Poor thing

This poor, neglected blog. What to say. Real life takes a lot of time and almost nothing is left to keep up my WoW life. Too bad.

Right now the guild events I try to participate in every week are ICC25 on Thursdays and ICC10 on Sundays. One could call our Icecrown Citadel advances slow as in a pace a snail wouldn't have problems to keep up with but we do move forward and most often do six bosses every week on 10 man. But six bosses is about what we have time for in one run and since we haven't yet exended our 10 man raids now I begin to feel we are stuck in an endless loop beginning with Marrowgar and ending with either Festegut or Rotface.

Speaking about Festegut and Rotface, what's with mad scientists and their preferences for family members built of spare parts of some sort? We have Mirmion in Ulduar with his X2 Deconstructor and in Icecrown Professor Putricide has assembled the twins (did he build one first of random body parts and then cloned it since they look exactly the same?). I can understand both the professor's and Mirmion's difficulties in finding a partner to start a family with but to think about thier parental instincts being so strong they literally build their families themselves (mad scientists and single parents!). It's quite endearing in a way (and Festegut and Rotface even have thir own pets).

We don't talk about me being senile and don't go half naked

I definitely have to post more. This morning when I was about to log in I had completey forgot my blogger login for this blog!

But this post is not about me being senile (let's forget about that very quickly...hmmm) but about gems and enchants. I have to say I really don't understand players who don't put gems and enchants on their current gear because they think what they are wearing is just transit to something better. What kind of logic is that? If you feel your gear is not top of the line even more reason to gem or enchant to boost it a bit. I'm not a gear fascist in the way that I think everyone in a group should be geared to the teeth but I do find it a bit sloppy to go into a place like ICC with empty gem slots. Maybe you can't have the best items in game but you can certainly do the best you can with the stuff you do have. You don't even have to go for the top gems or enchants if you find it too expensive. Blue gems (as in rare not necessarily in colour) can do nicely and sometimes the extra gold required for some 10 more of a stat on a weapon that the top enchant might not be worth it but then go for second best. Don't be afraid to sparkle. Shinies are good for you!

Random update

I'm sorry for the not very frequent posting. Since we had the flu in November the whole family has taken turns coughing and having colds. I also have a new assignment at work that need my attention so less WoW at the moment. '

But: we have finally progressed beyond Lady Deathwisper in ICC (don't ask why we have had such difficulties with her because I really can't explain) which meant I have got to do the gunship battle. Oh, what fun it was! I loved jumping between the ships. And Muradin Bronzebeard sounding like a true sailor.

I also couldn't help but laugh at our bear tank. In bear form it doesn't look as if the rocket jet pack is attached to your back, it looks as if it's sticking out from your butt! I don't know if bear farts but if he did he would probably gone out in orbit around Azeroth...

Pug ToC10 pissing contest

We raid two nights a week now in guild which is quite enough really but yesterday I felt a bit bored after having done the compulsory daily random hc so I put myself in queue for ToC10. (By the way, with the pimped new lfg-system (sorry, dungeon finder system) how come the looking for raid interface got stashed away in what is the WoW equivalent to the basement with a sign on the door "Tigers, do not enter"? )

Quite soon a group formed, we entered the now very familiar room that is the boring setting for the raid and I had barely crossed the threshold when I realised this was not going to be a raid as much as it was going to be a pissing contest. Recount was spammed contantly, people bragged about their achievements, how easy the game is nowdays ("Pre nerf C'thun, that was the times") and people would probably had tossed their gear to measure the size of privat parts if it hadn't affected their dps unfavourably.

The run left me wondering: are there players who join groups with the sole purpose to get the chance to tell other people how awsome they are? And could maybe Blizzard include a box you could tick in the looking for group system so that those players can come together whithout having to endure people like me who just keep quiet and heal and don't show them the admiration and worship the deserve.

