More things to be thankful for

...that I don't write poetry more often.

Haiku, what is it
seventeen syllables in
five, seven, then five

That should be worth at least 75 Ess rep and 375 Dammy rep.

Moved

Ok, I took the plunge and moved my 70's over to Kael'thas. Turion, the Pally Tank, is unconvinced anything will change for me (he's a bit torqued), and maybe he's right. But, I have noticed a marked difference in my home life, so I'm hoping I can keep myself in check better on this server than on my old one.

I had to change Daxenos's name to Daxe because, although I changed my hunter's name to Dwarfvader, the name Daxenos is now locked for 90 days on Kael'thas. Doh!

I helped out BBB's priest on Ring of Blood. I brought Rysteranch and PuddyTat. Together we brought about 770 DPS, which I thought was a bit low. It was only afterwards that I noticed that I had my fishing pole equipped instead of my Sonic Spear....

DV is an engineer. He got up to 165 engineering and 203 mining. I really like the changes Blizz has made to leveling mining as from 127 to 203, all I had to do was smelt the different metals. Daxe did all the mining.

So, a fresh new start and (hopefully) a better home life. /sigh. More musings of a WoW flake.

RL Trinket

Real Life Trinket. It proc'd last night, and I am so glad that I told Turion, the Pally Tank, that I wasn't going to raid this week. I know my wife has gotten really tired of hearing, "No, honey, I really don't want to...." due to being committed to going to Kara or something.

So, at the beginning of the week, I told Turion that I wouldn't be raiding this week, and despite his goading, stuck to my guns. And now, I've told him to take me off the schedule indefinitely. I really think that this is going to greatly lower the wife aggro if I can jump off the computer at a moment's notice. And, of course, I can't do that if 9 other people are depending on me.

I am debating a server transfer. There, I said it. A number of the Pox folks I play with on Wednesday nights have made alts in BBB's guild, and I've had some more time to play with them on Daxenos the Dwarf Hunter. One of the parts of Sidhe Devils' Guild Charter that I really like is that they will not coerce and/or force people into raids. Wanna raid? Great! Don't wanna? Great!

As a member of The Iron Ring, I feel pressure to raid in order to progress because I'm geared for it and I do a pretty good job. I can definitely understand Turion's viewpoint: "Hey, we geared you - you owe us, and you need the badges/gear/rep anyways." Unfortunately, for him, I would much rather torque him and the guild off than my wife; this wasn't always the case.

While I do enjoy the 10 man raids, it is taking a toll on my marriage, which I was concerned about way back when. I have voiced several of my concerns and current situation on the forums over at Sidhe Devils' website and received quite a bit of positive feedback. So, at the risk of being called a rat b*****d by Turion for the next 20 years we work together, I am seriously thinking about moving.

So, more, uh, musings of a flake job...

WTB A Challange for Purple Poxers

The title says it all. Razorfen Kraul was a bit of a joke. We had two close moments:

- once when we jumped down after the PigLady boss, which ended up with 8 dead baddies.
- once on our 2nd or 3rd run to the Helmet boss when we were fighting several of the stun mobs.

Other than that, we didn't even break a sweat. Yeah, Madja ran and gathered up a group that we didn't have to fight on a pull, but...meh...

We could have probably did 2 full boss clears, but the Helmet boss (with the two "rare" spawns, is something really "rare" if it spawns with the boss every stinkin' time???) refused to drop the helm the first two times, so we ended up reseting it to go for Harisan's helmet.

The funny thing about last night was that we couldn't equip most of the phat lewtz that we got until level 27. We started at 25, dinged 26, and only near the end of the third Helmet run did people start dinging 27. I ended up just shy of 27 after turning in whatsherface's heart.

Oh, phat lewtz? Yeah we gotz dem.
Harisan - several green upgrades, shield of whatsherface
Me - healing mace, shoulders, shards
Madja - agi dagger off first boss (I think that's the only thing he drops - we skipped him for #2 & #3 runs)
Wara/Sal - nada, zippo, zilch....that I remember.

