Last nights raid and the Icecrown Radiance thing

First off last nights raid was kind of a pushover. We rolled through 3 wings of Naxx like we know what were doing, well because we kinda do. My favorite part was tanking the adds on Gluth because I'd never done that before and rounding up Zombie Chow is actually pretty fun. My least favorite part was missing the jump on Thaddius 3 TIMES!! (grrrr). I felt like such an idiot. Luckily we were coasting through and I was lucky enough to get the jump finally and not wipe us all on a polarity shift but still. We DE'd a ton of stuff because not very many people really need anything out of there anymore and we might need to think about making Thursday an Ulduar night and leave Naxx as an offnight raiding thing for alts and fun runs or achievements. But I'll leave that up to the higher ups. I just go where they point and smash my shield into monsters. It is good to run though to get some raiding experience for and good practice so who knows. I really like the progress we are making and I think with a good push we could really start banging Ulduar out and run through it just like we do Naxx. We also ran the H daily which was H Toc and I don't think our raid leader knew that when she brought her priest in because she didn't seem confidant about it but other than a couple wipes on Paletress (which without a shaman can happen to anybody because of that stupid fear) we moved through it pretty good and got some upgrades for people which is always nice.
OK, Icecrown Radiance or whatever the chill thing is called. I actually am going to be in the minority on this one and say its probably a good thing. Obviously its an artificial factor to make the encounters harder but I think it has even more to do with the changes they are going to be making with stat allocations in the next expac and I think if you know what your doing its not going to effect the outcomes its just a debuff and I hope it makes the encounters easier to balance and so they are fun and exciting. Its not going to keep anybody from trying to kill Arthas so might as well just get over it and keep gearing up for the showdown.
K Out!

Old April fools patch notes are hilarious

I was reading Righteous Defenses reaction to the latest Patch Notes and he had a link to some old April fools patch notes. They are still funny even now.
3 of my favorites:
Scholomance is now spelled "Sko-lo-mance" to alleviate confusion about its pronunciation. In addition, a sound file has been added outside the instance portal which will phonetically sound out the name upon zoning.
Edwin Vancleef will occasionally shout "Hey you guys!" as players fight their way through Deadmines.
Additional grass areas have been added to the enemy faction's zones. This grass is exceptionally green

Link for tanks of all ages

Veneretio posted a back to basics post on his blog. I think everyone who has ever or will ever tank should read it because even though he is giving warrior advice most of the stuff he talks about will help any tank (except maybe bears but some of the stuff is good for them too). I really liked the last paragraph of his post because I really think its the most important part.

You haven’t really talked about Gear
You’re right. I haven’t. Tanking is more about how you use your gear than the gear itself. So, training yourself in how to tank, how to enchant, gem and spec are all more important than how to find the loot you want. The reality is once you start raiding, you aren’t going to get exactly what you want. You take what you can get and you make the best of it.

His blog is always a great read and very informative and has really helped me be a better tank even though my rage bar is blue and not red ;)

I gave up on a group last night

I am kind of ashamed of it and I kind of wish I hadn't but after 2 wipes on the snake boss in Gun'Drak I hearthed out and logged off. I was just not in the mood to deal with people and decided to level my shaman instead. I know 2 times isn't very much and I probably sound like an elitist douche bag but it was just a bad experience and I wasn't ready to deal with it at the time. I had a pally healer who had dual-specced and was in his tanking gear when he started the group and with 33k health I figured he at least had an idea about what he was doing. Well, both tries on the snake boss he ran right next to me and got blown up by the poison nova. I thought it was a fluke the first time because I didn't really position the boss away from the group, so the second time I positioned him away from everyone and the healer and one of the hunters ran right by me and got blown up by the snake boss again. This after the first wipe where they went in the back door to get there bodies, I should have known they had never been there before and maybe worked it out but I just got fed up and bailed. I feel bad about it now, but I just couldn't deal with it then. I guess I am too spoiled by my new guild that I forgot what its like out there.

