Blinded me with Science! (or number crunching)

(click to see enlarged - green rows are currently equipped)

So I'm slowly gathering more Frosties to bump up my gear. As of now, I've got the 4 piece Tier 9 (Conqueror Turaylon's Battlegear) and I have one piece of T10, the shoulders (part of the Lightsworn Battlegear)

I never got the T9 shoulders, so when I had enough frost emblems, the shoulders were the obvious choice.

(note, my first Frost purchase was the Might of the Ocean Serpent cloak. My previous one was SO bad that it, along with its gem slot, gave me a MASSIVE upgrade, more than the others)

So now, I am getting to where I will have enough to buy a second piece of T10, and I am considering what the proper order of the upgrades should be:

- Which item should I buy first?
- Is the 2 pc T10 an upgrade to the 4pc T9?

Well, if you look at the top of the page (and click the picture) you can see my handy dandy little spreadsheet comparing all the items and describing the relevant 2pc and 4pc set bonuses.

The first and biggest thing I notice is the difference between the chest pieces: I go from having Armor Penetration (ArPen) to Haste. (with a bump in numbers overall as well) I seem to recall haste is pretty good, but can't for the life of me recall how useful ArPen is.I sat around googling, until I went to the usual place (EJ HERE) and saw that haste is unequivocally better.

Now, the bigger question is if the 2 pc T10 bonus (40% chance to reset timer for Divine Storm) is a bigger benefit than the 4 pc T9 bonus (additional 5% chance to crit with Judgements)

On a gut level, the 4 pc T9 bonus would be better for single targets, since divine storm is only really good for multiple mobs. BUT, the speedier DS, along with the other stat increases makes me wonder.

And in case you're wondering, I haven't used RAWR in a while, because Character Profiler has been giving me troubles, and manually upgrading stuff in Rawr gives me a headache.

I still need to get some better trinkets and librams, but I really despise "on use" items, which most of them seem to be. Eh, maybe I should just go with the Herkumel War Token. :P

Buy Buy Baby, Good buy!

Some folks love their sparkly Pony, some love their Pandaren Monk, and still others love their Frosty the WoLK special edition pet. Lots of goodies for real dollars.

Overall, they aren't my thing, but certainly don't have anything against them. While I *do* enjoy collecting pets and mounts, they are an activity for me, and aren't worth any "real" money (ie, real money transaction, RMT) Um, let me qualify that; I don't think they're kinda neat, I just think they're worth the list price.

The question begs asking: what WOULD I be willing to pay money for?

- I *would* be willing to buy pets, but only in the $3-$5 range.

- I'd also buy a really cool mount, but only for $10 or so.

- I think $$$ for Heirloom gear is reasonable, but with similar restrictions (only purchasable by a level 80). Also, I think heirloom should get bumped a tier or two. Or make a set of tier ~7.5 or something similar. BUT, I think putting this at a premium; maybe $15-$20 per item, and only if you already have higher level gear already. (ie, you have a T10 shoulder, you can buy this BoA "heirloom" T9 shoulder, etc) I know I'm probably alone (or at least in the minority) in this, but after grinding out a shit-ton of Triumph badges for my Ret spec, and slogging through a second, Tanking set, I am sick to death of running Heroics. I would pay decent money to skip this step, athankuverymuch!

- A custom “skin” with something cool looking; better looking armor, costumes, etc. Something akin to Dartol's Rod of Transformation or the Iron Boot Flask but isn’t dispelled by mounting, etc. $5- $10 (MAYBE that high)

- Along the lines of a full custom costume/skin, possibly alternate looking items. “skins” that would change a specific slot/item type to look like something particular.

I’m with some others that don’t feel like I should pay, just to get decent service. Larisa, over at the Pink Pigtail Inn (and a lot of others) would pay more for better customer service. LINK. Me, I’d rather they just provide a reasonable support for the $$$ we pay as it is. I’m sorry, I don’t care that it’s “only a game”; it still shouldn’t take them 5-7 days to respond to a ticket. If they are backlogged with stupid questions, well, that would seem to me to indicate that the ‘as provided” information from Blizzard is so pathetic, that it invites lots of dumb questions. Or (and I’m being a bit mean here) that they have lowered the bar so much that it has now enticed the floor lickers to play.

