Full Kara clear, 2-1/2 hrs

So on what was, I thought, a leisurely run last night we cleared Kara in 2-1/2 hours. 24 badges and I picked up the Arcanite Ripper just for kicks, hey I can equip it, it’s not as good as the axe I have in stats, but the ability to rock out is epic in itself.

12 headless Horseman runs, (using a multitude of alts) after that and still no mount. Our GM has one though so the entire guild is suffering envy.

I now have three pieces of the scourge killing gear also. Just need the second drop piece so maybe I’ll do some of that tonight. Something relaxing from all the raiding lately.

Less that 2 weeks before the expansion now and I must say I’m really looking forward to it. Not the leveling to 80 but the raiding after we hit 80. I’m really enjoying the more social aspect of the game at this point and leveling is definitely not social for the most part. When my friend is around and we level our shammies together it will be but some times those late night leveling sessions get a tad lonely, lol.

I also need to throw a bunch of stuff from my bank bags into the AH. Prices are falling rapidly on things and all those blue gems I’ve been hording will be worthless soon.

Third straight day of raiding

After clearing Kara Sunday and Grull and Mags yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to be on a guild run for ZA last night. This was a little different than most of my runs though.

I didn’t suck.

In every raid my guild has dragged my under-geared ass around I’ve felt like a fraud who doesn’t really belong there. My welfare epics I got from battlegrounds made me feel like an interloper. I ran Kara several times and got a lot better gear and replace all but one of my S2 epics but it still felt like I was the red-headed stepchild of guild runs.

Last night we threw together a ZA run and had some of our more experienced players on their mains in the group. We progressed at a good clip but I was always 3rd or 4th on the damage list. Now one thing I’ve gotten into the nasty habit of doing is using Aspect of the Viper exclusively as I figure I’m useless if I run out of mana. Sure it drops my damage a little but I can use my shot rotations better.

Well we wiped on the first Hex Lord Malacrass fight as he owned our tank and silenced our heals and when we got back I inadvertently flipped Aspect of the Hawk on. The second fight went well and when our tank threw up the damage meters for the fight I was #1. He did include a comment about me not using Viper all the time, yeah thanks man, I get it, lol. So if I learn to dance between aspects I can be a much better hunter.

So, 3 straight nights of raiding, no new loot but I’m enjoying it so much.

Which means I’ll probably race my main to 80 and get into raiding at an early point in Wrath.

Now, I just need to break the news to my wonderful wife

Goals before Wrath have changed a little. Still finish leather-worker to 375 on my shammie (he’s 299 so that won’t take long), maybe level some enchanting on my ‘lock, not sure if I’ll continue with jewel-crafting on my warrior, that was so boring and cost so much gold…

My main goals are to see as much new content as I can and maybe get a little gear. This weekend I’m going to adjust my bars so that I can be more efficient, this is a big step for me as right now I mouse click all over the place for my rotations and cool-downs.

Gruul down, Mag’s down! Raiding FTW!

Yeah, yeah, I know, if I was in a progession guild about a year ago that would be some serious bragging rights but right now it’s not. Pffft.

For me this period in Warcraft time is cool as I can get some gear I need and see some content I might not have seen. I was very close to going to Black Temple last night but it was late. I shoulda, I know.

That being said, I find myself loving raiding again. I did a little Kara stuff about 6months ago and then our guild just tailed off and we didn’t do much of anything, now it’s coming back and we’re running things.

Which leaves me in a quandary for the expansion. I’d planned on leveling at least two toons almost together and slowly enjoying the new content, now I find myself wondering if I should concentrate on one, race it to 80 and start raiding in a progression guild.

My wife is afraid of this.

Hm, there’s another post, my envy of gamers whose wives/girlfriends play with them. mine’s just not interested. Perhaps that’s why we’re still married, lol.

Well who knows what I’ll do, depends on how I feel and how good the new content is I suppose, plus how well the guild I’m in gels and starts raiding. Who knows.

So, I shelled out 100 hard earned badges (shelf-life, 2 weeks I keep telling myself) and bought the Scaled Drakeskin Chestguard piece. I lose about 10 to-hit points in the transaction but it’s so much better than what I had I just had to get it, my RAP is now around 2200 self-buffed. Plus I can augement my to-hit with stat food, so no biggy.

Damned Zombies!

I am not a fan of the zombies and thankfully by the time you read this they’ll be gone and another stage of the pre-Wrath activities will take place. I found it painful to try and do much of anything in any of the major cities this weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole build up, I just think it was well conceived but poorly executed as it stopped people completely from playing the game sometimes, just ask people who died on the zeps or in flight, lol.

Luckily I spent about 3.5hours clearing Karazhan with my guild, we even dragged three green and blue wearing newbies with us, the other hunter in the group got 5 epics out of the deal as none of it was an upgrade for me and the one “nice to have” I rolled on (the bow Prince drops) he won, lol.

