At Least We Aren't The Worst

Well, the 3v3 team was formed with Xig & the boomkin and we notched up our 10 games this week... Very embarrassing... But, based on our (especially mine) gear, not too surprising... At least, we did win one game... :p

Hopefully, it'll be better next week as I gather more PvP gear... Should have enough honour by tonight to get the S1 chestpiece.

Over the weekend, Mart also finally got a peak at Kara, at the chess event and Prince. I ended up with this belt because no mages were in the raid and no disenchanters either... :p The 5 badges were really good though. Prince dropped the token for my T4 helm but I passed on it because it's not something I will use, not with my uber goggles.

Arena

Well, I've never really considered doing this as my reflexes/latency/skill aren't just up to it but since not much else is happening, I've also been considering upgrading Gren's gear through PvP.

So, it's got me to research what I can get out of Arena for Gren. The Season 3 weapons and shoulders are a bit out since those require personal and team ratings and I really would want matching gear, it's either grind for Season 2 set or some pieces here and there to go with the Season 1 gear. Now, Season 2 set would require a fair amount of Arena points, and frankly, I don't really like the look of the set so looks like the honour grinding for Season 1 will continue.

However, one thing to get would be the Season 3 Waraxe, which doesn't require personal rating and just 1000 points. Depending on how many points you can get each week by scrubbing out, might want to aim for the Season 2 Crossbow which requires 3,261 points, instead of the Season 1.

No Cheese with this Whine...

Last night was one of the rare nights when I was able to be online rather early and I was hoping we could get a 5-man going. Unfortunately, the little princess woke up after awhile but after a LOT of coaxing, she was back in dreamland. Tried to get the 5-man going again, but the two of them were happily in their own world with their stealth runs...

Fine...

By the time they were ready, it was quite late, so I thought we could do a regular instance run instead, since we were not constrained by the midnight reset thing (there was just over an hour and a half to go). If our group had the CC, DPS and the familiarity of the instance, we could conceivably run Heroic Mech or Slave Pens in the short time we had, but we didn't. Their answer? We had enough time to finish off a boss or two of their leftovers of Heroic Sethekk Halls...

Frankly, what's the point? For 1 badge? In that time, I could run AVs for almost 2k honour. If they refuse to run other Heroics with us in the short time that we have, and refuse to help gear the rest up, then what use is 1 badge?

I asked for help in a normal instance run for Eld or even normal Shattered Halls for Mart to complete his quest, but, no. They will only do Heroics. That's wonderful. When they needed help in grinding SL for rep, we go. Now they'll only do Heroics, and on their terms. So? I ended grinding more AV.

But now, I'm seriously considering what to do. If Bact had a decent connection and Naraa was around more consistently, it might be worthwhile to stick around since we can get the five-mans. Now? I can't even get groups to finish my group quest in SMV... So, I was seriously considering joining West instead. I mean, they have been the one who has helped me a lot for my group stuff; a heck of a lot more than those two. In fact, all my Badges of Justice are from runs with West. It seems like 'abandoning' the guild again but if I'm just doing solo stuff, might as well re-roll or server transfer...

So, I guess that's what I'll end up doing. Next time I see Panda or one of the other officers online, I'll ask about joining. Dunno if they would have me, since I still won't be able to make it to most of their raids... :p

Hax!

If you read Big Red Kitty's blog, you'll know that his guild bank was recently cleared out by someone who managed to hack one of the guild officer's account. It seemed to have been done using a keylogging program to get his password as the hacker managed to get his password twice!

That really brought home the message that as much as we think everything is fine and dandy and safe out there, there really are a lot of dodgy people doing dodgy stuff. Frankly, losing virtual lootz is small peanuts, even if it was the hard work of a large group of people over a period of time, but if I was that officer, I'll be much more worried about what other passwords the keylogger has access to, things that really matter in the 'RL', like bank account login, etc.

So, how to make sure the following doesn't happen to you? Go buy a proper 'Internet Security' suite, which should ideally include an Anti-virus, Malware scanner and especially a Firewall. Read the damn manual and learn to configure said Anti-virus, Firewall, and Malware scanner. If you can pour through the mumbo-jumbo about which shot-rotation is best for a 41/20 hunter, this shouldn't be too tough to understand. It's not rocket science.

End of the day, it doesn't matter if you are the most leet raider/PvPer anything if a hacker gets your password, empties your account out and delete your characters.

All Your Bases Belong to Us - The Sequel

Well, I didn't think we could pull it off again, but we certainly did... Twice in a row! Not only that, but we bettered the effort by keeping Galv alive. I was with the Galv D group (ok... group is a bit generous... There were only 3, then 2 of us...) and after they cleared us, I thought Galv was a dead duck. After res, I went to help retake Iceblood Tower, and when I got back to see Galv as I noticed a few defenders still there and was surprised to see the half-naked Orc still running around...

