Tigersoul's Teeth

One Week After

2008-09-30T09:10:00.004-06:00

One week without a subscription to the World of Warcraft. I miss my guildies.

It has definitely been an interesting week. I hadn't played too much for a few weeks before my subscription ran out so it's not the actual missed playtime that is weird. It's more when I find myself sitting down at my computer at the end of the day thinking, "What was I going to do again?"

Then I turn the computer off and go to bed. I've been getting more sleep which is good! (Unless I have a good book, but that's always been a problem of mine)

WoW was just THERE for me when I was 'bored' (i.e. had other things I should be doing, but would rather veg in front of a virtual fantasy world) - so now I'm trying to fill that time with other more useful things. Not that WoW isn't useful - it was a major help to me in stress reduction and winding down at the end of the day.

So what do I do now that I don't play WoW?

I have started learning some Jujitsu and playing sports weekly with coworkers.
I do the dishes and other housework more (which my wife LOVES)
I've read some great Fantasy books (my favorite genre)

Finally, I have even started another Blog - mainly on such interesting topics as Exercise, Art (My crazy drawings/doodles), and whatever else randomly pops into my head. If you'd like to check it out (and I don't blame you if you DON'T :p ) here's the link:
http://warlordblade.blogspot.com

I wasn't going to share that here but a friend thought I should, so there you have it.

Hopefully we'll see you all again soon - possibly with WOTLK!

Post #56

2008-09-12T07:19:00.002-06:00

My 6 month subscription ends on September 23rd. I will not be renewing the subscription at this time for a number of reasons.

I looked forward to Wrath of the Lich King, but looking at my reasons for not renewing, I'm not too sure that any of them are going to change even with the new expansion.

The biggest one of these is I am missing out on a huge part of the game, and I will never experience those instances - I am talking about Raiding and the areas included therein.

As a father with 3 small children, my wife often needs my help with something involving the kids. Saying "I can't honey, if I leave the raid will die because they need me to heal/tank/whatever!" THAT doesn't fly too well. Family stuff is definitely more important. Even when it's something as silly as helping my newly potty-trained toddler to wipe himself. (Hearing him yelling, "I NEED HELP!!!!!! from the bathroom is actually quite hilarious)

I also recognize that, while this IS "just a game" and real life always come first - the time and effort people put into getting to where they are, and raiding, is valuable to all those taking part. It takes a lot of time and effort to get up to the level cap and get all that shiny gear. So it's not really fair for me to take away from their precious time while I take care of family stuff. I always felt taken advantage for when questing with a friend and having to wait and wait and wait while they were off doing who knows what. I didn't like MY time wasted, and so I won't waste YOURS.

I'd like to say thanks to the WoW blogosphere for opening my eyes about many many aspects of the game. With the information I gained I was able to share YOUR wisdom with many people in game.

I'm not completely gone though... and who knows - maybe the lure of WOTLK will bring me back.

But for now, Tigersoul is on vacation.

I wish you all the best,
Tigersoul and Co.

The Cenarion Expedition

2008-08-20T06:53:00.003-06:00

I have a need.

Okay so it's really more of a WANT, but I went and screwed it up.

It kind of bothers me that you can screw this up so easily.

There is no warning, no way of knowing how gleefully questing your way through the outlands you can make it MUCH more difficult to get what you want later. Well, no warning if you don't read blogs or guides.

Unfortunately I didn't read too many blogs until AFTER I had reached 70 on Tigersoul.

!!DO NOT DO ANY QUESTS!! for the Cenarion Expedition until you have reached Honored with them!! It will save you lots of money and grinding later on.

Granted I am about 40% through Revered Status, so I'm getting there, but I want Exalted!

Give me that Earthwarden, Nethercleft Leg Armor, and Cenarion War Hippogryph!! (Okay so I probably won't get that mount... Too expensive!)

If you want to do it right - do what Nasirah says and you won't regret it. Unidentified Plant Parts aren't that hard to find or expensive to buy. When you are stuck at revered, the only way of getting more rep is to run Regular Steamvaults, Heroic Slave Pens, Underbog, or Steamvault, AND turning in Coilfang Armaments.

So here's a quick monetary reason why BUYING 360 plant parts is preferable to Buying MANY armaments later on.
10 Unidentified Plant Parts for Identify Plant Parts repeatable (up to Honored) quest:
Cost: 1-3g for 10 from AH. Possibly cheaper if you are lucky.
Reputation Gain: 250 CE Rep - plus a bag of junk that might have Uncatalogued Species for more rep when you reach honored.

