Merry Christmas

A day late and a dollar short but hey, who ever said bloggers were punctual (Its 12:30 here). Merry Christmas everyone!

Time to find out....

Its time I had a talk with some of my guildies about what our plans are for raiding. I have been looking at the roster and we are looking to be 1 tank heavy and 1 healer short, now we have 2 tanks that also have healers and our other tank has dps and is very new to tanking. I don't want to sound egotistical when I say this but I have been tank number 1 for a while now, but it appears I may have to take a backseat on the tanking and become one of our healers, now I don't have a problem with this in theory. I like healing I leveled as ret spec but was healing in almost all the 5mans we did and leveled up to 70 as holy, where I fell into tanking and I like that too. I am going to have to discuss this with a bunch of my friends and see what they think are the best options. I know from a few of them they view me as a tank first and would rather I was tanking on all the runs, I also know that I would probably have to respec away from disc on my priest or go resto with my druid (which has crossed my mind a time or two), neither of which is my preferred style, although I have never specced resto on my druid so I have no experience with it and may really just need to try it and I may switch to it because I want to I don't know. I am planning on trying it out just because I never have and am curious to how it plays (and running around as a tree looks fun). This is all speculation right now but I know it is going to start coming up because some of the group have been chomping at the bit to start getting into Naxx. Shir was actually in Naxx last night because she knows quite a few high end raiders and was able to get through the whole place, Gratz to her. I just hope she doesn't get bored waiting for the rest of us. I have to work twice as hard as a tank because the gear is so spread out and so specific that with bad luck on droprates (Loken is taunting me) I am always a step behind dps getting gear. This causes 2 problems, 1 I can't get runs with pugs because they only take the top geared tanks, and 2 it holds my guild back because they can't progress if I can't tank certain instances. I really like our guild we are small but we all get along really well and I don't want to lose people because we are not doing anything but if we don't have the right group makeup or we just don't have the gear I am not going to tell somebody not to go if they get a good opportunity to actually make progress. This doesn't even bring up the fact that if I have to switch to a healing role then we have to wait longer as the other tanks get geared up and I level and gear up my healer. Anyway that turned into a rant and that wasn't what I meant it to be but oh well. I will update my progress on what our plans are when I find out (hopefully soon).

Following the masses

I was reading through the blogroll today and noticed that everybody was posting on a meme about who there first commenter was and so I went back and looked and found it was the esteemed blogger from WOWBlogger who happened to post on a short post I did about the summer slowdown in WOW with some good advice of going outside. Thanks


WOWBlogger


Its always nice to know somebody is listening to my ramblings

Dec 15th already

I can't believe Christmas is in 10 days. I was lucky enough to get all my shopping done this weekend so very little to report on the WOW front(minus the fact that I am getting really tired of the Halls of Lightning, if Loken doesn't drop my trinket soon I may give up all hope). I am in serious need of more motivation to finish wrapping presents because I still need to head over to my parents and help my Mom with the Christmas explosion (I'll post pics). I am getting some extended time off due to the holidays and slow downs at work so I hope to see if I can get in a pug Naxx10 over the holidays so I can formulate a strategy for the guild to use when we start running it. We had a much easier time running kara after a few of us had gotten some runs in so that it was much easier to explain the fights to less people.

My discipline spec and rotation

I have been leveling my priest of late with the new shortage on healers with the influx of new tanks and dps from the deathknights. I will probably spec him CoH if I get him into any raids but for leveling and 5mans I am finding discipline to be my spec of choice. I have heard there are not a lot of great guides to specs and rotations and glyphs for this out there so I thought I would throw my hat into the ring, if you have any suggestions or contradictions to my post please let me know. I will start with my discipline choices (Just a note this is a PVE spec I don't PVP with my priest so if you see some points that you think are mandatory its probably because I deem them to PVP for my healing build which is my priority)

