The Toxnation

Ah, good old patch days...

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:26:00 +0000

First and foremost: I most certainly was not online when I was promoted, I didn't find out until an hour later that Q had only *thought* I logged out when I hadn't even been logged in, when it was really someone else entirely that has a similar name to my Dramthar.

I foresee a lot of druid playing in my future, and all my alts getting mounts, which could very well convince me to play them as well. But Adeata will be mature enough for the 100% mount and I really want to get her inscriptions up, added bonus of the new kitteh an bear forms to boot. Thamlack will be getting what I like to call "cheap flying" and has already made a rug for himself to fly on, he's moderately excited. Oh, he also looks significantly less like a tool, 'cause he hit northrend...pretty much strictly for the professions.

Tox'll be working on the dailies at the Tourney for a while, he's gonna try and get a new and improved hippogryph, the Silver Covenant one. It's pretty posh, brilliant colors, and just all around great looking. Not to mention a bunch of other stuff that'll be niffty and handy.

Now I'm mostly just killing time, as we all know, the servers are down for a good long time, and Bladefist was down for longer than a lot of the other ones due to hardware maintenance (started ~3 hours earlier). But once things start rollin', Verve'll be taking a swing at the new 10 man and I'll be a part of it. Fun times ahead, I've heard rumor of a jousting fight, and I'm a brilliant jouster apparently, from what I've heard about the struggles other people have with the jousting dailies.

There will be many a heroic run in my future, I wants me some nice gear, so gash dernit, Ima get me nice gear. Plus everyone else will want to run 'em too, so I'll bring along some friends, hopefully Vanq (who hasn't been mentioned in quite a while, but a good friend who is now in Verve and enjoying it), 'cause I promised him that I'd take him in with me if I were to run an instance and he was online.

I think that's about it, I'll go do something for about half an hour and check back to see if the servers are up.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Many, many congrats to ya, Mr Tox!

noreply@blogger.com (Marcy) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Well, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Tox on his promotion. I, as well as all the other officers think its been long overdue. Sad that he decided to log out just as the GM was hitting the promotion button while Dram was on! I wanted to do it while he was on but alas, the GM is not the patient type. Sooo, hopefully, his congrats will come from the memebers when he logs in since it is written on the MotD.

Welcome to the club, Tox!

We sure dun Killed Jaeden....I hate my puns...

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:11:00 +0000

We went out of our way back to the Sunwell to take down some old timers, and they got rather rocked. Verve of Bladefist, we win.

Enter the Flame.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Warden that is, I've been getting that title on a few different characters. No PvP, no hassle for me! ('cause, if you didn't know, I don't like PvP.)

Rumor has it that Vantox and any alts he has in Verve are going to become officers at some point. The fact that I made this rumor up is trivial, the guild master herself has essentially promised me that the next time they decide to promote someone to a ranking officer it'll be me. Obvious hints include "You're on the top of my list, and if they don't agree with them then they'll get the /gkick!" (her exact words, almost, pretty close to it anyway), along with a request of mine to one guild master for help with a couple of toons taking down Ahune for the Flame Warden title and having 3 officers come along for the ride (two on alts that also wanted it). I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* it may have been some form of initiation. Three officers and the GM helping me on something that is very minor like Ahune? They must really like me or something.

Also: I totally killed stuff in heroic Ulduar, and netted the current best bow I could possibly hope for (no way in hades that Verve will be downing 25 man Ulduar bosses on hard mode). Siren's Cry to be precise, HUGE upgrade from my Angry Gun which I loved dearly. Autoshot DPS upgrade of ~50 due to haste. That alone is big, not to mention the added benefits to my special shots, my DPS has increased significantly. One problem with it though: It's a bow. I already miss mah Boom Stick. I loved him like a son...well, not really, but I thoroughly enjoyed him and his bonus crit due to dwarf skeelz.

Aestara, whom I have taken under my wing, is doing very well and has managed to make her way to Northrend, the Howling Fjord to be precise, and is now out to CONQUER THE WORLD!!!

...

Not really. But she *is* coming along very nicely and surprisingly good at face-melting. Well, I guess that's not so surprising considering that she's a shadow priest, that's like what they're made to do. She's another Alchemist, so I'll try and convince her to specialize in something that Dramthar hasn't, I'm thinking elixirs.

Also: Dramthar, with his Transmute Specialization, will be a highly requested alchemist come patch 3.2, what with his chance to proc multiple epic gems with no cooldown. 5 proc on a Cardinal Ruby? Yeah, stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it. Engineering's fine and kinda meh, but it's getting some small buffs and removing the need of wearing goggles (which, for him, are still the best thing he can use), so I don't plan on dropping it and picking up something else anytime soon.

Thamlack is still a tool. Tailoring is very close to 400 though, so he'll be able to make some niffty spellthreads soon, I may finally have a use for all that northrend silk I've got kicking around everywhere! That's exciting news. OOooh, and when he can he'll have a flying carpet! Sweet. That'll be fun.