1 Coilfang Armaments for Coilfang Armaments repeateable (up to Exalted) quest:
Cost: 10-15 g EACH from AH.
Reputataion Gain: 75 CE rep. Nothing else.

As you can see... it's a LOT more expensive to get Armaments later.
I have 8168/21000 rep. That means IF I were crazy and wanted to spend gold to get up to Exalted, I would need to turn in 172 more Coilfang Armaments which would cost me a minimum of 1,720 gold! Not to mention it would take FOREVER to turn in 172 armaments to the quest-giver!

So I will be running SV with my guild, or Heroic SP/UB in order to get this. We ran Heroic Slave Pens last week and got about 2k rep, so I only have 6 more dungeon runs to go. That might not seem so bad - but with my schedule, and my guild being mostly in an opposite Timezone, organizing dungeon runs can be a hassle.

So take it from me. Spend a couple hundred gold on Plant Parts when you are lvl 60 and get yourself to Honored that way. THEN do the quests. You'll end up richer for it in the end methinks!

August

2008-08-12T10:55:00.003-06:00

I had a very refreshing month and a half in which I didn't play WoW for more than 1 hour total in that whole time!

It was very strange, I would log in, nobody I knew was online, nothing kept my attention, so I'd log off. My time was occupied by work, family, exercising (Forza is a lot of fun!), Naruto and Bleach.

A few weeks ago I logged in and decided to play a BG or two and got sucked in again. Nowhere NEAR the suckedinnedness of before, but I enjoyed it, and I felt like I should get more of the s2 gear, just for fun.

I wish the Feral Druids S2 pants weren't a freakin dress!!

I also spent the 1200 gold I had to make some Swiftstrike Shoulders and regem re-enchant a few pieces of my tanking set so some of the pieces would work more for tanking rather than PVP. Now to find the time to actually get into some Heroics.

As for Katryona, I love BGs as a rogue. As long as I have some support I rip through Horde like crazy. When I'm alone, Warlocks, Mages, Elemental and Enhancement Shamans, Balance Druids and other Rogues usually die pretty quickly unless they have the s4 gear. A lot of fun. Now I have the S2 Shoulders and am working on more.

So yeah. Nothing really useful here - but I'm still alive if anybody cared. ^^

It has been almost a month...

2008-06-09T21:55:00.003-06:00

Wow time is going fast.

So is life.

It has been one week shy of a month since I last posted an entry. Since that time I have been able to accomplish my goal of getting all my alts (not including the Druid Army) to 20 (The Druids will achieve that soonish I'm sure), my Priest to level 40 (he's 42), and my Warrior to 50 (51).

Other than that though - I've had a hard time playing Tigersoul or Katryona... Tigersoul reached exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, got the awesome tabard and Neck piece, and haven't barely touched my 70s since (other than a few helping runs). I'm tired of dailies, tired of trying to level on a PvP server (with so many 70s it is seriously ridiculous).

Add in the very good "Is WoW Still Your Cheese?" post by BBB, the release of the Age of Conan with NEWness, and the leaving of a bundle of wow bloggers, including the very first WoW blog I ever read, Adventures in Azeroth, and it really makes you think, "Why am I playing WoW" and "Is it worth it?"

I still like WoW. I'm not leaving yet (although that day is definitely inevitable for all of us - WoW will not last forever! I am paid 'til September so we'll see what happens (if anything) with WOTLK until then!) but often I find myself logging in for a half hour or so before wondering what I'm doing and logging out.

As for the status of this blog - It's not dead yet. I just needed a break. And it was a good one I think. I think my wife appreciated it as well, and that's always a good thing!

Two Rogues in the Arena

2008-05-16T14:17:00.002-06:00

I've been working on pvp gear and am now the owner of 2 shiny epics [Deathblow X11 Goggles] and [Gladiator's Right Ripper]. I am getting closer to the Left Ripper as well... but I kind of burned out on BGs last weekend. So I am undergeared for Arena's ... although I DO own all the Opportunist's set except the helm and shoulder because my goggles are better than the helm and I need to do Black Morass to get enough rep for the shoulders.