Sorry, but “overloaded tech service” is not a valid excuse. It means they are a) being cheap (and giving profits to Activision) b) don’t charge enough or c) simply don’t care. None of these are acceptable.

And, by paying extra, that seems to me like it would encourage the same piss-poor service we get now for the “normal” folks. *BZZZZ* wrong answer.

Overall, I would like things that would make the current game look better (cool looking skins) or make the current game a bit less “grindy”, while trying to avoid breaking the game.


Anyhow, what would make you guys shell out a few bucks?

Loken in the Halls of the Moutain King. (or lightening)

Be Still my Heart

So I've gotten back into the random LFG a bit lately. I need more than 1 T10 piece, if I'm gonna have a chance at getting into successful ICC25 raids. (or even 10 mans) (My GS is now ~5040 or so)

The other night a guildie (shammy healer) and her friend (a pally tank) and I an a few Heroics.


We ran a few of them, and they all blazed by. The last one seems a bit more remarkable, simply for the speed of it. We were in Halls of Lightening, and it was the three of us, plus one generic DPS (a newbie in 3500 gear) and a mage in 5,500 gear.


At first, I was topping the meters, but less than halfway through, the mage got his thing going. I was doing a consistent 4,300-4,500, and he would finish a number of fights at near 6k. NICE!

As we went through, I noticed that Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) was saying we had completed a couple bosses in record time. I wan't paying much attention to the actual times, however.

Then came Loken. It took 24 seconds. *goggle* For the entire heroic, the mage had done ~33% of damage, I did about 30%. The tank & other DPS were at 22% and 15% or there abouts. I think the entire run was only about 9 minutes. Just crazy.

It was a fairly interesting set of heroics, for the speed & hilarity alone, if nothing else.

Oh Boy...

And then there was last night. I queued up, vowing to drop if I saw Pit of Sauron (PoS) or Halls of Reflection (HoR), and live with the timer exclusion. I'm simply not interested in struggling.

And of course, I got PoS. We hoofed it over to the right, and off the ledge and engaged the first mobs/pats. Nobody had noticed, but we only had 4 of us: Bear Tank, Tree Healer and 2 DPS (me and a Hunter). Evidently the 5th was DCed. Things weren't going very smoothly, and I was already regretting not simply dropping group the mement I zoned in.

The tank, said he was having computer issues, so he bailed. We then waited for another tank and a 3rd DPS.

The new tank (a Prot Pally) had a 4,800 GS, the Hunter had 4,700, the Treeler had 5,500 and me right at 5k. We ended up getting a pretty low GS Priest (3,800 or so. Can't recall for certain)

And we progressed, albeit a bit slowly. DPS wasn't really an issue, but the tank sure was. During the fights, the Tree kept getting munched on (he stayed abck as much as he could, but many of the fights have LoS issues). The hunter pulled aggro, and so did I (especially when I taunted of the tree munchers) Nobody died (the Tree was pretty freakin awesome) but the tank just could NOT keep aggro.

We made it past the Frozen Boulders Boss, and even dropped Ick & Krick without much issue. We went up the dreaded hill without TOO much trouble and got ready to go through the tunnel.

Ouch.

The tree Hotted up the tank as we entered, and the mobs pretty much ignored the tank and went right after the healer. I manged to taunt off a couple times and we got the whole group to the center. I lost track, and before I realized, the tree was dead, and the tank was nearly so. I Laid Hands (LoH) on the tank, buying us a bit more time, but we went down, one by one. The only survivor was the Hunter thanks to Feign Death.

I could have saved myself ~8 gold and ran to safety, but I was still trying to actually save the wipe until pretty much the last second. Ooops.