Adeata is an exceptionally skilled Scribe for her level, she's more skilled than she should be. She has a skill level of 300 at level 44, so she needs to get to level 50 soon, she's very excited to be able to make darkmoon faire cards to both sell and help out my toons with. Man, Noble's decks on any of my toons? That'd be freakin' amazing. Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a lot of luck and materials, but if I can supply them myself I don't really have to care about the cost.

All my little alts and altlets have been profiting rather majorly due to the Fire Festival, they've all gained at least one level just from throwing and juggling torches. Well, all the ones on Bladefist anyway. Sorry friends on other servers, but I'm just so invested in Bladefist, I can't really go anywhere else and expect to keep myself there.

I think that's just about everything. Ooooh, except the Silver Covenant Hippogryph that I'm gonna get come 3.2, Tox is all about the hippogryphs now apparently. So pretty...I needs it....*schemy fingers*

Anyways, I'm off to go do whatever and hoo-haw, probably something involving washing dishes.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I figured I better post at least once a month.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Yeah...well, it's better than never I guess. Still not like exceedingly good, but whatever.

Sooooo....It looks like I'm going for the Seeker and Loremaster achievements now. I've become a Chef, I'm a Champion!, I've got the Argent Hippogryph, I've wrangled me a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (Yeah, that's right, I can carry people around and have my own vendors), and the eldest Toxnation Brethren has converted to being a Dwarf Hunter. I think things are working out rather nicely for me.

Verve still uses me as a filler in Ulduar, apparently I'm one of the hunters they like to have around. There are only one or two people in Verve who I regularly run with that can significantly out DPS me. One's a feral kitteh, the other's another hunter with better gear.

I've also apparently got a friend who, if I ever decide to leave Verve (which I probably won't, I'm pretty committed to the current GM who some of you may or may not recall seeing a post of on here), is willing to attempt to get me into , which is apparently a decently high ranking guild that regularly goes into 25 man Ulduar and has most of the bosses and is recruiting hunters. Like I said, it'll probably not happen, but I've got a friend who would like having me there.

EDIT: Crikey, she either started or was a charter member of Adrenaline. Man, I didn't know that... they're doing really well for themselves considering that they became a guild in May.

I've taken a shine to Soloing level 60 raids and/or bosses. Onyxia is significantly trickier than Azuregos due to her second phase where she'll all flying and whelps are coming out after me... the fireballs are less than pleasant. Plus soloing Azuregos can net me a helluva lot more cash, he drops like 160 gold just himself, not to mention anything else that could have massive selling potential *cough*Sinew*cough*. Zul'Gurub's pretty fun to solo, aside from those bosses that I can't... stupid bat priestess and her massive heal combined with my lack of interrupts...

Even better though is running around with my Bro on my Mammoth and watching him go freakin' crazy and TRY to aggro like 20 mobs knowing that I've got his back. It's loads of fun. Plus I just like helping people, brethren especially.

Well, I'm gonna go work on stuff and junk, potentially a picture that I promised a friend, but I'm not really sure.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I HAD a topic...I just forgot it.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:44:00 +0000

It happens to everyone. You come up with a great idea, plan a big long essay-ish post about it, but you forget to do anything with it.

It happens to me All. The. Time. Just when I think I've got a fantastic, hilarious post ready too. And only rarely do I actually remember them in the future. It's hella annoying.

You're so excited about the topic, you have big plans, it's gonna be the breakthrough post, with this you'll make the big leagues! Everything is going so smoothly, it just all seems to easy. That's because it is. You forget what you were going to talk about in the next hour and can't recall anything about it for the next few days. Eventually you have a similar idea, but nothing really striking or thought provoking occurs to you like it did the first time. You figure the idea is bunk, so you toss it in to the imaginary trash can of your mind, never to be looked at again.

Thus is the conundrum. Great ideas that fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again. Where do they go? Are they just lost for an eternity, never to be spoken of again? Or do they slip into a different stream of consciousness and get passed on to different people without either of the participants knowing that it happened?

Now I've got a question for you: Where the hell did that all come from? I mean, I THOUGHT I was going to do a post about WoW or something, which, if you hadn't noticed, is the primary topic of this blog. Guess I was wrong.

TOPIC CHANGE.

Dramthar, he's doing well. He's averaging about 1900 DPS in 5 man heroic instances, out performing rogues of higher gear and entirely different spec. I've stuck with my Combat Swords, I think I'm running a 15/51/5. Most rogues now adays seem to be running a Mutilate spec of sorts. That's fine and dandy, but it focuses on a whole lot of small damage followed by a really big crit. That doesn't seem dependable to me. Combat Swords doesn't have the really high crits, but what it lacks in that it more than makes up for by having a higher mid-ranged damage and the double-swing procs from both weapons. Plus it's got Killing Spree and Adrenaline Rush. Both of those are basically just win (though using them together is just a waste, I suggest using KS first, preferably when you've got 2-3 combo points as it lets you build up your energy to max them out and either Slice and Dice or Rupture).

