Like Mother...Like Son?

So, I'm so extremely excited about the Christmas present that Santa is bringing to my oldest son this year. Any guesses?

He's getting a laptop! Why does this excite me so much? Because I can play WoW with him!!

I have no idea why I am so giggy excited about the idea of rolling another lowbie toon to play with him but I am.

I know this will probably be a toon I never get leveled past 20ish and seriously will never see level 80, since he will roll his toon on Eto's RaF account which doesn't even have BC, but I'm still excited. The idea of being able to spend time with him (he's 9) in the game, showing him around and seeing the world through his eyes, is awesome!

Update:
The guild is doing awesome. We got the 80 Party Heal Druid and the wonder boy OT warrior into the guild last night. Sav and Cro are into their mid 40s on their RaF toons. That puts us even closer to being able to raid consistently.

We lead our first random raid last night. It was the first time I've been a raid leader since BC. Kind of excited and scary at the same time. We only did FL and XT, since XT was the weekly raid. However, just doing those was awesome! Oh, and guess what...we did FL on HARDMODE! Yay, go us.

Afterwards Eto, Merk (the warlock), Raggy and Kiwi (druid and warrior) hit up the new 5 man instances.

Let me just they...the first time through, Blizzard really made it feel like an epic encounter. Forge of Souls and the second dungeon are pretty simple. The Gauntlet run through the tunnel in dungeon 2 can be a little tricky but otherwise pretty easy. And Merk was right Lady Sylvanis did show up to save him and us while she was at it.

HoR on the other hand was a totally different story. I HATE that place. In the first round you're in a room doing a battle similar to VH. You get 5 rounds of mobs, containing mages, priests and hunters. Sheesh, does Blizzard just hate us tanks? Then on round 5 and 10 you get a boss. The bosses are pretty easy but it's the casters that really hurt you.

Then it's off to fight a few more trash mobs on your way to save Lady Sylvanis. After you finally find her, it's another gauntlet run but this time...(shield eyes if you don't want spoilers) you're running from the Lich King. It makes for a totally epic feel to the fight. You have to periodically stop and fight while Lady Sylvanis breaks downs some wall. The whole time Arthas is coming towards you, spawning Abombs and Witch Doctors.

I highly recommend that everyone follow the dialogue on these instances your first couple times through. It's totally worth it, even if you're not so into the lore.

Icecrown 5 Mans

Done some research and I think I'm about as ready as I can be to go into the new 5 man instances. Granted, no where near ready for the raid but the strategy on the 5 mans content won't be totally overwhelming for me.

Thought I'd share this research with you guys. Now I don't claim to have done these instances myself, so this is jut what I've read.

Forge Soul: There are only 2 bosses in the first encounter of the 5 man citadel instances.
Bronjahm the Godfather of Soul
This is the first boss encounter in the new 5 man content. From everything I've read he kind of works like the guardians in Ulduar with the spark that goes between thm.

Bronjahm needs to be kited around the round slightly. he will randomly rip a spirit soul from a player and draw this to him. The Tank will need to kite the boss away from the soul while the DPS focus on taking it down. If it does reach him, it will heal him for a substantial amount of health. When he reaches about 25% health he will start doing AoE damage to the entire party so this is the time to pop your cooldowns. bloodlust, etc.

Devourer of Souls
Seems the second boss encounter in the instance is going to be a little more tricky then the first.

First off, he does a "Mirrored Soul" attack. This will share any incoming damage dealt to the boss with a random party member. Luckily, it seems he will jump targets from the tank to the member who will be his victim a few moments before he casts the spell. This should give healers a heads up and allow them to focus their heals on the target.

Secondly, he will call forth dozens of intangible spirits that will attack the entire party. Sadly, there is nothing that can really be done about these because they are not targetable. So, keep your party up as best you can and carry on.

The biggest annoyance for this boss, or so it seems to me, is that he, like C'thun's Eye and Mimiron's Lasor Barrage, shoots a pew pew beam that travels counter clockwise around the room. This needs to be avoided at all costs.

Pit of Saron: There is 3 fights in the second encounter.
Forgemaster Garfrost
The first thing for tanks to be aware of is that the boss has several adds near him that when pulled, will trigger the fight.

Now this fight seems to be very similar to Volkhan in Halls of Lightning. Surprise, surprise Blizzard likes reusing their stuff, who would have thought!

He has three major things to take into consideration. He does a knock back ability, a stun and AoE debuffs that stack and increase vulnerability to frost.

