BizzCon!

It's 9:30 am here in sunny California. Sometime in the next hour, we're headed over to the convention center with the goal of finding good seats for the BlizzCon opening ceremony! What wonders will be revealed to us? My guesses are the next WoW expansion (Cataclysm) and a new class for Diablo III. I don't think there will be any new news on StarCraft II, except for maybe when they expect the beta to get underway.

Registration for BlizzCon was very smooth. Only took 45 minutes for us to get through the line. I just registered my number from my loot card for Grunty and was pleasantly surprised to see that the pet will be applied to *both* my WoW accounts. Very cool.

Okay, time for breakfast, then BlizzCon! Woo!

Tidying up.

I've added the script from Wowhead to make all links to achievements, gear, etc. show their relative tooltips on my blog! Now you won't have to go off-site to view things. Laziness FTW!

A revamp of the blog is coming soon. I plan on changing my profile picture in September, when I complete What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been. I plan on changing the layout as well, but not until I've returned from my upcoming BlizzCon adventures. :)

Here's hoping I have a new expansion to talk about upon my return!

Lazy.

Haven't redone my avatar yet. I did actually redo it when I got my freaking Netherdrake FOR REALZ but, you know, Dusk was still level 70. Seeing that the cap is 80 now, what would be the point? :B

So. Ulduar: freaking awesome.

We the Darkguards have cleared through Auriaya so far. We've been working on trying to take Freya down, but she is a very tricky boss and we are having a hard time with the footwork (as well as when to dps what, etc). But, I am confident we'll get her down tonight. We are probably going to try the other keepers as well (Hodir and Thorim, probably not Mimiron though).

It's been *so nice* to have a dungeon be a significant challenge. I am having a blast seeing this gorgeous place. Also loving the in-game maps. It's a fantastic idea that should have been implemented years ago. XD

I raided as feral last night, and got to off-tank for the first time in forever. I happened to win a pair of gloves that are basically best-in-slot for feral. I felt a *little* bad for rolling against the rogues, but then again, I always have, even when feral was my primary. Oh well. I was proud of my dps on Auriaya--around 3k for the fight! I'm not even specced cat, I'm specced bear. So that was a nice surprise. I would say those new gloves helped that a lot.

Ulduar gear thus far:
- Unwavering Stare
- Belt of the Sleeper
- Boots of Hasty Revival
- Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed (used my first T8 level suicide for these!)
- Gloves of the Stonereaper

With Maldiriel in 10-man:
- Might of the Leviathan

I am tickled that the upgrades I have been getting to my resto set are all *actually* leather. It's nice that Blizzard is getting a little better about their itemization in that regard. I always feel terrible when I end up needing a cloth piece that some poor priest or mage or warlock also needs.

The last thing I want to share, because now my excitement about going to this year's BlizzCon knows no bounds...

SO. CUTE. AUGH. /death

Whoops.

Yeah... so. Hello! I kind of spaced I had a blog. Awesome.

The (on time) release of WotLK has come and gone. Dusk hit level 80 pretty quickly (I think I was the third in our guild). I had been leveling my hunter after her, but she stalled at 77. Quite to my surprise, I blasted my paladin to 80 and have been doing 10 mans with him. So. Much. Fun.

I found myself rather disenchanted with the changes being made to feral tanking (and with 25 mans we seem to have an abundance of tanks), so, with that in mind, I changed Dusk's primary spec to restoration.

Yeah, yeah, I know. She's dual spec-ed though, so her second spec is still tank when/if it's needed. Disenchanted, but not abandoned! It's great for soloing.

That being said, I am having a blast healing. I don't know how good I am at it--I have a hard time parsing my crap from WWS logs, since last time I checked it has problems properly attributing Lifebloom stacks/blooms to the right healer--but I guess I'm not horrible. I'm still re-learning the instincts for healing. Grid is freaking invaluable, as the way I have my raid bars set up is pretty terrible for healing (but great for everything else). I need to remember to use Swiftmend more, especially since I have the glyph for it. I also need to recreate my "oh shit" macro for Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch + Swiftmend.