Have you noticed how easily people tend to forget that a newly forged level 80 toon who has engineering has engineering? There's most definitely been claims of "Dram could have used that helm...." With my immediate response of "Nu-uh, he's a geer," which is often followed by a moment of hesitation until they realize that "geer" is short for "engineer."

Ooooh, that reminds me, I need to make Tox more bullets. Some of the best gosh-darned bullets out there, too. Just need some more 'splody stuff to put in my saronite....I should go farm it or sommat.

Anyways, I think I'll go head out and work on a different something or whoosit, I dunno.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Things of Note.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:25:00 +0000

Dramthar, ding 80, nearly instantaneous 700 AP upgrade via guild bank gear, stuff I made for him and enchants.

Thought that crossed my mind once: "Man, I'm a jerk sometimes. Oh wait, no, I'm a rogue."

Sometimes people don't know help when they see it. I was attempting to aid some hordies by not attacking their mobs before they did and quite clearly not planting my ebon blade banner in the corpses. That's like the most a rogue can help, and they spat on and shoo'd me. I was slightly disheartened, but it's just 'cause rogues are all misunderstood.

A new friend of mine, another rogue, and I very much want to run raids together competing for loot. Luckily he's daggers and I'm swords, so there would be no argument over weaponry. I think it'd be a blast, but unfortunately my schedule doesn't really allow me to run when he would. Slightly miffed at that, but otherwise more power (and better loot) to him.

Attempting to grind Ebon Blade rep as fast as possible is not an easy task. And I *NEED* that sword they sell at revered, I'm still using my old Season 2 PvP mainhand weapon, and that's brutally bad for what I need it to be doing. I don't think I'll allow myself to run heroics until I get it.

Not much else going on for me currently. Peace out hombres.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I Almost Hit "Publish" Without a Title.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:34:00 +0000

Hey howdy fellas and femnauts. What? Where'd that come from? Sheesh, I need to stop saying what pops into my head...

Anyways, How goes it? I'm doing pretty well. Life and actually playing WoW have kept me rather occupied. Vantox is the man of the hour lately, high focus on the Argent Tournament with a dash of high DPS when called upon to raid by Verve. Gear upgrades are slow but still there, and I can't remember if I said anything about his badassery last time, but it's definitely there and working nicely for him. He got one of them fancy Ulduar cloaks last night, and is very pleased with the change from a purple cloak to an eye-catching red and black. And he's got that very angry looking gun that Kel'thuzad drops on the ten man version too. I'm very pleased with it.

Dramthar's finally voyaging to get to 80 and is doing so at record speed (for me anyway), focussing on Icecrown as soon as he got to level 77 in order to get Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade rep. I highly advise any rogue or feral kitteh druid to do the same as the chest piece and boots that can be obtained from those factions are incredibly good for those classes. Along with the epic gear, the Ebon Blade has the key headgear enchant for all physical DPS, so you should build that reputation up as soon as possible if you're any physical DPS class. Plus you can start the Argent Tournament at level 77, so that's just an added bonus for rep, leveling and decent gear to start off at 80.

Franny's been a little neglected as of late, but he's still kickin' around and a pretty decent 5 man heroic tank. I'm rather happy with both his specs currently, though I think I might be able to pull off higher DPS if I went with a blood spec for DPS as well as for tanking...I'll play around with it sometime and figure it out.

I've picked up a couple heirloom shoulders for some of my alts with the intentions of eventually getting them up to 80, the next one in line is going to be Thamlack in an effort to aid Aestara get his tailoring up to snuff so he can help out my clothy friends and alts and stuff.

You know what I find weird? Paladins that are tailors. Now that just doesn't seem to make sense to me. I mean, yeah, niffty flying mounts and good spellpower pant enchants that don't cost an arm and a leg, but seriously? Tailoring? Blacksmithing just makes so much more sense. You can give yourself 3 additional sockets along with crafting your own weapons, shields and plate armor, not to mention that tailoring is only useful for holy paladins. If people refute that logic then they probably need to get something checked out. Mind you, I'm not saying that they can't do it or shouldn't do it, it's their own choice and they should play the game as they see fit. I'm just sayin' that blacksmithing is a logical choice is all.

Well, I think that's all I've got to say currently. Oh, and I'll be back from time to time, hopefully more regularly, but we'll see how it goes.

To quote the immortal John Madden, "If you're gonna catch the ball, the quarterback has to throw it."*

Good Hunting,

~Tox

*Not actually a John Madden quote, but I'm pretty sure it sounds like something he'd say.

Dangnabit, I should really post more frequently.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:37:00 +0000

That being said, I had hit a MAJOR lull in WoW. Franny got geared to tank, Tox was too affected by the BM nerf (I SHALL NEVER BE ANOTHER SPEC!), and the game just lost its sheen.

But now that 3.1 is out, BM hunters are back in the running (Hurrah for moar pet talentz!), and Tox is actually performing very well. Seriously, better than I've seen him do in a long, long time. Verve likes him (friends with the GM and a bunch of the officers, who'da thunk?) so they occasionally call upon him to fill in for DPS that drops out of their raids. Only reason why he's not a regular part of them is due to scheduling conflicts... again... Why does everyone on Bladefist live on the East Coast? Seriously.

