Ulduar

I love that place!

It is soooooo cool.

So much better than ToC. Also, way better than Ruby Sanctum.

See, ToC doesn't really have awesome mechanics. The first few fights in Ulduar aren't that amazing, so I didn't have awesome to compare to ToC.

But in ToC the fights are pretty standards. Ulduar. Now thats a beauty. It requires raid coordination and they use the environment.

They have multiple stages, they flow, they're distinct.

These fights are pure and new to me.

The Iron Council mechanic isn't precisely new (some mobs used it in AQ 40).

Hodir has iceblocks (ala PoS) but it was the first with that. Then, that fight is the pinnacle of "Stand in the fire". I mean, you have friendly NPCs, you have buffs, you have movement. Beauty!

Thorim is really cool, especially going through the tunnels- that was awesome. Next time I want to stay out in the arena and watch that.

Then on Freya, the trees are interesting (the trash mildly annoying, but no biggie). The timed waves and different types of adds make for a very cool, chaotic p1. And p2 is a good burn phase. It still makes the tanks pay some attention and same with the dps.

All in all, what I did was good for me. And I got a boatload of achievements. Win/win.

On the trail again

So about a year ago, with some guildies, I went down to Booty Bay and slaughtered every guard there.

Repeatedly.

Then I did a quick little quest to get my pretty little achievement, my hat and my uniform and got my rep with the Bloodsail Buckaneers to Honored. Go me!

Then I began the painful task of bringing my goblin rep back up. I managed to get about halfway out of hated (started at a 1/4 out) by running Dire Maul too many times.

So I started killing pirates south of Ratchet. They are Southshore pirates, and are unaffiliated with the Bucks- so its all clear sailing there.

Anyways, I've killed the several thousand that I need (at 5.5 rep per) to get my rep with Ratchet up to Neutral.

The other parts of the Steamwheedle Cartel still hate me, so I have to go through Hostile and Unfriendly phases with them.

But now I can do low level quests for those short little guys in Ratchet, and that will be more entertaining than killing pirates over and over again while on auto-run.

Yeah, I want to get to exalted with them. I'm Insane in the Membrane.

The Netherwing Rep

So as you may have noticed I got my netherdrakes.

There is a beginning quest chain that will get you up from hated to neutral. It is pretty easy, but near the end there is a fight that takes a little bit of power to get you through. It is nominally a five person quest, but can be soloed at 80 if you have good healing power.

After you do that, you are assigned to infiltrate the Dragonmaw of Shadowmoon Valley. You get a few daily quests as neutral and you can also find netherwing eggs to turn in. Once you hit friendly you get another few quests available and you still have the old ones. If you have a gathering profession, I suggest gathering as much as you can because there is a chance that they will drop eggs (about 1%). At honored, more quests open up and more dailies. At revered a few quests send you wandering, but it isn't too hard to do them, especially at 80.

If you only do your dailies and don't gather any eggs, it should take approximately two weeks.

However, it is very helpful if you do collect the eggs, it brought my total time down from fourteen days to five. I would very strongly suggest getting the addons Gatherer and the WoWhead Gatherer database.

The best place to find the eggs (esp for miners) is within the caves. They spawn all throughout it so you have to explore it fully but there is a chance they drop off the mobs and the nodes.

For all the mobs on the island there is a 1% chance that they will drop an egg. Over the course of these past five or so days, I probably killed around 500-700 mobs.

So go out there and get your netherdrakes!

The netherdrakes!

DRAKES! It only cost me four days of dailies and 1k gold for six drakes!

Vanity Titles

I have many titles on Alenena, they are as follows:

The Explorer

Champion of the Frozen Wastes

Jenkins

The Argent Champion

Ambassador

Of the Shattered Sun

The Hallowed

Brewmaster

Matron

Flame Warden

The Noble

The Love Fool

Elder

Merrymaker

Crusader

of Gnomergan

of Stormwind

of Ironforge

of Darnassus

of the Exodar

Bloodsail Admiral

Yeah- thats a lot of titles- but I would like to see more. Not just for my toon, but for other people as well. I think that getting to max level should grant everyone the title [Class] [Name] or [Name] the [Class]. Then, doing something above and beyond would get significant recognition and a superior class title- such as Light-Blessed for paladins, Hand of Elune for druids, Magister for mages etc...

This 'above and beyond' would be something really cool and probably class limited. It may be something like getting Benediction for a priest or challenging a particular mob built to fight the individual.

Probably the easiest way to do this is to create a fight balance for each class (so ten different mobs) and attach slaying it to a quest. The quest could be accessed from any capital-city trainer and they would send you to an arena to fight. It would be a one person instance and the enemy would be designed for your class, perhaps even your spec. Paladins would fight an undead monstrosity, warlocks would fight a demon, death knights would be challenged by a member of the Scarlet Crusade etc....

But this is just an idea.

