BM again and again

Last night, I got the call to run Durn from a guildie. Now, there's still some stuff in there that Daxie can use, so I agree. We had a full group, sans tank. Hmmm. Turion needs Durn, but he's Ret Spec'd. I ask him anyways, and he agrees to tank for us.

For the most part, Turion did a good job of holding aggro. His lack of stamina and armor was telling as I had to pretty much chain Greater Heal if he was tanking 2 or 3 mobs. And, of course, Daxie has around 1100 +healing, so she's not so uber herself!

We did just fine all the way until the last boss. We wiped twice, both of them due to my messing around with different healing strategies. I started spamming Greater Heals, but then tried to sneak in a Renew + Frisbee before the next Greater Heal. Bad mistake. I was almost through with the GH when Turion died. That happened both times. By this time, the stoned Rogue had to bail, and we start looking for another DPS or another tank.

I told the group that I'd bring in Daxenos and then grabbed Neya, the uber shammy to help. We really had no problems after that. Neya and Turion shared tanking duties, not by choice..lol. Dax kept both of them healed easily, and the boss went down.

Later on, after dinner, DA got a group together for Black Morass to get both Rysteranch and Daxie their Kara keys.

Rysteranch's group was the uber Kara pally healer, uber Kara MT, uber guild friend fury warrior, and the PvP specialist lvl 69 fire mage. Rysteranch got put on adds and did a fair job. PuddyTat got to keep Growl on and was in Defensive stance verses Passive. The single adds were the easiest; the group of three mobs were more difficult. I needed some help from the mage to catch up at times, but the shield was still at 100% when the last boss arrived. He got some leather shoulders that were better than what he had (except for the armor).

Daxie's group included the same healer, MT, OT, and the uber Kara hunter w/ Sharptooth! We were a bit leery of having two healers and a lack of DPS. But, all in all, we did just fine. The OT got put on the adds and did a great job. I got put on OT heals and whatever DPS I could muster. We fell behind a bit at the end, and the last boss got to work on the shield for a bit before we could get to him. But, he went down pretty easily. Daxie got a nice +int/+spi/+MP5 ring and a nice off hand.

Both of these instances are challenging for appropriate leveled toons, but I'd really like to run them a couple of more times just for a shot at the gear that I can get. Luckily for me, the folks over at The Iron Ring are starting to get up there, and I know I have some DA folks that'll be wanting to go. Same goes for Shadow Labs. I hate that instance, but I needs da rep!

Thrall escapes....twice!

Last night, DA got a group together for Old Hillsbrad Foothills. I said that I could bring Heals or DPS.

So, first group included our Kara pally healer, group 2 tank, 70 warlock, 67 shammy, and Rysteranch. We didn't have any problems at all.

I chain trapped.
I provided MQoSRDPS.
Me + PuddyTat topped the damage meter.
We won the roll for the Scaled Greaves of Patience (happy dance).
We freed Thrall and all was right in the world.

NEXT!!!!
Second group. Same tank, shammy, and 'lock, but now we have Daxie on Heals and a 69 fire mage. Since only Daxie needed the quest completed, and she'd already did the distraction part the other day, we figured we could just head to Thrall, turn in the quest and start the event. Wrong!

After I turned in the quest, Thrall refused to go anywhere, so we had to run through and complete the distraction/first boss encounter in order for me to get him moving. Doesn't seem too motivated, does he!

We work our way to the final encounter (2nd boss dropped the greaves again, so shammy was pretty happy), get buffed up, and start the event.

This boss has three waves of three dragons that the group has to down before pounding on the boss. First group went down fairly fast, but I drew aggro from the second. No problem, fade, and the tank gets aggro. Unfortunately, I was right by the inn when the second group died, which placed me right in the middle of the third group. In the middle of the fight, I died. Then the shammy died. The shammy self rezzed, but didn't have enough mana to rez me.

Wipe.

CRAP!!! When is Daxie going to be able to get this stinkin' thing done!!!!!

"Hey, we have three tries, so don't sweat it" soothed one of my guildies. We all release and run back. Buff. Mana up. And start the event.