58/0/3
Discipline tree
Tier 1
Twin Disciplines: 5/5
Good for damage and healing good for everyone as far as I can tell
Tier 2
Improved Inner Fire: 3/3
Always good for leveling as more charges means its more set and forget but with the change to inner fire buffing spellpower you are going to want to have this buff on at all times and increasing it by 15% only makes it better
Improved Power Word: Fortitude: 2/2
I think this is the most powerful buff in the game honestly, and making it better only makes sense to help with our inherent squishieness
Tier 3
Meditation: 3/3
The real reason to spec discipline. almost all priests are going to go this far just for this 30% mana regen while casting, yes please!
Inner Focus: 1/1
Hmm, a free spell with 25% increase to crit yeah I'm taking that and using it every cooldown
Improved Power Word: Shield: 3/3
The true power of Discipline is in the power of your shields, you can kill most things without ever losing your bubble (even 2-3 mobs usually just means I have to cast buble twice) This is mandatory!! good for soloing and splash damage in instances
Tier 4
Mental Agility: 5/5
10% less mana for all instant cast spells (shield and renew staples of discipline)
Tier 5
Divine Spirit: 1/1
Was the talent behind the term "Divine spirit priest" a good buff for us with meditation, more spirit more mana regen, and a great buff for druids, warlocks, and arane mages
Improved Divine Spirit: 2/2
Making a good talent great, and even more so in Northrend, if its cloth it has spirit and if it has spirit it means 100% more spellpower, gotta have it!!
Mental Strength: 5/5
15% more Intellect, more mana, more crit, more regen all good things
Tier 6
Enlightenment: 5/5
More Stam, Spirit and Haste all good things take it and enjoy
Focused Power: 2/2
2 points 4% more damage and healing sounds good to me
Tier 7
Power Infusion: 1/1
Not as clear a buff as it used to be but I think its actually better overall, cast on yourself whenever its up and casters you group with will thank you everytime your nice enough to buff them with it.
Reflective Shield: 3/3
Just awesome for leveling they hit you almost half of the damage they would have done hits them instead, if you keep your shield up all the time this is a must have for leveling yeah for free damage
Tier 8
Rapture: 5/5
You heal you get mana back, you shield someone taking damage (including yourself) you get mana back your going to be doing those things anyway might as well get mana back while doing them
Tier 9
Divine Aegis: 3/3
More damage absorption is always a good thing and since tanks are putting out so much more threat from damage, This shouldn't hurt warriors and druids building rage and keeping aggro
Pain Suppression: 1/1
Someone pull ag from the tank who is much squishier pain suppression is the answer for all those warriors with no ag drop and ret pallies who's bubble always seems to be on cooldown or have forbearance. Also good if you happen to pull too many and can't bubble because of weakened soul
Grace: 2/2
Lets see so I heal the tank and he takes less damage and I heal better yeah that sounds good to me.
Tier 10
Borrowed Time: 5/5
So after I bubble someone I get to cast faster, and the more spellpower I get (which is my primary stat the more my shield absorbs for yes I think I will take that.
Tier 11
Penance: 1/1
The damage numbers may look a little lackluster but it is very effective and I use it almost every cooldown healing or soloing.
Shadow Tree
Tier 1
Spirit Tap: 3/3
You mean after I kill something I regen 50% of my mana while casting and it stacks with Meditation ok if you insist.

As I level the rest of my points will be spent in Holy, with Improved Renew and either 2 points in Holy Specialization so I can get Divine Fury, or 5 in Holy Specialization and 2 in Aspiration over in Discipline. I'm not sure yet.

On my spell rotation, its usually a pretty simple bubble, Holy Light, Penance, Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, Smite, Shadow Word: Death. If they are not ready for SW: Death at that point I usually just Mind Blast or Smite again. But with some decent gear and all the mana regen available I never worry about mana and stuff dies really quickly, I am usually looking at 10 seconds left of bubble when I loot.

Glyphs on the way to 80
As you only get major glyphs before 80 I recommend
Glyph of Power word: Shield
More free heals is awesome
Glyph of Renew
More powerful renew is better even if you have to cast it more often
For minors its really what you feel like but I recommend
Glyph of Levitate
Bag space!!
Glyph of Shadowfiend
Just in case
Glyph of Fortitude
Helpful on rebuffing and less downtime drinking
Your mileage may vary

Well thats about everything if you have any other questions or some suggestions please feel free!!
/end Wall of text

Hunter nerfs or Thanks Ghostcrawler!!

I didn't know what I was going to post today, but as luck (bad of course) would have it the mighty ghostcrawler saves the day. So a little analysis of what BRK is calling the great hunter nerf of 2008. I will say that I do think hunter dps is a little high and could use some tuning, I also have to say that they still suffer in PVP and I doubt nerfing damage output is going to help much on that end. Also as my friend the frog would say BUFF ROGUES!! (in PVE only they still stunlock me into the ground, grr)

1) Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).

A significant nerf but probably understandable we'll see if its too much

2) Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.

A hugely disappointing nerf because for my undergeared hunter it was really the only way I could keep up with overgeared groups damage wise. The encounters are all easy enough to aoe down so we are using the best ability we have to compete (or dominate as the case may be) I will say it was overpowered but 30% is alot.

3) Readiness – no longer affects the cooldown of Bestial Wrath.

Making it useless for BM hunters, You're going to see alot more exotic pets because of this nerf

4) Deterrence – has been completely overhauled. It now allows you to deflect 100% of incoming melee or spell damage for 5 seconds, but prevents you from attacking while active. You still must be facing the attacker to deflect the damage (this is a limitation we are trying and might end up removing). 60 sec cooldown.

A direction oriented buff, but really limited against our biggest threats rogues

5) Kill Shot – cooldown reduced to 15 sec (from 35 sec).

A helpful buff in PVE and PVP only good things here

6) Kindred Spirits – now only grants 3/6/9/12/15% pet damage.

Finally a nerf that seems in line with the issues but with the other nerfs could hurt

7) Serpent’s Swiftness – now only grants 2/4/6/8/10% bonus attack speed to pet.

Again a nerf thats not too bad by itself but when with everything else???

8) All hunter pet abilities with a cooldown longer than 30 sec have been moved off the global cooldown.

This is a buff that should have been in already but oh well take what you can get

9) Growl— threat generation increased by 20% (same for Voidwalker Torment).

This is basically to make up for all the damage they took away so they can still hold some aggro, it looks like a buff (for warlocks it is, sort of Voidwalker only??) but it really is just a coverup

10) Call of the Wild – now benefits only the hunter and his or her pet.