Apart from Kara I killed Onyxia, finally did Magisters terrace on normal to open the Heroic for me, ran the Headless Horseman a number of times and saw nothing drop…. good times, good times. Now I have almost 100 badges to spend and I’m pondering the chest piece or the crossbow, I’ll keep you posted on that dilemma.

Gonna hopefully PUG a few more things before Wrath and do some guild runs as I love seeing content I’ve not seen before. I’ve got a few professions to work on, and I’m hording ore so I can level Engineering a little faster with Wrath… but that’s about it.

More T4, Achievements and HH

Got to run Gruul’s for the first time last night in a PUG. Got off to a shaky start as we wiped 3 times on the first part but we got it together and downed the big Gron. Very cool fight. I rolled a 99 on the legs and won them so a very successful raid imho

Been having a lot of fun with the achievements as well. In fact I spent a large chunk of time visiting every candy barrel. Now all I need is for the head to drop and to get transformed by all wands and I’ll get the title or whatever it is. I must admit I quite like the sinister squashling pet.

Speaking of pets, I’ve even been looking at getting some of the other vanity ones just for that achievement also.

I think the achievements are pure genius by Blizz, three or four ties now I’ve gotten the Onyxia buff while in Org., not seen that in many moons. And it’s making people run old content I’ve missed so I’m looking forward to that.

Well, off to PUG for HH, hopefully that fine mount will drop… please, please

New talents, new pets, new game?

So that was a smooth patch wasn’t it…. er yeah….

I think we have to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt here, this was quite possibly the biggest game patch ever so I can cut them some slack.

I’ve respecced all my 70’s. My warrior is now a fury build and dual wields two-handed axes, sweet. My Shaman can summon two ghost wolves for 45 seconds, also sweet. My Warlock can turn herself into a demon at will, nice. My hunter has two shiny new pets, an albino devilsaur named fluffy and a core hound (originally Uvuros) name wasabe (hey, he’s all green and hot).

Sadly I have not tested any of my new speccs. Hopefully tonight I’ll at least be able to test my hunter. I’d like to see if I can use my core hound as a tank, we’ll see.

I’m quite enjoying the new achievement system also. Several guildies have a mod that’s reporting achievements in chat as they get them and I enjoy clicking on them to see what they all are, kinda cool really.

My anticipation level for Wratch has climbed, I didn’t think that possible.

Level 70…. again

Well my Shammy hit 70 this weekend. This is bitter sweet for me as my 4th 70 will probably be my last. I don’t see the point in starting a new toon before Wrath, nor do I have the time, plus I’ve already got 4 70’s I’ll need to level to 80, and I do intend on leveling them all. My little 70 warrior will be Fury specced tonight so that should be an interesting leveling experience.

Tonight will be spent respeccing and testing, always a fun thing. I’ll post more tomorrow and let you know how that goes.

So, life at 70 again is more of the same. trying to find groups to run whatever and getting faction up with someone.

T4, ftw!

My regular playing partner wasn’t around last night so I decided to do a few things on alts. I got Saphorias enchanting to 340 and her tailoring to 370. I took Mintaka to Netherstorm to get the recipe for the Khorium scope.

Funny story that. Whenever I wanted to grind out scryer rep I’d take him to Netherstorn and grind around Sunfury hold. Got a load of cloth for Saphoria off of the Sunfury archers and figured that one day the recipe would drop. I’ve killed literally hundreds of them and no drop, but I’m exalted with Scryers now and Saph. got a ton of cloth. Last night I decide to look up the scope again and read a little more…. drop rate is low…. drops off of Sunfiry Bowmen…. back up a minute…. Bowmen!!! Argh, I’ve been looking at it to drop off of the archers and all this time I needed bowmen. Killed about 50 bowmen and it dropped, doh! You gotta laugh.

Once I’d done that I decide to farm motes of air for Hellz’ leathermaker recipes. 10 minutes into that a guildy posts that he’s in a Kara run and needs DPS for the last 3 bosses. I figure why not, I’ve not run Kara in months and so I join. We wipe on Netherspite 3 times and abandon him, finish chess and then head for Prince.

Easiest Prince fight ever. We stayed in the doorway, tanked him on our right, infernals all dropped way to the left, less than 5 minutes he was down and dropped a dagger I passed on, the Farstrider Wildercloak that  I needed as I was still wearing a blue, and the T4 helm for hunter et al. I hit need on that too and got both of them, woot! My first piece of T4 gear.

Not sure I’ll get a chance to get any more pieces before the expansion but I did enjoy the run and want more!

Ding, what next, the ugly quester, support

We dinged 69 within 5 minutes of each other last night. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but my alt-aholic friend (more on her many alts in another post) and I made a pact to level these two toons together. This may seem like an easy thing to do but there’s a two hour time difference, a vast discrepancy in available play time and schedules, some differences in play style, professions and material gathering, significant others and many other factors involved. I think this is a great accomplishment on our part so props to us, we get gold stars. it’s not anywhere near good as a simultaneous….. er well let’s just leave it at that, lol.