I absolutely adore the changes to Tree for WotLK. I had been saying for a long time that they need to buff tree form, give it some kind of armor buff (because it is a FREAKING TREE) or something. Well, ask and ye shall recieve. I also love being able to cast Thorns in tree form, and Abolish Poison, and Remove Curse. And obviously, Healing Touch. Oh man. And Wild Growth is a pretty fun spell, even with the six second cooldown (which, honestly, is not a big deal). Those changes make healing fun for me, again. So, yes, having a jolly good time.

When 3.1 hit, I purchased dual spec for the paladin as well. I figured I could spec him for retribution as primary (because I am all about whacking the shit out of things with a giant weapon) and secondary, healing.

Oh, my god. I am terrible at paladin healing. It literally frightens me.

To be honest, I think part of my problem may have been some of the gear Mal has, but I believe the majority of my problem is that it's such a turn-around from druid healing. There is an incredible lack of mobility--I never really realized how difficult it is to try to move and heal until I tried it--and I have no HoTs to toss up while I'm running to change positions. I now have much greater respect for those paladins that choose to be holy.

Alright, I think that's enough ranty pants from me. More later, including an update of my avatar (I hope).

Note: Actually that epic.

3 T6, woo (chestpiece, shoulders, gloves)!

Thanks to the ridiculousness that is 3.0.2, we full cleared BT. I even tanked Illidan myself. WOOT.

My goal is for 4 T6, but with only a week left before Wrath, we'll see if it happens.

I spoke a little too soon....

Yummy dps ring. Thanks, Kael! :D

In regard to two posts ago.

(This one)

Lady Vashj -

Thanks for rolling over and dying. So glad to have my main *and* my alt have your vial. And fishsticks.

I'd like your belt, by the way. Mind dropping it?

Lots of love,
Me

Count Chocula Anetheron -

Thanks for dropping your staff. I love it muchly. It matches my outfit.

Keep dying,
Me

Al'ar -

I like my side of fried chicken to go with my Kael'thas dinner. Too bad we haven't killed him yet.

Extra Crispy Style,
Me

Void Reaver -

I'm sorry I haven't called. Things have been busy. Tai really wants to see you but I've been making her play with Kael. I'll see if I can't convince the raiders to pop in and say hi to you.

XOXO,
Me


And now for some new letters...

Kael'thas (or, The Thas) -

You are a tough motherfucker! We're so close to killing you though. We just need to get our shit together through Phase 3. It is the weak spot. Alternatively, you could just surrender your damn vial. Need the title please kthx.

Frustrated,
Me

Archimonde -

When The Thas goes down... consider yourself On Notice.

Eagerly awaiting the moment,
Me

Officially, our guilds are 6/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, 4/5 Hyjal, 3/9 BT. I'm happy to say that I feel like Dusk's gear has gotten flippin' ridiculous. I can't wait to get more T6 for her. :3

On Friday, I should be getting my beta invite for WotLK. I am incredibly excited. Go go Gnomish Death Knight! XD

I am planning on playing Alliance during the beta so that I can see the Alliance-side quests in Outland and in Northrend. My only high-level Alliance character is 61 and I don't have the patience to play her.)

Once I gain access, I plan on using this blog for documentation of my time playing with the DK class, and what I learn about the new druid and hunter talents. Probably paladin as well--he's 66 now, shouldn't be too hard to get him to at least 67, hopefully 68, before I copy him over.

Anayway, look forward to it!