Leveling in BG's is kind of strange

Sunday my friend and I had set some time aside to level our Horde toons up a bit and we were lucky enough to find a group willing to run some Outland dungeons with us so that was fun but burned up our rested xp real quick. So we decided to switch to a couple of our lower level toons and try the BG for XP thing. Well we had fun winning some Warsong but we still don't really know the gist of how it all works out. I don't know if you lose rested in BG's I think you only get xp when your team scores a flag and when you win. Does anybody have a good rundown of how the XP in BG's all works or if not maybe I'll keep doing it and let everyone else know ;).

Iron Council down! Ignis still kicks my butt?

We did our now weekly run into Ulduar this week. Got through the first 4 bosses we know in 1 shot. We did have some deaths and we are still learning a little bit but mostly we have them down pretty good. We gave Ignis a few tries but it is a frustrating fight for us and we gave up on him and moved on to Iron Council or Assembly of Iron or whatever lol. This fight took us a few rounds to get the hang of but unlike Ignis we made steady progress each try (except for the next to last attempt where I mistargeted and wiped us in fifteen second, grrr). We are really moving through and I think next week will be even better!

Hardcore vs. Casual its not just in WoW

I was just reading some stuff online this morning and I found a very interesting article about marathons that I feel is strikingly similar to the debate that rages on in WoW from time to time. Check it out here. Its a pretty interesting read.

Sarth +1 is down, progress is good

Yes, I know again I'm way behind the curve, but I don't care because its new and fun to me so there. Well it took us a few wipes and some reconfiguration of duties but we got the +1 down. we ended up using a 3 tank config to get it done because I was really having a hard time getting the drake and all the adds and avoiding the flame wall. Once our dps warrior switched to tank and he took the Drake I gathered up all the adds we took it done easily with no deaths. Its funny how you can got from total wipe to easy clear with a slightly different strategy. I think I have couple ideas to get it done with only 2 tanks I'll have to talk to Swan about it though to see what she thinks. We also took a couple groups to HHM and Shima was lucky enough to get the mount so gratz Shima!! Looks like were going to Naxx on Thursday again and we are starting Ulduar early on Saturday so we can try to make good progress on some new bosses. We should be able to clear to Ignis pretty quickly and hopefully make quick work of him this time. We think we have a good strategy in place. I am looking forward to it and am really glad to have found a group that is so fun to work with.

Just a quick note

Saw this post linked today at one of the blogs I read and I have to say it is definitely not one to miss, check it out you won't be disappointed

Well, now that was a fun weekend!!

So this is what everyone has been talking about for the last year lol. I have found the perfect guild for what I want to do. We are running stuff on a regular basis and moving through content like I've never seen. I finally got my tank all the way through Naxx and am now one Maly kill away from being a Champion Of The Frozen Wastes. Now I know, yes everybody else has done that already but I was trying so hard to get my friends interested in raiding and geared up that I never got a chance to, you know, actually raid. So, now I am in this awesome guild with people having fun learning new encounters and piling up boss kills, it has been a blast. In my first week with them we downed OS, full clear of Naxx, and downed 4 bosses in Uld. This is more progress then I made in almost the last year, especially since last year at this time my old guild was barely getting into Kara and made only one run into ZA. We never even got into the Military wing in Naxx and I stepped foot in Uld for the first time this week. We are gonna take down Sarth+1 on Tuesday which I've never completed and maybe we'll throw down Vault if we have time as well. I'll have to see if I can ask them to do a Maly run sometime too so I can learn that fight and get the title. I've never had a title like that and even though its old now I think it would still be cool to have. I also got asked if I was interested in running with the group that's working on Heroic dungeon achievements, which is great because that's one of the things I thought I would miss out on leaving my old guild because we did have a good group for that going and had made some good progress on it. So anyways I looked at some stuff on the Ignis fight and we've talked about it some more and we think we can get that down this week. I think we might be running Uld on Thursday to clear out the bosses we know so Saturday we can work on learning and downing the bosses we don't know. I am just having a blast right now and I can't wait to see how we do this week

Important Note

If you are running around getting the candy from the inns. The Shattered Sun Offensive does not celebrate Hallows End. Just thought everyone should know.