We revived, entered and gave it a second go. The results were simlar, though a bit faster wipe. (mainly because the tree used his battle rez, and LoH was still on cooldown for me)

We all come back in, and the tank, healer and one of the other DPS were arguing.

Tank - Healer, don't heal until we get to the middle!

Healer - I'm a Druid, I *HAVE* to get the HoTs on or else I'll never keep up. You *SHOULD* be able to maintain aggro over 2 lousy HoTs!

DPS - The tank should be able maintain aggro over that!

The hunter (who ahad gotten the good bow from the first boss) said "Sorry guys. I really only wanted the bow, but I can't stick around through this." and bolted. He HAD stayed after the bow dropped, AND through a second wipe, and didn't leave until the recrimination & arguing started. I didn't blame him a bit. (by the way, he was regularly beating my DPS by 100-200 points, AND in total damage, evne with significantly lower gear. The guy was good!)

So, then the tank dropped group, so it was me and the last DPS. I appologized and dropped.

By this time, Wintergrasp had started and ended (and we lost) so not only did I get a 15-20 gold repair bill, I didn't get my Frosties, and I couldn't even run WG for some honor.

I said fuck it, and just went out and did my fishing daily (terrorfish) and got some fish for my buff food, then called it a night.

I KNEW I should have just dropped group the moment PoS came up, and just ran WG then called it a night.

Meh. I really don't have any patience for that. Boo-frikkin-hoo.

Over the Hills and Far Away, to the Land of Deverry

The following is me recommending a series of fantasy books I've been reading for about 20 years. If that sort of thing interests ya, please read on. Otherwise, I'll see you in a bit with another WoW post.


Back in 1989, during my third year of college, a roommate brought in a book he owned but hadn't read: Daggerspell, by Katherine Kerr. It was a sword & Sorcery type of book, which I enjoyed, but it had a completely different take on things. This book was based in a Celtic universe, with feudal clans, the magic of Dweomer, and the reincarnation of souls through an 800 year saga of mistakes frustration and redemption. I was seriously hooked.

It, along with the 5 books that followed while I was still in school dealt with numerous intersting plots, races heroes and a villains. Maybe a *tad* more romantic that I normally like, the books had a depth to most of the characters that let them live and breath in your mind. While it may be a bit less "high literature" (which I feel Lord of the Rings is) the story, world and characters matches (maybe exceeds?) Tolkein's monumental work in a combination of depth and breadth. (in my most humble opinion) The writing style is easy to read, but the story is as complex and wonderful as a Celtic Knot




Over the following 20 years, I followed as books have been slowly published, and as of now, after a total 15 books, it seems that the saga may be over.

If you have the time, inclination and interest, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Here's the list:

Act one: Deverry
1.Daggerspell (1986)
2.Darkspell (1987) — later reissued in an "author's definitive edition"
3.The Bristling Wood (1989) — US title; issued in the UK as Dawnspell: The Bristling Wood
4.The Dragon Revenant (1990) — US title; issued in the UK as Dragonspell: The Southern Sea


Act two: The Westlands
1.A Time of Exile (1991)
2.A Time of Omens (1992)
3.Days of Blood and Fire (1993) — US title; issued in the UK as A Time of War
4.Days of Air and Darkness (1994) — US title; issued in the UK as A Time of Justice


Act three: The Dragon Mage
1.The Red Wyvern (1997)
2.The Black Raven (1998)
3.The Fire Dragon (2000)


Act four: The Silver Wyrm
1.The Gold Falcon (2006) - US title; issued in the UK as the fourth book of The Dragon Mage
2.The Spirit Stone (2007) - US title; issued in the UK as the fifth book of The Dragon Mage
3.The Shadow Isle (2008) - US title; issued in the UK as the sixth book of The Dragon Mage
4.The Silver Mage (2009) - US title; issued in the UK as the seventh book of The Dragon Mage


I hope you read, and I hope you enjoy!

Knights in White Satin, and Guilds in Their Tabards, More Drama is On Tap

We're getting more & more information about the upcoming changes to our classes in the looming Cataclysm. I see a lot of what looks to me like homogenization. Even prior to Cata, we are seeing it, at least in small areas. (I'm using paladin stuff as an example, since I know the stuff better, but I know it's happening elsewhere)



You don't want a Paladin?