For my reference:

WotLK Leatherworking:

* Jormungar Leg Armor- Permanently attach jormungar armor onto pants to increase Stamina by 45 and Agility by 15. Can only attach to armor in your possession, and attaching causes the item to become soulbound.
* Nerubian Leg Armor - Permanently attach nerubian armor onto pants to increase attack power by 60 and critical strike rating by 15. Can only attach to armor in your possession, and attaching causes the item to become soulbound.
* Jormungar Leg Chitin - Permanently attach clefthide armor onto pants to increase Stamina by 50 and Agility by 18. Can only attach to armor in your possession, and attaching causes the item to become soulbound.
* Nerubian Leg Chitin - Permanently attach nerubian chitin onto pants to increase attack power by 70 and critical strike rating by 18. Can only attach to armor in your possession, and attaching causes the item to become soulbound.
* Borean Armor Kit - Permanently increase the Stamina of an item worn on the head, chest, shoulders, legs, hands or feet by 12. Can only be used on armor in your possession, and attaching the armor kit causes the item to become soulbound.
* Heavy Borean Armor Kit - Permanently increase the Stamina of an item worn on the head, chest, shoulders, legs, hands or feet by 15. Can only be used on armor in your possession, and attaching the armor kit causes the item to become soulbound.
* Dragonscale Leg Armor - Permanently attach dragonscale armor onto pants to increase Stamina by 72 and Agility by 35. Can only attach to armor in your possession, and attaching causes the item to become soulbound.
* Protoscale Leg Armor - Permanently attach protoscale armor onto pants to increase attack power by 100 and critical strike rating by 36. Can only attach to armor in your possession, and attaching causes the item to become soulbound.
* Drums of Great Battle - Increases movement speed by 15% and haste rating by 95 on nearby party members. Lasts 30 sec. Drums can be used while shapeshifted.
* Drums of Major Restoration - Restores 144*5 health and mana to nearby party members over 15 sec. Drums can be used while shapeshifted.
* Drums of Dark War - Increases attack power by 75 and spell damage by 44 on nearby party members. Lasts 30 sec. Drums can be used while shapeshifted.
* Drums of Precision - Increases hit rating by 95 on nearby party members. Lasts 30 sec. Drums can be used while shapeshifted.

It will no longer be possible to chain the effects of drums from multiple people. (Tinnitus - 2m debuff)

Welfare Attunement.

So, 2.4. 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC still, but 3/5 Hyjal. And we one shot Mags (who is now immortalized as Bagtheridon). :)

I have mixed feelings on the attunement drop. Overall though, I'm glad to go to Mount Hyjal (and Black Temple, if only to get our asses handed to us). Not only do I get to induldge my inner lore whore, but I get to do new content, and that is always awesome.

Speaking of new content, the dailies for the Shattered Sun Offensive win x 1000. I finally got my guildie paid back for the gold loan for my epic flying skill and have money to spare. I am so happy.

With the defeat of Magtheridon, I scored the T4 chestpiece, and thusly, a complete set of T4. This makes me very happy. Also, the title! Dusk is now a Champion of the Naaru. :D

Not much else to add for right now, so here are a few notes to various bosses:

Lady Vashj-

Stop being such a bitch to kill. We want fishsticks. And your vial.

Also, re: Naj'entus- maybe you should send him a fruit basket or something. He's doing a lot of killing in your name. You should be more thankful. Maybe then he'd stop being such a bastard to kill.

No love,
Me

Anetheron-

Drop your goddamn staff. No, seriously. Do it twice, even, so I can get it on the second Suicide.

Terribly vexed,
Me

Al'ar-

Why the fuck did they buff you? Why. The. Fuck. You are already hard enough to kill as it is. Also, your adds are stupid. And so are you. Nah-ner-nah-ner-boo-boo.

Made of epic fail,
Me

Loot--er, Void Reaver-

I'm sort of wondering why they buffed you, too. Fighting you is definitely more challenging now (for everyone ranged). I do feel the need to say, however...

IT DOESN'T MAKE A BIT OF DIFFERENCE, GUYS. THE BALLS ARE INERT.

So glad she's melee,
Me

Shadow Council is made of fail.

Well, those poor bastards that did Vashj on Sunday got booted after try number two--SC went down like a sack of shit. The server itself came back up after a few minutes, but no one could access their character lists. WEAK SAUCE, BLIZZ.

