Death and Taxiderms

So Long Yogg We Barely Knew Ya

2009-06-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

So just like last Monday we had a full night of Yogg-love ahead of us last night and I honestly had a good feeling. I told the one co-worker I have that also plays Wow that we were going to down Yogg that night.

We had a decent start, the first attempt was smooth but still resulted in a wipe near the end of Phase 1. I'm not sure of the exact order but pretty soon we were into Phase 2 and getting some solid time. Then we made it through Phase 2 into Phase 3 for the first time and immediately wiped, Honors never saw what hit him, lol.

And then it happened, a solid Phase 1 with extra mobs being put down quickly and everyone getting into position. Phase 2 went smooth with good clearing of the tentacles, solid work on the brain by the melee + Blue (requiring only 2 passes into the portals). We were into Phase 3 and everyone was alive and after only a brief pause for "What the Hell do we do now?" we settled into position. My world shrank into watch my sanity, turn away from the lightning, and watch Yogg's health trickle down while trying to maximize DPS. I have no idea what the heals+melee did regarding the adds but it sure sounded like utter chaos. I feel sorry for Honors and applaud him at the same time, it seemed like every few seconds I would hear the call "Theres another one Honors !!" but I was never bothered by an add nor did I notice one running loose. I remember at one point hearing cheers for an apparently very well timed Lay on Hands by either Honors or Mag and Honors never went down.

When Yogg finally succombed the cheers on Vent were almost deafening my own amongst them, even though my part was much less stressful than others. Achievements flashed across the screen, it was a wonderful moment. I have to say we have some of the best healers and tanks in the game; Zadorr and Black were amazing with all the decursing, dispelling and healing they had to do in a very intense, chaotic fight.

I have never been part of a group that was raiding at the edge of progression, I've only ever experienced the story through videos and reading transcripts of fights. Its such a great feeling to see it for myself and experience the fights first hand. I also love that there was actually a sense of accomplishment, when we downed KT in Naxx there was very little feeling of accomplishment because it was so easy. Ulduar was very different especially since we managed to stay ahead of the nerf curve, Mimiron being the latest boss to be hit with nerfs. I have no problem with Blizz making the fights easier, but I am also glad that we did it before that happened.

We finished the night by one-shotting Iron Council hard mode, and starting us on the road to Algalon. Algalon we are coming for you.

Congratulations to all that were part of last night's great moment. Ellevis, Honors, Black, Zadorr, Mag, Tonk, Vundermann, Origami, Blue, and Myself. Also, just because you guys weren't there last night, Absouloot, Bandaidez, Ofn, and Lakini doesn't mean you didn't help make it happen.

Sorry for the touchy-feely moment but I am really proud of our raid-team. I have a lot of fun raiding with these guys and am glad that we are having such success.

The Non-Wow Post (Kinda)

2009-05-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

Things have been fairly quiet as of late due to my recent vacation and not much play time since I've been back. In fact I have only made 1 raid since returning in which Heroes managed to down Mimiron for the first time, and I'm pretty sure it was because of me. (My secret ? In Phase 4 and dpsing the head, make sure to stay in Viper aspect, pro tip.) Aside from that I've done some fishing dailies and have now got my fishing to about 285.

On my vacation the Wife and I went to Maui, and we took my mother-in-law and her good friend. My wife and I love Maui, this is our 3rd time there and we have every intention of retiring there when we have finally had enough of horrible Canadian winters. Leading up to the trip I had a major dilemma, bring the laptop or not. I will elaborate on this. I love to sit on a patio or balcony and just listen to the waves crash, I can do it for hours and it completely relaxes me (unless its constantly interrupted by mindless chatter by your mother-in-law and her friend but I digress). If I were to win the lottery tomorrow, next week I would be back in Maui (for good) listening to the waves and playing Wow from my laptop, and I wanted to know how that felt. However, last time we went there was no internet available in suite, wired or without, and that would not have been possible. We stayed in a different condo facility this time and I had thought well maybe they may have something, although nothing was mentioned in the ads or websites. In the end I decided against bringing my laptop as a 17" notebook is a pain to lug around for no good reason, and sure enough there was wireless internet available throughout the complex. Bollocks. Other than that and one other thing our trip was fantastic.

Now, in game I play a Hunter and I like to shoot things, it's what I do. Out of game, on holiday, I also like to shoot things, although a little differently, underwater photography. I am by no means a professional photog or diver, I merely love to snorkel (I would scuba if I lived there) and take pictures of fishies, turtles and whatever else I find. In this vein, Mrs. Taxiderm got me a snorkel mask with a digital camera built in to it. I was all set, we had booked a trip to Molokini, a partially submerged volcanic crater off the coast of Maui, which has some of the best snorkeling in the world, I had been there before and it was made me fall in love with snorkeling, its beautiful. The trip was scheduled for an ungodly early hour since the best water conditions are at that time, so I was running around grabbing stuff in the morning trying to get us out the door on time, and sure enough halfway to the rendevous point I realized I forgot my mask and had no time to go back and get it. Bollocks again. Two things made this worse:

Due to several things, (6 mos. pregnant wife, elderly people along with us, my lazy out-of-shape ass) this ended up being our only snorkeling trip.
On this trip we saw a Manta Ray, which was beautiful and amazing, and apparently incredibly rare for Maui. I could have had some amazing shots, but I didn't.

So to sum up, similiar to how I ran out of bullets against KT, in Maui I forgot to bring my gun to the raid. Noobsauce, utter noobsauce.

Now since this is a Wow blog and I'm sure that both of my readers are wondering why they care I'll bring this back to warcraft somewhat. At Blizzcon this year in August (which I will not be attending but will be watching via internet stream) I fully expect them to announce the next expansion, just as they did 2 years ago. At Blizzcon 2007, 7 months after the release of TBC, they announced Wrath of the Lich King. There have been many rumors about upcoming expansion plans with the the 2 most prevalent ideas being the Emerald Dream and the Great Sea. I think it is quite obvious which one I am hoping for, the idea of underwater gameplay would be something I would enjoy a lot. I will sign off with my idea for the perfect expansion and character I would probably not be able to resist playing.

