Began the evening with the Brewfest dailies and totally botched the ram run, only delivering nine kegs of precious booze to the festival. My runs typically follow a ‘banana-shaped’ path allowing me to catch the two apple barrels along the path and, if things go horribly wrong I can usually tag the barrel by the keg-giver. This time, I managed to:
· Get stuck on a fence for a few seconds
· Not get credit for an apple barrel
· Hit 100 exhaustion while in the process of leaping over a barrel, giving me the 15 second debuff but with no exhaustion counter
· Annoy the keg-provider to the point where he won’t give me another barrel until I run off and come back
· Fall off a hillside.
In retrospect, it was a miracle I got as many delivered as I did.
Afterward, I grabbed a random party to slay Corin Direbrew for the billionth time and after he defeated 20 seconds later, I decided to stick around and explore the rest of the dungeon. It was amazingly fun.
It turns out I –had- seen the end of the dungeon years before, I was just pretty clueless at the time as far as what was going on. After navigating a few tunnels I made my way through the inky depths, fought seven spectral dwarven ghosts and discovered I –needed- that damn Shadowforge Key at some point. Further in, I obliterated a room with a thousand dwarves in it to grab a couple of torches to light braziers to open the final door (this is when I realized I’d been here before—my first run was very traumatic) and stood in the throne room with the dark iron King and his court.
Being the tactical equivalent of Conan, I went straight for the throne and attacked. Every single dwarf began rushing to the King’s defense as he started lighting me up. For the most part I ignored the throngs as I focused on the King. Once he was down to a fraction of his health, he became immune to my assaults and continued wailing on me. At this point I noticed I was nearly dead. I hastily shifted from “God mode” to “OMG! OMG! OMG! mode” and dashed around exploding everything I could while quaffing a potion and using trinkets.
In the end, the broken bodies of the dwarven consul littered the floor like dark iron scraps and I sat upon the throne proudly. Afterward I climbed down and back tracked a bit until I found the molten core entrance and broke off a fragment to attune myself. That’ll be an adventure for another day.
Back in Ironforge, I realized that I’d miss Thursday’s guild run for the weekly raid due to wifely commitments. Instructor Razuvious needed killing again and I really wanted the rewards, so I when I saw the opportunity to join a pug, I did so.
We met up in Naxx and it was a bit dicey—our tank was squishy and half of us died on trash before someone swapped out for a warrior. As we went along, we discovered there was only one person who had ever used the control orbs before. I was low man on the DPS totem pole (it happens), so I was volunteered to take the other. I reluctantly agreed, but assumed no responsibility for any fatalities incurred. They laughed and agreed. Silly pug.
After we made our way to the Instructor, I diligently positioned myself near the control orb and waited for the signal. When it came, I grabbed it and my consciousness was transferred into a death knight chained to something. With a odd array of icons now inhabiting my spell bar, I desperately started clicking things to see what would happen.
In seconds, the Instructor was charging the party and I was fighting hard to get control of the fight. Cyandra aside, I’m REALLY used to fighting from a distance and having to chase the Instructor down as it was wailing into the party was a bit embarrassing. The alternate tank started tanking and started screaming after a few seconds to pass off aggro. I grabbed the instructor, but my bone shield was still on cooldown. This would end poorly.
My controllee was slain and I flipped into my much more comfortable DPS role as the alt tank got the stuffing beaten out of him. Fortunately for all concerned, the Instructor was down to a sliver when we lost the second Death Knight and we polished him off without loss of life. I apologized and summoned a portal to Dalaran so people could turn in the quest.
It was a learning experience. The little pug learned never to let Strev near the control orbs.
Afterward, I ran my daily in Occulus (note to self: repair armor first thing today) and fished in the coin fountain until I achieved the Grandmaster Fisherman title.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Into the Depths, an Anyth Tale
Monday saw the exploration of the Sunken Temple with Karthex, Zyrial, Myrial, and Some Shaman named Sinfulcrit. This was my first time in the Temple and I was vaguely impressed by the layout for the first thirty seconds. Afterward, it was all pretty much reduced to “staircase up, staircase down, staircase up, staircase down” as we went on a wild hunt for various scaly mini-bosses that were little more than reptilian speed bumps for our Ball o’ Hurt. I honestly can’t recollect any part where we were in any real danger.
The real fun of it came after we slew enough tiny draconian menaces and got to face down some proper dragons, complete with asparagus-shaped tails. The final boss was a transparent dragon a bit larger than the rest, but was a straightforward tank-and-spank kill. Given the complex boss fights I’m used to at this point, I left feeling a little disappointed.
Our second adventure saw the replacement of the shaman with the hunter Shotgut, played by our good friend Brian. We not-so-randomly selected the Black Rock Depths and teleported straight to the depths. After Strev’s adventures the previous week, I was fairly confident I knew how this should play out. I realized just after entering that none of us would have the Shadowforge Key quest, which makes deeper exploration much easier. Stepping back out would send us back to our origin point, so I silently hoped someone would die. As it turned out, within minutes I’d have just two wishes left.
BRD is a huge sprawling complex that I won’t describe again (see previous posts), but in the first room we somehow picked up a couple of extra packs of dwarves and ravenous dogs. Before we knew it, Zyrial had been reduced to kibble and his angel loomed over us, granting a few extra seconds of reprieve. Unfortunately, this meant that Zyrial was now at a graveyard halfway across a zone he’d probably never seen before and had no idea of how to navigate the mountain’s interior. Terrific.
I opted to play ‘Spirit Guide’ and told the party to wait as I led him back. I charged down a hallway and aggro’d most of it. As the critters happily nommed and seared Anyth, Zyrial calls out that “It’s cool—I’m following someone.” Terrific. I’m already committed to the plan, so I finish dying properly and jog back. I had asked Zyrial to pick up the Shadowforge quest on the way back and at some point he’s back and announces he’s sharing it. I don’t get a message pop, so I figured it was due to my “Dead Status”. I stopped along the way at the Tomb, started the quest, then took a lava bath to get back to the party quicker.
Once inside the tomb, things proceeded fairly well through the prison section. We clear the Ring of Law, wipe out a ton of hounds, and the party is a little confused on where to go next. Anyth to the rescue! I lead the party with mostly correct directions through the bowels of the dwarven city until we get to the Hall of Crafters. Until this point it was a pretty good run. A little dicey at times and we did lose Zyrial a second time, but otherwise the challenges were met and dealt with accordingly.
We killed the Key Boss and I instructed the party to loot Ironfel, needed for the key. The very next pull, it all went to hell. The tiny dwarves are hard to see under the large golems and we overpulled harshly. The golems are heavy hitters and took most of the party down before we could regain control of the fight. Party wipe!
At this point, there’s some dissension in the ranks. A couple note that we’ve “gone way too deep” for the Prison bosses. This was fine by me, since I was under the impression we were exploring what we could. After a minute or so of guiding Myrial back to the entrance (There was a lava incident), we delved into the depths again for the sole purpose of getting the Key.
Fortunately, there were no respawns and I quickly headed back to the short hallway with the key-dispenser at the end. We splattered the guardians and … found out that only Zyrial and I had the quest. D’OH! We got our keys and an insane amount of xp for doing so.
It’s a very rewarding dungeon and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to revisit it a couple more times and do the actual quests for the place. Time to do some research!
The real fun of it came after we slew enough tiny draconian menaces and got to face down some proper dragons, complete with asparagus-shaped tails. The final boss was a transparent dragon a bit larger than the rest, but was a straightforward tank-and-spank kill. Given the complex boss fights I’m used to at this point, I left feeling a little disappointed.
Our second adventure saw the replacement of the shaman with the hunter Shotgut, played by our good friend Brian. We not-so-randomly selected the Black Rock Depths and teleported straight to the depths. After Strev’s adventures the previous week, I was fairly confident I knew how this should play out. I realized just after entering that none of us would have the Shadowforge Key quest, which makes deeper exploration much easier. Stepping back out would send us back to our origin point, so I silently hoped someone would die. As it turned out, within minutes I’d have just two wishes left.
BRD is a huge sprawling complex that I won’t describe again (see previous posts), but in the first room we somehow picked up a couple of extra packs of dwarves and ravenous dogs. Before we knew it, Zyrial had been reduced to kibble and his angel loomed over us, granting a few extra seconds of reprieve. Unfortunately, this meant that Zyrial was now at a graveyard halfway across a zone he’d probably never seen before and had no idea of how to navigate the mountain’s interior. Terrific.
I opted to play ‘Spirit Guide’ and told the party to wait as I led him back. I charged down a hallway and aggro’d most of it. As the critters happily nommed and seared Anyth, Zyrial calls out that “It’s cool—I’m following someone.” Terrific. I’m already committed to the plan, so I finish dying properly and jog back. I had asked Zyrial to pick up the Shadowforge quest on the way back and at some point he’s back and announces he’s sharing it. I don’t get a message pop, so I figured it was due to my “Dead Status”. I stopped along the way at the Tomb, started the quest, then took a lava bath to get back to the party quicker.
Once inside the tomb, things proceeded fairly well through the prison section. We clear the Ring of Law, wipe out a ton of hounds, and the party is a little confused on where to go next. Anyth to the rescue! I lead the party with mostly correct directions through the bowels of the dwarven city until we get to the Hall of Crafters. Until this point it was a pretty good run. A little dicey at times and we did lose Zyrial a second time, but otherwise the challenges were met and dealt with accordingly.
We killed the Key Boss and I instructed the party to loot Ironfel, needed for the key. The very next pull, it all went to hell. The tiny dwarves are hard to see under the large golems and we overpulled harshly. The golems are heavy hitters and took most of the party down before we could regain control of the fight. Party wipe!
At this point, there’s some dissension in the ranks. A couple note that we’ve “gone way too deep” for the Prison bosses. This was fine by me, since I was under the impression we were exploring what we could. After a minute or so of guiding Myrial back to the entrance (There was a lava incident), we delved into the depths again for the sole purpose of getting the Key.
Fortunately, there were no respawns and I quickly headed back to the short hallway with the key-dispenser at the end. We splattered the guardians and … found out that only Zyrial and I had the quest. D’OH! We got our keys and an insane amount of xp for doing so.
It’s a very rewarding dungeon and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to revisit it a couple more times and do the actual quests for the place. Time to do some research!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Pug Runners
The weekend was a fun little eclectic mess. Everything from Wintergrasp to Ice Crown Citadel with booze in-between.
Friday evening included Strev running couple of random dungeons with the guild and quite a lot of working on Cyandra. I had a self-imposed goal to get her to 60 before the end of the weekend and there were a few hundred buzzards between her and that. I wound up falling a few birds shy of my goal (though I hit it this morning out of spite).
Cyandra’s main issue has been damage output. This is hardly a shock, as she’s not retribution-specialized. I thus put “heirloom weapon” on Strev’s shopping list. Per usual, I had a choice between grinding tons of dungeons or doing a bit more PvP in Wintergrasp to collect stone shards. I wasn’t actually doing anything else with Triumph badges, so my thought process went something like this: I can get the PvP weapon, which provides a nice little stamina boost and a major jump in Cyandra’s spellpower AND get a PvE breastplate with badges in a week or so. That’s when someone in guild chat through a Cataclysm curve ball.
When patch 4.0.1 goes live (it is on public test at the time of this writing), there’s some pretty big changes to the badge/emblem system. Badges and Emblems that are less than Triumph will be converted to gold and gold will be used to purchase all rewards that could have been gotten with those types of badges. By that definition, it includes heirloom gear. Triumphs and Frosties will be converted to ‘Justice points’ AT EQUAL VALUE and used to purchase the same gear they used to. This is a serious “wow”, but it all hinges on whether or not the 4.0.1 patch goes live before Cataclysm is released. When Cata hits, the Justice points are pretty much worthless unless you need a particular trinket. So, I think I’m going to hedge my bets by hanging onto Triumphs for another week, spend Frosties if I can get to a nice piece of armor, and burn stone shards like the trash they are.
Earned enough Brewfest tokens to join the Brew of the Month Club, which granted Strev the Brewmaster title. I’ll still need to ride the rams daily to earn enough points for the Brewfest costume, but with more practice, I should be able to snag all three pieces before the holiday ends. My record so far is 13 keg deliveries in the allotted time. I’ve heard of some people getting 23, but I have no idea how.
Fidelis grew in a most unexpected way late Friday night. I’m up a bit later than normal and I get the message that new member has joined the guild. This is always a happy thing and I offer my welcomes. A minute later another person joins…and another. They weren’t announced as alts—maybe a few close friends? I’m given a two word explanation: Pug runners. Confused, I guess they meant these were unguilded people in a pug they just ran More welcomes sent. I’m halfway through typing a message telling the 2nd person that ‘Good news—he’s no longer the new guy.’ when three more people join up. I’m now perplexed and a couple of us are wondering if an Officer has gone on an insane recruiting spree through Ironforge. The flood gates open with new members and I get a more detailed explanation.
Pug Runners was a guild whose people often padded our raids when we were a few short. Likable and friendly, some of them were even former members of Fidelis. For reasons unknown, The Runners decided to disband and merge their guild with ours to make a larger and stronger team. This works out well for everybody and I’m glad to have them on board; it was pleasantly stunning to see 28 people in guild chat without a raid going on.
Saturday night, we took the combined forces into ICC again. I now had a good idea of how these fights worked and was eager to test my mettle. We blew through the first few bosses with little effort and although I blew the roll on a staff I really, really needed (“Strev: I got a one!” “Looter: I guess you REALLY didn’t want that staff.”), I wound up getting some incredibly good gloves instead so I’m not heartbroken.
The Plagueworks was where it got rough again. We barely missed the enrage timer on Festergut (again) but downed him through the power of DoTs and thus avoided a raidwipe. Rotface chewed half the party, but we brought the abomination to the floor. At last, we were face to face with my arch-nemesis, Professor Putricide.
I had promised this bastard a rematch a while back and I was finally going to have my revenge. We reviewed the strategy and the tank pulled. In seconds I was dead from having stood in the fire like a newb; I couldn’t make it out of the ooze that was ticking off 5k a second. Sigh. Battle-rezzed and killed again in seconds. Sigh. I wasn’t the only one having issues by far, so we regrouped to try again.
This time, I easily dodged the plague splotches and when the oozes erupted from the floor, I flawlessly shifted from target to target to save the pursued. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, someone exploded an ooze in the middle of the raid and wiped most of us in a single fell blast. Time was running short, so we opted to pass on a third attempt and instead fought something…Norse… for an easy frostie.
By Sunday evening, I had nearly enough stonekeeper shards to get Cyandra’s mace, so I hit Wintergrasp to work the weekly quests I had missed. By the time the battle started, I was 5 shards shy and had one quest remaining: destroy three siege engines. This is utterly cake, since normally the Horde sends many tanks against our fortress and I’m very diligent about blasting them to pieces. This time, the Horde had other plans.
