Thanksgiving Post

Warning: this post has almost nothing to do with WoW. So, those that are here only for Wow stuff can simply move along.

I wanted to publicly throw out a few things that I am thankful for.

First off, I am very thankful for my wife. She's very supportive of me and my "hobby", and she's encouraging in the things that I do. Sure, she doesn't let me play 24-7, but who would want to have a dead-beat father like that anyway?

I am thankful for our guild and the direction that it has gone. We have a great group of people. Sure, everyone has their quirks and whatnot, but I really enjoy hanging out with my friends online. And even though I've only met a couple of them in RL, I'd gladly hang out with any of them if they lived close enough. I am also grateful for all the leaders in the guild. Not just the formal officers (which I would be lost without), but also the ones that don't get an official title, but nonetheless are an integral part of the group.

I am thankful for my children. For the most part, they are a lot of fun. I enjoy their personalities, and sometimes they even play Wow.

I am thankful for my RL friends, and all the guys from Cracked Anvil Trading Co. I wish we all played as much as we did back then, but life goes on, doesn't it?

I am thankful for my readers, and especially the ones that post comments. It's fun when I glance at my visitors every once and awhile, but it's more fun to hear people laughing along side me. (Or at me... take your pick.)

I am thankful for The United States of America. It's such a great land that we live in. Sure, it has problems, but we have so many freedoms here. I am grateful that we can live, worship, and work pretty much however we see fit to.

... and that's about it as far as this blog goes. I am grateful for so many more things... but I think that's about the extent of the things I touch on on this blog.

Sparkles!!!

I know Blizzard implemented this like almost a year ago (or so it seems), but I'm really glad that things sparkle when there's loot AND when there's a quest item to collect. Last night in my first few quests in Dragonblight, I was instructed to go blow up a mine. And I noticed that there's now sparkles where you're supposed to use the item (in this case, a bomb).

So, while I am grateful for the sparkles, they're also a bane to me. I guess for somebody that can be so focused when raiding, I sometimes get a little distracted when questing. "Ok, I'm gonna go do this quest over.... hey, what's this?"

What's also funny is that in a raid, I almost never loot anything. Sure, I've probably walked over a small fortune in gray items, but I'm just too focused on the next boss, or the next strategy, or making sure everybody's having a good time, etc.

But overall... Blizzard? Thank you for the sparkles.

Monsters Wow Minis

I forgot to post that I got another pack of the Wow Minis. This time I got one of the Monsters packs. In it, I got the Succubus, the Voidwalker, and the Panderan Brewmaster, Chen Stormstout.

So, I was going to make another few posts about them, and show off the cards and everything, but... they're kind of already out there on the Internet, so seems like too much effort.

At any rate, it's still a fun game when I can convince somebody to play with me. (It generally involves a deal where I have to go play Polly Pockets or something like that afterwards.) One of the local game shops has Tuesday nights set aside for Wow Minis, so I'll have to go check them out one evening, most likely with at least 2 of the kids in tow.

Frost: The Solo Elite Killer

First off, due to some RL stuff going on, I had to take a few days off of playing. Kind of really bad timing since we're all pushing to 80, but RL is WAY more important that my virtual life, so I did what I needed to.

I didn't play for about 5 days. Finally logged in last night, and lucky I did to get the 4th anniversary achievement and pet. Not like I really care (since I really don't like the majority of pets), but still... I didn't miss it. The funny thing was that, I really had to remember how to play. I'm sure it's a combination of me changing spec and then the days off, but I felt so... lost. Oh, don't worry... I picked things up fast enough; it was just a strange feeling at first.

Now back to our regularly scheduled post.

I've heard a lot of people comment on the amazing amount of control that you have as a frost mage, and it's very true. You've just got a lot of options. Practically every frost spell involves chilling targets so they're slower, rooting them with ice so they have to stay still, or a shield so that you don't take damage. Not only that, you've also got a summoned pet that can deal damage as you're on the run (and it can root as well), and if you've used up all your cooldowns, you've got a spell that will reset everything.

Last night, I was doing some of the quests up in the Northeastern part of Howling Ford where there's these meandering elites. Now, the quest to kill them is only considered a 2-man quest, but I still had no problem taking care of the elites with minimal cooldowns needing to be used. Then there's the 3-man quest to kill the bigger giant. And while I had help from a shaman that I had grouped with so we wouldn't kill steal, I really didn't need it. Heck, as long as I could root them with Frost Nova, there's really not much I can't down.

