Things heard around the guild

Still working out my tank set while we made a trial run at some of the raid bosses this week. Looks like I will have my work cut out for me trying to keep a tank and healing set optimal! In the meantime, some stuff seemed so random from people lately, I had to write it down for blog fodder.

Magmaw

Luminas: I want him for a pet
Gel: I want him for a hat

Later...

Greybow: Does he get you preggers?

RL explains the worms and how they multiply

Greybow and Lum collectively: Yep, he does. (giant penis)

HoO

Lum gets a new set of leggings for his healing set.

Lum: Yay, new legs!
Me: Lt. Dan! You got new legs!!

In hindsight, the rum n coke plus late night heroics made this much more funny.


Anti's new sig

Karuken: Herbs do not fear.
Karuken: Herbs do not run.
Karuken: They accept what is life.
Antithesis: /sings
Antithesis: "What is life? Baby don't herb me. Don't herb me. No more."

We start our first round of real raids soon, so I hope to have something more substantial to write about. Been busy with other things (like gearing and reading the forums) so forgive the fluff posts :P

Around Azeroth by pictures

Here's a wall of pictures to go with my previous walls of text!

These guys really do look like candy.



I felt sorry for these little guys. Sure, at times they have wanted to eat my face off but look at them! So sad.





From the files of "What did they feed these things?" Oh... right. Noobs







Lastly, Blizzard makes us use disguises quite a bit. From boxes to unconvincing masks, this is one of the better ones.


Psst, that's really Kir on the left!

Had a good time exploring while working on Loremaster. As we gear up for Tuesday, I wish you all Happy Hunting!

Alamo is back!

For those who don't know who Alamo is he is a legend. Seriously.

Everything you need to know about Alamo


After some wonderfully funny posts, he dissapeared for a while. This morning, I found him again, just in time for Cattokissem!

ALAMO teech a CATTOKISSEM!

They even maek a new form just for this!!

ALAMO teech abowt the CATTOKISSEM!

HEY GUSY! So ALAMO is just hiburninatin and hafin sum dreem where him is all in sum green thing with floaty bits and elf and stuffs and then him is WAKE UP and heer they got a doragn gonna eat all the world! THIS is sum FANSY STUFF!

A Thing is all carzy now, so maybe alamo gonna rite a thing before hims brekfust, for babee durids and for peeple to understand what a DUIRD DO! So now, while hims all awake and stuffs, ALAMO gonna teech U about this whole stuff!

1) See, Kanye, him dont like a Bush, and Blizzard, they is dont liek a tree! So DURID aint got no more to be a tree. Alamo like a tree, but not when make a leef all over the carpet.

2) They make a new thing, with CAT and KISS! But mostly CAT dont kiss, just jump on a thing and KILL IT ALL DEAD!

4) But Crazed MOON DURID, is ok to make a kiss right on the ECLIPS!

5) But dont only kiss a cat, because u know: CAT IS 4 FITE!

6) So DURID gonna be so storng heer, maybe everbuddy gonna be a durid thees day!

7) We got a bare. Him is not nise bare because him is gonna eat a fase! Bares mostly like the taste of fase!

6) OK now a Bare, him like sum HEVY METAL! BARE GOTTA THRASH. Just liek a thing wares short and high top sneeker and shake long hare reeeely fast! But also, ware sum plug in an ear wen you make this THRASH, becawse it make a thing bleed!

7) Also, all bare make peeple go fast when him RORE!! This is good, because a bare is deseptively fast. A Fast BARE, this is danjerus BARE! Bare don't even allow in OLIMPIC, becawse wonse upon a time, a bare run a rase in OLIMPIC. Maybe he dosen't win, but everduddy win after, becawse a BARE EAT ALL OTHER RASE MEN! Don't rase a hungry bare, is what sumbuddy shuld tell peeple.

8) MOON DURID, O yes wow man! Moon Durid hang out with 70's rock band and now make a MUSH ROOM from a SECRET PLASE! Mushrooms make a thing ECPLOAD! Espeshully a brain, if u listen to a moon durid backwards, u hear some CARZY THING!