Wow that just sucks, one pet class removed from raiding

11) Rake and Scorpid Poison – slightly nerfed to bring them into line with other pet abilities.

Hard to say how bad of nerf this is without testing

12) Spirit Strike – reduced the period on the dot so it will work better with Longevity.

Just a bug fix for those lucky enough to snag a Spirit Beast

13) Improved Tracking – now benefits damage to all included creature types as long as you are tracking one of them. You don’t have to swap around what you are tracking as much.

This is a buff anyway you look at it. This keeps you from babysitting your mark as much

14) Aspect of the Wild – now raid-wide.

This is just putting it inline with all other similar abilities, a bug-fix

Well, I might just have to level my hunter up before all these get put in, I am a little disgruntled that they are going to test these beforehand unlike the insta-nerf that paladins received but oh well. Definitely going to be logging onto the PTR when it is open.

Looking for Upgrades

Well, it took me a little while to figure out what to post about. I don't have a lot to mention character wise. Got my priest to 71, specced him out full discipline (well 57/4/0 but you know what I mean). Its actually been fun I really like penance for both healing and damage. I figure it never hurts to have another healer around and this way I don't have to respec my boomkin (although I may just to try tree healing a couple times, call me odd but I like healing). Ok, so on to my point. I am looking for upgrades for my tank and trying to find the most painless things to get so I can get up to 25k health as I wait on the cooldown on my titansteel (grrr). I look at 25k health as the baseline for heroics right now so that's my goal ,as well as getting defense capped but that's a given. Well form my trinket post you know of my desire for the trinket, 1 run done no trinket (humph). I also am going to try to get an Utgarde pinnacle run since there is a nice chest reward from the quest giver in there. I find it kind of odd that the only blue upgrade from that quest drops in that instance too so if you get it on that first run the quest is worthless to you but oh well either way that will be a good run (say a prayer the bracers drop too). What is really tough is the lack of good tanking weapons. There are three from heroics and 1 in Naxx10 and that's it for me since I don't plan on running Naxx25 (which only has 2 more so its not like its some huge thing). Seems like more oddity in tanking drops but that as been a common theme so far. So I guess I'll be running a few more of the eighty dungeons and hoping for a couple drops and getting some enchants from a friendly enchanter to push me the rest of the way.

uh yeah..

Murloc costumes are funny

I never posted that I hit 80 did I? Oops, I did in fact hit 80 along with the frog. Now we are patiently (or in the frogs case not so patiently) waiting for the rest of our guild to catch up. I don't want to act like they are not trying or anything or that we are the super elites (we are not, trust me). We just had a lot of free time available right when the expansion came out so we played alot and leveled up fast. There are quite a few over level 75 and closing in so it won''t be along wait to get into heroics but if a couple people level up quicker we might run a couple pugs to help gear up and ease the runs on those leveling up. Also as I always tell the frog that what alts are for (and in his defense he has got a DK he has pushed pretty hard, he just hates leveling and quests).

Also I added a picture from one of those fun quests in the fjord you may have heard of.



oh and my DK

What do you say?

Today a friend of mine called me and told me some news. He had decided to quit the game. Not just that though, he had went to all of his characters, sold off all his gear and items, deleted all his characters and gave all the gold to one of our guild members. I didn't have much time to talk and neither did he but I didn't know what to say, I still don't. Now this is someone who has been playing much longer than me. I have been in for a little more than a year and a half while he started nearly at launch. He was the first person I knew who played even before I knew what he was talking about. I am not totally surprised that he decided to do this, he has been increasingly uninterested in playing lately. I am still enjoying myself so I don't see me doing this anytime soon. He is also an emotional person, and having known him personally for over 10 years, I know he has a tendency to overreact to things. I am wondering if this is just a reaction to his inability to find a focus in game or if there is some bigger issue. If he is really just ready to give it up then I say good for him, knowing when to quit something, even a video game, is a good sign and if you are not having any fun whats the point right. I just don't know what to say, and since I plan to keep playing I wonder if this will effect how much we talk and hang out. I guess we'll just have to see.

Tanking Trinkets

I am going to post a list of the tanking trinkets I am going to be looking for on my way to outfitting myself for raiding and heroics. If I miss anything please let me know.

Seals of The Pantheon (really want! going to be grinding the Halls of lightning)
Essence of Gossamer (look at that Stamina)
Lavanthors Talisman (its an upgrade over Darkmoon Card: Vengeance)
Offering of Sacrifice (free last stand... its ok I guess)

and that's it

Kind of sad really I like to have choices and variety and some goals to shoot for. This is like get the top 2 and your done til Naxx which I guess is easier to help gearing up but I'm a little disappointed personally

