ArmsandFury + Prot

This really needs updating

2009-06-23T13:11:00.001-05:00

Considering I am playing many games other than just WOW... I have decided to modify my blogging to the below. I hope you enjoy.

http://dwarvennation.blogspot.com/

Can I get back in line? I just left for a drink.

2009-04-30T14:44:00.000-05:00

I quit playing (again) in January of this year. I get the urge to play sometimes because it is a fun game and I like the fantasy setting. I, in no way, consider myself addicted to it… anymore that is. When I feel the need to look around some, I pimp Ray’s account. My friend Ray is the only one still playing WoW out of our guild. I occasionally log on to pitter around just a touch and look at things I have heard about.

Yesterday, I log on to his account to pitter after making sure he is not online. I look to see if any of the old guild people have been on. Sorry I missed you online Ozzy!. While I look, I notice that Sony’s toons have all been online in the last 4 days.

WTF?!

Did my wife lowball me and start playing? See, Sony likes playing WoW. I’ll go as far as to say the girl LOVES MMOs and keeps a tight reign on her gaming. She even played Warhammer online and lost a bit of time. Ah well, that’s her story to tell. Back to mine…

Her toons are online?! I check to see when her main was online. The toon isn’t even in the guild. Uh oh. HACKED!! I armory her toon and it has been transferred to a different server. Uh oh, her alts have access to the guild bank and my toon, which is guild lead, does not have an active account. Quickly throwing some money at my account, I log on and kick the rest of her toons and check the guild bank (4tabs worth) and notice nothing is gone. /whew

I make a toon on the server that Sony has been transferred to. Her main is actually online! I repress the urge to tip my hand by cussing this guy out and instead call Blizzard. First, I talk to Eric. Eric doesn’t wish to talk to me because I am not Sony. I get Sony. Sony talks to Eric and starts verifying things. After giving him 2 ½ of our original authentication keys and the random mother’s name of “I am Stupid” (Really, don’t ask.) We find out that the account got reactivated 3 days ago. He resets our password but does so before resetting our email account. Moron. He sent the temp password to the hacker! /facepalm

Call Blizz back and talk to a lady who told us what happened and then set us up properly. I log on and change the password to something using every key on the keyboard. Log on to her main and all her gear is intact. This is when I notice her low level lock has been transferred as well! WTF again? Can you guess WoW players? He paid for a bank alt to be transferred. I look on the alt and he has over 5000g and a bit more on the AH. He has been doing nothing but grinding in Sholazaar. We have been hacked by Ni Hao himself.

We now have all of Ni Hao’s AH stuff and gold. Sony left her toon with about 500g on her. No we have probably around 6k total. We read the policy about unauthorized transfers. If they transfer the toon back, it will NOT come back with the gold or the mats. We will pay the 25 to get her sent back and keep all the stuff thank you very much.

A month of WoW – 14.99
Two toon transfers – 50.00
Grinding gold farmer style for 4 days – 6000g

Getting your account BACK from the gold farmer before he has offloaded all his gold and getting to keep the spoils – Priceless

2008-12-15T08:37:00.002-06:00

All good things...

2008-12-12T15:20:00.000-06:00

Let’s face it internet peeps. I haven’t been writing about Arms or Fury lately and it is time for a change. Also, it looks more and more likely that I will be playing my dwarf in the spare time as none of my peeps are all the interested in seeing Alliance side again.

I read a lot of blogs. Even more than I have linked in my blogroll and have come to like several different styles. As I get used to blogging dailyish, I find myself wanting to do different types of blogging and think I will try them out. I very much like Team Ratshag style and would love to try my hand at blogging from a specific toons point of view. In all regards, writing as a toon will probably convince me to write those 2 short stories that my lovely wife encourages me to do.

Another thing I would like to do is talk about the different classes I play a la Out of Mana. Currently, I have a 43 Mage, 56 Shammy, 71 Boomkin, 34 Hunter, 30 Pally and I still haven’t done the Death Knight starting zones. I would like a chance to talk about all of those toons and different classes.

So blogging under the banner of ArmsandFury is starting to stifle and it is time for a change. To add to my new endeavor, I have enlisted the help of some friends/family. Namely, I will have contributions from my wife, Sugars and Dodger to start. I would love to get some Dammerung in it but he is quite the busy atm and I haven’t seen him online to ask/nag him about it.

The name’s the rub. I settled on Kelmar’s Blog. I chose it for 2 reasons. 1) I will be the primary writer on it and 2) It is not WoW centric which is an idea Tobold gave to one of his readers. If I quit playing WoW or wish to talk about non wow related stuff (i.e. weighlifting, anime, books, movies… trying to get my wife into something skimpy) than the title has not misrepresented the contents in anyway.

I will be working on setting it up this weekend. Sunday will see a post with my new link to Kelmar’s Blog. Hope to see you all there. Also, if you have any suggestions for content, I am more than willing to try them out.

Tanking VS Healing

2008-12-10T13:15:00.000-06:00

So as the banner on the blog shows, I have two warriors I run. Herk most assuredly got the more love in Burning Crusade. For Wrath, I plan on playing them equally. I am busy leveling Kelmar/Brewhammer now. I need to change Kel’s name but haven’t done so because I accidentally used my placeholder “Brewhammer” dwarf for a bank alt. I’ll get around to it. So I am running Kelmar as prot right now because it is the easiest way to get an instance group. The Arms and Fury will come more into play as I get him to 80. I will then have Herk and Brewhammer running BGs for Arms and Fury fun talk. When dual spec hits, I will have tons of stuff to blog about.

I know what’s coming. “You leveled Herk as prot! Give us your name sake back!” Well, I can’t just yet. See, my wife has decided to play her priest with me. We will be tag teaming the instances somewhat sooooo prot just makes more sense right now.

Speaking of her priest, I ran her some last night taking a look at her spells and what not. Now, her poor toon was even less gear than Kelmar. How bad? To the name of about 540 spell power at lv 70. The nice thing is the gear reset! Say what you want but wanting to play a toon and being able to pick them back up after a hiatus is all win in my book. Hipnatizd will take a bit of work but she can be just as geared as any when she hits 80. The wife’s plan is to level Holy which I already trounced for a weekend so I can get her caught up to Kelmar. Kelmar is within 200k of 72. I have to get Hipper to at least 71 and some gear and then we are good to go from there.

She still loves her hunter though. I am not sure why she is playing with me on Drenden. Perhaps she didn’t think I would play him this soon? I have Herk where I want him for prot gear because I don’t plan on playing him until my friends are ready to run instances for gear. I am content to let Herk lounge around doing Hodir rep while they level to 80 because I a have Kelmar to play. However, if my wife is playing her priest solely to not be left behind my leveling butt, then I need to not play Kelmar right now. Decisions decisions… maybe we will see her comment and tell me what she wants to do!

Now that I have rambled enough, to the point of the title! I ran Hipnatizd at 69 through Utgarde Keep. Party was… 69 Holy Priest (Moi), Arms 2 1h warrior, Unholy DK, Blood BK and a rogue. Sweet monkeys!!!! We wiped 4 times on first boss because they would not help my little butt with the skellies (they killed me) and the ice blocl ( it killed me)… it was a MESS. My greater heals were hitting for 4500 and critting for 7k. My healing was there… group dynamic WASN’T… again. As my son used to say when he first started talking… MELP MEH.

A couple of requests for my email have been heard. I will update the site with it. For now, it is ArmsandFury - @ - gmail.com.

Sometimes goodbye is a second chance

2008-12-09T09:55:00.000-06:00

Then there's the threat issue. My favorite tank blogger has gone from "you can't pull aggro offa me if you try!" to "well, they just have to be more careful with threat..." and "you know, you generate a lot of threat asa healer!" – Renoobed

Did he just try and make me sound like a Melvin where tanking is concerned? Specifically this crap statement "you know, you generate a lot of threat asa healer!” Lets talk about this internet.

Ya, none of that is accurate. I have never said you can't pull aggro off me if you tried. What I did say is I generate a lot of threat. Specifically, I can generate between 3k to 3500 on a single target now. BRK could always pull aggro off me in nagrand in blues but then again that is BRK. I ran with a ret Pally on Brewhammer last night and we did Nexus. He grabbed EVERY single bit of aggro off any add we had because he kept using his AoE first thing instead of letting me lay some Shockwave and Thunderclaps down.

Parties DO need to be more careful with threat in Heroics. Heroics are NOT the AoE fest of latter day Burning Crusade. Time to learn to play your DPS class again you DPSers you. Listen, sometimes you can CC and sometimes you can not. If you can’t CC and it’s a Heroic and you and your party are at gear level or slightly under or above, you are to DPS the tank’s target and switch to HIS next target. Period. If you want to lay down some AoE or start tacking 2-3 mobs with your AoE damage spells, you had best wait for some sunders on said extra mobs. Thunderclap and Shockwave are good but they will not stand up to random execute crits as the better threat generator.

Side note for warriors: If you have a group like this, it is time to start doing the old tab, threat build, tab, threat build, tab, threat build rotation. It helps.

What I said about your healing threat was that it JUMPED exponentially from other healers I had seen, notably priest and druids. To which you said you had skipped the aggro reducing talents in favor of more healing talents. Right, because Blizz makes it where you have to choose between better healing or aggro reducers. However, I'll let that slide because I know crap about Shaman healing but I suspect there is some fat in your Healing spec that could be trimmed for aggro reducers. Not that it really matters because I don’t run with your EPeening crazy heals ZOMGBBQSAUCE leetness much.

So here's what I had folks on the above Heroic Azjol Nerub run with Noobed. A mage who was really decent on the DPS, a deathknight who wasn’t above 900kdps and a lock who I was doing more DPS than. We wiped on the first chain pull about 5 times. One of those things would always get loose and smack someone while I was webbed. I would type WEBBED and no one would hit me. Also, they do have a stunlock that is web based that makes you run around like a moron. There were two main problems. First, kill order. The other 2 DPSers decided to kill what the felt like or would stat on Skull and then pop AoE talents. Second was DPS vs my gear. I am at entry level Heroic tanking gear. Nothing great really.

24.5 health unbuffed
23k armor
542 def
19.67 Dodge
15 Parry

I do NOT overgear Heroics which means I can not take up the slack of crap DPS or bad healing. The healing was not bad at all cept for the threat generation he was getting. When your first heal hits 1700 TPS on my omen, there is a problem. I can pull 3500 TPS on a single target and am not too sure what gets pulled on the add targets with TC, Glyph sunder and Shockwave. I am going to set Omen to show me 4 targets tonight and see what that looks like.

I am really going to quit running things with Noobed for two reasons. 1) He outgears me and needs to run with his own crowd and 2) I just don’t like playing the game with him anymore. If I make a mistake or don’t perform the way his “non tanking class ever played” thinks I should have he turns into kind of an ass. I know he is going to be an ass and it gets me jittery and I yell if I make a mistake. This upsets my son and my wife because they don’t like it when I get loud. So no more with Noobed other than in game conversations… he is taking the fun out of my game.
So this will be the last post for any Arms vs Noobed; It's just getting old and not worth my time.

Craziness

2008-12-08T11:56:00.000-06:00

Guys and Gals,

Work is officially insane today! I will try and give a better post. Probably after I get home today.

On a side note, anyone see that Alabama v Florida game? WoW, that was FOOTBALL!

Bumps and Bruises in Heroics

2008-12-05T09:43:00.000-06:00

The “too funny” of the night was when I was in LFG and spy a mage and ask him if he is above 1500DPS. The response? “Do you mean spellpower?”

I did Halls last night with a good DPS group. Noobed healed on his shammy. Good heals. My tanking was a bit jittery starting off. It didn’t help that the group decided to never burn down my main target until the very end of the instance. I had only done the instance one time before and got into some LOS issues that I am sure aggravated the healer and hunter.

The main problem I had, the group would NOT let me pull anything back. They always fought on top of me where I charged. We managed to get one pushy rogue who my wife warned me about when she saw his name. “That run isn’t going to be fun” she warned. She was right. Sigh.

His great moment was aggroing the first boss after we all had pulled back away from him. I pull back and check Noobed’s mana which is at 5k or less if memory serves and I see the rogue /throw a dagger at the boss. After that it was all rage. I don’t play well when I am mad. I’d rather spend 3 hours in a Heroic than 1 ½ with a smeghead.

We wiped 2 ½ times on the first boss. One due to no one pulling out of hit patrol area… this one included me. I was paying attention to the hunter who kept attacking HIS own FLIPPING target and pulling aggro over to the healer. I really hated that hunter. Anyways, boss walks right into us and BLAM. Sigh

Second wipe was with us pulling the boss and the DPS not killing the adds >.< Now, MrOMGIMSOUBER rogue, who came in waaay second from on outrageously middling gear DeathKnight who brought the pain and made me want to actually play the class, says he was on an add. As far as I could see no damage had been done to one. Claimed I wasn’t tanking >.< I hate that.

The half wipe came when the rogue threw his dagger at the boss with Noobed at the 5k mana. I picked him and the adds up and after a bit say the boss was at ½ or so health with adds gone and the rogue LONG dead. We just didn’t have the heals much and I bit it. The DK takes over and Noobed finds some mana or regens some and starts healing him. I release and run back in time to see Noobed die the DK die and to charge into the boss to keep him from the hunter with about 10-15k health left. Down he went. It was interesting to say the least.

A little bit later, I went to clear Drak’Tharon with the group from The Nexus cuz HEY an emblem is an emblem and I need 35 or 25 for my tanking neck. We get to the first boss and wipe and wipe and wipe again. They ask if I am uncrittable (again) I say YES I am. We try various tactics and I notice that the pally healers heal are Flash of Lights for 2500 reg and 4-5k crits. The boss is white hitting me for 5k. Well, this math don’t add up do it? Also, the shadow priest was below me in damage when we called it. I had roughly 900 DPS for the run and he was at 830. I may have to start turning down runs with them 

Starting Heroics

2008-12-04T10:13:00.000-06:00

So Herk got a group for the Heroic Daily of Utgaarde Keep. The following was the group make up… Boomkin, FRF Mage, Rogue, Resto Druid. We trounced that place. The fun thing is that with Heroic Throw and Charge, Warriors can now front load threat like a Pally tank. The Boomkin never even got close to taking aggro off of me. The mage tried to take his own targets away from me. Realizing it was the “Fold” doing it, I decided to show him he couldn’t no matter which target he chose. The story for this instance is really boring. We caked walked through all of it. No one died. I did nothing special to save the entire group because they didn’t need it.

Heroic Nexus on the other hand is a different story. They were 4 guildies who needed a tank. I had run several instances with this guild before and rarely every the same people twice. However, I have made a reputation with several guilds about being a really really good pug tank. Last night, I had to turn down 3 Heroic run offers because it was my wife’s turn to play. Still felt great to see the offers rolling in especially since they were from healers! Tanks, love your healers, take of your healer cuz the rest is filler sorta.

The guild had me log onto vent and because of a incident (my son ripped my mic plug in half) I am that guy who doesn’t have a mic. These guys are laughing and having a good time ribbing each other. They were pretty decent. Healer was a pally. Pally healers need some loving Blizz. Group make up was… S.priest, Holy Pally, Deathknight, Hunter and me. We went through the flower petals like nothing until I pull one tree guy back… and back and they party moves forward into the pat. Sigh. I charge get control of everyone and start pushing cooldown buttons to give the healer an extra moment.

An aside, Taurens are the best tanking race period. Why? Extra health? Somewhat. It comes from that whole extra AoE stun happiness called WARSTOMP. An extra second of not taking damage from 4 mobs in a heroic is HUGE when the smelly hits the fan.

You have to remember not hit all your O CRAP buttons at once too guys. If you pull 5 mobs to yourself in a Heroic then I suggest the following O CRAP sequence. Shield Wall, Wait for it go before hitting Block. Use Last Stand AFTER the block is up if you can as I think this gives the healer the most time to get up to speed. Now remember this the O CRAP sequence that is interspersed with the regular damage reduction sequence.

Thunderclap for aggro on all… back up and Shockwave em… Shield Wall… Demo Shout… Thunderclap, Shield Slam, Devastate, Revenge and what not but remember your main focus on the O CRAP is not DPS or trying to kill a target. It is damage mitigation and AOE threat. Also, after all the above, remember Concussive Blow for one, tab target to any caster for the a Shield Bash against their spells and if Heroic Throw is up then you Gag Order their ass again. You can chain stun casters without them getting a spell off. After all that? Warstomp their ass if you are a Tauren.

Tanking 5 oops pulled to many in a Heroic after they kill one of your party is awesomesauce in anyone’s book and will get you invited back. In this case, it got me a guild invitation for anytime I wanted.

I would love to say we finished the instance but we did not. We couldn’t get Anomylus down. There was too little DPS to drop the rifts fast enough. What was the DPS like you ask? I hesitate to say but according to recount… it was abysmal for a Heroic.

The hunter topped off at 1000
DK 900
S.Priest 850

So, does that make my tanking more leet?

Tanking and some tankingcraft

2008-12-03T10:07:00.000-06:00

EDIT* The kid to the right is not mine!

So my son is a little older now and my wonderful wife tanked him quite a bit last night as I got all into Heroics. I was going to run a Heroic damn it all! I first get into a pug that was advertising for a “good” tank. Well, you know what? I am better than average thank you very much.

Heroic Halls of Stone here I come. /w the lead and give him the baseline 23k unbuffed, 542 def, 22k armor. Given a good healer these are ample stats to start Heroics. However, from what I hear for Halls of Lightning on Heroic I will need at least another 2k hp and some more armor. If I can start getting some socket gear with the same Def on it, I can start gemming block and parry and dodge and what not. I’ll start doing posts on that when I get to it.

Right now, I am gathering mats for the Titansteel Treads/Sabatons whatever the hell they are called. Anyways, I am getting some help with the Titansteel smelting from Noobed and am very appreciative. I should have the helm and boots made for Friday night and I already have the shield.

Goodness here we go with theorycraft. Mind you, this is for nub tanks with nub gear like mine. If you have cleared Sunwell, BT, Naxx and spanked Malygos already, this is NOT for you. This is for my own and all the other peoples insight. If you can offer a better opinion, please do.

How to get to the Def cap and gem for Stamina before gemming for miss rates… or why I like Blacksmithing.

If you are going for the Def 540 cap, you are going to need some enchants. Depending on your gear and professions, you will either need a lot of enchants to get 540 or you will need to gem for it or both. What you do not want to do is give up a gem slot when you can get an armor piece enchanted.

You can grab the following chants.

Greater Defense to Chest
+ Defense to cap
+ Defense to Shield

Use them. Save any and all sockets for +sta gems. There is absolutely no reason you should be running around with Greater stats to chest while you have a Def gem anywhere on you. Now, if you need the gem AND had the Def to chest then we understand.

Blacksmithing as a profession still helps tanks out the most. You thought every item is BoE now? It is. But not the socketing options. Blacksmiths at 400 and over can socket their own gloves and bracers. That’s a difference of roughly 500 HPs you can drop in there. Would you turn down an extra 50 sta on a tanking item? Thought not.

Chants for Def cap first and then use sockets if absolutely necessary to hit the Def cap. However, if I didn’t have to do it then you shouldn’t either. All of the gear when I hit Def cap was questing and a red letter run through CoT Culling. I picked up the tanking boots and cap out of there. I need to do a gear list for starting out and I will eventually get to it I promise.

Next post is about how the Heroics went. How we owned Utgarde and couldn’t quit drop Anomylus in Nex.

Asshattery personified

2008-12-02T10:49:00.000-06:00

So far I haven’t had too many of BBBs /facepalm moments. I had few here and there but nothing to write about really. This past Sunday, I tanked Utgarde Pinnacle on Herk along with this Pally (Traey from the guild Misery.) Yes, I am calling him out. Feel free to whisper bomb “U @$$hat” at him if you are on teh Hoof. I’ll tell the story of the instance and lead up to the complete asshatery by sharing the little stuff.

He kept leader and marked. I was ok with that because he had been there before and I hadn’t. The pulls were nothing to worry about really. He marked pats which I found odd but meh. It aggravated him that I charged mobs. Listen up, that was old school thought people. It is more than acceptable to charge into a mob for rage or to pull them back with a heroic throw and back up a step and then charge at the right moment.

I will often pull with Heroic Throw and start backing up past the party only to charge ahead of them and hit the mob with charge at the pull back position I wanted them. The rage I get is a happy thing as it provides the DPS with immediate GO GO GADGET DPS capability. Why? Because I have the rage to pull off thunderclap, Shield bash and then back up for the Shockwave.

I have been using the following sequence.

Charge
Thunderclap
Shield Bash main target
Back up
Shockwave
Devastate
Demo Shout
Thunderclap (I do this again because I find with the DPS lately that everyone is going to AoE in some fashion)
Shield Block
Shield Bash, Devastate, Revenge or Heroic Strike as they pop up.

If anyone else uses Omen, the highest TPS I have been getting is around 4500 with the low being at 2700. I don’t lose threat. There is on person getting physically attacked and it is ME unless they have a random charge or shadowbolt spread.

Anyways, this ret pally is very partial to telling me how to tank but I let that slide. As long as the healer and I are jiving, I don’t give a crap about your DPS butt and what you think I should be doing. Did you get hit? No. Did anyone else get hit? No. Was there a wipe? No. Then STFU and DPS.

His other thing that annoyed me, whenever he had a chance to fear an undead he did and thought of it as CC. Even with 3-4 mobs on me the healer never lost more than 2k mana healing me unless it was a boss fight. Right before the gauntlet, he says he is calling dibs on the DPS plate pants that drop from Ymiron. I really had no desire for them and I am not sure about our pally healer. The fact remains that there were 3 plate wearers in the party who could use them. I chalk it up to him being a moron.

So we make it through the gauntlet when he starts running into mobs outta of the way and apologizing because he “wasn’t paying attention.” At on point, he ran into a room where we were sitting off to the side because he had to catch up and ran all the way into the room and mobs. I picked up all 7 and immediately started tapping cooldowns to give the healer some time to catch up to what we were about to get into. We didn’t wipe, no one died. Healer did have to drink after.

We get to the last boss and proceed to give King Ymiron a beatdown. At 10k health left I see Master Loot pop up. WTF?! We kill him. The pally loots and guess what? No plate pants for joo!!

