That's a lot of... and Critter Kill

That's a Lot of Bait and Critter Kill Squad are two achievements I constantly have up tracking. I get rather excited to see the numbers go up, even in small increments.

Man, fishing is soooooo boring!

While everyone enjoys killing level 1 things, all I hear in gchat is how much fishing sucks.

I don't know who to be frustrated with more: the players or the design. We need 10,000 fish caught (only in pools, mind you) in order to get our upgraded feast. It seems the mentality is something like "My best food is caught in open water/made of meat/etc", so why bother sitting there fishing?

We thrived on feasts in Wrath, and I get why the design team would want to expand the options on food buffs. I just wonder what will happen a little bit down the road we start asking folks to have their food buff and they beg for a feast. Meh, maybe that won't happen.

To compensate, I have been fishing the heck out of eels and guppies in order to kill two birds with one stone- get mats for the feast while moving the counter towards the achievement. But then I see that the bank is pitifully low on Lavascale and just shake my head at the whole thing.

I also understand that not everyone thinks like myself. I am working on Limnologist which does not help getting our feast. So... I catch maybe 100 pools fish before spending an hour trying for a bloated freaking whatever (not that I am bitter about my luck on drop rate or anything). I was trolling some blogs and noticed one guild made a contest out of getting their fishing done. I read that and admired their ability to get the team together.

On to Critters

Thankfully, this is less ranty. Despite the attempts to nerf the ways to get these critters killed faster, R.I.P. instant sheep, our guild found another one and we are meandering our way there. As of writing, we have less than a thousand to go.

However, the pet takes exalted with the guild to purchase. This makes no sense to me. I don't care that the pet is epic quality. It's a freaking pet. It's not game breaking or providing one guild with an advantage over another. It looks badass, don't get me wrong, but to put that kind of roadblock to it seems unnecessary. OK, this was ranty, too.

Oh, if you were wondering what our secret is... groups are best. And Eastern Plaugelands. That's all I will say because I don't want to jinx us when we are so close.

Some thoughts while working on Loremaster

Decided to work on Loremaster before Tuesday hits and I must say, I hope these lower level quests are indicative of how the rest of the expansion will be.

Phasing

Blizzard has taken the phase mechanic and ran with it, with fairly good results. For example, while questing in Stonard, I would pick up the quest from the quest giver, only to run around and find the place suddenly under attack. This was a slick move and was almost seamless.

Notice, I say almost. Phasing isn't a perfect system. Just ask one of my guildies who was unable to complete a quest during a phased portion. But there is ample use of it that I can see being of great use to transition the characters through phases of the quest lines.

Epic Battles

In almost all the zones, there is a culmination of the quests which lead to an epic-style battle of some kind. Be it a huge elemental or some dastardly villian, as I player, I feel like there is a sense of done-ness with these fights. As a level appropriate player, you may not actually wait to see how these stories are fleshed out, but there are often blue quality rewards attached to these fights which gives a little incentive to stay for the fight.

What I also enjoyed about these fights is the fact that the zones often have beginning, middles, and endings. This speaks to the RPG-er in me and keeps me invested in the world of the game. As with anything, the novelty of this can easily wear off by the end of the expansion, but I look forward to what kind of fights they present us as we head towards 85.

Cutscenes

Most people would agree that the Wrathgate cut scene is one of their favorite things about WOTLK. Blizzard recognized that and sprinkled a little of it in many of the revamped zones. Luckily, instead of the high drama, several minutes long scenes, they are really short but help move the quest story along.

What makes it work is that it's dynamic. You aren't just looking at the same pixels, but for a moment taken to a different level of the game.

Humor

Blizzard has a reputation to maintain for it's ability to not take itself too seriously. However, this expansion has a lot of dark undertones and following after Shakespear, Blizz made sure to add characters which offer a lighter side of things. Dwarven congo lines, bragging NPCs, a ghost who asks about Mankrik's wife and a Don Quixote-type are some examples. Some are pretty cool, some are cheesy as heck, but it is well needed when there is so much war and chaos going around.