The Argent Tournament's fun, and I'm totally dedicated to it enough to get the Argent Hippogryph It'll take a while, that's for certain, but I wanted one of the white and brown hippogryphs ever since I first saw them flying around the Grizzly Hills. I'm excited for this, in a way that I haven't really been excited about anything in WoW for quite some time.

Also: What the.... When did Tox get all those epic pieces of gear? I don't remember this happening...I'm down to having 3 ilvl 200 Blues, everything else is epic. Bwha? That doesn't seem...proper. Back when BC was out and everyone was just getting up to 70, it took me for freaking ever to get any epics. I was in mostly blues for an eternity. But now all-of-a-sudden I've got epics coming out my wazoo. Hell, I've even got T7.5 gear on him. At 70 I never had any Tier gear. Granted, I did make a bunch of LW pieces for myself that were better than a lot of the tier gear, but that was strictly due to massive funds and me wanting the pieces incredibly badly.

TOPIC CHANGE!

Franny. His specs got effed. I need to find new tanking and DPS specs that have a good feel to them. I miss Howling Blast in my tanking spec to no end. That skill's like Franny's absolute mainstay. Anything else just feels wrong. So I'm probably gonna go at least 51 points into frost for his tanking spec along with his DPS spec. (Frost is my shtick, if you didn't catch that). What I really miss though are the 7k forced crits on 10 mobs at once. That was hella fun but only doable with the previous patch in a 0/32/39 hybrid spec.

I will admit that DKs were over powered. I was pretty dang good tank and DPS pre-3.1, but now everything's more even and I don't blow all the DPS with similar level gear out of the water anymore. I'm still good, but I'm most certainly not the best.

Though probably my favorite thing that's happened wow-wise is the ending of lent, which means that Aestara's back in action and I'm leveling up/questing with her on Thamlack. He's getting a promotion apparently, no longer a DE mule, he has been upgraded to "DE mule/questing partner", which is actually a lot of fun. Probably the most fun I've had since...I dunno, but it's awesome. Though "learning" Ulduar's pretty awesome too. I'm a glutton for punishment, I love the challenge and all the deaths. No, seriously, I find that stuff to be incredibly fun.

Anyways, I'm outy, gots ta get me some valiant tokens.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Sometimes, People are Stupid.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:41:00 +0000

So there I was, minding my own business, looking for a group for Violet Hold and asking around, when I find a potential group in the LFG and the note says they need DPS. I talk to the leader saying something along the lines of "You need DPS for VH? Well it just so happens that I'm DPS." and the response I get was less than underwhelming. To quote the person exactly: "Would you like some Asprin for that swelling?"

Now you can probably understand how I had no idea what in the world that meant. I'm not going to go into the gory details of the conversation, but it turns out that a gear check was done on me and they were looking at the wrong stats. There was mention of "only 3017 AP" (Which was true, for my Melee, RAP was 3700 something with Aspect of the Dragonhawk and it took me a while to figure out where in the world that number came from), and "only being BM" and classifying my DPS as "1200-1300." Thoughts of the tank out-DPSing me came up from the group leader.

Problems with those statements:

3017 was my MELEE Attack Power. I'm a hunter, who knows how to play my class, I. Don't. Melee.
My DPS has been averaging (admittedly while buffed) at 2000-2100. That's a lot higher than 1200-1300 now isn't it?
As proven by BRK, a competent BM hunter with similar gear can keep up with an SV hunter as long as the SV hunter doesn't get a massive crit-streak.
I have never, for as long as I've played this game, been out DPS'd by a tank, and I don't plan on starting to be any time soon.

I was just LIVID. The fact that this person would also go out of his or her way to insult me when I was being more than reasonable in my explanations and defensive statements didn't help.

Fortunately, I will no longer ever have to hear anything they do or say as we're both ignoring each other. And I also found a different, less uptight, far more accepting group which I got some new friends out of and did, by far, the most damage in as proven by this recount just from the two runs we did last night.

(I'm the one at the top, and the only one that starts with a 'V')

So my night wasn't completely ruined. I got some new friends who were referred to me as "One of the best randoms I've seen in a long while" or some such jargon. And the other hunter was SV, I just out-geared him significantly. Oh, I never once had Blessing of Might, the pally gave hunters wisdom, and I'm not gonna complain about mp5 in a group that needs me to be doing damage for longer periods of time.

Anyways, I'm glad to get that out of my system... Thanks for listening?

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Gleigor - The Horde view on things.

noreply@blogger.com (Vincent Springer) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:11:00 +0000

I am eternally grateful for the invitation to express the Hordes view on many matters. I would like to point out however that though your hospitality is not taken in vain, you're still all a bunch of slack-jawed daffodils to me! You alliance need to learn your place, and I am here to help you do so. However, as a mage and an intellectual, I do value the pursuit of knowledge. That is why despite my urge to punt gnomes, destroy villages, and steal valuables, I am here to offer my insight on events currently taking place within the world of Azeroth, and give valuable feedback upon matters of importance that both the Horde and the Alliance are concerned with. Think of me as a diplomat. I am here to help make sense of the chaos, and aid in the destruction of the Lich King. Nothing more, nothing less. Good day... Friends... And may the Dark Lady watch over you.

