My computer is finally installed in its new home, only 3 weeks after we moved in. Which no doubt makes us sound like the most inefficient people in the world. However I do have an excuse. After University we went travelling and packed up the contents of our flat/lives into a series of boxes and divided said boxes between our parents. Once we returned with yet more stuff we moved into a tiny living space and just left all the boxes stored away in other people’s houses. Of course now we have a fairly large house, both sets of parents are jumping for joy at the thought of getting a bedroom each back but the fetching and sorting of stuff is taking a while, a considerable while in fact. The process isn’t helped by the fact that most of my possessions are books which I keep having to read to decide what I should do with them. The fact that I decided to sort all the books alphabetically by author, with fiction downstairs and non fiction/poetry/plays upstairs isn’t exactly helping the process either. I suspect we will be properly and completely moved in around June.
The other factor which has slowed us down somewhat has been my new pet hate, flat pack furniture. Apart from being evil incarnate with rough instructions which look more like the scribbles of a crazed axe murderer than a practical guide to building a bookcase not to mention either too many screws or not enough, words can not describe my loathing. Having played a (minor) part in building 9 bookcases, 3 tables and 2 desks I never ever want to see another box of the stuff. One seemingly obvious word of warning on the subject though, if you decide to make an item in the sitting room even though its designated to live in the office, make sure that once built it will fit through the door and up the stairs. Especially if you have stupid twisty stairs that look awesome until trying to manhandle furniture up them. Having to make a desk once is bad enough, having to make it twice is ……..
Finally on the subject of WoW. I was woken up this morning by the Gnomeling ranting about a post Ghostcrawler made on the US tanking forums so I suspect I might have to wait until we are completely and tidily moved in before mentioning his subscription and the renewing thereof. So my plan is to rescue one of my old Horde druids lurking safely on a PvE server (when playing solo, I’m a coward) and finish leveling her. I still havent done all the horde WotLK quests yet so that would be a good opportunity to do so before Cataclysm hits. There are also a couple of other things I want to do before the next expansion goes live, reputations on a variety of characters and a bit more alt leveling so I have more options available.
Reading over my last post, I can’t help wondering who I’m trying to convince though. I do miss raiding but I’ve missed out on completing the last raid instance of every expansion so I guess it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise this time around. Vanilla, half way through original Naxx our GM/Main Tank who had taken gear priority left us for a marginally better guild which basically was the end of that. The Burning Crusade, I saw one boss in the Sunwell before having enough of the atmosphere of bitter hatred going on and this time I’ve managed one wing..ah well maybe in Cataclysm.
After a rather hectic Christmas, loads of snow and the fact that we are still in the process of moving house, WoW has been the last thing on my mind. However now the dust is slowly starting to settle, we had a long talk about the game and decided that raiding had pretty much turned into a full time job. So from now on we will be only playing casually. Yes, I’ve said that before but raiding one night a week usually bled into two, three, four, five and in vanilla even six or seven nights a week and that’s just not going to happen this time. Going to stay away from raiding guilds like they have the plague.
The plan is to create two little druids and have some fun. We’ve always enjoyed the whole questing, sneaking around STV looking for unwary little orcs having picnics and running low level instances either two man or with random people and its certainly a much more relaxing way to play the game. After all, as Cavafy so wonderfully put it,
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
I rather think this sums up the whole game at the moment. The journey to endgame has so much more potential than endgame itself. The continual pattern of buffs and nerfs as classes jockey for position and the way in which content is nerfed so fast so everyone has a chance to see it impacts negatively on gameplay. As a baby druid stalking prey through the jungles of Stranglethorn that will be far from my mind and no doubt I’ll have a lot more fun than listening to a bunch of people scream at each other because some warlock just cost us our last try at a particular boss.
On Thursday we achieved a Tribute to Insanity, something which as a guild I never thought we were capable of (too many people fond of trying to tank the Faction Champions). By Friday morning it seems as if the guild is pretty much on the way out. Already the rats are leaping from the sinking ship in search of greener pastures and Icecrown seems impossible. Why you might ask… a simple forum post in which our GM stated that she wants to play a bit less. I suppose its one way of finding out which people are interested in a community and which are just after shiny purples.