I'm not saying that I have the highest DPS or that I'm super uber or anything like that. It just seems easier to kill stuff that's supposedly more difficult. And now I understand why it is so nice to level with Frost.

Hmm... I do have an extra talent point or 2 now. Maybe I'll actually try out Deep Freeze. (Am still kinda bitter that they took away the damage component, but it would be another 5 seconds of control.)

Wrath Enchanting Wands

Not sure how many of you followed the Wrath Beta, but I was excited about one part that I haven't exactly seen go live on the live realms yet. And from the title of this post, I'm sure you can guess that I'm talking about wands.

Which is kind of funny, because this is the reason I first got interested in enchanting. I had been playing for less than a week and I started asking around in the Stormwind, "Where can I get a wand for my level?" When I found out I could make my own, I was elated. (Remember that I came from EQ2 where I enjoyed the whole crafting usable armor/materials.) So, I think some random stranger showed me where the enchanter trainer was and game me some dust and essences to get me started, and off I went to make my very first wand.

An interesting thing you might notice though. As of this writing, Wowhead lists exactly 4 wands that can be created by an enchanter. The best wand being the Greater Mystic Wand that has no stats, and requires level 30. Gee... no upgrade for level 60 enchanters in Vanilla Wow? No upgrade for enchanters when the Burning Crusade came out? And again no update with Wrath? Tsk, tsk.

But yet from the beta, we know the developers were thinking about it. And not that the mats were correct in beta, but it was nice that it was essentially 75 Void Crystals to get the best crafted wand available.

So, what happened? Did the developers realize that there are other classes (besides just the Mage, Priest, and Warlock) that may be enchanters that aren't interested in wands? Were the wands just too overpowered, so they scrapped them? Or was it the direction that they now seem to be taking with BoP items for professions, in that they don't want them? Or is it simply that professions for Wrath still aren't done and they're trying to figure out wands after 50 levels of enchanters not having other crafted wands? We may never know.

Nothrend Instances - First 5

So far in Northrend, I've managed to ding 72, compete a good amount of quests, get to Dalaran, and complete the first five 5-man dungeons. For those at home who haven't been keeping track, or haven't looked it up yet, here's what those are:

Utgarde Keep (70-72)
The Nexus (71-73)
Azjol-Nerub (72-74)
Ahn'kahet (The Old Kingdom) (74-76)
Drak'Tharon Keep (74-76)

As you can see from the recommended level, I was a bit under on most of the instances. My gear was fine for it, it's really more the fact that because of the level difference (5 levels in some cases), I kept missing all over the place. I think at one point, my DPS was around 200. (Not exactly stellar for a mage of my level.)

I didn't take pictures; didn't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I was very impressed with the instances. The thing that I noticed the most is that they're short. Granted the group I was in for the upper dungeons were all higher level than me, but they hadn't really gotten very many gear upgrades. And the stuff that was dropping at that point was about on par with what they had. So, while a lesser gear grouped might take a little longer, it's still pretty feasible. I think we were joking that Azjol-Nerub is the Mt Hyjal 5-man of Nothrend. (One of those scripted pulls where things keep coming until you pull or kill the boss.)

So, by my count. That's almost 1/2 the 5-mans in Northrend. I'll wait a bit before doing The Violet Hold (75-77), and then maybe I can actually be a contributing member of the raid. lol. But overall, I'm having fun. And I don't even think I'll mind having to run these instances again and again for rep. Then again... we've only just begun, haven't we?

Ghetto Port - Dalaran

One of my biggest pushes in the expansion was to hit 71 as soon as possible so that I could get to Dalaran. There's a simple quest that mages can do at 71, and then you learn how to teleport to Dalaran. I was also under the impression that the portal to Dalaran could be learned at the same time (which didn't make sense, but I believed it, and I think it was that way in beta). The reason for this was simply so I could port all my guildies to Dalaran way before they hit 74.

Well... the portal can't be learned until 74. So, we pulled off what we call the Ghetto Portal. (Figured it out with the help of a certain priest in our guild.) I teleported to Dalaran, queued my party for a battleground, and then once entered, they went afk and were transported back to Dalaran. There's a small issue as far as the level range goes. Everyone that was 71 or higher, was no issue. I did it once with some 70's though, and they didn't get queued in everything I did. I queued in both WSG and Strands of the Ancients (Sota?). They got 1 and not the other. (Don't recall which one atm.