The dps and healer can clear the debuff stacks by standing behind the large saronite boulders he throws at them. However, the tank can only clear his/her debuffs when Garfrost punts them backwards so that he can run to the forge to get another weapon. At this time, the tank needs to run behind the boulder in order to reduce the number of stacks he/she is holding.

Krick the Ick
Yay for the Ick.

This guy is very straightforward. Don't stand in the nasty pools of ick on the floor and run away from his bombs. How simple can you get? Just be sure to pay attention as the bombs do AoE damage when they explode, otherwise tank and spank!

The Guntlet/Scourgelord Tyrannus
So I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about why you do what you do here because it could be considered spoilers. But here is the general run down.

The tank is going to really have to prove himself/herself here. Every will be running to avoid falling objects, the tank will have to pick up the mobs while running and pull them along in order for the party to escape safely.

It is important here for the DPS to remember the tank does not have time to build sufficient aggro so DON'T DPS, just run. The same applies to the healer, heal as little as possible to avoid pulling aggro on yourself. If the tank is geared well enough, avoid Renew, Earth Shield, etc. This will reduce the amount of heal aggro generated.

Once out and adds are killed, Tyrannus becomes the focus of your dps. It's another DPS race, pop your heroism if you have it and kill him as quickly as possible otherwise your group becomes overrun with undead zombies and will be a wipe.

Well, that's the insight I have into the first two encounters in the new Icecrown Citidale 5 man. There is one wing left, Halls of Reflection, that I will update on later.

Until then, have fun!

Patch 3.3 - Changes

Looks like Blizzard confirmed 3.3 will release today.

So I decided it was time to take a in depth look at the patch notes to see how they will effect me.

Just from a brief overview here is my thoughts:

•Army of the Dead: The cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Army Ghoul damage dropped by 50%. Cannot be used in Arenas.

Omg, I hate this and love it at the same time. I love that they are dropping the cool down from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. This is totally awesome. It's much easier to hold off 10 minutes after wiping on Black Knight because you burned you army on phase 2 not knowing you were lacking the DPS to get down his 3rd phase. Yeah, yeah...you can lecture me on better ways to do this later.

But I hate that they are reducing the army's damage by 50%! That's huge! Really couldn't they reduce it by 20% or even 30%. I don't do a lot of damage as it, I'm a TANK! but there has been a time or two that army has saved us from a wipe with a low DPS Pug group.

•Rune Strike: Threat generated by this ability increased by approximately 17%.

•Glyph of Icy Touch: Instead of granting additional runic power, this glyph now causes Frost Fever to deal 20% additional damage.

Now these I can't complain about at all. All I can say is "Thank you Blizzard!" /salute A change that actually helps us and doesn't hurt us.

•Groups using this tool will be able to teleport directly to the selected instance. Upon leaving the instance, players will be returned to their original location. If any party member needs to temporarily leave the instance for reagents or repairs, they will have the option to teleport back to the instance.

Another awesome change. You can teleport back to town for repairs or whatever and the teleport back to the instance without begging a lock to waste a soulshard to summon you!

Now I'm sure this will have it's downfalls as well. There are always people that abuse the ability and make it horrible for other people. But hopefully everyone is adult enough to use this wisely.

•Bind-on-Account Items: Players can now mail Bind-on-Account items to characters on the same account and realm regardless of faction. Please note this only applies to Bind-on-Account items. Other items or gold cannot be sent via mail to characters on the same realm and account if they are from differing factions.

This, is my all time greatest gift ever from Blizzard. Lots and lots and lots of love being sent to all the Blizzard folks this Holiday season. You guys are awesome! Finally I can send that BoA gear over to my new main Horde toons.

This is something I think EVERYONE will be happy about!

Other interesting points to be excited about:
•Occulus got some changes, so people may actually do the instance
•Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of Naxx in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Teleportation orbs have been added to allow players access back and forth from Sapphiron's lair.
•Quest tracking may eliminate the need for Carbonite? Sweet!
•Weekly raid quests implemented. May actually see people putting together Naxx pugs again!
•Remember the ring upgrade system from Kara, well it's back for ICC now!
•New LFG system is going live. PUG pet! Yay!
•Meeting stones only require that a player be at least level 15, which means you can someone anyone over level 15 anywhere. Yay, for summoning your level 80 friend to run you through Deadmines...*sigh*

So ends part 1 of my patch blog. I am currently working on details and notes on the 5 player instances. Mainly for myself. but I hope to have that posted today as well. So, just an insight on strategy there. Stay tuned!

Excited

Let me say...tonight has been a good night.

Had more fun chatting in guild with our new members then I've had in a long time.

I am so very glad to have you all!!

/wave to all my new friends.

Secondly, I got a pretty mount!