More Black Temple

It be Illidan! The Betrayer! Now that would be a title I would work for. What would it be- cause 100 wipes? Kill 100,000 players of your own faction (Arena)?

What do you think it should be?

200!

This is my 200th post. I would consider doing something special, but that may have to wait until I read the Paladin class changes list. Because of this landmark number of posts, I will be plugging this wherever I can and I will hope that I get many new readers.

If you ARE a new reader, first off, I apologize for the lack of sense many of my titles make (and some sentences).

Additionally, if you go to the directory, you should be able to find links to a couple sets of articles that you may or may not be interested in.

To be added to that collection in the near future are:

The 'WoW in Real Life' posts. A collection of posts looking at each class and naming some in game abilities that I would want in real life.

The 'Early Leveling Guide: The First 20 levels' this will be coming out slower and I will only write on those that I have leveled appropriately.

The Future of Guilds

So, I have a surprise for all y'all. Today's title actually works for today's piece.

Beyond that, I have my ideas, and what has been 'confirmed'.

At BlizzCon 2009, Blizzard announced that in Cataclysm there would be a guild leveling system.

Guilds would be able to gain talent points from their levels and use those talents to improve their raiding and PvP. Things mentioned included raid-wide rezs, damage buffs and others.

Guilds were also told that they would likely get guild items- so that they couldn't be ninja'd. They would be heirlooms that would stay with the guild.

That is what Blizzard has said is likely to be in Cata. But there is more that could be done- and more that I want.

1. Official Guild Alliances: This would allow several smaller guilds to Ally themselves and get guild levels. There would be restrictions, so that five guilds that each can run two simultaneous 25-mans cannot join into one huge group that runs 250 people through say ToC in one night and gets the ridiculous amount of guild-exp that killing five bosses 250 times entails.
2. Guild-First Achievements: These would be achievements for the first people in a guild to complete certain objectives. They would be similar to the World-First achievements, but if you switched out of the guild you earned it in, you would have to have gotten that achievement before the people in your new guild to keep the achievement.
3. Guild AHs: I know in my guild, we do work for free for guildies, and often supply the mats if we have them on hand. I know that in many progressive raiding guilds, that is in short supply. However, if there was a guild AH, you could post your spare enchants, or enchanting mats, at a 'guild price' so guildies could get what they needed, at a lower price, and you would still make gold.
4. Guild Halls: This would be similar to the concept of player housing, but the guild halls available would only be the rooms of Raid Bosses they have defeated at least 10 times. There would be some customization possible, mostly guild achievement related however. You would be able to show off your kills and any legendaries the guild might have gotten. Guilds would also be able to purchase a mailbox, a guild bank vault and a guild AH to place in their Guild Hall, similar to the way that they purchase bank tabs.

I got a Red-Proto Drake

And then I took screenshots. Cuz it happened.

Woot-Wewt!

Normally I have to think about my posts for each day. Today I don't have to.

This because a special thing happened to me today.

See, I logged on and found a pair of these in my mailbox.

This makes me happy.

But the important lesson that you can get out of this is: If at first you don't manage to interrupt Moorabi- Kill him again and again and again. Until he is dead. Dead. Dead.

Which means, if you want something, persevere. If you want Loremaster- go out and get it. If you want Insane in the Membrane- go ahead, keep grinding away at the grindstone of grinding.

But more importantly, get four people who can each pull 5k dps unbuffed, tell them to blow all their cooldowns and point them at a boss.

King?

So maybe Varian Wrynn died. So maybe I sat in his throne. Shouldn't I be in charge now?

Dragon Slaying

This image comes from one of my first nights retro-raiding. We took down Molten Core, UBRS, BWL, and Onyxia. Taking out Nefarian we got his head and of course Ony dropped hers. This would have been the rare image classic WoW.

End-game: Part II

So I did some more raid-tanking this evening.

This is the fourth night of raiding The Oasis Contingent has done. For a long time we were struggling to get one night in a week.

This week alone we have completed the following raid achievements.

Flame Leviathan: First boss in Ulduar, very easy, and about the 20th time or so the guild has downed him.

Ignis the Flame Master: An optional boss in Ulduar. Fairly tricky- The hardest of the first four bosses in Ulduar. About fifth or sixth guild down, three of those during May of last year (before the raiders split off from us).

Northern Beasts: First boss in ToC. TOC has downed them about six or seven times.

Lord Jarraxus: Second boss in ToC. TOC has downed him another four or five times.

Faction Champions: Third boss in ToC. TOC has downed them twice.

Twin Val'kyr: Fourth boss in ToC. TOC has downed them twice.

Anub'arak: Final boss in ToC. This week was guild first.

Onyxia: First, Final boss in Onyxia's lair (go figure). We downed her a couple times at 60, and about four or so times since then.

Icecrown Citadel Trash: The ICC trash, we was actually very fun.