C'est l'amor.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:09:00 +0000

I 'ave feenished eet. I am now ze full-fledgling Drake Rider. And I sink I set ze new speed record for ze Toxnation for getting from zero to exalted for any reputational zituation. I don't know 'ow ze rest of zem found it zo hard. All of ze enemies were easily squish-ed, and even ze supposed "group quests" were no sing to worry about.

I sink zat Vantox eez jealous, eet took 'im ze surplus of two weeks to get 'is nesserdrake, and eet only took me about six days total to get eet. I 'ave se inclination zat eet eez because zere is notone 'ere to pick up ze nessering eggses. I 'ave found ze craziness in amounts of ze eggs. Litererally a dozen daily at ze leazt. And you know what? Zat is pretty much all zat I 'ave been doing for ze past while. I tanked a few instanzes, not even ze 'ard ones, just like violet 'old and ze utgarde keep. No sing worse noting really.

And zat eez all for me. Sank you for your time and 'ave ze wonderful day.

Simplifications

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:35:00 +0000

So I've been referring non-WoWing peeps to my blog, just 'cause they want to know what I've been up to and stuff. It only recently occurred to me that they'd have little-to-no idea about anything I'd say that fellow players would understand in a heart beat. So with that in mind, I've decided to simplify terms I've used help them understand what in the world I'm talking about.

Let's start with the basics:

Race - That's kind of obvious, it's what creature or being your character is.

Class - The character type, defining your role in group situations.

Spec - Short for Talent Specialization. Your spec essentially determines how you play your character. Every class has 3 different groupings of talents known as trees that define how your character operates and what his specialties are.

Talent - A skill which you can choose to spend the 'talent points' (points earned by leveling up, 1 per level) on.

Skills - Abilities or traits of your characters class, each has a different usefulness and are categorized in the same fashion as the talent trees.

Professions - Also known as Trades. Often the primary source of income for your character. There are two main factions of professions, Gathering and Crafting.

Crafting professions include Leather Working, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Inscriptions, Tailoring, Engineering, Jewel Crafting and Alchemy. These are all used to create useful items both as you're leveling up and entry level (and possibly higher) raiding gear as you reach the level cap.

Gathering professions include Skinning, Mining and Herbalism. Not as great of a selection but all of them are used for corresponding crafting professions.

Skinning -> Leather Working (some Tailoring too, but a much smaller percentage)
Mining -> Blacksmithing, Jewel Crafting, Engineering
Herbalism -> Alchemy and Inscriptions

Gear - Equipment that your character has and can use. The quality of gear varies according to rarity and difficulty to get/make, color of the item's name when scrolled over is an easy indicator. The range of quality goes as follows: Gray->White->Green->Blue->Purple->Orange.

Instance - In other games this would be referred to as a dungeon. Instances are basically places you go to get better gear or finish quests. They require a group of 5-40 people (The most common at the current level cap are 5, 10 and 25) composed of tanks, healers and DPS. Any instance that requires more than 5 people is additionally categorized as a "raid."

Tank - The person who takes the majority of the damage and keeps the enemies' attentions. They don't do a whole lot of damage but they have a lot of health and armor to take the hits that the enemies dish out.

Healer - Pretty straight forward, someone who keeps everyone else alive. They don't concentrate on the enemies as their primary goal is to make sure that no one in the group dies.

DPS - Damage Per Second. The primary means of killing in the group. They have a very high damage output but don't have the damage reduction or health that the tank has and rarely are able to heal as effectively as someone who's specialized to be a healer (though elemental shaman and boomkins can do a pretty good job of spot healing if necessary and have experience at it).

...I think that's all I've got for now, if more come to me I'll attempt to get them posted. Wish me luck!

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Accomplishing-ness

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:18:00 +0000

Ding 80? Check!

LW good enough to make kickarse gear? Check!

Skin the crap out of Northrend? Check!

French Deathgnome level 80 and tanking? Check!

Level up blacksmithing and mining to be useful on said DG? Check!

Proto-Drake? Negatory. Still working on it.

Engineer new sweet ass-goggles? Check!

Start working on getting Dram to 80? Check!

Explorer? Check!

Loremaster? Not so much...that's gonna eat up a lot of time.

Chef? Ugh, do I have to make ALL of those recipes?

Blog more? I'm working on it, sheesh. Quit badgering me, myself.

Naxx? A little, I've gotten 2 wings down on heroic but that's about it.

Spirit Beast? Hella Check!!

Being loved by one and all? Priceless.

Tanking Journal: Day 6

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:51:00 +0000

I can't believe I've only been doing this for a little under a week. Heck, it still baffles me that I'm a tank! And apparently a good one! I was invited to off-tank 10 man Naxx and performed admirably (we could probably have used better DPS but the heals and tanks were great). I did as I was told, I kited when need be, I taunted when what I was told was my responsibility, and things worked out nicely. It wasn't a full clear by a long shot, but I did manage to pull off getting my Tier 7 shoulders off Gluth (I rolled first and got a 100, take that anyone else who could have used them).