Lets assume that the Great Sea expansion is announced which would include water based gameplay, underwater areas, and sea-faring areas. You would probably see the Nagas and Azshara as primary enemies as well as the Tomb of Sargeras. You would see new places such as Gilneas, Nazjatar, Undermine (goblin homeland), Kul Tiras, and probably a bunch of pirate stuff. Since we may get new races, Lich King not having any, I suggest that the Worgen would be a logical choice (since Gilneas is supposedly overrun with them), it would make for a logical starting zone and Capital city, I have no idea whether they would be Horde or Alliance though. Now, since worgen are essentially werewolves, the idea of shapechanging is possible. If they made it possible to roll a Worgen Druid I would drop everything and do that, guaranteed. Since they are working on new skins for Druids they could have wolf form instead of cat form, or something like that. I also suggest that they may introduce underwater gameplay and combat in a more complete way, say using scuba gear or something. Druids could be given a whole new set of forms to go along with this, cat form = shark form, bear form = killer whale form, travel form = fish form. Hunters could have cool new pet types such as sharks, eels, squid/octopi.

Wow, I had only meant to quickly talk about my vacation but I kinda got carried away. Now I have to think of a name for my Worgen Druid and reserve it as well as a name for my Octopus pet.

Time to Put the Dual in Dual-Spec

2009-04-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Time to decide on my second spec, my first of course being MM, although the specific spec will be changing a little. Actually I will discuss that first. I am currently specced 7/57/7, which is cool but our DK tank just switched to Blood tanking and I am wasting a point in true-shot aura. I might just move that point into Silencing Shot, which was taken off the GCD in 3.1, which can be macroed into every shot for free DPS, this will destroy my mana though. Hmmm, may require more thought.

Instead of respeccing tonight, I may just fill out my second spec with a BM spec. Our survival hunter will be coming to Ulduar so I won't have to bring Replenishment, (one of my thoughts for a second spec). I could give BM raiding a try and let loose the Spirit Beast (still need a name for it). Of course I will than have to acquire a new set of glyphs, macroes, blah blah blah. I'm guessing it will depend entirely upon what time I log on, if I get on early enough I will go BM, if not MM.

I am also shopping for a new UI. This is a frequent occurrence as I get bored or frustrated with mine and like to switch it on at least a monthly basis. I've had this one for a couple of months and while I was never totally satisfied I have been content. Now I'm bored with it and I find that I don't use/look at some of the screen items taking up valuable real estate. Perhaps I will do a post exclusively about addons later today or tomorrow, work is slow so I have time to research.

Hmm, things to do:

Figure out a good BM spec
Check my gear for possible improvements with a BM spec (remove haste for better dps)
Come up with a name for Spirit Beast, and Wolf for that matter
Research UI's and addons, decide what to change
Change MM spec
Think about Maui, ahhh 3 more days
Try not to think about no WOW for 12 days while in Maui, I think copious amounts of pineapple and sunshine will help with the shakes

Post 3.1 Post

2009-04-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

Well, 3.1 has dropped and for the most part Altar of Storms was pretty stable, I was pleasantly surprised. I specced MM as planned and pulled my Wolf out of the stable. Our raid group was slow in getting underway as most people were fiddling with the dual-spec system and getting used to the new stuff, I did not go the dual-spec route as I am very poor, although I will probably get it this weekend.

In reasonably short order we were standing inside the Ulduar instance taking in the scenery. The beginning of the instance is all vehicles and destroying towers and good, good fun. I was piloting a Demolisher with Ellevis riding shot-gun, I suspect much to his chagrin as I have little sense of direction. In my defense however when there are four possible directions to go, "Go that way!!" is not very helpful. :) After clearing all the trash and getting used to our vehicles, we engaged the boss, Flame Leviathon. Well, technically we engaged a bunch of large brutes in front a door, and after we beat them down the boss crashed through said door and engaged us. After a few tries and figuring out stuff, we managed to down our first boss in Ulduar !!

After that we moved on and wiped several times to the trash in front of Ignis, and wiped 3 times to Razorscale. It was awesome to not actually breeze through content, and to have to think and play well to succeed (hope I can remember how.)

After the raid broke up, I went and checked out the Argent Tournament. There doesn't seem to be too much to it, but it is designed to get more in depth as you go on, needing three days of dailies to advance to the next phase. I didn't try to joust another person which I suspect will be more interesting.

I will give more impressions as I am able to play more, but I am very optimistic about the raiding.

Obligatory 3.1 Post

2009-04-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

Things have been a little quiet around Azeroth in the Taxiderm stables of late, with 3.1 going live probably tomorrow or a week from tomorrow, and no real chance at Glory of the Raider; I have been doing more preparing for my trip to Maui on the 23rd and my trip to fatherhood in July.

That being said, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what 3.1 has to offer and the direction it will take my hunter. Specifically, I mean professions, specs, pets & alts. And for those that just cringed with the mention of alts I have no intention of changing mains again, despite seeing Rhubarb finally venturing into the Howling Fjord.

I will start with the bombshell that Blizzard dropped on me last week, finally making Engineering a viable PVE profession. For those that don't know, the Hand Rockets have been taken off the Global Cooldown (GCD). This means that they can be used without having to replace a spell or ability, they can be macroed into your existing spells to be fired whenever they are off cooldown. This is huge !!! I have been a very big fan of engineering since I began playing, every single 1 of my characters (except Taxiderm oddly) have been an engineer at one point, Rhubarb still is. That reminds me, I should add a link to my armories on the side, you know, really shout out my shame. What makes this announcement especially irritating is the fact that just a couple of weeks ago, I dropped skinning, for ... Alchemy. I had been debating going Engineering or Tailoring, you know for the mounts. Tailoring was potentially providing a small PVE DPS increase in 3.1 and of course Engineering was at that point a DPS loss for PVE. Ellevis suggested Alchemy which would provide a nice DPS increase and save me money on my consumables (we'll see if it ends up being enough to offset the cost of levelling it). I just recently hit 435 in Alch and can make all the Flasks, I am ready for Ulduar in that regard. I was tempted to switch to Engineering but in the end I realized I couldn't afford it, and left it to my pally. Tough though.