In WG if a side is outmatched or their opponents have held the keep for a couple of goes, they get a stackable buff called ‘tenacity’. It grants extra health, damage, and probably keeps their teeth sparkly clean. When the other side’s tenacity score exceeds ‘6’, we’re in for a rough ride. This time they had 20. With an amazing buff of 20 tenacity, the Horde players had something like triple health and damage, yet they just could not get it together.
The Alliance utterly steamrolled them. We controlled all of the vehicle production sites and within ten minutes kept them locked down to their graveyard spawn point. Amusing, but it kept me from getting the mace. It wouldn’t be until nearly midnight that I’d be able to complete the quest, but it was a good feeling to mail the shiny heirloom to Cyandra just before going to bed.
Friday evening included Strev running couple of random dungeons with the guild and quite a lot of working on Cyandra. I had a self-imposed goal to get her to 60 before the end of the weekend and there were a few hundred buzzards between her and that. I wound up falling a few birds shy of my goal (though I hit it this morning out of spite).
Cyandra’s main issue has been damage output. This is hardly a shock, as she’s not retribution-specialized. I thus put “heirloom weapon” on Strev’s shopping list. Per usual, I had a choice between grinding tons of dungeons or doing a bit more PvP in Wintergrasp to collect stone shards. I wasn’t actually doing anything else with Triumph badges, so my thought process went something like this: I can get the PvP weapon, which provides a nice little stamina boost and a major jump in Cyandra’s spellpower AND get a PvE breastplate with badges in a week or so. That’s when someone in guild chat through a Cataclysm curve ball.
When patch 4.0.1 goes live (it is on public test at the time of this writing), there’s some pretty big changes to the badge/emblem system. Badges and Emblems that are less than Triumph will be converted to gold and gold will be used to purchase all rewards that could have been gotten with those types of badges. By that definition, it includes heirloom gear. Triumphs and Frosties will be converted to ‘Justice points’ AT EQUAL VALUE and used to purchase the same gear they used to. This is a serious “wow”, but it all hinges on whether or not the 4.0.1 patch goes live before Cataclysm is released. When Cata hits, the Justice points are pretty much worthless unless you need a particular trinket. So, I think I’m going to hedge my bets by hanging onto Triumphs for another week, spend Frosties if I can get to a nice piece of armor, and burn stone shards like the trash they are.
Earned enough Brewfest tokens to join the Brew of the Month Club, which granted Strev the Brewmaster title. I’ll still need to ride the rams daily to earn enough points for the Brewfest costume, but with more practice, I should be able to snag all three pieces before the holiday ends. My record so far is 13 keg deliveries in the allotted time. I’ve heard of some people getting 23, but I have no idea how.
Fidelis grew in a most unexpected way late Friday night. I’m up a bit later than normal and I get the message that new member has joined the guild. This is always a happy thing and I offer my welcomes. A minute later another person joins…and another. They weren’t announced as alts—maybe a few close friends? I’m given a two word explanation: Pug runners. Confused, I guess they meant these were unguilded people in a pug they just ran More welcomes sent. I’m halfway through typing a message telling the 2nd person that ‘Good news—he’s no longer the new guy.’ when three more people join up. I’m now perplexed and a couple of us are wondering if an Officer has gone on an insane recruiting spree through Ironforge. The flood gates open with new members and I get a more detailed explanation.
Pug Runners was a guild whose people often padded our raids when we were a few short. Likable and friendly, some of them were even former members of Fidelis. For reasons unknown, The Runners decided to disband and merge their guild with ours to make a larger and stronger team. This works out well for everybody and I’m glad to have them on board; it was pleasantly stunning to see 28 people in guild chat without a raid going on.
Saturday night, we took the combined forces into ICC again. I now had a good idea of how these fights worked and was eager to test my mettle. We blew through the first few bosses with little effort and although I blew the roll on a staff I really, really needed (“Strev: I got a one!” “Looter: I guess you REALLY didn’t want that staff.”), I wound up getting some incredibly good gloves instead so I’m not heartbroken.
The Plagueworks was where it got rough again. We barely missed the enrage timer on Festergut (again) but downed him through the power of DoTs and thus avoided a raidwipe. Rotface chewed half the party, but we brought the abomination to the floor. At last, we were face to face with my arch-nemesis, Professor Putricide.
I had promised this bastard a rematch a while back and I was finally going to have my revenge. We reviewed the strategy and the tank pulled. In seconds I was dead from having stood in the fire like a newb; I couldn’t make it out of the ooze that was ticking off 5k a second. Sigh. Battle-rezzed and killed again in seconds. Sigh. I wasn’t the only one having issues by far, so we regrouped to try again.
This time, I easily dodged the plague splotches and when the oozes erupted from the floor, I flawlessly shifted from target to target to save the pursued. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, someone exploded an ooze in the middle of the raid and wiped most of us in a single fell blast. Time was running short, so we opted to pass on a third attempt and instead fought something…Norse… for an easy frostie.
By Sunday evening, I had nearly enough stonekeeper shards to get Cyandra’s mace, so I hit Wintergrasp to work the weekly quests I had missed. By the time the battle started, I was 5 shards shy and had one quest remaining: destroy three siege engines. This is utterly cake, since normally the Horde sends many tanks against our fortress and I’m very diligent about blasting them to pieces. This time, the Horde had other plans.
In WG if a side is outmatched or their opponents have held the keep for a couple of goes, they get a stackable buff called ‘tenacity’. It grants extra health, damage, and probably keeps their teeth sparkly clean. When the other side’s tenacity score exceeds ‘6’, we’re in for a rough ride. This time they had 20. With an amazing buff of 20 tenacity, the Horde players had something like triple health and damage, yet they just could not get it together.
The Alliance utterly steamrolled them. We controlled all of the vehicle production sites and within ten minutes kept them locked down to their graveyard spawn point. Amusing, but it kept me from getting the mace. It wouldn’t be until nearly midnight that I’d be able to complete the quest, but it was a good feeling to mail the shiny heirloom to Cyandra just before going to bed.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Brew-Ha-Ha
Well, the joke was definitely on me. After the previous day's pain that was Blackrock Depths, I discovered that I could just queue up for the damn event in the random dungeon finder. I was mildly annoyed at myself and gave it a whirl. In under two minutes, I'm teleported to an instanced basement of the Grim Guzzler.
I greeted the party and threw on the Obligatory Party Buffs. When I turned around, I saw the tank had already engaged Direbrew and had gnawed him down to 80%. All righty then! In a matter of seconds, the Dark Iron Dwarf was vanquished and we were picking over his dubious treasures. The trinket (a pickled egg) was of no interest to me, but the Victory itself granted us a couple of frosties each, so for the time expended, it was amazing.
Heady from the win, I ran the Brewfest daily quests. Although the 'Defend the Kegs' and 'Brew Barking' quests went flawlessly, I completely failed the keg run. I missed not only the dropoff point for my keg (and didn't notice until halfway back for another one), but every single apple basket that would've refreshed my poor mount. In annoyance, I jumped off the steed only to find I wouldn't be able to restart the run until the next day.
There's still a number of days left in the festival, so I'm confident by the close I'll be able to join the Brew of the Month Club, which gives free booze throughout the year. Additionally, the brews grant different unique buffs based on flavor, so we'll see how all of that goes down.
I had some time to kill, so I queued up for a daily heroic, which led to Azjol-Nerub, a cavernous dungeon crawl infested with creepy-crawly things. This is normally a relatively painless dungeon run. About a third of the way in, however, the tank plopped down in the middle of a cleared hall without a word of explanation. A bit unusual but not unheard of in a pug, the rest of us waited for a couple of minutes near the top of the next ramp, eyeballing a pack of nasties.
Since we had the down time, I decided to make myself useful by summoning a table to provide tasty mana strudels for any who wanted them. I began casting and the portal began to form. The portal requires two other players to click on it for the casting to complete and our rogue diligently rushed forward to help. This put him in aggro range of the nasties at the top of the platform which descended on us en masse. Tankless, we were slaughtered and I can now say I'm possibly the first person in Warcraft history to cause a party wipe with a mage table. Fortunately, I had much better luck with a quick run through the Trial of the Champion.
The main event for the night was a trip to Tempest Keep, the biggest and baddest of the Burning Crusade 25-man dungeons. Our guild had scraped together 10 of the best and brightest, plus me, and we were ready to take it on!
Tempest Keep is a very bright and hideous cathedral type dungeon very reminiscent of an Exodar if it were designed by a colorblind child with watercolors. The layout was simple enough (large rooms + large halls) and the packs of enemies were, for the most part, easily neutralized. We had a couple of characters in their mid-70s which met with a number of unfortunate ends due to the sheer volume of AoE attacks, but most of the 80s survived the trash pulls with minimal discomfort.
We did learn the hubris of attacking 25-man scaled bosses without foreknowledge of the encounters. The first boss, a stunningly beautiful phoenix god, led us on a merry chase from platform to platform around the top of a large vaulted room before exploding in a feathery blaze, causing our first raid wipe. As we regrouped, we took a moment to learn valuable knowledge ("Fire BAD!") and how to avoid cataclysmic damage ("Jump in pit when bird make spinny move!"). Consequently, the second run went a lot better.
On the whole, the rest of the keep went smoothly until the final encounter, a three-phase battle against the blood-elf leader(?) SunStrider and his court. With five of them versus eleven of us, it seemed hardly fair. After all, they only had around 200-300k health each, right? What could go wrong?
Nanubren, our fearless leader, gave us our strategy and we readied ourselves. Plua and I, the mages, were to tackle the Astromancer, who was a caster that spammed nasty arcane explosions. Sunstrider would be tanked along with Nasty Fear Guy (yeah-- I don't pay attention to names) by Nanu. Our offtank would pick up the engineer (who threw bombs), Scary Walking Guy wasn't tankable, so whoever got randomly picked would just have to kite him. A kill order was set and targets were marked. This plan lasted all of four seconds.
We charged. I popped my trinkets and cooldowns so they'd be ready again by phase three-- when we're stopped cold by a wall of text as Sunstrider begins a long and rambling speech. To our delight, however, we don't have to fight them all at once. The Court activates one at a time and we burn them all down dizzily fast. Sunstrider was nonplussed as he stood among his dead advisers and bragged that he had many weapons at his disposal.
Enter phase two. It turns out Elfie-poo was quite literal as a whirling barrage of weaponry flew around like a macabre homage to Dragon's Lair's smith room. We blasted them to bits and the weapons fell to the floor. Each "body" allowed everyone to loot a copy of itself to equip in the coming fight. They were legendary weapons with powers and abilities that far exceeded anything any of us had ever seen...two years ago. Realizing the legendary staff would actually drop my DPS by a solid 20%, I stuck to 'old reliable' as did most of my compatriots. Unfortunately for all involved, most of us were all still huddled over the weapons when phase three began.
Phase Three: all of the court gets reanimated with double the health they had previously to fight us all at once. Hilarity immediately ensued. Fear Guy leads off with a Fear Bomb, catching nearly everyone, and Scary Walking Guy (whose sole power seems to be walking slowly towards a victim and beating the crap out of him in seconds) slaughtered people with impunity. It was a massacre of Custer proportions.
We regrouped and there was additional hilarity as we tried to raise the dead, accidentally triggering the fight again in the process. Scary Walking Guy was kited around the entire dungeon and refused to reset until his victim was slain and those outside the instance were locked out until the fight reset again. From my vantage point on the floor, I could tell when everything had finally reset again.
This time, we knew what to expect and planned accordingly. Phases one and two went smoothly and we repositioned ourselves around the room giving the soon-to-be-walking corpses wide berth. Phase three began and it was still ugly.
Scary Walking Guy fixated on me and I kited him around a bit before Ice Blocking. He turned away and I broke the block, only to have him 180 and slam me through the floor before I could do much of anything else. Eventually, one of the Court was felled and Nanu desperately called for ranged to take out the Astromancer. This proved to be impossible, as Plua was also sharing floorspace with me.
Try as we might, we just lacked the manpower to effectively down the forces against us before Phase four began and Sunstrider himself entered the fray. We wiped hard.
We'll be revisiting this guy. Win or lose, it was still a lot of fun!
I greeted the party and threw on the Obligatory Party Buffs. When I turned around, I saw the tank had already engaged Direbrew and had gnawed him down to 80%. All righty then! In a matter of seconds, the Dark Iron Dwarf was vanquished and we were picking over his dubious treasures. The trinket (a pickled egg) was of no interest to me, but the Victory itself granted us a couple of frosties each, so for the time expended, it was amazing.
Heady from the win, I ran the Brewfest daily quests. Although the 'Defend the Kegs' and 'Brew Barking' quests went flawlessly, I completely failed the keg run. I missed not only the dropoff point for my keg (and didn't notice until halfway back for another one), but every single apple basket that would've refreshed my poor mount. In annoyance, I jumped off the steed only to find I wouldn't be able to restart the run until the next day.
There's still a number of days left in the festival, so I'm confident by the close I'll be able to join the Brew of the Month Club, which gives free booze throughout the year. Additionally, the brews grant different unique buffs based on flavor, so we'll see how all of that goes down.
I had some time to kill, so I queued up for a daily heroic, which led to Azjol-Nerub, a cavernous dungeon crawl infested with creepy-crawly things. This is normally a relatively painless dungeon run. About a third of the way in, however, the tank plopped down in the middle of a cleared hall without a word of explanation. A bit unusual but not unheard of in a pug, the rest of us waited for a couple of minutes near the top of the next ramp, eyeballing a pack of nasties.
Since we had the down time, I decided to make myself useful by summoning a table to provide tasty mana strudels for any who wanted them. I began casting and the portal began to form. The portal requires two other players to click on it for the casting to complete and our rogue diligently rushed forward to help. This put him in aggro range of the nasties at the top of the platform which descended on us en masse. Tankless, we were slaughtered and I can now say I'm possibly the first person in Warcraft history to cause a party wipe with a mage table. Fortunately, I had much better luck with a quick run through the Trial of the Champion.
The main event for the night was a trip to Tempest Keep, the biggest and baddest of the Burning Crusade 25-man dungeons. Our guild had scraped together 10 of the best and brightest, plus me, and we were ready to take it on!
Tempest Keep is a very bright and hideous cathedral type dungeon very reminiscent of an Exodar if it were designed by a colorblind child with watercolors. The layout was simple enough (large rooms + large halls) and the packs of enemies were, for the most part, easily neutralized. We had a couple of characters in their mid-70s which met with a number of unfortunate ends due to the sheer volume of AoE attacks, but most of the 80s survived the trash pulls with minimal discomfort.
We did learn the hubris of attacking 25-man scaled bosses without foreknowledge of the encounters. The first boss, a stunningly beautiful phoenix god, led us on a merry chase from platform to platform around the top of a large vaulted room before exploding in a feathery blaze, causing our first raid wipe. As we regrouped, we took a moment to learn valuable knowledge ("Fire BAD!") and how to avoid cataclysmic damage ("Jump in pit when bird make spinny move!"). Consequently, the second run went a lot better.
On the whole, the rest of the keep went smoothly until the final encounter, a three-phase battle against the blood-elf leader(?) SunStrider and his court. With five of them versus eleven of us, it seemed hardly fair. After all, they only had around 200-300k health each, right? What could go wrong?