9) Everbuddy liek a LOLCAT, make a funny say with a cute picshure! But now, picshure is not so cute, becawse a DURID now haf a TROLLCAT! Troll is make a talk all liek YAH MON. Maybe when trollcat and moondurid make a party together, is nobuddy remember not nothin next day!

10) WOLF MAN can also make a durid. WOLF MAN DURID, O man Alamo dosen't even haf to wear hims hot topic tee shirt no more! Now got all WOLF and CAT and BARE and MUCHROOM and SEEL and stuff all in same plase!

11) MAYBE I MAEK TOO MANY NUMBER!

Again, Alamo, you are my hero.

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.

What I have been doing since the patch

After tweaking Kir's spec and feeling a little more comfortable during raids, I loaded up my other characters. I kind of think of it as a trial for who I wanted to delete after cata because I need to make room for a goblin, duh!

I have been having a blast on my hunter. While I see a lot of whining from the hunter boards, I myself am enjoying the class.

Pets

The expanded stable and new feature to call several pets kicked my "Gotta catch 'em all" mentality. See, Kir has roughly 109 companion pets and so the idea of collecting pets that actually do something rocks.

I decided to keep Beast Mastery for the very reason to have more pets. And since pets bring a host of buffs to a party as well, I am having a wonderful time switching pets to suit the group make up! I don't know who Zee is, but this flowchart is very handy for a new hunter. (Thanks, Aspect of the Hare, for the link)

My favorite huntery moment so far happened last night. I pulled out the corehound for the boss and promptly used Ancient Hysteria. Forgetting we had a shaman in the group, the question arose "Who has the offbrand bloodlust?"

Me:"I am sorry if I stepped on your toes. I don't normally run with a shaman."

Comments of LOL and "Yea, right" followed. Then I linked the flaming pup's ability to shut them up. I know it probably pisses off Shaman just like giving Replenishment to other classes pissed off Shadow Priests, but as a leveling hunter I can't rely on prime buffs to be had.

As an aside, I was happy to see Arikara still arrives in a puff of smoke. I was afraid that Blizz would have removed it somehow.

Wishing I could tame flaming horses

So what have my friends been doing since the patch? Well, my brother, despite having the HHM on 5 characters, still can't find a toothpick to complete his mount achievement. Other friends hate him for having his mounts when they don't have even one.

I don't care about the mount (though it does call to that collector in me) but here is something pretty and almost equally as cool:




Making the cut

So far, the hunter will still be around after Cata. My shaman, however, will probably die. I would rather delete one of my alliance characters, but sometimes it is nice to have a spy over there to pick up vendor items to be transfered over (tee hee). There is still my blood elf mage I may ditch... we shall see.

Good luck to all of you trying to complete your Halloween achievements!

Ya Mon!

I like trolls. Of course, I only have one character that is a troll but the poor guys sitting on the beach make the best of their situation.

I knew a while ago that the trolls were going to take back Echo Isles and would need the help of the players. So, I logged in this morning to do my part.

For complete guide to the questline, may I suggest starting with this.

They see me rollin'



Felt pretty bad ass to be riding down the trail with my band of recruits. Of course, whenever there is a picture to be taken, someone is always facing the wrong way.



Just when things were looking pretty good with the new guys, now you saddle up with the head troll himself!

Spoilers!

Ok, fun aside, here is some nitty gritty on the questlines themselves. I am sure you all have done your quests but here I go anyway.

First of all, there is a similar line done on the Alliance side which involves Gnomeregan. Both phase the area, which once again proves that this mechanic is one of the best ideas Blizz has come up with 6 years. Not only that, but it had a Taking of Undercity-style battle, which is why I was teamed up with Vol'jin. I suggest not doing this in Resto spec (which I did and it took forever) or at least hooking up with a buddy of some aoe specialty.