I tell him that was a BS move and that I will never tank for him again. He asks what he did wrong? He was distributing loot fairly! Because YOUR pants did not drop! He says, “Well, I am tired of people rolling on their offset. “ Me, “You are a piece of trash.” The healer, “It was BS and I will never heal for you again.” The Pally, “ I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Yes, you did. You meant “I am more important than any of the rest of you whom without I would not have gotten here.”

Middle finger /salute right at ya.

Update

2008-12-01T09:49:00.000-06:00

/wave

Sorry, haven’t been blogging because a) I’ve been playing and b) it’s the holidays which means busy at home and work!

Herk is 80. Brewhammer is almost 71. There are differences in the story from Horde to Ally! I suggest playing them back to back so as not to forget the other’s storyline. Herk is sitting at 22.5k Health with 23k armor and 542 Def. He is running Heroics when he can find a healer on teh Hoof. Herk is also grinding Sons of Hodir rep for the shoulder chant.

Brewhammer is getting quest reward gear as fast as the sling it to him. Upgrading is fun! Also, I’m sorry to have forsaken the name of this blog with Herk’s leveling spec or prot but will be doing it again on Brewhammer. Prot spec is just so much damn fun and soloable. There are only a handful of elites that I can’t drop solo as prot spec.

Wish I had time to write more.

/wave

P.S. Incoming post about the complete ASSHAT I ran with through Utgarde Pinnacle and how he master looted with 10k health left on the last boss.

Level 75

2008-11-21T10:51:00.000-06:00

2 more until I get the flying mount back. I did most of Dragonblight last night. The area was ok but not as cohesive as Howling Fjord in my opinion. I am looking forward to the Grizzly Hills tonight. There are a smattering of quest that I have not finished yet but with doing the instances like I am and questing; I find myself still facing level 70-71 mobs at 75. I know it is supposed to be the faster way to level but it’s kind of boring.

I soloed every group quest in Dragonblight except the bird by Ysera. Speaking of! I’ve Malygos and Ysera so far. I know Alexstraza (Spelling) is in the expansion as well. Have we heard anything from Norzdormu? Also, other than the 72 leet dragon at Netherwing, we have not heard any rumblings from Deathwing. Anyone think he will be in this expansion? I hope not but since we are seeing most of the aspects you never know.

Herk made his other 2 pieces of tank gear for 75 and got the tanking ring from Azjol’ Nerub for a grand total of 18.5k health unbuffed which is higher than I have ever been. I am still pouring over WoWwiki and Tankspot for the tanking gear upgrades. There are several warriors who are 80 on Lightninghoof and I have been checking their gear on armory. There is a chestpiece and 2 tanking rings that are good enough to tank Heroics in and I’ll be going for those. There are 3 pieces of craftable for Heroic level tanking. Boots, Helm and Shield I believe they are.

All in all, I am looking forward to tanking again and am very excited about putting the gear together to hit all the caps. I promise a post of how/where I got the gear and how gemmed it and how to reach the caps. I will be doing it this weekend since I am closing in on 80. Anyone know where the quest line to kill Varimathras starts off the top of their head? I’d like to do that this weekend. The Wrathgate line maybe?

Happy BoE Tanking items, Drak’tharon Keep and BBBs facepalm moment

2008-11-19T09:09:00.000-06:00

So anyone who’s been reading the blog lately knows I went Prot for Wrath. Grinding, questing and instancing are super fun. The wife is happy she gets to hit on the mobs some if we are questing together too.

My gear for tanking was some nice blues and half t4 with some crafted pieces when I started Wrath. However, I usually tanked in my arena/pvp gear for Utgarde when I went from 70-71. I was really hoping for upgrades to my tanking gear from the instances. Guess what!? There isn’t much from 70-75 in the instances. Every time I search for something off of the boss loot in wowwiki, I’d be kinda bummed at how little tanking gear there was.

Then I started leveling blacksmithing. Lo and behold, all the tanking gear is there! Did I drop BS off the dwarf to do double gathering?! I did! /facepalm! It’s ok tho! The items are BoE even the blue ones! Also, the blue ones you can make are THE tanking gear. I noticed this last night when I did Draktharon Keep. They have a pair of tanking pants in there that are not anywhere near as happy as my crafted tanking pants. I think, going off memory here, that there is at least a 22 stamina difference.

Also, with the blacksmithing, I can add gem slots to my gloves and bracers when I got the BS over 400. Slapped on some +12 sta gems… WHAT?! I was not an endgame raider last xpac. I don’t have gobs of the 15 ones chilling in the bank. Anyways, Herk is up to just under 18k for HP unbuffed. Replaced my Blazefury with the new 1h Blue Crafted tanking sword. (You really will have to excuse the lack of names as I am at work and have NO access to the item names.)

Overall I am very pleased with how accessible the tanking gear is. Tanks are still in demand since every single Deathknight I know is DPS. About 2/3 of the warriors I group with are Fury. Druids are, swear to all that is, all Balance and Pallys are all Ret. I did see a holy pally the other day though!

Drak’ Tharon keep was fun! Man am I loving all the new instances. Here’s a little trick for all you pugging tanks out there. There is a caster that looks like Kel’ Thuzad that shields himself when aggroed. His name escapes me. Surprised? Well, he summons mobs and you have to kill 4 crystal handlers before his shield goes down. This is an endurance fight. The problem comes in when you notice most of the mobs summoned are not elite. Not elite gives your party the impression that they can solo like they are questing. Don’t do it!

They absolute best place to tank the adds, since they come from both sides, is in the corner to you front left when you walk into the room. Plant your party there with your healer and you stand out front. All adds have to go through you before getting to them no matter if they come from the left or the right. It seemed really simply to me the next time I saw the layout and after some “gentle” rearrangement of pissing order for the group, they went and stood where I asked. It worked like a dream! We destroyed that boss.

BBB’s facepalm moment

I am running Utgarde with the same priest for the 3rd time and he is looking for a blue dagger off the first guy. We have a shammy running with us who is healing. The priest is Shadow. Now the priest and I had a good thing going until the dagger dropped and the Shammy rolled and won it. The priest lost his mind. Screaming it wasn’t a Shammy dagger. Then he kept /w me. /w Herk That stupid shammy. He is in outland greens! I could have used that so much more. My gear is from Kara and ZA and that would have boosted me over 1200 spellpower. I hate that guy. Sidegrade for spirit Vs True Upgrade for the healer? /facepalm

State of the Warrior

2008-11-18T10:06:00.000-06:00

Spec talk time.

Herk has about 120k to go before hitting 74. The first level was spent in Utgarde and Nexus. I managed to do a total of 4 quests completed by the time I hit 71 minus the 25 I had saved up. Tanking is and always has been FUN.

If you have a class capable of tanking and you have never tried it then you need to start gathering the tanking gear just to try it out. Controlling mobs and making sure no one in the party takes unnecessary damage is the most fun I’ve had in the game.

Doing a /charge death from above from LM in AB while taking no damage, stunning that healer and lighting up Bladestorm in the group that was headed for was a very close second.

At 72, Herk went Fury. He had some very nice blue axes that were the epitome of cool double strapped to his back. It looked SO awesome. He was doing DPS like no one’s business. I was well and above the 200k mark while the hunter was at the 70k mark. No, this is in general on mobs while questing and not a boss or instance so I am not trying to state it like any empirical fact here. After about 3 hours of leveling Fury, I was bored. Very very bored.

Maximizing DPS as Fury is a lackluster process. Start in Battle Charge>BT if you got left over Rage>Bersker Stance> BT>WW>HS depending on Rage and cooldowns. It’s not worth waiting for the Execute because you should use that Rage for a BT on the next mob. You can throw in some DeathWish and/or Berserker Rage fun to push the DPS while taking a bit extra damage. After 4-5 mobs though, you have to stop and eat, rinse and repeat.

Protection spec, on the other hand, is WoW fun and dynamic. First, you get to charge whenever the charge is off cooldown. This is so fun and useful I am surprised it hasn’t been nerfed. Also, your DPS rotation is much more dynamic as prot. Did Sword and Board proc? Is Revenge up? Can I chain stun that mob in oblivion? Multi mobs? Shockwave and TC time with a stance swap for an easy WW. Pull 8-9 mobs and switch to Arms while Retaliation goes off. There are just great options for maximizing DPS as Prot while staying alive with no downtime. Am I out DPSing a Fury? Hell no! But I am sure having a lot more fun than when I was Fury.

Then there is the fun pvp aspect with the mages. As a Tauren prot spec, mages hate me. If my CDs are up, you can forget casting anything other than blink and you best believe if my charge is not up than my macro for stance swapping/intercept is.

I’m going to cast Pyroblast!

You like that double reflect?

Why am I stunned?

Charged ya,

Why am I still stunned?

Aye, that’s my Warstomp.

Why can’t I cast? Gag Order, sorry.

Why am I stunned again?

Concussion blow.

WTF now?! You got hit by Shockwave.

Haha! Blink!! WTF! Why are you here?

Charge was up again.

Is that Warstomp coming?

No, but spell reflect is up. Did I mention that I haven’t even touched Last Stand or Shield Wall? That Rend takes a toll after a while since you can’t heal eh?

In conclusion, there is nothing more fun for me right now than Prot spec. There are tons of classes I cannot kill 1v1. There are NO classes that can take me out without have to fight me using cooldowns and getting some serious downtime after they manage to off me. Also, I can almost outlast 2v1 for help to arrive.

Did I mention that I get to answer the LF1M NEED TANK?

I’ll talk about those tomorrow. I will outline Nexus, the spider place.

*Edited to change MS to BT. /facepalm

LSU vs Wrath vs Twentyfifthnovember

2008-11-17T11:04:00.000-06:00

My lovely wife bought me tickets to a LSU game for my birthday about a month ago now. She bought the tickets for Nov 15th and only realized later that she had scheduled it on Wrath weekend. I like to watch LSU games so it was not a concern. Saturday was cold. We planned on meeting Dodger at the game but either we got there late or he ditched us for some kind of “box” tickets. Something about alcohol was said. I think we were late though. Tailgating is an all day affair for the football crowd and we got there about 2 hours before the game started.

We found our seats and watched the first quarter of the game fairly startled by how bad LSU was playing. At the end of the first quarter, there was a small accident that ended up with my wife’s drinking soaking her pants. Yes, it was horrible and quite funny as it was a good 30 degrees outside. We left about at the end of the 2nd quarter. The walk back to the car (2miles) was cold. We headed home and started Wrath up again.

I had not planned on leveling to 80 on day one and defeating Naxxramas shortly after that. You think I joined Twentyfifthnovember? Not my play style by any means.

If speed leveling floats your boat by all means speed level your little heart out. See, it’s all relative/subjective in the end. Sugars swears I speed level and don’t read any of the quests. I do read the quests by the way. I don’t use questhelper so I kind of have to. Twentyfifthnovember (GET A SHORTER NAME!) beat the PvE content in 64 hours. Hurray for you! You’re bored and wondering if blizzard miscalculated or were simply catering to casual players?

See there… I was all about relative until you put that last statement in on your website. 25 people finished the xpac in 64 hours! Now, they want more, better and harder content. Tap tap… the game has 11 million subscribers. You 25 people can go suck my balls with your worries and complaining now. Seriously, this game is beautiful, fun and intriguing. You can speed through it if that is your choice and by all means play how you want. But don’t for one second eat what someone has served, chow through all of it without any savoring and have the nerve to ask for seconds or complain that it wasn’t nuanced enough when you swallowed it whole.

Apologize for this…

Or is this Blizzard folding under the weight of a large casual player base that demands to be on equal footing with end-game raiders?

and we might be square. Folding under the weight indeed! Does your 25x52=1300 justify them catering to you? I think not.

Of course, my opinion means about as much to you as yours does to me. My two cents tho? Play your alts and enjoy the parts you blew through. Your unnerfed Muru encounter will come soon enough.

Wrath and Utgarde Keep

2008-11-13T13:16:00.000-06:00

Dear Blizzard,

You have knocked this one out of the park. Thank you.

Herk/Brewhammer

Seriously, it is THAT good. Everything has an EPIC feel and scale. Utgarde is HUGE and impressive with a lot of detail. Howling Fjord is huge as well.

Herk, as thought, switched to prot after completing Utgarde keep the first time. As prot, I have NO downtime and kill the mobs 2-3 secs later than if I was Arms/Fury.

Let’s talk Utgarde.

Every pull almost is a multimob pull. I am writing this at work so I don’t have the names of things but I will explain the instance.

Runecasters: One would think, “CASTER burn em down! They are squishy!” Ya well, these guys have Rune protection which apparently is really spiffy. CC em and leave em til last.

Then you have your heavy hitters, your dragons and your distance types. Do not get the druid to root the distance type but the melee type.

First boss (whatever his name is)

Tank em, he summons skeletons 4 or 5 not really sure. CC em and burn em. Also, he has some kind of ice coffin or some such. He tagged our healer twice with it. You can actually attack the trap and get it off your guy. You need get off quick to because it will do some major damage.

Second boss (Whatever their names are)

Romeo and Juliet redux. Burnt the melee to 10% then kill caster and kill melee within 10sec. This was not a hard fight except that our healer had 8k life >.< and the caster randomly shadowbolts the party. Lots o death for that 8k health Druid in this instance which made me think about poor little undergeared Brewhammer. Going to make sure I have enough Cobalt on him when I start playing him to make that set so I can tank properly.

End guy (What’s his name?)

Tank and spank with giggles and resurrection. He has several abilities. One called “Smash” that dropped Herk for about half his life (He was full at about 16k) so be careful for that one. He has an AoE that hits the entire party too.

You kill him and Arthas resurrects his butt and turn him nastier. Same fight sorta only he hits harder and has a random blade that appears and smacks people around by itself.

We wipe once each on the bossed which I thought was pretty good for not knowing the fights.

I am stuck at work for a half a day then I will be back tanking. I am halfway to 71 and there is already a 73 on the server by 10am this morning.

More updates to come!

STOLEN!

2008-11-12T10:29:00.000-06:00

I stole this from Herc's blog. It made me laugh sooo much tho. Regardless of who you voted for... it is funny!

Orgrimmar sacked!!

2008-11-11T09:15:00.000-06:00

I have a few happy screenshots that I will post when I get home.

Was anyone else confused by Garrosh beating Thrall?!

Stormwind was fun as well.

Thanks to everyone who voted on the new name. Kelmar will be Brewhammer when I get home. Brewhammer pugged MrT last night with 3 warriors, mage and a priest. It was interesting. By “interesting” I mean tons of wipeage.

I am excited for Wed night.

Final tally for Herk’s preparedness is…

25 quests completed
71k honor
100 AV tokens
69 AB
74 EotS
67 WSG
With 5k gold for giggles.

Brewhammer is less prepared. He didn’t have any quest left undone and since he will be second, he will be soaking the rested anyways. It may very well turn out that one is destined for PvP and the other for PvE.

Let the leveling begin.

First run and run again will be Nexus for the new shoulders they have in there. I am very tired of the batwings.

Let me run something past you guys. I was thinking about doing a first person blog kind of like Ratters on here. I would use Brewhammer’s perspective with Herk’s and create a little story between the two. Any interest in such a concept?

What are you guys going to be doing first in WOTLK?

Picture show

2008-11-05T20:19:00.000-06:00

Hey Megs,

How is my AV participation looking?

You may have heard of a little blog called BigRedKitty. He needs to change it BigRedApe apparently. I suggested a macro /em of Grape Ape Grape Ape but he said his ape is white. Ah well.
Group em up and tap Barkskin and layeth the AoE smackdown. Starfall is a nice grinding spell.

I'm dead. You're 5 capped. I win.

Fear the Herk.
Again... I ain't playing around AB. I will kill joo!

Levitate gives some nice pic moments!

Back to this guy... I think we should break code and turn that thing from white to a purple? Anyone know how to do this?

[[[-----]]] < this is what 315 looks like!

2008-11-04T12:44:00.000-06:00

As those who read the blog know, I have been going to the gym regularly for about 6 months now. I have lost 2 pant sizes going from a tight 42 to a snug 38/39 depending on cut of pant and what not. Also, my weight has dropped from the dreaded 285 to a better 245-250 depending. The 245-250 throws me because I thought it was fat but ended up being muscle gain.

My goal for the end of the year was to bench 300lbs. Well, last Friday, I did bench 300lbs and did it after several heavy sets. Yesterday, I achieved a new 1 rep max of 325lbs. I was ecstatic! Really, if I went to fit into a pair of 38s that weren’t the right cut and didn’t fit, I would tell them to F off because I bench over 300. Now, I know this isn’t the right attitude and I can and will do better, but for right now I love it.

I started in on 2 workouts a day with the noon being cardio and the evening being weightlifting. I did this all last week. This week I have the opportunity to work out with a guy from work is in “alpha” shape. He presses 350, weighs 215 and looks like a comic book character. He told me after we worked out on lunch that I wouldn’t be doing the cardio that night… he was right.

I’ll outline some…

Warmup

Flat Bench

325x1
10 crunches on workout ball thingy
315x2
10 crunches on workout ball thingy
295x4
10 crunches on workout ball thingy
275x5
10 crunches on workout ball thingy
255x6
10 crunches on workout ball thingy
225 to failure
10 crunches on workout ball thingy

Then we went to incline and repeated it. (Less weight tho)

We did chest ups and butterflies back to back with crunches in between. We topped it all off with decline bench and no crunches. Decline bench was 225lbs of “I have never done that much on decline before!” I managed but the reps were NOT high.

All in all, it was a crazy mega workout and I kept up so I was happy.

So I guess with the 8 weeks I have left in 2008 that I will try and get up to bench pressing 350. Next year’s goals should be interesting.

For Shaminja on Drenden

2008-11-03T09:25:00.000-06:00

Occasionally, I will get the /w “You write ArmsandFury right?” This is actually much cooler than I would have thought. I started getting more lately when I really started talking more about the warrior class changes and talents. Well, I intend to do that a lot more come Wrath. I have several drafts of posts with (looks around nervously) math involved. I am no mathematician by any means but the math seems straight forward and I will rely on the flamers to keep it correct.

Shaminja wants a post on the early levels of warriorness. I have done several posts about talents specs and abilities before. What I SHOULD have done is what BRK suggested a year ago and give the grouping on the sidebar entitled warrior 101 like he used to have. I will be doing this tonight when I get home. This won’t be all though. I intend to play a new warrior with the new talents and give my impressions of the overall changes made since Vanilla.

Of course, being the lovable moron that I am. The changes will be STEEP. I am sure that for level 1-30 on the dwarf back in 2004 he was talent in all 3 trees and I played like a moron who doesn’t read anything on the game he is playing. I have changed that since.

So with that in mind and to give you and Shaminja the new hotness on warriors it only makes sense for me to play one again from at least 1-30. Now, I have an Orc, Tauren and Dwarf. I leave it to you guys to let me know which race for the next one. Undead? Human? Dear god, don’t let them make me play a spacegoat. Let me know which in the comments and a name for the new one and you guys will get the daily updates until he hits 30 or wrath comes out.

Halloween

2008-10-31T22:53:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween Guys!!

-♥- Herk & Sed'

New Banner

2008-10-31T10:56:00.000-05:00

See, when I made it with PsP at home it seemed more than bright enough. When I get to work I can't see ANYthing hardly.

Anyways, I took off the armory links of the alts because I won't be playing them after 13th of Nov. I plan on being pretty detailed with my warrior's journey through Wrath and have most if not all the tools to do so.

I will be outlining gear choices and questlines for gear. I will be using different websites and will link to them when I use them. I plan on doing on my blog for people who can't catch the good sites at word and for my own edification when it comes time to play the dorf.

Is the banner dark for everyone else?

BRK is sad that Kelmar is a changing... will need to send him an email of boobs with the new name on them so he can feel better about it. Yup, that should do it.

What's in a name?

2008-10-30T13:52:00.000-05:00

As I will be playing the dwarf second this time around, I have not been grinding grinding grinding like I have on Herk. I want to get the dwarf to at least 1k gold and am not really worried about gear. He is in Blue rep gear which will be fine and fun to replace. I am also finishing Sony’s last two levels on her priest. I am not quite sure if she is sworn it off all together because I know she likes to play healer and is damn good at it.

Question for you on the internet! I need help picking out a new name for the Dorf. Currently it is Kelmar which is an amalgam of my real name Kelly Martin (cwhaIdidthere?) The following are my new choices that were not taken and that I have saved. I am going for something Dwarvish in nature btw.

Stoutheart
Stoutbeard
Stoutbrew
Brewhammer
Giantslayer
Middendorf
Tibbledorf

I am leaning towards Brewhammer.

Scourge Invasion

2008-10-28T10:06:00.000-05:00

I LOVED IT

I had a whole lot of fun turning into a zombie, killing zombies and running for a healer when that timer got down to 1-2 minutes. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to do the Doom quests as much as I would have liked. Every time I was on and would go to do it; 5000 other people had the same smart idea to do it as well. I was not getting up early to do the event because while the gear was not half bad, it was more sidegrade than upgrade.

If I was going to make time to do it, I should have done it on Kelmar who could’ve really used the happy gear. I have been splitting my time on Kelmar and Herk learning the ins and outs of Fury and Arms respectively. I really see why Blizzard decided to nerf the debuff (is that oxymoronic?) that comes with Titan’s Grip. Kelmar is in 70 rep blues and dual wielding Crystalforges. He has about 1500ap unbuffed. He hits fairly hard IF he hits. That 15% miss on specials is a beast. Looking at recount, the miss rate for Kelmar was at 17% for my 35min on the isle.

Side note: I managed to catch BRK online. He was surprised to see me and asked if I remembered how to play a dwarf. I snorted at him but got no response. It would almost be worth it to level Kelmar first just to beat him with the new Prot spec. Have you encountered the Prot spec that can beat the BM hunter yet BRK?

Herk, on the other side, is bleed happy and will rip through the isle in 30-40min depending on PvP gankings and the what not. He doesn’t miss. He obliterates. Even the frost mages have to be wary. If I am at a full rage bar and can hit Recklessness and get an Execute proc, they are dead Popsicles walking.

BGs are still pretty interesting. I am dying to go back to Prot for a little while but the way Blizzard changed honor given makes it a no go for right now. I like the fact that you can get decent honor for a WSG (About 700 with top damage and some flag captures) but what about the prot warrior stunning people? What about the skills the healing/damage numbers don’t show? Gonna keep grinding honor as Arms for now because retaliation + Bladestorm in the middle of the ally flag attempt = honor points.