• Get your Drums of the Forgotten Kings for Blesssing of Kings
• And long as you have a Warrior (Battle Shout)
• and a Shammy (Mana Spring Totem)

VIOLA! Pally buffs are now a complete non-issue.

And now with some upcoming nerfs in Cata (among the, DPS (Pallies) will lose some dispel abilities) as well as some spreading of benefits (mages now get the bloodlust/heroism ability "time warp") and you have to wonder if there is any intrinsic value in ANY of the classes.

"Bring the player, not the class" is the mantra. Which in many ways is all fine and dandy.

BUT. Let's take a look at some other upcoming changes that Cata will bring... specifically the guild "buffing". With this change, unguilded players (or players that only have a small "personal guild" or a guild of 2-3 friends) are going to be at a distinct disadvantage.

This in turn will drive players that normally would not join a large guild, into trying to join them. Now, with class specific abilities, a player has some intrinsic value that he or she can bring to a guild. With the homogenization? Not so much.

As of now, it's possible that there is a guild out there that needs your class/spec. (we need disc priests or elem shammies, etc) As the homogenisation progresses, it's less likely that will happen, as it's quite likely that one of their current members already will have the ability that is needed.

Things are not exactly peachy for the un/under-guilded now, but I see Blizzard's emphasis on guilds exacerbating the difference between the haves & have nots.

As of now, the biggest disadvantages are that you're stuck pugging most of your raids & content, and you probably don't have easy/cheap access to all the crafting skills/professions.

With the new changes, there will be a number of advantages (such as guild crafting recipes, etc) that will only serve to compound the gap. So either the un/under-guilded try to find and fit into guilds (with lots of possible drama) or they simply deal with yet another disadvantage.

Between this and some of the fubar changes that Blizzard are making to the classes (Tree is no on CD?!?!?) I'm getting a bit (*hint* understatement) disheartened about Cataclysm.

I'm not sure I even want to hear/read/see what Blizzard has in mind for Paladins, and Ret pals in particular. "Nerf them to the ground" still rings & stings my ears.

All We Are Saying... Is Give Peace a Chance

It's been nearly a year since I pulled myself from the wreckage of the Exodar, yet another casualty of the nobility and their quest for power. Prior to that, it was the loss of Dreanor, and before that, the loss of Argus.

All because of the insatiable lust for power and domination that nearly all nobility seem to have.

Obviously, there are a few that can see above the drug-lust for power, else we would have not made any headway in our fight against Arthas. Thrall, Proudmoore and Velen come to mind, but even they have their deep flaws.

Thrall with his inability to set aside the warmongers that are his friends. In our dealings with Orc on Dreanor, we Draenei could see the nobility, the fierce spirit, and the loyalty within them. It's too bad that it can be swayed so easily, and Thrall seems unable to completely set aside his more virulent associates, and move forward for the greater good.

Jaina simply has a blind spot the size of Icecrown Citadel. Her soul is good, but her judgement could lead us to ruin.

As for Prophet Velen? He's lead us during our flight, and has maintained his vision of truth and the Naaru. But he has no concept of the world we now live in. He seemingly cowers in the bowels of Exodar's wreckage. He needs to stand firm and help lead. Perhaps the loss of the Exodar, with the treachery involved, has finally started to break his spirit.

I am afraid.

I have seen the hearts of our allies and our enemies as well, and the future bodes ill.

After a long hunt around Northrend, I finally picked up Arthas' trail and joined forces with Highlord Fordragon. THIS was the fight I had been meant for HERE was my chance.

I circled the battlefield on Ebbla, my netherdrake, waiting for my chance to judge, to vent my wrath. Time for Retribution.

As I dove into the starting fray, I say Putress and her minions readying the catapults. I pulled up and bellowed to the forces of light, both Horde and Alliance.

"FLEE! The forsaken await!"