So, there you have it. And now anyone that's set their hearthstone there can do the same trick. Oh, and once you're there, you can also do the attunement quest that starts up in Dalaran (by the floating triangle thing) and get attuned yourself. So, level 74? Bah. That's so not even right. heh.

The Bossy Quest Leader

So, apparently I've become bossy when I play Wow with my wife. I guess it made sense when we were leveling through and up to 70 because I generally knew the quests and where to go next. After our adventures in Beta and her liberating revelation that all these Wrath quests are new to me, she wants to be more independent and not follow me around like a lemming. Okay, I can completely understand that. Furthermore, I actually like the idea that she thinks like that. To me, it's that she's getting into the game more, and not just playing because I play.

So, yesterday morning when I was playing, I did all of the quests in the first couple areas in Howling Ford. Then last night, when my wife played for the first time post release, we decided that we'd run through Utgarde Keep. I couldn't remember how many quests into the chain it was until you got the quest for some guys head and steal some weapons from Utgarde. So, I helped her do the first few quests en route to those two quests. I kept saying "go here", and "where are you going" and "just get all the quests quick." Yeah, well... my ex-lemming didn't like that too much. I got the group together to run UK pretty quick, so she didn't even get the quests she needed. (No huge loss... just means we run it again.)

I think she may have been relieved when I wanted to keep questing on Leiandra to hit 71, leaving her to complete the quests I had already done on her own. I completely understand where she's coming from. I have friends that will do quests so fast I didn't even have time to read the quest text (which I generally enjoy doing). So, I just have to remember to stop being so bossy, let her do things at her pace, and generally enjoy the ride, not just rush to 80 ASAP.

On that note... Lightning Infused Relics was a fun quest that starts with Walt at the Explorers' League Outpost. It's like you get to be Iron Man. lol.

Revenge of the Queue

Before The Burning Crusades came out, and before Blizzard did a whole bunch of upgrades to their hardware for said expansion, Bronzebeard had queues. For somebody logging on about 8 o'clock, it was just a fact of life. Queues would generally be in the 800-900 range. And now? They're back. Logging in last night, I was exactly number 900. So, I figured I'd sit down and share some tips of how you can log in to Wow these days.

1. As soon as you get home from work/school, first launch the game and get in the queue. This is an important step. Do it.
2. Go fix yourself a nice meal. Health is important; you need to take care of yourself. Nothing too fancy, a 5-course meal should do it.
3. While it's in the oven, go exercise. Again, you want to take care of that flab. :)
4. Take a shower and get into comfy clothes.
5. Eat said dinner.
6. Build yourself a second (, third, fourth, or fifth) computer. If you don't "need it", build a web site so that you can start selling them to other people.
7. Take care of your yard. Water the grass. You may even have to mow the lawn (might want to do this before you shower). Take some time to watch the grass grow.
8. Watch the stars and sky, and observe the patterns in order to determine future weather cycles.
9. Determine next steps in obtaining World Peace. Create appropriate memos to world leaders to set this plan in to place.
10. By this time, you should probably be in about the top 10 for the queue. Go ahead and wait, and then log in to play.

There. See? It really wasn't that bad. And look at how productive we've all become. Maybe I should have made the top 10 things you can do while waiting for the queue. lol. But with a little bit of planning, it's really not all that bad. I think it took about an hour. I'm sure they'll die down eventually. So, what other servers had some pretty hefty queues?

On another note: I did some of the beginning quests with my wife on her toon, and there wasn't any lag, and the huge population/race/ninja issue I expected for the quests really wasn't that bad. So, all in all... good job, Blizzard.

Wrath Has Landed

Well, in case you were in a coma, you know now that Wrath of the Lich King went live on the realms last night. Here's the play-by-play of my evening.

• I went to bed shortly after I put the kids to bed at 7. (Yep, my kids get their sleep... at least for a little while longer.)
• Woke up at 11:30 to head over to Gamestop.
• The line was kind of a mess, and I had to wait in two lines because I didn't have my "final" receipt, even though my wife had already prepaid for both copies in full.
• Left Gamestop at about 12:30.
• Was home, upgraded and installed by about 1.
• Logged off of Wow at 4:45 to shower and get ready for work.

At about 3:45 or so, I asked in guild chat if I should take another nap, or just keep playing. The response was kind of like "duh!" So, I kept playing.