I am having so much fun

I have done so much stuff since the expansion came out is unbelievable. I am intrigued by all the possibilities and am having fun doing all sorts of things. Last night I even got exalted with the Keepers of time because we had a guildie who was on the alchemy quest and then the 2 people with me were nice enough to go back in an get the last 720 rep I needed to get exalted. By the way they have a cool looking tabard but it doesn't quite keep up with my favorite achievement and the only title I knew I would get for sure. Mister K The Explorer (I know that's not how my characters name is spelled that's what its supposed to be though). I didn't really have to try that hard to get the exploration achievements done in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms as I have always been an overeager explorer (I went into Arathi Highlands at 17, wandered around Durotar at 32, Was seen in the Plaguelands at 45, my friend and I had an epic battle with a ?? spider, pallys and shamens working together can be scary). After I finished those up very quickly I headed to outland and had one spot in Nagrand and that was it, My mining runs had previously unlocked every other area in Outland without me even knowing it. So when I was over in Sholazar Basin doing a little mining I decided to get my exploration done there and as I got the last part I flew right into Icecrown, well as I have noted my craziness already I had about 1/2 of Icecrown done from before getting my flying mount, so I just finished that up and the push was on. I get very direct when I am pushing for something and find myself to be very dedicated to it once I have a goal so it was fun and I got my first Northrend purple Tabard of The Explorer. It is amazing and I will definitely be posting a pic sometime soon. Anyways I just hope everybody out there is having as much fun as me and is enjoying all the new content.

Azjol-Nerub or Spiders eck!

Well we got into Azjol-Nerub today and its actually kind of fun once you get the hang of the fights. Basically the fights all have a sequence you just have to know what it is. With the first boss its just he sends his groups in front of him and there is really no downtime between them he says something about intruders and then they come running at you. After they are all dead he follows suit. The second boss was the trickiest for us but we finally got him down by waiting until he came all the way up and webbed off the tunnels that all the extra spiders kept coming down. Once he did that we just had to keep cleansing the poison off and he went down easy. The last boss is pretty easy you tank and spank he goes in the ground and calls adds and throws spikes up then he comes back out and you tank and spank him again rinse and repeat a couple times and he's down. Now to get into some more instances!

Busy night for a short one

Well, I'll say ret may still be a little OP before 80 because I respecced ret for a couple days and got to run an instance as ret for the firt time in a long time and I have to say, I STILL HAZ IT!! Yes my crappily geared ret spec topped the damage meters in a Nexus run, and before you say but you were 75, well so was the rogue and the hunter was 74 so its not like we were that far apart. We had a 70 tank and a 70 healer so we thought we'd bring some leveled dps to make it a quick run. I really liked being able to dps but man was I squishy, it was so weird going from being able to solo elites to having to eat and drink after taking on two mobs. So back to tanking cause at 75 I got Shield of the Righteous and I so wanted to try it out. Now I don't kill stuff as fast as I did Ret specced but the dps increase is impressive and really takes any downtime out of the rotation which bugged me a little with Ret as sometime your just waiting on that auto swing or the next cooldown but with Prot I never have to wait on a cooldown because I have so much to do its awesome. I'm starting to feel the altitis itch though and want to play my other toons but I also want to keep leveling with the frog so we can burn stuff down like its not even there. Tonight I ding 76 and get some Saronite (hopefully I am frankly disappointed in the spread on the mines, in Outland Adamantite started springing up in Zanger while out here I've been through the Grizzly Hills and a little of Zul Drak and yet to see a Saronite vein although I did see 2 Titanium mine outside Dalaran but I am still not high enough in mining to mine that yet {grr} but hopefully that all changes soon, if not I'll be spending a lot of time in Sholazar as I have heard that is a good spot for Saronite. /rant end)

Grizzly Hills.....ehh

I have been a little disappointed in the Grizzly Hiis honestly. The look of the area is awesome and I think the dungeon is going to be amazing, but it seems like all the quests are horribad droprate quests, worg meats, mojos by the gallon, bear flanks. Also, don't use your mojos unless your sure the quest is done because then you'll have to farm more of them up and that is torture. Now a few of the quests were fun, horseriding quests ftw, Harrison Jones is my hero, and the return of the worgen was an excellant turnabout. I am really looking forward to 77 so I can start flying again. You don't realise how much you miss it til its gone. We didn't even ding last night because we spent so much time doing those droprate quest and if you don't know me, the RNG on droprates hates me with a passion. I have been known to have had to kill over a hundred of certain mobs to get my 12 pieces of whatever (and yes I do read the quests so no I was not that guy killing turkeys the BBB was talking about). So I hope the other areas have fewer of these types of quests and more of the fun and exciting stuff we got to do in the Dragonflight

Dalaran = Lag

I don't really have much to say but when the frog and I got to Dalaran the lag was awfulbad. Also we couldn't find a flightpath while we were there but I heard one is supposed to be around. Oh well, tonight I find that flightpath, and if I'm lucky tank Utgarde or Azjol and hit 75 yeah, I am loving the expansion.

74 woot!

Dinged tonight before logging off. My friend Killfrog and I have been burning through quests as fast as we can cause we are crazy like that. We are probably the most hardcore levelers in our guild so its no shock. I even got my hunter to 71 while I was waiting for the Frog to do other RL things. I tanked a Nexus run yesterday and it went really smooth we maybe had 2 deaths on the boss that sends you yo-yoing all over the place. I have to admit that that was a fun fight and a cool looking instance. I can't wait til I get in Utgarde and Azjol, I hear they are both pretty sweet.