Bombing runs

When they added bombing runs in BC, it was kind of cool, but often required more than one run though to complete. This time around, they made sure that you are in the air as long as it takes and offer a quick (usually painless) way of getting back to the start. It also seems like the cooldown for whatever explosive/plague/destruction of choice has lowered a bit, making it a quick and dirty method of blowing stuff up. Well needed and I enjoy those quests a lot more. Of course, I am also usually the only one doing them at the time, and my opinion may sour in a couple days.

Some bad news

You didn't think that beloved NPCs wouldn't go unscathed did you? Some grew darker. Some didn't make it through the shattering (which, I recommend visiting a certain grave in U Crator). There is a lot of sorrow, pain and tragedy in Azeroth these days.

The other bad news is there are a lot of changes to how rep is acquired. Some quests and zones which normally gave a certain rep have been replaced, leaving folks who are trying to catch up suddenly lost. If you are one of those who are trying to bring up some rep in the lower zones may have to do some research and digging.

I have lots of screenshots, but will publish them in a separate post. In the meantime...

See you around Azeroth!

It's Orange and shiny!

This is Relg, the owner of the guild's first legendary! We have missed every legendary due to complications (merging guilds, owner of shards leaving the server, etc) and so it feels good to finally see one completed.

And to be honest, we would have stopped doing ICC a while ago if I had not been for this legendary. Hopefully, this didn't put too much pressure on the poor DK but it was something that needed to get done. (Note that I embarrassingly called it a sword. Obviously, it isn't but I am a dumb healer so forgive me)

Regardless, congratulations Relg! I must say, having a legendary makes your metrosexual Blood elf a little sexier :P Oh, and we will hunt you down if you leave. Some of us have known you for at least 10 years and know where to find you!

But wait... there's more!

Because this was our last night to do Icecrown on a regular basis, we also gave out prizes for those who participated in tonight's raid. The contest was this: What was the total vendor price for every item that dropped during the raid?

I don't quite recall the exact number but the winner had to come closest without going over.

Third place won a bear cub.
Second place won an Orb of Deception.
The winner won *drum roll*




This is a prize we have given out before but doesn't lessen the coolness factor.

Once again, I feel like we are just a little bit more awesome than some other guilds. We don't always get strats tight or maybe bring along some folks who aren't hardcore, but we do enjoy the company we keep. All this sentimentality just in time for the world to end!


Well done team and thanks for sticking it out.

Guild Changes

Guild camaraderie

Some people care about achievements more than other people. Ever since Blizz implemented this arguably epeen waggling system, it has been a love/hate situation with our guild.

I admit some fascinate me more than most, like Insane in the Membrane. We have at least a couple folks with it and I am astounded at the level of dedication needed to complete it. I gave up on goblins long ago, I sure as hell am not leveling the other factions. Still sitting at 39/40... I figure with Cata, I will find new factions to work on.

There is a theory floating around that with the new guild perks guilds will want to come together more to get things done. I can certainly see potential for hardcores who complete progression and are left with craptastic down time. Even more so benefits for casual guilds who don't feel the need to keep up with the top 10s but still like to get together on nights and feel rewarded for getting something accomplished.

This is where I finally feel like there is some return for completing an achievement. It goes beyond a new tabard or title and becomes something that everyone in the guild can take part in.

Feels somewhat like what an old guild on the server did for raiding points. Even if you didn't get to go to raids often, if you contributed mats for potions, bandages, engineering supplies, etc you got points when went towards your dkp.


Speaking of cleaning up achivements



Why, yes, it took us forever to finish this off. We have always been a few steps behind Blizzard when it came to content. While we were closing out Ulduar, TOC came out and most folks lost interest in older content. It wasn't that we lacked skill or time, but we tend to have a butterfly/squirrel mentality for new things. I am sure we aren't the first or last guild to have this problem. Of course, when Lum was trying to congratulate the guild on completing Yogg, I could clearly be heard on vent saying "About ****ing time!" This was met with much vocal agreement. Damn his mic.