The funny part is, that I've almost done as much on live as I did in Beta with Leiandra. Even ran the the first instance (which is something I always planned to get around to, but never did). She's about 1/2-way through 70.

When I logged off, we had one person that had hit 71; he was the 13th person (by my count) on our server. There were even a couple 72's on our server. Armory isn't exactly accurate... that's too bad. When I click on the person that's 71, it shows him as 71. But in the guild roster, it still shows him as 70. So, not sure when that will update. And who knows.. maybe we have more 71's. :)

At any rate... If you don't have it, go buy Wrath. If you have it... well... what are you doing ready my blog when you can be playing? Your excuse better be like mine: I'm stuck at work.

Free Epics

Yesterday was kind of a huge debacle for Blizzard. It was the kind of blunder we haven't seen in a long, long time. I have no clue what is done in (mostly) weekly maintenance, but sometimes, it's just full of fail, isn't it?

In case you forgot to log on yesterday, well... you probably didn't miss much. First of all, the servers were down pretty much all day. I think they finally came up about 9 o'clock, which is only 10 hours after they said they would be back online. When they did come back up, the in-game mail was all messed up, I didn't have a single thing in my mailbox (which I had a few things in there (mostly expired auctions), except a note from Blizzard telling me that there's an issue and they're working on it.

And then there were the Arena gear vendors that were selling gear for some classes for free. Nothing that I saw for a mage, but my priest got epic'ed out. Then again, I really don't expect him to still have those items once I log back in with him. He obviously didn't earn them, so I'm sure Blizzard will fix it so that he doesn't look way cooler than he actually is. lol.

Then there's posts on various web sites that are claiming that this would be considered an exploit and you can get banned for it. Oh, come on? Seriously? From the amount of people that were in SW on my server alone, multiplied by all the servers... and with an expansion about to hit where people haven't bought it yet? Yeah... I can't imagine a mass-banning like that. Or even a mass suspension. Especially for their mistake, that would be a horrible business decision in my opinion.

So, we didn't put the raid together, and that means I got a bit more sleep than usual. Also helped since I was doing a bunch of stuff on the "Honey Do" list, so I was a little tired. My wife said, "I have to get all the work out of you now since I know you'll be useless to me after Thursday." I opened my mouth to argue, but laughter came out since I know she's right.

I plan on zero progression tonight. My plan is to head to bed as soon as the kids go to sleep, wake up with enough time to get in line and purchase the x-pac at midnight. And then play until I have to leave for work, or have to fall asleep again, whichever comes first. The plan is that that will get me out of the starting areas when the bulk of the traffic hits on Thursday night. I'll probably be playing with my Austrialian and New Zealand brothern. lol.

So, if I don't post tomorrow... somebody call me. I probably fell asleep on my keyboard at work.

Mother Shahraz Down

Just as an update for those that care... Primogeniture took down Mother Shahraz last night. Full shadow resist gear is not needed, but we did have a lot of it. Because of the Fatal Attraction, 1-3 people get ported around and then have to run away from each other. That's what makes that fight a semi-complicated dance. There's not much time to react, and you have to do it quick.

Kind of makes me think of high school (or at least movies) where the cool kids have to dance off in the center of everybody else. Only difference here is, the cool kids are just any random group of up to 3 from the raid. lol

Took a shot at Illidari Council, but in the 10 minutes or so we had, we didn't have a chance to make much progress. Oh well... we'll come back "soon" just for the fun of it and smack them all around.

We'll see what we can do to clear Mount Hyjal tonight. :)

Please Don't Silence The Voices In My Head

I don't recall if I ever addressed it or not, but... awhile ago, I was accused of using this blog and taking all the glory for my guild and everything we do. Let me assure you that this is so not the case. Generally, I'll make the subtle distinction between "I have" done something vs. what "Primogeniture has" done. There's sometimes that I use "we" when I was involved in taking down a boss, but another one of the raid leaders was the one leading it.

I kind of morph the two together for two reasons. First, it's just easier to for me to lump everything together. It's also a group effort, so "we" is very valid. I don't think I've ever seen a raid leader be on top of progression without at least 24 other people supporting him/her.

