Habits Interacting with NPC's

I started noticing several patterns that I consistently do while playing World of Warcraft. For example, whenever I go from Shattrath to another city to go to the Auction House, I always go to Iron Forge. Furthermore, I always visit the same auctioneer, the one on the left as you walk in. My bank alt (that's in charge of selling everything on the Auction House) has taken up permanent residence in Stormwind, where she always speaks with the auctioneer on the far right.

(The Stormwind stay started from when I would farm copper in Elwynn Forest. A level 26 bank alt pally has a lot of fun concencrating as she runs through the various mining spots in Elwynn Forest.)

I've only visited the Darnasus AH on the rarest occasions, but it's always the first auctioneer on the left. And if I visit the other Auction Houses, it's the person in the center as you walk down the ramp (Exodar and Gagdetzan).

As for banks, I faithfully visit the Aldor bank and guild vault on the left side only (as you walk in). If I visit SW, it's the banker on the left. And IF is the banker in the center, guild vault on the left.

My other alts have various spots to repair and sell gray items, but Leiandra almost always repairs her armor and restocks her reagents in Lower City near all the trade skill guys. (Keep in mind that she's a mage, so she never has her hearthstone set in Shatt.) If she only has to sell gray items, she'll do so in the Aldor bank area, the guy in the middle.

The whole point of all these details (and sorry if I bored anyone), is that I rarely deviate from these places. I'm just a creature of habit. Then again, aren't we all?

What are your obsessive habits in regards to NPC's?

Popping in to Say...

... we killed Void Reaver again. Had a bit of an issue keeping up our DPS on the first attempt, and a few people died. But the second one we killed him with 2.5 minutes before he enraged. Not too shabby. I'll get a whole write up on him (my opinions) in the next couple of days... hopefully.

Into The Eye

Bah, works been kicking my butt a little bit these past few days and I haven't made time to post. But I did want to document that we went into Tempest Keep last night, and took down Void Reaver. On our first attempt, the DPS was a little slow, but 4 of our healers died. We had him to about 50%, and decided to reset it. The next attempt was us kicking the snot out of him. And I got my T5 shoulders.

We also got a number of epic patterns. And even 1 Vortex Nether. It was a really good night for Primo.

(Oh, there was a fake attempt when one of our rezzers got to close to Void Reaver. That didn't count.)

Reading Too Much

I never thought I'd ever say this, but I've come to the conclusion that I read too much. I've got my guild forums (which people's activity there seems to be picking up quite a bit), I have a number of blogs that I read, I have e-mails, I have patch notes, I have strategies on upcoming bosses, and not to mention that I really enjoy keeping up on current events.

The reason I say that I never thought I'd ever say that is because I've never considered myself a reader. I don't read many books (unless you count the many, many audio books I've "read" (which I actually do)). My best friend has always been a huge reader, but it's never rubbed off on me. But I realized today, that I do read a lot.

Then again, I realized that I'm also cutting back. I used to read all the blog postings for the blogs I follow; now I just kinda skim, and if something catches my eye, I check it out. A wonderful idea started in the form of Blog Azeroth (a community forum for wow bloggers), but I've found I haven't logged in there since the second or third day it was launched. (Yeah, I know... I'm probably gonna get flogged and shunned for saying that.)

I haven't "reported" much on the 2.4 patch since it seems like it's constantly changing anyway. I figured/hoped that enough of you that read my blog probably read other things as well. And I haven't made the time to spend much time on the PTR myself. (BTW... it sounds like the sped up travel time from Iron Forge to the Sunwell Plateau. Yeah)

So, there's my own little ramblings for the day. Go ahead and rate me a 1 star for the day. Hmm.. maybe I don't like my individual posts rated. lol.

What do you guys do to manage all the stuff you read? Or am I just a freak?

Courting a New Guild

I've seen a number of posts on how to apply to a new guild. There's some very astute points from many of them. (I'm so sorry... World of Matticus is the only that comes to mind atm, but I know I've read a ton of other ones.) If you're looking to join a new guild, there's good ways and bad ways to present yourself. Please don't do the bad things.

