Big Long Raiding Post

I'm so creative about post titles! Meh, they're to the point at least.

So the last post I've made about raiding was after we kill Primordious. A quick, easy, and relatively painless fight and Shadow Rising was working on Dark Animus.

For the new week we decided to start a new raid but to have someone who wasn't in the raid on Tuesday extend the lockout for Wednesday so we could work on Dark Animus even if we didn't get too far on Tuesday. I think we killed up to Megera before calling it a night on Tuesday. Wednesday's time came and Wok was there so I was able to see the fight as dps. To tell the truth I really didn't notice much of what was going on. I'd just woken up from a nap and was still a little groggy. I knew what I needed to do which was get aggro on an add, not kill it, and just stand around looking pretty. But since I wasn't doing too much I did get a pretty good seat for watching the chaos once I'd managed to rub all the grit from my eyes. Basically Psy and Zug killed their golems so that their anima went into a defunct large one before taking off to help kill other golems. The goal was to put the anima from Arv's and Wok's golems into a defunct large one... although... I'm a bit fuzzy if they were trying to put it into two different ones or the same one... Anyway, chaos but very organized chaos. Eventually it was time to activate a massive golem and then the dark animus. At some point in this Arv stole my golem but I think that was the goal. Anyway, once the Dark Animus was up it was time to stop looking pretty and start killing. I think I did alright although I did get myself killed to some ability. Anyway, the night ended well with a dark animus kill and some time to work on Iron Qon.

Why is it so hard to line up and hold still for a kill shot? I think I got most everyone in this one.

The next week we did the same thing with a new raid on Tuesday and extending to Iron Qon on Wednesday. Wok was off on his boat so I got to tank. It makes me really nervous to learn a fight as a tank. And I think the nerves were getting to me because while I started out alright with the tornadoes in the second phase by the end of the night I was getting whomped by them. The second phase wasn't just giving me fits but causing trouble with others as well. We did push him to the third phase a few times and even once to the last phase but we weren't able to get a kill.

This week we didn't have enough people for a raid on Tuesday. Sorak was off playing Final Fantasy and Van wasn't  feeling good. Those were the only ones that I can remember but there were quite a few missing. Wednesday it was raining so Wok put in an appearance so I was dps. It was decided that instead of working on Iron Qon we'd just start over. It was a really nice stressfree raid. At least for me. We were short a person but was able to pick up a monk healer that we've run with before. The monk is actually a guildmate from Zug's other raiding guild. One of the best blood dk's I've seen. But more about that in a bit. We went though the place fairly quickly and the night was damn awesome on drops for me. I got a new belt which wasn't an ilvl upgrade so much as better stats. I was relunctant to take it but they reminded me that since Arv was on his druid I was the only person who could use it except for Zug. And then they reminded me about how Zug feels about tanking. It made me feel better. I also get a new chestpiece. My first piece of Thunderforged gear! I've got thunderforged gear! But the pieces I was most excited about weren't for my tanking set. On the first boss I had used one of my runes and gotten a one-handed axe! I figured with the one-handed sword I got from raid-finder I was set to make the switch from 2-handed to dw frost. And damn if I wasn't excited. But on Tortos something else dropped. Another 1-handed axe! Since Zug didn't need another weapon it was all mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! I'm finally, finally back to dw frost! ...I might be a little obsessed... just a tad. Anyway, we made good progress on the bosses and called it a night after killing Ji-Kun.

I like Transmog and the ability to turn those axes into swords!

Horray! Three weeks of raiding caught up. But if you thought I was done you're in for a surprise.

It started three weeks ago after our dark animus kill. I was finally feeling awake and a bit disappointed that the raid was done for the night when Zug asked if there was anyone with a dps alt that would like to come raid with his other guild. For awhile now Zug was been raiding with Spoiled Milk on his alt monk healer which is a bit of insanity but if anyone could pull off keeping two toons fulling raiding it's Zug. Since I was feeling keyed up I found myself wishing I had another toon so that I could join in the fun. ...Wait, I do have another toon. I have a warlock who's been raiding before. Sure, I've been leaving her to collect dust and to manage my auction housing but I thought for one night it would be fun to run around on Vaunt again. So I volunteered and found myself in another raid. Which lasted into the wee hours of the morning. It went really well with only Tortos giving us any real trouble. There was an accidental pull on Megera and I fessed up in vent that it was me. Everyone made their way back in and was giving the poor druid tank crap about the pull. That was weird. And she was just as confused and protesting it wasn't her. I spoke again and said that it was me, the lock, who'd pulled. Which followed by everyone saying I had sounded just like the druid. In the end they all decided it was Hua.. I mean Zug..hmmm... I'll go with Hua, his monk's name... anyway it was all Hua's fault since he was the one who invited me. But despite my mess-up I must have done alright, either that or they just wanted more lock cookies, because they invited me to come back the next night to try to kill Durumu. They were full of guildies so I wasn't able to come until the last few pulls when someone had to leave. In the end they weren't able to get Duru that week but I had a lot of fun.

