits for some reason. Most of our figures died at least once. It was frustrating but we managed to bring the king down eventually. Illhoof was fun for me. I get to just spam Seed of Corruption on Illhoof and watch everything go boom. For Opera we again got Romeo and Juliet. This time there were no issues. We killed each in seconds and brought the pair down together. Aran died quickly although he did manage to flame wreath right as we brought him down. The flame wreath remained and our hunter moved...almost killing the 70s after the battle was won. 

Prince went down in less than 45 seconds. We actually spent four times more time discussing the fight with the new people. After bringing down Prince we headed to the basement to kill the rest of the trash. Our priest cast Levitate and we got to jump down most of the castle. That of course created our only two deaths. Two of our people didn't wait for the spell and had to be rezzed. We ended up finding a Rare down in the basement but it didn't take us long to clear. All in all, we finished Karazhan in 2 hours. It was so amazing to go through without having to worry about anything. We were so overpowered we would gather whole rooms of trash mobs and AOE them down. It was ego boosting...and just plain fun. A great afternoon. 

Difficulty Level Set to Heroic

Warning: This post is whiny and self-deprecating which is my least favorite type of post. I really shouldn't be writing this. Particularly not today. Just be warned.

There is a great line I heard once that once you're on your fifth divorce, you can no longer really blame the other people. The idea being that there is obviously something wrong with you. The first two I can see being not your fault, by five you have to start questioning your own abilities.

Such is the case for me with heroic runs in WoW. I have had five (count them five) unsuccessful heroic attempts in the last week. These are instances that we get into and die so many times that we just give up. This is not after the first or second death by the way. This is normally after ten or so deaths. Where we are all so tired of the same fight that we can just no longer think straight.

Despite Jeff's best assurances I have to wonder how much it is me. I'm on a mission to increase my dps. I was third on the charts last night but I should be higher. I respec'd Destruction this past week in an attempt to move up. In Naxx I moved from seventh to sixth. (and remember we have two healers). When I'm only barely above the healers, that's just not good enough. So today I'm reading, heavily. To see what I can do.

Last night we tried Naxx again before the reset. We were dying repeatedly on trash pulls in the Plague Quarter. We never even came close to the boss. Then we broke into groups and moved to Utgarde Pinnacle. Only one boss down there. Finally after dying too many times to count in the Trophy Room, we moved to Utgarde Keep. And couldn't get past the first boss. Now in all fairness we were going in with a new tank that was slightly undergeared.

But this is not the first time I've had problems in heroics this week. And after this many deaths in one week, I just have to wonder if it's me.

{As you can see, not my best mood. But I warned you.}

Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Dragons...

for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

I learned that last night with my first heroic in WoW. For my non-WoW readers a heroic is an instance, either five or ten man, set on a much higher difficulty level then the regular instance. I'd never done a heroic in Burning Crusade, so I got my first taste last night with Oculus. Yeah Oculus. Not the easiest heroic to start with.

Now I've never been to Oculus on regular but I had heard plenty of stories. I knew that the last boss was done on dragonback and I was not terribly excited about that. I have problems with the quests where you have to control something else. But I was still excited to get a chance to go. Heroics are tougher, and I need the practice. They also drop much better gear.

My group had a hunter (Jeff of course), a druid, a paladin, a priest, and me. The other four are seasoned instancers. They have been through Kara more times than they can count and done most, if not all, of the instances in Northrend (Naxx excepted). So we had no difficulties with the trash up to the first boss. Drakos the Interrogator is really just a tank and spank, while avoiding the bright pink bombs he sends out. Nothing difficult. DOT and keep moving. We killed him quick and I got my first Emblem of Heroism. Yay!!

Then you get your dragon, do some simple aerial combat (actually very easy) and find the next boss area. We had some initial trouble getting to the next boss. A wipe or two where Jeff and I had forgotten to clear the snowflakes. Varos Cloudstrider is not an easy boss. Many groups simply can't get past him, particularly on heroic. He shoots out lightning doing large quantities of damage. You have to stay behind him the whole time. It was a lot of moving, not good for a caster, but with my dots I felt that I could contribute a little. He was tough intense fight. The tank died quickly in the fight but was battle rezzed to survive to the end.