We were talking about farming BFD for drops, but this place might be better. I know the robes off the Healing Mace dude were an item of interest...but I think we're headed off to Gnomer to see if THAT would be a challenge. Maybe we should just move on to SM: Graveyard...lol.

On a Daxe note, I did my first turn in of cloth for Troll rep so I can get a Raptor mount. I've been doing gray quests for rep and will continue to do so. I'm almost half way through Honored, so I have a long ways to go. On the plus side, I do believe that in the lvl 10-20 zones, I'll get bleed over rep from the quests, so Silverpine, Ghostlands, and The Barrens are my targets.

Hmmmm....

So once again, I find myself deep in thought about what I want to do in the world of WoW. The reason for my pondering lay in the fact that I would rather play my Dwarf Dax Hunter over any of my other toons (save for Daxe my BE Poxer Priest which is tonight!!!).

Wanna go to Kara...nah.

Wanna do Heroic Mech....nah.

Wanna do Shattered Halls, YOU KNOW BOTH DAXIE AND RYSTERANCH NEED THE REP!!!!!...nah....

What did I do last night? Bummed around Loch Modan killing stuff, mining, and skinning. I did finish one quest and dinged 20 - ho hum. Pigglet and PuddyTat are both 19. Worked a bit on my cooking. Collected and shipped the mats for some ammo and a Lovingly Crafted Boomstick to Windshadow AKA BBB.

Basically, I relaxed, which I am enjoying very much! No pressure of being in a group or pushing through progression. I'm also taking it easy as far as leveling - no burn! I'm having a blast being a dual gatherer (although I'd really like to take up engineering....8~P) and have amassed a bit of gold.

What's up next? Not sure. I need to start fishing and also get my mining up to at least 125 before I move on to The Wetlands, Duskwood, or Redridge, because if there's one thing I hate it's staring at an Iron node with my mining skill at 124....

List of instances

In response to Nasirah's comments on her blog.....there!

Why WoW keeps it's freshness

It's the preservatives.

On another topic, I am having a new game experience. Everyone knows that I love hunters and priests, and that whenever I roll on a new server, my first toon is almost always a hunter followed closely by a priest. I have rolled Night Elf, Blood Elf, Troll, and with Daxenos on Kael'thas, Dwarf hunters.

The funny thing is that, up to now, I've always leveled my hunters with bows because I liked the look better (NE, BE, Troll), and they all started with bows. Of course, now, my higher level hunters (61 and 70) have guns, so I know a little bit about Outlands hunting with guns. But with Daxenos, I started with a gun, which I think fits perfectly with being a Dwarf.

Anyways, it's interesting having a gun and having access to an engineer to craft bullets and guns for me. As a low level archer, I had to scan the AH for bows and buy my arrows from vendors; now, since I'm a miner, all I have to do is mine some rocks and ore. Not counting opportunity cost (which is significant), my ammo costs will be quite a bit cheaper, and the same thing goes for weapon upgrades. I like it!

Another new experience is running around Dun Morogh as a hunter. I've been there as a mage, a warlock, a warrior, and a pally, but never as a hunter. I didn't really like it as all those other classes, but have found it's not so bad with a hunter. It still doesn't compare with the new Burning Crusade starting areas, but it's not as bad as I remembered. Also, I found a couple of quests due to the new marking system that I had missed before. I'm betting that Loch Modan won't be as bad either...haha.

With Dax, I'm planning on leveling two pets, side by side. I'll use one of them until they ding my current level, then switch to the other one until it dings my current level. And then, I'll pull out Pigglet for the remainder of the level, as I really like the initial aggro she gets from the Charge/Growl combo.

Of course, I'm wondering how long before I start a priest....I've never had a Dwarf priest....

Purple Poxer Pics

Here are the two screenshots that I took on Wednesday during our Pox night.

This is the second altar after the big Hydra dude.


And, Harisan got her flying mount!

Some musings

It's been far too long....