In the clatter of steel on steel, my voice was lost, and down rained the plague. Man, Orc and Sourge all fell to that foul fume. Even Arthas dropped to his knees.

I shrieked in impotent rage and I circled, waiting, hoping for a chance to sate my anger and bloodlust. For even now, as a potent blade in the service of Naaru, I am not equal to the task of taking on the entire mass of the forsaken.

Not alone, at least.

As the last life ebbed from Highlord Fordagon I heard a piercing shriek from the south. Ebbla reared and starting clawing the air to evade this new threat. My eyes followed the sound and my eyes watered as I recognized the Red Dragon Flight approaching, then cleansing the battlefield.

We plummeted down to join Alexstrasza as she stood before the Wrathgate.

"Your dalliance has cost both the Horde and Alliance countless soldiers!" I bellowed.

She lowered her head, and exhaled a searing breath, just to remind me who I was speaking to. Whether she heard me or not, she instructed me to take Bolvar's shield back to King Wrynn. Judging by her smugness, and her mundane instruction, it was clear she HAD heard me, but wouldn't let a mere Paladin talk in such a way.

She stood there, condescending, gloating in her less than timely victory, her feet grinding the ash & blood of the fallen into the rock before the gate. we had met before, as her human aspect, and we did not get along. Even though I had earned some of her respect, I couldn't risk angering her more.

I did as she commanded, and returned to Stormwind, with the relic of defeat lashed to my back. I had no desire to bring this news to Varian. HIs temper is well known, and it did not disappoint. Only Proudmoore's sanity kept him in check. After a brief and tense teleport to Orgrimmar and conversation with Thrall, Varian sent me to Undercity to bring Putress to justice. He and Proudmoore followed.

As I stood outside the sewer of Undercity, the wrecked bones of Lordaeron, the stench brought me to my knees. We were supposed to enter that?

With self righteous glee and anger, King Wrynn blazed a trail through the forsaken, through an unending labyrinth of filth and fume. I charged through battle after battle in the hopes of living to breath fresh air again. But onward and deeper we went, until Putress finally fell to our blades.

And then Ego stepped in.

We could hear Thrall's bellows as he commanded his own troops to cleanse Putress' evil from the place. Varian, true to his nature charged in to kill Thrall. I stood frozen in disbelief, my mouth hanging open in utter shock.

This man, MY LIEGE, tried to kill one of the few hopes for peace and cooperation between the Horde and Alliance. My grip on my polearm clenched, as I tried to figure out who I should kill. I would not stand and let futile lust for power destroy THIS world as well.

As I raised my weapon, getting closer to Wrynn's neck, Lady Proudmoore ported us back to Stormwind.

I don't know if she did it to save Thrall from Wrynn's blade, or to save Wrynn from mine.

"It didn't have to be like this" was all she said as she fled the throne room. I'm still not sure if she, or anyone else saw me, or knew what I was going to do.

I love the Alliance. I love the people of Azeroth.

I despise the nobility.

In case you are wondering what just happened here, this is my take on the whole Wrathgate questline. Chas over at Righteous Orbs did a wonderful writeup with his own view of these events from the point of view of his Forsaken, LINKY HERE. Color me inspired. I'm not an RPer overall, but after watching the whole story unfold and the little RP backstory I *did* have for Balth, I thought this could be interesting...

If You could Read My Mind, you would be afraid....

We all know that gearing up is the grit & gristle of WoW raiding. You can't do the raid if you don't have the gear. For most folks, that means grinding heroics and such to get their Triumph and Frost badge gear.

Then, it's on to farming ToC and ICC.

Well, just so you know, there is another way. Especially if you're like me and get really tired of PuG Heroic runs and/or don't have access to farm raids.


We Be PvP

Many days & weeks ago, someone mentioned that the Wrathful Gladiator's Bracers of Triumph are pretty good for PvE, simply because they are ilvl 264, and are easily purchasable.

After a glance at Cynwise's recent list of PvP gear for 3.3.3 LINKY it became glaringly obvious to me that I could use more than that to fill out my PvE gear needs.

