Screenshot Friday

Round and round it goes! Where it stops, nobody knows!

Money, Money, Money

Now that you have that song in your head . . . 😉

Last night’s raid went really well.  We had one person who had only been there once before (when we weren’t killing things) and another who had only seen the fights the previous week.  Even then we downed Omnomnom, Magmaw and Chim without any major issues.  We then got our guild first kill of Maloriak (as last night’s post showed).  We then ran off to take down the boss in Baradin Hold since Horde got control again.  After that quick fight we ran back to BWD and put in some attempts on Atramedes.

All things considered we really didn’t do that bad.  Having never seen the fight, and only 2 people having done their homework (me and Slice) we got the poor guy to 69%.  We are going back in tonight.  I think we will do MUCH better and probably get him down. 🙂

Now on to the title.  We got a BoE epic caster sword to drop from the trash.  It was decided that we would sell it and replenish the guild bank instead of giving it to a guildie.  Most of the casters have the dagger from Magmaw so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  One of our Pally tanks has a PvP holy off spec and he was making noises about wanting it, but we stayed firm with the main spec “rule” and Sorak got the sword to sell.  I told him to put it on the AH for a minimum of 20k.  He went to trade and someone offered him 10k for it.  We told him to see if he could get 20k.  Yep, he got 20k for it.  Woot!  Our poor guild bank got replenished (we were getting sooooo low) and everyone was laughing over the guy who paid 20k for the sword.

The main reason we laughed was because the guy was in one of the top guilds on the server.  Maybe he wasn’t able to get loot in raids, or maybe he just wasn’t raiding with them.  Hell it could have been for an alt.  I know that there are a bunch of people that don’t necessarily have access to raids or the drive to raid.  It just seemed odd.  But hey!  SR got some money!!!

We had been having issues with donations.  When we set things up before the xpac we decided there wasn’t going to be a raiding rank.  There would be Officers, Vets and Members.  Everyone was a member.  You only got Vet status if you donated every week.  Vet status gets you repairs 24/7 on your main, gbank enchants, gems, food and flasks.  We just asked that you donate at least 250g worth of mats.  At first this went really well.  I was getting greens constantly, lots of gems, cloth, gear, etc.  The last month or so I stopped getting stuff from half the people who were vets.  I would get like 1k gold from them and that would be it.  Yeah that does equal 1 month’s worth of donations, but the guild was struggling with no herbs for flasks and 1k doesn’t go very far when you are wiping on progression bosses.

What made me kind of unhappy was the obvious farmers in the guild weren’t donating the mats that we needed.  Calls were put out that we needed specific herbs.  What donations did I get?  The usual greens, cloth and 1k gold donations.  We have at least 4 people who farm herbs and sell them on the AH.  They weren’t even giving us Volatile Life!  Sorak and I were talking one night and he basically said that we need to turn off the gbank for everyone since people cannot be assed to help out.  I wasn’t happy with this choice, but I am not the GM.  I just argue with him and pick on him. ^_^

After last night’s sale, Sorak decided to change the donation policy.  Instead of mats, the donation is now 500g a week and we will buy everything that we need.  He has recently caught the AH bug (people bitch about him in trade, makes him laugh & get all cocky) and is having a blast playing it.  So I told him to start buying specific things when he sees them on “sale” and stock up the bank from there.  I know other guilds have been doing this for a long time, but we never had to.

I got lucky the other day and got one of the new Meta gem recipes to drop.  There have only been 1-3 (counting mine) on the AH at any point in time.  I am hoping to get at least 20k from it.  So keep your fingers crossed for me! 😀

Our guild fishing tournament is underway.  It started on Monday and we pulled in over 300 fish in the first day.  Yesterday didn’t see much activity because most of the people online were in the raid.  The same will probably go for today too.  I know I personally didn’t get to fish at all yesterday, and probably not even at all today.  I didn’t even get a chance to do any dailies (other than the cooking & fishing ones).  Raid nights are busy nights.  I fully intend to catch back up on Thursday though.  I had the most fish on Monday *flex* but I know I will be behind by Thursday.  We have some pretty awesome prizes set up for the winners:

1st place
1 Landro’s Lil’ xt
1 little ivory raptor whistle
1 path of cenarius
1 sandbox Tiger
hyacinth Macaw
personal world destroyer
2k gold
1 illusionary bag
2 embersilk bag

2nd place
1 landro’s Lil XT
1 little ivory raptor whistle
1 sandbox tiger
1 path of cenarius
1 mechanical yeti
1k gold
2 embersilk bags
1 Hyjal expedition  bag

3rd place
1 paintbomb
1 party G.E.R.N.A.D.E
2 frostweave bags
1 otherworldly bag
choice of Lil’ smokey or pet bombling

4th place
1 paint bomb
1 paint G.E.R.N.A.D.E
1 mysterious bag
coice of Lil’ smokey or Pet bombling which every is not chosen by 3rd place

 

So yeah, lots of fun stuff!