The second reason is that our guild is kind of private to me. Yes, this is a public Internet site where I happen to talk about our guild, but I don't want to give people attention especially if I don't talk to them about it first. "Hey DruidA is the best druid on the entire server," could also lead to DruidA being recruited by other guilds. I'm less concerned about people leaving, because I think guildies generally enjoy being part of our group. I'm more concerned about privacy, security, and people not necessarily wanting their name or their toons name out on the Internet (despite the transperency due to the Armory).

Call me crazy, but that's the way my mind thinks. --But-- that's more or less the background.

Today, I simply want to thank the voices in my head. You know who you are. You're the other officers that remind me to explain a certain point of a fight. You're the druid that looked up Wowwiki while we were wipe recovering to see if there was anything else we could try, and whispers me with suggestions. You're the normal Joe Member that suggests (via whispers) that we position the boss in an alternative spot. You're the member that keeps me sane when guild-wide drama unfolds. You're the one that pm's me letting me know what a great job you think I'm doing, even though I just got a tongue lashing from another officer. You've got the toon that will respec, for the 100th time, without ever having complained about it even once. You're the person that took the time to talk through an issue with a memeber and resolve the issue without me even having known about it. And even though this is a game, you're the person I love working with.

To all those people, I would like to say Thank You. I seriously couldn't do it without you, nor would I want to. So while I haven't mentioned names, and I've certainly only paraphrased just a few of the many examples... I simply want to say Thank You.

WowJutsu May Be Flawed

So, I understand that with all the recent Pug runs and whatnot that WowJutsu is probably cracking down on who gets credit for each kill. Heck, we got credit for a number of kills prematurely, but we've always taken the boss down eventually.

Well, the other day after our kill on Teron Gorefiend and Gurtogg Bloodboil, we dropped down to 18 on our server. I was curious to see what our rank was after our accomplishment in Reliquary of Souls, and we're now up to 20.

Wow, I thought, a lot of guilds have been progressing ahead of us. No, wait... they took away credit to Teron Gorefiend, and didn't give us credit for Reliquary of Souls. So, pay no attention to that number 20 on the banner to the right. I'm guessing it should still read 18. Not a big deal to anyone but us, but still.

Tailoring in Wrath (375-385)

I'm still a little unsure about the direction of Tailoring in Wrath. From the Verimonde's post, it looks like we won't have any Bop tailored epic items, and I kind of disagree. I liked the fact that I could make my own gear. I hit 375 tailoring and crafted my first 3 epic items. Heck, it's practically payback for all the mats I dumped in there. I understand the direction they're going, but I don't necessarily agree with it. There's always going to be min/max people. And you'll always have people changing professions just so they can get that one special thing. Sigh... oh well. What can you do?

So, I'm not really finding a huge push to hit 450 at the moment. But I'm still planning things out as if I were. I guess the worst case scenario, I'd like to start making some type of cloth sooner rather than later to get my gear and maybe make some money off of Tailoring. So, I started looking at the recipies I'll be using.

First off, I have enough Outlands materials that I'll probably be using some of those first. It'll push me ahead about 10 points or so. So, here's what I have:

• 375-380 Arcanoweave Robes. At about 300 Netherweave Cloth, 100 Arcane Dust and 10 Rune Thread, it will be a tad expensive, but since those items aren't selling much on the AH anyway... might as well use them up. Hopefully I can sell some of the shards to leveling enchanters.
• 380-381 Spellfire Bag. I'm not 100% sure I'll do this one. I'm guessing not, but was just a thought I had, so I figured I'd put it down. I never made the largest (as of TBC) enchanting bag, so I figured I'd make 1 to get the point from it. Not really sure why I'd want to since I can make the Mysterious Bag at 440, so I'll probably scrap this idea.
• 381-385 Golden Spellthread. This might be a tad expensive, so I may pass on it, but it uses "old world" mats. It really just depends how cheap (or expensive) Frostweave Cloth becomes. I may just do 5 (or 6, depending if they all skill up) Frostwoven Robes. That will be 100 (or 120) cloth. Yeah, breaking it down like that, I may do the Spellthread option. Again.. we'll see what the AH does come Thursday.

Going Down?

Alright, alright. Get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about the Achievement of Going Down? Yeah, see? Nothing bad at all. At any rate...

I hadn't really made a big effort to try to get this achievement yet. Just haven't taken the time to "almost die" as many times as need to be able to fall 65 feet.

When I first heard about this achievement, I thought, "No problem... I have Slow Fall." Then my friends told me that you can't use this spell... nor can you use Levitate (Priest) or other spells akin. But now Spicy Tuna is pointing out that you can use Ice Block to negate the damage, but still fall as far as you like.