Mage Lord Urom offered only a couple problems but we managed to bring him down with only a couple deaths (me included :-( ). The adds weren't the issue. We killed them quick. But on the fight with him alone we lost me, the hunter, and the paladin. Somehow the tank and the priest were able to finish him.

Then we mounted up on the dragons for Ley-Guardian Eregos. If I never hear that name again, it will be too soon. This fight took us well into when the second session was supposed to start. We tried several combinations of dragons (each does a different type of damage). We tried several different strategies. And we did way too many rezzes and corpse runs. We made nine or ten attempts on this guy until we finally had had enough. The best attempt I think we only managed to bring him down to 40%. It was discouraging.

We were all mentally exhausted. I had a terrible headache, left over from my illness, and was thinking of calling it a night. My repair bill was awful. Then one of the group suggested Violet Hold heroic. Okay so bed can wait. In twenty minutes we ran through heroic Violet Hold. There was not one death. My first successful heroic. It helped leave a better taste in my mouth. It was an incredibly frustrating night but well worth the effort. I'd do it again, but hopefully next time with some better plan of attack.

80!!!

Just had to share that my character turned 80 yesterday in World of Warcraft. For my non-WoW readers that means that I am at the very top level for this expansion. I'm actually very excited about this because it means that now I can do more instancing with the guild. I'm ready to try Halls of Lightning again. Plus now I can work on improving my gear and my tailoring and enchanting. I was working on Ice Crown quests yesterday with the full knowledge that I would level right at Ice Crown Citadel. (of course this was shortly before I blew it up. :-) ).

The picture was stolen from a website I found recently. This player's blog includes some amazing screen shots from all over the game. It actually reminds me how beautiful this game can be. When I'm questing or just flying I don't often think about how gorgeous the backgrounds of this game are. She hasn't posted recently but check out Lucindya's blog for some incredible pictures.

Karazhan!

{Warning: for my non WOW playing readers, this post will mean nothing}

For my Wow playing readers they may not be interested but at least they should understand what I'm talking about. I had dinner with a friend Wednesday night that ran almost two hours. I got home finally at 7:30 and the first words out of Jeff's mouth were "we have a spot for Kara, want to go?" Now I'm a brand-new 70, wearing mostly greens. Not your typical Kara player. Jeff informs me that it is incredibly nerfed so I say what the heck. I have to say that I love my guild for that. Not a lot of guilds would take a underpowered, underequipped player into Kara. Mine did.

We started with Attumen and had no real problems with him. I had a moment of stupidity, right after Attumen mounted Midnight, my hand slipped. I spun around, losing track of everyone. I knew I was supposed to be behind the horse right then. I just didn't know where the horse was. I happily didn't wipe the party, or even kill anyone. That was pretty much my whole goal for the night.

We did Murkblood who provided the most challenge for the evening for me. Just trying to stay in front of him was difficult. He moved way too quick for me. I just dotted him up (Affliction ftw) and kept running. It was pretty intense but we managed to down him on the first try, no deaths. Moroes was practically a trash pull for the group. They are mostly epiced out. Then Maiden. I had seen this fight before but I was surprised at how long she stood up. It took quite a while to kill her. I managed to do the entire fight without taking any damage.

My first shot at Opera and we got Romeo and Juliet. I was pretty happy with that. The Wizard of Oz would have probably been too distracting for me. I've never done a 10 man so it was a bit confusing at the start. We killed both and then started to work on the two of them together. Juliet went down, and Romeo still had way too much health. But we turned on the dps and brought him down. Then on to Nightbane. This was awesome. I knew what to expect going in (I've watched many a fight over Jeff's shoulder) but this was seriously wild. The imps were kicking my tail (I'm squishy) but luckily we had good heals. Down in one try. And the end of the night. It was past midnight EST.

I picked up some great gear including new gloves and a beautiful new staff. I thanked everyone and logged off. The next night was our rescheduling knitting night so I didn't think I would get a chance to finish the run. But my sister called at 4 and said she didn't really feel like it, and I wasn't overly excited so we called it off. I signed up for that night's run. And I'm glad I did.