Leeroy Astrantia

Last night in ToC25 i completely lost my mind. We had just wiped on the Twin Valkyrs for the second time. I was standing to the left with people with supposing to have white buffs and I thought maybe I should change colours to black so we could better control the black orbs on that side. Raid leader said ok and I head for the black essence. But the wrong one. The one just next to Eydis Darkbane...She was not pleased I tell you. I just heard the raid leader gasp "Oh no!" before I went splat.

Since everything happened so quickly and I think everyone else was busy with sorting out their own colours I was the only one to get aggro and then the whole encounter reset and the twins disappeared.

So no wipe. But one ashamed tree.

Forgive me my stupid look, it's in the name of the stats

Has Astrantia turned engineer and this is her home made effort of a weapon, pieced together perhaps from some scattered about parts from Flame Leviathan with a light bulb attached on it for more glamour? Oh, it's the Argent Resolve (which I guess is some spare parts from Flame Leviathan with a light bulb attached on it for more glamour, digested by Anub'arak). Now I just need a Shriveled Heart to go with it and I will look very stupid (cog wheel in one hand and something looking like a maracas in the other) but hopefully my healing will be so awsome people will not notice my appearence....hmm.

Hall of Reflections x 2

Last night I got annoyed at myself for not having done Hall of Reflections so I boldly pugged it on hc to get a chance to complete the "Wrath of the Lich King" quest. When we were done (with my very limited experience of the place I think HoR might be a place were a good tank makes all the difference in the first part with the spirits attacking and the paladin tank we had in the group was very good) I looked at my quest and it was completed and without thinking I left the instance and only afterwards I realised I should have turned it in to Jaina Proudmore when we had escaped the Lich King. I went back to the instance, sneaked past a lonely respawn in the corridor up to the Lich King's throne room and run the escape path again (minus the Lich King and the ghouls) but Jaina was already gone.

I felt very stupid but nothing in the quest said it had to be completed on heroic so I put myself in queue for the instance on normal and did the whole thing all over again but in easier mood. In the new group was a hunter who turned out to be a selfish idiot. Apparently he wanted a pair of boots from the first boss and when they dropped he promptly needed them and left. Which left the rest of us having to fight the rest of the spirits with only four people since the warlock that replaced him couldn't get inside the instance because we were in combat. Thanks a lot. Then I escaped the Lich King for the second time the same night but this time the group tagged along after him which made the whole escape thing feel more than a bit weird especially at the end when Jaina shouts about us having to prepare for our last fight and the boulders start to fall down to block the entrance and we had to run not to be trapped on the side with the Lich King. (If the entrance gets blocked and you still were on the inside would you be able to run though the boulders or would the Lich King turn and say "Oh there you are..."?)

I also realised how I could have missed to complete the quest the first time. The question mark above Jaina's head is obscured by her lengthy talking but this time I was staring at her until she was finished (as opposed to the first time when I ran up the stairs and portaled to quickly) and then was given my two emblems of Frost.

We are of course lucky that he doesn't seem to be in better shape but the Lich King is one slow pursuer that is for sure. Jaina is like "Hurry, hurry he is coming!" and you are tempted to reply "But I can hardly see him moving".

Whining makes the trick?

Yesterday I was complaining on how I'm out of favor vith the RNG deity and I think my whining was heard and to prove me wrong I did win not one but two items in yesterday night's ToTC25 raid: Ring of the Darkmender and Vestments of the Shattered Fellowship. Now I definately have to sacrifice a dice and a random number to show how grateful I am.

By the way, I don't know what it is with us and Anub'arak. We just can't get it right. In theory we know what to do and sometimes it goes really well for a while and every now and then we actually begin to think we might kill the bug this week but then something goes wrong and we all die.

Am I the only one in the WoW universe who has still not done Hall of Reflections? I have only been there once and then only got so far as to kill the first boss. I can't say I'm fond of instances that even slightly remind me of Black Morass (waves of mobs and if you fail you have to start all over again) so HoR will probably never be my favourite instance even though I imagine the running from the Lich King part should be interesting (maybe that is not the right word but fun seems even more wrong).

One more thing in this post that turn out to be rather random: why are there no Boots of Wintry Endurance for sale in the auction house anymore?