On Monday night, when we killed Magtheridon, I get a random whisper as we're clearing trash. I was still in the process of organizing the clickers (via the old pen and paper deal) and generally telling people what to do. Long story short: even after I told him I was in Magtheridon's Lair leading the raid, he still continues to ask me a few questions. /sigh

There's a lot of information out there about a potential new guild. You can tell where they're at in terms of progression via wowjutsu or your realm forums. You can tell who the GM and officers via WowArmory. And if it's an established guild, you can probably google their name to find their web site as well. But please, please don't expect to have a full on conversation with one of the officers in the middle of the raid. I was nice to the guy, and wouldn't even say no to him if he applied on that premise alone. But come on... seriously.

Raid Farming

After downing Magtheridon two nights in a row with only 2 attempts each, I'd pretty much say Mag is on farm status. Last night's first attempt had an earthquake hit at the same time we were supposed to click the cubes, so part of the Blast Nova got off and did some considerable damage, enough to call a wipe on that one. The second attempt was smooth sailing. The only small panic part was when I died about 5 seconds before the Blast Nova and I was supposed to click one of the cubes. It was the very last Blast Nova (he was at about 1% health), and I had used all my healing pots/bandages/healthstones. At any rate, Mag and Gruul in one night... we're very ready for the next level of bosses which we'll venture in to Loot Void Reaver on Monday night.

A really fun thing happened last night after we finished up in the Gruul/Mag run. We've publicized enough that we're going to need some crafted resist gear for Hydross the Unstable. Some people have really stepped up to farm and contribute mats. (I really love the feel of the comunal society when it works.) We've noticed that Primal Fires are going to be our big obstacle. So, somebody suggested that we go farm Elemental Plataeu. We started a small raid (proabably about 7 of us) to fish Pure Water and dominate up in Elemental Plataeu.

There were a couple people that were up there, but when they saw the small swarm that was Primogeniture, they left pretty quick. I had one of the Warlocks talk to me about it. She had seen our recruitment thread on the official Bronzebeard forums, and asked if guild farming was a required activity. I told her that we all volunteered to do it. And honestly, it was a lot of fun. Free-for-all loot... mass killing... and we even tried to gank some horde rogue that was flagged pvp. He vanished pretty quick. Go figure.

So, I guess everything's better with friends. :)

Post Ratings

Okay, so I saw this gadget over at Two and a half Orcs. You can now rate each of my posts. I figured that if you didn't want to make time to leave a full comment... at least you could do one click to tell me if you liked it or not. If my ratings are complete crap... well.. then... I guess I'll get rid of this Widget, won't I? lol.

So, rate away! Got it on the RSS feed as well.

Rubik's Cube Masters

As I've said before, Primogeniture has been working on Mag's now for the past few weeks. I know it wasn't an issue of gear, but more of just raid coordination. So, an interesting thing happened last night.

I signed on about 30 minutes before we were to start to get some flasks made and assess who was online and signed up. I got a number of whispers basically saying that they didn't want to go to Mag's because there was really no need, especially since we all want a huge bucket of badges when the 2.4 badge gear comes out. (Click here if you don't know what I'm talking about.) I knew there was better loot other places, but for a lot of reasons (mostly centered around building a better guild), I wanted us to take down Magtheridon. But, I caved. I gave in to peer pressure, and I got everyone on Vent to announce that we would be running Kara for all the easy badges in there. (Due to time constraints, only 1 group cleared it this week.)

About 3/4 through my speech, another raid leader signed on (was having family aggro issues) and heard what I was proposing. She immediately starting asking why we were doing that and proposing that we should be in Mag's. She was followed up by a bunch of our guild members that have been in further progressed guilds, supporting her in the need to learn encounters and how to work as a team. An overwhelming number of people supported the Mag proposal, so that's what we did.

So, obviously got a way late start, but we made the best of it. Cleared the trash with no problems. Assigned clickers, and got to work. The first attempt, one of our clickers got DC'ed, and the replacement I called out was too far away with too little time to get into position. But we got him down to 79%. (Our record was 72%.)