There is a gem of lore in the questlines that attempts to explain why we will soon have troll druids ("What? We've been here the whole time!"). Much like the An Injured Colleague quest, I feel it was pretty weak. I don't know if I saw any information on what trolls shapeshift into, but a tiger would be pretty sweet. I do hope they flesh things out as we get closer to Cata instead of a minor and easily overlooked questline and some NPC dialog.

Because Echo Isles will be the future home of the trolls after Mr. Grumpy- I mean Saurfang kicks them out of Org, this quest line will be a feat of strength and therefore a limited time only thing. The rewards are neat, which include a cloak with the Darkspear insignia (and no stats) and a bauble which allows you to change into a Darkspear warrior for 30 mins (4 hour cooldown). It fits nicely next to my haunted momento :)

And remember kids... stay away from the voodoo... or come get it.

Team Edward and mass rezing.

(First off, I know I haven't been active here. Let's just say that I had to move to a new city 2 hours away from where school was and finish finals at the same time. It's over and done with now, whew! Now, for some furious blogging in effort to catch up.)

I am totally outing this idea, but I won't share who thought it up. Say your guild is doing Ruby Sanctum. The laser beam thing is called Twilight Cutter. Now let's say your guild has a rank called "Team Edward" where those who fail to laser beams get sent to. I love this idea and can't wait to see it implemented! Of course, one of our officers is not happy about this idea since as a standing in place healer, he has issues in the twilight. Great time to be a tree!

LK dead on ten man, working on LK for 25 man (baby steps!) and RS was down the first day. It's a shame that Tirion, while being a paladin and has an OP mass rez, couldn't call Jaina to port the freaking raid out of the throne room. Dropped the ball there Alliance.

Now that I have gotten some fluffy stuff of the way, time to get the serious writing done.

Kids, don't let your friends be on Team Edward.

Debuffs and uberness

GridStatusetcetc

So I finally broke down and got GridStatusDebuffs this week out of curiosity. I recall having it in Ulduar but it tracked way more things than was worth having (like Hodir effects).

However, it is wonderful in ICC. Another healer asked me if there was anything I could think of to turn off for this and to be honest I couldn't think of anything. Maybe the debuff from the Dark Nuclei on the Princes fight, but it hasn't annoyed me yet.

I would recommend it, especially if you weren't sure about it before.

What the heck do I want to get?

I have been sitting on a fair number of frost emblems recently and every time I go to the vendor, I can't figure out what to get. I use Lootrank and Rawr, but I get stymied looking at my options. I think I looked long and hard at the Purified Lunar Dust, which as I understand is getting a boost soon. I believe this will bump it above Sliver of Pure Ice in both MP5 and Spell Power, which is good news for those who don't have Solace of the Fallen or Arthor's Abacus. In light of this information, I believe I will buy this, as I am a trinket hound.

After stealing the Spindle from the rest of the raid the other night, my haste is now stupidly higher than it was last week which means I can finally start looking at new things. Perhaps, even the tier gear. Crusade aside, I am not seeing the upgrades as fast as I would like, and I am patiently holding out for the Abacus. Why? I get a little narrowly focused when I see an item that calls to me. As a raid healer, I see large potential for it, but I digress.

Going through the list, my choices are rather limited in certain areas like neck and bracers but I do see some potential in other areas. I guess it's another round of gear comparing for me.

I will tree punch you in the face!

Actually, my ranting and subsequent boozing during a raid has lessened quite a bit lately. A large part of that has to do with the fact that I am kept so busy I don't have time to watch what other people are doing. The healing assignments generally go like this:
Priest 1 heal xxx, Pally 1 heal xxx Pally 2 heal xxx... Kir run around like mad and heal everyone.