Nanubren, our fearless leader, gave us our strategy and we readied ourselves. Plua and I, the mages, were to tackle the Astromancer, who was a caster that spammed nasty arcane explosions. Sunstrider would be tanked along with Nasty Fear Guy (yeah-- I don't pay attention to names) by Nanu. Our offtank would pick up the engineer (who threw bombs), Scary Walking Guy wasn't tankable, so whoever got randomly picked would just have to kite him. A kill order was set and targets were marked. This plan lasted all of four seconds.
We charged. I popped my trinkets and cooldowns so they'd be ready again by phase three-- when we're stopped cold by a wall of text as Sunstrider begins a long and rambling speech. To our delight, however, we don't have to fight them all at once. The Court activates one at a time and we burn them all down dizzily fast. Sunstrider was nonplussed as he stood among his dead advisers and bragged that he had many weapons at his disposal.
Enter phase two. It turns out Elfie-poo was quite literal as a whirling barrage of weaponry flew around like a macabre homage to Dragon's Lair's smith room. We blasted them to bits and the weapons fell to the floor. Each "body" allowed everyone to loot a copy of itself to equip in the coming fight. They were legendary weapons with powers and abilities that far exceeded anything any of us had ever seen...two years ago. Realizing the legendary staff would actually drop my DPS by a solid 20%, I stuck to 'old reliable' as did most of my compatriots. Unfortunately for all involved, most of us were all still huddled over the weapons when phase three began.
Phase Three: all of the court gets reanimated with double the health they had previously to fight us all at once. Hilarity immediately ensued. Fear Guy leads off with a Fear Bomb, catching nearly everyone, and Scary Walking Guy (whose sole power seems to be walking slowly towards a victim and beating the crap out of him in seconds) slaughtered people with impunity. It was a massacre of Custer proportions.
We regrouped and there was additional hilarity as we tried to raise the dead, accidentally triggering the fight again in the process. Scary Walking Guy was kited around the entire dungeon and refused to reset until his victim was slain and those outside the instance were locked out until the fight reset again. From my vantage point on the floor, I could tell when everything had finally reset again.
This time, we knew what to expect and planned accordingly. Phases one and two went smoothly and we repositioned ourselves around the room giving the soon-to-be-walking corpses wide berth. Phase three began and it was still ugly.
Scary Walking Guy fixated on me and I kited him around a bit before Ice Blocking. He turned away and I broke the block, only to have him 180 and slam me through the floor before I could do much of anything else. Eventually, one of the Court was felled and Nanu desperately called for ranged to take out the Astromancer. This proved to be impossible, as Plua was also sharing floorspace with me.
Try as we might, we just lacked the manpower to effectively down the forces against us before Phase four began and Sunstrider himself entered the fray. We wiped hard.
We'll be revisiting this guy. Win or lose, it was still a lot of fun!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Roamin' Holidays
I love this time of year. The kids are back in school, the weather is starting to get a fraction less unbearable (God damn you, Al Gore!), and the WoW holiday season is beginning in earnest. This past week has seen no less than three celebrations start and they’ve been…well, there. Like 90% of the playerbase, the level of excitement I get from an in-game holiday is directly proportional to what achievements and/or lasting benefits I gather from it. So, in order from “suck” to “best”, this week, we have…
“Harvest Festival” – No achievements, just a table of free food and a rather lame quest to go visit the Plaguelands. Yay.
“Pirate Day” – One achievement for talking to the one npc who does the one thing you can do: wear a pirate costume. Ok, it sounds lame (it is), and you lose the costume if you shapechange or die, but considering it’s a one day event, it was “all right”.
“Brewfest” – Finally! A holiday worth celebrating! It’s got it all: ram races, monsters you can only see while drunk (pink elephants, no less), defending giant kegs by chucking empty steins at invading dark dwarves, and mostly contained in a few hundred yards. There’s only two main hitches to this one, as far as I can tell. The biggest being that in order to ‘win the event’, you have to sample all twelve of the beers of the month club. This means that even if you get the 200 tokens to join the club, it’s still going to take you a year to get the achievement. The second seems to be this “Direbrew” fellow.
A little research said this guy is a boss that spawns in the ‘Grim Guzzler’ tavern portion of some dungeon, so I ventured there to see for myself. This began a series of misadventures I’ll simply call “Where in Blackrock is Strev Now?” Finding the dungeon hub itself posed only a slight challenge: it’s a honkin’ big mountain located in an otherwise desolate zone. Inside the mountain, it took a little exploring before I realized I could run across giant chains suspended over magma to access the center of the volcanic underhell. A few minutes later, I’ve crossed a quarry and have found the portal to the Penultimate Vanilla Experience: Blackrock Depths.
I wisely decided that my frost spec would aid me more in the battles to come, so I flipped over to it, summoned Steve, then entered the portal. Seconds later, I cursed, wasted my ‘cold snap’ and re-summoned Steve, who had dissolved when I had entered the portal. I should have taken it as an omen.
The dungeon itself was populated with a vast array of level 50-something elite dwarves, fire elementals, and more bosses than one could say rightly belonged in a dungeon. I found a number of doors and gates that would only unlock with a ‘shadowforge key’, so I kept a lookout for it as I plowed my way through the underground city like a starved gnomish Godzilla. Most potential adversaries just avoided me outright unless I stepped on their toes, but when I did draw attention, it was by the boatload. A guide to the dungeon I had found said that “trip one” through the dungeon was primarily to kill bosses x, y, and z for some quests and get the Shadowforge Key so giant chunks of dungeon can be avoided in the future. I cleared the entire first ‘section’ of the dungeon, including a particularly nasty fire elemental that had taken three shots to kill (Yes, I realize this guy probably used to wipe whole parties—that doesn’t mean I can’t laugh at it now.) It was around this point that I realized I needed a quest to get the damn key and the mobs I needed to kill for it were already dead. Terrific. I logged and decided to try again later.
BRD: Take two. Armed with a little more knowledge and substantially less clothing, I ran across the chains over the magma and promptly cannonballed to my painful firey death. For once, this was a planned activity and my naked nosedive ensured no damage to my equipment. But why undertake such a foolish venture to begin with? Well, it turns out the only way to get the Shadowforge Key quest is from a ghost you can only see if you’re dead. As I began the quest, I wondered precisely how many naked gnomes he’d chatted with over the years and I wept as I tried to convince myself I was the first.
This time as I committed dwarven genocide, I picked up a couple of McGuffins that dropped along the way and laid claim to a shiny Key hidden away in some statue. I was now prepared to shortcut my through the dungeon, as I was out of time for that run.
BRD: Take three. With key in hand and a few false turns, I found my way to a “Manufactory” loaded with golems, workers, and some artificer. On the floor lay an interesting blueprint for a repair bot I wasn’t allowed to pick up, as I wasn’t an engineer. After a couple more turns, I found my way to the Grim Guzzler! I practically beamed with joy as I ran around and found… absolutely nothing of interest. No Direbrew, no trigger mob or item, nothing to indicate how I was supposed to trigger the boss event. After killing the patrons out of spite, I returned to Ironforge to drown my sorrows in ale.
In retrospect, it was probably a good thing I wasn’t able to figure out the trigger—from what I hear, I’d be hard-pressed to get the boss down to half before he’d do me in. He’s level 80, isn’t alone, summons adds that stun, and it’ll require a group.
“Harvest Festival” – No achievements, just a table of free food and a rather lame quest to go visit the Plaguelands. Yay.
“Pirate Day” – One achievement for talking to the one npc who does the one thing you can do: wear a pirate costume. Ok, it sounds lame (it is), and you lose the costume if you shapechange or die, but considering it’s a one day event, it was “all right”.
“Brewfest” – Finally! A holiday worth celebrating! It’s got it all: ram races, monsters you can only see while drunk (pink elephants, no less), defending giant kegs by chucking empty steins at invading dark dwarves, and mostly contained in a few hundred yards. There’s only two main hitches to this one, as far as I can tell. The biggest being that in order to ‘win the event’, you have to sample all twelve of the beers of the month club. This means that even if you get the 200 tokens to join the club, it’s still going to take you a year to get the achievement. The second seems to be this “Direbrew” fellow.
A little research said this guy is a boss that spawns in the ‘Grim Guzzler’ tavern portion of some dungeon, so I ventured there to see for myself. This began a series of misadventures I’ll simply call “Where in Blackrock is Strev Now?” Finding the dungeon hub itself posed only a slight challenge: it’s a honkin’ big mountain located in an otherwise desolate zone. Inside the mountain, it took a little exploring before I realized I could run across giant chains suspended over magma to access the center of the volcanic underhell. A few minutes later, I’ve crossed a quarry and have found the portal to the Penultimate Vanilla Experience: Blackrock Depths.
I wisely decided that my frost spec would aid me more in the battles to come, so I flipped over to it, summoned Steve, then entered the portal. Seconds later, I cursed, wasted my ‘cold snap’ and re-summoned Steve, who had dissolved when I had entered the portal. I should have taken it as an omen.
The dungeon itself was populated with a vast array of level 50-something elite dwarves, fire elementals, and more bosses than one could say rightly belonged in a dungeon. I found a number of doors and gates that would only unlock with a ‘shadowforge key’, so I kept a lookout for it as I plowed my way through the underground city like a starved gnomish Godzilla. Most potential adversaries just avoided me outright unless I stepped on their toes, but when I did draw attention, it was by the boatload. A guide to the dungeon I had found said that “trip one” through the dungeon was primarily to kill bosses x, y, and z for some quests and get the Shadowforge Key so giant chunks of dungeon can be avoided in the future. I cleared the entire first ‘section’ of the dungeon, including a particularly nasty fire elemental that had taken three shots to kill (Yes, I realize this guy probably used to wipe whole parties—that doesn’t mean I can’t laugh at it now.) It was around this point that I realized I needed a quest to get the damn key and the mobs I needed to kill for it were already dead. Terrific. I logged and decided to try again later.
BRD: Take two. Armed with a little more knowledge and substantially less clothing, I ran across the chains over the magma and promptly cannonballed to my painful firey death. For once, this was a planned activity and my naked nosedive ensured no damage to my equipment. But why undertake such a foolish venture to begin with? Well, it turns out the only way to get the Shadowforge Key quest is from a ghost you can only see if you’re dead. As I began the quest, I wondered precisely how many naked gnomes he’d chatted with over the years and I wept as I tried to convince myself I was the first.
This time as I committed dwarven genocide, I picked up a couple of McGuffins that dropped along the way and laid claim to a shiny Key hidden away in some statue. I was now prepared to shortcut my through the dungeon, as I was out of time for that run.
BRD: Take three. With key in hand and a few false turns, I found my way to a “Manufactory” loaded with golems, workers, and some artificer. On the floor lay an interesting blueprint for a repair bot I wasn’t allowed to pick up, as I wasn’t an engineer. After a couple more turns, I found my way to the Grim Guzzler! I practically beamed with joy as I ran around and found… absolutely nothing of interest. No Direbrew, no trigger mob or item, nothing to indicate how I was supposed to trigger the boss event. After killing the patrons out of spite, I returned to Ironforge to drown my sorrows in ale.
In retrospect, it was probably a good thing I wasn’t able to figure out the trigger—from what I hear, I’d be hard-pressed to get the boss down to half before he’d do me in. He’s level 80, isn’t alone, summons adds that stun, and it’ll require a group.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Think Tank
Many years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Warcraft’s graphics didn’t look quite so outdated, WoW was released and I started my Very First Character, a Paladin lovingly named Anyth. For the interested, the name “Anyth” originated from the Dark Age of Camelot random name generator and I recycle it on many of the games I play as my “generic female name”. I couldn’t tell you now what her spec was, nor how effective she was (I’m guessing really “bad”), but it was a fun little character that I mothballed due to the sheer amount of time it took to kill each enemy. My main became a hunter and I played it until I quit (the first time) prior to Burning Crusade.
With Cataclysm due out in two months, things are winding down and many of the 80th-level crowd seems content to just wait it out, instead of running raid after raid in the hopes of getting a small upgrade to an epic weapon that will be vendor trash four minutes after the expansion’s release. This is directly reflected in the volume of 25-man raids canceled by my guild and my own general apathy of trying to land a spot in a Vault of Acheron raid post-Wintergrasp victory. I still battle in Wintergrasp every chance I get, just due to the “fun” factor, but the Vault itself holds no allure. Hence, this is the perfect time to play an alt!
I blew the cobwebs off Anyth and moved her over to the Whisperwind server. As my name was already taken by “new Anyth”, “old Anyth” became Cyandra. Her level 52 glory was perfectly preserved in mothballs: glyphless, talentless, and a curious assortment of odd trash filling her inventory and bank. Given the sheer staying power of the class, I decided to make her The Ultimate Tank. (We’ll all laugh about this one in weeks, mark my words.) I specced her out as Protection and charged out into the Plaguelands to smite evil and such. A few minutes later, I’m flying back to Stormwind to buy all of the skills that had changed in the past few years.
The next few hours was a Voyage of Discovery, as I had no idea what any of the powers did. I had a vague grasp that there were seals and blessings and there should be a lot of smiting going on, but there didn’t seem to be much beyond ‘auto-attack’ I could do consistently. The forums weren’t a lot of help, as most just seemed to assume you already had all of the skills necessary for your “969 rotation”. (It took a stupidly long time to discover this meant “alternate skills with a nine second cool down with those with a six second one”). After more delving and experimenting, I found the Secret of Leveling a Prot Pally: use point blank area of effect attacks to clear massive amounts of trash.
By level 54, I had it down pat: run around like an idiot, avoid pulling casters, and use passive skills to re-actively kill things. Shield spikes, retribution aura (which I didn’t realize I had), and consecration became my new best friends. It was amazing how little play my weapon itself was getting. At level 55 I wondered if I could handle the Outlands. Months ago I had thought that the Outlands had a level 58 entry requirement. That, like many other things I Know to be Fact, was horribly wrong. Anyone can walk through the Dark Portal, it’s just that you have to be level 58 to take the shortcuts from various capital cities or receive quests. I wasn’t interested in quests, just raw volumes of ill-gotten experience. Having no fear, I ran my charger through the Portal then gazed upon the demon-covered landscape of the Hellfire Peninsula.
I rode around a little bit looking for something that might be killable. Most of the weakest mobs were four levels above me, so I gave a small pack of demons a try. Running back from the graveyard, I made a note that the ones that drain mana should be avoided at all costs. Exploring south of Honor Hold, I stumbled upon a long series of animal skeletons half-buried in the earth. Each skeleton was being picked apart by a handful of vultures. Once more, into the fray!
The buzzards exploded. It was glorious. They don’t cast, stun, knockdown, poison, disease, or anything. They just hit very quickly for fairly negligible damage. Realizing a gold mine when I see it, I began to make a game of seeing how many I could round up at once. The answer is “ten”. Ten flapping beasts four levels above me. I can certainly see why people enjoy playing these. Unfortunately for me, a couple of others were making their way through the birds as well, so my pulls were frequently reduced to five or six at a time. Still extremely rewarding, but a little slower. I merrily ground up the birds until Cyandra hit 56, picked up her new skills, then called it a night.
