Wowscreenshotaday - 6 This means a lot to me!

I'm running a bit late with day number 6. I thought I'd have all day yesterday to come up with ideas but since I had an upper endoscopy, or a camera inserted down my throat, I was a fair bit groggy. Alright, fine, whatever they gave me was good stuff and I was out for the count for the rest of the day. Except when I woke up with an outrageous thirst and a mysterious need to use the restroom. Needless to say I didn't get much planning for this picture done.

Anyway, I'm not very good with sentiment. And I kept trying to be punny by thinking, "Oh! That's a lot of mobs!" or "That's a lot of runs trying to get something." In the end I decided to pick Grimm, my Gusting Grimoire. I also wanted to show a bit why this pet is so important to me. Aside from the fact that it's a book, of course. Books, afterall, are awesome.

I got Grimm in a giveaway from Arvash over at the Crimson Hammer. I really wanted the pet and was so excited I won it. I really wanted to thank him in person for it. So I made a goblin warlock on his server. The warlock was going to be a temporary toon but I began leveling her as I worked up the nerve to speak to Arv along with just waiting for him to be online. Eventually I was able to thank him and he asked if I would like a guild invite to Shadow Rising! That was unexpected but I agreed. It definitely changed things. I've eventually become part of their raid team on a death knight I leveled up specifically for that task. So the background picture is from our raid tonight where we finally managed to kill Iron Qon. This is why Grimm is such an important pet to me.

WoWscreenshotaday #5 Early

Day 5 of Toonacious' Wowscreenshotaday challenge. I feel a bit like I'm cheating because I've got two images to show.

Early made me think of early in the morning which would never happen. I'm not a morning person. The only time I see the sun rise is if I was up all night and just heading to bed at that time. Now I could get up early but since the day of the challenge I'd be heading off to get labwork done I figured that wasn't going to happen. Time to rethink what early could mean. That made me think of the earliest screenshot I've got. I have no idea if I've taken any early then this. The first desktop and laptop I've had both died the same week and I didn't think I had anything important enough to save. I still have the hard drives but no way to access them. But I'm suspect I don't have much because at the time even when I could remember how to take any screenshots I wouldn't have anything I wanted to take a picture of. So I'm not really sure how I have this.

The computer claims this was taken November 1, 2010. The next screenshot after this isn't until May 2011. I'm inclined to think it was an accidental screenshot because the next one after that isn't until July 2012 another year later.  I haven't cropped or edited this screenshot at all. I figured I'd just let it show in all it's terrible glory. I used to have a pretty small computer screen. I've almost forgotten how cramped space was. But this was taken during Wrath while ICC was out. I'd already transfered servers from Aegwynn to Korgath. I'm currently standing around in my feral spec. My bear one. Since I'm not sitting around in animal form I can tell from the fact that tiger's fury is nowhere near berserk and there's at little key icon which was one of my favorite trinkets. The other druid standing by me is my good resto druid friend Prestta. She's the one who insisted I transfer servers. She has since stopped playing. But it's nice to see us just standing around in our lasherweaves. I think she's got some heroic pieces. She outgeared me and her shoulders are shining a different color. Those action bars are depressing. They're such a mess that I wonder how I ever managed to tank anything. I just hope my other feral spec looked better. Although I suspect it didn't.

Since my earliest screenshot is more nostalgic then beautiful I thought I'd give it another try. This time I implored the power of wowhead to give me some help. It came up with the pet ability Early Advantage. Worked for me. I grabbed Nozo my infinite whelp and headed off to get a screenshot. It's been cropped. I think it'll do just fine.

Sunday Night Raiding with Spoiled Milk

Spoiled Milk raids three nights a week. Wednesday night I wasn't needed so I took my death knight to Naxx for some swords. Thursday I was part of the group and we killed Durumu but Primordious wasn't cooperating so we left him for Sunday.

Sunday night and we get right to work quickly killing Primordious. We don't use the super fancy burn boss and ignore adds. Instead we kill the boss like they do in lfr with the 5 stacks to reach a mutation.

We then moved on to Dark Animus. We had reached him before but hadn't downed him. This time the raid leader had a very specific plan of dumping anima into the defunct golems and loading up one Massive golem before activating and burning down the Dark Animus.  A few pulls later and we were walking away triumphantly.

But we weren't done yet. Not by a long shot. After quickly making our way though the tunnel we approached the Iron Qon and his three quillen.  We had a good idea of what was needed but messed it up. Regardless they kept going and managed to reach the third phase before the wipe.  Now that everyone had seen the fight it was time to go again and this time we managed to work our way though the phases and killed Iron Qon. Uh-oh. Looks like Zug's and my alt are now further ahead then our mains. 

Getting two new bosses is a good nights work but we weren't done just yet. Nope. We were going to make it three new bosses putting us at 11/12. So off we went to kill the Twins and we got them in one-shot.

We were having a really good night so went went off to take a look at Lei Shen. We couldn't get past the first intermission. In lfr there's 25 people to spread over 4 quadrants but in a 10 man raid there's only... 10 people. We had a lot of trouble with damage and keeping extra adds from being summoned.  After nine tries we decided to call it a night and plan to be back next week.

Finally have a banner!

I've finally gotten around to making a banner for my blog. Figure it's been almost a year so it's about darn time. But I'm not 100% happy with it. I did some research to find out how wide to make the banner only to have it placed in an awkward way. So I shortened it so I could live with it but I'm not 100% happy with it. Maybe I'll finally get annoyed enough with it to change it in about a year. :) I figure that's also going to happen when I decide to go with my original idea and draw my toon or toons. Bleh. Nevermind. This works just fine for me!

edit
Pfft... It was really bugging me. So I managed to make it wider then messed with my template and now I'm happy. I've got a banner, can still post pictures on the largest size without it running out of the margin, and ... I think that was about it. Now I just need to change the background pic. Or maybe not, after all I don't want to get too crazy with these changes. :)

WoWscreenshotaday 1-4

I'm a bit late to Toonacious's WoWscreenshotaday challenge but it seems so are some others. It's time to play catch-up and then try to keep on track.

1. Something beginning with N

Nalak the Storm Lord

2. Incomplete

Found this unfinished boat right outside Gadgetzen, Tanaris

3. Skyline

View of the skyline in Zul'Drak one of my favorite zones in Northrend

4. Fresh

Ba'kon provider of the freshest bacon I have ever found

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.