Anyway, that was the last and only attempt to kill Galv and we sat there watching while the rest of the Defense capped the Towers, and our Offense slowly rolled the Ally Defense and killed Van...

Mart should have enough to get the gem after the honour calculation tonight. I've started Gren on the grind. I've bought the wrists using honour and marks banked from pre-TBC. Most of the S1 gear are side-grades (DPS-wise) but at least I get matching clothes... One thing I did realise is how LACKING her DPS and stats are... Mart was at least able to hold his own and Eld had the excuse that his gear was crap but he still had the stamina. However, Gren, poor Gren didn't have the stamina to go toe to toe with anyone who had some PvP gear & not enough DPS to kill them fast enough... :( Hope the situation will improve as her gear gets upgraded...

Sleepless

What a crazy night...

Great Idea
Heroic Mech run when the daily is for that.

Bad Idea
Heroic Mech run at 2am in the morning...

But, Great Idea > Bad Idea and I leapt at the chance to go... We were definitely not on top of our game (a few wipes here and there) but we finished the thing. So, 6 more badges for Mart and a Nether to boot... The drops were horrid but at least I got a Void Crystal out of it.

Now, if I can get a few more runs under the belt, I should be able to get my first item... :p

Getting There

Finished off a few of the quests and 'upgraded' my gear to proper tanking stuff. The Defense is just a little bit lacking (481...) but getting there. I really want to get my Cipher chain done for the axe. After that, will be grinding the quests for rep.

Over the weekend, also grinded the druid a bit and really got to experience the 'enhanced' leveling from 20-60. It's really fast. Just doing the quests in Charred Vale pushed Tris from a newly 26 to 27 with spare change. I think I'll look at getting her to 35 for the secondary profession quests, then concentrate on leveling Shev to 70! I really need to clear out some of the junk on my mules which are waiting for her professions to get past 225... :p

Ghost Wolf Pet

To add to the list of interesting and different pets, this baby is the current king of the hill.

It's basically a summoned beast from some of the new mobs in Dustwallow Marsh. Now, that's no big deal, except for the fact that the mob lasts only for 8 seconds. The problem? Your Tame Beast spell takes 20...

Anyway, intrepid hunters have found that this is not a huge problem... How? You just need to get your Tame Beast spell to be faster than 8 seconds!

First, you need a helm with a Meta-gem slot. An easy to get helm is High Warlord's Chain Helm which requires just 12,852 Honour and 30 AV Marks (or grind a bit more for Gladiator's Chain Helm for 14,500 Honour and 30 AV Marks) or Nether Runner's Cowl, assuming you are Exalted with Consortium.

Second, you need to get a Mystical Skyfire Diamond for the helm. Remember that you need more Blue gems than yellow. Now since you are facing lvl 30 mobs, just unequip all your gear with yellow gems. If you have NO blue gems, just buy some random junk blue gem from the AH (you should usually be able to find green (as in rarity) gems in AH for about 1g) and socket it into the helm.

If you are a Troll (with the Berserk racial giving 30% spell haste at 10% health, it has been reported that you can possibly do it solo with just the diamond, but frankly you need a fair bit of luck and almost no lag... Since I'm notorious unlucky where this kind of crap is concerned and I do have lag, I'm going to try to stack the deck a bit. These help:

• Drums of Battle which needs a 350 Leatherworker to use. These give 80 Spell Haste Rating - 5.1%
• Juju Flurry from a quest in Winterspring. These give 30 Spell Haste Rating - 1.9%
• Shaman's Bloodlust (or Heroism, depending on your faction) spell, which gives a flat 30% increase
• Priest MC spell, to better control the spawning of the Wolf

Now, I don't know any Leatherworkers and the mats seems a bit harsh and the JuJu seems like work for little benefit, so it should be easy with a Priest + Shaman. It's not that we have an abundance of these, but I should be able to round them up... In theory, with both Bloodlust and Berserk, I should be able to reduce the casting time to 4.9 seconds, whereas with Berserk (or Bloodlust) only, it's 7 seconds, which is a VERY small window of opportunity.

So, how to do it?

Duel your friends till you get to 10% health. Have the Priest MC the Grimtotem Spirit Shifters. Spam cast the various Aspects until the gem procs, then have the shaman cast bloodlust on you. When you start to grow, have the priest summon the wolf immediately.

You need to them immediately target the wolf and tame! This can be a bit tough so use a macro like this:
/target Grimtotem Spirit Guide
/cast Tame Beast
bind it to a button and spam as required!