Herk is sitting at 62k honor and will be at 75k honor for Wrath. I still plan on leveling as Protection just to hit up all of the instances with ease. Nothing will level you as fast as instance running and I plan on doing a lot.

I am not planning on farming honor on Kelmar but he will be my second toon leveled. What can I say… the only thing better than one warrior is two. Also, having them on two different sides means I get to see both sides of the story. Blizz is trying for a better Alliance leader in Varian Wrynn. No on is going to take Thrall’s spot but Varian might carve out a place of his own. Alliance side really needed that too. I likes ye Magni but that whole crying over your daughter thing? Sigh.

Gym Archetypes

2008-10-22T13:38:00.000-05:00

So I have been in the gym for about 6 months now and have noticed several archetypes. Here are my observations so far.

The skinny guy doing too much weight.

This guy will try and bench press 165 because he used to be able to do 135 back in high school and he must have gotten stronger since then right? After lifting the 165 off of his chest, he asked for a spot so he could try again. Oo

The lean guy doing too much weight but using bad form.

You must have seen this guy before at least once. This is the guy who is doing 165 on the lat pull down and hooks his feet under some plates as well as his knees and proceeds to wrench his back backwards using all his body weight to lift the weight half as far is it supposed to go.

The teenagers who resemble the Jonas brothers and don’t take their hats off.

They exist. The perturb me.

The teenager who is a lot more fit than you.

/smack

The old guy who is a lot more fit than you and grabs the 50lbs to bicep curl.

/Hamstring

The lady who is a 3 in the face and a 10 in the body but works out in the guy section doing the laydown hamstring curls.

/wth

The screamers

No matter what they are lifting be it 2lbs or 200lbs, they must scream when lifting.

The runners

The people you see there and all the do is treadmill. They are very serious about it too. When you look at the mileage it is at least 10 no matter if they started 5 min ago.

The pregnant lady.

Sure she might be 8 months along but she is in there kicking ass. Most of the time these are not the 3/10 ladies but the 9/9s. You KNOW why they are pregnant.

The “my doctor told me to get some exercise or I will die “ peoples.

These pop up sporadically and are usually the morbidly obese. You see them on the treadmill staring daggers at the “runners” next to them if they are 10 min in. Anymore than that and they are too tired to look at anything. Oddly enough, these people give me an immense amount of motivation.

The “greek god aint got nothing on me!” guys

One word: Chiseled

I have more but need to get back to work.

Welcome to 53/8

2008-10-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

Sorry Pix! I just started playing 53/8 last night so I don’t have a great deal of Recount data yet. Here is a post on Arms from the games I played on Sunday.

Before I get into 53/8, let me say that 8/53 (Prot) was great fun for PvP BG style. The only classes I really seemed to have a problem taking down 1v1 were Ret Pallys (Surpised?) and Frost mages (again?) I could way outlast the little mutilate rogue and kill them. 8/53 was capable of very respectable burst damage and added with the survivability factor should be looked upon wearily by anyone running up the sword and board warrior.

53/8 is what I went for in Arms. Yes, I got Bladestorm. Like I have said before, Bladestorm is great for PvE. Well, you can think about BGs the same as PvE grinding most times. BGs are objective based and not the same as arena. You can go have fun in a BG and not have to play your class for control like you have to in Arena.

For example, there are few things as fun as running into the other team and tapping Sweeping Strikes, Retaliation and Bladestorm and watch the numbers flying off of SCT. I played roughly 10 BGs last night as 53/8 and not one of those was I out of the top 3 damaged done from both sides. Pallies and Mages were usually my competition.

The more I played 53/8 the more I realized I may very well have been wrong about its burst capabilities. The random procs for Execute and Overpower made my burst really random but the old burst I was able to do was still there as well if I needed it. Also, the hits I was capable of doing had greatly increased. Crits were normally in the range of 2300 now. I even had an execute crit of around 7-8k.

I have not done arena with 53/8 it yet though. I see it working the same as 31/28 minus the Piercing Howl goodness which we’ll have again at 80 just in time for new arena season. A 53/8 warrior could truly shine in 5v5 with the SS,Ret,BS combo provided he had a pally with BoF handy. The DPS is done to everyone and the bleed pretty much gets put on everyone. I don’t think it would be an easy thing for a healer to keep up with that kind of DPS if all 5 of his team got hit.

Get the Bladestorm rotation off while focus 1 toon and having a second backup toon as another focus? MS the healer and then kick it in? He has a choice of healing himself or healing the other 4 members of his team that are taking the same damage. Not great options eh? I will be playing 53/8 for the rest of the week and will do a follow up post but for right now, consider my foot in my mouth about the state of arms not being able to burst well.

Just like with Prot being more dynamic with random Shield Slams and Revenges being available, Arms requires you to pay close attention to procs and not the random button mashings of relied sequencing. Time to wake up and play again warriors!

Books and specs

2008-10-17T11:57:00.000-05:00

I finished reading Drachenfels from this omnibus today. It was absolutely fantastic. You will kind of see what is coming at the end but there are a few really cool moments that I didn’t fully expect. The writing was superb and the characters nicely done for a short story.

I am not sure how they do it but the very best short story writers can display a person for what they are without having to explain why they are and still the character feels three dimensional as opposed to the archtype they happen to portray.

Robert E. Howard was fantastic at this! Conan is portrayed as so many different types that to explain why he was all of these types would lead to a series with a word count that would make Robert Jordan envious. Howard didn’t need the massive arcs for the story to work and yet the arc was definitely there if you were to read the Conan stories listed in their proposed chronological order.

So thumbs up for Drachenfels and on to the next one.

Protection is really as fun as I thought it would be. I am beating people in duels thanks in large part to judicious use of spell reflects. I went full PvE healing on druid spec. Sony and I will be in MC again tonight to try and get her core hound. We almost had him twice but someone pulled prematurely both time causing me to overheal. Tonight he is ours! Rawr!

Patch time

2008-10-14T09:26:00.000-05:00

I admit it! The patch has me excited! For Arms and Fury trees? SHUT IT you!

I am actually looking forward to changing my Dwarf’s hairstyle because I have had him the longest and it is time for a change. The Dorf will be fun to mess around on because he is on a carebear server and can go happy little Bladestorm or Titan’s whenever he wants. I will be experimenting with him quit a bit.

As for Herk, he will be the awesomsauce that is the updated Protection spec! I look forward to frustrating Allies at every flag/tower or cap they try! I look forward to tanking instances for Dogs of Rawr while still being able to grind dailies for G. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be doing anymore arena until lv80. I can get the 38/23 build and continue on as normal and I might just to pick up the S4 pants but meh.

Aerthson has the options tho! With the spellpower change, he can go either balance or resto. I will be trying both out for fun.

Now, I know Herk is first to 80. I am really thinking Kelmar is 2nd and Aerthson last. Of course, we probably have 2 years before we see anything else and shouldn’t I have quit playing by then?! Seriously?! Who knows? As long as I am having fun and am not “addicted” to it then I don’t see the problem.

Patch tomorrow and QQ fest in progress.

2008-10-13T09:38:00.000-05:00

So tomorrow is when ArmsandFury goes Prot spec. I have been playing the prot Spec on PTR and wowza fun! It is by far and away the better completed of the 3 trees for a warrior right now.

What’s the problem with Arms? Look 33/28 was about burst damage while keeping MS up. Going deep Arms wasn’t that much of an option for arena because the burst you gave up for more rage which was supposed to give you… more burst didn’t work. The same problem again… you have to go deep in Arms and you don’t get anything but Bladestorm which is STILL crap Blizzard! I have to have control over my F($king toon. Blizz won’t let me Taunt another player because that player should be in control of their actions… sigh Blizz sigh.

The other problem with Arms is that they are making you damn near stay in Arms. If you want to base Arms tree around Rend and bleed, make rend available in Berserker stance! Arms should not = Battle Stance and Fury = Zerker stance just to have Blizz claim we can still stance dance. Grrr.

Fury is nice tho! Well, sort of. Until you start hitting on people or mobs your level or greater with Titans Grip and you start missing with all those burst abilities. You will not be able to effectively burst while in Fury unless you gem for max hit cap. You will have to pray your debuff of healing is on target instead of having the steady MS rotation. So hear is your DPS warriors, you wear plate for survival except you can’t survive longer than a rogue! What? We don’t have the CC options of rogues, we do less damage because of the TG hit chance, we have no evasion that allows us to still DPS while surviving (Our DPS is gimped to hell if I sword/board through a shield wall even if it is now on 5 min cd.)

Now, for grinding or leveling… both trees are massively fun. Bladestorm is a hoot to light up after gathering mobs and taping S strikes, retaliation and then Bladestorm is just warrior nastiness. Can’t you just do that in arena? Can’t! Warriors are to easily Crowd Controlled. You may be able to get it off on the unexpecting but soon it will get old hat to see me start spinning and simply move outta my way or CC me

Fury leveling/grinding is just as fun. You are really kicking the snot out of stuff and your misses do not count like they do in PVP. Another thing to think about when you start off PvPing after patch is the following. Most toons (Read: any toon under 17k Hit points) simply do not have the Hit Points to keep up with the new abilities in damage dealing. It makes the BGs much more frenetic and frantic though which is fun for a while but will get old very very soon.

More QQ to follow

Paladins should not be OUT BURST DPSing a warrior. PERIOD. I can not bubble/heal/stun in my DPS mode. Let’s run this list down here. Both wear plate, both can tank. I am fine with them being every bit the tank a warrior can be because they can’t really heal themselves while doing and they can’t bubble during it. They are using their mana to get aggro like I use my rage. What about in PVP? Both wear plate, Pallys now have higher controllable burst damage than Warriors, Pallys can still bubble/stun/heal if needs be.

Warriors have no Burst damage any longer as Arms is designed for Bleed style and Fury has an enormous hit miss gap. Do you see the utility problem here Blizz?! What is it that I am capable of doing better than a pally now? Where is my niche that they can’t uber own me in? Anyone have an answer for this?

Look it the trees. Arms = DPS/ Fury = DPS/ Prot = tanking for warrior. Then you got Pally with Holy = Healing/ Prot = tanking/ Ret = OMGWTFBBQPWN DPS while still being able to bubble/ heal and stun. Tell ya what! Why not give them a healing debuff!

Sigh... talent specs

2008-10-11T17:14:00.000-05:00

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=Li0IdbIzxbrR0foxhxbo

The above is Arms arena... sigh

The below is Prot for PvP and Badge farming

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=LZhxZVIzrMcdidIdsGo

The last would be TG build if Prot wasn't so amazing. I have 2 different variations of each of the above but I think I might be using the ones listed more. I'll have to wait until I actually play them to see.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=LZhxxsViubxRikAo

More Books

2008-10-10T15:48:00.000-05:00

So like everyone else who reads the blogosphere having to do with WoW and what not, I read a lot of books. I am not doing that list of what “banned” books have you read. I have read some of them but meh… other people have answered that post. Let’s talk about the everyman’s books and the greats you can find.

Note: Noobed reads tons. He can read much faster than I and maybe as fast as my wife. Since I have known Noobed going on 12 years now (How have I lasted you ask? Breaks!) he has recommended a few and they will assuredly make this list of mine. I am going for stuff that I am reading now as well as throw backs to yesteryears and staying simply in Sci-FI/ Fantasy/ Horror realm. I will go in no particular order and will not vouch for entire series runs.

Necroscope – Brian Lumley
The Eye of the World – Robert Jordan
The Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Black Company – Glenn Cook
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Tigana – Guy Gavriel Kay
I am Legend – Tim Matheson
The Dark Tower – Stephen King
The Mis-enchanted Sword – Lawrence Watt Evans
Deed of Paksenarrion – Elizabeth Moon
H.P. Lovecraft Short Stories
Robert E. Howard Short Stories (Conan imparticular)
Elric – Micheal Moorcock

Well, there are ten for you. I need to be able to look at my books on a shelf to get a better idea but those are standing out right now as some of the best I have read over my 18 some odd years of reading the stuff. Kay actually made it on there twice. I remember these books vividly.

I have just read Gotrek and Felix Omnibus 1 and I really dug it. It was close to Howard’s writing style with the grit, grime and hopelessness for the main characters. I have started on The Vampire Genevieve set in the same Warhammer universe and really like it as well. Anybody besides Noobed read any of these or have some more suggestions?

Goals... Gonna need new ones for Wrath

2008-10-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

Almost time for 3.0 folks and I have work to do.

Let’s see…

Get Noobed a list of Glyphs I would like. As much crap as we give each other, he really helps me out with stuff in his professions. Thanks guy! (This thanks will inevitably be ridiculed on his blog but it’s to be expected.)

Get Herk’s Cooking to 375 so I don’t have to send everything to Aerthson. Update (got this to 372)

Get Aerthson’s fishing to 375. Currently 360

Play with talent calculator more for my Arena Arms spec (Seriously, quit laughing. It is not my fault Blizz has f(#ked the warrior for PvP.)

Play on PTR with the Prot spec some more (Least you got this right Blizz!)

Hit honor cap. Currently at 45k

Hit mark cap. 99 AV, 45 EOTS, 30WSG and 12 AB

Help Damm and Beo level.

Lets talk runthroughs and Noobed. We do a Blood Furnace run in record time last night and he is bored. I chain pulled the entire instance and he doesn’t drop below half mana and never drinks. This is the same guy who through a fit about me not sword and boarding Ring of Blood. Then we have to run back to Ramparts for Garglamar and I chain pull the boss and adds and he is still bored.

Noobed, unless we are in a Heroic or some such, you are hereby put on notice to shut up about me strapping a shield on for help me quests.

New adds and the weekend

2008-10-06T09:10:00.000-05:00

The Dogs or War add two new members. Well, Two and Half Orcs to be precise! Damm and Beo both came over to have a bit of fun over the weekend and ended up transferring their lv60s over. They have been great fun. Ozzy and I ran with them through Hellfire Ramparts. I don’t think they got 1 piece of loot that was worth going for but the experience was nice and they got the quests done.

Sunday, I think Noobed and I split up and helped Damm and Beo respectively. Beo and I ran around getting the Cruel’s Intentions line done. An odd thing happened to Beo and I as soon as we hit the Pools of Agrannar, she was hanging way back and I was way forward. I thought she didn’t want to be an aggro monkey. Then I thought she had an afk kiddo. The good thing about playing with other parents is the understanding of the random afk. So I sit there and guard her when I see /p You afk? Erm… No, thought you were? Not me she says. It was some kind of weird server lag that last a little while. Her toon did not show up on my screen where she was.

Arena…

My god… 100 point drop in rating… I played like crap first 3 games… last ones were just murder. It was a F(*king nightmare. Now Megs tells me this kind of stuff can happen every now and again. Don’t make it sting any less.

Sugars!

He won the fishing tournament on Sun! Booya! No one I know has ever one that thing. Grats bro!
Ozzy!

Hit lv 70 on her lock!

Dodger!

Was on vacation but he is lv67!
Battlegrounds

Friday night I could not win a WSG to save a newborn kitten. I was playing with complete idiots. Saturday morning, I could not lose a WSG. I won 10 straight before retiring for the day. BTW, to Rawrmedic (Dwarf Priest) and Dwarfenator (Dwarf Pally), I started feeling kind of guilty seeing you guys after match 4. Sorry about all those recurring Herk nightmares :D

Honor

I am sitting at 40k honor so a little over halfway to honor cap. Question: Has anyone heard if the marks are going to disappear now that we get to keep the honor?

Weightloss Update

2008-10-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

I am holding steady at 242. I plane on losing 10lbs this month. I need a lot more cardio with my weight training and diet so I am planning on start 2 days starting Sat. I am going to do cardio in the morning 30-45 minutes and weight training later in the day. I am closer to my goal of 1 rep max of 315 by the end of the year. I am able to bench 215 10 times which puts me in the 1 rep max of 300 range. I need to be able to push 245 10 times to go for 315.

Pant size is a very loose 40. I call them comfy, my wife calls me a plumber. It looks like it might be time to go for a loose fit 38. 38 people! Haven’t seen that since college! Someone told me I looked good in the pants I was wearing yesterday and I was quite happy about it! I couldn’t reciprocate cuz the lady was wearing a bright gold outfit which reminded me Bunny Wigglesworth’s final costume in Zorro the Gay Blade.

If I can hit 232 by the end of the month, it will make 50lbs in roughly a year. I am still looking to hit 220 by the end of the year so I definitely have some work to do. I need to give you guys some pics. My wife has one of a really really bad belly pic… sigh.

By the way, go ask Ozzy about the Huntard who ganked us last night and his ensuing deaths.

It never fails with Noobed

2008-10-02T08:32:00.000-05:00

Guys and gals,

If you liked the Dune post about Dodger, he added some stuff to it on his blog. Including a pic of why he reminds me of Dune. Go check it out.

Before Noobed gets to you people…

I tried out the Prot spec via PTR on Herk last night. I had been mostly playing Arms and Fury because… Look at the blog url for God’s sake! That being said, the buffs the finally put into Prot are very welcome and very nice. Prot + DPS like a Feral for a warrior tank?! Whoda thunk it?

Now, I hit the PTR in my full scrub Arena Gear and went sword and board. After I got past the mosh pit of duelers 20 declines later, I hit the zep for a ride to Undercity and went to Stratholme. Nothing there could bring me down except that unlucky chain pull of 9. Other than that, I cake walked the place. Tapping the new and much buffed/talented Thunderclap netted 500-600 dmg to everything around me. Revenge hits like a BRICK now. Shield Slam is a rocking.

I start looking more and more how I would play prot in PvP and realize that YES it might actually work. This to that… the DPS is much better and the tanking is still sick cept for that 40 sec CD on shield block now. Overall, I am very happy with the prot stuff and could really see myself leveling prot for the entire expansion. I’ll be back on the PTR tonight to actually try out some duels and BGs. I’ll give an update tomorrow.

Now, I log on to regular realm and talk to my peeps. Ozzy’s bro Keprin joined Dogs yesterday! Welcome Kep! Glad to have you back with us. So I start telling the peeps about the new Prot spec and how it really is spectacular.

Here come Noobed!

“I told you that already DAMN it!”

Flashback to 2 months ago

Noobed, “I hear they are going to buff prot and it might actually work for PvP.”
Arms, “I heard that too but won’t believe it until I see it though.”

Flashforward

Noobed, “You never listen to me! I told you!”
Arms, “They hadn’t buffed it yet you tool! How the F*&K are you running on at the mouth that you told me?!”

Blizz can talk a good game but I don’t get excited about something until I play or see it in action.

Arthas's cousin?! I'll never fogive you for that.

2008-10-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

So let’s see. Our guild is just a hopping along these days. Dodger hit 66 and is probably halfway to 67. Ozzy is on her way there as well. I like being able to hang out on the server and farm or help the peeps. Helping friends > /w Can you help me with this kill quest?

I never really help with kill quests cuz a) they are easy b) they are an XP grind and I would just cut into the XP and c) Just no. Group quests tho! Now those are fun. When I first met Dodger (Who’s real name is Paul) we went around calling him Mau’dib. Yes, we are dork like that. I’m not saying it was his permanent name but when he would make an entrance we’d hit him up with it.

I haven’t gotten to play with Dodger as much I like because a) been sick and b) he plays late on weekdays when I am either in full blow G farm mode or am about to log. So last night I decided to go hang with him and get some stuff done. We were doing quests when Noobed logs on. /w Noobed “You gots time to do Ring of Blood?” and he says sure.

I get Dodger over there while I am /w the wife if she would like to help. She doesn’t answer either whisper but accepts the group invite. I don’t think anything about this because she could be fighting alliance. Also while doing this, there is a warrior named Freeway (Shout out) and I ask him if needs and he says yes. This is how one builds good Karma.

So we start up and I make a point of asking Noobed if he WANTS me to shield up. What’s he say? Nah he says. See people… Noobed LIKES to complain. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t use anymore than 2k mana of his 10k in healing me. I am waiting on his next whine post about me not using a shield AGAIN on Ring of Blood.

Right after ring, Noobed minds me about the Bone Worm quest for another blue dagger. Let’s go get that for Dodger… wait a tic… Hai’ Shulud!!! Dune references!! With Dodger!!! Damn I should taken a pic. Sigh

And one of my all time favs in the game…

“I mean really Arthas’s cousin?! I’ll never forgive you for that.”

The weekend part 1

2008-09-29T09:01:00.000-05:00

Wow, I had a busy weekend for feeling like wet toilet paper. So Friday during the day my cold or whatever is in full swing and I can’t swallow without it feeling like razorblades can’t breathe out my nose and my eyes feel swollen. Also, it was my wife’s bday weekend so things are not looking great at this point.

Friday night, the ladies of Dogs (Sederasha (my wife) and Strovia (teh DcOe) hit the isle for some much needed G! Those alliance folks were very bored and 2 whole guild were trying to control the isle. It was very rough on us. We corpse ran more that night than in a whole week. Well, there is this NELF druid who stalks the isle name o Decapitated. /wave Decapitated. He really isn’t that bad of a ganker just your normal jackass and all. Him and Aerthson have faced off several times and I think we are still hitting about 50/50 on each other.

He part of the gankfest that was the Dogs’ bane on Fri night. Low and behold if we don’t see him killing a Shadowpriest. See Teh Ozzy The problem was these two were “dueling.” Ok, first off, you are dueling in the middle of the isle o death and expect people to leave you alone? Second, you are in a guild that’s main purpose in the game is to be hated by the Alliance and you go and spot us for them?! /salute Deathsenemy from Polymock for being a prick bastard! Sorry we interrupted your duel with your ally friends. One more thing, I ain’t your son and S2 shoulders were just as scrubbalishes as mine.

While this going on, my temper is just rising and rising. I keep getting /w from Deathsenemy with the whole “son” crap. Renoobed is /w with his whiney yet insulting “You aren’t talking?” No, I am FIGHTING MOTHERF(*&$KER give me a sec and quit /w bombing me too. “That’s what you get for going to the Isle of Death cuz you suck.” 934 death of the night happens and here it come in RL… “F(*K YOU PUTER!” /w from wife “Don’t do that! The baby is sleeping!” /guiltridden. I hadda log.

Hey Turtlemilk,

Do you know you got peeps in your guild spotting for alliance? While this might not be a big deal, from when I have played with you it just don’t seem to be your style.

