The Joys of Heroic Deadmines #WoW

stargrace September 21, 2011 0Comment

I started doing the chains that would open up the Fireland zones, and I found the stories pretty interesting. Saved Thrall from (technically) himself, captured by a bunch of elements and then started helping druids. One thing I don’t quite understand is that you need 150 world tree (I may have the name wrong) tokens to complete the next two quests and you can only obtain 14 of these tokens a day (or at least, I can) through repeatable quests. That makes for a lot of daily grinding. I can appreciate WoWs method of getting players to log in every day via daily quests, but shesh.

I’ve discovered my favorite heroic dungeon so far – Deadmines. Even though it took us a long time to complete the dungeon I thought it was really well done and a LOT of fun. The dream sequence at the end where you run through the dungeon a second time was neat and required players to pay attention (and most didn’t, especially the obstacle course portion, everyone died except me and the tank). Having to swing away from the boat as bombs were planted was also a lot of fun – although the shaman in my group apparently didn’t think so because he fell to the ground below twice, and then complained about how annoying the dungeon was. I won a new caster dps staff and a ring, and earned enough justice points to purchase a second ring.

I spent the beginning portion of my day running through the Brewfest dungeon (over and over and over) in order to get the trinkets for this year, which were a huge upgrade over what I was sporting before. I eventually managed to find myself with both the healer and caster dps ones, which boosted my ilevel up enough to be able to queue for the two newer heroic dungeons. No mount yet, and knowing my luck I won’t get one, either. I’ve tried for the last few years to win one without any sign of it. My warlock managed to win the halloween mount, but that’s the only one I’ve seen so far.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Leaving Before The Wipe #WoW

stargrace September 19, 2011 0Comment

Ah, Molten Core. I had never been to this raid zone before despite the fact that I’ve played WoW since release. I’ve never raided. It’s not that I’ve never WANTED to raid, but that I have never found a ‘home’ to belong to in game which makes raiding hard. Toargo and I decided to head to the zone ourselves (him playing warrior and me on the priest) to see if we couldn’t collect some appearance gear for 4.3. The zone was fun, and I had a good time figuring out how difficult it must have been back when the zone was still fresh to players.

My warlock is one of my favorite characters, but I don’t often play her because I’d rather be ‘useful’ (ie: healing). That changed slightly yesterday as I worked on gearing her up enough to finally be let into heroics. I was still sporting a few green pieces of gear, and needed 3 more points to my ilevel in order to queue. Two ‘regular’ dungeon queues later finally saw me with an upgrade, and I was able to get into heroics. Torago (trusty tank) set us going, and we ended up in Heroic: Blackrock Caverns which I had not been to even on regular mode for quite some time.

The group started out well enough, but we had a paladin dps that wasn’t quite ‘on the ball’. During the encounter that requires players to stand in front of three lasers until you get a stack of about 80 debuffs on you and then you move out, he didn’t move out, and thus we got an add, and then just as we were taking care of things in the middle of battle the priest left the group. Classy.

So another healer joined, this one a paladin, and I stood in the center beam instead of the paladin and we defeated it flawlessly. The rest of the zone went by without incident, and I picked up a new wand. I was a little discouraged by how few valor points you receive for completing a heroic, but I reminded myself that a lot of these players have done the zones hundreds of times, and probably had stores of justice and valor points just waiting to be used. Ah well. I’ll get there eventually.

My warlock is also my engineer, and I finally hit 540 (gnome racial bonus) in the skill. Now I’m saving up for recipes I don’t have, and my mining is 525, so I’m working on the smaller skills like cooking and archeology. I find them fun, if nothing more then busy work.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, no matter where they found themselves. Happy gaming!