With Cataclysm due out in two months, things are winding down and many of the 80th-level crowd seems content to just wait it out, instead of running raid after raid in the hopes of getting a small upgrade to an epic weapon that will be vendor trash four minutes after the expansion’s release. This is directly reflected in the volume of 25-man raids canceled by my guild and my own general apathy of trying to land a spot in a Vault of Acheron raid post-Wintergrasp victory. I still battle in Wintergrasp every chance I get, just due to the “fun” factor, but the Vault itself holds no allure. Hence, this is the perfect time to play an alt!
I blew the cobwebs off Anyth and moved her over to the Whisperwind server. As my name was already taken by “new Anyth”, “old Anyth” became Cyandra. Her level 52 glory was perfectly preserved in mothballs: glyphless, talentless, and a curious assortment of odd trash filling her inventory and bank. Given the sheer staying power of the class, I decided to make her The Ultimate Tank. (We’ll all laugh about this one in weeks, mark my words.) I specced her out as Protection and charged out into the Plaguelands to smite evil and such. A few minutes later, I’m flying back to Stormwind to buy all of the skills that had changed in the past few years.
The next few hours was a Voyage of Discovery, as I had no idea what any of the powers did. I had a vague grasp that there were seals and blessings and there should be a lot of smiting going on, but there didn’t seem to be much beyond ‘auto-attack’ I could do consistently. The forums weren’t a lot of help, as most just seemed to assume you already had all of the skills necessary for your “969 rotation”. (It took a stupidly long time to discover this meant “alternate skills with a nine second cool down with those with a six second one”). After more delving and experimenting, I found the Secret of Leveling a Prot Pally: use point blank area of effect attacks to clear massive amounts of trash.
By level 54, I had it down pat: run around like an idiot, avoid pulling casters, and use passive skills to re-actively kill things. Shield spikes, retribution aura (which I didn’t realize I had), and consecration became my new best friends. It was amazing how little play my weapon itself was getting. At level 55 I wondered if I could handle the Outlands. Months ago I had thought that the Outlands had a level 58 entry requirement. That, like many other things I Know to be Fact, was horribly wrong. Anyone can walk through the Dark Portal, it’s just that you have to be level 58 to take the shortcuts from various capital cities or receive quests. I wasn’t interested in quests, just raw volumes of ill-gotten experience. Having no fear, I ran my charger through the Portal then gazed upon the demon-covered landscape of the Hellfire Peninsula.
I rode around a little bit looking for something that might be killable. Most of the weakest mobs were four levels above me, so I gave a small pack of demons a try. Running back from the graveyard, I made a note that the ones that drain mana should be avoided at all costs. Exploring south of Honor Hold, I stumbled upon a long series of animal skeletons half-buried in the earth. Each skeleton was being picked apart by a handful of vultures. Once more, into the fray!
The buzzards exploded. It was glorious. They don’t cast, stun, knockdown, poison, disease, or anything. They just hit very quickly for fairly negligible damage. Realizing a gold mine when I see it, I began to make a game of seeing how many I could round up at once. The answer is “ten”. Ten flapping beasts four levels above me. I can certainly see why people enjoy playing these. Unfortunately for me, a couple of others were making their way through the birds as well, so my pulls were frequently reduced to five or six at a time. Still extremely rewarding, but a little slower. I merrily ground up the birds until Cyandra hit 56, picked up her new skills, then called it a night.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Old School
With scant playtime this week due to real life issues, I started the evening happy that I’d get a chance to delve again into “Naxx”, this time to best Instructor Razuvious for the weekly raid quest. I enjoy the weekly raids as they introduce me to boss fights and their complex mechanics one at a time instead of buckling in for two hours of “OH, GOD! NOW WHAT’S HAPPENING!?”.
I lazily flew to the dungeon and waited by the summoning stone while the guild organized. As usual, there wasn’t enough for 25, but this time it looked like we wouldn’t be able to pad without it becoming a guild-led pug run. The decision was made to pare it down to a 10-man run. As such, we had an overabundance of DPS and tough choices had to be made. Our Fearless Leader, Kheth, announced to us all “Don’t feel bad if you don’t get an invite.” I knew this is always a possibility, but I’d had a really rough week and silently crossed my fingers.
A moment later, I received a raid invite and I exhaled deeply. This told me that (1) I wasn’t considered completely useless and, as a corollary, (2) Kheth doesn’t read my blog. A few seconds later Kheth himself arrived in bird form and we began summoning the rest of the party to the dungeon.
Naxx is organized in four main sections and this time we ventured into the Military Quarter. This is home to a “death knight academy”, which is probably less lame than it sounds, and a number of not overly vicious skeletal undead and their steeds. After a number of encounters in the dark, dank skull-themed rooms, we stood before Razuvious and a pair of his students. We got a briefing on how this boss “works”. Although he has the usual talents of Damage Innocent Mage Way Over There and Nuke Everyone When He Damn Well Feels Like It, the main concern is that he hits melee hard—like 100k hard, but that’s ok, since the tanks wouldn’t be tanking. Instead, a couple of people would use conveniently located “control orbs” to mind control the students for a minute at a time and use them to maintain aggro control on the Instructor while the DPS fill him full of bolt-sized holes. Because Razzy is so vicious, the two ‘tanks’ would have to trade aggro back and forth while the healers keep the students alive (or at least in their current state of tortuous undeath, but why quibble?).
The go order was given and we set to our task. As I burned away my mana from a safe distance, I watched the fight unfold. Aside from the curious student mechanic, it was a fairly straightforward tank-and-spank affair. There was one dicey moment when one of our group lost control of a student for a moment, but it was quickly recovered and the Instructor was summarily dispatched. We gathered around the corpse and picked over the loot—there was nothing of any use to anyone, so my services as a disenchanter was retained to pad our guild’s coffers with abyss crystals. It was halfway through this that we realized we had forgotten about the mind controlled students. The ensuing combat was more hilarity than threat and we expelled them quickly.
Afterwards, I ran a quick daily (The Nexus), which gave me enough Triumphs to trade down three tiers of badges and buy a shiny new heirloom breastplate for Anyth. I imagine Ian (my Refer-a-Friend buddy, Mr. Rogers) will be somewhat disheartened to know Anyth will be getting –another- xp bonus, but the new gear is so much nicer I couldn’t resist.
Sorry, Ian!
I lazily flew to the dungeon and waited by the summoning stone while the guild organized. As usual, there wasn’t enough for 25, but this time it looked like we wouldn’t be able to pad without it becoming a guild-led pug run. The decision was made to pare it down to a 10-man run. As such, we had an overabundance of DPS and tough choices had to be made. Our Fearless Leader, Kheth, announced to us all “Don’t feel bad if you don’t get an invite.” I knew this is always a possibility, but I’d had a really rough week and silently crossed my fingers.
A moment later, I received a raid invite and I exhaled deeply. This told me that (1) I wasn’t considered completely useless and, as a corollary, (2) Kheth doesn’t read my blog. A few seconds later Kheth himself arrived in bird form and we began summoning the rest of the party to the dungeon.
Naxx is organized in four main sections and this time we ventured into the Military Quarter. This is home to a “death knight academy”, which is probably less lame than it sounds, and a number of not overly vicious skeletal undead and their steeds. After a number of encounters in the dark, dank skull-themed rooms, we stood before Razuvious and a pair of his students. We got a briefing on how this boss “works”. Although he has the usual talents of Damage Innocent Mage Way Over There and Nuke Everyone When He Damn Well Feels Like It, the main concern is that he hits melee hard—like 100k hard, but that’s ok, since the tanks wouldn’t be tanking. Instead, a couple of people would use conveniently located “control orbs” to mind control the students for a minute at a time and use them to maintain aggro control on the Instructor while the DPS fill him full of bolt-sized holes. Because Razzy is so vicious, the two ‘tanks’ would have to trade aggro back and forth while the healers keep the students alive (or at least in their current state of tortuous undeath, but why quibble?).
The go order was given and we set to our task. As I burned away my mana from a safe distance, I watched the fight unfold. Aside from the curious student mechanic, it was a fairly straightforward tank-and-spank affair. There was one dicey moment when one of our group lost control of a student for a moment, but it was quickly recovered and the Instructor was summarily dispatched. We gathered around the corpse and picked over the loot—there was nothing of any use to anyone, so my services as a disenchanter was retained to pad our guild’s coffers with abyss crystals. It was halfway through this that we realized we had forgotten about the mind controlled students. The ensuing combat was more hilarity than threat and we expelled them quickly.
Afterwards, I ran a quick daily (The Nexus), which gave me enough Triumphs to trade down three tiers of badges and buy a shiny new heirloom breastplate for Anyth. I imagine Ian (my Refer-a-Friend buddy, Mr. Rogers) will be somewhat disheartened to know Anyth will be getting –another- xp bonus, but the new gear is so much nicer I couldn’t resist.
Sorry, Ian!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Spirited Adventures
Monday nights are when my intrepid band of RL friends (Brian, Jacob, and the Rogers) get together for a little dungeon delving and recreational slaughtering. As I’m among friends, it isn’t unusual for a little alcohol to be poured. I’m a social drinker and by that I mean I drink enough for a small society. I popped the cork on a 1.5 liter bottle of Yellowtail Pinot Grigio and settled in for the evening.
My compatriots and I ventured into the caverns of Maraudon - Orange (twice) and laid waste to the various slimes and ambulatory plants that lay therein. Zyrial, our priest, has frequent mana issues and often stops to top himself off. I decided to make a game of it and every time he sat to drink, I hoisted my possibly-lead-tainted Shrek glass full of wine and drank deeply, thereby topping myself off as well. The only hitch was a party wipe due to an overpull of Leeroic porportions and a long delay as we made our way back. The delay was doubled as Karthex’s shield had broken and repairs were needed. I passed the time imbibing as Brian reveled in the opportunity to roleplay unimpeded by shooting things. (As a side note, Brian is a heavy RPer and we all love him for it. I, however, find it extremely hard to stay in character half a bottle of anything in.)
The third dungeon was Maraudon – Pristine Waters and was stunningly fun. The lush and deep pools made for fun explorations. By this point, my bottle was nearly empty and my ability to chat had been reduced to long strings of nigh-unintelligible typographical monstrosities. The dungeon run itself went incredibly well with only a few minutes of aimless wandering through the caverns lost as all get out. All total, the three runs netted Anyth a couple of nice blue upgrades that should last her another evening or two. The speed at which one levels with Refer-a-Friend bonuses is stunning—I think the gang is all around 46-47 now.
After we disbanded, I hopped back on as Strev, determined to earn my daily frosties. I may not have been able to see straight or communicate, but I wasn’t going to let that stand in my way. I’ve found that beyond an initial “hey”, most pugs aren’t really big chatters. I queued up as I mourned my empty bottle and I was shortly blasting my way through Uthgarde Keep. It was an insanely fast run and great fun, even if the tank did keep stealing all my aggro. I may not have been able to walk a straight line, but by gods, I could still slap the “1” key skillfully. This may say more about playing a mage than I intend.
Once I had tucked away my frosties, I opted for one final challenge: the dragon Chillmaw. Better known as “that cool skeletal dragon on the login page”, it was a challenge designed for a decent-sized group. Being a linen store to the wind, I decided I was going to try it solo. Reading up on it, I noted that when its health gets low, it spawns three additional “bombers” that, while having comparatively low health, can pump out serious damage to a drunken sorcerer unable to dodge.
The fight went something like this: trinket, trinket, buff, buff, buff, mirror image, bolt....”Wait. Where in the hell are my mirror images?” Apparently, I had missed the button. I corrected that and deperately bolted again and again, heedless of escalating mana costs. Chillmaw was now on me and devouring my mirrors like snack cakes. I got another shot or two in and the bombers spawned. I blinked, spun around, drank a potion, fired and killed me a dragon. The quest, however, also required the deaths of the 3 bombers. At this point another guy wanders up to watch.
I get lucky with a crit from a bolt, get one....dodge a blast, spam arcane explosion as I hop through the other two, taking the second one down. Spin around and fire off an instant cast...just as I'm utterly obliterated. The spell finds its target, however, and I get the kill!
The graveyard was only a few seconds away and when I get back, the guy who was watching just said "Wow."
I replied, "You shoul;d nse e me ehwn I'm sober!”
My compatriots and I ventured into the caverns of Maraudon - Orange (twice) and laid waste to the various slimes and ambulatory plants that lay therein. Zyrial, our priest, has frequent mana issues and often stops to top himself off. I decided to make a game of it and every time he sat to drink, I hoisted my possibly-lead-tainted Shrek glass full of wine and drank deeply, thereby topping myself off as well. The only hitch was a party wipe due to an overpull of Leeroic porportions and a long delay as we made our way back. The delay was doubled as Karthex’s shield had broken and repairs were needed. I passed the time imbibing as Brian reveled in the opportunity to roleplay unimpeded by shooting things. (As a side note, Brian is a heavy RPer and we all love him for it. I, however, find it extremely hard to stay in character half a bottle of anything in.)
The third dungeon was Maraudon – Pristine Waters and was stunningly fun. The lush and deep pools made for fun explorations. By this point, my bottle was nearly empty and my ability to chat had been reduced to long strings of nigh-unintelligible typographical monstrosities. The dungeon run itself went incredibly well with only a few minutes of aimless wandering through the caverns lost as all get out. All total, the three runs netted Anyth a couple of nice blue upgrades that should last her another evening or two. The speed at which one levels with Refer-a-Friend bonuses is stunning—I think the gang is all around 46-47 now.
After we disbanded, I hopped back on as Strev, determined to earn my daily frosties. I may not have been able to see straight or communicate, but I wasn’t going to let that stand in my way. I’ve found that beyond an initial “hey”, most pugs aren’t really big chatters. I queued up as I mourned my empty bottle and I was shortly blasting my way through Uthgarde Keep. It was an insanely fast run and great fun, even if the tank did keep stealing all my aggro. I may not have been able to walk a straight line, but by gods, I could still slap the “1” key skillfully. This may say more about playing a mage than I intend.
Once I had tucked away my frosties, I opted for one final challenge: the dragon Chillmaw. Better known as “that cool skeletal dragon on the login page”, it was a challenge designed for a decent-sized group. Being a linen store to the wind, I decided I was going to try it solo. Reading up on it, I noted that when its health gets low, it spawns three additional “bombers” that, while having comparatively low health, can pump out serious damage to a drunken sorcerer unable to dodge.
The fight went something like this: trinket, trinket, buff, buff, buff, mirror image, bolt....”Wait. Where in the hell are my mirror images?” Apparently, I had missed the button. I corrected that and deperately bolted again and again, heedless of escalating mana costs. Chillmaw was now on me and devouring my mirrors like snack cakes. I got another shot or two in and the bombers spawned. I blinked, spun around, drank a potion, fired and killed me a dragon. The quest, however, also required the deaths of the 3 bombers. At this point another guy wanders up to watch.
