Start me Up! (it's from the old Windows commercial)

Dear Blizzard,

I know in your heart of hearts, that you want nothing more than to protect us from our trollish selves and to ensure we have the most social experience possible.

I know with absolute certainty that you have our best interests at heart with your proposed changes to WoW with respect to RealID. I would never for a second believe the lies that you are only in it for the money, and that your customers are simply there to be bilked.

But, let's say, for the sake of argument, that none of the above is true, and that you are only in it for the money, and customers be damned.

I mean, is there possibly a way for a large, multinational software corporation to have a massive online gaming experience, with strong social interactions built in? (oh, like AOL instant messenger, faceboook, twitter)

Could this exist with reduced trolling in the forums, linkage to a specific customer account with ban abilities and strong parental controls, yet still allow folks to have a user chosen ID and strong privacy protection?

Hmmmm... I wonder... is such a thing possible?

Nah, fuck it. Who am I to try to imagine such aa crazy, "out there", implausible idea?

Sincerely,
Balthazario

Time, Time Time... What has Become of Me?

We don't have the "real" hoverboards, but clothing HAS become rather sloppy and baggy.

Yes, today is the day the Doc Brown wanted to arrive in the future, via the movie "Back to the Future". (Marty ended upin 1955 instead, but still)

Twenty... Five... years... ago...

Yikes. I was in highschool at the time.


In WoW?

Lessee...

Balth got a nice DPS necklace off Lady Deathwhisper's corpse, and is now in completely PvE gear. Nary a drop of resilience on him.

w00t

I needed one more lousy pet for my 75 pet achievement, and I learned that there is a pet floating skull pet available from one of the vendors in the sewers (in the poison vendor room)

The weekly 10 man in ICC got cancelled, so me and 4 other guildies started working on our "Glory of the Hero" achievement. We ran 4 different heroics, and completed 6 achies. (I already had 4 of them, so I only got "Abuse the Ooze", and "Watch Him Die", both of which were rather tough.

A couple pointers to anyone trying these:

Watch Him Die - Defeat Krik'thir the Gatewatcher in Azjol-Nerub on Heroic Difficulty while Watcher Gashra, Watcher Narji, and Watcher Silthik are still alive.

First, we tried Zerging twice (came close, but not quite)

Our second tactic was to have me (as OT) pull everything, then have the main tank pull Krik, and then have me survive the rest. Ah, not so much. We tried it twice with slight variations, and either I couldn't maintain SELECTIVE aggro, or I simply couldn't survive long enough.

Third tactic was to have the MT pull each group one at a time, and then have me taunt the watchers off, one at a time, as the rest of the group killed the remaining adds. THEN have me hold (and survive) the three watchers while they burned Krik. I think this would have worked if we had tried it a second time. It was elegant, tactical and cool. We failed the one attempt, and didn't try it again.

The last tactic was just back to zerging. We just burned him down. I ended up getting eaten by the adds (my consecrate & divine storm pulled them all on to me, instead of the others, which was actually a good thing) and we dropped the bad boy.


Abuse the Ooze - Defeat Sjonnir the Ironshaper in the Halls of Stone on Heroic Difficulty and kill 5 Iron Sludges during the encounter. The "funny" thing is that I had never seen any oozes before we tried it (neither had anyone else) which caused our first wipe.

What we didn't know was that the oozes don't spawn until Sjonnir drops to <40% Once we knew that, we adjuested our tactics, and that was that. It took two more times to get the mechanics right, and we got this one. Not hard, per se, but not easy, either...

Experienced Drake Rider (defeat Malygos while riding each color drake) I have done amber & ruby, but not emerald. I have recently done some Coldarra quests, so that I can now do the "Aces High" daily quest (ride drake and kill 5 drakes) so I have a *slightly* better feel for the green drake, but that will be tough. I think the best bet for this would be for us to run a "Amber Void", with 3 tanks (Ruby) and 2 Emerald (one of which would be me) which would give me some leeway to learn how to actualy fight on the green.