So, yesterday over on Kael'thas, I was talking with my new guildie, who I suspect is a Hordie in disguise (BBB's guild is Alliance). What tipped me off is that he seemed more comfortable fighting as an Undead Night Elf Warrior vs. a live one. I tried to tell him that he couldn't equip his sword as a wisp and so, couldn't Sunder Armor, but my advice fell on deaf ears.

And since I had deaf ears not listening to me, I decided to "help" him out by implying that he had a problem to which his solution involved The cat, a rollercoaster, and a medicine ball. I tried to help him by pointing out that The cat wouldn't meet the minimum height requirements for the rollercoaster AND that the average housecat can in no way swallow a medicine ball.

An aside, I did say that I had read reports of domesticated felines being able to swallow a billiard ball and one unconfirmed article of a cat swallowing a basketball, but none being able to choke down a medicine ball.

Anyways, while preparing dinner, I realized that a simple solution to his problem would be cat stilts. "But, what about the ban?" you might ask. First of all, it's a moratorium, not a ban, and secondly, it was the UN that put that out. And everyone knows that UN resolutions are non-binding.

After I had communicated that to my best buddy from Europe, the afore mentioned undead NE warrior who's name I will not devulge (See Ashhi, I CAN be descreet!), seemed a bit overwhelmed by my simple solution, so I presented an alternate: Kitty blindfolds. I'm still not sure if my message got through the language barrier, as I only spoke in Mandarin.

But back to the cat stilts. I'd like to expand on this riveting subject and explore the history of how the UN came to stick their nose into the national industry of Sri Lanka.

The origin of cat stilts is still debated, but the early renditions are well known. Pugnacious "Yarp" Boonswaggle was arguably the first person to make a crude set of "kitty elevators", as they first were known. Unfortunately for him, the 4X4 beams that he nailed the cats' feet to were too heavy for the felines to effectively use. So, while the cats gained 6 feet of "elevation", they could not use the stilts for their intended purpose. And the idea seemed to die.

With the advent of welding, puss extenders became one of the first applications of the new technology. Researchers quickly determined that welding the actual paw to the 4X4 was a recipe for disaster, and soon began looking for shoes or "boots" that could be used instead. Hence, we get the phrase, "Bob's your Uncle!" But, once again, even with the feet firmly, and humanely, attached, the cats were unable to properly use the stilts.

After this, cat stilt research entered a dark era that included steroids, DNA manipulation, and live sacrifices. Due to the icky part of this field of study, many researchers left for greener pastures in the mold industry, however, despite many different approaches, the 4X4's could not be made any lighter or the cat's more beefy. But all was not lost, as many useful products resulted from the 3 million cats who sacrificed their all; the list of products include Velcro, Super Glue, and the letter P.

Enter Rufus "Batman" Cage. Batman is credited with saving the industry from itself (and them dang regulators) with his revolutionary idea of using 2X4's instead of 4X4's. The cats still did not have the strength to use the new stilts, but this line of thinking caused researchers to continue trying new and different material for the stilts. It would only be after extensive research into 1X4's, 1/2X4's, 1/4thX4's, and on down to 1/256thX4's that the next breakthrough would be realized. As an aside, the next iteration (1/512thX4's) would have sliced through those kitties' paws like a hot knife through butter, and the researchers had run out of cats to complete a full study.

That breakthrough was balsa wood, and the rest, as they say, is history.

BFD - no, not the Deal, the instance....

Last night, the Purple Poxers paid a visit to Blackfathom Deeps. The mobs ranged from level 22 - 24, and we started at 23 and ended at 24 (we all dinged 25 from turning in quests). In short, we drank their beer, soiled the carpet, and (someone - Madja!) clogged up the facilities....She really needs to lay off the [Mutton Chop] binging.

I want to apologize for the lack of pictures; I took some, but forgot to send them to work where I'm posting this from. If you're lucky, I'll add them when I get home...lol.

BRD is interesting in that it has a large room near the beginning that has several points of interest in it. A full clear is not required, and most of the turtle mobs are even non-aggressive. As I'm writing this I realize that I won't be able to write the description the way I want due to a lack of research material here at work. So, I guess I'll just say, look at the Atlas map for the things to do in this room.