This brings me to alts. I have been levelling my pally so that I could have a source of bullets, Rhubarb being mining & engineering. I also plan to make her my non-raid Achievement whore. Between Wrath going live and the onset of the Achievement system, I did almost nothing but collect Achievements with Rhubarb, old dungeons and exploration type stuff. In hindsight I probably should have just made her my main from day one but whatever, hunter action is now where its at. I also have a thing for soloing old content, or at least trying to, Chickenpox was fun for that and I will probably be speccing her for that purpose alone.

The mention of specs brings me to the really big question, what will be my 2 specs ? And how will I afford them ? Cost aside I would like to maximize my use of the dual spec system. My plan is to spec MM as my main raid spec, I really like it and it will be competitive in 3.1. I had intended to spec BM for my second spec and I probably still will, since I have (in my opinion) the best looking pet in the game, the Spirit Beast, Loque'Nahak. If BM happens to be a better DPS spec than MM, I may make BM my main spec and just go MM for pet unfriendly fights. The problem is Survival is really fun for PVP, which I don't do a lot of, but I enjoy Wintergrasp. Hopefully my chosen specs will be fun too.

Now for pets, I plan to use my Wolf for MM or Surv and my Spirit Beast for BM. If I need to tank something for some odd reason I have a Worm for that purpose, although that would require a 3rd spec if being serious about it. *Sigh* Dual spec will definitely NOT save me any money.

I would really like 3.1 to drop tomorrow, mostly for selfish reasons, I leave for Maui on the 23rd and I would like to go into Ulduar before I go. I will try to log on in Hawaii, but I would definitely not raid, or really do anything but see what it feels like to enjoy my favorite hobby from my favorite place.

Upcoming posts will either be about 3.1 that has just dropped (fingers crossed, plz, plz, plz), or I will go into more detail about my intended specs.

So Huntarded

2009-03-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a day I would very much like to forget, and it's a day my guildmates will likely never let me forget, lol.

That fateful day, our raid group, which has since been renamed twice in my honor (more on that later), ventured into Naxx10 with only 8 people in search of 'The Dedicated Few' and 'Subtraction' achievements. Everything was going well, people were joking around and having fun as usual, despite an early wipe on Maexxna due to bad luck.

The first noob moment came on Heigan. Phase 1 was no problem, Phase 2 was no problem. The problem came during the transition back to Phase 1 from 2. Having recently specced into Aimed shot, I've been weaving it into my rotations and I took full advantage of it and explosive shot during the dance. Combine that with a Lock 'n' Load proc and you've got a fairly one-sided threat generation situation. During the switch, my finger in the act of pushing down my feign death keybind, Heigan calmly swatted me and I was one-shotted. Total Huntard !!

The second noob moment came during Four Horsemen. This time I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice that after switching to the Baron I failed to get fully out of the Thane's range and I was still accumulating his Mark's. When the time came to switch back to Thane I noticed I had 5 Mark's and decided to head for the center for the 6 or so seconds for them to come off. I was watching my debuffs so I noticed them rollover from 5 to 6, somehow going to the center I picked up another Mark and they would not fall off for 20 or so more seconds. I stayed in the center to let them fall off but of course Iwas getting no heals and I died. This left us with exactly 1 dedicated DPSer until the front two Bosses were down, that fight took a long time, lol.

Now I know you're thinking that has to be all, but no I saved the worst for last.

The third noob moment came on Kelthuzad. Having only 8 people meant the beginning was a little more hectic but not too bad, I let some skeletons through but the others picked up my slack. Once the opening trash was finished we engaged KT himself and quite early we lost Honors who was going to pick up the adds that came later in the fight, we were without a Battle Rez so this meant that Ellevis who was tanking KT would have to pick up the adds as well, which he did with no problems. This meant of course that he was taking a lot of damage so we DPSer's were giving it our all trying to burn the boss down fast. I was doing good, managing my mana well, (read that as popping into Aspect of the Viper and actually remembering to go back to Dragonhawk when my mana was back), and my rotations were good. Then it happened, my character stopped attacking and I couldn't make her start again. I checked my mana, it was fine, i checked my bar mod, it also was fine. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I wasn't attacking. Then I made the biggest mistake of the night. I pressed my push-to-talk key and opened my mouth. So dumb, lol. "What the Hell !! I can't attack !!" I said frantically. The first reply was from Ellevis, "Are you out of arrows ?", I knew it was true. I immediately started trying to make some more, (from Engineering crafted arrow makers), and I think I got 1 autoshot off before KT died. It was at that point that the mocking and the shame began, lol. Oh, and oddly enough the Nerubian Conquerer dropped and so despite my idiocy, I received the best weapon available for 10 man progression.

Our raid group almost immediately got renamed to "WTB Arrows", and later to "Shooting Blanks". Maybe I should be honored, maybe not, lol. I run with a great bunch of guys who are very good at this game, they are also a lot of fun and we make a lot of jokes at each others expense. I think I have given everyone plenty of "Arrows" to shoot at me for quite a while.

In other news I have dropped skinning and picked up Alchemy, currently at 180 skill level.

Also, Heroes Inc. went back to Naxx25 last night and completed the Construct quarter, finally managing to down Thaddius who had been our roadblock previously, at least on the runs I was able to go on. I received the achievement "Heroic: Construct Quarter" and my Tier 7.25 shoulders, yeah - loot !!

Sarth, Sarth & Gear

2009-03-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

Last night our raid group was scheduled for Sarth 3D10, but due to some RL stuff we downgraded to attempting 2D10. After several wipes and some close calls we were having no success whatsoever, my DPS was frustrating and disappointing me. I've finally got the survival rotation to the point where I'm somewhat comfortable with my DPS on stationary fights, but on mobile fights like Sarth+ I have trouble keeping my rotation trim, ah well practice will make perfect.

We eventually downgraded to Sarth1D, and knocked it out no problem, and surprisingly I got the achievements for Sarth & Sarth1D; I didn't realize that I hadn't even finished Sarth at all in 10 man.