It was an odd group. A warrior, four hunters, a shaman, a paladin, a priest, a rogue, and me. We started with Curator, who went down easy. Then we moved onto Aran. Jeff accidentally left his gorilla on aggressive. We walked into the room and he attacked. Aran threw down flame wreath immediately as we were moving in and we were toast. Only one member survived and that was surprising. Our second attempt proved much more successful. I even remembered to banish one of the elementals.

Chess was odd and not my favorite fight. I died once when my piece couldn't get out of the fires. We won without problem but I just didn't enjoy the experience. I hated the limited movement and the limited attacks. I managed to bring down one piece though. Illhoof was next. My moment to shine. As a warlock I got to focus all my attention on Illhoof. My guild leader had me simply seed of corruption the thing to death. Worked like a charm.

And lastly we took down Prince. That was the most intense fight of the night and one of the most fun. So much going on and at the end he was running towards us, I assume after dispatching our tank. He had almost reached me (standing next to the healer) when he fell right at our feet. Wild. He dropped the Helm of the Fallen Hero and Jeff finally made me roll for it, even though he wanted it badly. I figured I had already picked up a number of beautiful purples. I won it and picked out my first T4 piece. Yay!! It was an amazing night. In two days I helped complete Kara. We only have Netherspite left and he'll be Sunday. I hope I can go.

He Has The Power!!!

No, not He-man with the power of Greyskull. BigRedKitty and the power of his horde. I have several blogs that I visit every day. They are just part of my morning ritual to start my day out right. All fun, all interesting. One of my favorites is BigRedKitty. He's just so funny and informative. I'm not even a hunter, although I do play World of Warcraft. So I was shocked when BRK discovered my little corner of the net. And then more surprised when he linked to it. I'm honored!!! /salute  

My husband got me started reading BRK since he plays a hunter. He was picking up all sorts of great tips and enjoying the great writing. He showed me one of BRK's Daniel stories and I was hooked. I don't always follow all his pet advice, but as a warlock some of his tactics are useful. Minions are close enough to pets. For those of you interested I play an Affliction warlock. I love the fact that even if things run away, they still die. /evil laugh

But the reason I say he has the power is this. I traditionally get 10 or so hits a day to my site. I tend to jump from topic to topic, not good for building up a steady audience. Since BRK's link this morning, I've had almost 1050. Behold the power of one man's words. Now for any of you visiting, remember he warned you. I don't really talk about WOW much. I mention my first two trips through Zul'Farrak. I talk about going into Stratholme. And I celebrate the fact I just turned 70 (finally). But I play casually. I've been addicted for stretches but WOW playing competes with my reading and, I have to admit, sometimes it loses. 

So this is big thank you to BRK. Thanks for taking some time out of your morning to see who your readers are. Thanks for writing one of the more consistently entertaining blogs I read each day. And thank everyone for stopping by. BRK and his horde are a force to be reckoned with. Thank goodness he uses his powers for good instead of evil. (or at least I think. hmmm)  Maybe I'll have to talk a little more WOW. But then again Wrath comes out in less than two weeks. I might just be too busy playing. 

 

Stratholme

For my non-Wow playing readers I'm again sorry. This post will mean absolutely nothing to you. For the Wow readers, you still may not care.

Last night was my first attempt at Stratholme. I have been needing to work on my enchanting but haven't had enough materials to do so. I've become too high level and my skill is too low level. So the only solution is to go into a lower level instance and get stuff to disenchant. Jeff has been begging me to do this one for a while. At first he tried to solo it for me. Not going to happen, even for him and his killer cat, Misty.

So last night we decided to try. We got home from our bridge party around nine. (Yes I play bridge, no it's not hard, and no I'm not that old. I like to get that out of the way early) So we didn't even start the instance until 9:30. And we were having trouble. Now most of these trash pulls are 6 or 7 mobs. Most of them aren't elite but they are only a couple levels below me. We made slow progress with a couple deaths. (none of which were my fault I'm happy to say.) Jeff did really well but I'm a slow killer. I need a lot of time to bring down a target. Time, I didn't have. For all you players, imagine a slow kill with those rats. I hate those rats.