This time, I stood on the church steps so that I wouldn't be in a group of mobs. And we kicked some serious tail! After the boss was dead, nearly everyone was at full health, and I had plenty of mana due to my potting early and using my shadow fiend mid-fight.

So, Rysteranch and Daxie need BM now. I think that's tonight!

Just another pwning!

Deaths Advocate ran an all guild Upper Kara raid on Saturday night thanks to a new guildie (3 guesses, the first 2 don't count). We one shotted Aran, three shotted Illhoof, rocked the chess board, and 2 or 3 (4?) shotted Prince.

Dax got a belt off Illhoof for a one day PvP set, as I've heard that Primal Mooncloth makes you an easy target. He also won the roll for an off hand to replace the item he got from Moroes.

Still no boots, hat, or glove drops. I may have to run what ever Heroic drops the Boots of Piety. We'll see. I'm getting more badges, so I may take the BoJ reward in lieu of getting a drop.

Rysteranch got out and about for a couple of hours to clear out his quest log. He did not accomplish his mission, but he did make 175 gold or so. He also picked up the 2nd and 3rd key frags for Kara.

Daxie healed Shadow Labs for rep, got her 2nd and 3rd key frags, and ran Durn for nothing. I forgot to turn in the quest to Thrall before someone started the escort. Dang!! So, now I get to run it again.

And, Secret remains somewhat secret, finished off Teldrissal, has about 11 Gold, and is making plans for the Draenai starting area.

AND, the Jack Booted Porter is safely bottled and put away for about a week. This batch yielded just over 16 liters. I'm thinking that I'll have to quality test on Friday. It'll still be a bit rough, but I'm sure it'll be drinkable.

Deaths Advocate has some new guildies.

I finally jumped ship. Last night, after arranging for my departure from the guild I founded, I moved all my toons over to Deaths Advocate. I was amazed at the sense of relief that I felt.

I'm no longer responsible for guiding a guild through leveling/attunment/keying/raiding.
I don't feel obligated to shelf what I'm doing to help guildies.
I am no longer one of the most knowledgeable people in my guild (so I don't get a lot of questions).
I do feel better about being in the guild that has gotten me almost all of my epics.

What's really interesting is that now, I'm more willing now to help people at The Iron Ring then I was just two days ago. /shrug. I sure am happier now that the mantle of leadership is gone, and I'm just another cog.

Woot on me.

Another Secret update

Doh, forgot to include this on the last post. Goals, I haz dem.

1. Secret bought 4 ten slot bags for around 2 gold. They make a big difference!
2. Elwynn Forest is done, Dun Morogh is almost done.
3. I'm having a blast!
4. Secret has just under 5 gold now after #1 and #5.
5. Bought some new clothes off the AH. I'll need to look again in a level or two.

Secret lives and dies

Secret died for the first time last night. Hogger claimed another victim! At level 13, I figured I'd be able to give him a run for his money, but unfortunately, he brought a friend with him. I did make some mistakes in handling the fight, so that Hogger was at 15% when I died.

The next attempt, I was able to pull him solo and was doing quite nicely with the fight, when he went down real fast. Too fast. It was then that I noticed a pally and a warrior standing over his body. Doh! I had help. Ok, no problem, but I will start looking at ways I might be able to solo elites my own level or possibly solo some instances with some creative thinking.

So, with Hogger down, I have only a couple of quests in Dun Morogh before I'm done with the two Eastern Kingdoms starting areas. Of course, I totally forgot about the Draenai starting area, so now I have to decide if I want to do both the NE starting area AND that one.

The positives include:
1. Rep gains for fun and discounts!
2. Cash, sure, not a lot, but it's some.
3. Easy mode. At level 14 there isn't much to challenge me in a level 1-10 zone, so the kills will be easy and the quests will be fairly quick.
4. Leveling skinning and mining to ensure I don't see that first tin vein/skinnable mob when I'm one skill point short!
5. Leveling cooking/first aid with relative ease.

The negatives include:
1. Little to no leveling. This could seriously impact my enjoyment if I don't constantly remind myself that I'm supposed to be relaxing/exploring/enjoying the game.
2. Possible boredom. I've done the Night Elf quests a couple of times; that, coupled with not being challenged in the fights might turn this into a grind instead of an adventure.