Emerald & Ruby Void - Actually, if I can convince guildies to just run 5 ambers, this won't be *that* hard. It just takes a little cordination. We *almost* had it in a PuG a while back, but some weird stuff happened and we went "back to normal". Between this one run, and an amber void, we could get all three voids for guildies in only 2 runs.

Zombiefest - The only hard part is collecting enough zombies without killing them. Killing 500 in one minute would be easy, if you could find them. 100 is only difficult because of collecting them.

Better Off Dred - Not hard (I don't think) but we just need to take it slowly enough that 6 of those drakkari dudes have time to spawn.

Chaos Theory - I'm not sure. Could be easy. I think it's just a healer fight, but not sure.

Incredible Hulk - Kill a Scourge Hulk with Svala's dropping sword. Shouldn't be *too* hard, as long as you can position the Hulk in the correct place AND get him to 8-10% health before the sword drops.

Less-Rabi - Ugh. I've been in two groups that tried a few attempts to get this. Trying to interrupt that third transformation is basically blind luck, and we haven't been lucky.

Another alternative would be to delay the 1st two interrupts for as long as possible, POSSIBLY allowing the group to burn him down before the third one even has a chance to start. You need a LOT of DPS. If you can get a mage to spellsteal (8 second delay) then 20k DPS *could* do it.



In other news

Iggy went into Scarlet Monestary at level 31 (whichever one was first, graveyard?) and the group ran it twice, then wanted to run library for a third run. I dinged level 32 in Library, but let me tell ya, a level 32 mage (let alone level 31) has a hard time hitting level 34 mobs.

We made it, even though we had a flub in the next-to-last fight. Either a mob ran in fear and aggroed the final boss, or my casts were shooting 90* left and targetting the boss. (I noticed one of my casts went sideways, but didn't notice who I actually targeted *DOH*) Regardless, we had a massive scramble at the end, and I died.

The entire final area was a bit of a miscue. We over aggroed too many mobs, and the tank couldn't keep them all in check. I had to pop iceblock, went OOM twice (I used my mana pot, mana crystal and mana regen - whatever the name is) even before the boss got pulled. So, by the time he got pulled, I was about done (and he doesn't get trapped in Ice Nova, if you are curious)

Still, it was an interesting group. For the entire set of 3 runs, I was averaging 93 DPS or thereabouts. We had a warrior tank, elem shammy, rogue, me, and another shammy. I was fighting for 2nd place in total damage with the shammy, and the warrior was WAAY up there. All of us we 30, 31 or 32. (all of us had a fair amount of heirloom on as well) It was crazy that as a group, we were pulling >300 DPS.

Rested EXP is nice.

I also levelled his Jewelcrafting up a bunch. He's now at 155 or so, and his enchanting is at 200. The last couple hours of gaming last night were running Balth around Barrens farming tin so that Iggy could prospect out the needed gems. (it was strange last night on my server, even shadowgems were selling for >1 gold each, so just buying gems wasn't really viable)

I am still working on the Talent tree post, and I have another "short" post about a reasonable way to optimize RetPal rotation. I'm not sure which will be first, but they are planned.

And it Burns, Burns, Burns... That Ring of Fire...

With some recent activity on Balth, Iggy hasn't seen as much activity, but I'm still plugging along. With the 10% added monster experience (from pole dancing) I am trying to make the most of the reamining time in Summer Festival.

He dinged 31 last night, and I've noticed that there's no real rotation, jut a couple different spell choices, and the choice I make is pretty much based on how fast I need things to happen.

Solo:

Cast Pyroblast
Cast Scorch Repeatedly until almost dead
Cast Fireblast for the finisher (instant cast so speeds things up)

If the mobs are getting close, I *may* cast cone of cold

If they reach me, I will cast Frost Nova and run, rinse repeat.
If Frost Nova is on CD, I will just make sure I have mana shield up, and spam Arcane explosion til they are dead (usually against multiple mobs)

If there are 2 or more mobs, I will sheep one (if possible) then burn the other one down. If there are 3, I will often pre-emtively run TOWARDS them, Frost nova them and pick one and burn him down with scorch/fireblast ASAP.

Then if/when one or more gets close, I will arcane explosion them, blink and repeat.