I called it

I have been so busy playing I have not blogged at all. I am really liking the questing so far, the Dragonflight has got to be my favorite area so far. So many lore references, so many epic quest chains. I also started a death Knight and am amazed out how easy it is to just grind away on things. I don't know how intuitive the tanking ability is just yet but for grinding and leveling they are awesome. I like how the Howling Fjords quest start better then the Borean Tundra and the boat ride in is certainly way more epic there. But the quests in Borean Tundra are all layed out so well and chain together into areas and lead you along a path I found it way easier to level there. But thats just my opinion. OK back to the game.

A slight break til Wrath

I have decided that the next three nights I am going to stay off of WOW since I have the 5 days straight of playing planned when I get wottlekay at Midnight. I am going to do menial stuff, and around the house stuff that I have a tendancy to blow off for WOW because after I get out of work I just want to unwind and WOW it up. I probably won't post anything until Thursday, but after that I plan a daily post for a good while to go through the leveling and dungeons with the expansion. That is if I can pull myself away from the game long enough to post. Seeya in Northrend

Not much to say

I really want to keep posting to my blog regularly but I don't have alot to say. I have some opinions on the paladin nerfs but am withholding judgements(ha get it) until I run ZA this weekend to see if I can notice any changes I have mostly just been leveling my warrior and doing heroics with the guildies, its been a pretty good time for us lately everybody has been logging on regularly so we have been able to do alot of stuff, I wish I could have gotten my other 70 alts into some heroics or kara before because they just haven't done enough to get any badge gear and theres not enough time to get them enough badges to get any significant upgrades to help with leveling so I will probably have left over badges next week, oh well its still fun. I have to say its harder than ever trying to decide who's going to be the first to 80. If we run alot of instances It may be my priest or my druid if they don't need a tank we may just have to see how everything shakes out.

As much ZA as I could

We cleared most of ZA on Saturday although we went late into the night. Hooray for the nerf bat. I don't think anybody in my guild would have been able to go into ZA before the nerf (although a couple would have been close to ready if borderline including my tank). It was getting late though and we took 2 tries at the Hex Lord but we just didn't have anything left at that point. It was progression run for us so we wiped a few times learning the fights, (I hate Jan'alai I had to aoe tank the dragonhawks, half of them will just fly right through my consecrate, that really messes with your healers). Well we had planned to try again Sunday but I didn't really get out of bed all day yesterday as the cold I am fighting off hit me hardest then. I was miserable, I feel bad if they tried to get a run together but I just didn't have it in me to sit at the computer yesterday. There was some nice loot drops though and now that the armory seems to be working we are on the realm page on WOW-jutsu (woot!). So if you're curious check out The Corsairs on Nathrezim (I'd link but they are down). OK, back to work and coughing (ech!)

So far so good

Meant to post more this week just haven't had alot to say, until Now. I GOT MY SWIFT FLIGHT FORM WOOT!! Ok sorry but its my first toon with artisan riding and it is awesome. Magic brooms ftw, I mean I just go super fast and I know if I had not had the magic broom I would not have got the quest done nearly as fast and when I heard they were getting rid of the quest requirement and were going to be selling it I made it my mission to get it before that came out. If I get motivated maybe I'll post my first pic, real blogging here I come.

Drama??

I'd like to think of our guild as a fairly drama free place, we are almost all real life friends and I have met all but 2 people in the real world (That will be 1 by the end of the year). That was the case until last night. Last week one of our members who had left to join some more progressed guilds to do some raiding had come back to join us because we just have more fun (yeah for fun and friends). As we are a casual guild this was a simple thing to re-invite an old friend. Well in that time Shiranui had made friends with plenty of people in the other guilds she had joined to find a raiding guild she liked. I had run with quite a few of them and actually counted a few of them as wow-friends (my term use it if you like). Well when Shir came back one of those friends started taking issue with her leaving the guild he was in and was messaging her that she was bailing on him and stuff like that. It actually was getting a little out of hand and he went so far as to delete his account for a short period of time. Now he's got his account back and wanted to be friends again and while I was off watching Heroes because the server had shutdown. The server came back up and he got invited into our guild. I got a call about this from one of my friends and in the short amount of time they got a group to go kill Onyxia and wanted to know if I wanted to come along. Well since I had never gotten to do that yet I logged on Newguy as the second healer and went down there. Now I had never had a problem with this guy before and maybe I am just over-reacting but I am not really excited about him joining our guild. I know he could push us into way more progressed content then we had even imagined but at what cost? Within the hour he was talking about inviting other people into our guild and I am just not sure if we are ready to take that kind of plunge to start recruiting people that one person a couple of us kind of know thinks should be in our guild. I am going to have to stew on this one for a little while. If you have any opinions let me know.

Grrrrrr!!

Instance server not found is the most horribad statement ever(Yes I said horribad its that bad). We had a guild run for Kara ready to go, couldn't get in. Fine lets go do a heroic, no dice can't get in. Fine went and got exalted with Argent Dawn (Yeah for that at least). Next day, after many kills of the headless horseman, heroic daily?? "sure". No dice still broken. We are now able to run any instance and Kara (and probably ZA) and we can't even get in, this is ridiculous. Now I'm not gonna go on some rant about how I'm gonna quit the game or some other stupid over exaggeration I am just frustrated, not just for myself but for my guildies who haven't even finished kara yet. This was a legitimate chance to clear it with 8/10 guild members and we got shut out, not fun.