After the big room, the instance turns linear until the second big room. Just like the first big room, the second big room does not require a full clear. However, remember that there are two points of interest in the water. I found myself looking at the Atlas map quite a bit during this run because I was somewhat unfamiliar with the instance.

For our group, this instance was somewhat of a joke. We, again, had no wipes or deaths. We did get a slew of murlocs at one point and did a 5/6 pull on some cultists, but Harisan held aggro, I kept her healed and the DPS burned down the kill order. Someone remarked that we needed a bigger challenge..lol.

All of the bosses went down just like any other mob. Maybe I'm just used to Outlands bosses that have special abilities and seem to be more than just another level XX elite. Of course, it may also just be the lower level dungeons that have very simple fights, although, Arugal has some tricks up his sleeves...

So, next week is Razorfen Kraul. I'm guessing that we'll continue on to the next instance every week until we start wiping or we can't equip the loot for another 5 levels...lol. It seems that between our great teamwork and our Phat Lewtz, we've had a really easy time with the last couple of instances. It also looks like RFK and Gnomer are around the same level, so we may be spending time in both - most of us have no desire to do Gnomer, but it might be fun with our group. I think we've also agreed to doing it once just for posterity and completeness.

I do believe I'll be making a list of our progress through the instances of WoW. I just have to figure out how to make that nifty strikethrough text....

I blame Ess

So, yesterday, I gave into temptation and rolled a Dwarf Hunter on Kael'thas. I named him Daxenos, saw that Mr. & Mrs. BBB were on, and whispered the Big Bear. He was somewhat leery of allowing a nutjob into his family friendly guild, but my winning, no make that whining, personality won him over...that and the Mutton Chops.

Of course, Ess was playing so I totally blamed her in guild chat for tempting me. /sigh, I'm such a weak individual...haha.

In other news, Daxie healed her first Heroic last night (Mech) and got her Boots of the Pious! I got 3 BoJ's (we only tried the fire chick once). Also, she healed Shattered Halls - normal, yesterday afternoon and picked up a nice cloak and some nice gloves.

And, tonight is Pox Night! WOOOOT! We're going to Blackfathom Deeps; we are all lvl 23, so it should be interesting.

Rysteranch and Kara

Yup, RysteranchNE went to Kara with The Iron Ring on Saturday and Sunday. On Sat, we took down Attunmen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (R&J), and Curator. We one shotted everything, and I topped the damage meter (with PuddyTat figured in...). Oh, then we wiped twice on Nightbane before calling quits.

I got Romulo's Poison Vial since no one else wanted it and 9 badges.

Sunday morning, they had a wipefest and didn't down anything (I couldn't make it). But that evening, we two shotted Shade, one shotted Illhoof, completed Chess, and took a wipe peek at Netherspite.

6 BoJ's and no other loot. Once again, I topped the damage meter; I almost beat the top warlock by myself, and with PuddyTat figured in, I pounded out nearly 23% of the raid's damage. Not bad, not bad.

Oh, and....I'm back in The Iron Ring....yay!

A Start

Daxen shielded her eyes from the punishing glare of the Barrens' sun; this Quillboar camp was going to be tricky. The Blood Elf hunter had just been commissioned with retrieving some stolen supplies thought to be at a nearby Quillboar encampment. While there were more than a couple of pockets of the swine version of the Murlocs, this particular area held the most promise....and the Pigmen had a nice bounty on their heads.

She was a long ways from her humble beginnings in Eversong Forest and the Ghostlands. The hunter smiled at the thought of home and her sisters. She was sure that Daxe and Smoochie would living it up at the spa or shopping for the perfect outfit for an upcoming party. They were always comparing lipsticks, painting their nails, and spending hours on their hair.

Daxen on the other hand was the Tomboy. From early on in their lives, she had taken on the role of brother, which mostly consisted of terrorizing her younger sisters with mana worms and biletoads. Even after their only brother Daxenos arrived, Daxen continued to "acquaint" her siblings with the baser things of life. It was a pity that Daxenos took more to his other sisters' leanings than to her own. Daxen sighed; why was it that so many Blood Elves were vain, vapid individuals!