Of course, after that, you have a nice grind ahead of you to bring a level 30 pet to 70... I'll wait till patch 2.3.2 where the pet leveling improvements go live before doing that.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer...

My toons went on a kissing spree and Eld was the first to get lucky with the sprig of Fresh Holly... So, on the way to Nagrand to run the Circle of Blood quest, Eld rode a reindeer with sparkly bits behind...



Eld has been running quests in Shadowmoon Valley and while killing some water elementals with Naraa's help, the pattern for Ragesteel Shoulders dropped. It looks like it's something worth making for my grinding set, but the urgency is not there... When I continue my blacksmith grinding, I'll make one of those. Till then, tanking gear takes priority...

I also finally got round to planning and actually training my pets properly. Zeph is now a grinding/PvE pet and Frostie is the PvP pet... It was also during this time to my horror that I have yet to learn Prowl 3... So off to STV I went, tamed a Jaguero Stalker, who also came with Cower 5 (yeah....) and quite fortunately, learnt the skill almost immediately.

Profit!

For the truly lazy who want to make money without stepping out of Org...

You need about 300 Cooking. You must have this already or it is too late.

Check your mailbox for the recipe for Hot Apple Cider. It makes 2 x Hot Apple Cider each time, requiring Sparkling Apple Cider, Holiday Spirits & Holiday Spices as reagents.

Now, if you look at the prices, it means 2 Hot Apple Cider costs 1s 10c (2 x Hot Apple Cider costs 50c for Sparkling Apple Cider, 50c for Holiday Spirits & 10c for Holiday Spices to make. But, EACH Hot Apple Cider vendors for 1s 60c. So, for 1s 10c capital, you make a profit of 2s 10c. Cooking has a 'cast time' of 3 sec. Assuming it takes 1 sec to then vendor this, that means your profit is 2s 10c per 4 seconds, or 31s 50c per minute, which translate to 18g 90s per hour.

Not the fastest way to make money, but it's like WB's AV, you can make money while surfing net...

Ho Ho Ho

The Christmas event has started in Azeroth.

Unfortunately, doesn't look like there is anything new in the quests, so I'll probably skip those.

But, my tailors, leatherworker and cooks with high enough levels all receive patterns/recipes in the mail. The leatherworking boots and food are not that exciting, and the dress looks drab on males... BUT, put them onto the females, esp the blood elves... I'll let you decide for yourself...

Check!

After mindless farming of PvPs, Primals...

Mart's PvP wrists, with socketed gem & the +15 spell dmg enchant? Check!



Eld's Gun, with the signature tank gem, Solid Star of Elune? Check!



Mart's Engineering Mount? Check!



OK... Confession... I farmed 22 Primal Fires... I gave up after that & bought the remaining four from the AH... :p

Next on the list is to start on those quests for Eld's gear. Have to try to get in the run on Crypts and Old Hillsbrad as well...

All Your Bases Belong to Us

Had an amazing AV game last night. Horde absolutely cleaned the house, burning all four Bunkers, holding all four towers, capped both mines and EVERY graveyard. Yup, we owned everything on the map! The only blemish was the loss of Galv, but hey, that's a pretty amazing achievement still. Big props to our D in that game.

Actually, I was really annoyed when someone had capped Snowfall since that & Aid Station were their only graveyards at that time so all the Ally were ressing at Aid Station. BUT they were so inept that we still overran the Aid Station, and capped it. In the end, the Snowfall cap just meant it was even more funny...

I also managed a good run of WSG games, with it being the PvP daily, netting the 20 marks needed for my wrists. In the end, it was a 6 wins with 3 losses run. There were a few turtles, but a few good games, including one where we came back from a 2-0 deficit. One interesting coincidence was this shaman who was in the same WSG as me 6 times in a row! Will still have to run a few more AVs to get the Honor for the gem...

Will now need to monitor the AH for a reasonably priced Veiled Noble Topaz. There were a bunch in there last I checked but the price wasn't right. If not, will need to start looking for a JC in /2. Similarly, will need to start farming the mats for the Spellpower Enchant. Sigh... More Primal Fires... Between this, the gun & the mount, I'm going to need 26 of them! In terms of priority, I'll say this first, then the gun, then the mount...

Tanking Upgrades

More premature searches, but just in case I need to know... :)

This is a great list of gear to look at. It also made me re-look at some of my original choices, such as the Myrmidon's Headdress instead of Felsteel Helm.