In a 5 man

For tank aggroed multiple mobs:

Flame strike until I pull aggro,
Run them back to the tank,
Frost Nova them in place
Run out and spam flame strike again


For single "trash" mobs

Arcane Missile. It's the lowest DPS, but essentially starts DPSing NOW, which is good. Otherwise I will still be casting when the mob drops.


Mini-bosses

Open with a Pyroblast if there's time before the tank pulls.
Spam Scorch and one Fireblast near the end


Bosses

Again, open with Pyro, if there's time
Spam Fireball. It's about identical in DPS to Scorch, but it's more mana efficient (tested this in Theramore on the dummies there)
Toss in the occasional Fireblast as it comes off CD

On single targets, I get about 60-65 DPS, and if there are more mobs, Flamestrike can get me up to 150-200 DPS.

So, if anyone has any comments on the good, bad and/or ugly of my playing this, lemme know!


Oh, one question for level 80 Firemages: I was the "victim" of my first living bomb on Balth the other night (Wintergrasp). Nobody else was around for me to damage, so I just sood there and healed/waited it out. Is it dispellable or cleansable?

Toodles.

Reservation - The Desire to Tank, but the Fear that Prevents it

Tanking from the point of View of a DPS:

Since I'm reasonably durable, and because I know how cahllenging some fights can get, I am usually pretty lenient with Tanks. This is especially true with a lot of mobs, and even more true with a lower geared tank. If I'm not attacking the same target as the tank (either due to stupidity on my part or target switching on theirs)it's pretty darned easy for me to yank aggro.

As long as the healer doesn't bitch at me (which has happened once recently, in HoR during the run from Arthas - though the tank wasn't bothered evidently) I don't sweat it much.

The only time I will get a bit testy is when the tank is reasonably geared (at least from a GS number - as mentioned before, I don't inspect folks - I don't have the time) and when the healer keeps getting aggro, and I have to keep playing damage sponge because I have to keep taunting mobs off the healer.

Sometimes I think the healers are standing a tad too close, but with so many fights I realize that LoS is an issue, so that they NEED to be close-ish.

Then again, on other fights like the current Holiday Boss (Athune), with the bevy of mobs that keep spawning, I can fully understand how it's pretty much impossible to keep all the mobs on the tank. In these fights (especiall with a lower geared tank) I will actually turn on Righteous Fury and run as Off-Tank to help keep mobs off the healer. (an interesting PuG story about last night later in this post)

So, I am understanding, but when I see a tank NOT doing the basics (consecrate, stomp/whatever) to at least get SOME aggro, I will groan, and bitch to myself. As long as I don't get bitched at ("Watch aggro, nub!!"), I'll suffer silently.


Tanking from the the sword & board perspective:

I can sum this up in 2 words:

"Oh, Shit!"

Especially on nights like last night, where I offered to tank on a 4/5 guild run. "Unless we get an ICC heroic, then I'm bailing".

And what do we get?

PoS.

Piece of Shit Pit of Sauron

I wanted to bail, but the guildies said "nah, you'll be fine".

As ide from a slightly overeager group of DPS on the first couple groups, things went smoothly all the way to Ick & Krick.

We didn't wipe, but we did lose 2 DPS. But, I was happy with my performance overal to this point, because I kept the mob moving out of the green, didn't get more than one at a time, and the actual Boss fight seems to have gone well enough.

And then came the ramp from hell. You know, large groups of multiple mobs, including several casters? Yeah, that slice of hell.

We didn't get there quickly enough to avoid the first 2 groups, so we slogged our way up. We had a couple deaths and a couple REAL close calls, but we still made it.

I was asked several times if I was using Consecrate, and yes, I was.

If you're at all interested, my initial way of going in was:

Start running in
Hand of Reckoning (to damage one, and also to taunt)
Avenger's Shield to further taunt, damage, slow and silence
Drop Consecrate when I get into the middle to get more AoE aggro
Hit Holy Wrath to stun them and get even more aggro.

And then try to tab-tab-tab-tab. Which never works all that well. It will select a new target, but often will not actually TARGET them, until I cast something.