*sigh* Happy Kaly!

Shameless plug!
If anyone is interested in rolling horde side, transferring or just looking for a happy home for your alts, Faded Delusions will always welcome you with open arms. We are a fun loving guild, dedicated to keeping the game fun and the drama out. As of tonight we are a very couple friendly guild but accept members of all levels/races and experience. Looking to fill spots in our raid team as well. No prior experience needed, because everyone has to start somewhere! Why not start with us? We have experienced raiders/players willing to help you learn! Come give us a try. =)

The Birth of a New Hero

Yay, what a fun, fun weekend!

Eto and I got sucked into the Refer a Friend train.

Yeah, yeah, I have no idea why. Apparently, we were bored and it sounded like fun. We have two new guild members (/wave to Crobin and Saville) that joined us from the WoW_Ladies group over on Live Journal. They responded to my plea for casual raid members and decided to roll toons on our server with their RaF account.

Now, after only a few hours of play (spread across 3 days) they went from level 1 to 24. Total play time is maybe...5 hours? Yes, RaF is crazy!

A few posts back I had mentioned wanting to try out tanking on a Paladin, since secretly, I've always wanted to play one but never leveled one up. So, when Eto and I started talking about this we immediately decided to try out the RaF to see just how fast we do level.

Thus was born, Arialana, a tiny female bloodelf and Aurael, a quirky little undead priest.

Eto and I rolled a mage/shadow priest combo on an European server a few months back and abandoned as the draw to come home, to Shadow Council, proved to be too strong. We had debated transferring those toons over with us but since I plan to roll a mage goblin when Cataclysm hits, he decided to humor me and roll the shadow priest on our RaF account.

Our progress so far? We hit level 16 last night after about 3 (none consistent) hours of play. None consistent in the fact that we spent a lot of time messing with our UIs, logging in and out trying to get Eto's account to report as a normal and not a trial account, toon hopping to get gold and bags, hearthing back for skills and just randomly AFKing for food, drinks, talking etc.

I have found at least 3 issues so far with doing RaF account leveling.
1. You out level your zone before the quests are nearly done. - Example, we were out of the Undead starting area after doing only 4 quests. The quests in our log are yellow when we pick them up and then green or grey by the time we turn them in. We've had to abandon our entire unfinished quest log on several occasions and move onto the next zone just because all the mobs we are killing have gone grey. Yes, you really do level that fast in the beginning. I suppose this will probably start to level itself out as we start getting into the higher levels.

2. You out level your gear faster then you can change it. We're both, for the most part, in the white/grey gear we got from the early starting quests/drops. With the exception of a couple of lowbie greens I had in the bank our gear is horrible. It doesn't exactly make since, at this stage at least, to spend money on getting gear from the AH, since in an hour or less we'd be back buying more.

3. You can't level professions. Not enough time. Looks like we'll have to go back and power level them once our RaF boost is over. And you can't afford to pay for your skills without the help from your other toons. You just don't loot or make enough gold to keep up with them. Thankfully, I can send gold from my other toons for us.

Now the biggest problem we are having is that we can't seem to get Eto's 2nd account to drop the temporary account restrictions. So, as of now we can't add him to the guild, I can't trade with him and he has limited chat functions.

I totally understand why Blizzard does this. It prevents account hackers and gold spammers/sellers from using the free trial accounts to aid in their misadventures. But we've paid the 19.95, which I assume is for us to get the actual game and we've set it up on a monthly subscription, what's the hold up? *sigh* Hopefully, this will be fixed by the time we get back online tonight.

**EDIT** Per Blizzard's forums, it appears that upgrading from a trial account to a standard acccount can (and usually does) take up to 72 hours for the billing department to verify payment and lift restrictions on your trial account. IF you buy the game in a retail store and have the new, unused, key code for the game it is almost an instant lift of restrictions. But since we did everything through Blizzard we are going to have to wait it out to get all but the leveling restrictions lifted. He can, at least, continue to level without the level 10 cap. Just an FYI for anyone thinking of doing RaF.

On to other news:
Spent Saturday morning leveling my city rep with Org and the Trolls. DKs really have a disadvantage when it comes to rep grinding. Having done almost no quests on either of the "Old World" continents, left me with very little in the way of starting rep for any of my factions. But I did manage to get exalted with the Trolls (yay for FINALLY getting a raptor mount on one of my toons!) and nearly exalted with Org.

However, the biggest squee for me came by way of Koltira's Pauldrons of Conquest. I finally ran enough daily heroics to save enough emblems for my T9 shoulders!