Making a good impression. I'm the dead goblin in the middle of those turtles.

So the next week when they were looking for another dps, Zug asked if I'd come again on my warlock. So I agreed. After a night of raiding and an invite to come back for the next attempt at Duru I mentioned to Zug it would be a lot easier to come into the raids if I was a part of the guild. All of which resulted in a whirlwind talk with the guild leader and a guild invite... yeah, I took the 'lock out of Shadow Rising. It wasn't a decision that was easy. I really enjoy it in Shadow Rising. I've been trying to sneak in as many alts as I can. I've got two! Asking people for an invite sometimes feels so presumptuous, especially with new alts that I'm uncertain if I'm going to keep or if I'm going to reroll. Anyway, I found myself in Spoiled milk and part of their raiding. All of which has me wondering how did that happen again? Oh well. Anyway, we went back in on Thusday night and managed to beat Duru and then to one-shot Primordious. They used the raid finder strat of kiting and ooze killing but it went really well. Dark Animus didn't go so well. There wasn't a strat and I'm not certain they really knew what they were doing. But Hua and I did get quite a few laughs when the raid first ran into the trash before the Dark Animus. I did wonder if I should warn them but in the end I just sat quitely and waited for the yells. They did not disappoint.

I'm not too certain what this week will bring. They had enough of the long-time members on that they didn't need me for the raid. Since the leader and Zug have my battletag I was able to just go off as my death knight or whatever toon I wanted in case they needed me after all. I went off to Naxx25 to attempt to get the perfect weapon to transmog my axes too. I went with a blue sword to complement my current transmog. I was a little worried that it was in Naxx25 and not 10 but it was on one of the easier bosses so I figured it was worth a try. I didn't really expect to get it and would have to farm for weeks. I went in and soon found myself with some trash that just would not die! They had this bone shield that was absorbing everything! I focused hard on one and was eventually able to kill it but figured it wasn't worth the hassle. So dragging my 3 horsemen with me I went and started killing bosses. By the time I was done with the Military wing I had an army of 12 horsemen with me... I have no idea where they all came from but I also had the awesome sword that I had wanted! Lucky weapon night for me! So Thursday comes and there's a spot for me and the guild went off to kill Durumu. It took a few tries. They have a real bad tendency to expose the blue mist. But we eventually got him. Primordious, however, wasn't cooperating. We even tried the easy stand in the middle, ignore oozes, and just burn the boss, but couldn't get him before the healers just ran out of juice.

My army of unkillable horsemen. At least the bosses weren't hard

It's been pretty interesting working with two different raid groups. There's a different mix of personalities and seeing how things can be done. Personally, I like watching the super amazing awesome blood death knight that spoiled milk has. Zug said the difference is that he's really geared but there's definitely more then that. He's a tank. I suppose that's not really much of an explanation but... he's fearless. He pulls first, he charges in, get aggro and just try to pull it off him, suckers! It's been fun watching him because I'm seeing more about what a death knight tank can do. I'm not ready to switch my weapon enchant from +parry to +strength but it's gotten me thinking about how to improve my tanking. It's nice to have someone to look up to. Now if I can just work up the courage to try and talk to him... Someday, maybe.

Big long post full of boring stuff

It's been two... scratch that three weeks since I've posted something. It's not so much that I've got nothing to say or haven't been up to stuff in wow. I've just been sleeping. Yeah... that sounds pretty sketchy to me too. I've tried to come up with a way to divide things up into a quick catch-up post but since I've reached a point where it's keeping me up all night trying to release all the crap in my brains I figure I should stop with the procrastination and just get to the typing.

So I mention that I've been sleeping when not an insomniac with visions of perfect posts flying though my mind and the reason for that is pretty much medical. It's long complicated crap and a story involving pain in my side, being told I'd have surgery, testing, being directed to another hospital for a second opinion, unfiled paperwork, lots of nagging, and finally another doctor's visit all of which has boiled down to the lovely medical diagnosis of we've decided you don't need surgery! Bad news - we have no idea what's wrong with you. Which leads to more testing which won't be for awhile because the doctor is taking a vacation. Alright, fine, sure people are human. They make mistakes. And I really understand that doctors need vacations just as much as anyone. Probably more. I just feel like I'm in a bit of a funk.