Warlock Adventures #WoW

stargrace September 18, 2011 0Comment

As always I bounce between games, and my adventures have taken me over to World of Warcraft this time. Things are a little different then last time I played back in April with both developers and players preparing for the release of 4.3 (slated for November, I believe). My priest had been 85 for some time, but of course (as with all of the games I play) I have a handful of alts. The warlock was closest at level 84 and I decided I should probably try to reach 85 sooner or later. Preferably sooner. I queued for some dungeons and at 84 it took a bit to get in as dps, but as soon as I hit 85 the queues went much faster. Not only that but the dungeon runs themselves went MUCH smoother then I ever remember them going when I was doing them previously. Out of the 8 runs I did I only recall one wipe, and there were no rude comments from anyone. Weird!

The warlock doesn’t have enough of a score yet to do heroics, but the priest does. I noticed that justice point purchased boots and wrist pieces are now BoE instead of BoP, allowing players to purchase and sell them on the broker or AH. I also started the new chain of quests that introduces the Firelands, and received a very nice cloak that was a huge upgrade for the warlock. I don’t really know too much about this place, but the lore seemed pretty neat (and mushy, aw, Horde love).

My other alts include:

• 78 dwarf shaman
• 63 human paladin
• 10 gnome rogue

I had both a druid and a warrior around the 40s but I decided to delete them (no real reason, it’s just something I do to ‘clean up’ and will probably remake one day. You can find me on battle.net as morrow.stephane.l@gmail.com if you’d like to add me, I play alliance on the Argent Dawn server. I can’t say how long I’ll play (especially since I’m still playing Rift too) but for now the change is relaxing.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Paladin Adventures

stargrace May 22, 2011 0Comment

The paladin is 61 (closing in on 62) and experience has slowed down some what. At least as much as experience ever slows down in WoW when you’re wearing heirloom gear for experience bonuses. Being this level means a few (wonderful) things for me. First of all, I can finally fly. This makes questing and harvesting SO much easier. I am now in Outlands, exploring (once more) Hellfire Peninsula, but I’m on the alliance side for the first time and so things are at least a little different. Ok not so different that I can’t tell the exact horde counterpart, but different enough. I’ve still been tanking for pick up groups, and they’ve gone slightly better then the pre-60 dungeons. I disliked 55+ so much that I avoided doing dungeons all together and decided to quest my way to Outlands. It was simple, and quick. I think it was even faster then if I had of queued. I’ve tanked Hellfire Ramparts twice now, and both times the group moved smoothly, with only one (or two) mage deaths (ahem, Detch) from adds. The only down side I’ve really found with the paladin is that because my cool downs tend to be a little lengthly, it can some times be difficult to catch adds if I’m not expecting them. See, the problem is that everyone else has their AoE’s going off, and then more mobs add to the bunch, while those AoE’s go off – meaning that I barely have time to taunt or take aggro myself before the mobs are on someone else. When this happens I do my best to pull them off, but if my own AoE’s happen to be down for a moment it can get a bit hairy. I’m working on timing things better, and I know it will come with experience.

On the plus side most groups now have been patient enough to let me handle pulling, which is a huge relief. I was beginning to think that every single PUG in WoW was a hopeless cause, and I’m always eager to be proven wrong. Now that I’m 60+ I’ve slowed things down, prepared to take my time and enjoy my character while learning how to play her properly.

Although I’ll want to level up past 65 sooner rather then later, because my crafting (and harvesting) are capped at 375 until then. I’ve taken up alchemy and herbalism, the herbs come in handy for my inscription character (shaman). I had worked inscription to the cap once before but then (foolishly) dropped it for mining. After thinking about it I decided I really did want to keep inscription, and picked it back up. I’ve also maxed out my jewel crafting on the shaman, who is 78, and I’ve been busy doing dailies on her so she can purchase recipes and cut more gems.

Thanks to a generous gift from a friend I’m also sitting at 72 pets on my ‘main’ (the 85 priest) only three pets away from an achievement I’ve been after for quite some time. When I don’t feel like doing dungeons or interacting with a lot of other people I tend to work on these achievements – it’s not player housing, but it fills in the blanks just nicely.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!