So, to feed my gear score junky side for a moment. I am super excited that my Be Imba score has gone up to 534 and my WoW Heros score is 2353. Now to just replace those pesky legs, belt, gloves, ring, trinket and cloak. /facepalm

It's a never ending battle!

-Shameless plug-
If anyone is interested in playing Horde side, rolling new toons, RaF, transferring, etc, Faded Delusions has open doors and we'd love to have you aboard. We're still in need of a few more core raid members for a very casual, very laid back raid group. But if you're just interested in a mature, fun, couple friendly, laid back, place to play and have fun look us up as well. We're dedicated to keeping the game fun and the drama out. Play your toon, your way, we'll make room!

Possible DK Tanking Changes with the Patch

So I found this in a "blue" post on MMO-Champion:

Effective Health and Tanking
Too many of you are using EH (which is a very powerful concept for purposes of trying to decide how to gear your tank) as the number that indicates tank awesomeness. The higher the EH, the better tank I must be. It's just not that simple.

I have yet to see any data that suggests warriors wipe relatively more than other tanks. What so many of these posts say are:

1) I wipe a lot. It must be my class.
2) Because my EH is lower, I am guessing that I wipe more often.
3) I'm not sure if I wipe more often or not, but please just give me a buff so I feel better.

The only argument I have seen so far that seems at all reasonable is that stamina scaling or other factors might eventually lead to warriors (and DKs) having a problem, and that "eventually" could happen in Icecrown. Unfortunately that's impossible to prove or disprove at this stage since it's all speculation. It's definitely something to keep an eye on though.

So the part that is of concern is highlighted in the last paragraph.

"The only argument I have seen so far that seems at all reasonable is that stamina scaling or other factors might eventually lead to warriors (and DKs) having a problem, and that "eventually" could happen in Icecrown."

It appears from reading through the post, a lot of warriors are complaining that their tanking ability isn't as high as Druids, Paladins and possibly DKs.

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with that statement. I believe all tanks have perks based on their class. Druids have ungodly amounts of health and armor. Paladins have great AoE ability and not to mention Lay on Hands. Deathknights have Death and Decay combined with Pestilence and Rune Strike. Warriors have shield bash in the mix of other class specific abilities.

So I'm not sure I agree with the logic behind the complaints but what does worry me is that they are talking about stamina scaling us?!? Seriously, we don't have any more stamina boost than a Paladin has. We sure don't have the amount of boosts that a druid gets.

Yes, Frost Presence does give me an added 6% boost to my stamina. 6%! That really isn't that much! I've picked enchants and gems to help it boost where I can. I currently have all epic stamina gems in my sockets...that gives me +32 stamina each. I am using 2 dragon's eye gems for stamina that gives me +52 stamina each and I have a couple stamina boost enchants.

Rightfully, I've worked hard to get my health pool up to 32,000+ self buffed. Compared to many of the other tanks I pass in Dalaran and near summoning stones for raids...I'm not nearly as high as most of them.

So with that being said, if you "scale" my stamina boosts too much, that nice little health pool that I've been trying to build up could drop back below 30,000.

I'm not sure what boosts warriors get but I'm sure they wouldn't be too happy to see their health pool dropped either.

On the reverse of this. Deathknights do have a large mitigation percentage. The idea for me is to NOT get hit but when I do, to have the health to buy time for a healer to recover me.

With a druid, their avoidance is much lower, but they can take more hits and still recover.

Paladins and warriors have the ability to block. This is a stat that I can't get. I don't have the ability to carry a shield. Not to mention Paladins want to get hit in order to help them gain threat.

All things being said and considered, this could be a big downfall for DKs more so then warriors I think. It's not unusual now to see "LF Tank for xxxx (no DKs)" in the looking for group channel. Lowering our stamina could make this even more common. We're already classified by many of our fellow gamers as "dumbknights", why give them another reason to doubt our abilities?

Maybe it's time for me to rethink the idea of rolling a Paladin.

I may be totally off here and they are talking about the nerfs that have already taken effect, and I hope that's the case. Maybe they aren't leaning towards nerfing our stamina pools again. If that's the case, then I'm ok with where my stamina pool is now, just don't lower it again!

...

Looks like I can't think of a single thing to post on today...

We missed Ulduar this week. Were down a healer for the Tuesday night raid and Eto has the flu so we didn't go for Weds night either.

Haven't been able to do the daily heroics so the three days I needed for my T9 shoulders is still 3.

Logged on long enough to help a friend do the Amphitheater last night and then it was back off again.

May go beat on some ZG trash on my own tonight, who knows.

Been a lonely week.

Maybe I'll have more to discuss later.

Happy Thrusday all...