The next time, we did the same strategy, but with hopefully no DC's that time. And Murphy's Law in effect, we had another clicker DC. This time, however, he was in the second group, and so we had about 2 minutes for him to get back online (as apposed to the 15 seconds for a replacement we had the first attempt). He got back, we clicked, and everything worked out through that. The 25-man group performed like a well-oiled machine. Got to phase 3, and we survived easily through that initial damage. Kept the cubes clicking, and downed Magtheridon.

It was such a great morale boost to know that everyone wanted to try Mag again, and then even further to take him down with only 2 shots. We got some good upgrades for people, but I was more satisfied with the simple fact that we worked as a team and conquered a fairly difficult task. Great job, Primogeniture. And thanks, Faytlynn for speaking up and telling us where to go. (In a good way. lol) See what happens when you give in to peer pressure? lol

Now for Something Different...

Last night, I ran Blood Furnace with my Shaman alt, and spit on Magtheridon. Our guild paly tank, Talek ran me, and both of our wives through the instance. We could all heal, so at times that's exactly what we did.

We briefly discussed how cool it would be if you could watch a guild attempting Mag from inside the last room in Blood Furnace. Then again, there's a lot of spectator parts of Wow (can you say Arenas?) that I think would be really cool to be implemented.

After that, Romand and I lost played the rest of our 10 2v2 games this week. I think we actually ended up this week at 4-6. Not bad... of course, we're moving towards crappier teams as well. lol. (I'm playing my mage and Romand is a hunter.)

Then I ran a heroic Blood Furnace, just for the heck of it. And then... I tried something different.

I have a level 64 priest who I vowed I'd get him to 70 one day. He's been shadow for 64 levels (wait... do the first 10 count?), and I've only healed on the most dire occasions. I get frustrated with solo lvling him because he's not Leiandra. He just doesn't have the damage output or Frost Nova/Blink escape tactics that a mage does. Last time I quested with him, I kept complaining in guild chat that I couldn't find my Fireball spell.

So, some guild member alts asked me to heal for them in Mana Tombs. I thought, why not? Spent the 1g for the respec, and I'm not a holy priest. Of course, I think I royally screwed up my talents (forgot to get the mana regen), and all my gear has been focused on being a shadow priest, so I'm not extremely effective. I found myself running out of mana a lot.

Furthermore, I thought I'd try out HealBot Continued, and I had some kinks in that. I got the whole alt-shift-ctrl right and left clicking. My mouse only has the two buttons and the scroll wheel, so not sure how you get the 4th and 5th buttons that are advertised on mouse-over. I couldn't figure out where Power Word: Shield was for those emergency moments, so people died a lot in our run. Anyone have something I can read to figure out how to use Healbot better for a priest? I like the ideas, I just have too many healing type spells for it. lol. Maybe I should be using it in conjunction with the actual interface. I really don't know.

Our group was a little obscure though. We had Yourmom (yeah, we all love that name and all the jokes that come along with it) as our lvl 70 lock ringer, then the rest of us (Shaman and Mage) were level 64. Aerowin, the mage, (yes you!) kept pulling (probably first mistake) when I didn't have enough mana. She asked what my mana regen was and I said, "SHADOW PRIEST GEAR." lol.

At any rate, since I've never really been a healer, I look forward to this challenge. Hopefully I can figure it out with some successful runs (we almost got to the 2nd boss, but called it, mostly because we were all tired). So, here's to another adventure.

Fishing With a Companion

It may sound silly, but sometimes I forget how much I enjoy fishing. There's a lot of great things you can get such as buff food and motes of water. A lot of the time, I simply fish what I fish and put the useful stuff in the guild vault; probably vendor the other stuff. I still haven't made that final push to 375 (about 330 atm), so even if I'm not fishing the special fishing nodes, I'm still make some progress.

But since I do have fish tracking and an epic flyer, I might as well put it to good use, right? So, last night, I was talking to one of our druid tanks (Hi Preeya) about her gear and she mentioned that she was out fishing. I decided to join her since 375 is an eventual goal of mine anyways.

We headed out to Nagrand and started searching for Figluster's Mudfish for her and Icefin Bluefish for me. Well, it also seems that you can catch Icefin Bluefish from the Mudfish nodes and vice-versa. So, once we were finished fishing for the night, we just swapped fish for the ones we didn't want. Now that's team work.