Rock out with your lock out

2008-09-26T09:52:00.000-05:00

Sugars don’t get enough respect sometimes!

Here is a screenshot of him rocking a WSG. The problem with me giving him proper props most of the time is simple… I just do not know locks well enough. As a SL/SL lock, I mostly notice when his fears are resisted as opposed to how much DPS or help he is at other times. Sorry about that guy! Taking a look at this pic tho will give a good impression of him doing some of his very own pwnage in a BG.

He is around 80k DPS more than the other top! Which means he is doing his dot job rather well because I can’t tell you how many time I have seen locks run past allies and not dot them up. It happens often. I mean even if you are running past a warrior fighting an ally and you are going for the flag… DOT the ally! Geez

He also rocked a flag return. Of course, him being at 14k life probably did not hurt anything! Truly, I have not seen him run a flag when I am with him cuz I play a warrior and a druid… most times I am flag runner ya see.

Sugars and Herk gonna put some PAIN on wrath when it comes out. Also, we have one nasty group guild. If we are all online questing together we have…

Warrior
Lock
Rogue
Hunter
Shaman

In other words, unless your whole guild is there… leave us the F*#$ alone and let us quest. Take that back… you just need to run cuz my wife doesn’t let an ally pass without becoming a pincushion.

Vacation

2008-09-24T10:45:00.000-05:00

I was going to keep reviewing the talents trees... til they changed again... sigh

BTW, I went on vacation to Destin, FL. The wife and I brought the boy and played on the beach. NO sunburns!! Woot! We are back and having the usual fun again.

We got Sony her Epic Flyer thanks to some 1kg help from Sugars. Sony owes him that and just realized it last night. She finally returned to her dailies.

As for me, WoWinsider just posted that I will not be taking any badgs, honor points or arena points with me which makes it time to level something else since my wife won’t let me play Warhammer.

I float back and for between my mage (Frost) and my shaman (Enhance). I think leveling the shaman is more fun for me and being able to DPS or Heal will certainly get me more groups in Outlands. He dinged 50 last night so he might actually make 70 before xpac.

Short one.. but meh.

Putting the Arms back in Arms and Fury

2008-09-12T10:48:00.000-05:00

I think it is getting close enough that I can review the new talents without them changing too much on me. After I go through all of the trees, I will start posting specs that I am playing around with. Also, I need to do math on the bleed damage happiness Arms is going for and I should be able to get that done over the weekend. Please comment on anything and everything. If you think I am miss thinking a use for a talent or spec, I would love to here about it.

BladestormRank 1
11
2
Instantly Whirlwind all nearby targets and for the next 6 sec you will perform a whirlwind attack every 1 sec. While under the effects of Bladestorm, you can move but cannot perform any other attacks or abilities but you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed.25 Rage, Instant, 1.5 min cooldown

Ok, can we get a decent end talent in arms tree?! Seriously >.< I can see where grinding would be made humorous from this and that’s it.

Wrecking CrewRank 5
10
2
Your melee critical hits Enrage you, increasing all damage caused by 10% for 12 sec.

This is a straight bread and butter talent for increasing DMG. It is nothing too special and not to be past over when going deep in Arms.

Sudden DeathRank 3
9
1
Your melee critical hits have a 30% chance of allowing the use of Execute regardless of the target's health state.

This could be a happy thing since execute these days is really just another Mortal Strike and not the killer of yesteryear.

Blood FrenzyRank 2
9
3
Your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities also increase all physical damage caused to that target by 2%.

A reason to use Rend? Prbly not. However, you will probably maybe still have Deep Wounds… maybe not. In any event, an extra 2% damage for 2 talents isn’t horrible.

Unrelenting AssaultRank 2
8
3
Reduces the cooldown of your Overpower and Revenge abilities by 4 seconds.

Not so much for revenge in my opinion but how many times would you just eat that rogue or warrior from having faster overpowers? Daddy like this one.

Strength of ArmsRank 2
7
3
Increases your total Strength and total health by 4%.

Not great, not shabby… I’d pick it up.

Improved SlamRank 2
7
4
Decreases the swing time of your Slam ability by 1 sec.

Same ole thing… I am still wondering why they put the insta slam in Tier 9 Fury… bastiches. Can you imagine the rotation arms could have had?

TraumaRank 2
6
4
Your normal melee critical strikes increase the effectiveness of Bleed effects on the target by 30% for 15 sec.

They sure are trying to get you to bleed something aren’t they? Makes that Dwarf racial nice in PvP versus Deep Arms warrior with Bleed talents out the hooha. I need to run some math and see what the new Bleed Damage can add up to for what Rage cost. I’ll do that shortly.

Taste for BloodRank 3
4
1
Whenever your Rend ability causes damage, you have a 30% chance of allowing the use of your Overpower ability for 5 secs.

Did I mention them trying to get you to bleed something? With the reduced overpower talent and the extra bleed damage… it may be something to look into.

Justified KillingRank 2
4
3
You gain 6 rage every time you parry an attack.

Crap talent? Looks like.

That’s it for the new Arms tree stuff. I am not overly impressed but I do like the Bleed bit. Seems like they are leading us into a make sure the dot is up tree. Bladestorm is dreadful though. If they wanted me to use that in PvP they can suck it. The only thing worth it is the fear break since they took it out of Death Wish. I break the fear… sorta… at least I am capable of doing damage while not in control of my actions? Was that the thinking? I’ll be back shortly with the new Fury stuff and my concerns that Fury still has not replaced Arms for PvP even with the new healing debuff.

I wish I had gotten into the beta so I could test this stuff better L

We still haven't fogotten. We never will.

2008-09-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Bogarter of Warp Burgers and Being beat by a Warlock

2008-09-10T09:42:00.000-05:00

Dodger is stealing Warp Burgers from the Gbank! We have plans to stop him… more to come.

Sugars beat Herk 2 out of 3 last night in duels! How you are asking yourself? Well, every time he has “wanted” to duel me he rips a new trick I haven’t seen. The last time he beat me in a duel he phased the Imp! I charge the imp and after 2-3 hits was like wtf?! Now, locks don’t phase imps in PvP I think but as a duel tactic, it worked once.

Sugars new trick was sticky glue and netherweave nets. Say it with me everyone! Warriors hate CC!! Also, he had another trick I had not seen. His succubus which I usually eat first if he pulls her out went invisible on me. WTF? I thought it was phased and kept on Sugars until the Succubus got a charm on me >.< Then I had a net thrown on my butt.

Grats to Sugars on great tricks! You are learning bro. Can you repeat it after I have thought about the counters is the question!

On an even happier note than a lock beating a warrior, we upgraded my wife’s computer and she no longer lags anywhere. Not on isle, not in shat, not on tile and not on a bat. She is very happy. Now, we have to get her an epic flyer cuz I know she will make the gears changing noise if she gets it. Really who wouldn’t think a flying manticore thingy isn’t funny sounding like a Hayabusa?

First impressions of Warrior Glyphs

2008-09-07T18:27:00.000-05:00

We have power. F U Gustav.

I'll be doing more theorycrafting for WOTLK so let the flaming/debate wars begin.

Glyph of Battle - Increases the duration of your Battle Shout ability by 1 min.

I have heard arguments for increasing duration of shouts having to do with Rage management. I don't buy it. Skip this one.

Glyph of Barbaric Insults - Your Mocking Blow ability also taunts the target.

Interesting sorta. Will this one taunt the target if the MB misses, is dodged or parried?

Glyph of Blocking - Increases your block value by 10% for 10 sec after using your Shield Slam ability.

Nice tanking one.

Glyph of Bloodrage - Reduces the health cost of your Bloodrage ability by 50%.

Health Cost on Bloodrage is low and I don't find it putting me in the red very much. Skip this one.

Glyph of Bloodthirst - Increases the healing you receive from your Bloodthirst ability by 20%.

PvP... Maaaybe. We'll see.

Glyph of Charge - Increases the range of your Charge ability by 5 yards.

I have gotten caught before I charge once or twice but not enough to take this on spec. However, if everyone else in the ranged category picks their increased range then we will kind of have to won't we?

Glyph of Cleaving - Reduces the rage cost of Cleave by 5.

You have 2-3 things beating on you as you grind and you need rage?! You have 2 PvP happy folk beating on you and you need 5 rage?! Skip this one

Glyph of Devastate - Your Devastate ability now applies two stacks of Sunder Armor.

Tank happiness!! I don't see tanks not having this if it applies the threat of 2 sunders especially.

Glyph of Enduring Victory - Increases the window of opportunity in which you can use Victory Rush by 5 sec.

Not needed. You either get this or you don't but don't waste slots on trying to get it. Skip this one.

Glyph of Execution - Your Execute ability deals damage as if you had 10 additional rage.

PvP maybe. It adds 210 dmg to your execute. Honestly, what with the new Stamina average, execute does not have much ummph anymore and adding 210 to it seems silly.

Glyph of Hamstring - Gives your Hamstring ability a 10% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.

Does this stack with the talent?! Is the talent even their anymore once Wrath goes live?! Who knows?!

Glyph of Heroic Strike - You gain 10 rage when you critically strike with your Heroic Strike ability.

PvP niceness and possibly tanking niceness. It'll have to wait til live before I say ya or nay.

Glyph of Intervene - Increases the number attacks you intercept for your Intervene target by 1.

Just no.

Glyph of Mocking Blow - Increases the damage of your Mocking Blow ability by 25%.

Some synergy with Barbaric Insults glyph. Would still like to know more about the taunt bit.

Glyph of Mortal Strike - Increases the damage of your Mortal Strike ability by 10% but the healing penalty is reduced by half.

Is this applied to plus 210 or the entire hit? Even if it is the entire hit, just no. MS crit for 1500 with +10% is 1650 which can be healed by a 3k heal that is reduced by 25% for 2250 or a 1500 MS crit that is healed with a 3k heal for 1500? Deceptive? Not really what about all the other damage incoming from other sources on your target? Skip this one.

Glyph of Overpower - Adds a 50% chance to enable your Overpower when your attacks are parried.

PvP maybe.

Glyph of Rapid Charge - Reduces the cooldown of your Charge ability by 20%.

Just no.

Glyph of Rending - Increases the duration of your Rend ability by 3 sec.

Hell no.

Glyph of Resonating Power - Increases the maximum targets affected by your Thunder Clap ability by 4.

Tanking no brainer. Answering some of that Consecrate issue.

Glyph of Revenge - After using Revenge, your next Heroic Strike costs no rage.

When you are tanking... are you really that starved for Rage? I don't know about this one. Situational.

Glyph of Shield Slam - Increases your block value by 10% for 10 sec after using your Shield Slam ability.

Sounds like tanking to me.

Glyph of Spell Reflection - Reduces the cooldown of your Spell Reflection ability by 2 sec.

PvP maybe. Die frost mage >.<

Glyph of Sunder Armor - Your Sunder Armor ability affects a second nearby target.

Tanking love here. Again, answering complaints of Druid and Pally tank options.

Glyph of Sweeping Strikes - You generate 30 rage over 12 sec when you use your Sweeping Strikes ability.

Can you say insta Whirlwind? I like this one.

Glyph of Taunt - Increases the chance for your Taunt ability to succeed by 8%.

Most of the bosses were immune and when they weren't how much was this resisted? Dunno about this one yet.

Glyph of Thunder Clap - Increases the radius of your Thunder Clap ability by 2 yards.

Tanking again.

Glyph of Victory Rush - Your Victory Rush ability has a 30% increased critical strike chance against targets
above 90% health.

Nice leveling Glyph. Not sure about the PvP part.

Glyph of Whirlwind - Increases the number of targets you Whirlwind ability hits by 1.

Synergy with Glyph of Sweeping Strikes. Seems more like a grinding glyph than useful tho.

Gustav

2008-08-31T15:10:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone,

Take a look at this to the right here. This is a pic of Gustav and its path. I live slightly NW of the third H dot.

See ya when the power comes back on :(

Music time

2008-08-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

Honorshammer had a post about what song he likes to metaphor his tanking. I got to thinking that I might just steal that idea and modify it just so and let you guys know what I really like to listen to and for what occasion.

When I get to listen to the music loud cuz no one is there…

For PvP

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor - Drowning Pool
Inside the Fire - Disturbed (Anything by Disturbed really)
Welcome to the Jungle by GnR
Dirty by Trick Daddy ( I really enjoy a harder bassline combined with classic guitar riffs)
Go to Sleep by Eminem, DMX
One by Metallica
O fortuna
Lux Aeterna
Just like you imagined
Anything by Queen particularly (One vision)
Up in here – DMX
Red Tape - Agent Provacatuer
Machinehead – Bush
Dragula, More Human than Human, Living Dead Girl – Rob Zombie

Content Patch and Warstomps

2008-08-27T09:40:00.000-05:00

I was going to try Warhammer out! Really! I was! Then Blizz drops the content patch goodness on Warhammer’s release time. Those evil and smart bastiches!!! I can get that new and sweet Titans Grip before WOTLK?! Time to grind another 27K honor for the 2H Merciless Axe and luckily AV weekend falls on a holiday weekend where I have an extra day off!!

I started last night with the daily of WSG and really feel the need to post about it. Listen guys, when you drop into a WSG that 0/1 and quickly goes to 0/2, you do NOT quit playing! I zoned in to this and I went immediately to get the flag and ran it back for a capture. A pally whispers me to tell me “Thank god, someone who can play!” I stay in the throne room and kill all the ally with a very nice Resto Druid and affliction Lock. No one was getting our flag.

Another druid takes the ally flag and is gone!!! I run down tunnel to intercept his pursuers and proceed to fear bomb all of them with a piecing howl for good measure and the druid was gone and up the tunnel for point #2.

I am already half way to their flag so off I go. A priest gets there before me and I meet her running out and she drops the flag off to me. Another thing guys, this priest was awesome because she knew I could run the flag better and chose the match over personal glory. We run it back and get into a fight at the opening of our tunnel. I sword and board it with Blazefury in defensive using reflect and block whenever they are up while sundering the target I am on until I get 5 and the guy drops. Sometimes, it is better to fight it out especially when your team is there to back you up.

The fight is done and I am able to run up tunnel with 1 or 2 chasers. 1 chaser is a gnome warrior who knows what he is about and is about 1 or 2’ ahead of me and is not fighting but running. He is running to pick up our flag before I can cap! This is a fine tactic until you Warstomped by me. He was exactly 1” away from the flag when I capped for the win.

You don't always get what you want.

2008-08-18T16:25:00.000-05:00

Heya,

This is Hip posting. I figured.. my boobs, my shirt, my post! So, i made this shirt as a 'haha' but wear it a lot.. Ally bait on the front. Horde symbol that says HORDEalicious on the back.

So without anymore chatter i give you..
ReNOOBed's worst nightmare..
Yeah, -S- you can move out of state.. but will never get away from meh bOObs. =]

Sugars hair and small guilds

2008-08-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

I have a little guild on Lightninghoof named The Dogs of War. Sugars and I started up the guild for Bank tabs and Gchat. We invited mainly our real life friends or people we personally quested with who wanted a home. I have 2 70s on teh Hoof and I usually farm out Herk to other guilds just to see if any of them are a good fit. I really have not found a guild that I have wanted to belong to so I usually end up bringing Herk back to Dogs.

I tell any and all of my old WoW friends which server I play on and to please make an alt and join gchat for the occasional drive by chatting. Back in the day of the first server switch, I met Ozma and fell into friendship rather fast. (Psst, don’t tell the wife.) Well, Ozma decided to take a turn for the PvP and she loves it so far. I have told you before and you can see her own comments but PVP server makes the game much more interesting. It’s even better if you actually know your guildies as friends who show up when you are getting ganked.

Now when I say we are small… we are tiny. We have 4 70s of which 2 are mine. We need someone to either play another healer or tank as I am the only with either tank or healer atm and this will make 5 mans hard in WOTLK. I have high hopes for Sugars and his Death Knight as a tank! I digress. The nice thing about small guilds of friends is the camaraderie that comes from it. Personally, I have looked at Gchat in random guilds and seen the constant “Can someone give me a runthrough?” and not thought even to reply with a “no.”

Not so much in our small guild. When there is gchat going on, it is either about boobs, porn, or can I give you a runthrough, do you need any G? This really only happens in little guilds and I think for WOTLK we will be keeping it up.

Side Note: Yes, Renoobed is in the guild but only with his low level alts. I am fairly certain he considers it slumming. However, he did stock the Gbank up with blue rings when he leveled JC and is always helpful when asked… unless it’s me asking.

Sony and I did arena last night and had a grand ole time. She likes the arena and already has better tactics than Melvin.

Without further ado…

I present Sugars with the Zack Morris hair flop!

Spin Class!! er What?!

2008-08-12T09:07:00.000-05:00

So I am still hitting the gym and have even started dieting after I read something that struck me as profound and really quite simple. An article on Bodybuilding.com said that one can not out exercise a bad diet. Geez?! Really?! I don’t know how many times I justified eating something because I had worked out that day but I assure you it was a lot. So I have been on my diet for 3 weeks and this is the start of the 4th. I have had tremendous gains. I take that back as I have had tremendous losses. I dropped a pant size again in 3 weeks and I am down to 252lbs. I will be keeping up with this diet until at least December.

It’s been really easy because I do allow myself a cheat day on Saturdays. I may get to the point where I don’t have a cheat day but I enjoy waking up on Saturday mornings with my son and have a really big bowl of Cocoa Crispies which we share while watching cartoons. Sun – Fri it is planned meal time. For those wondering what it looks like.

Morning – 1cup of Oatmeal
Mid Morning – 12oz with protein mix
Lunch – 6oz chicken breast with Broccoli
Mid Afternoon – Can of Tuna
Gym time 45 – 60 minutes depending
Dinner – Protien, carbs, veggies
Late night – 2tblspns of Peanut Butter

The above it pretty balanced and honestly, since I eat every 2-3 hours, I am not hungry and I do not get hit with food cravings because I am always full or haven’t been without food long enough to get hungry. I am also drinking ½ gallon to a gallon of water a day.

Now what was that about spin class? My supervisor does a spin class and has challenged me to go to it. Now, I can do that damnable elliptical machine for about an hour but this spin class crap is going to kill me. I told her I’d go so Ima gonna… just don’t expect too much.

@ Jah, Baelgun server, Mutiny Guild

2008-08-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

I did not play very much last night as it was my wife’s first night of classes with H&R Block and I was in charge of the boy. We had lots of fun. We jumped on the bed and danced more than a little to… er … Lazy Town. Please don’t tell anyone about that internet. He fell asleep pretty early so I went and squeezed in some game time. I ran teh Ozmah through Shadowfang Keep about 3 times and got her all of the casters drops! Yay!

After that my wife was home and we decided to get the daily PvP in which was WSG. Q up and get ready to play. Alliance was on their game last night and it was a hard fought match 10-15 minutes in and no one had scored. We could not get the flag back from the warrior and his 3 druids (yes!!! F’ing 3 druids.) On my way back, I notice a well geared hunter who was AFK on his mount.

Here we all were doing our damndest to win and here sits this loser inching forward on his mount 1 step at a time so I can’t just report his ass. I call him out in BG chat only to be told to QQ more. Ahem… do people know how lucky they are to be sitting far away from me at times? Noobed knows how lucky he is I am sure. Not that he has ever afk’d in anything but he has definitely riled me up enough to hit him if he was in range.

Anyways, playing with this F*(ker was bad enough once but we get him the next game as well. I let everyone know up front that he will afk and be quite useless. He spend the rest of his time in that BG tell people that I keep /w bombing him when in actuality he keeps /w me telling me he “lubs me.”

Great way to represent your guild, your server and yourself you disgraceful heap and you may not ever know it but somewhere and somewhen that little weird nostalgia you get when someone punches you in the face… that’s me helping them do it.

Jah – Orc Hunter – Baelgun server – Guilded with Mutiny… Resident @$$hat and F*(ktard.

I don’t necessarily wish anything bad on you that would be permanent but I hope someone punches you in the face today.

Monday

2008-08-04T12:49:00.000-05:00

First off, I am still working on my wife to get the twins and Ally Bait t-shirt picture up. I even went so far as to let her come to the store with my boy and I despite his protest that she “go way.” If it is not taken and posted soon then I will deny her any loving! Er … I am working on it though.

AV was great this weekend as everyone was a win with defenders galore at RH. Offense was even recapping Tower Point and IB Tower. I had several wins with over 600 honor earned. I even played my wife’s hunter so she could get some HPs this weekend. That crazy girl went and got herself a book on an AV weekend and decided to read it instead. I mean really… you could have waited until WSG weekend baby.

My pally made lv30 and got his very spiffy red and gold warhorse. I wasn’t able and didn’t play very much this weekend because my graphics card went down like Monica Belluci in Shoot em up. I had to buy another but luckily it was a tax break weekend and the card was on sale. Yay!

I am still sticking to the diet and am losing roughly 3lbs a week. I am hoping to be at the 247 mark at the end of this month and the 237 mark at the end of September.

The Not so Artful Dodger

2008-07-31T10:44:00.000-05:00

The Not So Artful Dodger

My friend has decided to start enjoying the blogosphere even though he feels dirty about the word. I have been friends with him so long we managed to date the same girl. No, it is not my now wife or his lol. I really need to write that fiasco down sometime.

Back before WoW we used to get together for weekend games of HALO at a buddies house. Those were just truly awesome times and even though I am ecstatic about my life now I will always look back on those times with just a little bit of longing for great days gone by.

The Dodger started WoW life as a Pally. In fact, I am fairly certain that he was chosen as the token pally like Ironbelly was since they were just a tad late in picking WoW up and we still had a D&D mindset of got to have a balanced party. Warriors back then were hugely jealous of the Pally SoC damage output when we couldn’t get enough Rage to get a Battle Shout up at times and here this yahoo class can DPS and Heal and wear plate. Arghh!!

The Dodger got tired of Pally life and rolled a Human Rogue that he leveled with blazing speed until he got “hitched.” Hey, its his word. Now Dodger’s wife, much like my own, is truly an awesome lady and I completely understand the leaving the WoW crack pipe aside. I would have done the same thing had my wife not started playing with me. I have some of the best stories about Dodger playing his Paladin. You have to understand though; we were all new to the game and not students of everything gaming like Noobed over there. For the longest time, I wouldn’t even read the instruction manual because I thought I would learn enough just playing the game. Errr ya… I am still working on that.