This means they will have the red circle below their feet, but my toon will not auto-attack, and some spells won't cast. (fortunately, Judgements will, as will Crusader's strike)

So, we slowly trudge our way up the ramp.

From there on out it was pretty easy, with only an occasional Righteous Defense.

The final boss fell without much ado.

So, I can fully understand loss of aggro on large groups, but there's still need for SOME work.

(by the way, if you read this half way through, I inadvertantly hit [enter] twice and it posted it.)

Do You See What I See?

When you’re in a movie theater, or other event where there is tight seating, and you and/or other folks will need to get in and out of the seats, there’s an odd bit of decorum people use, yet it seems to be different for everyone.

Think about it.

When you are the one trying to move across the row, do you face the folks in your row? Depending on the seating, and how large or small you are, this could lead to a “thump –thump” as your butt-cheeks slide over the head of the person one row in front of you, and could lead to an overly intimate view of your crotch by the person in your row.

Conversely, the only alterative is to essentially stick your ass in the face of the person you are passing, which will eliminate the butt-thumping, but makes it a bit more likely you will spill your beverage and/or food on someone’s head. And give someone an up close and personal view of your tushie.

I will usually face the folks in my row. Why? This leads to observation/question/preference #2.

#2 (no, not THAT kind of “#2”) If you are the one sitting, which way would you prefer someone else pass by you? Crotch-facing or ass-facing?

Personally, I hate having someone’s ass in my face. Especially a stranger’s.

And this leads to an odd WoW thingie: I’m melee DPS, so unless I’m fighting a dragon, I’m usually staring at the ass of various bosses. Distinctly unpleasant on some fights, like Festergut, where the Boss is farting. A lot.

Are Boss crotches any better? Not really.

A Manic Monday, After a Long Weekend

Due to a change in vacation policy at work, I needed to use up some of my accrued vacation time, so I took this past Friday off. Katt joined me, so we got to play a little (ok, a lot) of WoW starting Thursday night.

Thursday night - started and finished the Summer Festival stuff. Painful and long, but made a LOT of gold doing it! (I think about 600 all together?)

Friday Night and early Saturday - Ran 10 man and 25 man ICC up *to* Fester. Couldn't get past him either time. (I became Exalted with Ashen Verdict though!)

Saturday evening - I went and ran "For the Alliance" and got my bear. I had done Thrall and Bloodhoof a few months ago, but got to finish it.

Sunday evening - Katt's guild was messing around and decided to run Karazhan. WoW. That was a VERY cool dungeon! I'd never been in before, and all I can say is WOW! Then, literally as I finished Kara, I got a guild invite to run Ony 25. I'd never done it before (10 or 25), so that was neat. I'd been in a fail group before, so seeing it done correctly was nice.

Lessee... other randomness... I saved up enough Frost to replace my PvP belt with a decent PvE one.

I am working on a basics of Ret-Pal talents, so I hope to have that up in a few days. It's a fair bit of work though.

Ruby Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Whenever.

I've been playing WoW for about 14 months now. I dinged 80 in December(ish) and have only been raiding since ICC.

The only Naxx I've done is a few weeklies, and one guild run that went through 2 of the quarters.

Weekly raids are ALL I've done in Ulduar.

I've attempted ToC 25 man once, but never finished it (made it to Anub). I've never even been in ToGC.

I've been late to the party. For any boss fight, all I (or any raid members) need to do is look stuff up on Tankspot, or read strats in any number of other places. Not a good thing or bad thing, but there it is.

Now comes Ruby Sanctum. For the first time I am (pretty much) ready to go. It's new content, and I am probably geared enough to try it. I think the guild has enough geard members to try as well.

I have no illusions about being server first or ANYTHING like that, but the thought of working through the fight that isn't essentially farm content for others is exciting.

This is the first time I can say that I'm excited about content. As I said last post, I probably won't see it until later, but I intend to try it by hook or crook.

Just to be there.

In other news, I only need one more primordial saronite for my boots. WooHoo!!

Oh, yeah, I got a new pony (top pic) I got VERY lucky; according to my wowarmory stats, I only killed Rivendare 19 times.