And the day before I got the Red Sword of Courage which I had been craving and specifically running Utgarde Pinnacle for, along with some offset pants and my Tier 7 chest piece which I bought with emblems of heroism. Plus the three instances I did that night (Utgarde Pinnacle, Gundrak and Utgarde Keep) were just such a blast with the people I was running with. We only had one case of mass death or death in general, and that was entirely my mistake. I wasn't paying attention to the healer's mana and pulled before she was ready, which caused a wipe... I'm slightly ashamed... but after that things went beautifully and I made some new friends.

I have to say that I've had the pleasure of running with some amazing PUGs in the past week. Bladefist has become a much better place to PUG instances in than it used to be. I remember back when I was a pretty fresh 70 being asked by a guildy (back when I was in a fairly large guild) to help in Slabs. That was by far the worst PUG I've ever had the displeasure of being a part of. The tank wasn't a tank. He was a Fury Warrior. And the only people left alive after the first of the big elite pulls were the two of us from the True Assasins (old guild, it was probably my favorite one I've been in as far as largeness and people in it). I figured that just meant we were awesome, which I still figure is the only reason we survived. Sheer Awesomeness.

Anyways, I've come to embrace being a tank, and out of a possible 17 slots that have stat boosting items Franny's got 12 of 'em filled with epic tanking gear. In a week? That's pretty awesome, I think I did pretty well for myself in that sense.

Alright, I'm out of here, I've got some Spirit Beast to level up.

Good Hunting.

I Can't Believe it.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:00:00 +0000

A) I hate it when I accidentally hit enter after deciding on my title.

'nuff said.

Only there ISN'T enough said! I HAVE A FRACKIN' SPIRIT BEAST! He needs a name! Any ideas? I'd like to stick with the current "emotions" theme, but then again He's already got one, so I may have to use that...I just can't decide, I'm too excited.

Added bonus: I now have motivation to play on Tox again. Leveling up a spirit beast is serious business.

Good Hunting,

Tox

[Edit] I now totally understand the shaking and adrenaline rush that comes with the experience. It is amazing.

Tanking Journal: Day 3.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:27:00 +0000

First heroic of the day was Violet Hold. After the first boss I informed everyone that it was my third day as a tank. The immediate response from the healer was, and I quote, "Best damned three day tank I've ever seen." The healer was incredibly epic herself though and I attribute our success to her.

We tackled Nexus after that. Everything went exceedingly smoothly. The stasis chamber with the frozen horde and a boss in it? After the first two pulls we managed to aggro the rest of the room due to very poorly directed fears, but not a single person died. Healing skeelz of epic proportions are really the only reason why.

Small break between instances, then into Utgarde Keep. Fast paced, little to no waiting between pulls, done in about half an hour give or take, then to Drak'Tharon Keep. Still face paced, no wipes in either, and tremor totems are super handy.

I hit exalted with the Kirin Tor some time during these runs, so I now have epic tanking gloves (which I need to get Marcy to enchant...and possibly get the enchant for her...) and I also hit revered with Wyrmrest, netting me a desperately needed tanking chest piece which essentially makes me uncrittable or uncrushable or something, 533 base defense and my sigil boosts it to 544 when I pull with Icy Touch (which is all the time).

Another break to finish some dailies then off to Gundrak. Short, sweet, some intense awesomeness from a shadow priest trying to heal after our healer died and a DPS warrior on the snake boss, and otherwise a really good run. That left me at 57 emblems of heroism, so I'll be working on getting up to 80 for my first piece of Tier anything gear ever. And it won't be on my hunter...dang, that's kinda depressing...and yet awesome at the same time.

Good Hunting,

Tox in a DK's clothing

Something's up...

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:27:00 +0000

What's wrong with this picture? Take a guess, stab in the dark. I dare you.

It's all about Tanksperience.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:02:00 +0000

Another key element to being a tank is knowing the instance you're running. As such, you need to do your research for all the bosses and know the pulls before you just run in head first. Or at least have someone with you willing to guide you through it. This is pretty key for survival. Naturally you need a good healer and the DPS to kill everything, but that's not tanking is it?

Speaking from experience, a competent DPS can go into any instance having no prior knowledge about anything that happens in it and perform admirably as long as the tank knows the pulls and the healer keeps him up. You just have to follow the tank's lead and focus-fire or AoE when it's called for.

Now, I'm not claiming to be the greatest DPS out there, 'cause I'm not. But I like to think of myself as a pretty good DPS for the gear I've got and I adapt to the situation quickly, situational awareness is something I pride myself on. I can do over 2k DPS as both a Hunter and a Death Knight, and probably the same thing when I get my rogue up there, but it's kind of situationally dependent. Franny will put out a higher damage quotient on groups of mobs (anything higher than 1 of 'em) due to the fact that his primary source of damage is Howling Blast which is AoE, and Tox is a single-target focus-fire DPS machine.