As we got to the opening of the Scarlet Bastion our friend Lon came on. Lon and his Paladin to save the day. With the three of us, we plowed through. Now we had to finish. He would easily take on 5 or six. Before it had just been Jeff and Misty trying to take on that many and keeping aggro for him was tougher. We cleared room after room. And then we hit the mini-bosses. And the loot started dropping. I filled my bags with greens and blues until I couldn't hold anymore. I started DEing them as fast as I could but we were moving quick and I was trying to keep up. Some bosses dropped as many as three blues. One of them dropped a purple. It was loot heaven.

That was when I looked up at the clock. Right before the last boss I look up to see that it is 1:00 a.m.. Yes 1:00 on a work night. I cursed at Jeff a little, alternating it with thanks. After the last boss went down I cleared out my bags. DEing everything, no fun auction sales for this poor warlock. Finally about 1:30 I logged off and headed for bed. My first shot at Stratholme was fantastic. So much loot and a lot of fun banter for the three of us. A good night. Now if I can just stay awake until dinner.

photo from www.graymaneshaven.com

Outlands

For all you non-WOW players this post will mean nothing to you. For WOW players they'll understand my excitement. During a Dire Maul run with Jeff this week I finally hit level 58. Yeah I'm excited. Twelve more levels to go before 70 but now I can go to Outlands. But I'll admit I was a little nervous about going. I normally wait until I'm a level or two over before I head to a new area. Call me conservative but corpse runs are my least favorite things. So sue me, I hate to die.

Well I was just starting Winterspring when a friend whispered me with Hey you're a 58, why aren't you in Outlands? And Jeff informs me that the gear is fantastic and the experience even better so I figured okay. I left all my Winterspring quests behind (hard for me) and headed to the Eastern Kingdoms. It took forever to reach the Blasted Lands. But Jeff informed me that if I just headed south I would see the way to Outlands. Big glowing gate, yeah found it!!! Now I have to say, the Dark Portal is not a very friendly looking place. (the picture below does even really show the creepiness factor) I stood at the threshold for a second, debating. Then I walked in. And nothing happened. Nothing. I backed out of the portal and jumped in. Nothing. That's when I saw the little message at the bottom. "You must install Burning Crusade module to access this area." Damn!

But I had installed it, right after I bought the new computer. Needless to say I was not happy. After all the hesitation, now I wanted to be in Outlands desperately. After an appeal to the guild, (go SOTP) they informed that I just hadn't told Blizzard that I had bought the game. So with renewed hope I went to their site, only to find account management busy. Bleh. So no Outlands for me last night. Finally logged on this morning and let Blizzard know. So tonight, Outlands. I'm so excited.

Does that stairway look familiar?

I had not been back in Gadgetzan last night for a minute when someone whispers me about going to Zul'Farrak. I figured what's the hurt. It was the most bizarre four man pick-up group I have ever seen. There was me (level 49 warlock), a 66 druid, a 43 hunter, and get this a level 39 warrior. Our tank was so low that there was no way he was keeping aggro. And the lack of a mount was really frustrating. As always pugs can be frustrating and rewarding. I would work with the druid again any day. And again I scored a nice new blue item. A headpiece this time. Jeff is a bit jealous because I now am decked out in six blues.

So we had a decent time on the first part although the hunter kept attacking the scarabs early because he said he needed them. No amount of convincing would tell him that there were plenty more coming and that he would get his chance. So we let him attack random ones and then stood by and watched.

We even rocked on Captain Bly area. No wipes, only two deaths the entire night. Woot. I guess it worked. But sadly we finished with Bly and then no one had the hammer to summon Gahzrilla. Fun. I had put mine in the bank. So I hearthed back to Gadgetzan, picked it up, and came back. Gahzrilla went down in seconds. A good night overall but again another midnight.

Sick and Tired but Well-equipped

Was sick all weekend. I'm fighting this stupid head cold. I slept most of Saturday and Sunday and still wasn't feeling great yesterday. Figured I should go to bed early last night. Of course that didn't happen. Jeff took me through Zul'Farrak and Razorfen Downs. I got me a beautiful new staff and enough blues and greens to boost my enchanting skills. Razorfen was an attempt to grind enchanting. I just didn't have enough low level mats. But we didn't start the instance until 10:30 and then I didn't log off until about 12:30. Took until 1:30 to fall asleep. I am dragging today. There might have to be a coffee run. Or two. Or three. But my enchanting is now respectable and my tailoring is pretty decent. I may eventually have a good fully functioning character.