The big thing that keeps on coming back to me is that I've focused so much on leveling that I tend to forget the other parts of the game. In order to keep Secret fresh and exciting to play, I really have to get rid of the leveling mindset. It's time to take my time with a toon; the end game will be there for Secret when I get around to it.

Dark, smooth, and chewy

Of all the things I did over last weekend, I forgot one of the major items.

Rusty Brew Works is back in business!

I put together a batch of my Jack Booted Porter (It'll kick you in the head), and I can't wait until it's finished fermenting and bottled! Hopefully it will be fermented down by Saturday, and I can bottle it then. It's supposed to sit in the bottles for 10 days before it's ready to drink, but I may pop one open on Feb 2nd, just for quality control...yeah, that's it. Quality Control.

Now this batch is slightly different from my previous batches in that the brand of malt extracts that I was using wasn't available. I grabbed a "Sparkling Amber" version of the new malt, and the store owner suggested adding 1/4 lb of Carapils to compensate for body. All I know is that it smelled delicious when I was brewing it!

And, the Ale Pail is bubbling away, so I didn't screw up the yeast pitching!

I can't wait.....

I can't wait.....

The waiting is the hardest part.....

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!! I wants me some Jack Booted Porter!!!!

Secret goals

LOL!! After saying I have no goals for Secret, I now go and make some up! 8~P

1. Get bigger bags. With 3 gold, I should be able to get at least all 8 slotters, and maybe 10 slotters. These 6 slotters fill up way too quick.

2. Do all the quests in all three starting areas. With the flight point already established to Menethil, there's no reason I can't hop on over to Darnasty and do all the quests on Teldrassil. The only draw back is that I would get very little xp from it. But, WHO CARES!! LOL!

3. Continue to have fun. This one is important as I tend (read: always) to go overboard in leveling, whether it be character or professions. Of course, if doing the low level quests starts to feel like a grind, then that means I'll stop.

4. Continue to be self sufficient. This would have been much easier if I had just rolled on another server, oh well. With 3 gold seed money from the charter signing, I should be fine. That, and having two gathering professions means I won't be wasting cash on new recipes for a crafting profession.

5. Hit up the AH to buy some new clothes. I've been using drops and quest rewards with just one AH purchase to increase my DPS. We'll just have to see what's available.

That's it for now. Go Secret!!

Secret continued

Secret had some great adventures yesterday. I started a toon in the Eastern Kingdoms because I'd have easy access to both the Dwarf/Gnome and the Human starting areas.

So, I was running around Dun Morogh mining some cash when I saw a mountain, on the edge of the map that looked climbable. Sure enough, a moment later, I'm on top of the mountain range that surrounds Dun Morogh! In fact, I got the "You have discovered The Great Sea" message. Whoa.

Now I get to thinking. One of the things I've hated about playing the Alliance is running from Loch Modan to Menethil Harbor. Even at level 20, staying on the road, and avoiding all the mobs in sight doesn't ensure you won't be corpse hopping to get the flight point. I have the chance to jump down, die once, rez at the Spirit chick and grab the flight path. Now that's too much to resist. So I did.

And it worked out just as I planned. Thankfully, someone was slaughtering Murlocs near the Spirit Healer, so I didn't aggro anything when I rezzed. I then cheerfully made my way to Menethil....at level 9! I thought that was pretty cool.

Of course, I could have continued on to the Elven lands, but I was wanting to start on the beginning area of the other faction to grind rep and a bit of xp. So, I flew back to IF.

While in the city, I noticed in Trade chat that someone was offering 3 Gold for signing a guild charter. Now, I had been working my way toward my first gold and making good progress, but I definitely had to take advantage of this opportunity! I made my way to SW, signed the charter, got my gold, and got kicked from the guild. I guess the guy was setting up the guild for his personal alt bank. Great! I didn't want to stay and was just doing it for the cash anyways!

So far, Secret has provided me with the "me time" that I've sorely missed as of late. After the rocket leveling that I imposed on myself for Daxie, it's nice to just relax and look at the scenery. I have absolutely no goals for Secret other than to be self sufficient and learn how to play my character. There's no Aldork/Scrybaby rep to grind (yet), no gearing/keying for Kara, no farming Primals, just hangin' out killing stuff, skinning stuff, and mining stuff. It's almost like a vacation.