Later in the evening I got invited to a Sarth25 run with Dominion, everything went very smoothly and soon loot was being rolled on, I lost the roll for my T7.25 gloves, the only Hunter drop but whatever. I was there for the emblems, I only needed 2 more to finally upgrade my stupid boots. As soon as I was finished I went to the Emblem vendor and picked up the Pack-Ice Striders. Low and behold, I received the 'Superior' achievement. Yeah!! Now the worst piece of gear I have is my rings I believe.

My luck with drops still sucks but I feel I am Ulduar ready, bring it on. That being said I would still like some more loot, plz.

New Face, More Waffles

2009-03-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

This is going to be short and to the point, I promise.

Quick summary:

Chickenpox retired from raiding main - Taxiderm promoted.
Taxiderm, currently Surv specced Huntard.
Post 3.1, MM spec (1) & BM spec(2), at least that is the current plan.
Current pet - 79 Raptor. 3.1 pet(s) - MM 80 Wolf, BM 80 Spirit Beast (already have both).
Gear, good but patchy. Have managed to get lots of good gear, but boots continue to elude me. Consider myself Ulduar ready with room for improvement.
Raid group - Awesome.
Achievements, very few. Hardly any heroics have been done, currently have more progress toward Glory of the Raider than Champion of the Frozen Waste, lol.
Mini-pets - few *sigh*.
Mounts - few *sigh*.
Fishing, waiting on 3.1.
Cooking, lazy.
Professions, LW(420). Skinning(450). Skinning may drop, but for what ?

Pre-Ulduar Goals:

Get some *&!#@ Boots, (I'm looking at you Noth !!)
Collect all Undeath Darkmoon cards, (Buffed in 3.1, maybe usable. If not - profit).
Keep trying to get GOTR achievements, hope to get, probably won't, oh well.
Explorer title, so far to go .... *sigh*
2 pcs. T5 gear, 1 more to go.

PVP:

Still debating, doing WG whenever I can for honor, need PVP trinket badly.
Arenas .... *shudder*
BG's ... should do more/some.
Crafted PVP gear ... probably (will raise LW skill).

Ok, caught up. It's only taken me 4 months, not bad really. *sigh* so very lazy.

Life as a DK in Wrath

2008-12-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

So long since my last post, been very busy with the expansion.

First off, the expansion is absolutely fantastic. I am having so much fun on almost all levels. There is tons to do, I have a list of stuff a mile long, most of which I probably won't get to till summer time, if then.

Where to start, I really need to blog more often, keep these things shorter.

When the expansion went live I created a nelf DK named Wafflés. Which goes to show that I am far too impulsive since 1 week later I was tired of the name and had it changed to Chickenpox. I also should have gone Dranei, far better for DPS; nelfs are now for tanking, but the chance to flip when I jump was too much for me.

Out of the gates Ellevis (Wichita) and I leaped ahead of the DK crowd thanks to the Recruit-A-Friend bonus triple XP to 60. Usually you finish the DK starting area at 58, we were 60, almost 61.

We made really good time and were into Northrend by Friday night I think, possibly Saturday, hard to remember I was very tired; 45 minute catnap over 36 hours. I know that despite trying to move quite fast thruogh Outland, we were not trying for a server first. We were 2nd & 3rd for DK levelling on the Alliance side, we knew this because the guy that was in the lead kept whispering to find out if we were gonna take a break soon, he didn't believe us when we said we were not trying for the server first. Additionally, I found it amazing how many people whispered me that I needed to get a life, even after I had only been playing my DK for a day. I think people really need to worry less about what other people are doing, none of their damn business IMO.

Anyway, the quests in Northrend were a lot of fun, they really introduced some fun mechanics amongst the kill x of y quests, made it much more enjoyable for the most part. I really enjoyed Howling Fjord, Sholozar Basin and especially Dragonblight, epic stories there. I haven't gone into Storm Peaks yet but I am looking forward to it very much since I love the Titans stuff.

I did some instances along the way, but I did them with higher level people for the most part since my levelling fell off after the weekend was over and I had to go back to work. I tried not to do too many so they would be fresher when I did heroics at 80. That being said, heroics at 80 are a lot of fun, I love the achievements they have put into each instance; makes them more challenging and gives you something to shoot for.

Now, about the DK class: I really wish I had gotten farther than 63 during the beta, it would've saved me so much money respeccing during live. I have respecced at least 10 times already possibly more. When I reached 80 I specced Blood, it was a fun spec that did good DPS and wasn't too complicated. Last night I respecced Unholy. Wow, what a difference, I expected my AOE DPS to increase which it did, tremendously. I didn't expect quite as large a difference in my single target DPS however. My personal best single target DPS was on Patchwerk in Naxx, I beat that last night doing Heroics on almost every fight, stationary or not. I was getting a little worried, not so much about viability but about dissappointment in my class and my ability as a melee DPS'er, last night washed that all away, so much fun.

Professions, where do I start. I had planned to level mining as I went through Outland, that didn't happen. I went back and through smelting was bale to level into Northrend ores pretty quickly, when I was about 76, and maxed soon thereafter. I then started levelling Engineering, which I got to about 400. I have now changed my profession plans (what a shock, waffles anyone ?) and I will be going Herbalism - Inscription. To that end, I have dropped Engineering and have levelled Herbing to ~400 now I think. I will drop mining once I have enough herbs to level Inscription and once I have enough Titansteel to have someone make me the DPS helm.

I have so many plans that I have no time for, Fishing, finish levelling Cooking (stuck at 390ish), old world rep and Achievements. In the months before the expansion I racked up so many Achievements on Rhubarb that I am itching to do it again on Chickenpox, but I have been busy doing Professions and Heroics, trying to gear for raids.

Speaking of Raids: Naxx is very cool, I wasn't even 60 before vanilla Wow moved on, so I actually never stepped foot inside Naxx before last weekend. It was a lot of fun, I like that there is very little trash between bosses, at least where we went. I posted a personal best on Patchwerk and received Heroes Inc's first epic raiding drop in WotLK, Plate DPS gloves "Gauntlets of Combined Strength", (which is ironic since I have had horrible luck in Heroics with drops.) Of course this led to me passing on my Tier 7 gloves when they dropped from Sartharion the next night, my Tiered item drought goes on (I have never had a Tiered piece of gear, not on Brambles, Rhubarb and so far on Chickenpox.) Chamber of Aspects is fun as well, interesting fight, not difficult but the potential is there when leaving the other dragons up. Congratulations to Lakini who won the Tier 7 gauntlets.