On a raid note: we missed killing the Bear Boss in ZA in time for the bonus because somebody got too close to the boss when we were killing the last trash mob. Oops. We one shotted the boss, so it makes it more heartbreaking, but we'll get it next time.

Mag and Netherwing

It's Tuesday. And you know what time it is? No, not business time, you silly Flight of the Conchords fans. (Anyway, that's Wednesday.) That's right; it's time for the weekly update on the Magtheridon challenge. My whole goal last night was to have at least one Blast Wave interrupted successfully. Well, I would have been much happier if we had actually killed Mag, but I set my own personal goals for the raid in order to consider it progression. And we achieved that. In fact, we got a number of them under control and were able to get Mag down to 72%. We also had enough DPS that we could get 4 channelers down before we needed to get into position for the clicking of the cubes for the first Blast Nova. So, all in all, it was a great evening. With our later start time, we only get about 2 - 2.5 hours before, so that's basically attempts before the trash respawn. I think if we would have had one more attempt, we would have been able to at least get him to Phase 3, but possibly all the way killed. But, like I said, it was great progression. Great job, Primogeniture.

I have some pretty major stress issues with work, our house, and the next (and last) child on the way in about a month, so I logged off pretty quick after the raid to stress out think about some of these things. I tell you this only because I jumped back online to de-stress. And what do you do at 12 o'clock at night when you're not sure when you'll fall asleep from exhaustion? That's right! Dailies! So, I hearthed down to Shadowmoon to get a step closer to the Netherwing Exalted. Then I realized that I was only about 2000 rep away. A couple eggs and a couple dailies and I rode back to Shattrath in style:
And in case anyone wondered or cares... I chose the black one:Thanks to Tygamoon for helping me get my last egg. Cheers!

Increased Travel Time with 2.4

I was able to get Leiandra over to the PTR before the PTR server was even up. Was even able to download the entire patch before the realms were up as well. Of course, when it went up, there was me and about a million other people all checking out the new area. So, I didn't stay long. I figured I'd deal with the crowds once the initial shock wore off or just when it's rolled out for everyone.

So, that said... the whole premise of this post could be based on some false information. I had logged out in Shattrath, so that was obviously my starting point. I know it's been a great place for almost everyone to have their hearthstone these days since it allows you to "easily" travel between the old cities and the new. But when asking directions to Sunwell Isle on the PTR, a kind soul told me to port to Iron Forge and then fly on up to Sunwell (with the flight path already having been discovered somehow).

Now playing a mage, that isn't too big of a deal to me. I'm sure they'll have an Inn there where I can set my home, and then just port all over like I normally do. But this may be one of the first times, that I know of, where the Horde has a clear traveling advantage of Alliance. Port to Silvermoon, and a quick flight to Sunwell Isle is a heck of a lot faster than Iron Forge and flying over 6 zones. Granted, they've had the advantage with Ghostlands and ZA as well, but it seems slightly "unfair" to continue to punish the Alliance like this.

Speculation might say that as the defenses and whatnot continue, that the Aldor and Scyer mages will figure out how to open a portal out there... here's to hoping. If not... well... I guess I'll just have to play more Rock Band while I'm flying out to Sunwell. See? It's not all bad.

Dragonhawk Down!

This one's for real. Not like that other time. :) Primogeniture took down the Dragonhawk boss. Granted I wasn't in the group. I wasn't even online, actually. But still, we did it. (Like how I took credit there?)

I hear they also had a solid attempt at the Lynx boss as well.

Man! Take a day off of Wow and blogging, and I feel like I'm out of the loop. As Ferris Bueller said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Work kicked my butt for yesterday and most of today. Now it's just Friday afternoon, and I'm ready to go home. Weekend ZA anyone? I guess I'm LF a guild that will run with me. lol.

Start of PVP Gear

A little while ago I used all but 500 of the arena points I've been hoarding for months to buy a [Merciless Gladiator's Spellblade]. Overall, it seemed better than the [Nathrezim Mindblade], and it gave some + hit and even some resilience. Last night, I spent almost all of the honor I've ever acquired to get [Gladiator's Silk Raiment]. I figured that since I have been enjoying battlegrounds more, that I should probably start spending some of my marks and honor to be a bit more prepared for it. It's a pretty big upgrade as far as pvp gear goes since it's almost 50 stamina more than my "normal" chest piece. And it adds a little bit more of resilience as well.