Bad luck

I don't know how but I must have offended the RNG god/godess/gods big time because it seems absolutely impossible for me to get drops from raids or instances anymore. I don't think I have won anything in a raid for....well it must be over two months now. Oh wait, I'm lying, I actually did win what I thought was new bracers in ToC10 one time but afterwards it turned out I must have been blind (or overexcited that some spell power leather dropped at all) and they were no bracers at all but a pair of shoulders that I had no use for.

I start to think I should just accept the fact that I will never roll any number higher than 20 anymore or maybe I should build a small altar in front of the pc dedicated to the RNG diety and burn some incence and sacrifice a dice every time rolls are on in raid. That might work. Or my laptop will be set on fire.

Nothing new in daily random hc

Emblem of this and emblem of that. Call me easily bored but I'm getting a bit tired of running heroics for new kind of badges. Of course you can go down the raid boss the quest person formerly known as the daily heroics guy wants dead weekly but as the quest implies it's only once a week. Then you can raid Icecrown Citadel but for us who still stuggle to get that big bug down in 25 man Trial of the Crusader I think Icecrown Citadel is more to think of in terms of wieving new scenery in between wipes rather than a chance to get emblems of frost. So that leaves the daily random heroic. Which you can almost do in your sleep but still: it's not that much fun. And isn't fun what the game is about? Something must be a little wrong when you log in and think of the daily random hc as you think of those boring work tasks you know you would feel better if you took care of right away but you still find excuses not to do for as long as possible. On the flip side this will probably make me a better cook and maybe even get me some quest achievements.

Favourite piece of loot

I asked Tamarind over at Righteous Orbs if I could be part of his blog content gift exchange and the topic I got was ...
...I hereby address myself to your inner material girl, remembering how happy you were to nab Malfurion’s Leggings of Triumph – I’m sure it goes without saying that we’re putting aside anything silly like, y’know, *the numbers* but what’s been your favourite piece of in-game loot thus far, either because of the looks, the lore, the name, the story behind acquiring it, whatever.
It had taken me this long to get something down on this topic because at first I feared I have gear altzheimers because I coudn't for the life of me come up with an item that I remember has turned me into Gollum of Lord of the Rings and go "...my precioussssssss....". After even more thinking I realized this was a difficult topic for me because I tend to took more at stats than to looks, lore or name of my gear. Well, if I have to walk around with someone's cut out tounge in my off hand then of course I notice but then I tell myself that's how it is in this game and try not to think about it too much. If I have to say anything I do pay attention to more than stats it's the look of the gear. Now, since I'm a druid, my gear tend to go in the colours of green and brown and mostly seem to be designed to help me shadowmeld, but one item that I felt genuinely sad to part with was my level 70 Merciless Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders (this was back in the days when I did a lot more pvp than I do nowdays). They were made of bark and had small violet flowers that sprouted, bloomed and wilted every other second on them. You really didn't notice the flowers in game if you didn't look very close, in fact they were best watched on the log in screen. I liked the notion that someone at Blizzard had programmed those little flowers, even though they maybe wouldn't be noticed, just because they were such a nice touch.
Or wait...maybe the shoulders does not count as loot since they were pvp rewards and not a boss drop? Damn...oh well, I have to think about it some more then. But I can say I'm happy I don't play a char that can benefit from the Unidentifiable Organ that drops in Icecrown Citadel. I know that if I would always wonder just what organ I was carrying around in my off hand.

Winter whining

Am I the only one who feel that for every new content patch the demands on having achievements and a high gear score increases? How long has patch 3.3 been out now, 2 weeks and I already feel stressed because I have only had time to run Forge of Souls and and Pit of Saron once and haven't completed Halls of Reflections. But it's December and Christmas is around the corner and there is work to be done, Christmas gifts to be bought, dinners to attend to and what not. No time for emblem farming or running new instances. In a way it's silly to feel any pressure since it's only a game after all but still there is one tiny part of me that feel that I'm not keeping up.