Well this has gone on way too long, I will try to post more often just so I dont have to spend hours recapping.

Chickenpox has been crit by WotLK.
Chickenpox is happy.

Final To-Do List

2008-11-04T15:23:00.000-08:00

9 Days remaining, wow only 9 days. I wish I had all 9 to get ready. In truth I only have 4 of those days without any committments (I'm sure my wife will change that). 4 days to get everything in order. Probably not gonna happen. Here's what's left to do.

1) Final decision on a DK name / race. Name choices are: Chickenpox (maybe a little too serious, most of my names are more erratic), Roobarb (Continuity with my pally, almost named my young dog this name, possibly feel too much like Ferth) or Wâffles (leaning more towards this but I'm hesitant about the non-standard character). Race will be either Nelf, Dranei or Human. I love the Dranei, can't make a wrong choice here; Human's have easily the best racials, they just jump like retards; Nelfs have good tanking racials, but I don't plan on main tanking, but they flip when they jump !!!.

2) UI. What a pickle. I did a rework on my UI in the summer and ended up hating it, I should never trust my first instincts. I've been playtesting some compilations trying to figure out what I like and dislike and now I have to put this all together. Also, I would like to find a rune addon for the DK, however since the beta is going offline tonite, I have to find one tonite that I like.

3) Professions. Still with the professions, no choice has been made. I had decided Engineering but I am leaning away from that. I am leaning toward JC and Inscription I have basically no mats ready for either. Yeah !!!! Lots of prep work to be done. I have most of the mats I need for Cooking but I need to see where I am lacking.

4) Plan for staying awake for 4 days without dying. I have booked the 13th and 14th off from work and the wife knows I will barely acknowledge her thru the weekend. Perhaps a mainline for coffee and red Bull as well as a catheter will be necessary. We'll see.

Anyway, the big thing is it is only 9 days. I am very excited. Very.

Chickenpox / Wâffles / Roobarb has been killed by Anticipation / Preparation.

So it seems I'm a Whore

2008-10-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

To put it simply, Achievements are Da - Bomb !!!

As I expected, following 3.0.2 going live, I have become an Achievement whore (and so have many members of Heroes Inc I may add). Fishing, Cooking(soon), PVP, Exploring, Quests, Instances, etc, etc, etc. I love them all. Hands down, the best addition to WoW ever.

Surprisingly, I expected Achievements to tip the scales in Rhubarb's favor but it has actually been the opposite. I am looking forward to starting from scratch on Chickenpox and getting all those beautiful little Achievements again. I have eaten all the Waffles, they are no more. (Unless I get some really cool pet/mount drops.)

Now, the expansion is just over 3 weeks away. *Cringe* I am so not prepared. I still have to pick my professions for the DK. Hey, I found some more waffles. I am currently thinking about Mining, JC'ing, Inscription, Engg, Alchemy, and in my darker moments BS'ing.

I love Engineering, it is relatively easy to level, has fun cool stuff (in theory) but it is lacking again so far in Wrath. In TBC, Engg turned into a gathering skill with cool Goggles and a Roflcopter. Engg has some interesting stuff for Wrath but nothing that can compete with other professions. That being said I am not, nor have I ever been much of a min/maxer; I play what I find fun so I will likely be taking Engineering again on my 3rd character. Maybe Goblin this time though. Hmmmm.

Mining seems like a logical addition to Engg if I go that way, but Rhubarb is a Miner and will be my 2nd character to 80, I will also possibly be dropping Engg from Rhub in favor of Herbing if I decide to take Inscription.

So many waffles. Only 3 weeks to eat them all. Gonna get a belly ache.

Chickenpox has been crit by Waffles.

Waffles

2008-10-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Some days I hate my brain.

So there I was, testing the DK, having a grand ole time and then BAM I start considering my Pally. I have tested Rhubarb in Beta, although only very briefly, and I have found the combat changes much more engaging than before. It is now more than simple auto-swing with a seal on and Crusader Striking every 6 seconds. I now have 2 instant attacks one of which is an AOE, I can cast Judgement every cooldown without running out of mana in 2 fights, and I can actually cast a heal or two that heal for more than a pittance and don't run me out of mana. In summation, the Pally, Ret specifically, has become what I had originally hoped for from the DK. This is not to say that I am dissappointed with DeathKnights, quite the opposite in fact, they are very entertaining and hold a lot of appeal. I am going to try and do a comparison in the next few paragraphs, hopefully people will comment and help me choose.

First I'll set the stage, this is how WOTLK will begin for me. I will be creating Chickenpox (female Dranei DK with a sexy tail wag) and levelling like a banshee with (insert Wichita's DK's name) to 68 at which time we will head for Northrend. This will be the choosing point, I will either continue levelling Chickenpox to 80 or I will switch to Rhubarb and level her to 80. Now for the considerations:

PVE DPS: This will be my primary consideration since that is my main goal with the expansion raiding 10 mans with Heroes. Both classes are melee DPS, both have some buffing utility, and both classes/specs have another player in Heroes (Wichita/DK, Jag/Ret pally). Blizzard has stated that all DPS specs should be roughly equal and that is good enough for me.

Tanking: Although this is not my primary objective, I always prefer to at least be prepared, to the best of my ability, to use my character to its utmost potential. This means I will have a tanking set for whichever character I choose. I flirted with Prot tanking, but I remained undergeared and found it difficult since I was always running with people that overgeared me by a large margin and would pull aggro from me (Wichita, Lakini, Origami come to mind.) DK tanking seems very cooldown based with threat generated by DPS which I would be familiar with being a DPSer I would hope. Pallies have been given some interesting new toys as well which look very interesting to me. Heroes will have a dedicated main tanks including a Pally tank so the most I would be doing would be offtanking occasionally, which is fine, but I will be prepared to pitch in and tank for some 5-mans or heroics.