Not sure what’s next for us, maybe a few dungeons for gear before Wrath. I’ll write a whole blog on that sometime soon I think. I’m a planner, it’s what I do. The plans never happen, but I plan. Don’t ask.

I’m Canadian (for all you Americans, that’s the big chunk of land to your north, inhabited by eskimos and moose) and throughout my travels I’ve met many of the stereo-typical “ugly Americans”. I’ve also met many wonderful Americans, don’t get me wrong, nor is this confined to any country really, I’ve met my fair share of Canadian jerks too. Anyway, my point is that they’re not confined to the real world and we met one last night. Let me give you some background. We’re doing the “Capture the Weapons” in Shadowmoon valley. We down the first level 68 elite and then proceed to attack and kill the level 69 elite, with a little help from a hunter nearby. Turn in and head for Eclipse Point and realise that one of us hasn’t looted one of the weapons, doh! Coincidentally, within minutes a general chat pops up for help with the quest. Bonus, we group up with the guy.

It starts immediately… “Let’s go! Are you guys gonna hearth here? Are you close? Follow me! I know the way!” Now, we have similar toon names but we’re not related, we’ve never met and we don’t have intimate knowledge of each other, we just play together. He notices our names “Are you guys related? Are you brother and sister? Are you married? Are you dating? Where are you from?” By this time we’re fighting a frakking level 68 elite, hello! Anyway, we down it, thank him and prepare to head out…. but no…. “Hey, can you help me with a quest? What are you doing now? Can I come? What’s better…. (links two items)?” OMG! Well the biggest downfall to us both is we’re too nice with idiots. We tell him where we’re headed and off we go, pick up quests, go see the ghost guy for the Gorefiend quests, do the first two of those “Let’s do the next one”, “It’s on Netherwing ledge, we need a flying mount”, “Oh,that’s gay”. Gah! We try the big doggie, it owns us (mainly due to his pet, a netherray, being the worst pet in the world and totally unable to hold aggro), so we go and do the diemetradon one and then tablets as it’s close. Whenever we pull 2 or 3 mobs my friend and I end up doing all the fighting while hunter-boy is off getting the tablets. I have 3 and my friend 1 when he announces “I gotta go guys, seeya”, oddly enough, he has all his tablets. Jerk.

Lastly, I wanna give a huge shout out to my wonderful wife for putting up with my two-year addiction to this silly game. Luckily she knew I had an addictive personality beforehand, lol. Anyway, work has been very stressful as an 18 month project of mine goes live tomorrow and immersing myself in another world helps me handle that stress, so I thank her with all my heart. I love you honey.

Leveling, Shadowmoon Valley and Riding Crops

Logged off last night just one bar away from 69 on my Shammy, Hellzapoppin, depending on work tonight we should both level and start the longest XP grind (at least right now) in the game. I’m guessing we’ll hit 70 some time on Sunday, will keep all you thousands of fans updated on that for sure, lol.

Started in SMV last night. Dear Mr. GM, I’d like to report a felonious crime of heinous proportions. Someone is traveling around Shadowmoon Valley and systematically removing the spleens of Felfire Diemetradons with surgical precision. We must’ve killed 1,000 of the damn things last night just to get our 8 each. Boring! BTW, the Horde name of this quest is “What strange creatures…”, how frakkin’ boring. The alliance version is “Speendid!”, hah, that makes me laugh and suits my, ok warped, sense of humour much more. Spleendid…spleens… get it….. er yeah….

Then just to keep things going in the “heading for the dumpster” vein, we got ganked by a group of four alliance. Grrr….

Yeah, I’d have done the same, so what? I have a little voice of reason that talks to me though… my playing partner is a bit of a carebear and always has some wise words about retaliation and the getting of their mains if we do…. sigh, I hate to admit it but she’s often right. On more than one occasion while leveling I’ve been specifically tracked down by some random 70 I’m sure is the main of a gnome I’ve ganked. Oh well, at least I don’t teabag the bastards afterwards.

I did get a lot of leather from our killings though, which brings me to the next part of my post, a rant of sorts. While bored on Saturday night after my friend logged I had the bright idea to travel to Old Hillsbrad and get the Riding Crop recipe. Everyone wants them I thought to myself, while something niggled in the back of my mind. No, it wasn’t “you need a beer” like usual. So I went and got it and then put together the mats for 4 of them, thinking we’d use 2 and I could sell 2 on the AH. Well the price on our server is low, like 140gold, way less than the mats… then I remember, in Wrath the riding crop is useless after 70. So basically I wasted a bunch of expensive mats to make something useful for, at best, 2 levels. Curse you dark overlords of Blizzdom!

Actually, curse my dumb ass for not remembering or looking it up beforehand. Live and learn.

Speaking of living and learning. My hunter sold 20 primal airs last week for 350 gold! Yay!   … my leatherworker needs 30 primal airs to make new items for us… cough… noob… lol