So, anyone want to guess what the first thing is I'll be going tonight when I get online? Yep.. that's right... taking my bird really high and dismounting. I'm guessing that this works for Paladin's Bop as well. So all you pallies and mages out there? It's time for some free falling.

Slight Wall

Alright.. last post of the day for now. And since my company has Veterans Day off tomorrow... don't expect any posts tomorrow.

Last night we continued pushing forward into Black Temple. With a more solid and better explained explanation on Reliquary of Souls, we cleared that boss in one attempt. So, not bad at all.

After that, we hit a slight wall named Mother Shahraz. Now, pre 3.0.2 there is no way we would have tried her. We still don't have all the Hearts of Darkness to craft the full Shadow Resist gear for a raid. So, we only have a few that happen to be Shadow Resist capped. But we've heard that it is possible to do without the Shadow Resist gear now that the hit points are less and we're doing more damage.

We tried a couple different strategies and got close (a couple attempts at 20%, I believe), but she's still alive. Healers not being able to heal while thrown up in the air is one of the many challenges we're facing. Had we had a few more priests with CoH, we probably would have been able to do it. So, we'll see what we can do tonight.

Worst case scenario: we give it a couple of tries and then we don't take her down. Hey... how many people (as a percent of total wow players) have actually gotten to see all the stuff we have anyway? I'm very impressed with the group we have, they all make a solid effort (despite our gear in this case). So, if we don't take her down, we'll just come back at 80 to clear it before the next expansion. :)

Death Knight Blog

So, you still have questions about Death Knights? Want to know what spec to have for leveling? For raiding? For PVP? Or how to get the jump on all the other Death Knights out there? Well, all of the subjects haven't been covered yet, but Skeleton Jack is a great resource for all things Death Knightly.

And Skeleton Jack knows his stuff. He's raided with a warrior and shaman. He's in the guild that's #2 on our server (which also includes taking down Kil'jaedon). There's a lot of great information already, and he just started blogging about a week ago. So... what are you still doing here? Go check out Skeleton Jack.

City Defenses

With the new Black War Bear mount from the achievement of killing the opposite side's Faction Leaders, I started thinking about the cities themselves. Why is it that the Horde have such horrible lay outs for city defenses?

I mean... take the old world cities first. Stormwind, Iron Forge, and Darnassus all have exactly 1 entrance from which the Horde can attack. Sure, you can argue that Stormwind and Iron Forge have a tram that runs between them which is technically another entrance, but since you'd still have to run through an enemy city to get into that, it's not really the same. And you could also argue that you can get into Darnassus from Teldrassil. But how do you get to Teldrassil unless you go through Darnassus, so that doesn't really count either.

And Iron Forge has to be one of the best strongholds in the game. Especially since there's now spells that will knock you back, a frontal assault to Iron Forge would never be successful with a mage or two (and appropriate healers) that have Blast Wave.

In contrast, there's two ways to get into Thunder Bluff, Orgimmar, and the Undercity. Now, granted that the elevators in Thunder Bluff are a bit more predictable as far as when you'll get attackers, but there's still two choke points for direct attacks. Again, the mage and healer thing could apply here, but you'd still have to have double the defenders.

The two cities that were added in the expansion may have been the attempt to even this up. Exodar has two entrances, while Silvermoon actually has 1. (I don't remember being able to get in another way. Please correct me if I'm wrong.) But one pair of cities doesn't really add up to the 3 pairs.

I guess I was really just trying to figure out why the imbalance. Is it because the Horde racials are generally better than Alliance for PvP, and therefore they should have an easier time killing Alliance attackers? That certainly can't be the case or else the battlegrounds would need to be always more favored towards the Alliance as well, and I know they've gone to great lenghts to make sure things are equal.

Nothing game breaking here, I suppose. Just one of those things that make you think a bit. If you've never entertained the idea of getting a Black War Bear or doing World PvP type of things like this, then just move along... I'll have another post on Monday. But can anyone think of any other reasons?