Yes, we do have another druid healer but some fights call for all three tanks to be active, which means he also gets the fun of single target healing, while I do my best to keep the raid alive. Thankfully, the other healers are rescuers like myself and sometimes toss a heal to someone nearby if there's time, but it often falls on my shoulders. I am not complaining though, I do get enjoyment out of it (Princes is my favorite fight so far). There is a sort of thrill running from one end of the room to the other while avoiding all the bad things. I find myself thinking outloud "White swirly thing, avoid. Crap, New Year's Ball will drop soon, better moonfire it on the way to the melee..." and so forth. It is a thrill for me and I am glad to get the assignment each time.

Alright then, I think I have put off homework long enough. Well, maybe one more look at Lootrank...

Rocket packs are not toys.

So, it's been another rousing week of raiding in Icecrown, doing both the 10 man and 25 man versions.

Looking back, there are a few things I would like to share.

Curses!
For goodness' sake, please stop yelling in vent you have the curse. By the time it reaches my ears, I have already taken it off you. STFU.

If you have the curse, and can remove it, try it. It just might work.

FFS Listen!

When the person giving instructions says "Ok, wait for Lum (our main tank) to go over to the other boat, then when he says to, follow." he means just that. Somehow, that was translated into something like "Hey, there's the boat, weeeeee!" followed by death, which ensued the comment akin to "I died from something horrible."

Or, after explaining the strat for the third time for the instructional impaired, the raid leader asks "Are there any questions?" we hear: "No, but I have a comment. I am on top of the boat!" /facepalm

But before all that...

"I have to stand right next to Lum or I die." Which led me to think to myself, Funny, you die next to Lum, so maybe there's a flaw with this strategy.

/rage

More Five Man Stuff

Despite having other alternatives, I have been farming HoR for the off hand with no luck. We brought a warlock who has been away from the game for some time and needed gear ups.

Me: "If you roll against me on [the heart] I will hunt you down and kill you."
Warlock: <--- Not afraid
Luminas: "I am going for coffee while the tree vents her murderous rage."

Sadly, the lock got a wand, and the Shriveled Heart didn't drop. Here's to hoping something comes out of ToC later.

Songs from Icecrown

Here are some tunes to infect your group mates with...

For Halls of Reflection, Gauntlet: I Ran by Flock of Seagulls
For the trash before Lord Marrowgar: Shout by Tears for Fears
(Works best if the raid calls "Shout!" and you respond with "Let it all out!")

And finally, courtesy of Anti and our gmotd: All my ex's live in Nexus

A non patch post

Why yes! A post not related to the patch. Of course, tomorrow or even later today will be a different story, of course, but for now I wanted to write about something different.

Last night we lacked some tankage for our 25 man heroic ToC, so instead split the raid into a 10 man normal and heroic.

The heroic did rather well, considering we expected to die in horrible ways. MVP award goes to Dee for being a shadowpriest who healed like a pro and gave me a run for my money. We got so lucky to find a player who can switch specs on a dime and still do well.

A big thank you to Kae from Dreambound for the post on Jaraxxus. During the first couple attempts, I was getting really pissed about this ability but didn't have time to look at my debuff bar to see what it actually did besides silence me. I asked the raid leader if I could look it up. He said it wasn't on wiki but I had a feeling one of my fellow bloggers would have had this covered and you didn't dissapoint!

Faction champions took some creative switching, with our main tank becoming an all around player by healing, killing totems and slowing down the rogue as it was gunning for squishies.

We had our doubts about the twins. Again, our raid leader did a fantastic job covering our strat (Ranged stacked as one color, melee stacked as another with the tanks positioning between). If only all the ranged got the memo and didn't decide to stand off in no man's land only to die.

Anub. Well, I died spectacularly to shadow strike and with a few minutes left of raid time, we decided to rest on our laurels there.

Great work guys and grats on your loots!

Now time to get one last bit of studying in before my finals. Happy downloading.

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.

Glyph of Innervate 3.2

Glyph of Innervate - Innervate now grants the caster 45% of his or her base mana pool over 10 sec in addition to the normal effects of Innervate.