Obviously things are not yet written in stone, but the prognosis doesn’t seem particularly good. Which leaves me in a strange mood, on the one hand I’m angry because my raiding has been brought to an abrupt halt and I had no control over it. Yes, I could look for another guild but finding one which wants both a priest and a warrior would be tricky if not impossible. Then there is the fact that over Christmas we have family commitments to keep and then in January we are moving house meaning that trialling for a new guild even if we could sweet talk our way into one as a package would be hard. Then on the other side of the coin is a sense of relief. If the guild had continued its fairly hardcore raiding, we would have been letting people down when January arrived and we had to disappear whilst we moved (our raiding roster was fairly tight and my boyfriend is/was the maintank). Not to mention the fact that I find the game less and less enthralling these days.
On a slightly more interesting note, here is a video of our heroic Anub’arak kill.
We use 2 tanks (both warriors), one on the boss and one tanking all the adds in an unhittable block set. 6 healers, basically 1 per mark plus one full time on the tanks (in the video two of them are holy paladins who have the tanks beaconed as well). As a disc priest I got the exciting job of taking one mark plus keeping shields on the rogues to make sure they stay alive as our strategy relied fairly heavily on tricks.
But it seems to borrow (and paraphrase) T.S Eliot’s words,
Flicking through all the 3.3 patch goodies on MMO Champion, I couldn’t help but notice something. Lurking in amongst the names of the weekly raid quests is every priest’s favourite fight. Instructor Razuvious, he the dashing blue armour and the four rather disappointing students. So because I’m sweet and kind, I thought I would share the macro which made my tanking experiences considerably more bearable.
Obviously you want to change YOURNAMEHERE to your actual character name (I forgot the first time, something which I have never been allowed to forget). Basically it simplifies the fight down to cast mind soothe, cast mindcontrol and hit the macro which pops bone shield and taunts him. Then whilst tanking all you have to do is dps using blood strike and wait for your partner to taunt it off you.
I found it on WoWhead whilst digging through pages of information trying to figure out why even when hit capped my mindcontrol was very temperamental. Which leads me to the other piece of useful advice on the subject, make sure your paladins switch off shadow resistance aura. The last thing you need is your minion gaining 130 shadow resistance just as you mind control him. It tends to lead to squished priests and then everyone else running around blaming you for somehow being incompetent (especially in PuGs).
The first time I saw it was just before the WotLK went live. I was running around Shattrah and out of the corner of my eye I spotted it. A table loaded with food for the refugees and the hungry.
Then came the call to head out to the snowy wastes of Northrend and I forgot about it for a while. A trip to the Lower City in search of a recipe reminded me some months later but no matter how many times I rode back and forth I couldn’t find it. Thinking it was perhaps a figment of my imagination or maybe just something they added for the run up to the expansion I left, slightly saddened.
I next returned the Lower City on my druid a few weeks ago, to pick up the heroic key from the reputation vendor. Much to my surprise, there was the fabled kitchen once again. Still handing out food to the lost and starving. This time I took a screenshot as tangible proof.
Of course my trip back a few days later yielded nothing but a ripped tarpaulin and empty stand (or at least I think that’s where it goes) but it exists, even if seems to vanish for days on end.
Just come back from a long weekend trip down south to see family and take them their Christmas presents. Now because sitting in car for 6 hours is nothing but boring we stopped a couple of times. First in Edinburgh for a late breakfast, then in Alnwick for a quick run around the Castle gardens and finally in Newcastle for a closer look at the Angel himself.
Ignoring the fact that the sun setting at 4pm is horrible, I love the fact that this photograph completely manages to hide the fact that a freezing icy wind was blowing straight across the hillside. I have mixed feelings about the statue itself, I can’t help but feel the wings should be more rounded and softer but on the whole, seeing up close with the sun behind it, it was almost beautiful.
Back on WoW, I logged on to find a cute little whelping from Blizzard. The deep breath animation is adorable if somewhat pathetic. Would have been so much more fun if you could incinerate lowbies with it.
Then there is the new Pilgrim’s Bounty festival. Food, a reason to visit old familiar places and more clothes to fill up my bags. The perfect remedy for a spot of WoW grumpiness. Plus, shooting rogues…. how awesome is that.
I’m suffering a bit from WoW related ennui at the moment but I’m not 100 percent sure why. I have goals, lots of goals I want to achieve in game but when it actually comes to logging to do them I end up hanging around chatting to people or bouncing quietly in a corner.