I leave you to one of our most laughed about tales. I have to mention here that Dodger had been out of the raiding game for about 2-3 months and was just filling in as help for us when this happened.

Fankriss in AQ40, I think I have the right name there. He was the scorpion type with add spawn points? Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Anyways, we are setting up for Fankriss and we are paired off into spawn point groups. Dodger is in my group as my main healer. I really don’t have anything to worry about as Dodger gives leet heals and my gear is very nice for an OT at the time. I had on all Wrath except the chest plate (You go straight to hell Nefarion!) which never dropped for me. So the raid leader is on vent waiting to call everyone over to the tail to begin DPS.

MT engages, adds spawn and I start grouping them up. Then over vent you hear, “Everyone to the tail!” followed shortly by “Why is Kelmar dead?!” then "Dodger!! Why are you at the tail!?!!" It seems Dodger thought he was supposed to go to the tail and was wondering why I didn’t pull back for heals LOL. Dear god we still laugh about it.

The Wife Part Deux

2008-07-30T12:53:00.000-05:00

My wife hit level 70 on her hunter a while ago (Yay!!) and she started the farming of various things. One of her farming places was the big crystal in Nagrand for Primal Shadows. Now the problem for new 70s on a PvP server is all of them farm spots are warzones on occasion and if not a warzone then probably a gankzone. Furthermore, the problem with Nagrand and the Primal Shadows is that raiding guilds need the Primals for Black Temple or some such.

We all know how cowardly alliance is by now do we not? kk just checking.

So you have a 70 belf hunter not even in rep gear (side note: my wife did not like Terrorkar and skipped the later half of the quest to go to her favorite zone which is Nagrand.) Now, given this delicious opportunity to prove your Black Temple epics are much better than my wife’s greens/blues I can see how she is irresistible for the ganking. However, did you look up at all?

So there is a t6 hunter that stops by my wife and /waves her and 2secs later is casting aimed shot at her… 4secs after that happens he gets hit with a starfire for 4k+ dmg and he gets dead shortly there after. The hunter’s warlock buddy who was spectating the ganking is also caught unawares but my wife’s hunter still dies from dots I think followed shortly by the Lock. What the?! Rogue too?!! Sigh… run run … run some more… outta combat /swift flight form and gone.

Head on back after healing up and the hunter has rezzed and is eating until he is placed back into the spirit world by me. The lock is up on a bird and I dot her while she flies up out of range. At this point my wife and I are still talking and while the hunter rezzes and the warlock is on me I tell her to rez and get in the fight.

“I can’t I didn’t run back to my body.”

(Sorry Ratshag gotta steal again)

Fuhgginmotherfuhgginfuhgall!!!

“I’m sorry, what’s that you say?”

“Don’t yell at me!”

Kill hunter… run from lock… /swift flight form

Drop back down and use the BR on the wife who may or may not have been back by that time because my memory is hazey on the incident now. We both have a good laugh and kill the duo again.

Next day or so…

My wife comes in with her ample bosom (Never thought I would be able to write that on this blog… BigRedKitty should be happy) and proudly shows her shirt that now says Ally Bait with the Horde symbol on the back. I’ll try and get her to post a pic of it. It stills cracks me up.

The wife

2008-07-29T10:05:00.000-05:00

I don’t really write about my wife very often because a) she reads the blog b) I can put a foot in my mouth without ever realizing it is there. That being said I will try and given you some of her funny exploits.

I played WoW when I was single. When I started seeing my new girlfriend, now wife, I quit playing for a good couple of months. At the time I began playing again, I had had to take an overnight job to keep money coming in so she was left chilling at my place overnight. She would watch me play here and there while watching TV. One night as I am trying to level fishing she takes over and fishes a little. I leave for work at 10pm and leave her there fishing.

I call her about midnight to talk and ask her what’s going on. “Playing.” She says. “You’re still fishing?” I ask. “Nope, playing.” She says. “Playing what?! The priest I made to show you the NELF dance?”

“Yup”

Call her back at 2am to let her know I will be home for my lunch period if she is still awake. She says she is because she is still playing. So I get home at 3am and it is hot in the house which confuses me and I see this pizza that is slowly sliding off the stove because it has thawed out. I call out and she is back in the bedroom and I ask about the pizza.

“Oh noes!! I forgot!!!”

I go back to work. I don’t call her anymore because I think she will have passed out by the time I get home. I get home at 6:55 because we left early. I would normally get home at 7:15ish. I walk in to all the lights on and hear her shriek something to the tune of “Iwassupposedtohavefifteenmoreminutes!!”

Yup, she was still playing. We shared an account for a while after that. Eventually, we got 2 computers, 2 accounts and 2 WoW habits. She now plays on Horde side with me as a Belf Hunter. She likes the hunter way better than the priest.

Tomorrow, I will explain how she came to make her own shirt with the phrase “Ally Bait” written across the chest.

The weekend

2008-07-28T09:38:00.000-05:00

Not too much going on for the WoW side. I got Aerthson’s season 2 staff and Herk his guardian pendant. I’ll need to get some arena in tonight to get points for Herk and my wife’s hunter. The pally that was really good decided to be really flakey. Noobed tells me he has a partner for this weekend but that must have fell through because he was also a no show.

Arena 5s

This was really an abysmal effort this week. No one focused fired my target. All 5 of us went different directions most of the time. Also, we played some very well put together and disciplined teams. The last match we lost, I was in awe of the teamwork for LOS they used. I’d explain it but it won’t do it justice to actually see them do it. They roughest teams we faced were:

Druid, Druid, Priest, Pally, Rogue
Priest, Warrior, Warrior, Lock, Pally

The above kept 2 members of our team permanently cycloned. The second team make up had 4 fear bombs and they knew… they used it masterfully. We did beat the Druid/Druid team once. We played them a total of 3 times though. The Fear Bombs away team we encountered 3 times as well with no wins against them.

Usually, I leave the Melviin bits up to Noobed over there but the “we shouldn’t play on Sat” irked me. It doesn’t matter when we play, it matters HOW we play Melvin and your squishy butt running into the other 5s team in hopes of getting a chain lightning off was quite silly. Quit dying!! Not once did I see you ghostwolf and haul ass. Quit waiting for heals >.<

He wasn’t only one playing not up to spec as we all had our issues. It was especially painful after having a good week before. Sigh

I played my pally a bit over the weekend. I enjoy tanking with him and the DPS is fine by me thanks to the guides I read on how to DPS as a pally.

When is it time to take a break?

2008-07-23T10:55:00.000-05:00

No, I am not taking a break as I don’t need ont at the moment. However, I have certainly been in the spot. I was reading my blogroll when I ran across MarriedIRL’s sad post about raiding and burnout. I used to raid in a guild on Malygos named Arcanum (Shout out). They are doing quite well in the progression and I believe they are the number one progression guild on that server now.

I left them to go play with my RL friend on another server. This is where I met (SHOUT OUT) Doomilias, BigRedkitty, Ozma, Triggy iggy iggy, Wisp, Brigin and many more of the now bloggin community. After some time there, the guild kind of crumpled due to various issues. I in my less than infinite, quite a bit less, wisdom decided to help out and start my own guild to begin leading the raids I had already had on farm status such as MC, BWL and AQ20/40.

I will not go into the guild leadership stuff. I don’t think I was particularly good at it so I will gloss over it.

I lead the guid into the Burning Crusade and leveled with everyone who decided to do the free server move with us. I leveled really hard and hit 70 in about month. I say really hard because it was for me at the time being a brad spanking new father. I had a couple of people hit 70 in the guild really quick (Hunters!! Imagine that >.<) and I think at one time we tried to do Shattered Halls with Warrior, 3 hunters and a shadow priest. Ya… that didn’t work out well but was fun none the less.

Then, the dark cloud began to form. This dark cloud really became ONE person. I am sure she knows who she is. /w after /w after /w about how no one liked her, how she was lonely (He husband was in the guild for god’s sake!!) how she wanted more responsibility, how no one wanted to play with her. It started to really stress me. I couldn’t log on without 2 hours of playing counselor. My wife started getting angry that I stressed over playing the game due to this person who was not by any means my wife.

I went through this for about 2 weeks when I realized I was playing the game from 6pm to 1am with at least 2-3 hours of BS thrown in. It got too much. I saw my son do something that I had never seen before. When I commented on it, my wife informed me that he had been doing it for quite a while now. I knew right then it was time to play less… way less. I posted on our guild site that I was taking some time off and that it would probably be extended. I left the guild in very capable hands and he really did not want the job but understood my reasons (Thanks BRK).

After about 4 months of great family time and many a lbs dropped later, I began wanting to play again without having the responsibility to play. I created a new warrior on a PvP server that I had some toons on and played very casually and the game is just as much fun. I have done Kara once, did Mags and Gruuls and have seen the inside of some cool places. Do I miss raiding? I sure do. I like the epic fights and all that goes into getting to them, but it is not something I can do right now.

If you need a break… take a break. If the game isn’t fun anymore… play something else.

Working on it post instead of Dark Knight review

2008-07-21T09:40:00.000-05:00

I am writing the below post because a good many of my friends did not go see The Dark Knight and have threatened me with giving anything away. However, I can say that the movie lived up to the hype and to the promise which is hard to do for both things. 10/10 for me on the first veiwing.

So like everyone else in the world of warcraft I will want to play a Deathknight. I will not be leveling another toon until after I get Herk and Aerthson up to 80 and the other toon will be the Deathknight if I have the time. That being said, with the time I have left before WOTLK hits I need to set myself some goals I tell ya. What can I get Herk and Aerthson to do before Wrath hits? I have been working on several things.

Herk

375 BS
375 Mining
275 Cooking
0 Fishing
375 First Aid

I crafted my happy little Blazefury this past week for my tanking sword which should last a few level into WOTLK. I do need to get it enchanted with Executioner tho. Herk also needs badges so in between week I will be hitting the prot spec for some Heroics and a Kara or two. Herk needs to hit Exalted with Scryer too. Need to get his Guardian gear.

Aerthson

375 LW
375 Skinning
375 Cooking
340 Fishing (You only need this on one toon as far as I know.)
30 First Aid (Need to work on this)

Aerthson needs his s2 Staff for boomkin happiness and he should be good on DPS side for PvP. I have no plans of raiding with him as Boomkin or Resto although I may go get him some badges for happy loots. Also, when my wife starts her Netherwing grind I will help her on Aerthson for giggles only because Swift Flight Form >>> Netherdrake.

Not sure what else I can be working on at the moment. Will have to think up more stuff to do…

Pally through Dark Clouds?

2008-07-15T09:39:00.000-05:00

Well then!! First off, we have a rocking Pally for 3s!!! But I have to hit you with the Melvin team first.

So last night was arena night for pretty much everyone I know on the game. We all let it drag out until Monday and had to get our games in. I really do not care to do arena on Monday nights. It seems rushed. If we happened to be doing very well with the team there isn’t really anytime to run the rating up on Monday night.

So first up we have a Melvin team. Now, Noobed told me no more Melvin. Then he goes and sets up a 5s team. We had a SL/SL Lock, Elemental Shaman, Discipline Priest, Boomkin (me) and Frost Mage (Noobed). This should really be a sick team. We have Focus fire, Mana Drains, CC. However, it seems that we couldn’t get our teamwork quite down. As always, shenanigans were afoot. Noobed told them no alts and we were going to go for ratings this week and to take it seriously. The problems were pretty much the same. We went 5 and 5. We should be doing much better than that. Aerthson did get caught by a rogue once when I was creeping out in cat form. I was pretty much done after he stunlocked me. This was ridiculous! I have a priest, a lock and a mage. For god’s sake Heal, Fear, Sheep… can I get some D please? Kk Thanks!

It was my wife’s first time in arena!! It was just points run as she still has greens and what not. It was pretty brutal. We ran 3s with Noobed’s Shammy and Herk and my wife’s Hunter. After game 5, the pally Noobed had been talking up came online for some points.

I really have nothing else to say but Holy $h!t! The first match he calls out lead target and we go to work. We win and take a look and that Pally out DPS’d Herk by 10k. WTF?! Seriously, I have never seen a pally play this well. The next 4 matches were wins as well. I was particular proud that I no longer had to worry about my other teammates. The last match was 2 hunters and a lock. I was able to dispatch (with extreme prejudice) the lock without ever feeling the need to pan around cuz my teammates could handle their own. I ran and jumped up and off the bridge to kill the hunter that was following Noobed and we all took down the last hunter.

I am so stoked for next arena. The other great thing is that the guy has 3 warriors like I do and we can talk shop. He has 5 70s and is on all day everyday tho. That worries me lol.

Anyways, Noobed really did find some gold in that pally.

/salute

These are the days

2008-07-07T14:12:00.000-05:00

So there I am in Netherwing Fields doing the dailies so I can finally have a dragon. Yes, it’s my first one. I’ll let everyone know when I got her with a picture. Anyways, I am mining nethercite ore when Vishra (Lightninghoof) stops by and waves at me. Now Vishra is a gnome rogue see… and I hate gnomes, hence, she got no wave in reply. I mount and move on to the next ore.

Here’s where it gets interesting. For anyone who as farmed netherwing rep, I am sure you know the landing point for the transports guarded by two hulking elites. There is an ore spawn point there which is close to the guards but you don’t aggro them if you land on the backside of the ore. Now with adamantite going for 28g a stack on my server… I BRAKE for adamantite may as well be plastered on my tabard.

Hrmm, that gnome rogue Vishra followed me over here and is waving again. That gnome can’t possibly be that stupid… what am I thinking!! It’s a gnome!! Sure enough, stabbity stabbity. Trinket out and turn around… with all that nice built up second wind rage and hit that gnome so hard the gnomes in Ironforge wince. I’m not kidding… the first crit was for over 2k. I added the nifty little /goodbye to my Execute so you can imagine what he saw spammed. Gnome on my hoof tho!! Sigh… what the?

Dorf hunter from same guild smacking me in the back I realize. Turn and Intercept his dorf but and proceed to layeth it down again. The Dwarf must really have been undergeared cuz I only had to pot in order for him not to kill me when I was already at half from that silly gnome. /Goodbye Dorf.

Stun

What now?! Pally from the same guild >.< The pally is gonna be death of me. That really stings. Sigh… lets go get my licks in at least! Why is he running from me?! Is he undergeared too? Does he see those two elites he is back into? I back off and let him go and bam. Dead Pally storage. I mount up and ride off chuckling so hard to myself I feel the need to tell everyone what happened.

Moments like this make all the crap gankings at Isle o Cash worth it.

Herk's targets

2008-07-02T22:14:00.000-05:00

Druid/Mage/Warrior

This is pretty straight forward for Herk. Charge the mage and make him Iceblock. BOF from pally would help here as 20 sec would pass before it would even be needed again. After the Iceblock, I hit the Druid and wait on the 70 Rage at which time Tazzy and I rock the Resto Druid. Must make sure to stun or hamstring druid right before burst. Warrior should be beating on Noobed.

Druid/Rogue/Warlock

Tag the Lock’s pet on charge and kill it. Possible fear bomb if the others are close to me. Now then if the pets dead the lock can be killed easier but we should wait until I hit the 70rage mark before Burst because the druids have a harder time healing through Burst. Alternately, I kill the lock pet and switch to Druid and burst him. The problem with doing this is relying on stun for that god awful fearing that will happen to Tazzy in the interim. Lock should really be first imo as Tazzy is rendered useless from Deathcoil and fears. No extra DPS, no extra heals = no win.

Druid/Rogue/Warrior

Argh!! This one Noobed is right on. We should be owning this team. Druid goes down first thanks to burst. I will have to wait for the burst because more likely than not Tazzy will be blinded while Noobed is getting beat on by the Rogue/Warrior combo. Run little wolf run. Most likely we will kill the other’s healer and it will be 2v2 with some heals coming from Tazzy at which time I think killing the Rogue makes more sense.

Druid/Lock/Warrior

Fear bombs!! Gotta remember to stay in Zerk most of the time. Also, Lock pet first, then Lock>Druid>Warrior. I don’t like the fact that lock puts Tazzy out of the game so much so he gotta go. Remember to wait for 70 rage mark and then call out burst. When Burst is called out should be a Q for Noobed to try and Earthshock the druid. After the lock is the druid and then warrior.

Hunter/Mage/Priest

Yikes!! Erm so this is a drain team that will most likely focus on Noobed when they see he is the healer. Mage has to iceblock so he is first up on the charge list. Then I get kinda sketchy… Hunter then Priest? Priest then Hunter? Wouldn’t it depend on what the priest was? Are the typically shadow for this setup? If so, I think kick the hunter’s ass and make the not so talented Priest try his hand at healing.

Mage/Priest/Rogue

Mage has to Iceblock then am on the priest. Rogue will be kited by Noobed.

Paladin/Shaman/Rogue

Shaman gotta die. For this to happen means the Pally is ret or stunned and burst goes off on shaman. Ignore rogue. If Pally is the healer, I will try and fear bomb close to the Shaman and wait on the 70rage for Burst.

That’s it for now. Feel free to throw me any comments.

Burn list

2008-07-02T16:18:00.000-05:00

Warriors – PvP warriors will most likely be Arms. If they are not, they are not much of a concern. In any event, Herk should not beat on them when there is a better target. Better read more easily killed.

Druid – This one has to have subsets

Restoration – I am in their face, no slack given.

Balance – In their face if not in Moonkin form. With Moonkin going I need to skip because of the damage mitigation.

Feral – If they are in cat I can wack on them but again there are better targets as they can switch to Bear form with mondo AC.

Mages – This one needs a subset

Frost – In his face, he’s gotta burn that Iceblock.

Fire – In his face, he’s gotta burn that Iceblock and will mostly be meat anyways.

Arcane – Only fought one, wasn’t impressed but he’s still gotta burn that Iceblock too.

Warlocks – Kill the pet, kill the lock.

Shaman – Kill the shaman and kill him first. They seem to be easily killed by melee whether they resto or not. However, the do have a bit higher AC so they may not be first all of the time. Especially if I have Tazzy backing me up.

Paladin – Really one of the last I should be wacking on. High AC, bubbles, can heal themselves full when they bubble. I should make them waste the healing on the mob I am hitting that had the Mortal Strike debuff on it.

Priest – Sharpen points on Mace. Hit them and hit them hard. Yes, the can bubble but only for so long. They all need to die and interrupted and what not.

Rogue – I can eat Rogues. It’s harder if they are getting heals so I should have taken out the healer first. They aren’t going to be focusing on Herk because of his high AC but the may try and lock him up.

Next up will be the most common team make ups and my target for first kill on those teams.

To make my point

2008-07-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

It's like this internet peoples. Noobed can not give constructive criticism. He gives FLAT criticism and makes you feel like a moron when doing it. See below the below comment from Noobed.

"He goes druid. And gets mowed down in arena. And I get SUPER PISSED. Cuz every goddamn dps in the game has been in a battleground and run into the near unkillable resto druid. And here I am thinking... I know for damn sure you've seen a resto druid played properly first hand... and you didn't learn shit from it. Even asa boomkin, you can pick up stuff"

This is typical Noobed when he decides to talk about what went wrong with Arena. Anyone else see the Gordon Ramsey reference?

He even baits me to quit the team and then covers his tracks by telling me I'm a quitter. Renoobed we gonna go through this once more... I'm your friend. What I am not is a sycophant, snivler, shut up and take it or even your GODDAMN idea of the perfect player or thinker. What I don't do is turn into an asshole over a GODDAMN game. This is exactly what happens to you when I make a mistake or don't pick up as fast as you think I should.

You don't like playing with me... don't play with me. But this comes to an end. If you can not /w me with doing silly crap like /wrists everytime I play with you, then don't bother.

Arena

2008-06-30T23:57:00.000-05:00

Hello internet! (Hope TJ doesn't have the copyrighted)

Arena has started for Noobed and I again so this should make for amusing posts as you know how the two of us get along. I very muched realized why I can't get along with Noobed when it comes to his criticisms. It's not the fact that he is right. It's the fact that he comes across like a complete jackass when he is trying to tell you what you are doing wrong. I really feel justified in calling him the Gordon Ramsey of Arena.

I mentioned this to him and his response was something like... "Gordon Ramsey is GOD!" Most of the time when I am watching that Hell's Kicthen thing I am thinking, I would so punch him in the face. The problem with Noobed is, he aint got Gordon Ramsey's skills in the kitchen/arena.

He wonders why I am targeting the rogue. I am not beating on the rogue Noobed! I am Hamstringing the rogue in hopes that you Ghost Wolf that sorry geared Resto Shaman of your and head to the next zipcode. This while I have Sweeping Strikes going on so I am hitting both his and my guy anyways.

Alas, he wouldn't have as much ammunition if I didn't forget easy stuff like kill the damn Felhunter. I think he wants me to stay in the healers face more but I'm not sure this is the best thing in all situations since I am the Burst DPS. I can make a resto druid run for their life but I can't kill one easily and I can't leave the Rogue and Warrior beating on my healer. It's sticky. Probably gonna need to send Megs an email.

Below are the screenshots I managed to send before I passed out last night. I didn't take screenshots of all of the matches because my team was freaking out thinking I was lagging. Yes, I did tell them before hand that I would be screenshotting and taking notes. Sigh. The teams below were testing fights but nothing dramatically hard. Also, I have the list of the matches from Round 4 on. Not sure why I lost Round 1-3 but Round 1 and 3 were wins while Round 2 was a loss. The first name after the Round is who died first. I also posted the win or loss and team makeup.

Special note: Unbound's gear is not up to snuff in resilence department but the rest is very good. I think he is at +1600 heals.

Now, I don't have the fight that I think was Lock/Druid/Pally. We kill the lock and the Feral druid takes out Unbound rogue style. I start beating on the catform druid and he changes to bear at like 15%... he's dead!! I got em. He gets a heal and goes to 21% thanks to Mortal Strike. I figure Tazzy is right there next to the pally. ( I had told Tazzy that one of his main jobs was to stun heals and he had been doing it. ) I continue to beat on the bear who jumps back up to 33% and Tazzy is beating on the bear with me now and I am steadily going down in health. You see... I had that Druid... he was dead. They ended up winning as he steadily drained my health and Tazzy was out of mana.

Now look... Tazzy used his mana to fight not to heal. You hear this Noobed? I never got back up over into green on my health bar and I'm sorry. A F($cking Bear druid is NOT going eat away at my health with his crap DPS and kill me if I am getting heals. Tazzy was NOT healing me. There was no healing debuff on me. The next time you armchair quarterback cuz you are in the spirit realm please pay more attention before telling me Tazzy was healing me. He was not.