I get lucky with a crit from a bolt, get one....dodge a blast, spam arcane explosion as I hop through the other two, taking the second one down. Spin around and fire off an instant cast...just as I'm utterly obliterated. The spell finds its target, however, and I get the kill!
The graveyard was only a few seconds away and when I get back, the guy who was watching just said "Wow."
I replied, "You shoul;d nse e me ehwn I'm sober!”
Monday, September 13, 2010
Pining about the Fjords
With an abundance of free time available over the weekend, I turned my attentions back to an old standby: questing for fun and profit. The "Loremaster of Northrend" achievement called to me with its sweet siren song and, lacking all common sense, I renewed my pursuit of it.
I had already completed the necessary number of quests in all but three of the zones. By and large, the most daunting of the tasks ahead of me was the Howling Fjords. As mentioned previously, I had leveled up in Borean Tundra, and now had a vast number of untapped quest hubs in the Fjords to investigate and complete. I was somewhere in the vicinity of 93 quests shy there and I had put it off long enough.
Over the course of Saturday I completed them all. I found the region more tedious than anything else and found many of the quests somewhat uninspired compared to the Tundra's. The experience was not without some small reward beyond the dozens of pieces of disenchant-bait I was given by the grateful citizenry. Lore revealed the origins of the humans of Azeroth and I got to re-enact a scene from Dr. Strangelove as I strapped myself onto a harpoon and shot myself halfway across the zone.
After I squeaked through the last of the quests, I returned to the opposite end of the continent and picked up where I had left off in Sholazar Basin, a region I intend to spell correctly at least once in these ramblings. Having finished the 'hunting' quests previously, I found that all that remained was a long quest chain for the titan, Freya and the tasks for the Frenzyheart puppymen, err.. gnolls.
I resented the Frenzyheart quests with a passion. Weeks earlier I had aligned myself with them accidently and 'the forums' said that the opposing faction, The Oracles (a tribe of murlocks) were the way to go. Biting the bullet, I ran the gamut of gnoll quests and gained faction with them as I silently plotted their deaths.
The surprise came when during the arc, I saved an Oracle by the riverbank and my factions flipped. The Oracles loved me and the Frenzyhearts hated me! I quickly did more research, since I thought the only way to change was by killing some lich somewhere. As it turns out, this was all part of a VERY long and elaborate chain designed to show you both sides before you choose. You had to go through the Gnoll content first! Typical, really. There were so many quests in the chain though, I never formally chose a side. Once I got the Basin achievement, I left both sides high and dry, but still in the good graces of the fishfolk.
The last area still awaits completion: Icecrown. I did what I could there, but it looks like I may be rapidly reaching the point where I'll require a team to go further. Several chains are blocked by "recommended team size: [5]" and I just can't do those. Generally, if the Big Bad has less than 100k health, I'll take his lunch money and leave him crying on the sidewalk. These typically run from 200k to 350k and are just not an option for an arcane mage with a nasty propensity for showing such bosses his soft nougat center.
It wasn't all questing for glory, though. A few idle hours were spent trouncing the Horde in Wintergrasp, getting my butt handed to me in battlegrounds, and spending vast sums of gold enchanting my way to 450 skill. I finally upgraded my cloak to a very nice PvP one and fixed a couple of enchantments that were... lacking.
All in all, an enjoyable weekend.
I had already completed the necessary number of quests in all but three of the zones. By and large, the most daunting of the tasks ahead of me was the Howling Fjords. As mentioned previously, I had leveled up in Borean Tundra, and now had a vast number of untapped quest hubs in the Fjords to investigate and complete. I was somewhere in the vicinity of 93 quests shy there and I had put it off long enough.
Over the course of Saturday I completed them all. I found the region more tedious than anything else and found many of the quests somewhat uninspired compared to the Tundra's. The experience was not without some small reward beyond the dozens of pieces of disenchant-bait I was given by the grateful citizenry. Lore revealed the origins of the humans of Azeroth and I got to re-enact a scene from Dr. Strangelove as I strapped myself onto a harpoon and shot myself halfway across the zone.
After I squeaked through the last of the quests, I returned to the opposite end of the continent and picked up where I had left off in Sholazar Basin, a region I intend to spell correctly at least once in these ramblings. Having finished the 'hunting' quests previously, I found that all that remained was a long quest chain for the titan, Freya and the tasks for the Frenzyheart puppymen, err.. gnolls.
I resented the Frenzyheart quests with a passion. Weeks earlier I had aligned myself with them accidently and 'the forums' said that the opposing faction, The Oracles (a tribe of murlocks) were the way to go. Biting the bullet, I ran the gamut of gnoll quests and gained faction with them as I silently plotted their deaths.
The surprise came when during the arc, I saved an Oracle by the riverbank and my factions flipped. The Oracles loved me and the Frenzyhearts hated me! I quickly did more research, since I thought the only way to change was by killing some lich somewhere. As it turns out, this was all part of a VERY long and elaborate chain designed to show you both sides before you choose. You had to go through the Gnoll content first! Typical, really. There were so many quests in the chain though, I never formally chose a side. Once I got the Basin achievement, I left both sides high and dry, but still in the good graces of the fishfolk.
The last area still awaits completion: Icecrown. I did what I could there, but it looks like I may be rapidly reaching the point where I'll require a team to go further. Several chains are blocked by "recommended team size: [5]" and I just can't do those. Generally, if the Big Bad has less than 100k health, I'll take his lunch money and leave him crying on the sidewalk. These typically run from 200k to 350k and are just not an option for an arcane mage with a nasty propensity for showing such bosses his soft nougat center.
It wasn't all questing for glory, though. A few idle hours were spent trouncing the Horde in Wintergrasp, getting my butt handed to me in battlegrounds, and spending vast sums of gold enchanting my way to 450 skill. I finally upgraded my cloak to a very nice PvP one and fixed a couple of enchantments that were... lacking.
All in all, an enjoyable weekend.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Playing Jaxx
The weekly raid was to kill one “Lord Jaxxarus”, who is the second boss in the Trial of the Crusader. I was rather looking forward to this, as this raid was a first to me. We gathered all of our interested members and 19 of us strode into the Arena to win Fordring’s blessings to join his crusade against the Lich King….or just reduce Jaxx into a thin paste, whichever came first. As spectators cheered overhead, I stood among my friends and allies with a vague awareness of how this was to all go down. As per usual, I read up on the battles beforehand and, as per unusual, I was feeling fairly confident on being able to handle it.
The first fight is actually three battles in a row with four bosses total: The Beasts of Northrend. The gate swung wide permitting entrance to the first ‘beast’, the magnataur “Gormok the Impaler”. For the most part, he’s a fairly straightforward fight from a DPS perspective. Every now and then he’ll throw down a patch of fire that should be stepped out of, but very minimal dancing is involved: almost a two-step. The other ‘curious’ attack is one that gave me flashbacks to City of Heroes. Periodically, he’d fling a ‘snobold’ from his back onto a random player. The snobold would climb up on the players head and generally do very bad things until it was killed. As the lucky recipient of the first snobold attack, I heroically freaked out. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!”, I screamed. Fortunately, others were able to slaughter the vicious thing without much difficulty. We took down the Impaler and immediately the next challengers appeared.
Twin giant jormungars (worms), Acidmaw and Dreadscale, tunneled in and attacked. These were substantially trickier. Casters were under orders to burn down Acidmaw first and I quickly saw why. Although both critters left slime pools to be avoided, each sprayed and spat bile and poisons as well. Acidmaw’s shtick was a paralytic poison that rapidly turned your movement and attack capacity to zero if it wasn’t removed. The only way to remove it was have it burned off by being close to someone covered in Dreadscale’s burning bile. This led to quite a bit of hilarity, as burning people had to flee the party, lest they damage those around them and poisoned people had to catch up to them or try to get hit by Dreadscale on their own. Periodically, they would burrow back underground, clear their aggro stacks, and re-appear elsewhere in the arena to wreak havoc. Once one was slain, the other enraged. Although I managed to avoid the various sprays, bile, pools, bites, and sweeps, others were not quite so fortunate. Our tiny party was whittled down and by the time both worms were slain, we were down four DPS and no way to resurrect them before the next encounter: the Northrend yeti, Icehowl.
Even though he weighed in at around 15 million health, Icehowl is fairly simple once you knew his ‘routine’. He’ll fight for a bit, then leap towards the middle of the ring. When he lands, there’s a massive impact that knocks everyone back, stuns, and he picks a target at random to charge. If the stunned target is able to break out of it and get out of the way in time, he’ll slam into the arena wall and be a little extra vulnerable for a time before the cycle repeats. Although I was targeted for annihilation early in the fight, I found that “blink” would easily let me avoid the charge.
We fought hard, but a couple more DPSers were laid low by the yeti and combined with our earlier losses, there was simply no way we’d be able to down him in any sort of reasonable time. It had taken far too long just to get him down by a third of his health pool. The call was made, healing was stopped, and I pounded on the yeti with my staff until he noticed me and let me die, some sixteen minutes after the encounter with the Impaler had begun.
Returning to the Arena, we’d be faced with the entire encounter again, starting with the magnataur. This time we changed things out a bit. We had suffered from an abundance of healers, which seems like a really funny thing to say given the number of casualties we had taken, so a couple of them flipped over to their ‘damage’ spec, and we picked up a couple more guildies, bringing us to around 21.
This time the fights went a bit smoother—Gormok went down in a couple of minutes and we faced down the worms with a bit more experience and caution. Although we lost a few DPS during the fight— you’d think we’d learn that bathrobes do NOT stop gouts of acid, we were much stronger when it was time to battle the yeti again. We lit into him and mostly avoided all of his charges. There’s an enrage timer that results in 5x damage dealt if the fight goes too long, so we pushed hard. It was down to the wire with his health ticking down alongside our clock. With a sliver of health left, we ran out of time and it turned nasty… giving it our all, everyone who could slapped damage-over-time spells and skills on him, then he leapt towards the middle. The resulting blast wave killed everyone except one person and I hate –HATE- that my slamming Ice Block came half a second too late. With little else to do, we were all fixated on Icehowl’s health bar. We had carved him down to 150k (1%!) from his initial total and the DoTs were ticking. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what the sole survivor was doing—I was mesmerized by a dwindling number that, despite my silent pleas of “C’mon…C’MON!”, stopped at 32,000. We had failed the encounter by the slimmest of margins.
We were stunned. Cursing, we filled what we could of the roster with random people and tried one more time. What a difference three people can make! We smoked all of the Beasts of Northrend in under nine minutes and we were ready to face the object of our quest: Lord Jaxxarus. The demon lord was summoned by a gnomish warlock whose reach exceeded his grasp and we were charged by Fordring to slay the demon before he could escape. Oddly enough, he posed remarkably little threat compared to the last encounter. As a mage, my job was to blast away at the various elemental and demonic henchmen he summoned, occasionally counter one of his “fel fireballs”, and steal a “netherpower” buff whenever he cast it. Otherwise, it was a fairly straightforward blast-fest that went as smooth as silk. We disbanded afterwards—the delays had cost us precious time and some members had another raid already running late.
I hustled back to Dalaran and after turning in the quest, I found I had accumulated enough badges to upgrade both my shoulders (with frosties) and my hat (with triumphs). This broke up my T9 set, but I wasn’t terribly upset: my gear score had now exceeded 5400 and after streamlining gem choices, I was now some 150 or so spell power above my previous total and had enough bonuses to ‘hit’ that I can now consider re-spending some of my talents to better benefit from it.
The first fight is actually three battles in a row with four bosses total: The Beasts of Northrend. The gate swung wide permitting entrance to the first ‘beast’, the magnataur “Gormok the Impaler”. For the most part, he’s a fairly straightforward fight from a DPS perspective. Every now and then he’ll throw down a patch of fire that should be stepped out of, but very minimal dancing is involved: almost a two-step. The other ‘curious’ attack is one that gave me flashbacks to City of Heroes. Periodically, he’d fling a ‘snobold’ from his back onto a random player. The snobold would climb up on the players head and generally do very bad things until it was killed. As the lucky recipient of the first snobold attack, I heroically freaked out. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!”, I screamed. Fortunately, others were able to slaughter the vicious thing without much difficulty. We took down the Impaler and immediately the next challengers appeared.
Twin giant jormungars (worms), Acidmaw and Dreadscale, tunneled in and attacked. These were substantially trickier. Casters were under orders to burn down Acidmaw first and I quickly saw why. Although both critters left slime pools to be avoided, each sprayed and spat bile and poisons as well. Acidmaw’s shtick was a paralytic poison that rapidly turned your movement and attack capacity to zero if it wasn’t removed. The only way to remove it was have it burned off by being close to someone covered in Dreadscale’s burning bile. This led to quite a bit of hilarity, as burning people had to flee the party, lest they damage those around them and poisoned people had to catch up to them or try to get hit by Dreadscale on their own. Periodically, they would burrow back underground, clear their aggro stacks, and re-appear elsewhere in the arena to wreak havoc. Once one was slain, the other enraged. Although I managed to avoid the various sprays, bile, pools, bites, and sweeps, others were not quite so fortunate. Our tiny party was whittled down and by the time both worms were slain, we were down four DPS and no way to resurrect them before the next encounter: the Northrend yeti, Icehowl.
Even though he weighed in at around 15 million health, Icehowl is fairly simple once you knew his ‘routine’. He’ll fight for a bit, then leap towards the middle of the ring. When he lands, there’s a massive impact that knocks everyone back, stuns, and he picks a target at random to charge. If the stunned target is able to break out of it and get out of the way in time, he’ll slam into the arena wall and be a little extra vulnerable for a time before the cycle repeats. Although I was targeted for annihilation early in the fight, I found that “blink” would easily let me avoid the charge.
We fought hard, but a couple more DPSers were laid low by the yeti and combined with our earlier losses, there was simply no way we’d be able to down him in any sort of reasonable time. It had taken far too long just to get him down by a third of his health pool. The call was made, healing was stopped, and I pounded on the yeti with my staff until he noticed me and let me die, some sixteen minutes after the encounter with the Impaler had begun.
Returning to the Arena, we’d be faced with the entire encounter again, starting with the magnataur. This time we changed things out a bit. We had suffered from an abundance of healers, which seems like a really funny thing to say given the number of casualties we had taken, so a couple of them flipped over to their ‘damage’ spec, and we picked up a couple more guildies, bringing us to around 21.
This time the fights went a bit smoother—Gormok went down in a couple of minutes and we faced down the worms with a bit more experience and caution. Although we lost a few DPS during the fight— you’d think we’d learn that bathrobes do NOT stop gouts of acid, we were much stronger when it was time to battle the yeti again. We lit into him and mostly avoided all of his charges. There’s an enrage timer that results in 5x damage dealt if the fight goes too long, so we pushed hard. It was down to the wire with his health ticking down alongside our clock. With a sliver of health left, we ran out of time and it turned nasty… giving it our all, everyone who could slapped damage-over-time spells and skills on him, then he leapt towards the middle. The resulting blast wave killed everyone except one person and I hate –HATE- that my slamming Ice Block came half a second too late. With little else to do, we were all fixated on Icehowl’s health bar. We had carved him down to 150k (1%!) from his initial total and the DoTs were ticking. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what the sole survivor was doing—I was mesmerized by a dwindling number that, despite my silent pleas of “C’mon…C’MON!”, stopped at 32,000. We had failed the encounter by the slimmest of margins.