I'm still such a noob when it comes to pvp gear. I really should do more research on it. I guess for gemming, I should look at the +9 spell damage for the red gem slot, and probably the crit and spell penetration for the yellow slots. I could always sacrifice some of the red slot to get the damage and stamina one. /shrug

I guess I have to go out and find a mage/pvp blog now. Or better yet... can somebody just tell me how to gem? Man! I've gotten lazy.

Magtheridon Down...

...to 93%. Oh sure, I'm sure there were some guilds somewhere out there that killed him. We just weren't one of those guilds.

It's taken awhile to build the guild back up and gear everyone up again. In fact, I believe it was September the last time we were actually in Mag's Lair. We officially have Gruul's Lair on farm status and have been downing them for over a month, so it's time we move on to something else. It still seems like there's a pretty big debate out there as to which boss you should take on after Gruul. It sounds like Mag, Lurker, and Loot Reaver are all pretty much on the same level. If you can kill one, you can kill them all.

My idea was to get Mag down so that we can do Gruul and Mag in one night and leave other nights available for SSC, and throwing Loot Reaver somewhere in there as well. And don't forget the fun times we have in ZA as well. :)

So... the last time we were in there (only once, mind you), it was a pretty big challenge. We decided to try it, kind of on a last minute decision. Nobody had really been in there. The raid leader that was running the raid had only 1/2 read or skimmed the strategy guides out there. Our first major obstacle was the trash. They cast a shadow volley, and we all just assumed that we had to split them up or that the rogues would somehow magically have this roundhouse kick that would interrupt everyone. For whatever reason, us mages didn't think to interrupt, and nobody told us to either. Then when we actually got the the chamber, we had our uber druid tank tanking 2 Channelers, because that's what we read in the strategies. But since it was only 1/2 read, it wasn't understood that one of those Channelers needed to be taken down first; we left those two for last. A number of the other raid leaders had tried to correct him at the time, but it was more a militaristic style back then, and he kind of ignored us. (I wasn't the GM at the time, and he's no longer raiding with us.)

Fast forward to last night. We had interrupts assigned to all the trash pulls. No issues there, and we ran right through. Took awhile to explain and answer questions (even though everyone should have read the strategies that we had posted on the forums). We had 5 tanks and everyone had their assignments for healing, tanking, DPS'ing and cube clicking. Before Mag was awake and active, we easily killed 3 of the Channelers. Then the trouble began.

I had forgotten to explain the earthquake. Okay, my bad there. But then after that, we had some healing issues. Those got resolved. We were progressing, each step, we got a little closer and did a little better. And then we got to our first official Blast Wave (where main tanks where still alive). I'm guessing that 6 people in 2 waves died because they held on to the cubes for too long. I think we got one Blast Wave interrupt but only after it has pulsed a couple times. We, as a group, just weren't getting it. But hey... it's new to most of us. We did better each time. And now we only have 63% to go until we get him to phase 3. :)

We'll probably be out of Kara again very soon. Last night's Kara group killed Maiden in 1:50, and Prince on the first shot in under 5. There's still a few upgrades for people here and there, but it's mostly just a collection of badges for primals at this point. Oh, and we're looking for Holy Paladins again if anyone knows one. Heh.

And There Was Much Rejoicing

Well, I've whined and complained on the blog about how my corporate firewall has blocked Blogger and a few of other really useful sites. (Yes, that included mine.) Well, this morning, I accidentally clicked a link on the WowInsider feed that I have (and can access the feed from here), and I actually got Wow Insider.

I checked my site; it worked as well. I checked Other Wow sites, and they were up and running as well. Yeah! Still no Youtube, but to me, blocking that site at work makes a lot of sense. (Bandwidth issue much?)

So, I know I missed Friday, and this is a crappy post for most people today, but now that I have 8 hours to kill, I think I'll update the blog with a few tools I was looking at. Oh, and I guess I have to do my normal work as well. :)