I am looking forward to tonight, but I think that ultimately I want to try the Nefarion fight!  It looks like so much fun!

Maloriak Down!

Grats guys!

Adventures in PuG leveling

As I have mentioned in the past, I have been leveling the roguelette and PPP.  The main reason behind trying to get these alts up are their professions.  The roguelette has mining/engineering and PPP has herbing/alchemy.  I want my volatiles!

The roguelette has been questing and finally hit 75 last week.  She has been put in full heirlooms and has been tearing things up.

On the other hand PPP was not given anything and has leveled almost exlusively through dungeons.  She quested a bit back in the lower levels (when I couldn’t stand the dungeons I was faced with) and has herbed for a bit, but about 95% of her xp has come from dungeons.  During these dungeons I have come across more things that I should never have to see, more than once.

Everyone knows about the Spellpower plate wearing DK.  You see those quite often.  More than anyone should for that matter. >.>   Now I had heard about spellpower plate wearing warriors.  Even seen a few with a piece here and there.  However, last night I had the “pleasure” of running Old Kingdom with a “fury” warrior who was decked out in Spellpower plate and Int gear.  I am talking caster cloak, neck and rings ON TOP of the holy pally gear.

Normally I don’t bother to look at people’s gear unless they are doing something that is off.  The first boss in OK seems to drop the holy pally belt like every time I was in there.  Everyone rolled greed and I won the item.  The warrior chimes up “Can I have that?”  I told him no, it wasn’t for him it was a holy pally belt and he doesn’t want it.  This went on for a good 10 mins.  Complete with him linking his green belt (one of his few items with strength on it) and went on about how the blue belt was better because the (and I quote) “Armor, stam and crit as so much better.”  I then went on to tell him that he needs to stack strength NOT the other stats.  It took the mage in the group to tell him “Dude that is a paladin belt.”  That was when he dropped it.  /Sigh.

The downside to playing an alt of a different class than your main is seeing all the other people playing “your” class and failing.  The sheer amount of fail warlocks that I have come across just makes me want to pull my hair out, curl up into a ball and cry.

Yes I know my blog no longer generates any major traffic (not that it ever did) but I do want to say this for all you people leveling warlocks:

• Your voidwalker DOES NOT BELONG IN A DUNGEON

There is NO REASON you should be using this minion for dps.  No he DOES NOT do more dps than any other pet you have.  Yes his taunt CAN mess with the tank.  Any warlock who uses this pet in a dungeon IS DOING IT WRONG!  I have an issue if you use the wrong pet for your spec, but if you are still doing decent damage/dps I won’t be that upset.  I will still /facepalm at you, but I won’t get pissy.

• If you life tap until you are close to death, USE YOUR HEAL!

Warlocks now have a channeled heal that we can use out of combat.  You get this heal in the teens.  There is no reason why I should have to heal your ass because you are too lazy to hit a button while we are out of combat.  I will, and have, let warlocks die for not healing themselves.

• When there is ONE mob, use your rotation, DO NOT use your AoE spells

Spamming Seed and Rain of Fire on one mob will not kill it faster.  Trust me on this one.

• At least know what spells your spec should be using.

If you are affliction, you want to use Haunt, Unstable Affliction, Corruption and Bane of Agony with Shadow Bolt spam.  If you are Destro you want Immolate and Incinerate spam.  Demo has the mixture of both.  Affliction benefits from SHADOW damage.  You DO NOT want to use fire spells if you are looking for the best damage output.  Destro is the fire spec.  Demo benefits from both.