Other than the absence of guildies asking me questions, another benefit of playing Secret is a relief from the pressure of getting my guildies keyed. Sure, I'd like to see them get keyed for Kara (as well as Daxie), but I don't know that, right now, I want to go through the pain that is Shadow Labs, Durnhold, Steam Vaults, Arcatraz, and Black Morass. SV isn't that bad if it's only a key run, but SL is just a pain, especially with a group that's geared in quest greens/blues. Maybe I can get some DA folks together to clear it with Dax, and then invite all the alts for the key frag. We'll see.

Getting better....

Last night was a fresh Kara. DA had the usual suspects (along with Dax), and everyone was on time! So, we started the run around 7:10 pm.

At 9:45 pm, we had Attunmen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (Oz), and Curator down!! Lower Kara is getting ridiculously easy! No wipes, a couple of deaths, and a number of nice drops.

Val finally got to join the cool kids club with the Shard of the Virtuous from Maiden.
Dax got a nifty wand from Opera.
Gorg got a nice pair of pants from the Curator.

And, of course, the Pally/rogue/shammy T4 gloves token drops. I believe our Pally already has it, and we have none of the other classes in our group...../shard.

Thursday, Illhoof, Shade, Chess, and Prince are on the docket! Woot on us!!

Secrets....I haz them

I was inspired by BRK, encouraged by Og, and generally tired of talking with/helping guildies and friends. So, I made an alt that almost no people know about. I say almost, because I did whisper a friend to mess with her and let her in on the secret.

So, Secret is going to be unnamed in this blog, unsupported by the rest of my team, and a new source of relaxing without the demands of guild life. There are times when all I want to do is just collect money, kill stuff, and learn my toon.

I don't want to answer "where is" questions.

I don't want to help guildie X do what ever.

I just want to be left alone at times. But how do you do that when you're a GM and have 3 70's that CAN help? My solution is to hide; yes, it's a chicken poop solution.

The problem with telling guildies that you don't wish to be bothered is that they still whisper you questions. Maybe I'm just tired of being GM; lol, not that I do much as a GM! I do feel obligated to answer questions and help out if I'm able to.

So, I hide. Anyways, I'll be chronicling Secret's adventures and progress in the future. I took both BRK and Og's advice to take two gathering skills - mining and skinning. Secret collected enough gold for 4 six slot bags and all her spells for her level. Woot!

All that and the bathroom painted??

I love the holidays that I get working for the Feds! Last weekend was a three dayer, thanks to Uncle Sam. So, what did I do?

Daxie hit 70!

Shade, Chess, Prince, and Illhoof all went down!

Dax hit Exalted with the Violet Eye!

The last room in the house got painted (not by me)!

Dax went to ZA for the very first time!

Daxie and Rysteranch both did their first daily quest!

Whew! I need a break!

We're off to see the....Crone?

Last night, DA and Dax went to the Opera and saw The Crone for the first time. And, just to show what total newbs we are, we wiped on the first try! haha.

For some reason, Kara was buggy last night. One of the Opera characters (Rawr, I think) kept evading our attacks on our first try, but he was smacking us around! The second time, this wasn't an issue, so I'm not sure what to make of it. Reason got a nice hat, and the leather item was DE'd.

Then, in the Curator's room, several of the Mana drainer dudes were stuck inside one of the pillars. Once again, they could attack us, but we couldn't attack them. We were able to work around the issue, and one shotted Curator. The Mage T4 gloves dropped (gratz Handy), and some warrior legs dropped (gratz Kat).

Shade and Chess are up on Saturday; that means tonight, I might be able to get Daxie to 69! You go girl!!

You can't equip stuff when you're dead!

Last night, DA started a fresh Kara, and the first four bosses were on the docket. We had some trouble filling the last ranged DPS slot, so we 9 manned the first couple of pulls. Things went ok, but the raid was sort of sluggish. We had one new person for a bit, but over all, things just weren't clicking like they usually do.

Attunmen wasn't a problem. We seemed to slow on DPS at about 25%, but picked it up to finish him off. No bow for Burz, and no scope recipe for Vlady. The drops were sharded...bummer.