Healing: Obviously the Pally wins this category, the question becomes how much does healing matter. I healed for a while with my Pally and I enjoyed the experience. I don't want to be a main healer but same as with the Tanking aspect I will not neglect a large function of my class, therefore I will put together a healing set. It would be nice to not call off a scheduled run because we were 1 healer short of going.

PVP: Those who know me know that this is not a huge concern for me. I am primarily a PVE person and that is not likely to change with Wrath. However, I would like to have the option available to me should I decide to engage in some PVP. This is a difficult area currently since Ret pallies are destroying everyone in Beta and on the PTR, but I suspect they will be corrected somewhat this week. I will than be concerned that they have been nerfed and cannot compete in PVE. The pally class seems very well designed for PVP and if they have been made viable I would probably lean to the Pally in PVP, but than again PVP is not my main goal. Also, I have not tried the DK in PVP at all, they could be more fun and effective than I realize.

Professions: The DK has no professions, Rhubarb has mining and Engineering at 375. I am having trouble choosing professions for Chickenpox, and I have come to question Engineering in Wrath. I think that Mining is going to be necessary for any of the professions I would probably choose; Engg, JC'ing or BS'ing. Therefore Rhubarb probably only has the edge in mining but it is large. Ideally, I would level Mining to 300 on Chickenpox before heading to Hellfire so I could level Mining with my character, but this would require spending time in Azeroth before heading to Outland and slowing down my levelling.

Achievements: When Wichita and I played City of heroes they came out with things called Badges. They were very similiara to Achievements but harder to get since there was no feedback on how to get them, this was later solved by the interwebz. Overnight Wich and I became badge whores, we had to find them all. I am salivating over the Achievement system in Wrath and will probably be spending the 4 weeks between 3.0.2 and Wrath collecting Badges like a mother. Chickenpox will have no reputations, no areas explored, no early quests done, no history. I will have to spend a considerable amount of time rectifying this matter, and some things will not be able to be done, such as TBC rep that can only be gained in 5-mans, unless of course they can be soloed.

I think that a lot of the reason I am waffling is due to the Achievements, which in all honesty are fluff, but fluff that I know I will enjoy collecting. I may also be finding the idea of starting over with a new character a little daunting and I am just getting cold feet, not sure.

I have 5 weeks to decide, bloody hell.

Chickenpox has been stunned by Rhubarb.

Two Birds, One Stone, and 6 Weeks

2008-09-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, 1 month since my last post, what has changed ?

We have a release date, Nov 13, this is of course news to absolutely noone that will ever read this but whatever.

I have a beta key !! Again, probably news to noone, but maybe not. I have been testing various aspects, mostly DeathKnights. I have been reluctant to start into Nothrend very far, I don't want to preview much of the new levelling content so it will be fresh for launch.

Recently there was a discussion amongst Heroes Inc about whether the guild or some members would reroll Horde before WOTLK goes live. I was a proponent of this idea because I was/am bored of the live servers and rarely if ever log on. For myself I wanted to see the quests and stories from the Horde side as from level 45 through TBC they are a complete mystery to me. The beta invite has afforded me a rare opportunity, I created a Belf DK on the Beta PVE server so I could get a feel for the new class, see the Horde TBC questlines and to some extent not get burnt out doing quests that I would be redoing come launch day. Win, win, win.

Now to actual DK data:

The DK starting area is really well done, you get introduced to the class gradually and you are not so overwhelmed by the available options starting as a level 55 character since you acquire talent points as quest rewards. The gear you start with is very good and will last you quite a while in outlands, it also looks really cool. I wont go into any details so as not to spoil the experience for anyone.

The levelling is pretty quick, you exit the starting area at 58 or just shy of it. You can definitely go straight to Hellfire since the starting gear is good enough that you wont have the difficulties that the other classes do going to Hellfire before 60. The levelling curve is currently accelerated from 60-70 by about 30-40%, I think Blizzard is still tuning this but I will try and keep tabs on it. I am currently 62 and about 20% toward 63 and I still have lots of quests to do in Hellfire and I have not ran any instances. I suspect I will leave Hellfire at 63. Of the gear I started receiving at 55, I have replaced the gloves and the chestpiece, oh and my weapon although that was more of a sidegrade. I have tried all three specs to some extent, I have not tried Dual Wielding yet due to a lack of decent 1-handed weapons.

Blood:
This is the Energizer bunny tree, no downtime. All the self healing in this tree along with good damage equals non-stop killing. This is currently how I am specced and I am enjoying it a lot. I also think of it as DK-light, not because it is less powerful but because it the least complicated of all 3 trees. Dancing rune weapon is really cool, but pretty much useless while levelling.

Frost:
Has a lot of utility and emergency buttons, unfortunately does the least damage and does not the self healing of blood, currently underpowered compared to the other 2 trees although the last patch (8982) brought it closer. This was the tree I was most looking forward to and still am from a tanking perspective (although I am not looking for a main tanking job), but it is playing a little lackluster currently. Hopefully this is just due to the damage being a little lower and when this balanced (hopefully) the tree will prove to be more fun.

Unholy:
Unholy has a lot of very cool toys, does the most damage and is the probably the fastest way to level since AOE'ing is rediculous. With access to 4 diseases at 60, a permenant ghoul, Bone Shield, and Wandering Plague being very broken with a large amount of mobs this spec chews through enemies, especially when you can AOE. There is more buttons to push, is more complicated, especially when AOE'ing so I would recommend going Blood for a few levels to get used to the basics before switching back to try this tree. I will respec to this tree the next time I log onto the Beta in order to test out the AOE before Wandering Plague is nerfed. I love having a controllable, permanent ghoul. Very handy.

I am enjoying the DK quite a bit, and I am looking forward to making Chickenpox my main. I will try and keep posting my experience in Beta up until launch day.

Chickenpox has been killed by Chickenpox.

Biding Time

2008-08-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

Man does the waiting game suck !! Without a beta key I have nothing to write about. However, in the interest of keeping my reader happy, I will attempt to ramble on about something.