New UI

I look forward to the new guild UI. In particular the professions tab. To be able to see who has what profession and what recipes we have in the guild is extremely attractive. This would have been useful during Wrath as folks were gaining recipes in dungeons and trying to get their BiS items made but obviously a boon when the expansion arrives.

Not sure what to make of the LFGuild tool. I haven't seen screenshots of it yet, but I hope it works out well. The trade spam is getting old.

Now that my non patch day themed post is finished, it's time to pour over the survival guides for my characters. I have too many alts!

Happy patch day :)

Brewfest!

It's that time again and I hope everyone has a great time this year!

Also, pregrats to everyone who will be getting their holiday achievement mounts. Now, that is dedication!

100 tokens for the pink elephant, eh? /shakefist I was ready to take this holiday off this year, but I guess I will be doing a lot of ram riding.

Take care!

Overdue update

Ugh, it's been to long since I posted. Crap happened in game, Aion week-long beta came around, and projects at work/home all sucked up my time.

Drama Llama

The shake ups in the guild have been an interesting roller coaster. It seems like when one drama starts, everyone else feels like it's a good time to add to it. After the asshat move from some members mentioned previously, two other long time members left, which had us feeling disoriented and confused. Their reasons for leaving were mixed and not expressed well. In addition, they didn't say good bye to the guild, just a little note to the officers. It left us sad, but knowing a little bit about what is going on behind the screen, it is understandable to a point. We wish them well, and hope that things work out for them.


But we have some new folks who seem to be doing well and more on the way. I'd pimp my blog to say we are recruiting but then you would have to deal with me on a regular basis, and that will probably turn you off. :)

Around the Corner

So while poking around for some writing fodder this morning, I ran across a potentially new achievement: BB King. It says you have to pelt the enemy leaders, presumably with a BB gun.

This, made me laugh out loud for a good couple minutes. I'm sure the youngin's may not get the reference but I had flash backs of A Christmas Story. (Omg, it came out in 1983? I am getting old.)

And I am sure everyone has seen the Pandaren Video. A couple guildies are already rabid for it, and others guess it will be a Cataclysm CE pet. Not sure how it fits into Cataclysm, but since it's BoA it is the closest thing that makes sense since we will already be getting a broodling pet for the anniversary. If only the Kung Fu Fighting music plays a little when it's summoned...

And of course, let us not forget the Ony fight that is coming. From what I was able to see, via videos, not much about the mechanics were changed, which given that spells and abilities have changed drastically since she came out, I worry that it will be a snoozefest. But that's my limited armchair opinion which holds no weight.

And now, for something completely different

I have a scifi lit class this term and I got all giddy when I saw the booklist. Some I have already read which should make my work load a little easier, eh? Now, to pull a Hermione and crack open Snow Crash again. Should be able to get it read before the term starts.

So many hard modes

Last night was a great night for our 10 man hardmode work. We are almost done with them and the end is within our grasp for the proto-drake.

I Choose You, Steelbreaker

I honestly expected that one to go a lot worse. Big Kudos to Anti for setting it up and explaining it so well. Basically, we had Brundir and Steelbreaker tanked very close together. This way when the overload hits, the bulk of the raid moves to the other side of Steelbreaker to avoid it. How well that went, I couldn't really tell but people didn't die so I assume it was OK.

The reason why I couldn't tell is because I was one of the Static charge people. Myself and two others were at a longer range from Steelbreaker to soak the charges. We were supposed to be a rather evenly spread, but because of luck on positioning, Steelbreaker was too close to the wall and I couldn't get a good spot. Despite it not going exactly as planned, it was a clean execution and finished him off before the second tank exploded (though he still wanted to give us hugs and take us all down with him before loot went out! Bad pally.)