Anyway, I ended up not getting invited--our raid leader stacked the group heavily in ranged for the first few gos. Maybe I'll get to go tonight, but we'll see.

Pwnt.

So... we one-shot Al'ar on Wednesday.

5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK. First attempt at Vashj on Sunday.

Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaaaaaah.

A day of win and lose.

Sunday was an interesting evening of raiding. First, we hit Gruul's Lair (I took Tai; still no hunter gear for her... it's a bitch to be an alt). After Gruul's, I logged Dusk for TK. We zoomed in and tore apart the trash mobs and then somehow managed to steamroll High Astromancer Solarian in one go. That was an amazing first kill (no one killed the raid, woo!).

After Solarian was looted, we went back out to the main hall and started attempts on Al'ar. Now, I hadn't done the fight before, so it took me a couple deaths before I figured out what the hell I was doing. I felt like a twat, but there's only so much I can do. Anyway, I did eventually get my roll as a tank down (the hardest part was watching for Al'ar to go to the next platform or to go up to Flame Quill people). We got him pretty close to death--that is, *after* he dies the first time. But I had to go before we were able to get him down all the way.

Well, I guess they found replacements enough because they kept on trying him and actually managed to kill him... except, somehow he bugged and reset to 100%. The going theory is he meteor-ed out of the room toward the add tank and bugged out. Either way, it is the suck, because they worked so hard to kick his ass. :/

Anyway, I would still call it 3/4 in TK. We'll pwn him again today or tomorrow.

Fabulous.

Oh hell.

Okay, first of February. Hello, blog.

The guild conglomeration has made a lot of progess in the past two months. We are 5/6 in SSC, which is amazing to even be able to say. We did 5/6 all on Tuesday night, actually. 4.5 hours.

Here's a few newsworthy things in the world of WoW:

First, this makes me happy. Even if it's just a minor victory, it is some sort of victory against gold farmers. Rargh.

Second, Druids are getting a buff to Lacerate in 2.4. "The Feral bears will be seeing an improvement with Lacerate dealing additional damage based on your attack power. (from the class forums)" This is really awesome because a) druids get retarded awesome attack power from their weapons and b) Lacerate is a primary tool in threat-building. (My rotation: Mangle, Lacerate until the 6 sec cooldown on Mangle is up, repeat... it gets the job done.)

The other changes being made for 2.4, like warlocks *finally* being able to summon people into instances, sound like they are further streamlining the game experience. I am glad of it. In that particular instance, the last thing I like to do is wait around for someone to get to the goddamn instance so *then* we can summon them.

/end news tidbits

I feel like a dickhead because I have yet to mention my second 70 in this blog. Taidiriel, or Tai, is a blood elf hunter. I am having a blast playing her. I've been putting her through some Kara runs and so she is getting some epixx (see: Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix!). I've gone Gruul's a few times with her as well, in the hope that I will get the T4 pieces, since the place is pretty much on farm status now. No such luck yet, but we'll see what happens.

Expect to see some screenshots later on, as well as some pictures of the awesome Figure Print I got of Dusk. And it occurs to me I haven't mentioned my acquisition of the WoW Laptop from Dell. Well, there you go. I can has glorious laptop, with which a "golden ticket" for Figure Prints came. Awesome sauce.

Back to work.

I'm still here!

We're winding down on raiding a little for the holidays, but I just want it to be known that we finally downed The Lurker Below. Screenshots to follow.

Also, more phat lootz have been acquired, including the Wildfury Greatstaff from SSC. It is so much love. :D

Expect more after the holidays have passed. Merry Christmas!

Hydross down.

10/28/2007.


I scored Living Root of the Wildheart from him. Also, last week we one-shotted Void Reaver and I got Fel Reaver's Piston. I'm the only character from our guild to get something from both TK: The Eye and SSC right now. I am excited. :)

Something really neat I found out for Fel Reaver's Piston--the HoT effect that occurs from a direct heal can occur from a heal via Improved Leader of the Pack. I've found it's really useful for soloing and for raiding (depending on the situation) to top off my health.