We were stunned. Cursing, we filled what we could of the roster with random people and tried one more time. What a difference three people can make! We smoked all of the Beasts of Northrend in under nine minutes and we were ready to face the object of our quest: Lord Jaxxarus. The demon lord was summoned by a gnomish warlock whose reach exceeded his grasp and we were charged by Fordring to slay the demon before he could escape. Oddly enough, he posed remarkably little threat compared to the last encounter. As a mage, my job was to blast away at the various elemental and demonic henchmen he summoned, occasionally counter one of his “fel fireballs”, and steal a “netherpower” buff whenever he cast it. Otherwise, it was a fairly straightforward blast-fest that went as smooth as silk. We disbanded afterwards—the delays had cost us precious time and some members had another raid already running late.
I hustled back to Dalaran and after turning in the quest, I found I had accumulated enough badges to upgrade both my shoulders (with frosties) and my hat (with triumphs). This broke up my T9 set, but I wasn’t terribly upset: my gear score had now exceeded 5400 and after streamlining gem choices, I was now some 150 or so spell power above my previous total and had enough bonuses to ‘hit’ that I can now consider re-spending some of my talents to better benefit from it.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Goodness Snakes Alive
One of Fidelis' goals is to encourage members to bond as they happily slaughter content that is a bit under level, in particular raids from the Burning Crusades. Termed "fun runs", we've unfortunately had to cancel the last couple due to a lack of sign-ups. As the clock ran down, I feared we would be denied this one as well.
Our plans were to take on the Serpentshrine Cavern, a 25-man instance with as many as we could muster and earn an achievement or two in the process. My experience with the Caverns was nil, so I was really looking forward to it.
We met in a grotto by a turgid pool and, as we had plenty of time as a few stragglers joined up, I hoisted my fishing pole and passed away the while discovering new fish. After it looked like there were no more volunteers, our merry band of twelve entered the portal and descended into the enormous subterranean cavern.
Immediately, I was struck by the immensity of the place. There were wide walkways leading around the place and a number of side tunnels to explore. Far above us, pipes led off to gods-knew-where. It was everything confining was not. Here and there, large bands of snake-like nagakin roamed. We noted with amusement as we explored that many of the elite monsters had fewer health than common monsters encountered at level 80. This dungeon had once been a hellacious challenge to groups of 25 well-geared players, now we were felling the same ophidian creatures with half the staff and scarcely a thought.
The first boss we encountered was a huge water elemental named Hydross. He summoned a few watery henchmen, which we promptly ignored. Hydross periodically placed marks upon us which increased the amount of damage he dealt, but they availed him naught. He was quickly dispatched and we patted ourselves on the back as we gleefully anticipated the next challenge.
Continuing our expedition, we made our way to a scalding pool. It seemed another boss lay within the boiling depths and it required a fisherman to lure it to the surface. I volunteered my services and the team accepted. I cast my line and when my bobber bobbed, a gigantic sea monster emerged and engaged us.
It spun about and shot spouts of water that knocked us into the pool. Each second in the water dealt chunks of damage on top of the The Lurker Below's attack. It was quickly becoming more dangerous than we had anticipated. The savage Lurker slew one of our companions and gleefully knocked us into the drink again.
This time when I clambered onto dry land, I found I was on the opposite side of the beast from the party. I lit into the creature with my magics and it was nearly destroyed when it again began firing its spout. This time I saw it coming and was able to take a chance and ice block myself just before the blast hit. My gamble paid off and I was unaffected by the attack. Dropping the block, I was able to resume my attacks with minimal loss of time and aided my friends in dispatching the creature.
After licking our wounds, we ventured forth and promptly got lost in the caverns. It took nearly a half hour of wandering before we found the object of our quest: a human-sized gorgon known as Lady Vashj. We confidently rushed forward to battle and in retrospect wondered how in the hell groups of level 70s did it.
The first phase of the battle posed no challenge whatsoever as we easily absorbed the forked bolts of lightning she threw. Our overconfidence was quickly placed in check when phase two began.
Suddenly four pillars activated shot forth beams of energy that protected the Lady from all harm while she was held in place but free to attack with impunity. Our leader noted we'd have to find four 'cores' to disable the arcane streams. Meanwhile, a LARGE number of water elementals and giant naga began emerging from waters surrounding her dais.
The giant nagas cast an area-of-effect fear every few seconds and we realized quickly that each water elemental that reached the Lady caused her to grow in size and increase her damage correspondingly. I found and slew, but could not loot, something called a 'tainted elemental'. When the person who could loot it got to it, the first core was retrieved, but the person was paralyzed and could not move as long as it was held.
Upon discovering the core could be "tossed" to another player, we quickly saw how to do it-- kill and loot, then toss to a player who was standing close to a pylon. If it was too far away, a makeshift bucket brigade would have to be made to get the core to the pylon.
Coordinating all of this while trying to hold back the constant flow of elementals while getting feared proved to be one of the greatest challenges we faced. By the time the third pylon was broken, I had been field-resurrected once, my armor was in tatters, and the Lady was so large she was nearly as tall as the ceiling. I think at one point, someone said she had about 30 'stacks' of her damage buff on her. Finally, someone found the fourth core and tossed it to the person standing by the pylon: me. Frantically I opened my backpack and activated the device. Now freed from the streams, Lady Vashj slithered around wreaking terrible vengeance.
I was quickly laid low by a single hit (19k damage will do that), but those that could withstand a hit were quickly healed by our capable crew and Barth. We literally cheered when her last piece of health was sliced away and the gargantuan gorgon fell to the floor.
It was definitely a fun run and I can't wait for our next!
Our plans were to take on the Serpentshrine Cavern, a 25-man instance with as many as we could muster and earn an achievement or two in the process. My experience with the Caverns was nil, so I was really looking forward to it.
We met in a grotto by a turgid pool and, as we had plenty of time as a few stragglers joined up, I hoisted my fishing pole and passed away the while discovering new fish. After it looked like there were no more volunteers, our merry band of twelve entered the portal and descended into the enormous subterranean cavern.
Immediately, I was struck by the immensity of the place. There were wide walkways leading around the place and a number of side tunnels to explore. Far above us, pipes led off to gods-knew-where. It was everything confining was not. Here and there, large bands of snake-like nagakin roamed. We noted with amusement as we explored that many of the elite monsters had fewer health than common monsters encountered at level 80. This dungeon had once been a hellacious challenge to groups of 25 well-geared players, now we were felling the same ophidian creatures with half the staff and scarcely a thought.
The first boss we encountered was a huge water elemental named Hydross. He summoned a few watery henchmen, which we promptly ignored. Hydross periodically placed marks upon us which increased the amount of damage he dealt, but they availed him naught. He was quickly dispatched and we patted ourselves on the back as we gleefully anticipated the next challenge.
Continuing our expedition, we made our way to a scalding pool. It seemed another boss lay within the boiling depths and it required a fisherman to lure it to the surface. I volunteered my services and the team accepted. I cast my line and when my bobber bobbed, a gigantic sea monster emerged and engaged us.
It spun about and shot spouts of water that knocked us into the pool. Each second in the water dealt chunks of damage on top of the The Lurker Below's attack. It was quickly becoming more dangerous than we had anticipated. The savage Lurker slew one of our companions and gleefully knocked us into the drink again.
This time when I clambered onto dry land, I found I was on the opposite side of the beast from the party. I lit into the creature with my magics and it was nearly destroyed when it again began firing its spout. This time I saw it coming and was able to take a chance and ice block myself just before the blast hit. My gamble paid off and I was unaffected by the attack. Dropping the block, I was able to resume my attacks with minimal loss of time and aided my friends in dispatching the creature.
After licking our wounds, we ventured forth and promptly got lost in the caverns. It took nearly a half hour of wandering before we found the object of our quest: a human-sized gorgon known as Lady Vashj. We confidently rushed forward to battle and in retrospect wondered how in the hell groups of level 70s did it.
The first phase of the battle posed no challenge whatsoever as we easily absorbed the forked bolts of lightning she threw. Our overconfidence was quickly placed in check when phase two began.
Suddenly four pillars activated shot forth beams of energy that protected the Lady from all harm while she was held in place but free to attack with impunity. Our leader noted we'd have to find four 'cores' to disable the arcane streams. Meanwhile, a LARGE number of water elementals and giant naga began emerging from waters surrounding her dais.
The giant nagas cast an area-of-effect fear every few seconds and we realized quickly that each water elemental that reached the Lady caused her to grow in size and increase her damage correspondingly. I found and slew, but could not loot, something called a 'tainted elemental'. When the person who could loot it got to it, the first core was retrieved, but the person was paralyzed and could not move as long as it was held.
Upon discovering the core could be "tossed" to another player, we quickly saw how to do it-- kill and loot, then toss to a player who was standing close to a pylon. If it was too far away, a makeshift bucket brigade would have to be made to get the core to the pylon.
Coordinating all of this while trying to hold back the constant flow of elementals while getting feared proved to be one of the greatest challenges we faced. By the time the third pylon was broken, I had been field-resurrected once, my armor was in tatters, and the Lady was so large she was nearly as tall as the ceiling. I think at one point, someone said she had about 30 'stacks' of her damage buff on her. Finally, someone found the fourth core and tossed it to the person standing by the pylon: me. Frantically I opened my backpack and activated the device. Now freed from the streams, Lady Vashj slithered around wreaking terrible vengeance.
I was quickly laid low by a single hit (19k damage will do that), but those that could withstand a hit were quickly healed by our capable crew and Barth. We literally cheered when her last piece of health was sliced away and the gargantuan gorgon fell to the floor.
It was definitely a fun run and I can't wait for our next!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Casting Spells
Continued my somewhat uneventful side pursuit of fishing and spent a goodly amount of time completely failing to dredge up the giant sewer rat. I did, however, manage to reach the 1,000 fish (1 kilofish?) achievement and raise my fishing skill to 300 in the meantime.
Fishing, while not the most rewarding pastime, does afford me the ability to watch videos without worrying about getting four other players killed due to my normal utter negligence and casual disregard for personal safety.
At some point I noticed I received some mail and, not expecting anything from the auction house, I went to investigate. To my pleasant surprise, it was a message from the gnomish King. Preparations were being made to retake Gnomeregan! After years of mooching off the dwarves while allowing somewhat weak enemies to "control" our home city, we were going to clean house!
I hastened to meet the King and he bade me enlist a few recruits and meet up with a few gnomes outside Ironforge and get everything ready. I danced with the drill sergeant, tested some rather dubious mechanical spiders, and detected radiation levels around the city. The hitch came shortly thereafter...
My new task was to inspire a few gnomes with some test speeches, but one of the gnomes wouldn't respond. This didn't seem to be just my problem, as there was easily eighty people clustered around the poor gnome each trying to complete the quest.
The mob mentality was actually a bit entertaining to watch from a distance, as none of the throng seemed willing to admit the quest was bugged and they should just try again in a day or two. Instead, chaos reigned supreme with bouts of screaming ("Everyone just stand back and let him reset!!!"), profanity, and general inanity.
Bemused, I listened to the nerd rage a bit before nipping back inside Ironforge to unload a few dozen things on the auction block and queue up to get killed a few times in the Halls of Reflection.
I should have just kept fishin'.
Fishing, while not the most rewarding pastime, does afford me the ability to watch videos without worrying about getting four other players killed due to my normal utter negligence and casual disregard for personal safety.
At some point I noticed I received some mail and, not expecting anything from the auction house, I went to investigate. To my pleasant surprise, it was a message from the gnomish King. Preparations were being made to retake Gnomeregan! After years of mooching off the dwarves while allowing somewhat weak enemies to "control" our home city, we were going to clean house!
I hastened to meet the King and he bade me enlist a few recruits and meet up with a few gnomes outside Ironforge and get everything ready. I danced with the drill sergeant, tested some rather dubious mechanical spiders, and detected radiation levels around the city. The hitch came shortly thereafter...
My new task was to inspire a few gnomes with some test speeches, but one of the gnomes wouldn't respond. This didn't seem to be just my problem, as there was easily eighty people clustered around the poor gnome each trying to complete the quest.
The mob mentality was actually a bit entertaining to watch from a distance, as none of the throng seemed willing to admit the quest was bugged and they should just try again in a day or two. Instead, chaos reigned supreme with bouts of screaming ("Everyone just stand back and let him reset!!!"), profanity, and general inanity.
Bemused, I listened to the nerd rage a bit before nipping back inside Ironforge to unload a few dozen things on the auction block and queue up to get killed a few times in the Halls of Reflection.
I should have just kept fishin'.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Janitorial Questing
I stood in the Amphitheater of Anguish with the crowds cheering wildly—not for me mind you, but rather for the lightning-spewing, 20 foot tall magnataur bearing down on me. Far above, the goblin fight coordinator egged the crowd on as I pondered the circumstances that had brought me here. It began with a fishing pole.
I’d been idly drowning worms in the sewers of Dalaran, trying in vain to fish up a giant rat, when the fellow next to me caught one. I congratulated him on his catch and took a peek at his equipment. His fishing pole was significantly better than mine and imbued the wielder with the ability to breathe underwater! Striking up a quick conversation, I find this pole could be easily attained by anyone with an exalted reputation with the walrus people I used to steal puppies for so many moons ago. I decided then and there to improve my standings with them and now was a good enough time as any to start.
There are three dailies to assist with Walrus reputation, inconveniently spread out over three zones along the southern shores of Northrend. As I flew around completing them, I mused that I was fairly close to an achievement for doing a stupidly large number of quests (140, I think) in the Borean Tundra. With just nine quests shy, I stuck around and visited old haunts to see what I might’ve missed. It turned out that most of them involved some mines and farms extremely close to where I’d first landed on the continent. I grinned when they were completed and I tucked the “Nothing Boring about Borean” achievement away and began flying east.
Without realizing it, I’d already begun searching for quests I had missed in Dragonblight. I found them in the northern reaches of the zone and in no time, I was gleefully collecting ore and bones for goblins, deforesting harpy-invested woods in a sawblade-shooting mechanical exoskeleton, and killingtenrats as needed. After winning the achievement, I flew northeast…to the Storm Peaks!
I lacked a couple dozen quests in the Peaks and they took me into spider-filled caverns and across snowy plains, and finally into a dwarven hold. I’d been worried as the achievement required 100 quests in the zone and now, with 93 completed, I was down to two I had found: an elite harpy that had kicked my butt twice (she was very good about encasing me in ice and nuking me to oblivion) and a ‘collect a few rocks for the mountain king’ dealie. Given those choices, I hoisted a pick axe and set to work combing the cliff side for ore-like protrusions.