Another thing I haven't paid any attention to so far is the Feat of Winter Veil. To my surprise I won a red winter's hat the other day when I did the daily random heroic and to my even greater surprise two players in the group quit right after that since it turned out they were only interested in getting it and not in finishing the instance.

Patch 3.3 first impressions

I was occupied with the non WoW aspects of my life in the beginning of the week so it was only yesterday I logged in to see what patch 3.3 has to offer and really, you miss the first day after patch and some people go "Oh, haven't you been to the new 5 man instances yet?". Well, no sorry I'm late...ehh.

I started the night by trying the new lfg system's random daily heroic and it didn't take a minute to get in a group and be teleported to the Nexus. It's probably to early to have an opinion but I do think I like the new cross realm lfg and the way Blizzard try to make it easier to pug groups. The Nexus run went fine and the only thing to mention is that on Omorok the Tree shaper one of the dps was offline before starting the boss and the other two died of ice spikes when the boss was around 70%, which left the dk tank and me to finish him off. It took quite a while and I coudn't even chip in a tiny bit of dps since my dps in tree form is zero. I felt like a healing cheerleader waveing my arms (branches) in the air supportivly every now and then as the tank slowly nudged Omorok to death.

One other thing I like with the new daily dungeon system is that you don't need to pick up items or body parts to present as proof of what you have done. Maybe you have better memory than I have but several times I have forgot to pick up whatever I needed to bring back to the quest guy in Dalaran.

As for the "Oh, haven't you done the new 5 man instances yet" I did my best to do them too yesterday but I only had time to do the two first ones, Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron, before bedtime. My first impression I must say, is gloomy. And of course it is, the Lich King is the Sauron of Northrend and evil does not like colour for some reason. So it's all different shades of black and the only presence of light is the glowing skulls floating around in the Forge of Souls. As for the bosses I think my favourite one this far is the four faced devourer of Souls.

Money definately can improve your reputation

Last week I got tired of being revered with the sons of Hodir. The thought of grinding the dailies the final way to exalted made me want to cry or fall asleep over my keyborad. I resolutely made my way to the auction house and bought enough relics of Ulduar to bribe my way to exalted. It feels a tiny bit like cheating but what the hell. No more polishing and thrusting of spears or handling of other Hodir artefacts. It's definately worth it.

Trial of the Crusader 10

Last week and this week we have cleared 10 man Trial of the Crusader. The guest appearence of the Lich King when he shatter the floor and you drop down to Anub'arak is a nice touch I think, even though when it happened the first time I was out in the kitchen getting a cup of tea and came back just in time to watch our GM drown since he was afk. I must admit I was a bit confused about what had happened. At first I thought I thought the whole Argent Tournament had been flooded.

When it comes to the fights, the one we have had most difficulties with is the faction champions. I think it's the pvp element in that fight that takes some time getting used to if you are a pve player. As with pvp the champions gang up on players and they behave somewhat unpredictably and last week it took us a great many tries to get into the right "don't think so much, just concentrate on the right target and burn it down really fast while at the same time making it as difficult as you can for the others to hit or heal"-mood.

I think this fight is easier for healers than for the dps and tanks. As healer you just heal whatever you can, dispel whatever you can dispel and try to run away when the champions chase you and I generally have the feeling that even if healing of course is part of the success, this is not a blame the healer fight if you don't make it.

As for the twin valkyrs, the strategy that is most succesful for us is that everyone except one tank, that tanks healer and one more player (preferably a healer) pick the same colour and dps concentrate only on one twin. The only time the raid switch colour is when the twins do vortex of the opposite colour. After the vortex everyone switch back to the original colour they had and continue to dps the one twin. This way the twins will heal 20% when they do twins pact but if dps is high enough this won't be a problem and you don't loose time and dps with people running to change colour and changing twin to dps. The three players that had a different colour than the rest of the raid from the beginning stick to their colour too just like the others and for the two that are not tank their task is also to pick up the orbs in their colour so they don't hit other players. Best is to have one player on each side of the room for orb catching.