Archavon, Koralon, Toravon: the t7, t9 and t10 bosses in VoA. Lots of achievements going around for all of them. Toravon is the equivalent of a 'easy' ICC raid boss.

I'd like to say more, but I'm tired and lazy and it will make good fodder for another post.

End-game.

Tanking in ICC. Real nice view there.

A slightly more expansive view.

Guild first down of Anub'arak. More like A NOOB'arak. Also Guild first complete ToC run- thats a given, given that it was the first Anub kill.

I know you all were probably expecting a Greedy Gronko piece, but this happened (as well as an Ony kill) and I have some more work I need to do so....

To top it all off I got a very nice 1h axe off Anub because I was the only who wanted it. And I wanted it because it was pretty. In Ony I got both the 22 slot bag and the Paladin Tanking helm, which is actually an upgrade over both my t9 piece and my offset HoR piece.

Ding!

One of my DK's just hit 70.

Nescio. Alliance. Eredar.

Additionally, I just hit 100 god-forsaken posts. This makes me proud.

Greedy Gronko wants your gold. Go me!

Lawn Ornament

No, its not a paralyzed gnome. I'm sorry. Nor is it a plastic flamingo. In fact, it is the Rare-Spawn Pink Tallstrider, Mazzaranche. I have since renamed it Schrödinger, which is a wonderful pet name. I also capped The Rake, another rare spawn, and renamed him Hannibal.

PvP!

PvP is fun!

I've discovered that winning in WSG is actually loads of fun.

I've been leveling a hunter with a shammy friend and we're both lv 13 right now. We have been entering WSG as often as we can and today we each got 250+ HKs, with about 20-30 KBs on my part.

It was really fun caping the flag at level 11 and it was just hilarious when I was in a posse of four hunters, we shot down anything before it got close to us.

A while back, with one of my DKs I capped 5 times in 2 games.

In another game, in the 50-59 bracket (notoriously heavy with DKs) we had a 70% DK group. So, when our flag was snagged by the other team, by preorganization we chain Death Gripped the poor sod back to our tunnel, all the way from his tunnel, killed him and returned the flag.

On my 80s I don't appreciate PvP as much because many players have significantly better gear than I do. However, with the new PvP changes coming up I may be able to finally finish my lv 60 PvP plate set of awesome, and then start working on getting a couple decent lv 80 PvP sets.

RPing for the first time

Yesterday I logged onto my DK on Silver Hand. She is a 59 Unholy Forsaken. Silver Hand is a RP server, and I have never really interacted strongly on the few that I have tried out. Anyways, I definitely had some fun playing 'in character' however, any character concept and history has yet to really happen. I had some very amusing discussions which you can see below. So:

[Trade] Dukazh: wts Crusader Orb for 350. pst me

[Trade] Dukazh: 2 of them!

W to Dukazh: I could sell your children for that much... shall I?

D: ok? I have children at the age of 17?

L: Or would you rather give me an orb and have your children returned- alive and whole.

D: <---- 17. Not worried about children yet

L: Well... Your future childrens' safety is at stake.

D: Thank you doc.

D: from back to the future if you didnt catch that :P

L: Do you really value 350 gold over their potential well being?

D: sure

L: Well, there goes my business plan. When you have children and they go missing, forward a Crusader Orb to me and you'll get them back.

D: hahaha......iiii dont knooooow.

To: Nindera

Subject: Assassination Blades

I would like to purchase both of the Assassination Blades you have on the auction house. However, having just freed myself from The Lich King's thrall for a second time, I am desperately lacking funds. If you could hold onto the weapons until I manage to gather 200g, I would be greatly pleased.

Your Undying (and consequently eternal) customer,

~Lashinara

This last image doesn't need a transcript, it just shows that people on RP realms are (imho) generally more mature, use proper spelling and can take a joke.

Anyways, I had a glorious time and later in the evening got five WSG caps in two consecutive flawless victories.

How to get old (aka "Elder")

This is gonna be a cheaty-face post. Just letting you know before I bother writing it.

I'll list the steps out.

1. Go to all the elders. Use wowwiki, wow insider or some other guide to give you co-ords, if you use co-ords.
2. Shoot some rockets, go someplace lag-free.
3. Stand in the light after people of the other factions spent hours getting ganked and trying to kill Omen.
4. Bask in the light of your new title.

Seriously- thats all there is to it.

I would like to point out that it is actually a decent chance for you to give some xp to your alts. In addition to getting lots of exploration in, they get some serious EXPZ from talking to the elders.

I guess not...

So when I ran Moorabi yesterday, he was not nerfed... Or so it seemed. Again, it will require more testing and of course I am willing to test it until I get the achievement. However, neither the 3.3.0A 3.3.2 patch notes cover anything about Moorabi. As mentioned in Almost There, several other bosses were changed in 3.3.2 and Moorabi was not mentioned.