Between static charges, the usual aoe damage and the fact that Steelbreaker hits like a truck, all the healers were busting their arses. Amazing job everyone!

Crazy Cat Lady
Not a hard mode per se, but doing the achievement for the Glory meta was a bit rough. The tanks had a lot on their hands with the Sentries, and the dps did a great job keeping themselves in check as to not over do it. Overall, this is one fight where if one thing goes wrong, it has the potential to spiral down to a wipe.

As with our 25 mans, we try to use a shaman totem for the pull. Our DKs did a great job pulling off additional mobs out of the group, and the healers busted out the can of whup ass to keep everyone alive.

Lose your Illusion
This one wasn't new to most of us last night, but we had some folks who went away for Blizzcon, so there was some catching up to do. Once again, I was in the arena group. And, once again, somehow we lose some steam toward the end and one of the tanks died. As I am scrambling to catch up on the health bars, I battlerezed one of the dps while we had 20 seconds to spare before enrage. Whew!

The only real tough part about the hard mode is if someone is either frost bolted or caught in the blizzard when the skittles come. That, and our melee are always at risk of the chain lightning. And some day, some freaking day, I would like to see the Don't Stand in the Lightning achievement.

Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood
Ok, I may bitch about some other bosses but Freya was downright exasperating. We hadn't even tried the other versions of this hard mode; we jumped right in with three elders up.

As far as difficulty, I would say that the Sunbeam things are the easiest to deal with. Affected player just moves out of the way. Not only are they pretty easy to see, but DBM gives you a warning to move. Other things hit harder, but that is to be expected.

Next in difficulty would be the Iron Roots. Most of our players don't have to move around all that much except for our life tree people and the tanks occasionally. Worst case senario is someone who has roots and is stuck in a clump of people when they have Nature's Fury. Beyond that, some extra healing on the rooted person and some dps.

Lastly, Ground Tremor. This one is rough. Through bad luck on one attempt, we had ground tremor happen right as people were exploding the small flowers. Oh yes, they died quick. There was just too much damage happening at once to even save them. As a druid, I didn't have too much issue with the tremor. I only got caught once, and believe me, that was a scary few seconds.

As a healer, this is the hardest encounter I have faced yet. Relatively high situational awareness and careful watch of all on the raid is needed. I used my Idol of Awakening and the mana restore trinket from ToC. Even then, I had to use a mana pot and innervate.

Most of my mana issues sprang from Regrowth. I used this much more liberally than I have in the past. In addition, I also spammed WG+Nourish combo. Basically, I used every trick I had in the book.

Because the tank actually takes a fair bit of damage on hard mode, tank healers have their hands full, so raid healing is absolutely essential. At anytime, someone could get a ground tremor plus Freya's other abilities nearly back to back and if they aren't reasonably topped off, its over.

Next week is Mim, General and Yogg as we extended the raid lock out. GO GO GO

In just seven days... I can make you a man!

Ok, it won't take seven days, and he won't be a man but a mount! I couldn't help the Rocky Horror reference.

I'm talking about the new Ravasaur mount offered by Mor'vek in U-crator.

Toxic Tolerance
First step is to get "splashed" by poison off Venomhide Ravasaurs. However, in order to get splashed you have to hit them melee style. Now, I recommend hitting them with fists. As a caster, this shouldn't be too difficult since our melee skills suck. My DK friend had to take off all his gear and switch to tank spec in order to do this effectively. On PTR, seems you had to be splashed 2,000 times, but in 3.2 it is only 20. The poison does hurt even at level 80, but as a druid, just cleanse and go about your business.


Venomhide Eggs
The next step asks you to gather 4 venomhide eggs which are found in the marshlands where you fought the bigger versions. As the quest text says, it will be lighter in color than the other eggs, and really they aren't too hard to find. Just mouse over the nests.

After you return the eggs to Mor'vek, he gives you a hatchling to care for as he is growing up. The Venomhide Hatchling is only usable in certain areas and he offers you a daily quest. I was given the quest to feed him Silithis Eggs, but others have had to collect Roc Feathers, or feed him silithid meat and raptor meat. He's a vicious little bugger, that one!