Upon returning to the king with my sackful of dirt, I was pleased to note that a long quest arc was opened and I was deep in uncovering a plot that involved the creation of an iron colossus when the achievement was reached. I mounted my gryphon and moved to leave.
King Underthedirt: “Hey—where are you going.”
Me: “idk…Zul’Drak? There’s like way too many I need in Howling Fjords”
King: “No—I mean, what are you doing about the colossus?!”
Me: “Huh?”
King: “The iron colossus? The thing you’ve discovered the evil armies are even now assembling with dark armor plates crafted from an unholy alloy of iron and pure saronite from deep within the earth’s crust? Even now I need you to destroy the forges so tha—“
Me: “Yeah…about that. I’m not saying your problems aren’t important, it’s just that I think it’d be better for both of us if you found an adventurer more willing to commit to a long-tem questline.”
King: “But—“
Me: “It’s not you, it’s me. Just keep that exclamation mark over your head and the right person will come along soon.”
I left the King there and flew down to Zul’Drak as promised. This was rough, no bones about it. After finishing the Drakuru story arc I had left in my log for many weeks (great ending I won’t spoil like everything else in this blog), I was still seven quests shy of the magic 100 for the zone. Fortunately, I found a number of 3-man group quests, which shaved the number down to three.
At some point I decided that most (but not all) three man quests can be solo’d if you plan accordingly and can back it up with a little grit and a lot of gear. If the mob has under 130k health, I can generally handle it without concern.
All other quest avenues exhausted, I found myself in the Amphitheater of Anguish, a largish arena-like affair. The encounters were scaled for a five player team, but a pair of well-geared 80s (tank/healer combo) could handle it well enough. Each battle is a quest in and of itself, and each encounter is progressively more difficult.
Each time I had swung by the area, I saw people fighting various giant monstrosities. Returning now, I found another pair of adventurers engaged in mortal combat. They had progressed beyond the first encounter and I watched a paladin and druid team make short work of a giant magnataur, before getting nearly pasted by a vicious air elemental. At that point, I lent assistance from the stands, throwing down a few extra blasts to aid the paladin’s struggle when it looked like things were getting too rough. In time the team bested all of the champions and the paladin hearthed back to points unknown.
I attempted the first quest and hopped down into the arena proper and was soon pitted against a giant worm—it stole my lunch money, but I managed to get it down to 10% health before being bested. Halfway back, I receive a resurrection offer from the very friendly druid who had teamed with the paladin. I readily accepted and she offered her assistance in the battles to come. Knowing a great offer when I see one, I seized the opportunity and this time the worm was slaughtered quickly.
The second fight was against the magnataur and as he strode into the arena opposite me, I regarded my opponent closely and began my pre-combat preparations: trinket, trinket, arcane power, icy veins, mirror image, pray. As the creature charged, I noticed he was enshrouded in crackling electrical energy. With horror, I realized this area of effect attack was quickly killing off my mirrored selves, leaving me the most viable target. I unleashed my arcane fury carving chunks off his hide when the druid, in her treeform, stepped up her healing. Suddenly the magnataur dashed off to stomp my savior. I tried in vain to draw the aggro back to myself, but in the end the tree was felled. Now at a fraction of his health, he and I raced to do the other in. It was scarily close, but I stood victorious.
I checked my quest counter as the druid revived—99/100. Only one more fight was needed and my helper was still game—she joked that she’d “just run faster next time”. I grinned, spoke with the goblin fight master, and the arena darkened as a swirling air elemental blew in. Oddly, the elemental posed less of a threat than the magnataur and was summarily dispatched. The druid asked if I was ready for the next, but I told her that I was done and thanked her very much for the kind assistance and slipped her a hundred gold for her trouble. She was pleasantly surprised, but I’m a firm believer than unexpected help should be amply rewarded.
After speaking to the goblin one last time, I received my achievement for Zul’Drak. Next stop, back to the Fjords!
I’d been idly drowning worms in the sewers of Dalaran, trying in vain to fish up a giant rat, when the fellow next to me caught one. I congratulated him on his catch and took a peek at his equipment. His fishing pole was significantly better than mine and imbued the wielder with the ability to breathe underwater! Striking up a quick conversation, I find this pole could be easily attained by anyone with an exalted reputation with the walrus people I used to steal puppies for so many moons ago. I decided then and there to improve my standings with them and now was a good enough time as any to start.
There are three dailies to assist with Walrus reputation, inconveniently spread out over three zones along the southern shores of Northrend. As I flew around completing them, I mused that I was fairly close to an achievement for doing a stupidly large number of quests (140, I think) in the Borean Tundra. With just nine quests shy, I stuck around and visited old haunts to see what I might’ve missed. It turned out that most of them involved some mines and farms extremely close to where I’d first landed on the continent. I grinned when they were completed and I tucked the “Nothing Boring about Borean” achievement away and began flying east.
Without realizing it, I’d already begun searching for quests I had missed in Dragonblight. I found them in the northern reaches of the zone and in no time, I was gleefully collecting ore and bones for goblins, deforesting harpy-invested woods in a sawblade-shooting mechanical exoskeleton, and killingtenrats as needed. After winning the achievement, I flew northeast…to the Storm Peaks!
I lacked a couple dozen quests in the Peaks and they took me into spider-filled caverns and across snowy plains, and finally into a dwarven hold. I’d been worried as the achievement required 100 quests in the zone and now, with 93 completed, I was down to two I had found: an elite harpy that had kicked my butt twice (she was very good about encasing me in ice and nuking me to oblivion) and a ‘collect a few rocks for the mountain king’ dealie. Given those choices, I hoisted a pick axe and set to work combing the cliff side for ore-like protrusions.
Upon returning to the king with my sackful of dirt, I was pleased to note that a long quest arc was opened and I was deep in uncovering a plot that involved the creation of an iron colossus when the achievement was reached. I mounted my gryphon and moved to leave.
King Underthedirt: “Hey—where are you going.”
Me: “idk…Zul’Drak? There’s like way too many I need in Howling Fjords”
King: “No—I mean, what are you doing about the colossus?!”
Me: “Huh?”
King: “The iron colossus? The thing you’ve discovered the evil armies are even now assembling with dark armor plates crafted from an unholy alloy of iron and pure saronite from deep within the earth’s crust? Even now I need you to destroy the forges so tha—“
Me: “Yeah…about that. I’m not saying your problems aren’t important, it’s just that I think it’d be better for both of us if you found an adventurer more willing to commit to a long-tem questline.”
King: “But—“
Me: “It’s not you, it’s me. Just keep that exclamation mark over your head and the right person will come along soon.”
I left the King there and flew down to Zul’Drak as promised. This was rough, no bones about it. After finishing the Drakuru story arc I had left in my log for many weeks (great ending I won’t spoil like everything else in this blog), I was still seven quests shy of the magic 100 for the zone. Fortunately, I found a number of 3-man group quests, which shaved the number down to three.
At some point I decided that most (but not all) three man quests can be solo’d if you plan accordingly and can back it up with a little grit and a lot of gear. If the mob has under 130k health, I can generally handle it without concern.
All other quest avenues exhausted, I found myself in the Amphitheater of Anguish, a largish arena-like affair. The encounters were scaled for a five player team, but a pair of well-geared 80s (tank/healer combo) could handle it well enough. Each battle is a quest in and of itself, and each encounter is progressively more difficult.
Each time I had swung by the area, I saw people fighting various giant monstrosities. Returning now, I found another pair of adventurers engaged in mortal combat. They had progressed beyond the first encounter and I watched a paladin and druid team make short work of a giant magnataur, before getting nearly pasted by a vicious air elemental. At that point, I lent assistance from the stands, throwing down a few extra blasts to aid the paladin’s struggle when it looked like things were getting too rough. In time the team bested all of the champions and the paladin hearthed back to points unknown.
I attempted the first quest and hopped down into the arena proper and was soon pitted against a giant worm—it stole my lunch money, but I managed to get it down to 10% health before being bested. Halfway back, I receive a resurrection offer from the very friendly druid who had teamed with the paladin. I readily accepted and she offered her assistance in the battles to come. Knowing a great offer when I see one, I seized the opportunity and this time the worm was slaughtered quickly.
The second fight was against the magnataur and as he strode into the arena opposite me, I regarded my opponent closely and began my pre-combat preparations: trinket, trinket, arcane power, icy veins, mirror image, pray. As the creature charged, I noticed he was enshrouded in crackling electrical energy. With horror, I realized this area of effect attack was quickly killing off my mirrored selves, leaving me the most viable target. I unleashed my arcane fury carving chunks off his hide when the druid, in her treeform, stepped up her healing. Suddenly the magnataur dashed off to stomp my savior. I tried in vain to draw the aggro back to myself, but in the end the tree was felled. Now at a fraction of his health, he and I raced to do the other in. It was scarily close, but I stood victorious.
I checked my quest counter as the druid revived—99/100. Only one more fight was needed and my helper was still game—she joked that she’d “just run faster next time”. I grinned, spoke with the goblin fight master, and the arena darkened as a swirling air elemental blew in. Oddly, the elemental posed less of a threat than the magnataur and was summarily dispatched. The druid asked if I was ready for the next, but I told her that I was done and thanked her very much for the kind assistance and slipped her a hundred gold for her trouble. She was pleasantly surprised, but I’m a firm believer than unexpected help should be amply rewarded.
After speaking to the goblin one last time, I received my achievement for Zul’Drak. Next stop, back to the Fjords!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Perils of Pantslessness
I decided I wanted a quick and easy heroic dungeon to get my "daily random" out of the way before settling in for a quiet evening of reflection before an open bar, so I decided to trick the random queuer into giving me a dungeon substantially less painful than Halls of Reflection. I did so by slipping out of my pants. If college should've taught me anything, taking off ones pants will end in trouble and today was no exception.
I watched my gear score drop by a respectable chunk, then traded out my staff for a fishing pole and grinned as it plummeted. This would be a cake walk! Never being one to leave well enough alone, I also shuffled out of my boots, robe, and hat. My tabard covered my gnomish dignity and I queued up. A short while later, my group assembled and we landed in Utgarde. I was tickled pink. I -love- this dungeon or did anyway.
Our party was a rough mix: rogue, warrior, hunter, myself and a paladin healing. As a note, I really don't have an issue with paladins healing. Well equipped, they can handle five-man heroics with ease. Ours was not well-equipped. In fact, all of our party was in the 2.8-3.4k Gearscore range. No matter, for my glass cannon is large!
I chuckled and quickly dressed as visions of us plowing through the dungeon with a couple of frosties waiting at the end. The warrior moved forward to pull the first skeletal abominations...
For those of you unfamiliar with Utgarde, it's a pretty snazzy dungeon laid out like a castle populated with various undead and evil norsemen. I'm certain there's a great story behind it I haven't bothered to read, but I digress.
We lay utter waste to the first few bosses and I'm having to be very careful not to pull too much aggro from my targets. I'm outputting nearly twice the damage of the next highest player and that makes for tricky tanking. The heal-adin is doing fairly well keeping both the tank and me alive and we only lost the rogue once on the first boss, a valkyr named "Svala Sorrowgrave".
Fighting her is fun-- there's an extensive cutscene as she bargains with some demon thing, then rips into the party, flapping around, trying to sacrifice them and occasionally flying out of melee (but not nuking) range. After burning her down in nearly record time, our team morale was high.
We proceeded through the halls and room and soon found ourselves against the second boss fight: Gortok Palehoof. This one starts off in a large room with five giant statues: firbolg, worm-thing (jorgmund? Jaegermeister?), rhino, umm...something else... and Gortok, the centaur.
A glowing ball of reddish energy floats along, animating each in turn. None are particularly difficult and each get burned down rapidly. This was shaping up to be exactly what I had envisioned: a swift run. Ah misplaced arrogance, thy name be "Strev".
Our comeuppance came shortly thereafter when we reached the third boss fight, Skaldi. This has the most complex mechanics, so detailed explanations are in order.
Phase one of the fight begins on one end of the castle ramparts. He hops on his faithful drake and flies away as legions of his troops appear at the far end of the rampart and begin charging. At this point, normally the group will charge and meet them halfway to minimize the amount of time in the 'death zone'. I call it that because periodically Skaldi's drake will hover near the far end and unleash a torrent of frost breath, leaving half of the rampart a death zone, ticking off a few thousand health a second. Our warrior was having none of that and stood his ground.
The first couple of waves swarmed us and I had to fire off a couple of rounds of blizzard back to back to help save the tank, who was completely overwhelmed. The paladin couldn't quite deal with the massive amounts of damage hitting the warrior. Now a few of the enemy had me in their sights. I hastily turned invisible to reset the aggression against me and barely survived the initial onslaught. Each time I'd try to AoE attack, the enemy would peel off to come after me and there were far to many to single target. It was beginning to become manageable, but then the frost breath hit us, wiping half the group including yours truly. From there, it all went to hell.
Our second assault fared a bit better. The warrior charged down the tight passage and we held our own against the enemy, picking up a couple of harpoons along the way. Unfortunately, the frost breath still caught a party member unawares and he was laid out cold. (sorry) I was still having issues with aggro control, but we defied the odds and made it across. At the far end of the rampart are a few harpoon guns. We loaded them and fired on Skaldi's mount. He landed as the drake died and "Phase 2" began in earnest.
The party member who had died to the frost breath was, naturally, the paladin so without healing our end was bitter and swift. Undaunted, we returned to try again.
Arriving again on the dread rampart, I noted the boss had fully reset and we'd have to run the gauntlet and shoot down the drake again. Terrific. This time through, I had swapped to my old leveling Frost spec and it handled the throngs better. The slowing effect added to blizzard meant the tank had much more time to regain control and I only sacrificed a few hundred damage per second. This time we were going to do it or so I thought.
One of Skaldi's special attacks is a devastating whirlwind you MUST run away from. It does gobs of damage to everyone nearby and our beloved paladin did not get the memo. Insert team wipe here.
By this point, we're getting a bit frustrated, but decided to give it one more go. We storm past the ramparts with relative ease and again face Skaldi. The team knows when to avoid the whirlwind and I happily nuke away. Even with all of this, the healer simply can't keep up with the damage being dealt. Shortly the only three left standing are Steve, myself, and Skaldi, who has now been whittled to seven per cent health. Despite the cheers from my dead companions, I'm unable to withstand two shots from the Norseman from Hell and the wipe is official.
We're about to pack it in, when the Paladin takes one for the team and suggests dropping him from another healer. I waste no time initiating the vote and before we can get back to the ramparts, we're joined by a Shaman named "Shamwow" and with our new-found friend we plow through both Skaldi without a lick of trouble as well as the final boss, King Ymiron.
Ymiron parades around, stunning the party every few seconds as he calls on ancient spirits to help him, but he should not have bothered: his fate was sealed the second we had him targeted.
In the end, the repair bill cost nearly 50 gold and I had died more than I would before a typical Halls of Reflection team disbanded. So from now on, I'm going to do what I should have done all along: keep my pants on.