As far as healing goes, however, it's not so great for resto--direct heals do not include HoTs (though the initial cast of Regrowth *does* count). But the 16 mana per 5 seconds is pretty nice.

Holy crap.

Wow, it's been a while since I posted. Many things have happened in the past month in the world of WoW. I am eagerly anticipating patch 2.3.

In the world of Duskflower, things have changed a little bit. Our guilds started running Gruul's on Tuesdays before Karazhan. We can get a full clear in about 45 minutes. Then we split off to do our Kara runs. Last Tuesday, Dusk *finally* got her Tier 4 shoulders, so that makes three pieces of the T4 set. Also, on Saturday, Dusk got Terestian's Stranglestaff, which was another "it's about time" drop.

On Sundays, in place of Gruul's, we have been experimenting in Tempest Keep: The Eye and in Serpentshrine Cavern. Yesterday was our third go (I think) in TK and we actually managed to bring down Void Reaver. It was pretty amazing.



There's more to talk about, but I don't have the time at the moment. Class calls.

Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, I have to say, was fucking amazing. And, skeptical though I was about that certain Paladin, he/she really came through for us. So I'm glad he/she is learning to play. I am probably a lot harder on him/her here than I should be, but I guess I just have high expectations about people who sign up to go with us in raids. Blarg.

Anyway, Saturday. We whipped through Maiden, the chess event, and Prince like it was nothing. Dusk finally got the Tier 4 helm from Prince (she looks very sexy in it XD). After realizing we had near an hour left of our set time, we decided to say fuck it and go wail on Nightbane.

And what do you know? We managed to take him out! On try number two; though, try number one really shouldn't count as Nightbane aggroed weirdly and we wiped in ten seconds. Our group has really made a lot of progress. I'm very proud of us.

Dusk managed to score some sweet loots other than the Tier 4 helm: Garona's Signet Ring and Chestguard of the Conniver. Her DPS gear is getting a lot better now, especially with the addition of the Midnight Legguards that dropped from Quagmirrian in Heroic Slave Pens.

Dusk also hit exalted with the Violet Eye and was finally able to switch over to the tanking ring, bumping her armor in Dire Bear form up to about 27k. Happyness abounds.

Sunday was pretty awesome as well. We somehow one-shotted High King Maulgar (my pauldrons did not drop, again), though it was a bit touch-and-go the last 50% of his life. Because we were able to get through it so quickly, we had about two hours to hammer away at Gruul, even dealing with the respawns again to give it a few more goes. And finally, we succeeded in taking him down! It was pretty amazing--I think the key was that Chutz (warrior, MT) and Sounder (druid [my personal idol, lol], OT/hurtful strike tank) were able to stay alive the entire time. Broog (warrior) and I were to be backup tanks in case one of them went down, but it never worked as good as it should have. Once, it worked out, but the problem is for this fight, Dusk have to do it in her DPS gear. Dusk cannot tank in DPS gear. She goes splat. Gruul's hurtful strikes did somewhere around 10k each time he hit, and she only had 14k health with the DPS gear in bear form. So she'd get knocked down to practically nothing and then get hit again too quickly to get healed up. I think the healers would have been able to heal through it fine if there was no one else but Dusk and the other tank, haha.

Anyway, it was an amazing fight. We had five hunters in the group, which was awesome. We also had five healers, which is super awesome. I think we also got really lucky on the shatters and very few people had died by the end of the fight.

So, good stuff this weekend! Can't wait to put some screenshots up.

In other news, I've taken to hitting Heroic Slave Pens with a few people from Syk. We blow through it pretty easily. It's really nice. And great for rep. Dusk is about 5,000 rep from exalted with Cenarion Expedition (need... Earthwarden...). And also, due to Nightbane and Gruul's deaths, she is now "attuned" for Serpentshrine Cavern. That is to say, of course, that it was unnecessary, but hey, I am amused by it.