It will take 20 teeth, 20 Rugged Leather, 20 Runecloth, and 80g to make the saddle and allow time for your little guy to be a full grown mount.

Whistle of the Venomhide Ravasaur

Overall, I would have to say if I was alliance, I would be a bit miffed. No rep grind, and the "grind" of 2,000 poison hits was removed. Having not done the Wintersaber grind, I can only gather from some Ally rerollers how much of a pain it was and I will say we as horde have it easy. However, since it took several years to actually implement it, I am just happy to have the chance to actually get the mount.

Something to do with the Achievement Points

I've thought for a while now that a neat thing to do with all those Achivement points would be to spend it on player housing.

Consider that player housing is the only thing WoW has not implemented that other games have.

I really enjoyed how DOAC did their player housing. Aside from guild halls, but player houses were customizable and could hold things like trophies from kills.

Granted, there would have to be a special zone for all this in a WoW setting, and maybe it doesn't go with the lore all so much.

But, imagine your titles, raid achievements like killing Ony, or pvp accomplishments. Others could see what you have done in a more physical way than looking up a list on the armory.

An argument could be made that it would be a time sink, but achievements already are time sinks. PvP in WoW in a sense is a time sink.

However, people like to show off what they have done and others like to see what their friends and competetors have accomplished.

Now, I don't think points should be spent in order to buy things like housing, but all the housing things (special hearths, ports, banks, trophies) could be unlocked as you gain more points, no matter how you gain them.

Embrace the time sinks and let us show off what we have done in the game with pride.

Whew, so busy!

I know, I know, no one wants to hear what bosses I've downed or anything like that. But seriously, the last couple days of raiding have been insane and wonderful. 5 raiding firsts all back to back. Gotta love that!

Mimiron and Thorim have been our roadblocks the last couple weeks. I wrote earlier about the near meltdown Thorim gave us, and since then we set him aside to focus more on Mim.

Mimiron: our plan was to divide the raid into thirds for phase 1. I was in charge of the right side (as you are facing the big red button). It's a simple plan really. Couple hots on the napalmed folks and move to the MT when the plasma blast hits. Sometimes, if the timing was fine, I would Nourish the napalmed target a couple times to top them off, but Mim generally liked to Napalm right before the plasma blast, so there really isn't a lot of time to switch targets. Our tank is beefy (45k hit points and he isn't even a bear) but lose your concentration and he could go down like a rock quickly.

Phase 2 each side had an group healer and during the machine gun-like attacks, the sides clumped up and we let the healers do their thing.

During phase 3 and 4 myself and a priest were in charge of the range tank, while also tossing aoe heals on various groups of folks to keep them up. All that went smoothly, though things got a little nerve wracking when almost all the melee bit it in phase 4.

We all must have been in a zone because when the fight was over, several of us were like "Wow, did we win?" We were pushing it on getting all three sections down at the same time, so close that we thought we missed it.

Needless to say, on the heals of our Mimiron kill we moved to Thorim and smoked him, too. First time on either and we did them back to back. Whew!



Thorim is rough, I don't care who you are. We came in after a couple week break on him, which also meant upgrades and it nice to finally smoke him. We honestly didn't think we would get that far so quickly and the raid leaders forgot to mention a couple things to the raid: Chain lightning hurts so don't blow up your friends and move away from the little lightning... um... railroad tracks. I called them skittles over vent, which I don't think helped folks move out of the way very well.
They kinda look like skittles

I will also say this... Talenn kicked ASS on Thorim. I don't normally call people out by name, but I was really impressed with how far our fearless leader has come when it involves raid healing (normally he tank heals). Just an amazing job in the arena. So much so, that I had to check the stat reports to just see what he was doing that I was not doing. (Note: more WG and Rejuvs) Great Job!