The Curse of Altitis

First I have to say the changes to spellpower make me a happy camper. All my healing gear turned into sweet sweet shockadin gear and I was just wrecking people in EOTS. It was the most fun I have had in a battleground since the first few I went in. Be that as it may I am not enjoying the respeccing of all my toons. My Horde toons are good to go but as they are low level and Bloodscalp was way more stable it was easy. I really love the new Pet talent trees and the additional stable slots is awesome. I have only got to spec my hunter and pally though yet (and I am probably not staying shockadin no matter how much fun it is because I still like to tank). I still have 7 more toons to get setup and will probably be leveling my shaman quite a bit since I switched him to Inscription. Well hopefully the server will be way more stable tonight and I can have some more fun

Patch Day!!

I can't help it I'm excited. I wasn't playing at the time of the last expansion so I've been playing catchup I am so ready for the gear reset so that I can gear up and be on a level playing field with most everybody. Also exotic pets HAHAHAHA!!! Sorry I get sidetracked easily sometimes. Good news on the guild front. With all the pug Karas we've been doing word is starting to spread and we are making a bit of a name for ourselves out there. I have had at least 5 people in the last week ask me if we are recruiting, and one of our original members Shiranui came back to the team which is great, we missed Shir and are glad to get the band back together(I know overused but a first time for me here so deal). Anyways I'll tell a little of our Kara run on Saturday. We started out really well and got a group together pretty fast(being known has its advantages) We were burning stuff down fast and furious but we lost a couple people at Maiden we replaced them quickly enough but the replacements slowed the pace down and we lost 3 more after curator and then it took us forever to find some people to fill in and then it was kind of a comedy of errors on Shade, but progress is progress. I am really hoping to get a full clear done this weekend for some of the guys who haven't seen every boss fight yet. That's the plan anyway.

Kara on Farm LOL (well sorta)

Now if you have read my blog at all you know this is definitely not the case for our guild. Heck our guild is a shell right now because of defections to other games (WAR grrr...). We can barely run a 5-man right now and with Lafrentz not playing we have to pug a healer to do heroics, and if I don't log in everybody has trouble running anything because I'm really the only geared tank we have (although Gracus is doing everything he can to get geared up). Well anyways on Sunday I was just doing a quick LFG and I switched over to see who was in for Kara and I got whispered if we wanted to join a group, now I was on my hunter Iamthetick who I would love to get into kara but they really wanted me because I had a Tank in my group (Gracus) but I know he's not ready for kara by any means but his warlock (Atla) has been in and he can do acceptable damage for what we were trying to do. So I told the guy we were on our alts but I could log my tank and bring a warlock. We got invited after switching around the guy that started the group ended up leaving before we got started but eventually I got a full group together and lead us into Kara (yeah!) I was able to get Wigeon in on the run as well and since he and Atla were really the only undergeared guys we had they got anything the wanted. Well we had a pretty good group and except for a wipe on Maiden we oneshotted every boss through the curator. On maiden the dps didn't wait for me to get ag and since she does that silencing thing it takes a while for me to build it anyway, we decided to have the warrior offtank tank her and I switched to my healing gear real quick. Got Big Bad Wolf on Opera so that was cool (easy mode, I've still never done Crone yet). Also Atla got the T4 off of Curator, by then it was pretty late so we ended up calling it there. Any progress anybody in our guild has in Kara is going to be in groups like this so I am going to keep on the lookout for groups whenever I see other people on. I talked to Lafrentz earlier today and he said Killfrog one of our rogues had some ideas for the guild so I am going to talk to him after work today and see what he has in mind. Now I know what your thinking you are not the guild leader and your right but our old defacto guild leader got promoted to guild master and then promptly quit playing to go play WAR so I have my alt guild and am working as kind of new defacto guild leader on our main guild now as well as raid leader. Not a good mix so I will have to do something about that. I'll post more about that later

Crypts Love It, Hate It

Healed Crypts on my newly 70 priest last night, everything after the first boss is awesome. I was shackling and healing on the non-elite skeleton mobs I was Holy Novaing them down super fast we destroyed the last boss like he wasn't there. Sweet, right well before that it sucked the mighty, we wiped on the very first pull. The guys I went in with weren't to bad but since nobody really runs crypts none of them remembered what happens and when they pulled and then all the guys spawned they freaked out. We wiped on the first boss 3 times before the shamen brought his 70 warlock in. That bosses slow wrecked my healing, the tank was setting up in a horrible spot so I was way to close and that slows healing down way to much with not having alot of fast group healing mechanics because everyone was melee and just took a ton of splash damage. Also nothing dropped for me, and I'm not to the part on the chain where I have to kill the boss yet so now I have to go back,:(

Oh well good practice for getting back in the healing game

The PTR

So I logged on to the PTR this weekend, and all I can say is WOW! (ha, I know funny). Stromwind harbor is awesome probably just the coolest addition to old content I've ever seen. had some fun testing the new talents with my Paladin, hunter and Boomkin. I must say I was really underwhelmed with the new druid spells they feel kind of underpowered to me but we'll see. Paladins look to be in great shape(I didn't test any Holy stuff I gave up healbotting a long time ago), but prot and ret just feel awesome right now. And the best for last EXOTIC PETS OMG WTF AWESOMESAUCE. Ok I know I'm a dork but Corehounds just kill stuff its totally amazing and Chimaera are really cool looking (always wanted one since the first time I went to Azshara now if only I could get a Hippogryph), I can't wait to get a Rhino. Pet talent trees are great but I don't know if I could play without the BM talent there are just to many talents I want on each pet. I don't like the prices on the new stable slots but that's just cause I am horrible at making money in the game (I have 4 70's now {Yeah Newguy} and none of them have epic flying yet {halfway to first one}. Next on my agenda Warrioirbarbi and the grind to 70.