On general Jaraxxus I know many groups say you should spread out in a circle around the boss. For us it has been way more easy to stand in a semi circle on one side of the boss. This way everyone will be in range for healers and I think it's also easier for the OT to pick up the adds that way. My only wish in the Jaraxxus fight is that people wouldn't run away when they get the incinerate flesh debuff. Maybe it's the skull on the head that dbm puts up that scare people but please stand still so I can heal you instead of having to chase you across the room.

Rare orcs and cooking softie

An orc rogue. That must be one of the most rare creatures in game. And I understand. There is something that does not feel entirely right with the combination stealth and orc. I didn't manage to find one for the Pilgrim's Bounty achievement so in the end I had my husband create one who I met up with in the Barrens one day too late (today) and turned into a turkey. So now I'm a pilgrim.

I must say I love Pilgrim's Bounty for the opportunity to speed level cooking. Cooking, like fishing, I think is easier if you do along the way to level cap because when you need to go grind low level items to use for cooking you make up all sorts of excuses to put it off until some other time. But now I'm 357 in cooking and yesterday I even did a daily cooking quest. That daily had me going to Borean Tundra to get some rhino meat. Now I know it's stupid but I just couldn't kill the rhino matriarchs and their calfs. It just felt very wrong and the D.E.T.H.A presence in Borean Tundra that make you all red and bloody when killing animals didn't really help. In the end I settled for killing the male rhinos which is probably very politically incorrect, impying that rhino dads are not as important as rhino mums.

Back (sort of)

I have been ill for almost a week now in what is most likely the swine flu. It was not a pleasant experience. I feel very much better now though even though I still have a cough that makes me think my lungs have grown a wish to see the outside world and is trying to jump out of my body.

I'm looking forward to do the quests etc associated with the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday. I especially feel happy about the opportunity to finally level my cooking since my cooking skill (ingame I hasten to add) is, well I wouldn't say non existent but you woudn't like me to cook your dinner either.

Motivation...hmmm....seem to have misplaced it

You would think autumn would make me more inclined to play WoW. I mean, when the rain pours outside and it's barely any light even at midday, getting lost in one's favourite game should be more than appealing? But no. I find myself raiding a little, questing a little (to raise my reputation with the capital cities) and as usual avoiding the Argent Tournament and Hodir dailies by inventing ever new excuses not to do them but my heart is not really in it. I'm sort of auto piloting through the game right now. I'm not bored enough to give up playing compleatly but I'm not motivated enough to play as much as I use to. Is it pre Cataclysm fatigue setting in already? I hope not.

The other day I decided to get my reputation to exalted with Stormwind so I headed to Elwynn Forest and Westfall and quested away. I have to say that Westfall is so much more bearable at level 80 than it is when low level. Even the kill-15-of-this-and-20-of-that-and-then-25-of-something-else quests are ok when you can blast the mobs with moonkin hurricane. Mwoaaahhaaa to all of the Defias Brotherhood who have killed my lowly rogue alt millions of times...

Want!

Yes, it's materialistic and yes, it you can argue if it's right to buy something to have ingame with real money but I do want a Lil' K.T!

What is there not to want with a mini Kel'Thuzad? The pandaren monk is very nice too but Lil' K.T. looks so...mean, with his glowing eyes and swirling chains he's just irresistable!

A more positive post

Ok, I admit it: I have been grumpy in my blog the last few posts, complaining on Trial of the Crusader and fellow raiders. But no more!

The Twin Valkyrs are my new favourites. We only had time to try the fight once but it was a very good try. And such fun, running around switching colours and catching orbs (and healing of course). The twins fight is really one of those fights that sound more complicated when you try to explain what to do than it is when you actually doing it. It is also a fight where Deadly Boss Mods really is your best friend since it tells you when you need to switch colour.

Since we got to see the twins we obviously made it past the faction champions too this time and that felt great too. I was so busy running around, trying to stay away as much as possible but at the same time be in range to heal so I didn't have time to see how the fight was going so when it was over I didn't notice att first. My first thought was "But how can it be? We are all still alive?"