But I'm still not at the part where I've been driven to sleep for 20 hours a day. I'm getting there. About 5.. 6... several years ago I was diagnosed as having Wegener's granulomatosis. Big long fancy word involving all kinds of fun and delightful pain but for the sake of this story I'll try and keep it short. Basically it's incurable but it is treatable. And once treated it can either be gone forever or could reoccur. So I get to make a twice yearly visit to my rheumatologist for bloodwork and just a check to make sure I'm still feeling good. I happened to have a visit right after the visit with the other doctor about why I hurt but no one has any idea why I hurt. So he wanted to hear about it. And he thought he had an idea so sent me a medicine to try. The bad side? The side effects - one of which is drowsiness. I take the medicine and end up sleeping for hours.

So what am I really trying to say? I don't really have a clue. I'm just feeling tired. Not physically tired. Just mentally tired. I hate not knowing what to expect from the coming months. I've also started to feel like I'm hiding something. I haven't really talked much about what's going on. My family knows. There are others too. I guess I just don't want to feel like I can use it for an excuse. The ol' I'm sorry I'm not paying attention to beams, I'm groggy and feel like there's something stabbing me in the back right shoulderblade. I feel like such a whiny bitch when I talk about it. But then there's the fact that no ones knows and I'm keeping this big secret. And I hate that. I've never been too comfortable with secrets or for telling people stuff about myself.

But I'm starting to feel better after getting this off my chest. I feel a bit like I shouldn't post this. After all, I wanted to write about WoW. But... It's my blog. I figure Draynee did a pretty good job explaining it in a post about bananas but I had a thought about it as well. I don't blog about facts and how to get the most dps from your frost death knight. I have a personal blog. It's a way for me to share my thoughts. A way to reach out to others. If no one ever reads it, that's ok. The fact that there are those who do read this floors me. And I suppose in a way this might be a way for others to get to know me. I don't want to keep secrets from people I've now come to consider my friends. It's too hard for me.

I think I've been melodramatic enough for one post. Next one will start catching up on all the stuff that I've been working on in-game.

What would I buy from the Blizzard Store?

This week the WoWInsider Community Blog Topic asks What would you buy from the in-game store?

My first answer was nothing. Then I gave myself a mental kick because I have bought stuff from the Blizzard store before. The answer isn't so much what would I like to see in the store because I would really prefer not to see stuff there that I absolutely want. The answer to the question are things that if they were ever part of the store I'd want so much I'd eventually break down and buy them.

I figured the best place to start figuring out what I would break down and buy is to consider what I've already bought and think about what's already announced for the store and if I have any plans to buy those items. I decided to include in already bought items anything that was extra from the basic game, expansions, and subscription.

Extras I have bought
1. Realms Transfers - Back in the days of Wrath I only had one max level toon. Transferring servers once didn't seem like such a nightmare to do. I was still really hesitant about it but I had a friend on the new server who really wanted to play with me and I no longer knew anyone on the old server. At the time it was a decision that made sense to me. So I paid to have my druid transferred from Aegwynn to Korgath.

Image from Blizzard Store

2. Collector's Editions - I have the collector's edition for Cata and the digital one for Mists. I figured if I passed up on the pets I'd be really mad at myself.

3. Mounts - I bought a sparkle pony. It's sparkly and a pony. Enough said about that. I also bought a Heart of the Aspects because I thought it was gorgeous. But I was a little disappointed when I tried to ride it with one of my toons. The up and down motion makes me feel a little sick. Not my best use of 25 bucks but I also didn't realize it would make me queasy. I haven't felt much like buying mounts since.

4. Pets - I'm a sucker for a half-price pet. Panda monk for $5 - sold! The last sale was for a Moonkin hatching and even though it's really not my favorite pet model I ended up getting it. But I have since learned that it can really boogy. That bird can dance! I've fallen in love. It's adorable.

So what new stuff would I buy?
1. Pets. I would buy pets. I'd do my best to wait until they're half off but I would buy pets.

2. Mounts. I think if there was another horse mount in the Blizzard store I would be very tempted to purchase it. For pets I'm in love with cats but for mounts I like ponies. I am a little more leery of mounts though because I don't want another one like the Heart of the Aspects. It's gorgeous but I actually can't stand using it. Which irritates me to no end.