Round 4

Unbound Loss Warr/Rog/Druid

Herk

Tazzy

Rogue and Warrior at Unbound figured they liked steak and went through me.

Round 5

Unbound Loss Priest/Rogue/Druid

Herk

Tazzy

Again, Rogue ate Unbound. I was on priest entire time and the Druid ran free cuz Tazzy was on my priest.

Round 6

Unbound Loss Warr/Rogue/Pally

Herk

Tazzy

Guess what happened here!

ROund 7

Unbound Loss Rogue/Mage/Shammy

Herk

Tazzy

And again!!!

Round 8

No deaths Win Priest/Druid/Pally

We took this one apart. Probably built up angst from losing so much.

Round 9

Undound Loss Lock/Rogue/Druid

Tazzy

Herk

Dear god that lock new hot to fear Tazzy. Tazzy was blinded, stunlocked, rooted and Feared the entire match. The rogue had more Unbound pie.

Round 10

Unbound Loss Druid/Rogue/Warr

Tazzy

Herk

Rogue and Warrior kill Unbound then Tazzy then me.
Round 11

Win Priest/Mage/Rogue

Just a little more cloth armor please!!

Chokepoint

2008-06-26T09:59:00.000-05:00

The bitch! Or (Why doesn’t Horde have as many choke points as the Alliance and they still push our cave back?!)

Not sure how much terrain you guys pay attention to in AV but I have noticed since doing AV regular for the last year or so that there too damn many ally chokepoints for them to be bitching about our cave placement.

“Wait, Alliance can’t rush so they need the choke points!”

As Ratshag would say, Barbelfungger that! Allys first job is to run past every single fortification Horde has and try and take the Frostwolf Relief Hut. Now, when I get out of the cave I head immediately to the RH and stand guard because someone has to throw fits that it is getting zerged! So standard Ally attack pattern for AV is run to Snowfall take graveyard and run to Galv or Iceblood while leaving a small crew to take the two towers there. Also, if they are any good at all, they send at least 5 to RH to try and cap that early and the completely pass up Frostwolf graveyard.

“Can’t Horde do the same thing?”

No, we can’t.

“Why not? Horde used to steamroll alliance on zerg when starting Cave was closer.”

Sometime we did if you silly allys left no Def and I mean none.

One thing you have to realize is that Horde in my battlegroup ALWAYS start the match short. I am sure you have heard me throw fits before and AV is no exception. In AV our normal starting looks like 38 Ally to 26 Horde. No, I am not kidding, exaggerating or making shit up. That’s how it starts and within 5 minutes or so of the match starting it will level out.

“What’s 5 min?”

It’s flippin more than the 30 second head start Horde got with our original starting cave that you dandelion eaters threw greenpeace fits about! OOO move the cave…close it in… we need a Mount Cenariusmore! Flippin Elves!

The Chokepoints!

Horde has a chokepoint in exactly 1 spot! The little path between the through tower and up to the gates of Frostwolf is a death zone if we decide to turtle. However, this path is very much true neutral in that if we get zerged and the RH is taken it becomes a deathtrap for Horde.

“What about the other choke points!?”

There aren’t any! Period. Horde can be ran past instead of through anywhere else on the map. The same can not be said for the alliance side of AV. Hell, going up the path to Stormpike they give you elevated position for hunters and mages!!!! They funnel the poor horde through 2 mountains!!

“But what about going under the bridge?”

FLIPPIN DWARVES!! Do you realize you have FLIPPIN bridge chokepoint too!!! I want a bridge!!! A bridge from Frostwolf Graveyard into our camp instead of Alliance being able to run up a hill and jump the fence!!!

“What about going up and around and dropping behind our graveyard?”

Ya!!! What the hell about it!!! The drop that takes about half life or the one you have to go past the hunters to get to? That one?! You go to hell Alliance!

Whew… had to get that all out.

Now, all that being said, I am still winning about 75% of my AVs.

“That’s the Horde racials!”

Hey Alliance!

“eh?”

Do you know Phillip?

“Who?”

Feel up on these nuts ya dandelion eaters!

Warrior

2008-06-25T09:19:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. Work was kicking my butt and there was tons of overtime. It still is kicking my butt! I decided to take some time out and write though. Season 4 is live and I have decided to work on Herk for the remainder of Burning Crusade. I very much like my mage and shammy alts since I had never played the classes but I don’t think I have enough time to play them and get Herk’s PvP gear, his netherdrake and Aerthson’s S2 staff and S3 gear.

I probably should have paid better attention to my honor points during Season 3 but meh. I tried going tank and got quit a good tanking set. Then my guild didn’t want to talk to me because I couldn’t tank nightly. Ah well. 1 good weekend of AV will catch Herk up with his rings and neck. Next Tuesday I will pickup his S3 gloves and he will be 3-5 S3 with S2 mace and have all the accessory trimmings. It is time to go for the Battlemaster trinket as well.

Renoobed and I will be rolling 2s with Herk and his Resto Shaman Unbound. We are thinking (Read: Renoobed told me) about getting a Ret Pally. Now, I am really interested to see how well we compliment each other for this. When we are doing Melvin’s 5v5, we have great teamwork and don’t talk at all. This brings me to another point.

I step in for 5v5 when they need me if’n I can. Depending on the team makeup at the time, we don’t lose all that much. Melvin is pretty decent on his Elemental Shaman, his bro is good on his priest and I do very well on Herk. Now, Noobed has 3 toons and he loves his hunter but it is not his best toon. He really F’ing shines on Majeure, his mage. Now, you add Sugars as an SL/SL or get an Enhance shaman or Resto Druid or Boomkin and we have the makings of a team with an actual rating. It will never happen, I’m just saying.

Now, they had an A team at one time. This A team included Pogar the well gear but moronic, world’s worst warrior. He is/was (he is playing a rogue now) s2 full with all the accessory trimmings and Lionheart Executioner wielding warrior that constantly got out DPS’d and out performed by the S1 having 2H epic Axe wielding with no accessories Herk. Pogar was also the last in to the fight instead of being the vanguard. He routinely said he would target whatever the hunter was targeting and then go in. This drove Noobed nuts.

My other addition to Arena this time will be to go slower and pay more attention. I’ve been working on the bloodlust you see. I used to get really really upset and angry about losing in Arena. This time around I will be taking screenshots of all the fights and watching, learning and doing the math as it were when it comes to the end of our arena for the week. I think it will be important to see what kind of damage we do/take given which team make up we face and then I can start planning accordingly. Don’t tell Noobed though!

Next up: My post on Alterac Vallley entitled No Defense = No Win you Morons! <- I have that on Macro so I don’t have to type it anymore!

Worlds Nasiest Sun Burn

2008-06-09T15:38:00.000-05:00

Yup, I am stuck at home and in this chair. I have had 4 hours of sleep over a 48 hour period. WoW is no officially old and Youtube is saving me. Some really funny stuff on there. Check it out below.

Computer and one helluva nice guy

2008-05-30T14:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry about not writing for a few. My computer blew up and I was kind of cheesed about it. Last Friday it just started stopping! Did that make sense to everyone? Good. Anyway, about my computer skills, I can follow directions on how to fix something and I can play Lego with putting a new computer together. What I can’t do is diagnose a problem when the computer won’t remain running.

I bring the silly thing to Best Buy where I bought it. Ok ok… yes, it’s an Emachine and as embarrassing as that is, it really has performed for me considering I have had it for about 3 years now. It has an AMD Athlon with 2g of ram and Nvidia 8600 GTS in there. World of Warcraft is not that demanding of a game to run and I don’t double box or anything so I was quite fine running with what I had.

So at Best Buy, the Geek Squad people tell me that it will be $75 just for them to tell me what is wrong with it! F(*K that! So I am without my computer for all of last weekend. I stop by my work IT and ask the guy if he knows a good shop to bring it to. He asks me what happened and I tell him. He tells me to bring it in and he will look at it and tell me what is wrong with it.

This makes me happy. He just saved me $75! I bring it in and drop it off to him. I forgot to mention that after 3 years I no longer have the restore disks. After a day or so he lets me know that the hard drive is going bad. Bummer I say. Where can I buy one of those? He says he has one or 10 lying around his house but they are only 80gigs. I’m like pfft that works for me since I plan on buying a new computer in like 6 months.

I ask him how much I owe him and he says not to worry about it but to just be sure when I get the new computer to give him the hard drive back. REALLY?! So my computer is fixed and I have to go reinstall WoW ( I do have the original disk for that with passkeys!) and I am good to go.

Question is… I am going to get the guy a gift card for Best Buy because that is what he wanted. Should I go $35 or $50 for the gift card?

Furthering the silliness

2008-05-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

If anyone was reading the comments on the last post, I am sure you saw Noobed's archtype comment. He is getting things confused as he is want to do these days. He has such a massive amount of intelligence and knowledge that he looks at things in overall manner much too much these days.

Let's run this down real quick for him. I am skipping the original Dragonball series since I started with DBZ but I will give highlights.

Goku is an alien sent to destroy earth. Later this is retconned into his father sending him away so as not to be killed by Freeza.

Same thing with Superman almost. Supe's dad sends him down to Earth and supe's is raised by us to cheerish our values yada yada.

That's exactly where that ends for me. Supes back in the day was ULTRA POWERFUL in that anything he needed to do he could do. Move the moon out of the way? No problem! Kinda powerful. As Superman progresses in his comic he constantly gets power downgrades (Nerfs) in order to make Supes seem that he needs to struggle. Without that struggle, he is less human and less relatable for people. I am not going into all the fights Supes gets/got into. However, there are two things we need to bring about Supes and his battles.

Kryptonite:

Minus all that color crap... Green Kryptonite put the all powerful on his ass. Lex Luthor the foil for Superman? er Not in my opinion. Superman's real foil is Batman. Batman uses Kryptonite to knock Superman out of any given fight. Superman should not be able to do anything with the kryptonite out. Goku has no such weakness because he is not all powerful and it is not needed.

Doomsday:

Something more powerful than the most powerful. Superman had to be shown to have a match somewhere in the universe and Doomsday came a calling. Classic imo.

On the other hand with Goku...

First up in DBZ, he is not all powerful. He must team up with his enemy Piccolo and he still dies. Yes, the wish him back in a year with the Dragonballz but Goku was beaten by his brother Radditz.

After a year of training he is back and guess what?! Vegeta stomps a mudhole in him after going Ape. Krillin is the one to overcome his fears and cutoff Vegeta's tail. Loss number 2 for Goku.

Ginyu Force... after intense training, Goku steps up and wins straight.

Freeza... Goku wins bigtime after seeing his friend Krillin killed.

Cell... Goku know he can not win but that his son has surpassed him and therefore can.

I will not go into everything. Suffice it to say, Goku is akin more to Rocky than Superman. He doesn't always win but he does his best and there is ALWAYS a training montage!

Why Goku Fits better than Superman

2008-05-21T12:06:00.000-05:00

So some of you who read Renoobed's stuff might remember his post a while back where he explains how he is Batman (the thinker) and I am Superman (the moron who rushes in and thinks he is invincible.)

Again yesterday, more with the Batman stuff and it got me to thinking how off the original post was. We had a great comments section between Sonvar and himself concerning Batman and Spider-man.

It got me to thinking about which "toon" I would be. It hit upon me that I mostly identify myself with a Goku style.

See, Goku there he don't fit in easy somtimes and likes to be alone. He also likes the ladies and his sons. He likes to train. He likes to eat. He likes challenges. He hates losing. When he is defeated he trains harder. He will bullheadidly fight someone stronger than him and charge in to do it. He goes on and on and aggravates people with his sameness. He, in his head, has his own ideals that he follows. You can predict after a while how he will handle any given situation. He's strong in his friendships. He will fight for his friends at any given time. He is not indestructable, he is flawed and overcomes through perseverance and skill. He trains for the skill not reading it out of a book and claiming it as his own. He also has his own gravitas even tho some people hate him and others love him.

P.S. Renoobed flat out said he was Buu on a trip the store once. Something about I may be doing good but I would need to merge with someone before I was able to take on the Buu. You'll have to ask him about it.

Weightloss Month 2

2008-05-20T11:26:00.000-05:00

Great googlely! This American Gladiator looks like she was taken straight out of anime. It's the damnable pink hair and wings!

Start of my 2nd month weight training and I think I have stepped it up a notch. Any comments or suggestions are always welcome and appreciated.

Monday hit the gym at 4:15ish after work.

I started off with 12 min on the elliptical machine. I no longer hate it and it is no longer evil. I would like to train up to doing the thing for about 30 min at a time. After the warm up I started the weights.

I am using a new routing that goes Mon-Fri so you will see that I do less each time but work out more per week. This also allows for more cardio/ fat burning.

Monday=Chest

Bench Press

2 warm up sets with 135lbs
4 sets 6 to 8 reps at 195ibs

This was really rough after the first 3 sets. I had to mentally push the bar up on the last time. I don’t know if anyone else who lifts weights reads this blog but there are moments when I am working out when I realize that if I don’t finish the push up… I am going to drop the damn thing on myself. This realization makes me pause for just a split second and I continue pushing.

Dumbbell Flyes

4 sets 6 to 8 reps at 35lbs

I did these slow. The weight was right for this time but I think next week I can do 40lbs no problem. I usually do these on a cable machine which is just altogether easier than doing it free weight style.

Incline Bench Press

3 sets of 10 at 135

This sucked to try and do after all that. I had to rest a good deal of time in between sets too. I got it down though.

Ab work (weight crunches) 30lbs 3 sets of 20

I’ll post tomorrow what I did Tuesday morning! That’s right! My lazy butt was up and at the gym for 6:15am and I worked my back out.

Some people are crazier than others... or they just think its fun!

2008-05-19T11:16:00.000-05:00

I was reading Laser Chicken this morning and he has a discussion thread of why PvP. I have been trying to get a friend of mine to play full time on my PvP server and he has the exact same mindset as the LaserChicken. Why do I want to play on a PvP server when players higher than me can 1 shot and generally harass me?

I've done both types of servers, PvP and PvE. My first warrior ever was on PvE and he is at 70 and kind of forgotten. Now my new warrior and druid and shaman are on PvP and I have no plans of ever going back to a PvE server.

I will actually go to STV on the weekends with my Shaman because it is fun for me. I like getting into it with Alliance and starting the small scale wars.
I will go and park my 70s in STV, play my 35 Shaman. If the ganks are by the same level toons then we just fight and a have a good ole time. If the 70s show up and kill me more than once, I log Herk or Aerthson and we get into it and a good ole time is had by all.

The other part for a PvP server is questing and gathering. You can actually kill that tard who tries to gank that node off of you. Sure they could be your faction but this happens rarely with Horde in my experience.

Questing also becomes competitive and more interesting for me. In Ashenvale if you are Horde on a weekend, it is well advised to stay OFF the road and to duck out of Splintertree as soon as you hit the landing on Flight Path since a 70 hunter can sit there and one shot everyone who lands without aggroing the guards. There are all sorts of things that add up to make my experience in WoW altogether different than on a PvE server. On PvE, you do NOT have to get off the road unless you want to. On PvP, going through “the wild” is almost a must given the area.

When Wrath opens up it will be balls to the wall action in trying to get that quest done before the other 70 faction shows up. No one will know the wilds and there will be roaming bands of factions trying to stay safe out there.

I have a history professor who said that if anyone had seen the movie Jeremiah Johnson about trappers back in the day, to disregard it completely. Trappers back in the ole days where roaming, well-armed and defensive gangs rather than one lone man. The same can be said for WoW on PvP. If you are questing alone and don’t want to be bothered, you need to roll PvE. On the other hand, if you like to quest with a bit of danger other than mobs and your own stupidity (I can not believe I walked off of Tanaris into Un’Goro that one time0 then you should try PvP.

On the Isle of Quel’Danas right now it is not unusual to see the gank squads of Alliance form and delcare war on any Horde on the isle which leads to Horde declaring war and it is go time. Full on war at it’s best.

It's PvP server guys. You either like it or you don't. Sometime it's the moral victory that counts. When I was bringing Herk to Badlands through Loch Modan, a 70 Dwarf Rogue made it his mission in life to kill me and get me to log before I made it to the Badlands. Knowing what I have gotten myself into, I kept rezzing and walking. We gathered a LARGE crowd of Alliance who would keep killing me after I rezzed. I would make it a ways a away from my actual corpse because I would rez at the very limit and keep on walking. Sure it took a long time, but that Dwarf left me alone before I logged. Moral Victory or just sheer stubbornness? I leave you to make up your mind.

Living in Louisiana

2008-05-15T09:04:00.000-05:00

We get storms here in Louisiana. You may have heard of a little one called Hurricane Katrina? Yesterday I get a call from my wife and she says that instead of hitting the gym I should come home because a nasty storm is incoming.

I look outside of the office building and sure enough it is Wizard of Oz time out there. I head home like a good husband/father so that I can look after my family. Now, the rain started when I hit the interstate and sweet monkeys!! I could barely see to drive. The flooding came quickly after. I have the wipers going full blast and it still looks like I am in a carwash instead of rain. Of course, as I start getting closer to home, the power is out.

I get home and see my son on the phone making sure all his friends at Noggin are safe. They are. Apparently, they don't live anywhere close. We shuffle around and open up the blinds a bit to get light into the house and then wait and wait some more.

I eventually get hungry and me and the kiddo rough it with can of tuna, bread and some goldfish. Now, this might be a meal for some but the last thing one wants in a storm with the power out is crap food out of a can. It was raining too hard to hit the grill up.

I start reading my books as my father in law is entertaining the boy by opening the door and look at the storm. He does this a lot. It really entertains him if there is a big storm and he can open the door without getting the house flooded to look at it.

A few minutes later, all hells breaks loose and I hear people freaking out. Since we are under all sorts of watches (i.e. Tornado, Nasty Winds, occasional flying cow) I run up to see my father in law standing in the front doorway with a shotgun pointed out of it. "Looters already?!" I ask.

KERRRBLAM!!

In case you were wondering, there are about 4 million people in Louisiana roughly and about 90% of us are armed. Yes, we will shoot right out the front door.

Now, either my father in law is the best shot ever or lucky as hell. I look out the door and the thing is missing its head from about 20 feet away. I ask, "Did you blow him in half or did you get his head?" He didn't know. Now the thing is... you have to finf the things head. It's still poisonous and you have to be sure no one steps on it and what not. I throw my shoes on and head into the rain. As I get closer, I notice something is really off about this snake. Sure it's raining but it has no scales it has a slick... hrmm... I think he did blow its head off though because I can't find it.

Looking closer I realize that it is not a snake but an... EEL!!! WTF?!

What is an Eel doing in the yard?! Wow... strange storm. Still no power at the house. Hopefully, it will be back on when I get home tonight.

Too much a guy at times.

2008-05-13T10:50:00.000-05:00

New mail girl says, “Everyone is so nice here!” I immediately think of that movie Liar Liar and think, “That’s because you have big jugs!” I know I know, I am horrible and a guy. Thing is, I don’t know if she is nice or not but I appreciate that she shows the top part of the girls in a workplace setting. Is this wrong of her? I mean even if she was in a complete slack suit and just showed a hint of cleavage I would be glimpsing anyways, which brings me to the next topic of women in the gym.

Now some women go and hide in the women’s only area and some don’t. This is not a weight oriented issue either. Those who work out in the coed section are of all shapes and sizes. However, GOD BLESS the hot ones that makes me try harder and push more weight or go for that extra set. Seeing my flab in the same mirror next to what could be a Maxim girl is great encouragement for me to work harder!

I know what you are thinking. Don’t you want to look good for your wife? Isn’t that encouragement enough? My wife is great! I love her! Her encouragement department is down for repairs. We worked out together once and I was trying to beef it up and throw on the heavy weight for squats to impress her. I toss on 800lbs and show her that I can squat it 4 times. She then tells me I take too long between sets to rest. Sigh.

I am trying to get Renoobed to do some exercise. For some reason he thinks since he walks to work he is getting exercise. This is almost a Melvin response in WoW. Melvin, “Wow, two healers make a difference! We lasted longer there!” Renoobed hits me with “Got back from the Dr. Gained some weight. More than I thought.” I ask him if he is going to exercise and he is non committal. I bother him until he tells me he walked to work in the rain! This is the same walk he has been doing while he gained the weight! For God’s sake, don’t go Melvin on me.

Speaking of Melvin, we did do 5v5 last night. Noobed seems to think we have a new “World’s Worst Warrior” but am not so sure. The guy followed me to every target like Pogar does. I understand Bursting down an enemy. Yet, when you have 2 MS warriors with decent gear you need to separate those guys out and keep the MS up on multiple targets to keep that/those healers busy. The Mage and the elemental Shammy or Boomkin are the BURST toons. Quit following me!!! Another keen Melvin observation that makes me want smack Pogar, “The warriors should go in first.” I know why Melvin felt the need to say this and I blame Pogar. Pogar used to wait til Noobed had targeted someone instead of blitzing out the gate.

I am working on getting Herk exalted with the SSO now. I am doing the occasional MrT run for the rep. I get in a group for regular MrT and they ask if I am prot. I tell them know and they start conversing on whether I can even tank it. Listen up, if it’s Regular and a 5man it can be tanked as Arms. It can be healed by Boomkin. It can not be tanked by Enhance Shaman or Healed by Ret Paladin. Is it slightly tougher? Yes. Is it impossible or even a sure repair bill? Hell no! I went back to my dailies and 30min later when they still have no tank, they tell me I can tank it. /flipbird

Macros for the ArmsandFury warriors

2008-05-11T18:47:00.000-05:00

Sorry this post took so long! Here are the macros I use on Herk for PvP.

This is my Charge macro. It activates my Bladefist's and uses regular charge. If I am out of combat and in Berserker it will switch me over to Arms and charge. If I am in Arms and need to Intercept, mashing the same button will switch me over to Berserker, cast Bloodrage and Intercept. Mashing again will Hamstring.

#show [combat] Intercept; Charge
/cast Bloodrage
/cast [nocombat,stance:1] Charge; [combat,stance:3] Intercept; [nocombat,nostance:1] Battle Stance; [combat,nostance:3] Berserker Stance
/stopcasting
/cast [stance:1/3] Hamstring

Next up is a very simple Execute macro. It will either Execute or cast Heroic Strike depending on which is available at the time.