Next up... our Tuesday 10 man hard mode run. Our little group has been slowly working our way through the towers for FL and some other progression type stuff for a while now, and this week we resolved to hunker down and actually get some good hard modes done.

I wish I had some words of wisdom for healing through Heartbreaker. I spent a good portion of it pacing back and forth between the same 20 yard area in order keep hots on everyone. Rejuv, Lifebloom and Wildgrowth were my friends while the two paladins kept the tank up. Yes, we ran it with three healers and I will admit I cussed a lot as folks were running away- for good reasons- out of my range.

Hodir- we have gotten close on him before (like, 30 secs off the speed timer mark) and last night we tried it once again. I was slated to dps for the fight, but asking two paladins to duo heal it was a little much so we asked one of them to switch to his hunter and I moved back to healing.

Nothing new from my end, rejuv, lifeblooms on everyone. After five or so tries, things weren't looking any better and it was getting late. We called for a Last Try, no holds barred and kill him regardless of the timer.

Then... BAM... without even paying attention to it, we downed him! The cache had a beautifulIcecore Staff, and I was holding my breath while the SP and the Elem Shaman sat on the roll window deciding on taking it or not. Silly dps... sexy staves are for druids :)


(Ed: skittles photo from Flickr by Special

You'd think vacation means I'd get stuff done

I work just a few hours a week, and school is out, so much of my time is spent online now.

I should be doing my dailies. I mean, there are Champion Seals to get, two more baby crocs to find, and more JC tokens to stock up on.

What am I doing instead?

Making Circles.


DM


Croc Circle, get it?

I am working on my rep. I just need a few more before I get the Exalted title so I have been working on Steamwheedle and ZG. Only, I get twitchy and can only do them for short periods before I move on to something else.

Don't inspect me
My brother found me in the bank the other day. He was baffled that I wasn't wearing two pieces of t8 gear.

Instead of ranting and raving, I just instead mentioned that our rng has been favoring the Paladin, Priest, Warlock crowd and my hat is about the same as the t8 so no need to get it. I am not a huge fan of pugs so I haven't been doing VoA (not to mention we make a guild run each week on 25 man).

I probably have no real excuse for not wearing it, but I have reach some Zen-like acceptance that I may or may not get all the pieces. Besides, Spark of Hope is all I am really after lately, especially since another healer has it /shake fist.

So, back to ZG I go and maybe I can snag some more idols and coins.

Blue speaks, I drop my jaw.

There are so many things in the PTR patch notes that all I will do is link the MMO champ site, instead of copying the whole thing here.

There is a lot of things going on that don't make sense to me, some things that look great and the rest, well, are the rest. Of course, all is subject to change and so these changes warrant further watching in the weeks to come.

Of note:

Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased to 150%.
Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.
Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.
Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright
Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.
Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.
Talents

* Balance
o Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.
o Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30 second. cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.
o Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.
* Restoration
o Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.
o Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by an additional 35/70%.

I'm scared of the idea that innervate needs to be casted more often, considering they are changing the mana regen on Replenishment. This says to me they are planing some real mana sucking encounters in the months to come.

With the changes to Empowered Touch, a possible Nourish/MT healing spec could look like this which drops GoEM in favor of Nature's Grace and Empowered Touch. Very interesting. I'm sure some resto's out there will be excited but since I've been rocking it on raid heals, I will not be moving my precious points yet. In addition, it seems rather odd to implement this when the T8 focuses on Rejuv based ablities, but would be nice for T7 and who knows what T9 has.

Lastly, I suppose Blizz didn't like the 20k crits on lifebloom. Shame. It's not like it procd Living Seed or anything and usually was overheal. /shake fist.

Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%

Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

Kinda ok. The rest of the changes make me feel like Shamans are still under appreciated by blizz. Interesting way to deal with the Shaman's mana regen issues, but perhaps changing the mechanic of Elemental Focus to proc off Damaging and Healing spells. Cuz, you know, it reduces mana cost of both. Sadly, though, the trees are bloated a bit anyway and finding a way for a resto to fit it in seems damn near impossible. However, since Druids and Priests are able to Clearcast, I don't see why shaman can't either. At least the silly little orbs of water don't pop anymore.