Leveling

Not ignoring my blog just don't have anything to report lately. I am mostly leveling alts to try and get my professions maxed out across the board. Our guild has basically shrunk to 4-5 people with everything thats been going on lately (WAR, summer, pre-expansion boredom, though good new, RELEASE DATE!! YEAH. I know, but I'm excited. I can't wait for the expansion because I started after BC and so I'll get to experience all the new stuff with everybody else this time around and not feel left behind on everything. I have also started a new toon (altitis I know). His name is Verysmall. He is a Tauren warrior. I have always wanted to level a Tauren out of all the horde because they seem to be the most conflicted because when you think of Horde you think bad or evil (I know there not I'm just generalising), but the Tauren are really a good people who see the horde as they truly are, just another race trying to get by in the world. I just dinged 10 last night yeah! It will be strange though when I get to some of the other areas like Arathi Highlands and STV I hope I don't go to the wrong camps to many times lol

The rest (mostly)

I'm gonna just jumble the rest of my toons together, I am going to try to put them in order I hope to level them but that is always subject to change with all my alts

Alliance
Psychostick
Warriorbarbi
Happymadison
Booyarogue
Surething(too low to armory)

Horde
Wussyarmor
Ibeatarse
and about 6 others who are all below level 10

Its not that I don't like leveling horde but I had already put so much time in on my alliance toons and have built up there stuff so much its just so hard to start from scratch with very little money and resources. I also plan on having a Death Knight on my two main servers. That will help with my horde toons because then I will be able to run with my friend who has a 57 warrior we'll be able to just run together and that will help alot

as always comments and questions are appreciated

I'm Baaaack!!

Hello loyal readers, I am back with another post of meet my toons

Newguy

Now he might not be the best priest in the game but he has always been one of my favorite toons. I started my first guild on my own with him, paid people to sign my charter to do it but hey. I started him out as a complete unknown to everybody I grouped with and leveled him to about 25 before my roommate even knew about him. It was nice to get away from the group sometimes and just run in the world. Lately though I have been debating on promoting him to the bigger guild so he can be a little more high profile with my friends, we could really use a "good" healing priest, choices choices. I leveled up healing instance runs on my pally until he was switched to prot because its "teh awesome" as the saying goes so I know the deal on all the outland dungeons. I have leveled my priest holy and never really felt it was a detriment, until the 40's I always felt a little overpowered actually. Well that's Newguy, Draenei priests ftw (I love gift of the Naaru and Symbol of Hope). As always any comments are always welcome.

Other Stuff

This weekend my friends Jason and Nicki moved into a new apartment in West Des Moines, (whats this, a non-WOW post, wo!). We started at 8 am and were done by 10 am so we punched it out quick. Then Nicki's parents made us lunch to thank us all for getting them out of their house, (jk, kinda). It was actually kind of fun. I got to see a few people I don't get to see to often because the one thing that will bring us all together is helping out our friends. I just think that's great and wanted to share it with the internet. Also the Olympic swimming has been riveting. I can't turn it off. That 4x100 freestyle was epic

Summer is a Bummer in WOW

I am having a hard time getting groups lately. I understand that summer cuts into how much people play but its just annoying to sit in LFG for 2 hours and get nowhere. I have plenty of farming to do so I keep busy but thats not what is fun to me. I like doing instances. I like to pvp too but I got a little burned out on that. I will probably start leveling again cause they are plenty of people leveling alts on our server so I can get in those instances easily enough. Maybe I'll profile my priest next time since he is going to be my next 70.

Sunday Kara runs

We will be running Kara every Sunday now (hopefully). About half the guild got in a pug on Monday, but our offtank d/c'ed at Moroes and that killed our run. I got Vambraces of Courage off of Attumen though. Woot! We are also running Heroic Underbog tonight with a select group. should be a good run, bringing Lafrentz to the run for his first Heroic. I am excited about that because we have been struggling to get a healer in our guild able to run Heroics so I am hoping this goes smoothly and we can move forward to Harder content, YEAH!

P.S. my Boomkin hit 70 last week, woohoo!