/cast Execute
/stopcasting
/cast Heroic Strike

Fear and Bandage

/cast Intimidating Shout
/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

Help out a friend and close the distance if charge and intercept are down.

/target whoever
/cast Defensive Stance
/cast Intervene

Overpower from anystance

#showtooltip Overpower
/cast [stance:1] Overpower; Battle Stance

Stop that caster! Shield bash or Pummel from any stance

/cast [equipped:Shields, stance:1/2] Shield Bash; [noequipped:Shields, stance:1/2] Berserker Stance; [stance: 3] Pummel

Go Sheep yourself mage! Cast Shield Reflect from any stance and equips shield for you.

#showtooltip Spell Reflection
/cast Bloodrage
/cast [stance:1/2,equipped:Shields] Spell Reflection; [stance:3] Defensive Stance
/stopmacro [equipped: Shields]
/equip Ogri'la Aegis
/equip Grom'tor's Charge

Basic Stance switch.

/cast [modifier:ctrl,nostance:2] Defensive Stance; [stance:1] Berserker Stance; Battle Stance

There are plenty more but these are the ones I like the most.

Lower Body

2008-05-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

I did hit the gym last night after work. I really should do the gym BEFORE work to jump start my metabolism but with fam and the late night WoW it is really hard for me to get up that early. I did take Bobpally's suggestion and hit the elliptical machine for 10 min before I started my legs. I did notice a difference in that after I finished the weightlifting I was able to go back and do another 15min on the bike for more fat burning.

I started a push/pull philosophy the last time I worked out. I read that using the same muscle group motion on the same days was more conducive to muscle growth. I have somewhat kept up with it. I try to save some of my upper body exercises for when I do my legs so I don’t overload on the upper days. I also read somewhere that 1hour of weightlifting in the gym should really be your max.

Hack Squat

350x10
400x10
400x10
400x10

Wide Grip Lat Pull Down

70x10
105x10
105x10

Leg Extension

90x10
115x10
115x10

Seated Cable Row

90x10
90x10
105x8

Hamstring

75x10
90x10
90x10

Weighted Crunches

35lbs weight added

15
15
10
10

Calves raises

200x10
200x10
200x10

Bent over dumbbell row

55x10
55x10
55x10

I would have liked to do some hip abductors but I don’t think my gym has the machine or the cable attachment. I need to ask.

After I finished is where I noticed a difference. I was able to go back to the bike and keep going and my legs didn’t feel dead. I don’t know if this was from the warm up or not so I will keep doing the warm and see if that is the difference.

More on Weightloss

2008-05-06T14:46:00.000-05:00

2lbs lighter!

It takes a lot of work for me to lose 2lbs a week the healthy way. I have been hitting the gym on Mon, Tues, Thur, Sat and Sun. Unfortunately, cardio is not my bag but lifting weights is. If you can cycle through the weight lifting fast enough, you can get your heart rate up to what is supposed to be your Fat Burn level. For my age and weight, the treadmill tells me I should be at 123 bpm for Fat Loss. I can achieve this lifting weights as well.

Since it was a "heavy weight" day, I went into the gym and did some lite stretching and went immediately to the bench press. I like to do this to max out my bench. I have read and found to be true that I will be weaker after too much warm up. If I do a set of 10 at 135lbs, I will not be able to max out at 245 with a set of 3. Whether it be the store of glucose being gone or any other chemical reaction, I just can not max out after it.

I put 265 on the bar and press it once with a lot difficulty. Take 20 off and do a set of 3. Take 40 off and do 3 sets of 6 to finish out. This is it for my benching but not for working my chest. From here I went to bicep curls. For this I started off curling 40lbs and doing a set of 6 on each arm. 6 was honest to God all I had in me at 40lbs. I went down to 35lbs and was able to pull out 8 on each arm for another set of 3. Then I switched over to Tricep push with the a 55lbs barbell over my head. This was really the right weight here since the first set was for 10, then 10 (struggle) and 8 on the last.

This type of routine gives my muscle groups time to relax as well. By the time I finish with triceps I am going back to my chest and it is rested. Within this workout, I also did my shoulders with shrugs, lateral detloid raises and barbel lifts.

Whenever I hit the gym I do my abs these day. I do your basic weighted crunch on a machine that has you laying down instead of sitting up. The one that I am using is a beast too. It must work cuz I am sore as hell the next day. Not hurt, but very sore.

I cap it off with 15-30 min of walking, biking or that evil contraption called the ellipctical machine.

Tonight is lower body! Wish me luck.

Books and Movies

2008-05-04T11:42:00.000-05:00

Since I have decided to blog more regularly, I need more stuff to blog about. Here is what I am reading right now. I remember reading some Dan Simmons in college but not remembering it well. I had a chance to visit the bookstore on Friday right before I went to see Iron Man. I usually pick up anywhere between 4-6 books and proceed to read the prologue or first chapter and make my decision from there.

Ilium is some king of crazy space opera style book that flashes between a guy who is observing the Iliad as is happened and a future when. I can't really tell what it is about just yet as I am only 50 some odd pages in. However, the writing is very good in style. For some reason, it reminds me of Cryptonomicon.

I will give it a review when I am done. If you have read it please don't give me any spoilers.

It's Sunday which means it is time to clean and do some laundry. I usually watch a movie or some such while this is going on. Encore is showing L.A. Confidential. I remember hearing rave reviews and Oscar stuff about this movie when it came out. I decide it's my pick. Luck of the draw!! This movie was really fantastic. I didn't get much cleaning done after this first half hour of this show.

Everyone in this movie is a fantastic actor/actress. I was so completely surprised by Kevin Spacey again. Kevin Spacey is one of my all time favorite actors. Excepting his turn as Lex Luthor (WTF?! How could he be a bad Lex?! /sigh) I don't think the man has had a bad showing.

Anyways, if you are looking for a murder mystery or the noirish type I recommend giving this a shot.

Arena

2008-05-02T01:13:00.000-05:00

This is what my screen looks like in arena. Never mind the crazy long spell bar since it has been shortened since then. I am thinking about getting Proximo instead of Arena Unit Frames this weekend and seeing if I like that one any better. Anyone out there swear by Proximo? Anyways, let me know what you think or how I could improve the layout. All suggestions would be helpful in some manner.

I have recently added all the Armory links for my toons over to the right there. Aerthson has better gear now than in the screenshots shown so check him out. Herk is protection right now for tanking fun so he doesn’t have any Arena gear on him.

We all know Noobed and I have an odd rivalry. He is bar none the most intelligent person I know. I have bursts of intelligence at times and this gives him enough ammo to call me lazy about reading or finding out some tidbit or whatnot. What he fails to mention is that in having every character class…

A small interlude:

Noobed has the following that I know of.

60 Nelf Rogue
60 Human Priest
60 Gnome Mage
50ish or so Nelf Hunter
70 Mage
70 Shaman
70 Hunter
30 Lock
30 Pally
30 Warrior

… he has PLAYED everything. He ask me things like, “So you know about Mana Burn?” My response, “ Erm it does damage to people with mana?” Noobed, “How are you ever gonna play this game… you have a druid that has mana and you don’t know what mana burn does?” My response, “See I just shift into Bear form…” Noobed lets out long drawn sigh. Shortly followed by the “why are you on an alt /w hrm.”

See this is the evilness that is Noobed. I don’t have the knowledge and he fusses when I try and get the knowledge. While this is going on, I still learn a hell of a lot from him and he rocks socks as a player!

But to put him on notice, I am the burst DPS on the 3v3. He is the steady DPS that is better at CC than I. We are still trying to work things out.

Of course this is just one example but this weekend I will get others.

Where Noobed and I really click is in 5v5. We are almost instantly on the same target or coordinating without talking. Give me Bloodlust, a dedicated healer and I will trounce everthing around me. Manlytotems had a match where he had over 50k damage. Sometimes on that shammy he is truly to be feared. Also, if he is tanking on his Druid he is truly to be feared but for a different reason. He kills more people on that tank of his than he does in arena.

Sugars is teh Uber tank. I love it when they focus on Sugars. I came out the gate stealthed like I was supposed to and the Warlock immediately came in like a warrior for a nice Pounce. Sugars starts dotting and mana draining and they just leave me alone and try to burst poor Sugars and her Siphon Life butt down.

The priest was dead so fast from Wrath spam she didn't know what happened. The warlock didn't even know his healer had died until he was dead as well. Boomkin, I love thee.

Later

The Return of the LaserChicken

2008-05-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

When I started playing my Druid again after a 2 years hiatus, he was level 40 and probably thought Stranglethorn was his permanent residence. I grow bored of the sneaky classes bit. My problem is moving slowly because going slow just isn’t my thing. I would hate how I would have to stealth walk behind someone only to open up on them. I came from the Arms warrior school which is CHARGE oriented.

Now, my thought, after getting Herk to 70 and burning out on him a bit, was to play a healer. I was going to start a priest! Then I see Aerthson sitting there in Stranglethorn all alone and at lv40. Why am I not leveling him? He’s already at 40! The reason why is that I can’t level as a healing spec and I don’t really want to stealth my way to 70. What about the bear? What about it… Bears are tanks. Bears are not warriors.

Then I remembered seeing all those trees pop up from a Balance druid and go take a look at the tree. After that, I had to hit the AH for all new gear. Then I was off to Thunder Bluff to respec. Now, where to learn how to play this thing? Where do I find out all the tricks? Who plays this spec and blogs?

erm

Laser Chicken that’s who!

I’m sorry? What was that? Laser Chicken quit playing? WTF?! He went to find himself? Ah, gotcha! I been there and need to go there more often.

Without further ado, I present the return of

LASERCHICKEN

Along with his newly update hints on playing the Boomkin.

Welcome back!

Weightloss

2008-05-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

So I am/was very much subject to the WoW weight gain. I think in the 3-4 years I have been playing I gained roughly 10-15lbs from WoW playing. I then gained another 10-15lbs when my wife was pregnant. Now after awhile I noticed that the pants size I had to buy to be comfortable was entirely too big. In January of 2007, I quit playing WoW for a good 4 months. This was done for several reasons not the least of which was me being tired of being obese.

I have enjoyed weightlifting from High School on. I am not a bodybuilder by any stretch, but when I get in the mode to go workout I do turn into a gym junkie. I managed to work out for about 4 months straight when I just burned out. Going to the gym or weightlifting after a few months really takes a toll on the body and I was pushing hard. When I started out lifting weights, I realized it had been 3 years (the amount of time my wife and I had been dating) since I worked out or lifted weights on a regular basis.

I was weak. I was silly weak. I could not bench press 135lbs more than a couple of times kind of weak. I used to bench (realize when I say bench and it’s a high number I am talking about my 1 rep max) 245lbs. There was a huge obstacle to overcome here which was my own disgust with what I had let happen. I kept pushing and eventually got my muscle back and more besides then the wedding happened.

About a month before I got married the stress of the wedding stuff got to me. What did I do? Yup, I quit working out. /sigh

So another year goes by, I am playing WoW again, and again I start to feel the weight creep back on. What was I doing?! I had lost almost 2 pants sizes worth of weight and I was just going to pack it back on? No way!

I have been working out now for 3 weeks straight and have started doing 2 workouts a day. I am doing cardio in the morning before I have anything to eat so I have to burn fat to keep going and then I weight train in the evening. It is not the easiest thing to find time for lately. My wife hurt her back and has been having a hard time getting around. The easiest time for me to go is butt crack of dawn early when they are both asleep which is hard for me to do. I am not into the waking up early, but I am beginning to see the benefit of it.

I have decided to keep up with my weight and progress on this blog so I know where I am and where I was at. Hope everyone enjoys the weight loss countdown.

Weight 260lbs
Bench Press 245lbs
Curl Bar 95lbs
Squat 750lbs
Waist 40” snug.

My goal is to have 30lbs gone 3 months from now. Lets see what I can do.

Heroic Sethekk

2008-04-28T14:26:00.000-05:00

That's right!

Heroic Sethekk is done and out the way. Swift Flight Form is mine and it is everything I wanted it to be.

So here was the line up at the start.

Melvin- Druid Tank
Melvin's bro - Mage
Mabd - Hunter
Profler? - Enhance Shammy (Pugger but really not bad.) I love having Shaman... bar none they are the best class as back up in an instance.
Aerthson - Resto Druid (respecced for the instance specifically)

We go in...

and DEAR GOD

It was sketchy at its absolute best.

We get buff ready when Melvin's bro zones in and BAM /sheep. WTF aggro!!! wtf?! /cast a heal... all aggro on my tree... Dead.

This doesn't bode well...

Melvin's bro... they can't be sheeped.

>.<

Noobed has been hoping that I would write a post flaming Melvin and the PvP antics. My reasons for not doing this are... I just aint that guy.

But if Melvin is gonna tank... Melvin needs help.

Melvin... You really do need the xtra threat generating talent.

Melvin... You have to be able to tank mutliple mobs.

Melvin... Taunt is melee range but it will give you time to build aggro on your secondary target without the secondary target kill the group.

Melvin... If you Bash the 3rd mob... he aint aggroing the group either.

Melvin... Yes, you do have to click over that many targets all the time in a 5man situation.

If Melvin is gonna play a Druid...

Melvin... Innervate (He had never used this all the way to level 70. THAT is some speedleveling there folks... he aint even got time to read his own abilities. I am not sure but I think he leveled that Druid in 3 months while playing his other 2-3 70s)

Melvin... Battle Rez (Carry the seeds on ya)

Melvin... before shifting and pulling aggro, hit yourself with a HOT. It helps the healer out especially in an instance where there are aggro problems.

It got bad enough where I was worried about the group disintegrating and I suggest getting Herk to tank til the end boss.

I go an respec him and start up the tanking.

This is when noobed throws my game way off by saying at the end of Herk's appearance...

Its been a pleasure running this with Herk.

WTF?!... He can't just rip out compliments like that on me... I'll kill over.

We get to the Raven Boss and aside from Melvin's bro dying... ( I did Battle Rez him)

(See, this is why I don't write flame blogs cuz my healing aint the best neither...)

... the Raven boss is a wussy.

We get the last boss down after a coupla wipes... my slow ass tree can't make it around the column fast enough... who know?! and finish out.

Aerthson got respecced back to Balance that night.

Herk is still protection. I might start doing Heroics during the week with him. Also, Herk is definitely going Prot for Wrath. Unless, the druid goes resto. There seems to be a real shortage of tanks on Lightninghoof.

The embarrasment or Noobed is always inspects "Bless him for that"

2008-04-22T08:41:00.000-05:00

So ya...

I have a bank alt... stuck in Org for when I need to check the AH for something. I bought gems for Herk and Aerth when 2.4 came out.

Well...

The other night doing our 3v3 thing... Noobed says "Dude, you are not gonna like this."

I figure with a good buffer phrase like that, I owe him enough to listen.

"What's with the +crit damage on the helm?"

/inspect my helm

"O DEAR GOD!"

Runs to AH right then... buys +SPell crit

/armory Herk

"O DEAR GOD!"

Buy another...

I was bad off...

sigh

Somedays

2008-04-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

You not only play well... you truly own.

I had such a day in WSG the other day.

I have been on Herk the last week getting him his bracers and boots for pvp. I needed some WSG (groan) marks.

First game was absolutely the best.

I mount and run to the flag. I get the flag and run back using all sorts of happiness... shield block, spell reflect, Piercing Howl, Stompage, Intercepts, Intervenes, PvP trinket... nothing was keeping me from getting in the base. I made it halfway to our base without support and then the Druid started healing me quite well and we were safe.

Get to the top and sit and wait for our flag. Then the druid leaves... and the rogue... and ... where is everyone and why am I alone?!

looks down...

Is that 2 pallys and a warrior?!

F*$) me!

They run up... I jump off and run out the base... NO ONE is near the base but me! Get tagged by a rogue and druid and die... I am so mad at this point.

My Rez is quick and I mount up back to their base and see our flag going up their ramp... I get halfway up their tunnel before my mount disappears and I hit the speed boost that some silly ally left for me when I see .

I run in while the spacegoat shammy with the flag is dropping down and magically get their flag before they are able to cap... then turn and look at the shammy... pull the axe and kill that MOFO.

That's right!!! Got killed, Dropped the flag, ran back got the flag, killed their flag carrier and ran back for a score after some nice intimidating shout action and my peeps met me halfway again.

I score the next one too.

Shammy scored the final with me on his butt killing people.

Screenshots incoming when I get home... soooo much fun and epeening for me.

Loved it!

And your heart was an open book

2008-04-01T10:39:00.000-05:00

You used to say, Live and let Live

But if this ever changing world in which we live in

Makes you give in and cry

Say

LIVE AND LET DIE!

That song was running through my head all night while getting ganked again and again. Shammy and Pally in BEM while I am trying to get dailies done. I thought it was a one time thing. No big... run back.

After the 2nd or 3rd I begin to wonder. See, I don't gank all that often on Aerthson cuz he is usually satiated with all the PvP so I really wondered if these people knew me or had cause for this level of harassment. I may have even caused the level of harassment by refusing to leave the area.

I once ran from the southern part of Lock Modan all the way to Badlands and was ganked every inch of the way by a dwarf rogue. The interesting thing... there started this following of all the other alliance in the area killing me too. They all sat around waiting to see if I would keep rezzing and running. I died 30 times or more I lost count but I bulled (pun intended) through.

After so many blatant ganks... I get mad. Really mad. They are not gonna keep me from playing and I will kill you back.

So then... the Shaman... I have a hard time with them in general on the druid much less with a pally back up. I catch her getting below 20 and I swoop and tag that @$$. She can go to hell. The pally I can't find.

Until...

I am back in Ogri'la with ogre guards just waiting for something to happen...

I take a page from being ganked by a mage on Herk. I land on top of the building and proceed to trinket and Starfire his @$$ for 4k and just kill him from there.

God but that felt good.

3v3 resurrection

2008-03-31T12:28:00.000-05:00

We got our 3v3 up and running again. We are running...

Mabd "Leet skills with leet gear" MM hunter

Sugars "What's a pally?" SL/SL lock

Aerthson "Getting better at unkillable" Balance druid

We brought poor poor Blue Rage Bar back from its 1350 rating to 1490. We are still having some missteps but we are doing much better. I sense the makings of an honest to arena team here.

Next week, we are gonna use vent with Mabd heading which should prove interesting.

I am looking forward to the Feral druids and tanking posts he has coming. Also, looking forward to the Ret pally post he has coming.

I got my Elite flyer this weekend after borrowing 900g from Sugars (Thanks bud!) and proceeded to hit up every daily for 3 days and made about 800 back. I gave 600 to Sugars yesterday and can payback the rest for today.

After that I will be grinding G for the wife's epic riding mount which should take 2 days. She has also wrangled me into playing her hunter for her so she can get up to 70 and play with the rest of us.

I have been tanking instance on Herk for her and if I have a good healer, I find I can mow through Ramps, BF, SP so far in under 30min with a full group.

Lastily, doing all that this weekend... NOT ONCE did I remember to hit Moonglade and start quest chain for Swift Flight Form... god I suck.

Sugars and Lock with Noobed finally ripping a Melvin quote.

2008-03-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

So then,

With Sugars decimating everything as a lock...

I need to explain about Sugars first.

I've known Sugars 20 years now. Sugars and I always play the same games. For several different reasons we have never played much WoW at the same time til the Druid and the Lock. We had some outings as a Warr/Pally but nothing major.

First off! I apologize to Sugars for ever suggesting he play a Pally. You see, when we all started playing WoW no one had made a pally so I suggested that to him. I didn't know you see.

Anyways...

Sugars lived in the boonies and did not have cable internet. The thing you need to know about Sugars is his God gifted persistence on getting through something he starts. I don't have this. I am Alted all to hell.

So we play the Dwarves... I stop playing my Dwarf at level 49ish cuz I met me then girlfriend now wife and there was no time for such things as WoW!

Sugars still being the single kept playing and hit 60 before me. Alas, he couldn't raid cuz of said interenet. He fell off the bandwagon of WoW for his own gf now wife.

We never got to play at the same time. Just never worked out.

Sugars started a Gnome lock and brought him 35-40ish I think and sometime during this or before... not really sure. I made him quit playing his stuff to play Horde PvP where I had started toons until I got lured back to my Dwarf and raiding BWL and Naxx. He like his hunter and kept playing him til he hit 60 on the Horde side.

Finally finally... I see my error and quit raiding and quit game for 3-4 months.

Then I come back... roll a warrior on Horde and lv to 70 in about 6-7 months while Sugars is playing the pally in raids since he finally was able to get better internet.

Not sure how I managed it... But I got him to roll a Lock on Horde and bam... 70.

Now we have two 70s at the same time and playing the same server. Time for Arena!!

We do some ... we win some...

We start a 3v3 with Mabd over from Renoobed cuz I guess we wanted more points and will ho ourselves for them.

Now I like talking with Mabd... I like playing with Mabd... doing Arena with Mabd can make my BP rise to abnormal heights.

So we 3v3 ... Lock, Hunter and Druid. Now at the time my resilience is at 90 on my Druid... so any s1 or s2 warr/rogue/mage can really easily take my biscuit.

Also, I realise that I am not as good on Druid yet as I am on Warrior so I do have a some learning to do.

Mabd lets me know how much I suck. We all know this was incoming.

BUT!!

Remember when he teases Melvin for saying stuff like "Pally's count as two people!?"

He thinks this is silly cuz he plays a hunter... Hunter> Pally because he take all their mana... bye bye healing.

For a warrior it is a truism almost that Pallys count as two... WHY? Because you have to KILL that mother 2X because he will bubble at 5% and heal himself full!

I digress...

While Mabd is telling me I need to be more mobile and rogue should not be hitting me in because I am standing there in Boomkin form on the top of the pole in BEM arena (He has a very good point cuz I need to use travel form a lot more) he rips out his own Melvin on me.

"You suck so bad I mean... Druids are unkillable... you shoulda gone resto!"

Druids are damn well not unkillable much less with the crap gear and little to no arena experience that I have had.

Druids unkillable?! Let's see what the Megs has to say here.

Patch 2.4 today!

2008-03-25T09:58:00.000-05:00

/Happy Dance

When it happens... Freak out is incoming.

2008-03-24T14:59:00.000-05:00

Hello all... been busy! Sorry about not posting.