3. Shapechanging items. I love being able to change what my toon looks like temporary. Dartol's Rod of Transformation, Iron-boot flask, the orb of the Sin'dorei, love them all. If there was an item that was from the Blizzard store only but would affect what a character looked like for say half an hour and had an hour cooldown or something I would want it. I'm not sure what it would turn you into. I don't have a specific item in mind. I just like to occasionally look different.

I'm not too certain what else will tempt me to buy but would be something added to the Blizzard store. While I sometime play other games I don't look at the stores because I don't want to be tempted into purchasing something for a game I doubt that I'll be playing very long. WoW is different because I've been playing it for several years and I don't currently see any reason to quit. But that's very different from dabbling in other games. I'm certain there will be other items to tempt me but I just can't currently think of something.

Items I have no interest in:
XP boosts or max-level characters - I like to level. That seems really odd but I enjoy running through old dungeons and getting into the stories of the zones. Heirlooms work well enough for an xp boost. My toons will reach 90 or they won't but it's while playing at lower levels and working towards the cap that I learn what specs and classes are fun for me and which ones I just can't stand.

Transmog gear - OK, this is a bit of a lie. If the item was cool enough and I just had to have it for a specific transmog I would get it. But I'm not interested in the helms. They're cool. It's hard to deny that. But I would never use them. I rarely ever show the helms on my toons. The ones that I do tend to be bandannas, or helms that don't cover the hair and face. I recently made a transmog for my night elf rogue that was built around the Stealther's Helm of Second Sight. I think she looks awesome. But having the helm on bothers me. She's no longer my toon but just a night elf. I can have her sitting around looking awesome but when I want to play I have to turn the helm off. Helms don't do it for me. Right now I can't imagine any cool chestpieces or boots that I would have to have but Blizzard could always surprise me.

Random items - I suppose you could call them the cool toys. But I just don't use them. Those cool items that you get while leveling in Pandaria? They just sit in my bank taking up space. The awesome items from archeology? Buried in the bank somewhere. I just don't really use those items. Maybe someday I'll change my mind but right now they just don't interest me very much.

Primordious Cheese

For this week's raid it was decided that we'd extend the raid lock and start were we left off last week. Which was at Ji-Kun. After frying that chicken we than spent a good amount of time trying to get Durumu down. There were several raiders who weren't there the night we first killed the boss and I had to pay attention to more stuff since I was tanking this time instead of dps. I swear Durumu always casts lingering gaze on me as soon as I taunt him. Decisions, decisions, drop a purple puddle in the middle of the room or lose aggro so I can run the puddle to the outside?

But look! I'm totally tanking! See! Bone Shield! Proof!

Wednesday had us starting at Primordious. We were supposed to go watch or read a guide so we'd be prepared for the fight. The first attempt we tried to use the official strategy of kitting, killing blobs, and getting mutations. The next attempt we used the start Arv suggested of parking the boss in the center of the room and dpsing the snot out of him. 

And we even got an achievement! Score for brute force and cheesing though fights! And look! I'm a tank! That's odd, it's Wednesday, I'm pretty sure I don't tank on Wednesdays. Isn't that a violation of my raiding contract? Oh! Right, I don't have one. 

The fight went so well that no one wanted to stand around for a kill picture. But I did get a nice lineup shot of the people that stuck around. From the left there's Shadeey, Van, me, Arv, and Psynite. 

Or next challenge was the trash before Dark Animus. It tooks us several tries but we eventually managed a plan to kill those mogu. The rest of the night was spent learning the Dark Animus fight. It was a bit of a bummer not to get two new boss kill last night but hopefully next week we'll have it.

New Obsession

My newest leveling obsession was going to be a goblin warrior. She was adorable with her sassy little red ponytail and she had all three of the boa's that you can buy from the guild vendor. I had even gotten her invited into the guild.

But then I made a hunter. 

A Panda hunter. It's all Slice's fault. A few days ago when I posted about my favorite races he had left a comment asking why panda's wheren't on that list. The thing is, I do like pandas but I just can't seem to play them. But I've only tried to play panda monks. I knew the problem wasn't that I don't like monks since I have a night elf one at level 60 so I figured the problem is that I just couldn't play a panda for some reason. But they have some really awesome hair. So I gave it some more thought and decided to try another panda but this time with a different class. Hunter has been calling out to me for some time and it felt perfect. I wasn't too thrilled with the pet turtle but I knew I could get a cat soon enough. Besides it's better than the dog worgen start with and I still have that pet buried in my hunter's stable. So Awoi the hunter was born. For those looking to figure out how to pronounce that it's eye oh wah. I'm far too easily amused.