Oh yeah my blog

Well its been a while since I posted here. I thought I'd catch up on what has gone on. We made it in to Kara (yeah) and we did a little better then I thought we would, sorta, we also took some unexpected lumps but that is to be expected. We can now say 3/12 Kara with Opera on Notice. This is about where I had hoped we would get, and honestly if we hadn't had so much trouble with Moroes I think we could have taken down Romulos and Juliane, but after 2 tries we had had enough of wiping in there. I was glad to have made it that far. I had never been past Maiden yet so that alone was good enough for me, but I was actually pretty confidant we could take her with the group we had brought. Our real problem had come up with Moroes, in my previous Pug we had one-shotted the guy so I went in thinking he would be no big deal but in effect that was a little short sighted. That was also the first time we had to go head to head on who main tank was. Our defacto guild leader was on his druid tank and I was on my Pally of course and up to that point we had basically just picked a target and went to town. Well with this fight we had a different strategy then the one I had used previously and it didn't work out as well as we could have hoped. most of our wipes were crowd control failures or early pulls before we were ready but after a while that adds up to a frustrating time. We finally figured out a switch from him tanking Moroes to me would work out better and we finally killed the undead bastard. Although Drusky got his Pocketwatch (grr, I'm just jealous). Well that's enough ranting from me on that, we learned a lot and we'll see how it goes from there. 

I have actually been a little burned out on my pally what with spending 2 months before our Kara run to gear him up. I have been playing my druid a lot (almost 64 now). I will soon have 3 70's and can then do dailies until my brain is a puddle of goo, lol. I am really paying attention to rep with him and it makes a huge difference in the grind. I am more excited about getting him his rep then I am leveling him up, who woulda thunk it. Well thats all for today, I hope to be a little better about posting too. bye

A slight pause in player profiles

I am going to take a tangent today, still WOW but no profile today, (please hold the applause). I am in a small guild. We have 14 people in our guild. We have 10 who have at least one level 70 character. I am now going to try to get everybody to do a Kara run. I am excited. Now the guy who got me and my roommate into the game is being all pessimistic and thinks were not geared enough yet. He's probably right, we just got through our first Heroic and that was with 2 mages sheeping. But I'd like to at least stick our noses in and see what its all about. We will never know what it takes until we get in there and wipe a little bit first. That's how we have gotten to where we are now.
We would go in with these groups.

Pally tank (me)
Mage
Hunter
Sh Priest
Pally Heals

Druid Tank
Mage
Enhance Shammy
Hunter
Resto Shammy

Our Druid tank is kind of our Guild Leader he didn't start the guild (GL doesn't really play anymore), but he was the first to get to seventy. He also led us through most of our instance runs until recently, now with a much larger group of seventies than we've had I have had a chance to run some groups and did quite a bit of pugging when I respecced to Prot I have started to become more of a Group leader. I don't want to just step on his toes cause he has brought us this far but I feel with where we are now and his other interests, (he just rolled a new Horde toon on a RP server) I am going to try to push everyone and lead us down the road to Raiding, (casually we will never be Hardcore). We are just getting into it so we'll see how it goes

I just always thought He was a Druid

Now my third character I am going to profile is my Druid, Chowyunfat.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nathrezim&n=Chowyunfat


He is the most complicated of my toons. He was my second character, and I thought it would be sweet to have the ability to change forms and do all kinds of different things. Our guilds first tank was a Druid tank and he carried us all to 70. Well I wasn't ready to level a druid because leveling him was the slowest and hardest of any I have ever started, and I leveled Feral before anyone says you should level that way. I pushed through to about 41-42 and just couldn't do it. He soon got bypassed by 3 other characters, including one I started over a year later. But we had a few people in our guild around his level and so I started playing him a little bit. Well I had 2 70's at this point and had noticed out in my travels how often I was getting killed by Druids. I was confused by this and decided to pay a little attention to them and started hearing about the "Boomkin" or the big chicken whichever you prefer so I decided to respec, and try out the Boomkin. Wow, talk about a difference he became the most fun character I have to play and have been steadily leveling him up. I have never seen other toons run from me so fast after I start spamming Moonfire. I now toy with warlocks like the squishies they are. You put me in a group with anybody else and stuff drops to us so fast I barely have a chance to do much more than my instant casts.  Anyways I just thought I'd put this up, as always if you have any comments let me know. Also maybe you have a toon you haven't played in a while maybe log in again and think about respeccing and seeing if that makes a difference it did for me. peace

SPOON!

My PVP main is Iamthetick, Beast Master Hunter, Defender of "The City", if you never followed the Tick cartoon show, well first shame on you, and second you won't get any of these references. So your first assignment is to go bye Season 1 & 2 of the Tick on DVD. You can thank me later.
On to the armory.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nathrezim&n=Iamthetick

I have been trying some different talents with him so don't judge me to harshly.
I use an owl from Winterspring who has Screech 5, Claw 9, and Dive 3, He has well over 10,000 armor and with the 7% increase in DPS owls get I believe him to be one of the best pets you can get. His name is Dog. we rock the battlegrounds and are just getting into the Arena game. With the new rules for Arena gear I feel it will actually make it easier to do Arenas because you'll more often be matched against players your level. Well thats all for today if anybody has any comments let me know

Keeping it simple

Well for my first post I am just going to post a link to my main. He has been a Retnoob and a Healadin and is now a Tankadin.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nathrezim&n=Mistrk

For the record I love Ret, leveled Ret knew how to lay down the pain but I respecced for my small guilds hopeful progression. Any comments are welcome and if you have any questions just let me know. I have a small case of Altitis with 17 toons on 3 servers. My highest levels are all alliance but I have been working "For the Horde" a little more of late. I also have a small leveling guild with a couple of my friends on Nathrezim if anybody is looking for some friendly help leveling up. Look up Roll for Chest, Newguy is the Guild Leader