Pigglet snorted restlessly at her side, anxious to be on with the business of the day, bringing Daxen back to the present. She had a job to do, and if she were to catch the attention of the Darkspear leadership, it was piss ant jobs like this that were going to pave the way.

"Mon, ju gots ta makes da name fo juself so's ju con learn ta ride da Rapta." was what the riding instructor had said. Or something like that. Once again she was thankful for her "Uncle" Rysteranch and his thick troll accent that had tuned her ears to the sing-song dialect of the Darkspears.

"That one!" whispered Daxen, as she set Pigglet into motion. The boar took off like a shot after the hapless Quillboar Waterseeker as Daxen first hit it with a poisoned arrow and targeted the wolf next to it. The pigman's pet went down with a carefully placed shot to it's vital organs, and Daxen turned her attention to the now running Waterseeker. Her next shot dazed the Quillboar, allowing her to finish it off before it could call any buddies.

Dang PigMurlocs! She spat on the corpse. After picking over the limp body, all she came up with was a few copper and 2 pieces of usable linen. Daxe or Daxenos would be thrilled at the "free" material to build their tailoring skills.

One down, 4 to go...

SFK - PWNED X3

That's right. Purple Poxers were back in action last night instead of our regular Wed night (Mrs. Dax appreciated her Birthday Present of a WoWless night from me...lol). Shadowfang Keep was on the docket, and we were pumped!

But a little background info first: We Purple Poxers play from 7 pm - 10 pm eastern time, and the 10 pm quitting time is a must for me (I get up for work at 4 am). So we really try to make the most of our time together - which means collecting quests and being prepared beforehand.

So, we met up at the Sepulcher and ran down to the instance. The first pull happened (accidentally - thx Wara! hahaha) around 7:10 pm. We skipped some mobs in the courtyard and the hallway around the kitchen/dining room. We finally killed Arugal at 8 pm.

...
...
...
EIGHT PM!!!!!
HOLY SMOKES!!

So....I said, "It looks like we could get another run in." To which everyone else replied, "Absolutely!!" We ran outside, reset the instance and had the first pull around 8:10 or so. Arugal died at 9 pm.

Well, DANG! I guess the first time wasn't a fluke! Rinse and repeated. We even had time to run back to the Sepulcher after the third run to turn in quests. Then flew off to the UC to turn in the Book of Ur. By that time it was 10:10 pm or so, and I had to leave.

Stats:
Number of complete runs (all bosses dead): 3
Number of hours spent: 3
Number of wipes: 0
Number of deaths: 0
Number of Mechanical Squirrels: 1
Number of Blue quality items the dude in the dining room dropped: 0
Number of shards collected: erm...a lot?
Phat lewtz:
Harisan - shield off the pally guy, sword off the butcher, and cloak off Fenrus
Daxe - Arugal's belt and the Feline shoulders
Salindar - Feline shoulders and...erm other stuff....
Wara - Feline shoulders, Bloody Apron, Arugal's belt, and....other stuff.
Madja - +agi green bracers, and..uh some other stuff...
All of us: MUTTON CHOPS!!!!

Of course, that last item is totally hunter loot.

/gquit

Last night I left Deaths Advocate. I had come to the realization that I wasn't a good fit for the guild. Yes, playwise, I fit in very well, but I had changed into a person that I didn't like in order to fit in with the other personalities. In short, I had become rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. I had participated and initiated R rated conversations and had even started using some quasi-foul language. That is not the person that I want to be.

I guess I found people I could raid with, but ended up not liking to spend time with. There were a couple of people in the guild that I really liked, but for the most part, I really wouldn't have chosen to hang out with the rest of the guild if it weren't for raids. I really should have thought more about that part of being a guild member before jumping ship.

So, now, Turion, the Pally tank, wants me to return to The Iron Ring, but I can't do that until I make amends with Myk and Kat for the way I left and subsequent behavior. I really have been like a bull in a china shop in regards to just making a mess out of my online relationships. GG Dax!