Back on topic: Tanking. As a Death Knight your primary threat generation on groups of mobs is undoubtedly Death and Decay, it doesn't matter what talent build you use. However, single-target threat generation varies greatly between the different builds. With Franny's current spec his top sources of threat are Icy Touch and Howling Blast with Rune Strike as often as possible in there as well, along with a smattering of other skills (Plague Strike for Desecration, Blood Strike to proc Blade Barrier). Other builds would use their respective abilities depending on the tree they put the most points into, but I'm not any of those builds currently so I'll not get into it unless I figure it out and start talking about it.

Threat Generation isn't really an issue on single-target fights. But I've had some issues with multi-mob fights due to a lack of realize how important it is to use DD. While that's important, knowing how to pull long range is very necessary too. Icy Touch. That's your best option, you want to save the "HEY! LOOK AT ME!" of Death Grip just incase your healer (or some other squishy) grabs aggro and is about to get taken down in one shot. You should also be a lot more creative than "Come here!" when making macros for it. That's just way too over done. Yeah, I know, you're pretending to be Scorpion from Mortal Combat, but that's just a cheesy rip off. Come on people, I know you can do better than that.

Yeah, that's basically what you need to know when you start tanking as far as skeelz in relation to my spec go. And here's what I've tanked so far, keeping in mind that I never tanked anything until 3 days ago and haven't done anything lower than Heroic.

Azjol-Nerub

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom

Gundrak

Drak'Tharon Keep

Halls of Lightning

and Violet Hold (Pfft, that one's a joke)

I'm still looking for some more gear from heroics, and hopefully I'll be able to find people for Utgarde Pinnacle, so wish me luck. I'm off to go in search of gear.

Good Hunting,

Tox

It's official.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:02:00 +0000

François' a tank. I tanked my first three instances with him yesterday. All heroic mind you, go big or go home. Naturally there are still things I have to work on. I think my current biggest issue (aside from not actually being defense capped) is remembering to use Death and Decay on multi-mob pulls to prevent their escape from my clutches. There's a few kinks in my current spec for tanking but that's not what it's purely built for. I built it with the idea to easily switch between Tanking and DPS as long as I have the gear for it. And so far it seems to be working quite nicely as it's remarkably close to my normal DPS spec so my skill rotation stays the same when I'm called to it.

Now I realize that Franny's not defense capped. But I swear I'm working on it. And my sigil (which wowhead apparently doesn't realize exists yet) boosts my defense rating by 53 or something when I use Icy Touch. It says "chance" but I have yet to see it not proc when I use icy touch. Either way, when that's going on my defense is at 532, which is perfectly acceptable for heroics....I think. I'm not uncrittable yet though, but that's why I'm trying to get that wicked red sword from Utgarde Pinnacle. I think being the tank for the instance may aid my chances in winning it though ;)

But yeah, otherwise it's been a totally eventful week as far as my determination to become a tank goes. Oh, and I got some pretty phat tanking lootz from Azjol-Nerub. I've heard people say that they've had a hard time acquiring the trinket, so I'd like to rub it in their faces. Not that I would, just saying I had a good amount of luck in that instance. Ugh, aside from the second boss....Man that wasn't a good set of tanking since I didn't know what I was doing. I should really stop going into instances with no prior knowledge of any of the fights. That's probably a good idea. Good thing I've been running so many instances then, eh?

Don't worry, Tox still gets his share of stuff being done....sort of.... Franny's just the primary focus right now. It changes, I just go on streaks of one toon or another. I know I did on Dramthar too when I got him up to 70 back in the day.

Good Hunting,

Tox

Obligatory "Holy crap, he's not dead!" post.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:58:00 +0000

I agree, it's been too long. Here's what I've been up to.

François, ze french deathgnome of Yore, is now level 80. He's currently a 0/31/40 duel wielding hybrid spec. His DPS competence is far too good considering he's been 80 for about a week. Hell, he's already made himself 4 epics (two helms though, tanking could be fun) and was #7 on the DPS charts in a 25 man Vault of Archavon run yesterday. Man that fight is melee DPS unfriendly...and the only people that beat me were ranged DPS. I think that may say something.

He's also looking to start tanking sometime and has made himself some gear that gets his defense up to 503, and I'm not really sure how good that is but I know it needs to be over 540 for Naxx...so I can probably do Heroics with it considering that the scaling from 2 to 3 levels above you grows exponentially in basically all aspects. I'm not really sure though, and I haven't *really* looked into it so I don't know all that much. But his threat is high, he's currently got over 60% mitigation in frost presence without being a tank spec, so I think I could do pretty well.

Don't think I've abandoned Tox. He's just kinda taking a break. Not that he shows it. Earlier this week he picked up one Deadly Gladiator's Chain Armor from a 25 man Vault run, and later that day he got a Staff of Trickery from a Violet Hold run. Pfft, druid gear me arse. To semi-quote one BRK, watch out Maces and Plate, the hunters are coming for you. I'd say I've had an eventful month or so in WoW so far. Good times all around.