First, the Deathknight. They are looking fantastic, without a beta key I can only watch videos and read postings but I am still very excited and looking forward to racing Chickenpox through to 80. I am completely torn however, I can't decide which spec to take. To make it worse I can't even eliminate one !! All three trees are looking fantastic, fun and different from each other. I dont intend to respec for a bit after I get going, probably not till Northrend at least, although with the DK teleport spell I can probably do it quite quick so as not to lose any down time. I will probably start off Blood or Unholy, Blood for zero downtime with self-healing or Unholy for great AOE, although Frost is looking like it has good AOE as well. See, very confusing.

Also, there is the matter of professions. I have gone on record saying that I will be taking Engineering and Inscription. Well, I'm not so sure anymore. Blacksmithing is looking great but very scary to level. We have a lot of people in Heroes interested in levelling Inscription and they will be at 375 before WOTLK hits due to the preview patch so I think I will pass on that. I have been thinking about taking Mining to supplement BSmithing if I take it, but I would want to be at 300 when I hit Outland to make levelling it less of a pain, but I also want ~zero downtime (I don't want to spend a day or two in Azeroth mining low ores.) What's a guy to do ?? I could level JCing but I have one at 375 already and its not like a JCer needs to go out and farm much. I guess I just need to wait and see what some of the BOP recipes provide before deciding which I should take but that leaves me less time to farm up mats. Oh, well. I should have a month or two regardless. Which brings me to my next point, how to retain my interest for 2 more months.

Fynn: I finally levelled my rogue to 70 and have been BGing like crazy to get PVP gear. I have noticed I have more fun in BG's with the rogue than I ever have before but I definitely notice the gear gap. I am far too squishy and I hit like a wet noodle most of the time, although getting the Merciless fist weapon helped a lot. My brief intro to the arena did not go well, I found I had a lot of trouble with my UI and there is far too many buttons to push as a rogue for my pseudo bind/click style to keep up with. I also sucked, but I have no love for 2v2 maybe 5v5 will feel more fun to me.

Hunter (no name yet): Although I have a 25 hunter, I hate the name she has so I will be starting a new one in hopes of reaching 60 quickly. I am going to hop on the bandwagon and tame a Devilsaur and someday in the far future a Rhino. I will probably start this next week and hopefully hit 60 before the patch 3.0.2 goes live.

Sonar (level 60 Druid): Have no plans for this character but remains an option to level if I get bored.

When patch 3.0.2 goes live everyone will be able to test out the new talents on their mains and somewhat decide on specs and stuff. I, however, will not be able to do this since my main does not exist yet. I could start a character with the same name that will ultimately become deleted but that would be only for RP purposes and thats not my style. I will have to pick a character or two and try out some of the new talents in the unlikely event that the DK does not appeal to me. I can only hope that if that is the case, I find out via a beta key and not after levelling to 80.

Chickenpox has been killed by Impatience.

Choice Made

2008-07-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

So even though ret pallies are the bullies and gankers of the WOTLK beta right now, I have decided that my main will be a deathknight. Chickenpox will live !!!

Theres been some discussion on the Heroes Inc boards about the DK in PVP which has led me to really consider how I would go about playing a DK in BG's and arenas. All 3 specs have things that look appealing for PVP, Frost and unholy in arenas, blood would be hella fun in a bg, and any of them would be a blast for world PVP. My goal was to play a character that I wouldn't mind PVPing with so I could include myself in all of Heroes' activities; but now I find myself excited about the prospect. How bizarre. So even if by some miracle ret pallies remain the gods they currently are, I will be switching my main to Chickenpox and trying to level like a freight train.

You have been pwned by Chickenpox.

Pets & Mounts Huzzah

2008-07-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Probably the best change I've seen in a long time. Pets (non-combat) and mounts are being changed into spells that you learn and a special tab will be put into your spellbook. Finally, collector's such as myself will no longer have to find space for the multitude of pets or mounts that we have collected. I usually roll with about 6-10 small pets in my bag at any time, this will be an enormous space savings. Woot.

Chickenpox has cast Mechanical Squirrel.
Mechanical Squirrel has crit.
Chickenpox has been killed by Mechanical Squirrel.

Runeswapping ...... Denied

2008-07-22T07:35:00.001-07:00

As an addendum to yesterday's post where I said I was concerned about runeswapping, Blue has came out and said that as of now the plan is to use 2 of each rune instead of customizing. While that is a little dissappointing I'm glad that it is known and now I can move on knowing my limitations. This should make balancing the DK much easier, but hopefully they will work on improving the talent trees so that they work together better since we will be forced to use skills from all 3 trees.

From observation Frost seems to suffer the most from the 2/2/2 rune configuration so I hope they work on it next, as I really liked the look of it from early Alpha leaks. Several skills got nerfed when beta opened and the lack of frost runes really hurt the spec. Of course all of this just conjecture at the moment since I have no beta key. Phooey.

*edit* I also forgot to mention that Blizzard is reducing the levelling requirements from 60-70, currently the reduction is ~30%. Hopefully this stays, it'll make levelling my DK that much easier (probably about 30% easier ;P). However, this will lessen the only significant barrier to the world being flooded with DK's. I don't expect to be unique but hopefully some variety is retained.

You have been bored by Chickenpox.

Beta has begun, so much confusion

2008-07-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

So it has been several days since beta began and I have had a chance to digest lots of tasty info. I don't understand all of it since I have no beta key (YET!!). I have basically been ignoring the mage stuff, I guess that means I am REALLY uninterested in progressing Brambles. I've been looking over the Pally and DK details as closely as I can. Unfortunately, I have concerns about both and am actually very excited about both. So without further adieu:

Pally Stuff:
I am going to focus on the Ret changes as that would be what I would spec toward. I have tried my hand (albiet briefly) at Pally tanking and while I had a small amount of success with it, it didn'y feel natural to me and so I look at the Pally as DPS/Heal hybrid. I will leave the Prot changes to Honors who has a definite gift for it.

Looking at the talents alone Ret looks very viable especially in PVE, PVP I have no real idea but I doubt they are worse off than they are now. The mana issues appear to be history, although there may be a bug or two, and the seal/judgement system has been changed in such a way that makes perfect sense to me, I love it. I'm not ecstatic that Seal of Casino is still around but now that allies have access to Seal of Blood (Martyr) and Seal of Righteousness may be more viable I have less complaints about that. Another instant cast damage ability will also make fighting with the pally less dull. Also, preliminary glances suggest that the Shockadin spec may be more viable as well a Spell-damage Ret build may be finally possible (something I wanted to do in TBC but was never able to do).