I had an affliction warlock in one of my Gundrak runs.  She had a felpuppy out (that made me happy) so at least she passed that test.  She would cast Haunt then spam Incinerate and Soul Fire.  I had to double check her spec to make sure she wasn’t just running with the wrong pet.  Nope, she was affliction using Destro spells.  I whispered her asking why she was doing that.  She replied back that she hadn’t played this toon for a while and had forgotten the rotation.  I asked if she would like some tips, to which she was VERY happy to receive.  I left that run very happy with myself.

Now you might think I am a crazy bitch who is horrible in dungeons, but I will at least keep it in whispers if I see someone doing something that is “off.”  I don’t want to embarass them in front of the whole group, hell they are doing that on their own, I just want to help them if they need it.  Obviously the warlock above needed that help and I was there to give it.  It is when they are doing something that is so horribly bad and when they get mad at you for asking them why is when I turn into bitch mode.

If you are going to play something against the norm you will need to give me a reason why.  It can be a stupid reason like “I wanted to see how badly I could do this” but I need a reason.  Yes I know this is a random 5 man and NOT a raid, but damn it there are 4 other people with you, at least have the courtsey to know how to play before you join a random.  You don’t have to be awesome, but please at least know how to play your role.

Another thing that drives me nuts (I KNOW I have mentioned this before) is people not releasing when it is a wipe.  If my ass has to run back, so does your ass.  I WILL NOT rez you.  Last night I zoned into a Gundrak (I was there so much yesterday >.<) where they had wiped on the trash before the first boss.  BTW what is with the dungeon finder not telling you that you are entering a dungeon already in progress?!!?  I ask what happened and was told that the healer zoned in and midway through the pull apologized and left.  Everyone had released and run back in, except for the tank.  He was still sitting there in the doorway waiting for someone to rez him.  I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it.  He was at the FUCKING door.  It would take him LESS time to release and run back in by the time I would have rezzed him.  So I sat down and pulled up my internet window and started reading.  Asshole move I know.  The best part to me was the fact that I was the only one in the group who could rez.  I didn’t say anything, just sat back to wait and see what would happen.  After about 2 mins one of the mages (there were 2) started bitching about “people not pulling their weight” (no I didn’t understand it either) and dropped group.  Another minute later the other mage started bitching “Just rez him already so we can get on with this!”  To which I dropped group.

Asshole of me, yes, yes it was.  Do I feel bad?  No, not in the least.

I chimed up in gchat about what happened and Zari (I ❤ you Zari!) says “I ❤ evil.”

Me too Zari, me too.

Screenshot Friday

We wanted to show off Zarm's new feathers, oh I mean shoulders.

Chimaeron Down!

Got him down for the first time!

Sunday is for Archaeology

Or at least that is how it seems to go.

At first I wasn’t a huge fan of Arch.  It was kind of irritating going from one point of the map to another with no rhyme or reason.

Then one Sunday when I was online alone, it clicked.

I looked at all the dig sites on my map (I want the NE trinket so I have been sticking to Kalimdor) and worked out the best route to hit them all up.  I sort of made a large circle around the continent.

While doing this I realized something.

I could read the stuff in my feed reader while flying!

Now I play in windowed mode.  This easily allows to me to see who has logged into vent, who is pinging me on gchat and what that new email is.  In the past I have read my reader while playing, usually while on a flight path and it worked.  Now I was able to get my reader caught up while progressing my Arch.

The first day I did this I managed to go from 210 Arch (which is as high as I got from saving all my fragments from the initial survey to 100 arch) to 350 Arch in just a few hours.  On top of that I was relaxed.

I haven’t been very relaxed in game for a while.

Part of it is the stress over raiding (not the actual raiding mind you, but the admin behind it) and feeling like I have to be grinding so many things.  Some days I almost want to say to hell with raiding and just go and level 20 million alts somewhere else.  I don’t, obviously, but sometimes I would like to.  This is usually why I volunteer to sit out when we have too many dps.  I’m not allowed to, but I keep trying!

I have several alts that have professions that I want to utilize for my max level characters.  The downside is I have to level all of these alts and they are all in Northrend.  Frankly I am a little tired of Northrend.  At the end of Wrath I had 4 level 80s and 3 alts in Northrend.  Now I have yet another alt there.  At least she hit 75 this weekend.  Soon she will be able to hit the new Cata zones and I can get my volatiles!

Yes the whole reason behind leveling was to get volatiles.

They are expensive!  Especially for someone that doesn’t have toons who can easily get them.  My two 85s have tailoring/enchanting and skinning/leatherworking as their professions.  Yes skinning can get you a bloated stomach, but those are few and far between.  Right now the only things I can farm are the waters and fires and that just requires me to fish.