Yet another overhaul for DK's with a talent refund to boot. I'd QQ about having to respec my alt every time I play her, but I don't think my DK friends would find it funny.

The ravasaur trainer Mor'vek has returned to Un'Goro and will offer to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a mount... if they can survive the creature's deadly poison.

This seems too good to be true. The poor guy has been sitting in the jungle for several years, watching the allies ride by on their Saber Mounts wishing his boss would give the go ahead to offer the Horde their own special time sink. Of course, I am willing to help the guy out but I fear with all the other things getting pushed to live by Blizz that I won't have time to spend for this. Sad, really.

Chef's Hat is now superior quality and allows the chef to cook faster

Faster? Really? Was it that slow to begin with? Sure, I'm cool with it being a blue hat now and I am happy blizz is realizing it needed to have a special ability to go with it, but I would have liked to have seen maybe a chance to proc extra food or something. We spend all that time on the daily, the least they could do is reward us with having to use less mats on our final products. Blizz obviously needs to watch the Food Network more often.

Toughness (Rank 6) provides more stamina

I snicker at this. I already have more Hit points than some of our melee dps, and while the Enhance shaman is looking forward to having more health, I can't wait to for his reaction when he sees that I am still more beefy than he is.

# The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity

* Vehicles (drakes) used in these instances now scale with item level.

Maybe I will finally finish the Achievements that go with these.

Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.

Why do I get the feeling they are going to add the 100 pet achievement? I have over 80 at this point, and I don't even have the special TCG, Blizzcon, or Collector's Edition pets.

# Emblem System Changes

* Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
* Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
* The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
* The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
* New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

So much of this hurts my head and confuses me. I don't understand why they continue to have us purchase items with these emblems, then reduce the ways to get the emblems, make the achievements Feats of Strength, but add a new achievement that rewards you for Collecting combos of said emblems.

OK, back to work before my head assplodes.

Changes, Tweaks and Fixes

Which is which? I guess it all depends on your perspective.

The changes to innervate are interesting and so far, I think they aren't horrible.

Innervate: now Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 450% of the casting Druid's base mana pool over 20 sec secs

Druid base mana pool... 3496 which should be approx 786 mana per 1 second to the target.

Not bad, but not great either until you consider that it is a flat rate now and not a Spirit based rate. This is great news for the Pallys and Mages. However, even with the glyph, I am not at a stage where I can toss it around to whichever raider is begging for it at the moment.

Honestly, the shaman totem seems to out perform our ability and makes me think that for now it will be a self casting way of getting mana returns, like a priest's shadowfiend.



Tons of changes to Ulduar which have been a godsend. I am all for making things a challenge, but when I am busting my ass on the first couple boss on 10 man, something is not right.

Post changes, we have made it further in on the 10 mans and I look foward to tackling things in a real 25 man raid. I now worry that with the t8 within sight that I will be so used to my 4p t7 bonus, I wont want to give it up. Oh well, will see it goes once I actually start getting the upgrades.

Oh, and one last thing... Finally got my Fawn!! She is the cutest little thing and makes me smile. Up to 77 pets now and dread the day they add a 100 pet achievement.

Another Weekend of Achievments

Despite being ill this weekend, I managed to get some achievements done.

First, after many many hours of fishing, I finally got my sea turtle. He's so cute! While I was fishing him up, I got a dark herring which counted towards the Salty title. Next, worked on some AT stuff to get not only Exalted Champ of Thunderbluff, but Silvermoon as well which finished out Ambassador of the Horde. In between all that, Noblegarden started on Sunday and I spent an ungodly amount of time hunting the same two eggs it seemed to get the title "Noble".


Like I said, I'm sick and it's my birthday today, so happy hunting everyone :) Will see you later this week.