Hello...whoooooo are you?

I read an interesting blog the other day. Karatheya over at Cold Comfort wrote a thought provoking article on how much we invest in the growth of other players. That starting me wondering.

The key point that I got from the article was simple. Investing in random pug players today may save us some time tomorrow.

There are several ways you can look at this.

1. His/Her point - They could be the recruits applying to your guilds in the future thus they need less work when they join then they would have if we didn't invest time to help them out a few weeks/months prior when we pugged with them.

2. They could be tank/healer/dps we find ourselves pugging with on a semi-regular basis.

3. There are only so many people you can place on your ignore list. And if we ignore every player that didn't live up to expectations....it would be a lonely, lonely place.

Pugging is a daily routine for Eto and I. We both like to do instances and like to raid. But as history, and previous blogs have shown, growing a guild isn't going so well. This leaves us needing to pug at least 3 dps every night when we do the daily heroic. Not to mention we pug for every Ulduar raid on a weekly basis.

Our Alliance toons have the benefit of not needing to pug. They are members, in good standings, of a well established, decent progression guild. This allows them to see the end content, heroics and events without ever having to pug for them.

Eto and I also tend to be the type of people that enjoy helping other players. We don't mind spending time talking gear, rotation, stats or strategy with another person that's trying to learn. But just as often as we find a player that wants help, we find just as many that don't.

So many puggers we run into really don't care that they are rolling on gear with the wrong stats for their character, or putting the wrong enchants/gems into that gear. Then they whine and complain because the other hunter/mage/warrior in the group has DPS that is twice as high as theirs and they just don't understand why. Thus, I'm sure, the reason they are pugging and not off raiding with their guild.

But for those few that do care, that really want to know why and what they can do to improve, taking the time to invest in them could save us all some time in the future.

Save you some time when they do eventually gear up and apply to your raiding guild and save me some time when they show up in my raid/heroic pug.

This has been the case with my 2 recent projects. The demonology warlock and the prot warrior. When I first met them both they were in the wrong type of gear, having issues with their gear and heading in the wrong direction. Both were new to instances, afraid of pugging because they were being ridiculed. But really, they just needed a little guidance.

I'm proud to say the little warlock previously under my wings is now pushing over 3,000 dps, as demo...that's saying ALOT. The warrior...well, he's now up to par to OT Ulduar and continuing to grow.

Either of the players are an asset to any group they join now. They are no longer a hindrance but an asset. So if you get them in your group, remember they once were the players you would have put on ignore and now they are the ones you want to have around when you need a good player to fill your pug spot.

Take a little time and help out those who need it. You will find, in the end, it benefits us all.

Murloc!!!!!

This made me giggle! Enjoy!

Times they are a'changin

Or so it seems.

After a conversation last night with a blogger friend that randomly decided to roll on our server and spend a little time in our lonely guild, I realized things really -have- changed in my beloved game.

From days gone by, when I was priesting my way through the Burning Crusade, healing my beloved boyfriend tank and all the guildies that I held so dear. Watching the fall of Kara and Zul'Aman. Flying over the vast plains of the Outlands. Proud created of remotely well known guild. Enjoying my place, my friends, my time...

To the adventures of a lovely little demonology lock determined to hold her own against all odds and prove she could raid with her Felguard. Everyone tried so hard to convince me that demonology locks are not meant for raiding. After some time I did come to realize they sadly, were right and thus my adventures into lockdom ended abruptly.

Now the present, a tiny little DK tank from the other side of the tracks. A little bloodelf that once I would have shunned because she came from the "dark" side. A skinny little, bouncy chick with an attitude. Constantly fighting to hold her place in the big bad world that is known mainly to the men in the game. Tanking isn't a girls job...or so she is told...

From a priest to a lock to a death knight...

From a healer to the tank...

From Alliance to the Horde...

From progression raiding to duoing the places we once loved...

From a guild full of friends, fun and excitement to a silent, lonely place.

Things they are a'changing.

What does this mean? I'm not really sure.

I miss my small, close knit guild. I miss the Alliance side. I miss healing. I miss planing the raids and celebrating the small advances. I miss the excitement of vent when we would succeed. I miss doing it all with friends. I miss the things you just can't get from a pug.

I love tanking. I love my deathknight. I enjoy the new people I meet. I like being able to duo the old content I loved so much. I like being able to slow down and enjoy things with Eto that we couldn't before when the guild took up 95% of our time.

Yes I know I can continue to progress with the pugs...but will that ever be enough? Probably not. I miss the people and try as we may, rebuilding that is not going so well. It's just not the time or we're not in the right place to build it up.