Important weekend post, Ignis killed me lots

I normally don't post much on the weekends I am usually to busy having fun actually playing the game or busy doing other stuff. Well I sucked at tanking Ignis. He wiped the floor with us and I really struggled tanking him. I think I gained a false sense of confidence since we pretty much breezed through the other guys up to that point with I think 1 wipe on Razorscale and maybe 2 on Kologarn. We had a couple people who had been in before so that helped alot. I actually think I was doing pretty good up to the Ignis mess. At least I have now been in all the Wotlk dungeons minus Ony and Maly. I'm probably just being to hard on myself. Don't think I wasn't having fun either, learning some new fights in Ulduar was awesome and I was having a blast. I don't even mind wiping as long as I'm learning the fight and we are making some progress which is what happened on the other bosses. Too many people just hadn't seen it yet one wipe to learn it and then boom down. We one shotted FL and XT and some people got some loot. I even got a new sword. I will have to work to get some defense to cover it but its nice not having to use the Red Sword of Courage that I've had since the first time I ran H UP.

Prequel Post on trinkets

I am working on a post on tanking trinkets. So far I have setup a wowhead comparison on all the tanking trinkets I could think of.

Trinket Comparison

I am planning some analysis, we'll see how far I get ;)

I started another alt lol

I know, I know I'm crazy but I can't help it. I started Iamthetick on Alleria. He is level 4 but I am going to wait until I can get him some heirloom gear before I start working on him again. I am going to do some research and see what I can get from the 3 different ways to get heirloom items and see what the fastest to get and which items are best for him to get. It should be a fun ride because leveling hunters are pretty OP as it is with a bunch of heirloom gear he should really scream through the levels. I may even do the pvp leveling thing to give it a try. We'll see hahaha. So heroics and WG and Argent Tournament here I come.

Sometimes things do work out

Well ran with my new guild again last night and it was great! We had OS/Voa on the schedule but we lost WG about 20 min after we got done in OS so no Vault though, and what a smooth OS it was, we went no drakes but are probably going to try 1+ next week. We went around the circle killing the drakes and trash mobs in no time flat (although I did lose one of the tall wandering guys in a pull because we got them early and I wasn't sure which one was mine but I grabbed him quick before he did any damage ;>.) Sarth was a cakewalk I was running around grabbing adds as quick as they spawned, Nobody got hit by flame walls that I saw!! dps would help burn adds as I rounded them up and Sarth went down like a sack of Potatoes. Quite possibly the smoothest OS I have ever seen. This group is good at what they do and have fun doing it. Every time someone gets an achievement there are gratz all around and everyone has been really cool. Wanted to also put a big WOOT!! out for Grimmtooth for getting SDI last night (Gond'ria the spirit beast). He has been on the hunt for it for quite some time and its really cool he was able to get it. So all in all a good night for the Bunniez all around.

I am Attack Bunny

Enough Said!

Fun Times

Well my tank is now a proud member of Ordo Cuniculi Vorpali. I got to run some with them last night and it was a lot of fun. Just running around killing stuff hanging out and being goofy. It was a good time. We even ran H UK with pumpkins on our heads most of the run :>. I think I need to work on my threat a little bit because I lost a mob or two on that run. Its probably mostly because I really haven't run much with him lately as my old guild was barely getting 4 people on at a time and I was spending a lot more time pugging on my Boomkin and Priest or leveling my alts. Its really weird not having any alts on a server. I am so used to having 8 toons over 70 with maxed professions to cover my bases, to just have the one guy is kind of strange. I will probably just start leveling some alts there because I am a big fan of the leveling game. I also will work on leveling my 75 warrior to 80 back on my old server so I can help out my old guild if they need a tank and I am available. She won't be anywhere near as geared as Mister K anytime soon but at least she can help out if needed. I am really looking forward to the raid tonight, it should be a blast and I am glad to be getting back into the raiding game.

A few things that happened....