Moroes was the real telltale sign that the raid just wasn't working together. We cleared the trash and room with no problems, and then proceeded to wipe twice on this boss. Now, I'm not saying that the raid group is all L337, epic'd out, PvE specialists that shouldn't have a problem on this boss, but we have had a relatively easy time with him as of late.

I'm not sure if it was the Moroes group makeup or a slightly different strat on our part. The shackles seemed to be breaking early, the freezing trap was broken almost right away, and the two priests (one of which was me!) died early on in the wipes. After the second wipe, we went back to the original strat, and Moroes went down easily.

Then, clearing out the trash to Maiden, the hunter's pet was sent in to a mob that had just died. So Sharptooth picked the next best thing to attack, which happened to be a group of elites that we didn't have to kill. DOH!! Wipe.

We didn't have any problems after that. We finally started clicking and getting back into the groove. On Maiden, I did die, though. One thing we've found useful for skipping the Repentance stun is to step into the Consecration AoE when Repentance is about to hit. I get stunned for 2-3 seconds, but the Consecration breaks me out of it, and I can continue dispelling the Holy Fire, healing the tank, and watching my party's health. For some reason, when I stepped into the AoE at about 75% full health, I got hit with something that killed me!

My death was the only one, so Maiden still went down. Then I hear gasps of awe and whoa's and all sorts of commotion on Vent about the drop.

"What is it?? What is it??" I ask. They don't answer. They continue to oooo and ah over what ever has dropped. Finally the loot master links the drops in /raid....and it's the Shard of the Virtuous!! Oh boy, oh boy!!

See, the other priest has Light's Gavel, an epic from rep. The healing pally has some sort of epic healing mace, possible the Shard. And I have a green piece of crap that's decent for healing. So, I know that I'd benefit the most from it, but of course, I don't want to assume....

The raid didn't jack me around or tease me at all. It was placed in my bag, and everyone grat'd me! And that's when I found out that you can't equip items when you're dead! "Uh, can I get a rez, please?"

This item seriously increased my +healing. I went from +1347 to +1516! I also got upgrades on +int and +sta, as well as 1 more MP5. Now, THAT'S what an epic upgrade should look like, especially from a green! Now to farm the Primal Water and Primal Life to get the +81 healing on it. I'll be approaching +1600 healing! Woot on me!!

Put the Shade down!

Last Friday, DA finally ended Aran's nightmare. We took a couple of tries to do it, and it sure isn't an easy fight! It seems like the hardest part is making it through the Water Elementals; once we did that, and everyone was still alive, it was just a matter of burning him down.

We started the wipefest on Prince on Friday and continued it Saturday. It's both comforting and aggravating that the fight depends on luck. We tried the "safe spots" that are on WowWiki's guide, but they didn't seem to be any better than the spots we were using.

Now, that said, the main reason we didn't kill him is because the tank died. No, he didn't lose aggro, he died. And that, my friends, is my fault (and the other healers). The second phase is undoubtedly the hardest where the tank is getting hit at times for 12K damage. I was put on spamming Flash Heal, while the other priest was spamming Greater Heal and the pally was spamming his quick heal. The devil of the fight is that near the beginning, Prince doesn't seem to hit real hard, so it's tempting to wait on the next heal. That ended up spelling death for the tank. Of course, moving to avoid infernals was interrupting our heals, and we didn't coordinate our moves so as to keep the tank alive.

We took Sunday night off, and I think we have tonight off as a Gruul's attempt is in the works with a guild alliance. I begged off on this due to its 9:30 pm start time, which means things don't get rolling until 10 or later.

Skip Aran....FTW!

Last night, DA took down Curator, skipped Aran, and cleared to Chess. I think it was Mage night, 'cuz that's who's stuff dropped. Gratz on them!

We didn't have any wipes, but we did have some "Oh Crap!!" moments. At the back door, we were buffing just inside the double doors when someone aggroed a mob. One of the tanks picked it up, but the healers weren't on the ball. He died. Someone else died, I can't remember if I died or not. Of course, 10 mins before that, three of us ran into the instance, aggroed a mob, and tried to run out. I died that time....