In summary, here's the list of top level, "easily" available (ie, purchasable with only marks or honor, no PvP rank needed)


■Head: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Neck: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Shoulder: Titan-Forged (ilvl 251)
■Back: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Chest: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Wrist: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■Hands: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Waist: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■Legs: Furious (ilvl 232)
■Feet: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■1st Ring: Wrathful (ilvl 264)
■2nd Ring: Relentless (ilvl 245)
■Trinket: Medallion of the Alliance/Horde (ilvl 264)
■Trinket: Battlemaster (ilvl 245)

(f you want more info about them, visit Cyn's site!)

Now, most of these are NOT something I would get for PvE use, simply because Triumph & Frost badges can get you better stuff (mainly your 4 piece tier 9 and 10 stuff) But keep in mind, that tier gear will only fill 4-5 slots.

What about your wrists?
Feet?
Cloaks?

For some classes/slots, of the non-tier badge gear is pretty good, but in some instances, the PvP gear is actually better (ie, the PvP cloak for Shammies)

In other places, PvP is your only alternative to farming. The Wrathful Bracers are a good case in point, but there are others.

For me, the next obvious one was the foot slot. My then-current gear was the Death-Inured Sabatons I bought as exalted with the Ebon Hold. They were a decent buy for only 52 gold or so. But, a quick look at the list of PvP gear, and you can find Relentless Gladiator's Greaves of Triumph.

The chart below here shows a stat by stat comparison of the two, assuming they are both gemmed with +20 strength gems (which for PvE is what a Ret should be doing)



They are a substantial gain across the board, with the slight exception of crit; the PvP gear drops your crit by 7 points. BUT, as most Ret Paladin websites will tell you, STR should be your first choice for gear, and with this, you gain 23 strength for a small crit loss. (not to mention 78 extra stamina and 159 more armor)

The best thing? Both of those pieces were at the lowest price bracket for PvP gear; only 34,000 honor each. (or, if you chose, many PvP pieces can be bought with "spare" triumph badges)


But I HATE PvP!

Ok, valid point, but you can actually get a moderate amount of honor without ever seeing combat or participating in a "live" Battleground.

How?

Every week in Wintergrasp, there is at least one quest that is a "PVE-ish" collection grind. You might need 10 bone arrows, 10 horde armor pieces or 10 flame thingies, all of which are obtained by killing the NPC mobs in Wintergrasp, NOT by killing/fighting other players. They can be done (and are more easily done) when a battle is NOT in progress.

There's also the frequent quest to kill 10 Horde (or Alliance if you ARE Horde) And the neat thing? NPC Horde/Alliance mobs are all that's required. It doesn't need to be a live player.

Anyhow, each of those quests give you about 10 gold, 3,000 honor and 10 Stone Keeper Shards.

Remember, Stone Keeper Shards (from any source, including Heroic Boss Kills) can be converted directly into honor by purchasing commendations from the vendor in Wintergrasp.

So, with the occasional Heroic run that gives you Shards, as well as the above easy & quick honor sources, you should be able to buy a "cheap" PvP item within a week, or two. (or sooner if you have unspent honor)

It Feels Like the First Time...

Yeah, the very first time...

On Saturday night, I got invited into a half PuG 25 man ICC. My first time into a 25 man.

I turned off all my unnecessary Add-ons (Carbonite, Gearscore and a few others) just to minimize any DC/connection issues. I don't know the GS of any of the other players, but I heard I was among the lowest there. Buuut, I was told that as long as I could maintain 5-6k DPS, it isn't a problem

So, I managed to die once on trash before marrowgar (still not really sure what happened) but other than that it went pretty well.

Me & a friend were doing about 6,200 DPS and were sitting about 8 or 9th on the meters. I was pretty happy with that, at least until that time I died. I re-buffed (food, potion, etc) but forgot to hit my Seal.

Ugh... DPS going DOWN!

v
v
v
v
v


I ended up in 19th spot on the meters before I realized it. DOH!