I’m 50 quests away from Loremaster on my Priest. The end is finally in sight, I know where to look for the remaining quests and I’ve even started a couple of blog posts on the subject but……
My druid and shaman are both lv 72 with lots of shiny BoA accessories but despite having bought them winter flying, epic flying and dual spec, they are hanging out in the beergarden. Which other than telling me that money in WoW is far too easily earnt isn’t really helpful.
My baby warrior is a level away from a dirty noisy mechostrider.
I’m working on my 100 mount achievement. My guild got three glowing pink flying bird things from Kael in TBC, all three people have now quit or gone casual. The only time I’ve seen a hawkstrider drop in Magister’s Terrace, I was outrolled by 1… its owner is now casual. Dwelling on lost rolls leads to bitterness, especially since Kael is now denying ever having a hawkstider and refusing to drop another one.
I think part of the problem is the gated raid system with a set number of tries that Blizzard seems to feel is the way forward. Now, my server is at times anything but stable. Its one of the biggest in the EU I believe and come raid time, especially on a Wednesday/Thursday the latency spirals. We lost three tries on Anub’arak yesterday for example due to all kinds of weird lag. Spikes standing still whilst killing someone on the other side of the room being the best example. It shouldn’t be a “Tribute to Mad Skill” but a “Tribute to Server Stability”.
“The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks.”
The thought of having four new encounters to beat then having to wait, whilst still doing all the stuff we currently do because there isn’t enough new stuff to go around doesn’t create a feeling of excitement in my bosom. Yes, maybe I’m being extra pessimistic as we don’t know what the live versions of the normal instance will be like but ToC doesn’t inspire confidence.
Everytime I redo my talents, I slowly panic my way through, terrified I’m going to spend them wrong so when I discovered this:
You can imagine my excitement.
I’m sure everyone who actually reads the patch notes properly already knew it existed, but for everyone else… its there and its awesome.
You have to enable it for every character individually but it means no more drunken disasters whilst trying to respec alts at three in the morning and no more accidents whilst rushing to respec whilst a raid are waiting for you. You simply plug in the talents you want, just like on a talent calculator switching things around as you fancy. When you’re done, you hit the “learn” button which then locks the chosen talents into place.
In my opinion, its one of the best recent additions to the game. Especially for people who either respec beyond their dual specs a lot or for people like me who have far too many alts.
Icecrown itself. The fight that involves healing a boss in particular. Although I love the look of some of the new bosses, specifically Queen Lana’thel and Festergut (his colours are nicer than Rotgut’s). All in all, I think the fights for the most part sound interesting and dynamic. A big improvement on the current tier of raid content.
My hunter intends discovering a BM spec and then taming the new spirit beast. One of my first pets was black bear called Jasper and now I’m going to reclaim a dead ghostly version of him.
The new looking group thingie. Right now, you go “LF 3 dps” in trade and get snowed under with whispers. Then its trying to figure out a fair way to pick people. Do you take the first three people to whisper even though they are usually all the same class. Do you fuss about achievements, in my opinion no but there is always some snotty dpser who complains about the fact that Mr Mage is wearing greens and hasn’t completed normal let alone heroic. So this new system is the answer to my prayers. Join up and let them do all the work and get rewards too. Can’t wait. Plus the Pug for pugging has to be the most awesome concept ever invented.
The Fishing Derby. I want the boots that transport you to the best drinking establishment in the Eastern Kingdoms, the Salty Sailor Tavern. These could become especially useful in Cataclysm, you never know.
The Toxic Wasteling – “Right Click to summon and dismiss your toxic wasteling. Do not feed toxic wasteling. Do not allow toxic wasteling to approach small animals. Do not touch, sniff, or even look at toxic wasteling for extended periods of time.” I want one and I’m going to feed it and let it play with critters.
It really should come as no surprise that when you view the Alliance Faction Champions through the Belbi’s Eyesight Enhancing goggles that this is what you see…
Is it just me that finds it odd that the shape shifting class aren’t allowed to have any fun with random shape shifting items. That even the NPCs seem to be suffering from the whole druid plus Noggenfogger = unfair duels whinefest of 05/06. I really don’t see why outside arenas, transforming effects can’t work on druids. Maybe in Cataclysm…