Well I have transferred my tank over to the new server. He got to keep his name so that's alright. I thought I would run a quick heroic just to see how the lfg is on this server quickly got in a H HoL run and man was that group geared. I had to really push to keep threat off the fan of knives spamming rogue. He did other stuff too, but he did awesome damage. It was a battle to keep threat the whole time but a quick easy run was had by all. The thing that shocked me the most though was standing by the stone and this blood elf was standing there and he was blue, not red. I was like WHAT?? then I realised I had just moved to a PVE server. Its really weird after having been on only PVP servers for my 2 main servers for the last 2+ years. It was really odd. I don't know if I'm used to it yet even. I have my trial run on Tuesday so that should be exciting. I will definitely be posting about how that went on Wednesday. Back on Nath, I ran the Heroic daily on my boomkin and a friend of mine got me in a vault 10 run and that went really smooth although I am still just pushing barely over 3500. Note to self Need More Gear. I need to get into a few more H ToC's but its been no dice lately, I fished for about an hour while I was in lfg and made 20 gold enchanting somebodies weapon but no dungeon run, oh well maybe next time. Actually the majority of my weekend was working a couple of my horde toons up a bit. my buddy and I have decided we want to see what the storyline is like on that side and so we pushed through Hellfire into Zanger with our Warrior DK combo pack, which really wasn't all that different but did have a few interesting quests. We also started a couple blood elves to see how their starting area goes. We are running pally, priest (keeps dieing to a minimum). I wish everybody had a faction like Tranquillien to help gear you up and kind of introduce you to the way endgame is. I think that is a very cool feature that they have and hope that all the starting areas get a similar treatment in Cataclysm. Also low level hunters are seriously OP. I had been playing a hunter over there and at level 13 the difference in killing between a hunter and a ret pally is night and day. If I had known that when I first started playing the game long ago I probably would have had a hunter main instead of my pally. This is only the second pally I have started since my very first toon and it so weird because there is just so much downtime at the low levels for a pally, judgement, auto attack, rinse and repeat. You don't do anything else until 16 when you get Hand of Reckoning to pull with which is totally awesome and really speeds up the process. Well that's probably enough for today I will now let you get back to your regularly scheduled slacking off
/end walloftext

My quest begins

So I have unguilded my Moonkin and am starting the great pug adventure. I decided on him because I have found that since raids have more dps spots then anything else it is easier to get a spot as a dps then as a tank, and also its not nearly as much pressure as trying to heal a run for people you don't know. I will probably follow suit with my priest too shortly as healers are a valuable commodity. I got in a 25 Vault run and my 3-3.5k dps was at or near the bottom of that run. I guess all the good dps run that on Tuesday lol. I also did the heroic daily and H ToC as well. I will basically be sitting in lfg from now on and maybe asking a few of the people I know that if they are short on dps in anything to let me know and I will gladly come along. I am going to go through my gear and get a list of upgrades I can get and where to get them, and I am going to do a slight change to my spec as I had him setup for mad aoe dps but his single target dps suffered a little bit so I am going to adjust that to give me better all around numbers. I also found a a good post on what a raid leader is looking for. I also wanted to thank Shy and Smashie for their advice and encouragement. Thanks alot!

How does one find a new guild?

I want to raid.

I want to see content.

My guild of friends doesn't raid.

So what I want to know is what do I need to do to find a guild that is at my level of progression. I am at the point where I would like to start working on Ulduar and ToC on a consistent basis. The problem is you can't get into and Uld group without having done it already. I am stuck in the vortex of I can't get experience because I haven't been there, I can;t go there cause I don't have any experience. I don't even have a preference on 10 or 25, I just want to find a good group of folks who is just starting or still working on Ulduar so I won't be holding them back. I would like to be a contributing member of the group. I have 3 toons who are basically ready for Ulduar level content and I can Tank/dps with my pally, Range dps with my boomkin, or heal with my holy/disc priest. It has just been a hard thing to come to this decision since I am friends in RL with everyone in my guild and I really hoped when everyone got to 80 we would be able to push through some real raiding. Well, it didn't really work out that way It took some of or folks a while to get to 80 and some got to 80 really quickly so they started pugging and when the others finally caught up they didn't want to go through the same stuff again and some of our folks are just not really that into raiding so its not fair to push them into something they don't want to do. So here I am ready to raid, even if I am behind the curve a little bit.