Oh, and just to let you know, I am still working on the pictures, I'm just a freaking perfectionist and it's gonna take a while. That's all.

Well, that's a pretty brief catch up, I'll probably talk more later, and I hope to be back to posting regularly, but we'll see how things go, I'm busy for the next couple days so it'll probably be Sunday. Actually, force me to write one on Sunday. Seriously, I mean it. I'm no good at keeping my word with this blog as of late.

Alright, that's enough out of me for now. Not for ever though. Just for now.

Good Hunting,

Tox

Not much.

themarvelgirl@live.com (amtcj) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:56:00 +0000

*wanders in*

Oh.. hi there. Where is everyone? Oh well.

Lvl 56 and still evil, I take no credit. Also have some sweet new gear.

*crickets chirp*

Erm, well..

*leaves*

Ande'thoras-ethil,

Aestara

Me first post this year.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:29:00 +0000

Happy new years? Sure, we'll go with that.

Yeah, nothin' big this time, I managed to be selected in the draw for the FigurePrints order in December, so I got Tox some gear and managed to get him looking good, then proceeded to order it. Don't know when it'll get here, but there will be much excitement and nonsensical gibberish when it does.

Due to some... unexpected, but not unwelcome, changes in the realm of reality there has been a severe diminish in my WoWing. And as such, a lack of WoW blogging. Though I've got a scanner on the way, which will prove very useful for my artistic endeavors, which you, gentle readers, will be some of the first to see.

Franny's up to 71, and Dragonblight wants to get him higher, but I'm kind of in a lull. I'll be back one day, I just have other personal distractions I've got to deal with. And by that I don't mean anything bad, just new and exciting. WoW will be there when I get back, and I'll check in regularly, I just won't do much in it.

Fare thee well, and Good Hunting.

~Tox

The dark side.

themarvelgirl@live.com (amtcj) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:36:00 +0000

Elune-Adore,

I did it. I never thought I would, but I did.

I went shadow.

Now, I know what you're thinking- is not that the usual course of action? Level a priest shadow then switch to holy is healing is what you're into? Well, healing isn't just what I'm into. It's my kick, my swing, my niche in WoW. I love healing! I love being a helper and supporter- front line offense isn't really for me, you know?

Also, shadow priests creep me out. There, I said it. All the screaming and the shadowform and the gross PLAGUE?! Yeah, totally not loving it. However, I have been trying my very hardest to level for months and months and I'm not getting anywhere fast. So here I am.

I don't think anyone can expect me to live up to the who 'dark priestess' thing. I'm still Aestara, happy-go-lucky, hyper and sweet as pie and all that. I'll still get smashed at every opportunity and haplessly wander into areas way too high level for me and attempt to help random passerbyers.

I'll just be a tiny bit evil while doing it.

On the plus side I got some totally rockin' tattoos going on to suit the new persona.

And, 'cause I feel like I should be saying something about my newfound killing-not-just-being-killed experiences; fear + tons of mobs = tons of agro x 4 which is also = death

Just 'cause you're shadow now don't mean you aint still squishy, Aes.

Ande'thoras-ethil,

Aestara

PS) Did... was that... did a french deathgnome just pass by me?!

Stuff I'm working on.

noreply@blogger.com (Tox) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:27:00 +0000

So apparently I'm working on movies nowadays, and what with being a dragon hunter, I decided to go out and record said dragon hunting.

It was fun, I love killing stuff like that, boss type mobs that would have just demolished me back in the days of The Burning Crusade. As an added bonus I get to make cloaks for my toons to use as they get to 70 and get more awesome. Plus it's a tremendously good way of getting rid of all those freakin' shards that I had clogging my bank. And a profitable one at that.

That's the first of probably quite a few to come. Macs rock. The music in it are as follows:

Prelude: Call of the Ghost Tigers by Tiger Army

Towards Destiny by Tiger Army (It just doesn't feel right to listen to one without the other)

Amaranth by Nightwish

Starlight by Muse

I'm also working on potentially becoming one of those people who draw regularly...but perfectionism has its drawbacks. It takes me too long to do the drawings the way I want them, and as such prevents me from doing it on a regular basis. Plus I don't have a scanner (which is something I'll probably rectify eventually).

Anyways, I'm attempting to be creative and it's going pretty well. Plus François is fantastic, I really enjoy being him both for the killing and playing the part of a french gnome of death.

Though with all that going on I don't really do a whole lot of WoWing currently. I want to, and I most definitely could, but I think pursuing other goals right now.

On the topic of WoWing, Heroics have been nice to me. I haven't done many, but each time I go in there I come out with something way better than what I had. I got The Key today, and I'm enjoying it. It's been too long since I used a one handed axe....as I could tell by the skill of 70 when I started using it. I also picked up the Necklace of Arcane Spheres (which I thought was a caster piece before looking at the stats. Arcane just seems to lend itself to casters far more than physical DPS), which was a side bonus. Violet Hold apparently likes me.

Well, I'm off to go work on some drawings that may find their way onto the blog eventually.

Good Hunting,

~Tox