As Awoi leveled up and got new abilities she decided she liked her little turtle and named it Soup. He's a great companion when traveling solo and filling in for tanks who weren't so great and left before a single boss is killed. But Awoi definitely needed more companions because switching Soup's talents and remembering to turn taunt on and off is a lot of work. It's far easier to have another pet just for dpsing. And the perfect pet for that is a cat. My first thought was to head north and pick up a ghost saber but after some thought and a quick look at petopia I remembered a really cool cat I have never been able to catch before. The white lion Echeyakee!

Two pets is a good start but I remembered running across a rare while questing with both my warlock and my warrior in Stonetalon Mountains that I really liked. So a quick check and Awoi had a new pet.

And a pet that she knew just what to do with. Pvp! Just a little bit of pvp. 

Ok. Fine. Awoi did a fair bit of pvping. It's a lot of fun as a low-level hunter. Wearing the heirlooms that I just had to get because, honestly, why does all the leather gear have intellect on it? Heirlooms were the only way to get a decent set of pants! Upon reaching level 35 sometime after midnight I figured it was time to call it a break. But I think Awoi is definitely going to be sticking around.

Best 10 Minute Achievement Ever!

Last night while hanging around by the summoning stone waiting to fill up the group and get everyone to the raid something unusual happened. I got challenged to a duel! As soon as I saw that my thoughts went something like this: Who the hell is challenging me? Oh! It's Adoe. Do I want to duel? Eh, sure, why not? Maybe I should change specs? Meh, if he's going to send a challenge to me while I'm in blood spec and gear than he deserves what he'll get.

What did he get? An awesome 10 minute long duel. He almost killed me, I pretended I could almost kill him. He sent a stampede and a pet towards me and I tried to send an army and a ghoul after him. I would death grip and he'd use disengage. He'd send out frost traps to slow me down and I'd use chains of ice to try and catch up. Eventually it was raid time so Adoe decided to stop fighting and let me "kill" him.

Thanks Adoe for letting me "win"

Community Blog Topic - Favorite Playable Race

This week's Wow Insider Community Blog Topic is what is your favorite playable race?

So what's my favorite race? In the Alliance my favorite is the Night Elves!

My Night Elf Monk - Gorgeous for a level 60 isnt' she?

I mostly just play female toons. I keep trying to make a male one but then I always end up deleting them. I think I've come to accept that I just like looking pretty :). But what I like most about the night elves are the hair, hair color, and tattoo options. My first, second, and third toons were all night elves. I told myself I should stop making them so I could have some diversity and eventually started to enjoy playing some of the other races. The night elf monk is one of the first night elves I've made in over a year and I've really enjoyed being a night elf again. Makes me wonder why I felt I needed diversity XD

Alright fine, if I want to play all the classes than I would need more than a bunch of night elves. When I bought the Burning Crusade expansion I wasn't certain what to think of these weird blue creatures. I didn't really enjoy playing them at first. The horns really bothered me but they had some really awesome hair styles. But I've found that they've been growing on me. I did a look the other day and was surprised to realize all my draenei have the same style of horns. It wasn't so much that I had learned to live with the horns but that I found a style that I liked.

When I first started playing WoW I was determined not to play a human. What's the point of playing a fantasy game if you spend your time running around as a human? But I eventually changed my mind. While the human's don't have any really wild haircuts or crazy hair colors they do have a nice range of styles and colors to choose from. I started with just a human warlock because I couldn't make a draenei or night elf one but she really grew on me. So I wanted to have more humans which is how I ended up with a human death knight. It doesn't hurt that humans have one of the best racials for dabbling in pvp :)

Recently I've made a switch from Alliance to Horde and I've been trying to determine what races are my favorite over there.  My main is a Blood Elf and I've always enjoyed them.

I really wanted my death knight to feel familiar to my human one. I felt that the blood elves were the closest to humans. At least if you just look at their hair XD. I think I might just have an obsession with hair.

One of my recent favorites are the goblins. I haven't liked the gnomes much and I didn't really expect that I'd like the goblins very much. But I was surprised to realize while leveling my warlock that I loved the goblins. They may be small but they are sassy. And that hair! I love their hair! So many awesome styles and a nice range of colors as well. So I'm leveling another goblin. I don't plan to level her very quickly or to replace my death knight with her. I just like to level.

I'm hoping to get some more experience with playing Horde races so that I can have even more favorites. I'm really looking forward to playing a troll because of the rainbow of hair colors. But I didn't feel that I could claim a troll as a favorite race to play when I haven't played one yet. I do plan to give a troll druid a try when I feel like leveling another druid.