I watched my gear score drop by a respectable chunk, then traded out my staff for a fishing pole and grinned as it plummeted. This would be a cake walk! Never being one to leave well enough alone, I also shuffled out of my boots, robe, and hat. My tabard covered my gnomish dignity and I queued up. A short while later, my group assembled and we landed in Utgarde. I was tickled pink. I -love- this dungeon or did anyway.
Our party was a rough mix: rogue, warrior, hunter, myself and a paladin healing. As a note, I really don't have an issue with paladins healing. Well equipped, they can handle five-man heroics with ease. Ours was not well-equipped. In fact, all of our party was in the 2.8-3.4k Gearscore range. No matter, for my glass cannon is large!
I chuckled and quickly dressed as visions of us plowing through the dungeon with a couple of frosties waiting at the end. The warrior moved forward to pull the first skeletal abominations...
For those of you unfamiliar with Utgarde, it's a pretty snazzy dungeon laid out like a castle populated with various undead and evil norsemen. I'm certain there's a great story behind it I haven't bothered to read, but I digress.
We lay utter waste to the first few bosses and I'm having to be very careful not to pull too much aggro from my targets. I'm outputting nearly twice the damage of the next highest player and that makes for tricky tanking. The heal-adin is doing fairly well keeping both the tank and me alive and we only lost the rogue once on the first boss, a valkyr named "Svala Sorrowgrave".
Fighting her is fun-- there's an extensive cutscene as she bargains with some demon thing, then rips into the party, flapping around, trying to sacrifice them and occasionally flying out of melee (but not nuking) range. After burning her down in nearly record time, our team morale was high.
We proceeded through the halls and room and soon found ourselves against the second boss fight: Gortok Palehoof. This one starts off in a large room with five giant statues: firbolg, worm-thing (jorgmund? Jaegermeister?), rhino, umm...something else... and Gortok, the centaur.
A glowing ball of reddish energy floats along, animating each in turn. None are particularly difficult and each get burned down rapidly. This was shaping up to be exactly what I had envisioned: a swift run. Ah misplaced arrogance, thy name be "Strev".
Our comeuppance came shortly thereafter when we reached the third boss fight, Skaldi. This has the most complex mechanics, so detailed explanations are in order.
Phase one of the fight begins on one end of the castle ramparts. He hops on his faithful drake and flies away as legions of his troops appear at the far end of the rampart and begin charging. At this point, normally the group will charge and meet them halfway to minimize the amount of time in the 'death zone'. I call it that because periodically Skaldi's drake will hover near the far end and unleash a torrent of frost breath, leaving half of the rampart a death zone, ticking off a few thousand health a second. Our warrior was having none of that and stood his ground.
The first couple of waves swarmed us and I had to fire off a couple of rounds of blizzard back to back to help save the tank, who was completely overwhelmed. The paladin couldn't quite deal with the massive amounts of damage hitting the warrior. Now a few of the enemy had me in their sights. I hastily turned invisible to reset the aggression against me and barely survived the initial onslaught. Each time I'd try to AoE attack, the enemy would peel off to come after me and there were far to many to single target. It was beginning to become manageable, but then the frost breath hit us, wiping half the group including yours truly. From there, it all went to hell.
Our second assault fared a bit better. The warrior charged down the tight passage and we held our own against the enemy, picking up a couple of harpoons along the way. Unfortunately, the frost breath still caught a party member unawares and he was laid out cold. (sorry) I was still having issues with aggro control, but we defied the odds and made it across. At the far end of the rampart are a few harpoon guns. We loaded them and fired on Skaldi's mount. He landed as the drake died and "Phase 2" began in earnest.
The party member who had died to the frost breath was, naturally, the paladin so without healing our end was bitter and swift. Undaunted, we returned to try again.
Arriving again on the dread rampart, I noted the boss had fully reset and we'd have to run the gauntlet and shoot down the drake again. Terrific. This time through, I had swapped to my old leveling Frost spec and it handled the throngs better. The slowing effect added to blizzard meant the tank had much more time to regain control and I only sacrificed a few hundred damage per second. This time we were going to do it or so I thought.
One of Skaldi's special attacks is a devastating whirlwind you MUST run away from. It does gobs of damage to everyone nearby and our beloved paladin did not get the memo. Insert team wipe here.
By this point, we're getting a bit frustrated, but decided to give it one more go. We storm past the ramparts with relative ease and again face Skaldi. The team knows when to avoid the whirlwind and I happily nuke away. Even with all of this, the healer simply can't keep up with the damage being dealt. Shortly the only three left standing are Steve, myself, and Skaldi, who has now been whittled to seven per cent health. Despite the cheers from my dead companions, I'm unable to withstand two shots from the Norseman from Hell and the wipe is official.
We're about to pack it in, when the Paladin takes one for the team and suggests dropping him from another healer. I waste no time initiating the vote and before we can get back to the ramparts, we're joined by a Shaman named "Shamwow" and with our new-found friend we plow through both Skaldi without a lick of trouble as well as the final boss, King Ymiron.
Ymiron parades around, stunning the party every few seconds as he calls on ancient spirits to help him, but he should not have bothered: his fate was sealed the second we had him targeted.
In the end, the repair bill cost nearly 50 gold and I had died more than I would before a typical Halls of Reflection team disbanded. So from now on, I'm going to do what I should have done all along: keep my pants on.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The (Lich) King and I
Over the course of my explorations I encountered Creepy Ghost Kid (CGK) several more times. Each time he kept underscoring the hopelessness of my fight against the Lich King.
I tried pointing out that was patently obvious, given the hopelessness of my fights against the Horde, the guy on top of the Death Coil, dinosaurs, Hogger, and many small furry mammals. Not to be dissuaded, CGK took it upon himself to show me himself by transforming me into the Lich King during key points of his history.
The first of these was the battle against the demon Mal'Ganis. Given that I had no warning whatsoever I'd be piloting the Lich King's body like a vehicle with unfamiliar abilities and powers, it went rather poorly. At least I should say when Arthas originally engaged the demon, I'm certain it didn't end with him sprinting across Icecrown screaming, "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! DO OVER! DO OVER!"
The cooler transformation was the fight with Arthas against his own men. My goal was to slaughter a hundred of his troops (killhundredrats?) and raise them as ghouls. It was an utter slaughter and aside from a little mana management issue, they posed no threat whatsoever, which was CGK's not-so-subtle point.
Over the course of everything, I discover that the frozen lump I had found at the bottom of the Citadel was, in fact, Arthas' heart which he had carved out to remove the last vestiges of his humanity-- embodied in CGK. I reported this back to Fordring who was all "Well, let's go get it then!"
After scraping the seared flesh out of a "borrowed" Acolyte's hood, I donned it and joined similarly garbed guardsmen outside the Dark Cathedral, where a procession would be taking the heart. Fordring, the guards, and I slipped in and the worshipers apparently took no note of the fact their recruitment policies had grown noticeably lax.
We took spots at a pew and tried to look as inconspicuous as poorly disguised ardent followers of the Lich King could be and after a moment the heart was carried inside. Fordring made his presence known by bum-rushing the lot of them, and the MFLK himself appeared!
Very Important Dialogue Ensued as Fordring tried to determine if there was anything in the King that could be redeemed. Finding there was not, he cleaved the black heart in twain (I've always wanted to legitimately use that phrase) and all hell broke loose.
Fordring faced the King. The guardsmen faced the cultists. I faced absolutely nothing, because I'd be damned if I was taking off my disguise in the middle of all that crap. In the end, the Lich King began casting "The Lich King's Fury" and the survivors bolted through a portal one of our mages opened.
The Lich King survived our encounter, but at least we got rid of that damn kid.
I tried pointing out that was patently obvious, given the hopelessness of my fights against the Horde, the guy on top of the Death Coil, dinosaurs, Hogger, and many small furry mammals. Not to be dissuaded, CGK took it upon himself to show me himself by transforming me into the Lich King during key points of his history.
The first of these was the battle against the demon Mal'Ganis. Given that I had no warning whatsoever I'd be piloting the Lich King's body like a vehicle with unfamiliar abilities and powers, it went rather poorly. At least I should say when Arthas originally engaged the demon, I'm certain it didn't end with him sprinting across Icecrown screaming, "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! DO OVER! DO OVER!"
The cooler transformation was the fight with Arthas against his own men. My goal was to slaughter a hundred of his troops (killhundredrats?) and raise them as ghouls. It was an utter slaughter and aside from a little mana management issue, they posed no threat whatsoever, which was CGK's not-so-subtle point.
Over the course of everything, I discover that the frozen lump I had found at the bottom of the Citadel was, in fact, Arthas' heart which he had carved out to remove the last vestiges of his humanity-- embodied in CGK. I reported this back to Fordring who was all "Well, let's go get it then!"
After scraping the seared flesh out of a "borrowed" Acolyte's hood, I donned it and joined similarly garbed guardsmen outside the Dark Cathedral, where a procession would be taking the heart. Fordring, the guards, and I slipped in and the worshipers apparently took no note of the fact their recruitment policies had grown noticeably lax.
We took spots at a pew and tried to look as inconspicuous as poorly disguised ardent followers of the Lich King could be and after a moment the heart was carried inside. Fordring made his presence known by bum-rushing the lot of them, and the MFLK himself appeared!
Very Important Dialogue Ensued as Fordring tried to determine if there was anything in the King that could be redeemed. Finding there was not, he cleaved the black heart in twain (I've always wanted to legitimately use that phrase) and all hell broke loose.
Fordring faced the King. The guardsmen faced the cultists. I faced absolutely nothing, because I'd be damned if I was taking off my disguise in the middle of all that crap. In the end, the Lich King began casting "The Lich King's Fury" and the survivors bolted through a portal one of our mages opened.
The Lich King survived our encounter, but at least we got rid of that damn kid.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Icecrown Adventuring
After the exciting adventures in the Citadel proper, I decided to pursue a somewhat nagging problem: when I had shown up to the front door, the vast majority of my group weren't visible. I could see their 'dots' on my mini-map, but that was the only proof I had they were in the area until I was inside the portal.
I deduced it must have been a 'phasing' dealie, which I'd seen before...notably during the Wrathgate saga, but now I was intrigued. Why was it phased here? More importantly, what did I need to do to be 'in phase' next time?
I flew around the entrance and watched hordes of undead battle the staunch Ebon Blade defenders. There were no quest keepers-- the answer must lie elsewhere.
After searching through the zone, I found what might have been the answer: a ragtag group of Ebon Bladesmen standing around waiting for me to help them. All total, they gave me a half-dozen quests around the area and into Crystalsong Forest. My reward was a "bread crumb" quest that took me to a small encampment on a ridge. I was tasked with planting a banner atop a ridge and defending it against waves of undead. My kind of mission!
I flew over to the ridge only to find another player engaged in the same quest. I landed nearby and watched with bemusement as he and a squadron of NPCs fought against the teeming throng. An aura was eminating from the banner that effectively kept my mana topped off, so I knew when it was my turn, I'd have little problems spamming Blizzard as much as I liked. In the meantime, I passed the time watching villagers running around trying to repair small burning huts that had been constructed on the overlook.
Much to my surprise, when the other player finished my quest updated as successful. I immediately felt slightly guilty for not killstealing-- err, helping-- him out, but he was gone in a flash, presumably to turn in the quest. Naturally I followed suit.
I got sent back to the same ridge, but when I arrived, I discovered that it was a phased zone as well. The burning hovels had been replaced by a formidable tower now populated by vendors, a flight path, and a guy called "Fordring". I recognized him from the Citadel, so I figured I was on the right track.
My adventures from that point varied widely from one end of Icecrown to the other, as I killtenratted my way to glory. I was sent to fields of undead, the floating gunship Skybreaker, and even to save some hero I probably should've known from becoming a servant of the MFLK in undeath. Finally, I was sent to the Citadel, to a secret area underneath.
My mission? Killtenrats. I really should know by now. Afterwards, it got a bit more interesting.
While attempting to set off some explosives under the citadel (Ah ha! Maybe this will change the terrain!), I was blown into a pit and fell for a long while. I braced myself for the impact, but landed in a pool of water. When I climbed out, I saw I was in a large subterranean cavern populated with enough tentacled Lovecraftian critters to give a bus full of Japanese schoolgirls nightmares for life. There was also a spectral child who demanded I collect blood from them (The Lovecraftian horrors, not the schoolgirls).
After doing so, the creepy kid bade me check out a frozen lump in the water, but afterwards sent me back to the surface via a convenient nearby portal.
I had a feeling I'd be seeing this kid more in the future and I was right.
I deduced it must have been a 'phasing' dealie, which I'd seen before...notably during the Wrathgate saga, but now I was intrigued. Why was it phased here? More importantly, what did I need to do to be 'in phase' next time?
I flew around the entrance and watched hordes of undead battle the staunch Ebon Blade defenders. There were no quest keepers-- the answer must lie elsewhere.
After searching through the zone, I found what might have been the answer: a ragtag group of Ebon Bladesmen standing around waiting for me to help them. All total, they gave me a half-dozen quests around the area and into Crystalsong Forest. My reward was a "bread crumb" quest that took me to a small encampment on a ridge. I was tasked with planting a banner atop a ridge and defending it against waves of undead. My kind of mission!
I flew over to the ridge only to find another player engaged in the same quest. I landed nearby and watched with bemusement as he and a squadron of NPCs fought against the teeming throng. An aura was eminating from the banner that effectively kept my mana topped off, so I knew when it was my turn, I'd have little problems spamming Blizzard as much as I liked. In the meantime, I passed the time watching villagers running around trying to repair small burning huts that had been constructed on the overlook.
Much to my surprise, when the other player finished my quest updated as successful. I immediately felt slightly guilty for not killstealing-- err, helping-- him out, but he was gone in a flash, presumably to turn in the quest. Naturally I followed suit.
I got sent back to the same ridge, but when I arrived, I discovered that it was a phased zone as well. The burning hovels had been replaced by a formidable tower now populated by vendors, a flight path, and a guy called "Fordring". I recognized him from the Citadel, so I figured I was on the right track.
My adventures from that point varied widely from one end of Icecrown to the other, as I killtenratted my way to glory. I was sent to fields of undead, the floating gunship Skybreaker, and even to save some hero I probably should've known from becoming a servant of the MFLK in undeath. Finally, I was sent to the Citadel, to a secret area underneath.
My mission? Killtenrats. I really should know by now. Afterwards, it got a bit more interesting.
While attempting to set off some explosives under the citadel (Ah ha! Maybe this will change the terrain!), I was blown into a pit and fell for a long while. I braced myself for the impact, but landed in a pool of water. When I climbed out, I saw I was in a large subterranean cavern populated with enough tentacled Lovecraftian critters to give a bus full of Japanese schoolgirls nightmares for life. There was also a spectral child who demanded I collect blood from them (The Lovecraftian horrors, not the schoolgirls).
After doing so, the creepy kid bade me check out a frozen lump in the water, but afterwards sent me back to the surface via a convenient nearby portal.
I had a feeling I'd be seeing this kid more in the future and I was right.
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