Is this a boost or a nerf? I did some math this morning, but didn't get all the factors right... (note to self: no math before 8 am)

As it stands right now, it seems to give roughly over 2500 mana to the druid if they cast it on some one else. I know that seems low, but I checked the logs of my comrade in branches over three fights (two Mimiron and one Iron Council). Hardly empirical but since I don't have the glyph it's the best I could come up with.

Does this mean that the return will be like 1500 over 10 secs? If so, ewwww.

In unrelated news... OMG Peggle Warcraft edition!!

Download it. You know you want to. I wish I could upgrade my Deluxe Edition to a Warcraft Expansion :)

Flex for me baby!

So, I totally was going to make a resto post today, considering lately my posts have been anything BUT resto stuff.

Then, this afternoon, my boyfriend got a new pet on his alt:



And now, I am truly a gamer girlfriend because I got so excited for him, I made him take a photo-op :)

Grats Dhoom!

Humor in WoW

While trolling Blog Azeroth for blog stuff, I ran across the latest Shared Topic idea. My take:

Does it work to add pop culture and outside-the-game references in a video game? I think so, but it depends on how it is done.

Take Tabula Rasa for instance. This futuristic, sci-fi MMO interjected a fair bit of product placement in the form of Dell computers at all the terminals. Seriously? Our planet was wiped out by space critters and machines but Dell remained as our tech source? This ruined a little of the game for me; this small non-lore reference didn't really need to be done.

WoW is steeped in pop culture, and in many cases its fantastic. I totally got giddy when I saw the hatch reference from Lost in Shalozar Basin (crap, does this explain why we couldn't visit Northrend 'till now?) or Linken's quest line in U-Crater (that boomerang stayed in my bags for as long as I could).


DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!
Things get a little weird when you see them in boss fights, though I think what makes the Mimiron fight so much fun is his emotes:

"Gaze upon its magnificence! Bask in its glorious, um, glory! I present you... V-07-TR-0N!"

MEDIC!

Not only does that fight toss in some fun and levity, but also a Voltron reference, which my 6 year old self can't resist. Of course, I tend to stop listening to them as my grid lights up with Napalm and Plasma Blast icons. At least I know when someone has died early!

Spending a lot of time working out strats and wiping on bosses gets old, so for me, some interjection of fun into a raid helps lessen the pain a bit. Sometimes, these references are an icebreaker on a raid. More than once, we have had raiders say "I do not think it means what you think it means." or, "Kill the one in the dress!" which gets folks laughing and breaks the tension.

In fact, the game is full of what is referred to as Easter Eggs (click to see 12 pages of 'em) which the designers have added numerous references to everything from classic literature to movie characters and the list keeps growing. I like the subtle references (read: anything in Undercity) and sometimes the not so subtle ones (Chasing A-Me)


Am I in the game or not?
Unlike some other games, WoW never really went out of it's way to be immersive. The sense of wonder and awe kind of get lost when you are fighting mobs that hold a cartoonish quality.

WoW has strayed a bit from the original idea- putting yourself inside a real-time strategy game- to taking a little bit of our RL world inside our game world. It flows back and forth, as well.

The books Arthas: Rise of the Lich King and Day of the Dragon are rather popular. I poured over the compilation book which featured the story of how Kara was formed. It was kind of cool reading the back story based on the place I spent my nights online. Then again, I also enjoyed the Myst books as well. This flow between the game world and the so-called real world intensifies and enriches my game.

I will argue that while the fun and humor in the game is a nice change of pace from the Hack n Slash, some of it does go a bit overboard. He Feeds on Your Tears and I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning names are just silly. I do worry about the time and energy spent into coming up with achievement names.

Blizzard intends to keep the light-hearted humor coming, and I hope it doesn't degrade to cheese too much.

You can make s'mores on that thing

What would be a 4th of July without restos purposely setting themselves on fire? Now, which way is the fireworks display?

I hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday. I hope no one accidentally let some firecrackers whiz by their kid's heads or let your dad teach you how to set off bottle rockets in your hands. Sigh. Never mind, that was my childhood lol.