This also brings to light the same thing is going on with my Horde guild, Kruel. I have changed who I am to fit in and be accepted by them, and I really need to either voice my concerns about R rated convos in Vent/Gchat (some of which I've encouraged and participated in) or leave the guild.

I really hate the part of my character that so easily tosses aside my principles in order to be accepted by my "new found friends". /sigh. For some reason I have no problem with not caring about what people think of me IRL, but online, I want to be seen as cool, witty, and funny. And that desire usually takes me into places that I should not and do not want to go.

And so, I'm changing the name of the blog to musingsofawowFLAKE. lol.

Catchin' up

So, I usually don't blog when I don't work, but I guess this is an exception. I took the last couple of days off (including today) to spend time with my sons while they're on spring break.

On Wed, I was committed to spending time on WoW with my son and his Pally. We started the day at level 9 and ended it at 15. Neither one of us had a death experience, although we got into some sticky situations at times. And I must say that, once again, Blizzard did a nice job with the new content starting areas. By the time we left Eversong Woods, we were both level 12! Of course, that included a bit of rest xp, but still, for duoing the entire area, we should have been quite lower because of the decreased xp for teaming up. /shrug, Yay on us!

Wed night was also Pox night. We got a late start due to updating addons and such, but by 7:30, we were rolling through WC. We didn't have any wipes this time, most of us got phat lewtz (dang Wara, what's up with those rolls!!), and we completed the entire instance, including the escort quest. Oh, and Salindiar was the odd man out...AGAIN!!


I just realized that his is the only guy toon...hmmmmmm.

On to Thursday...that would be yesterday, right? Yeah, yesterday. I spent the late morning and all afternoon with my other son. We were on a mission to find a Wii. Unfortunately, we failed. But we did get some phat eats, saw Horton Hears a Who, and got to drive around together.

On the WoW front, I got RysteranchTR (that'd be my troll...hee hee hee) up to 56. I also got the call to go to Kara on RysteranchNE. The group had already cleared through Maiden the other night, so Opera and Curator was on the schedule. Cleared trash, blah blah blah, checked out the event and.....

It was Big Bad Wolf!!!! Woooooot! The hunter's dream.

So, we begin to learn the fight. About half of us had seen it, so the other half had yet to experience running around as LRRH. It ended up taking us three tries before we downed him. I got killed pretty early on the first two fights, once when I was LRRH and got hung up on the door - DOH! And the other when Turion couldn't get BBW back aggro-wise and he rampaged through the DPS and Healers. It wasn't Turion's fault, though, we figured out. The DPS wasn't waiting long enough for him to establish a firm grip on the boss.

The third try will go down in my "Glorious Moments in WoW." We finally had everybody on the same page for being LRRH, and people were executing it pretty well. But as BBW's health fell, he began to knock off the Raid one by one. He usually would catch them in the LRRH state near the end of the debuff. So after Turion got smacked to the Spirit Healer at 5% (or thereabouts maybe 4%?), there were three of us left. Jaquio - tank, Loot - Healer, Rysteranch - DPS. Time to burn!!

PuddyTat was also alive, so that made 4. Slowly...but......surely.....we started seeing his health drop....4%.....RUN LOOT RUN!!!!

3%....RUN JAQ RUN!!!!!

2%.....RUN JAQ RUN!!!!!

1% KILL THIS BLANKETY BLANK!!!!!!!

DEAD!

WOOOOOOOOOOOT!!! I couldn't believe we took him down! I ran over to the body to peek at the drops.....and had to catch my breath! The Wolfslayer Rifle!!!

The other hunter whispered me and told me he wasn't going to roll on it cause he had the Attunmen Crossbow. Oh, my, lord!! Turion called for us to roll, Adocus said give it to me, and BLAM! I gots a new gun!

Oh, then we took out Curator...meh. He dropped the crappy healing shoulders and a Pally/Shammy/Rogue T4 token.

BUT I GOT A NEW GUN!!!!