We had deaths throughout the night, but no wipes. The "blow up" dudes in the circular room blew up at the exact same time and killed me and the other priest. Thankfully, the pally healer survived and was able to rez us.

Kind of a ho-hum night. Not too exciting, no priest drops, and a 7 gold repair bill. /yawn.

Farming

I'm starting to understand what it means when a guild or group has Kara on farm status. I think it's safe to say that DA has the first 4 bosses on farm.

Last night in about two hours, we cleared through Opera with no wipes and few deaths. No, Maiden didn't drop the Shard, but Attunmen did drop a ring that was a bit of an upgrade over the Headless Horseman's drop. I lost +6 healing, but gained 2 sta and 7 int; pretty nice, if I do say so myself.

Maiden dropped the healing bracers which are marginally better than the other bracers that I got from her, but it turns out that Val was wearing some sort of blue rag on his wrists!! We all insisted that he get rid of that pronto and upgrade to the purple. Other than that, it was tank night for drops. Gorg got both on the rolls, so grats to him!


Tonight is an off night, and Thursday it's off to Curator. I had to have a little talk with the GM about raiding every night and having to cut it off at 7 server time. I built a bit of aggro with my wife over the last couple of weeks and going to bed at the same time as her mitigates that somewhat. Also, having nights off where I'll still play, but can drop at a moments notice would go a long way toward [Mind Soothe]ing my beloved....

Update

DA did not get the Shade down last week. We had a wipefest a couple of nights, then moved on to the "free" epics bequeathed by Chess. We came back to Aran on Sunday night, but the best attempt got him to 11%.

Tonight, we have a fresh Kara and hopefully we'll get a bit more gear on our toons to help with this fight. Personally, I'm hoping for the Shard to drop off of Maiden; it'd be a huge upgrade over the AH green I've been carrying around.

Daxie dinged 66 over the weekend and got her tailoring to 362 thanks to Vadren who gave her 30 (YES THIRTY!!!) stacks of netherweave cloth. She has 5 bubbles until 67, so the end is in sight.

Curator Down!!

Last night, DA one shotted the Curator. We wiped a couple of times on the trash due to bad pulls and inattention to pats. The mage Tier 4 glove token dropped off the Curator, and it was interesting to observe that most of the classes that could use it had equal or better.

We cleared our way to some quest turn in, but I had to leave at 10, so the raid was called. Tonight, we have the Shade of Aran. I suppose I should read up on the fight....

Pffft!

So, I thought taking down the first four bosses in Kara was a bit ambitious. HA! Deaths Advocate + Dax were on a roll.

Attunmen? One shot

Moroes? One shot

Maiden? Two shot

Opera (Big Bad Wolf)? Three shot.

Started around 5 server time and ended around 8 server time. Not too shabby! Tonight is Curator, and I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to take him down!

Daxie

Ding - 64!

Tailoring - 291
Jewelcrafting - 346

Success!!

Sunday night, DA took down both Maiden and Opera! The team is really coming together in the communication area as well as knowing what to do.

For Maiden, it seemed the key was for the healers to step inside the consecration AoE when Repentance was about to hit. We would get stunned for 2-3 seconds, and then be all right. We put a Renew on ourselves to help mitigate the damage. And we got her the first try!

Some bracers dropped [Clothie wearer of Nefarious Deeds] or something like that, and Dax won them!!!! Woot on him! They replaced a pair of "of the Physician" bracers. Now, I'm not one to complain about phat lewtz, but you'd think an Epic would be a significant upgrade over a Green. I actually lost 3 +healing, but gained armor, stamina, and int, so it was definitely worth it; I was just sad to see the loss in +healing.

On Opera, we took 2 or 3 times to down Romulo and Julianne, but finally, we did. No phat lewt for me as I passed on the Nexus shards - Hey, I already got my phat lewt!!!

Since we finished so early, we decided to take a look at Curator. We took 3 or so stabs at him, and at one point got him down to 57%! Once we get a handle on the fight, he'll go down pretty easy, I think.

Tonight we have a fresh instance, so I expect to see Attunmen, Moroes, Maiden, and maybe Opera. It's a little ambitious, but it's good to push yourself!