So, we mangled Marrowgar, shouted down Deathwhisper, and pillaged the Gunship fights. One shotted them all. I'm not sure how many died here & there, but it wasn't really difficult, and the deaths were few.

The guild that was runnning it was Knights of Disorder (Velen) and they did a very VERY good job of handling a bunch of PuGs, being fair, and running the raid well.

My friend was also whisping me additional info, since I had never made it past Marrow before this. What's funny, was I had asked Kattastrophe what to do (she's been all the way to Rotgut or Festerface, or whomever) and her reply? "No clue, I just heal them."

Harumph! lol

So, we got all the way to Saurfang.

By this time, I had crawled all the way back up to 11th or 12th on the meters again. Actually, I should qualify that, I was moving up in total damage done. My actual DPS, while pretty nice (to me) at 6k or so, was near the bottom. Yet, I was at least contributing my part to the fight.

And Saufang... kicked our butts 4 or 5 times. I didn't die, but we couldn't kill him before the enrage timer went off, and we just ran back to the boat and let it reset. The closest we cam was getting him down to 3%, and then watching his health climb back up to 7%, 11%, 14% and then 15%. Grrr.

Runaway!

Using the strategy we did (melee attacked Saurfang with ZERO AoE, while all ranged killed the Adds) I don't think we had enough geared melees. Myself included. (again though, even though my DPS here was only 4,500, I was still climbing the total damage meters - then again ALL melee DPS folks had dropped because of that)

Without re-stacking the melee DPS people, the only thing we *might* have been able to do was to let melee take 2-3 AoE attacks, after each group of Adds. (like maybe cast Consecerate and one Divine Storm) and then go back to strictly single target.

The only problem, as I'm sure any of you will know: one single solitary screwup, that aggro's an Add, would almost certainly wipe us. I'm not sure we (melee DPS) could have pulled it off, but it may be worth a try.

Now, I have an invite to complete the run (or try some more) but it starts tonight at 6pm server time. (which, cooincidentally, is my normal time - Pacific time) I will still be at work when it starts.

Thanks to Xarlexis's idea (my friend that was helping me out) I now have an "AoE free" rotation on my action bar 2 (the one you scroll to see) It made avoiding the AoE a LOT easier. Thanks Xar!

I do have to admit, just poking 3 different spells (Judgement, Crusader Strike and Exorcism) for the majority of an 8 minute fight was pretty boring.

tap

yawn

tap
tap

yawn
yawn

tap...

Though it got a *little * bit more interesting when he got down to 20%, since that activated Hammer of Wrath, so I got FOUR, count em FOUR spells to use.

lol

Regardless, it was fun to do, even if the Saurfang fight didn't go well. But it's clear I need to gear up a bit, even if I wasn't anywhere near the lowest damage dealer...


OH! A couple other things I wanted to ask...

as I mentioned in a reply to my last post (an April Fool's post, btw) it occurred to me that I might be causing problems by using pictures & videos in my posts. (for example, in my unemployed April Fool's post, I included a picture of Google's "Topeka" page, as a hint about the nature of my post) Now, since many folks use a reader, and can't see the images, the value of the images is sorta lost.

So, to you my sundry readers, should I coninue putting in images? I know my posts can get a tad long, and wall's-o-text can get tough to read, and they sometimes help out.

Should I keep them?

Also, as the folks on SAN forums have mentioned; dark backgrounds with light text can be difficult to read. (white on black in particular) does the color of the text & background bother you guys? (though again, anyone using a reader won't know or care :P )

Toodles.

Money for Nothing

Thanks to a still unstable economy, as well as some outsourcing, it looks like I will be having more time on my hands, as well as a bi-weekly check from the State of California.

For playing WoW.

After clicking around the internet a bunch, I do really think I'd be happier in WoW if I just went balls out, and tried to get into "hardcore" shape. And now I'll actually have the time to do it.

Now, I don't expect to be in a group of the level of Paragon or Ensidia any time soon, but I definitely want to see LK die in hard mode.