Speaking of fishing, we will be having a fishing tournament in Shadow Rising.  Right now Tel is working on all the details but there will be awesome prizes!  The idea was shamelessly stolen from Crits & Giggles but hey it worked for them!  I think we have under 3k fish fished up from pools.  Hopefully everyone will work towards winning this thing.

Part of me wants to level another alt to 75, but another part of me wants to continue with arch.  I only got 2 hours in last night.  Last week I got 5 hours in.  Yes those of you who have limited play time are all “what! 5 hours! crazy talk!”  But remember this is what I do with my free time.  I come home from work and log into WoW.  I spend most of my weekend playing WoW.  It is just how it works.  If you add up how much time I play during the week, it would probably make you sick.

Let’s do it just for shits and giggles.

I get home from work around 5 pm.  I am usually online by 5:30-5:45 pm.  I typically play until 10 pm or so.  When I log off depends on if Slice calls me or crashes out.  If he calls me I am off around 10, if he doesn’t I am online until around 11 pm.  So that is anywhere from 4 hours & 15 mins to 5 hours and 30 mins per work night.  This translates to 21.75 hours to 27.50 hours Monday – Friday.  This isn’t even counting the weekend.

I don’t want to think about the weekend. >.>

It is safe to say that I play at least double on the weekend what I play during the week.

I should have 20 level 85s at this point.

Anyway, I think I shall do more Arch tonight.  I got the mirror last night and I just know that I am close to the trinket. 😀

Oh and I can easily see doing Arch again on Lyssi just because I like it.  This makes Sorak cringe and call me a masochist.  Well maybe I am, but I think his issue stems from him not “enjoying” every aspect of the game.

But that is a topic for another day.

Screenshot Friday

I found this and just thought it was so pretty

Random picture :)

Just chillin

It was not a fluke!

Yeah we were able to go back in and kill bosses again. Woot! go us!

I had to heal

The caster cloth helm dropped

We had one cloth wearing class in our raid

He already had an epic helm

A 2nd helm dropped off Magmaw

The healer caster helm

Oh look I am on my leather wearing druid

*glares*

In all honesty I am not really all that upset. It just sounds better for the “dramaz” and entertainment ^_^

In other news, I cannot raid heal anymore. I don’t want to come out and be all “druids suck and we can’t raid heal” because it might just be me and my suckage. Our other druid didn’t seem to be having an issue. But then Zarm is pretty awesome so what do I know. I just know that my druid has no problem tank healing and helping out here and there, but put me on raid heals and people die.

Maybe I just suck.

Who knows.

This week was kind of off. We had two people who couldn’t make both days, we had two more who signed up but then couldn’t make it (or bother telling us they couldn’t make it). Yeah I was grumpy about that. Not that they had to cancel, but that they didn’t tell anyone. Just is very rude.

Sorak is telling me that I am too hard on myself with my healing. That if “Zarm can do it, you can too!” and to ask him what it is that he does, because he never goes oom and his spirit is crap.

So I went and looked up his spec and compared it to what I have. He had taken the talents to reduce the mana cost and I had taken the talents to increase my output. Strangely he didn’t take Nature’s Swiftness. Sorak commented that “maybe he doesn’t like his ‘oh shit!’ heal.” It is a possibility.

What it did point out to me is that I need to fix my spec.

I also need to upgrade my green chest piece >.>

The cool news is I am the only person in the guild to have the boss kills on my main raiding toon AND my alt.

Last night I made a new friend!

I was trying to farm leather in Tol Barad (BTW if you purposely don’t loot the crocs you are an asshole) so that I can get my leatherworking up to 525 (520, so close!). While I am in there I will buff people who are nice and leave the crocs for me to skin. I usually whisper them and thank them for looting too. One such person was a pally who was farming herbs. She started talking to me and we had a great convo. Apparently she had been having issues with killing stuff. It was just taking her too long to do it on either spec (holy/ret) and wanted my help as a BOOMkin. In return she said she would log over to her DK and help me farm crocs.

I of course said yes!

For the next 90 mins we did the dailies and farmed crocs. I ended up with 2 stacks of heavy leather and a handful of volatiles from the stomachs. We had a nice time chatting and even exchanged real ID names.

Who says you can’t still make friends with people in WoW?