So, any ideas?

Toon Update

It has been quite a while since I did a toon update so I thought I would give an update on what I've been up to lately.

Mistrk 80: Still tanking and I have a fairly decent ret set now so I can pump out pretty good dps if need be. I don't play him too much though because we have effectively stopped raiding and I don't know when it will start again. I am content with where he is just in need of something to do besides a weekly Koralon pug.

Newguy 80: My third 80 is now my best geared and most experienced toon now having at least cleared Naxx25 multiple times. He is ready for Ulduar and is now dual-specced Holy/Disc to be able to cover almost any role needed. I just need a chance to show people what I can do.

Chowyunfat 80: Still in need of some gear upgrades. I really never get to run him in anything because I am always stuck Tanking or Healing. I do enjoy playing my Boomkin alot and he can really lay it down even being undergeared. I really just need to get him into H ToC to cover a few weak spots in his gear and then I could start pugging Uld with him.

Septictank 80: I have actually fallen off in my pvp for a while got him to 80 and was doing really well then 3.2 hit and the Heroic grind started and now I barely get him into WG once a week. He is about half PVP epics and half crappy blues hopefully sometime I get a little more motivated and get into the mood for some pvp and finish gearing him up and get back into Arena.

Psychostick 80: He was really busy for a while and I pushed him to 80 fairly quickly but as my resident free agent he was supposed to be my gateway to testing out a raiding guild and I joined a guild for a little while but it never really got off the ground and after I left that guild he has kind of sat in his mishmash of gear and kind of became my new AH grunt. I have no idea what I want to do with him now.

Iamthetick 75: My second toon to 70 and my former pvp toon is now being leveled again. He is another one of my friends guilds that he wanted to try to get into raiding but it never really took off (hmmmm.. sounds familiar). I have seen some hunters doing insane damage and I have really started to miss my hunter so if I log on to my alliance server he's usually who am I on.

Warriorbarbi 75: My other tank has gotten some play of late and got all the nice trinkets from Coren direbrew so that's a plus. I might just lever her up so I can tank with her so I might be able to use some drops in the Heroics we run.

Happymadison 72: My mage I leveled to 71 so I could learn the teleport to Dalaran and that's where she sits. She basically levelled from 71 to 72 just on the cooking, fishing (jewel of the sewers only), and JC dail quests. It is nice to have two JC and I may level her sometime because mages do do insane damage.

Surething 45: My only toon left to level on this server and I usually put a bit of work in on my shaman because its just fun. Have a bunch of the BoA gear and it makes the leveling super fast. I basically just run until I'm out of rested and then move along.

Septicktank 61: this has been one of my 2 main Horde side projects. I have been playing on my horde server alot lately since our guild really isn't doing anything. I leveled herbalism and inscription all the way to Outland levels before heading out there and then my friend got his warrior ready to go so we are now plowing through Outland and will be pushing into northrend to experience that side of the game

Ibeatarse 28: My lowbie hunter part of the reason I started playing my alliance hunter again. It made me remember how much I liked playing a hunter. I also wanted to experience all the low level questing on the horde side before cataclysm so its really been a fun experience.

I also have a ton of low level alts on my horde server that I am just kind of working them up when my hunter is out of rested or my friend is not on to level with me in outland.

How do you heal as Holy?

So I did it, I bought my dual spec and specced holy. My spec is probably not very good. Newguy. I jumped in a group to do H Toc to test it out since its got some good aoe damage to deal with. Well we went through with no wipes but I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. What do I do, I have been disc for like a year and its so easy to just pop bubbles, PoM and penance and that's like all I do. With Holy I was just throwing everything out there CoH, Greater Heals, free flashes, PoH, PoM, and binding if I was taking damage. I was totally confused. Any tips would be appreciated