The biggest question for me about pallies is gearing. The devs have said that Ret pallies will be sharing gear with warriors and DK's, and the AP -> SP talent enforces that opinion. However, with no intelligence where is the mana pool coming from ? Now, it may be that the mana return from Judgement of the Wise is good enough to compensate for a very small mana pool, but I am still concerned. Also, currently Ret pallies are getting ridiculous damage from judging Seal of Command, as high as 17k I have heard. Now the math from talents actually backs it up so I'm guessing that changes will be made. I haven't looked as closely at the Holy talents so I will not comment on them yet.

Death Knight:
The biggest concern I have for the DK is that it appears you are no longer able to customize the runes on your weapon. For those that don't know, many DK abilities use runes as the cost, they have 3 types: Blood, Frost & Unholy. Several DK spells cost 1 or more runes and when used they take 10 seconds (untalented) to be ready for use again. Now, it was said by the devs that you would be able to customize the runes on your blade which promised great flexibility and customization for your play style. The current setup (in beta 2/2/2) is all you are allowed, 2 of each rune. I am hoping that they are only doing this for testing purposes as the 2/2/2 configuration allows the use of all the DK's abilities.

I won't go into much detail about how the trees are looking since this is a new class in beta and I know that tweaks will be coming. Currently from comments and videos, blood looks ungodly awesome and efficient, Frost is weak and cumbersome, and unholy is very, very cool. I expect Blood will be nerfed a bit, Frost will be buffed and unholy will stay about the same. As for DK tanking, I will definitely be considering this and have been thinking about spells/talents to use for threat generation and mitigation. I was and still am very excited about his class because I could immediately see how certain ability/talent combinations could be used effectively for leveling/PVE DPS/PVP and tanking. I was/am excited by the amount options available to me. I am a little less excited right now due to the lack of rune customization but as I said I am hoping that is for testing alone and it will be available, maybe at a higher level.

One thing is for sure, I will have a class (maybe 2) that I will be excited to level to 80 and contribute to the Heroes Inc raiding effort. I am drooling over the 10 man progression idea and the idea of seeing all the available content with the friends I have made, and probably new ones too (the way it is with mmo's, some leave some stay some join). So in conclusion:

BETA KEYZ PLZ!!!

*ahem* thank you, that is all.

You have been killed by Chickenpox.

Goodbye Ret/Holy/Prot Pally & Arcane/Ice Mage, Hello DK

2008-07-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

I thought for the opening post I would try to explain why I will be foregoing my established characters in favor of the great unknown. I have two decently geared 70's, a Mage (currently Frost) and a Pally (Holy or Ret with some Prot gear), I also have a 63 Rogue and a 60 Druid, either of which (or both) I could have at 70 in time for the expansion.

I'll start with the mage. I don't maind raiding with Brambles, I understand the class, I can improvise when needed and I know how to gear and DPS. My favorite spec is by far arcane, which looks to be receiving some interesting things in the expansion, although an elemental build will most likely be the spreadsheet favorite. Since I am now finished school and have become a full-time working stiff, I probably won't have quite as much time to play as I would like, so I am hoping to have 1 main that I enjoy both PVE and PVP with. The big problem with the mage is the fact that I hate PVPing with it. Even with a Frost spec I just don't enjoy it.

Now the pally. I originally joined Heroes Inc as the token Ret pally. Unfortunately I soon discovered that Ret pallies were broken, and not really feasible for Alliance. (Damn SoB). I switched my raiding main to Brambles and that went well for a while. At some point our guild had a deficit of healers and I respecced Rhubarb to Holy and healed for quite a long time. I tried out prot and build a tank set, had some success and some not-success, lol. *Hats off to Honorshammer, he made it look so easy.... it wasn't* When Ret got a little buff, I tried it out again and there was definite improvement, however to be most viable raiding ret pallies need to gear up with PVP gear. So into the BG's I went, at times it was fun and I had some success, but I found pally PVP boring with very few spells to use and a VERY small mana pool. I am still waiting on the new stuff for pallies in WOTLK which may still persuade me to keep Rhubarb as my main, but I am very doubtful.

As for Fynn, and Sonar my Rogue and Druid, I'll say this: I have no reason being a rogue, I wanted to gank people and I find I'm too lazy or timid. Rogues have to be jack*sses and I apparently don't fit the bill. As for the druid, it is very appealing as I do love the hybrid playstyle but I lost interest in levelling it and our guild is very druid heavy as it is.

When the Deathknight was announced last summer, Wichita mentioned to me that it seemed right up my alley, a melee class with spellcasting, and I was quite excited. As I delved into the alpha information I have become more excited, I have made build after build utilizing all 3 trees: blood, frost and unholy for both melee dps (2H and DW) and tanking. I am currently planning on going 2H Blood for levelling but Frost/Unholy looks fun too. I will be updating my preferences as more info comes out and *finger-crossing* I get into the beta.

The main downside to rolling a Deathknight for my main is that while my guildies will start the expansion at 70, I will be trucking from 55. I will have to work very hard to catch up or at least not fall too far behind. I have begun making some preparations to speed my levelling to at least move ahead of the herd of DK's that will be rolled when the expansion goes live.

My Deathknight will be a female Dranei named Chickenpox. I currently plan to be an engineer and the 2nd profession is undecided at the moment. I will have mats for 375 enggineering/cooking/first aid all stockpiled and ready to go. Also I plan to have ~10k in gold waiting for epic mount hotness.

The hardest part is the waiting, I anticipate the expansion will be in about 3 months which leaves plenty of time to get everything ready. In future posts I will be expounding on my plans for raiding, PVPing, professions, and how I am going to go about collecting mass amounts of non-combat pets. Wish I could transfer from Brambles *sigh*.

One last comment: I chose my name based on what I want people to see in their combat log after I killed them.

You have been killed by Chickenpox.

Pinkeye was taken.