Bought using Badges of Justice in order of Importance
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx (Wrist - 35 Badges)
Iron-tusk Girdle (Waist - 60 Badges)
Unwavering Legguards (Legs - 75 Badges)
Slikk's Cloak of Placation (Back - 35 Badges)
Sabatons of the Righteous Defender (Feet - 60 Badges)
Bonefist Gauntlets (Hands - 60 Badges)
Faceguard of Determination (Head - 50 Badges)
Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian (Chest - 75 Badges)
Necklace of the Juggernaut (Neck - 25 Badges)
Ring of Unyielding Force (Ring - 25 Badges)
Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 (Trinket - 41 Badges)

Heroic Drops
Spaulders of Dementia (Shoulders - Talon King Ikiss, Sethekk Halls)

One more option for neck is the Brooch of Deftness, which costs 35 badges. Expertise looks to be a nice defining stat, so it might be worth giving up the avoidance stats in Necklace of the Juggernaut.

For weapon, I'm still undecided about Sun-Eater, which drops off Pathaleon the Calculator in Mechanar. The avoidance is nice, and the 20 DPS increase over Grom'tor's Charge is good threat, probably worth the slight dip in Stamina as well as the loss of the racial Expertise with Axe. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, I suppose.

The rest would probably need not be replaced. BUT, that's a heck of a lot of badges...

On the off-chance I go to Karazhan, the following are some stuff to look out for. They'll replace the Badge items.

Head: Warbringer Greathelm (Prince Malchezaar)
Neck: Barbed Choker of Discipline (Maiden of Virtue)
Shoulder: Mantle of Abrahmis (Netherspite)
Hands: Warbringer Handguards (The Curator) *Note that these are only better if the 2-piece bonus comes into play
Feet: Boots of Elusion (Thrash Mobs)
Ring: Violet Signet of the Great Protector (Rep Reward: Violet Eye - Exalted)
Ring: Shermanar Great-Ring (Shade of Aran)
Trinket: Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch (Moroes)

PvP Update

With a lot of AV farming runs, Eld has got his mits on the Shield and the mount. When I remember, I'll do an update on his Def and health. I'll really need to get some of the confirmed pieces enchanted, though.

Now, the next to go for the PvP grind is my lock, for his wrists (which, unfortunately, means a lot of WSG runs). At the same time, I'll farm the honor to buy the Runed Ornate Ruby to replace one of my red gems (probably on the Girdle) for the little increase in +dmg.

Eye of the Storm

Finally tried this out in a 'pre-made' of sorts...

It looks like AB with a smattering of WSG thrown in. However, the points from capping the flag doesn't seem like it helps that much and grabbing the towers are still the key.

Anyway, not a huge fan of it but need the marks for the Shield, so 9 more marks and I'm done with this...

Wireless Keyboards... BAH

After the incident with the leaky batteries, I replaced my keyboard and mouse with a Wireless desktop (ie kb + mouse). On first use, I am most definitely not impressed. When holding down a key for movement, it'll stop after awhile and you'll need to let go of the key and press again. It's VERY irritating. I got one WSG in before I realised it's not going to work and was on the verge of going back to my wired keyboard.

I decided to check the net and realise many people had the same problem. In the end, the odd solution was to put the keyboard and the receiver FURTHER apart... I was very skeptical but was willing to try anything. When I did that, the damn thing worked... Go figure...

Aside from that, honour farming in AV for the shield is coming along nicely. I should have enough honour later this week, but still need the EotS marks.

Tanking Enchantments

Over the weekend, bought the Felsteel Helm and Felsteel Gloves from the AH as planned. They were going for cheap, less than 50g each. The mats alone would have costed more.

So, it's time to start considering on enchantments. After digging around, the following looks like a good set of enchantments for a warrior tank.

Head: Glyph of the Defender [+16 Defense Rating, +17 Dodge Rating] (Requires Keepers of Time - Revered)
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of Warding [+15 Dodge Rating, +10 Defense Rating] (Requires Aldor - Exalted)
Back: Enchant Cloak - Greater Agility [+12 Agi]
Chest: Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health [+150 Health]
Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Fortitude [+12 Sta]
Hand: Heavy Knothide Armor Kit [+10 Sta] (Crafted)
Legs: Clefthide Leather Armor [+30 Sta, +10 Agi] (Crafted)
Feet: Enchant Boots - Fortitude [+12 Sta]

Main Hand: Enchant Weapon - Potency [+20 Str]
Shield: Enchant Shield - Major Stamina [+18 Sta]

I've gone with Potency over Greater Agility for the Weapon Enchant because I think I'm not really at the stage where I've got that much avoidance to make it worth stacking. The extra Str will contribute with some Shield Block and more AP for more threat.

I've also stacked the Stamina enchants for more survivability. When my gear improves, I'll start replacing with Agility enchants.