3.02: The Anti-Patch 1.10

For those that played long enough, you'll remember the days when you could bring 10 people into instances like Stratholme and Scholomance. Heck, you could bring 15 people into Lower and Upper Black Rock Spires. Then patch 1.10 hit, and the limits were dropped by 5. It was the "end of the world" for most people. "How can they expect us to do this?" and "It's so hard now". Then people adapted and realized that it was really too easy before. 10 people running through Stratholme meant that at least 5 were probably on follow and afk. You still had to know where to go, but you could pretty much Aoe everything and be super sloppy pre 1.10. Once that patch hit, you could no longer be

Last night was a continuation of Black Temple for Primogeniture. We downed Teron Gorefiend and Gurtogg Bloodboil. Gorefiend was a 1-shot and Bloodboil took 2 attempts. We also took an attempt at Reliquary of Souls, but we were pretty much at our time limit (got started late) so I gave a horrible and hurried explanation which got us through phase 1, but had us die due to the Spirit Shock in phase 2.

So, I was thinking... Maybe with the increased damage from new talent trees AND the nerf of all mobs in raid instances, maybe this is almost the opposite of patch 1.10. It's like letting people walk around Karazhan and ZA with 15 people. Gruul's Lair with 30. And basically letting everyone be all loosey goosey and still down pretty high end bosses. But hey... it's nice to see the bosses die. You still have to do the strategies and deal with stuff.. there's just a lot more room for error. I kind of like it (in a cheating way). lol

We have 2 more raid nights scheduled for Black Temple before reset. I'll keep you updated on how far we go.

Black Temple Progression

We didn't feel like we had the right mix for a good Mount Hyjal run last night. So, what did Primogeniture do? We went into Black Temple instead. lol.

Yeah, seems kind of backwards, but the logic was: we really don't have our strongest group, nor do we even have 25 online that are able to raid. We had waited around for some time in hopes to get more people online, but were starting to get too late for others. So, at 9, we put it to a vote in the guild, and decided to see if we could down Najentus with our highly melee group. 1-shotted him without any problems.

Walked over to Supremus (accidentally pulling multiple groups at times and having to Aoe them down), and killed him in one attempt.

It was then getting late, but we pressed on to Shade of Akama. The trash right before Shade of Akama is a bit stronger, and our accidental multi-pulls caused a few near wipes (go go Soul Stone). It was getting late, so once we cleared out the room, we thought we'd give Shade one try. Yeah... that encounter didn't last long either.

So, here we are on a Tuesday having killed all the bosses we've ever killed in Black Temple. To be honest, I'm not even sure where I need to go for the next boss. Guess we have some research to do before tonight's raid. lol.

Leiandra, Hand of A'dal

I think that amazes me the most about the nerf to all the raid bosses and post 3.0 patch is the amount of time it now takes to down bosses. (This is all pre-Wrath stuff obviously.) Raids that used to take days now seem to take mere minutes.

A perfect example is Al'ar last night. He didn't even need to go up in the air in phase 1. We killed him before he left the 4th platform. And then in phase 2 we only had 2 mages killing the adds, we used to have 4. So, since I was focusing on the adds, when one suddenly disappeared, I though maybe the fight got bugged out somehow. But nope.. it was just that Al'ar was dead in something like 3 minutes.

We did run on up and poke Kael with a stick or two as well. Same basic story as our Lady Vashj fight. We killed Kael on our second attempt, which is really good considering how quickly I ran through the explanation (for those that had never read or seen it, and a general "this is how we'll do it" thing). Again, I'm 100% sure that we could have done this pre-nerf had we had enough attempts and people online. Oh well. What's done is done.

Tonight we'll see if we can't clear Mt. Hyjal. Who knows? lol.

My Wife, the Hallowed

I don't recall how many times I headed over to Scarlet Monastery over these past 2 weeks or so, but I can tell you that I did not get a Squashy Pet or one of the Pumpkin Heads for the achievement, but I did do practically everything else. And as far as getting those drops from Trick or Treating... well... let's just say that I got tricked to many times that it wasn't even funny anymore. Never did I get a toothpick or any of the other BoP drops needed for those two achievements.

My wife, however was lucky enough to get all of them. And after having me grab the candy bags over all of Kalimdor and Outlands for her, and persuading her to do some Pvp for the 50 H.K.'s (I was going to have to do it for her), she got all of the Halloween achievements. Well... all except the mask which is supposed to be patched out as a requirement from what I hear.

But it's nice to have her "excited" about something in Wow. She enjoys the game. She enjoys hanging out with me. But when we get online the response to "What do you want to do?" is usually "Whatever." So, she's now taking the next step to becoming even more of a Wow nerd... I may actually get her to research something for her toon soon. lol.