I should tell everyone that I have been farming G for epic mount and am now at 4200. Real close with only 1k left.

Then the crazy question... which toon gets it first?

After about 2 sec of consideration for mining on Herk. I decided I am way more likely to do dailys every day on Aerthson so bada bing... decision made.

Next, get quest chain done and get Swift Flight Form. Need to do Sethekk on Heroic which really should not be that bad these days. Hell, if it gets silly trying to get it done I will save up another 200g and get Sublime (one the top raiding guilds for me server) to run me through for 50g a member.

Don't worry tho as I will be advertising to get other Druids who are also ready which could be cool. Druid tank, Druid Healer, Druid DPS and some others. All Druid run?! I think we at least need a mage. We'll see.

Onto the freakout...

Shammy... Killing shammy on Druid is rough on me. As I am starting to learn to be more nimble and think less like a tank I decided to lead a shammy who ganked me on a merry chase involving Travel form and the what not.

Now this shammy killed me once already cuz I went past him to kill some mobs and leave him alone... sigh... she runs up while I am fighting the mob and murderlates me good. Now this stings a bit (Read: Major cussing in my house and am glad kid was up front). I run back for some payback and the chase begins...

In the end... I kill the shammy!!!

The shammy rezzes herself...

>.<

I really really really wish Herk had been closer to the zone.

sigh

Arathi Basin

2008-03-04T13:01:00.000-06:00

More AB stuff.

I played a lot of AB over the weekend. Had a lot of fun too.

Some more observations.

Constant Node Awareness

Horde ALWAYS starts short unless you are in a premade. There is no way around it. I am either lamenting starting 6-10 or am coming into the BG with the gates wide open and people running for farm.

As Horde... you NEED 2 nodes and Farm is one of em when starting short.

I like to take LM cuz you can see the whole map and tell peeps what is happening. You can call out incomings easier and quicker.

However, I don't know if Ally just know we like to take LM and try for it first now or what... but I started going for Mine if I was first out the gate because I contstantly ran into 7 Ally at LM over the weekend.

Guarding/Defending

NO WAY do you win unless you defend.

1) You don't run off if you cap
2) If you rez and run past 1 person guarding, you STOP and help them Defend.

Sugar, Aerthson and a warrior defended Mine flag for the entirety of an AB. We took out everything and I think Sugars only died once as I was feared and too far away. Told him to watch out for those warriors!

The next level of AB awareness!!!

The incoming REZZERS!

Listen up all, start paying attention to what got capped, what was defended, where your people are and where the ally are gonna rez. This can win the game! I like my spot up on LM hill.

When we have Stables, LM and and Farm gets assualted by us... the rezzers from Farm fight pop at the Mine.

If we were to take the mine as they die... most will rez at their base.

Since we sent reinforcements to Farm to help assault and you know at least 1 person (prbly more) is now at Mine taking the flag and considering you should have at least 2 defenders at BS... you call out in /rw GET TO STABLES NOW!

Sure, they can go LM (unlikely they will run past Horde owned Stables to get there) but this is unlikely.

They can go Mine ( You actually want this to happen as it will take longer with different rez rates and mount speeds ) but unless they wait and group up... you get a slow trickle to Mine that can be helped by sending the reinforcements from Farm.

They can go to BS (This is a nasty option because of the map placement.) Horde have direct access from Farm... unless the are at Stables or Mine which will slow down getting to BS a lot. If you only have two on DEF and your reinforcements are anywhere but Farm... you will get capped by an Ally zerg.

So the best option for sending reinforcements is to send them to Stables. They can come up behind Ally zergs going to Mine or BS and can directly intervene any attack at Stables. Also, considering Horde route from Farm to Stables, LM is protected already.

This is just one scenario and there are a dozen others at least and you need to start paying attention to them. If you want to win, you must achieve your objective which means getting and keeping NODES not killing Alliance.

If you are playing Flag guard ( THE position of HONOR) then you should have your mini map up and scanning the situation to help call out where people are needed.

Ally are getting better organized for sure. With this kind of organization comes a limited predictability... If Horde begin to play better together than they are currently and you actually have a leader who calls out orders, you will dominate Alliance in AB.... again.

Decided and Arathi Basin Weekend

2008-03-03T09:17:00.000-06:00

So then,

I am going Boomkin

All my gear will be Wyrmhide/ Caster stuff.

I finished off the Boots/ Bracers/ Belt combo on Friday and am now sitting on 7k honor I farmed on Sat/ mostly Sun.

I think I will be going for the neck next and then the ring. I will leave the rest until last because it will be nice to get the least expensive pieces last. With that in mind, I don't think I will have enough points this week for the S3 gloves so I may as well wait and get the S2 shoulders and then build back up to the gloves.

Also, I am sitting on roughly 2k gold right now and that will be all I do with that. SIT on it! I am suspending the epic mount farming until I get Aerthson geared.

Arathi Basin post will be incoming shortly.

Several new observations on winning strategy that I feel the need to share.

I leave you with a funny from WSG.

Runs into ally base on the middle level only to find another Druid there waiting for the flag to comeback.

/inspect

ZOMGPURPLZPWNBBQSAUCE

/s Why do I feel like the poor cousin?
/reply lol
/reply Your shoe is scuffed?

Flag back

we mix it up with the defenders... I get feared by lock and run down the ramp?! sigh

run back

/Cyclone Lock
/Hibernate Feral Druid (If you never had a chance to do this... it makes us so mad)
/toss heal on Rich cousin

Then we run out

/w rich cousin

Poor cousin or not... I saved that ass!

/reply

Poor cousin or not... your sister is still not supposed to be your wife!

/w WTF?!

lolz all around.

Agonizing...

2008-02-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

Resto or Boomkin

I like playing the Boomkin

I like the Healing of Resto

I do NOT have the time to farm both sets!

But... I would like to see Kara at least

I figure I will go Boomkin for certain pieces of gear and Resto for others to get a balance.

Then I think... sure... why dont you go 30/30/30 too! Moron!!

Arghh!!!

That is all!

The other side!

2008-02-26T14:05:00.000-06:00

He's right... I still have a lot to learn with the healing bit.

BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

When we were doing that damn Fel Reaver I says "We gonna kite it?" He says, "Ya."
I find that damnable thing and just am flying over its head when that bastard SHAMAN decides to jump down while my bird self is 50 yards in the sky.

Added to this is the constant talk from the SHAMAN about how he "tanks like a god!" So I am already thinking this silly bastard is gonna try and tank him.

No... Rdy? No... Hey MA, No hands!!! He just lands and starts wackity wack wack.

Sugars can back me up on this.

BTW, if that bastard WARRIOR woulda turned the first boss away from the group, I wouldna had to heal the entire party through that shit >.<

I, grudgingly, got the respect back after no one dies on that Inciter bastard!

Not to mention... Majeure was a big reason we didn't die any. He does kite very well and his DPS is sick for Frost spec.

I did not write this but it is funny and needs to be read.

2008-02-25T08:12:00.000-06:00

I did NOT write this. However, it is just too funny and accurate to not put on the blog.

ENJOY!

If you roam the official forums chances are you've probably read the thread "These are the
People in your Raid" - Even so it's still fun enough to bring up again once or twice ;).

The GM- He’s sacrificed his health, friends, and probably a couple of jobs to drag you through new content. When the guild isn’t performing, these decisions are in question. Prone to shooting sprees, forum flame wars, and the rapid advancement/gearing of whatever toon the guild “needs”. If you can keep your mouth shut, he’ll go emo and quit before you get gkicked. Still, you do like the guy. Or did. Before he went crazy. See drunks, below.

Continue reading "These are the People in your Raid" ...

The list was posted by a level 10 alt named Peri on the official US forums.

The Raid: You raid with these people. You work with these people. These people are closer than your family. You should worry.

The GM He’s sacrificed his health, friends, and probably a couple of jobs to drag you through new content. When the guild isn’t performing, these decisions are in question. Prone to shooting sprees, forum flame wars, and the rapid advancement/gearing of whatever toon the guild “needs”. If you can keep your mouth shut, he’ll go emo and quit before you get gkicked. Still, you do like the guy. Or did. Before he went crazy. See drunks, below.

The GM's Significant Other Okay, so he was going to have to quit but he tricked his SO into playing. She loves it. She's terrible. You'll effectively 24 man every boss. Count on 4 constructs in the raid, every attempt. She plays a Belf.

The Raid Leader When you stand in the flames, he dies a little bit inside.

The Heir Apparent When the GM goes psycho, ninjas the bank, and gdisbands, you're the guy the guild is gonna look to to to fix the mess. You see it coming. You can't decide if ritual suicide or being the new gm would be more painful.

The Positive Officer “That was great. Just great. You know, only 5% of guilds have even made it to Supremus, and getting him down to 67% on the second attempt is hawt.” See Stoners, below.

The Negative Officer “Jesus Christ why are there corpses under all these goddamn volcanoes? It’s Supremus for %@*@s’s sake. GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN FLAME!” See Drunks, below.

The Healing Officer Has this job because, as the newest officer who plays a healer, he’s stuck with it.

The Hunter Class Lead Will tell you that it does actually require skill and preparation to play a hunter well in the end game. Lies frequently.

Metermaid He's got meters running. Always. Asks for meter postage whenever he's in the top 5, which is rare, as his focus on the meters is preventing him from seeing the volcano he's pathing towards. Pulls aggro. Has yet to realize that 0 health returns 0 dps. If he's healing, you might as well just put him on raid, he's gonna heal them anyway.

Stratman Has read every strategy on the entire internet for every boss. Unable to think critically. Knows where his talk key is. Hated by the officers. Likely to play a hunter or mage. If this is also Chick With Accent, below, guild will probably collapse.

The Gay Guy Affects the gay accent for effect. Upgrade decisions tend to involve lengthy discussions about gear appearance. Learned to use the dressing room function before the ‘v’key.

The Stay At Home Mom She’s around children all day and craves adult conversation. Babbles incessantly in vent, forgetting that adult conversation doesn’t usually begin with, “So I was talking to (insert name of four-year-old child) and he says…” Well liked, but frequently muted.

Mr. Mikeless Has a microphone. Hears the conversation and directions. Once wiped the raid because he started talking and most folks alt-tabbed to see who the hell was speaking. May be your best player.

The Kid So, you messed up on this guy’s interview and nobody noticed that he was 12. But, he can play. And if he gets a little bit excited when boobies are getting talked about? Hey, he’s young.

The Backbone Plays a tank. Doesn't have much to say. Made an error once in SSC, or so you heard. Will disconnect when Gorefiend is at 30% and keep aggro while offline for the rest of the fight. Has never said anything negative to the healers. Ever. GL with your progression without one of these. Hates the prima donnas.

The Other kid Remember that accountant you interviewed for the fury warrior position? And how you wondered how he’d make time to raid during tax season? He couldn’t. His eleven year old daughter took over about that time. She’s been raiding since. Mages, that’s an eleven year-old girl owning you night after night.

The Hunter Who Doesn't Do His Homework Always good for insightful commentary and clever observation just after a wipe. "Holy Crap Man! I was just standing and shooting and this damn VOLCANO popped on me! When did they put in those volcanoes?"

The Prophet Kept insisting that you were going to need a melee group for BT, despite the fact hat melee was dreadful for SSC/BT. Badgered the management until they broke. Plays a rogue. Shreds. Loved by the Most Devout.

The Most Devout This is the guy who gets to play an off-spec in a big-boy raid. He's the fury warrior or the enhance shammy. He cannot believe that some fate is letting him have this much fun that he's afraid it will all come crashing down. Prays devoutly to his favorite deity that the guild won't collapse because he'll never have THIS much fun again. Ever.

The Drunks The core of your guild. As raid progresses, their voices in vent are getting just ever so slightly slurred. You don’t notice because you’re trying to sound sober yourself. DPS output seems to scale positively with blood alcohol content.

The Stoners Quietly wiping raids since the beta. They really, really, really hate having to move out of the fire. Two of them are dead under the volcanoes. They live in fear of the negative officer. They have their own channel. Try /join (insertguildname)stoners. You’ll see who’s in there. It’ll explain a lot. Still, if these guys don't show, bosses don't seem to actually die. They’re also having more fun that everyone else combined.

The Prima Donna Requires special attention from management. Constantly whining. Plays some vital role. Might be a main tank, mage tank, or lock tank. The officers really hate this guy and as soon as they can find another tank with 24,000 buffed HP, he’s out. Not a stoner.

The Chick with the Accent Is the accent fake? Nobody knows or cares. Future visits to Australia/Britian/New Zealand/Alabama are now planned by all single raid members.

The Healing Pallie Hates healing and had to go holy to see endgame. If you raid with a boomkin, a feral druid, a fury warrior, or any non-resto shaman, you are not getting a 10 minute blessing. Forget it. He hates you. God help you if he has a raid-viable alt in one of those classes; you're not even getting heals. Also, see Prima Donna.

The Departed Legend You joined after he left. You suspect that he could not actually solo Doomwalker. But you're not totally sure.

The Disgruntled Raider Took an unannounced, extended vacation and now has to share his raid spot with the other 11 extra dps. Very angry about this situation. Doesn't realize that whineing is making things worse. Officers pray for a gquit.

The Warlock Whisperer Directionally challenged. Despite having run Karazhan 1.26 million times, will require a summon to Maiden's room from the entrance. Has a "summon pls" macro. Strangely, is good at moving away from volcanoes. See (you guessed it) Stoners.

The New Guy Begins most sentences with, "That's not how we did it in my old guild on Korgath." Likely to remain guilded for approximately one week. You wonder if he'll be telling his next guild, "In my old guild, we ran TOWARDS the volcanoes.

Note: I read a similar archetype post couple years ago, when I first started raiding. I t altered the way I viewed raiding forever after and I've tended to think of my guildies along these terms since. If anyone still has the original piece, please post it. Below is the only person really remember from that post. I'm pretty sure there's something funny about accents in the original, also.

The Backup He's the guy waiting in the wings for the raid slot. Totally dependable and plays about 200% better than the guy for whom he's filling in. He's got half the gear and puts out 20% more dps. Totally cool, amazingly competent. You love it when the main can't be there.

The Buff-less Wonder Plays a class with group buffs, but "forgets" to bring the necessary reagents. Highly skilled at turning a deaf ear and blind eye to buff assignments. If reminded, will proceed to slowly buff people one by one until someone else is overwhelmed by frustration and does it for them. (Kantor, Scarlet Crusade)

Mr. Pick Me! Pick Me! This guy is online and ready to raid. Always. Need a prot warrior? He's got one. A holy pallie? Check. Problem is, he's really bad. Like bad bad. You keep him in the guild because he's... well, he's always been in the guild. So when your main tank, back up tank, and back up back up tank have vanished Mr. Pick is ready to rock, much to everyone else's horror. (Gaucho, Twisting Nether)

Tootsie Has a female toon. Claims to be female. Receives many of the benefits that the other females do, people are nice to her; she gets suspiciously good loot. Problem is, she's never posted a picture of herself, and she never talks on Vent. Could she really be a girl? Sure. But who's to know? (Jayne, Mug'thol)

The Dumbest Person On The Planet No one's quite sure exactly what's wrong with this guy, perhaps human evolution really has come to a standstill. Will be the cause of 60% of your wipes until he gets a /gkick. Tell him to spread out and he'll glue himself to a squishy healer. Tell him to avoid something and he'll stand in it till dead, then complain that he didn't get any heals. Ask him to CC the yellow star and he'll pick the orange circle then claim bleeding wounds debuff on his target. (Zanadune, Vek'nilash)

The Obvious Explainer This guy has read Wowwiki and probably written some of it. He will stop the raid for 15 minutes before each fight to explain to all the new people (of which there are none) that this guy might produce ground fire once in a while or that the hunter adds might shoot arrows. He'll warn that the boss can hit hard, tell everyone to avoid damage, and remind the healers that they need to keep the tanks alive. It makes you a bit worried that an obviously intelligent person thinks you need spoon feeding. Sadly, you wipe a lot when he's online.

Anyone else find this patch note funny?

2008-02-22T12:23:00.000-06:00

Take a look at these PTR Druid changes...

Druids
- Lifebloom healing coefficient has been reduced.
- Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with each other.
- Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent and reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
- Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form.

Anyone else find Healing plus agility funny? Just me?

I know several women that healed because they have great agility!!!

God Bless em!

Killing the Hunter Moonkin Style

2008-02-22T09:05:00.000-06:00

So I read BRK's and was moved to mention that I have had my Dwarf Warrior but handed to me by the BRK...

Last time was in Auchiundon... er I dunno how spell that.

He had gotten his snake trap and I had gotten my spell reflect and I remember being somewhat trounced. I say somewhat cuz I think he was kinda low on health when he killed me but we are talking over a year ago now.

Anyways

I can kill hunters as a Moonkin but right now my armor is crap against what I face in BGs cuz Aerthson is still grinding honor for teh welfare... another thing... welfare my ass... I go through just as many wipes as PvE I assure you.

I am in AB guarding stables. I am a big happy on Defense. If I can get behind a geard warrior... he becomes a wrecking ball.

Really quick... I still hate the same classes... Frost mages and Rogues... as a Druid. WTH?

Back to the stables... Here comes the hunter... runs up and Shadowmelds while I am casting roots. Roots still take effect and I run off behind the shed with the kitty. No pun intended.
Running behind the shed allows me to actually sleep the kitty without that hunter drilling me up to the fletchings.

Pet is asleep... Hunter is somewhere... Rooted? Who knows. I stack LB and Rejuv and go back in Moonking (Natural Shapeshifter ftw) and start drinking.

/sleep pet
find hunter
run from silencing shot
/Cat
/Burst
Here comes the pet
/Nature's grasp
Run around the hut again
Pet is rooted
Silencing shot is up...

It's time

/Cyclone
Wait for it
/Starfire (3500 crit)
/Wrath (920)
/Moonfire (1337 crit)
/Wrath (1900 crit)
/Insect swarm

Run behind building outta LOS

/Cyclone pet
/Moonfire
/Moonfire crit!
/Wrath

Dead hunter.

Hunters are LOS folks. Get a building and make them dance around it. Laugh at their pet when they are MM.

Rogues... I hate them... must heal through their Cooldowns and then you have them. IF you can heal through their Cooldowns.

/sigh

AV weekend is over for me

2008-02-18T09:53:00.000-06:00

Whew...

That was a lot of grinding on the druid for me. I got Bracers, Boots and am halfway to Belt. I can soon started getting the S1 stuff that will make my toon look like something other than a hobo.

Herk has enough points to get a piece but needs a few more tokens.

What else you ask? Let's pretend you asked, k?

I farmed 20 Netherweb Silk for Sugars.

We got him a Bringer of Death.

Sugars got her Bracers and made herself some really purple epic shoulders.

Also!!! 305 fishing for Aerthson!! Woot!!

BGs are still the suck. Horde is having issues in my BG group and Ally don't play unless it's a premade >.<

Sederasha (Wife's hunter) is level 42 and moving. Pretty soon we will be helping her in Outland :)

The 3rd toon... just aint gonna happen for a while. I have to get Aerthson his gear and Herk the rest of his.

Anyone else get the massive Honor Point grind in?

Good God a Magic reference!!

2008-02-14T12:35:00.000-06:00

That is a great game there! I had some great fun playing that when it first came out but god what a money sink!

I was not particularly good at it nor was I bad at it. This was before my Uber Defeat WC3. The WC3 defeat was bad all... very very bad. I really need to make a name specifically for how bad my ass was handed back to me by the hands of Noobed.

I destroyed everyone in WC3 in a group of friends I had. I did this mainly by being able to have 4-5 bases going all at the same time. I was deadly with the Zerg in Starcraft. My friends good have 1 base really well defended or 2 bases somewhat, but they were not capable of running 4-6 that all had units.

Then... I started playing against Noobed. I took him for a couple at first and then Noobed introduced me to something called the "Metagame."

For those of you still clueless as to what a Metagame is... You go online or talk with peeps (Online is best these days) and you find the strat and the game winning break downs.

Noobed does this with Sublime like style a la "I can play the Metagame like a MOTHER(#$)$# riot!"

He can read it... or he can figure it out... differences in armor and units and what trumps what. Then with said Strategy and knowing how I will play (This is known as "Let's get into it and see who is faster!") He educates me on why he is now called his Noobed Holiness.

It was bad... one whole Saturday of defeat after defeat with him laughing on the phone at me...

But... back to Magic... the same thing happened. Noobed used to head down to New Orleans and play in tournaments... usually completely smashed and on some kinda painkiller... He grew out of it don't worry!

He would go down there and comeback with prizes >.<

So I am over at his apartment next to his dreaded Circle K and I take my first turn and hand the over to him and he wins.

I shit you not... he won on one turn all of it legal.

I really should take his advice more often but I just can't!

Rogue or Lock?! Jeez.. Did you have to pick THE two I discounted already?!

What about you guys? Rogue or Lock?

Having 2 makes it funner I swear... What for the 3rd tho?!

2008-02-14T10:34:00.000-06:00

Having Alts makes the game funner for me.

I got burnt on Herk. Playing him to 70 and then grinding his gear ad nauseum (at least to me it was) was too much. I started playing my Druid cuz he was lv 40 already from like 2 years ago and I knew he would be easy to get to 70.

Now with the new leveling xp, I know I am gonna have a 3rd just cuz I like leveling. I like playing through the game.

The problem is... I am having too much damn fun on Herk and Aerthson!

I paly Aerthson first and usually get him his 2k honor a day. By the time he has 2k honor, I am ready to go on a killing spree with Herk. It helped me a lot to know that no matter what class you play you are gonna get owned.

Also, I am working on getting gold to get the epic flyers. This is really not that hard since I quest while waiting.

Leveling the 3rd

I will not neglect my honor grind while leveling the 3rd toon. Especially since I don't know which one I want to have as a 3rd.

I would like a pure DPS class and have ruled some of the classes out.

Rogue is ruled out... cuz just no
Hunter may or may not be ruled out yet
Shaman is in the running
Mage is in the running
Pally is kinda out cuz I can tank better on Herk and I can heal better on Aerthson
Lock? Nah

Decisions decisions

Hunter, Shaman, Mage are looking like the main 3.

Hunter would level the fastest and is an Orc lv 31
Shaman is Enhance Orc and is lv 29
Mage is Frost and is lv29

HELP MEH! Probably won't decide for quite a while anyways.