So how did I do in my first arena outing? I was happy that we (2 Subtlety Rogues, yeah!) went 2 wins and 5 losses - although 2 of those losses were SO ridiculously close. First close one came down to me versus another rogue - the reason I lost was totally gear differences. He was in s1, s2 and a few s3 pieces, where I have the pvp-rep-blues. At his gear level compared to mine he SHOULD have mopped me up real quick, especially since I was at half health and he was full when we were finally one on one. His higher health finally prevailed. The 2nd close match was my compatriot vs a resto druid (I died from the leftovers of a FROST SHOCK because my cloak of shadows had 5 seconds left, doh!). Somehow Deadly Throw didn't work as she cheetah'd away, and the bear outlasted the hemos.

After 7 games we finished the last three with our main chars (MM Hunter and Feral Druid) 2 wins, 1 loss. That 1 loss on our mains was ridiculous. We went up against a Hunter and Warlock team that I could NOT stay out of CC. The very next fight was a different Hunter and Warlock team that our rogues lost to quite badly earlier... we mopped them up so fast it was ridiculous. Definitely made me feel good.

Normally I am not a vengeful person. In real life, revenge really doesn't make you feel better, doesn't really bring """Closure""" (sorry I don't really like the idea of closure, but meh) - but DANG. On a PvP server in WoW... successful revenge feels SO good.

I really do enjoy Arenas. However, 10 games a week is usually more than enough to sate that hunger.

Tips for rogues (i.e. stuff I need to work on!)
Remember to use:
Kick
Blind
Trinkets! (attack boosting and escaping)
Stuns
Run away and bandage if it gets tough

Most of all have fun. Otherwise what's the point?

Happy Mothers Day!

2008-05-11T12:51:00.004-06:00

I would like to wish a wonderful and Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there, especially my own mother and the mother of my children.

Without you I wouldn't be here and I love you for that.

To all you mothers out there - THANK YOU - and thanks as well for putting up with us and suffering through our ineptness...

(especially where Mother's Day gifts and overall appreciation are concerned.. I really am trying!)

Eye of the Storm

2008-05-10T22:31:00.005-06:00

I very much dislike the Eye of the Storm Battleground.

Yes I already ranted about this. I am in one as I write this trying to get enough marks for my first weapon.

Really though, it CAN be fun... but that is usually only when you are winning. Like I JUST did wow that was great we 4-capped! Funny to be writing about how much I hate this BG I go ahead and join a gropu that wastes the other team. Sweet!

There is a decent strategy posted at WoWWiki that, if followed, can win you all the EotS' you need!

If you can help take (and of course defend) 3 bases you can win! Yay!

Grinding the PvP Epics

2008-05-08T12:42:00.002-06:00

So as I wrote in my last post - my REAL goal on my rogue is to get some good PvP gear upgrades.

Last night I started the Battleground Grind. Alterac Valley is definitely still my favorite. Eye of the Storm CAN be fun, but is probably my least favorite because the games can go forEVER if it isn't played smart. (And unfortunately it rarely is) People often say Warsong Gulch is the worst because it really can go on for a ridiculously long time - but I've NEVER been in a WSG battle that has been even half as long as my longest EotS battle.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I took a break from the madness and hopped over to the Hall of Champions to check out my first two shiny purple goals. Weapons!!
Gladiator's Right Ripper - 18,000 Honor, 20 EotS marks
Gladiator's Left Ripper - 9,000 Honor, 20 EotS marks

First: Nobody has convinced my NOT to get the fist weapons yet. And for some reason I really like them. So unless I can get a really good reason NOT to get them I'll plan for them. It's going to take a while because...

Second: WHAT!?!?! 40 EotS marks to get my Main and Off Hand PvP weapons?? That is going to take forever.

40 marks is pretty bad for EotS. Then I decided to look at the armor and other requirements. YIKES! Even MORE EotS required! NOooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

In order to get the two weapons, 4/5 armor pieces (don't need the helm with my current gear being slightly better) along with the boots, belt, bracers, neck, cloak, medallion and rings (Vindicator's AND Veterans);
We have a grand total requirement of:
Honor: 194,196
AV marks: 40
AB marks: 110 (!)
WSG marks: 50
EotS marks: 90 (!)

Welfare Epics? That's actually a LOT of work! I'm not even sure how I got most of these on Tigersoul.

Ding!

2008-05-07T01:39:00.005-06:00

Fries are done!

I mean...

Congratulations to my SECOND level 70 Character Katryona!!

(She was quite tired when this picture was taken...BEFORE70)

She also has a nice shiny new helicopter. Okay... so it really isn't shiny and it smokes a lot. But it cost me less than the 100g Gryphon!

Next goal: Pickpocket every mob in the Outlands to find Spinesever or the Night Blade from a Strong Junkbox. That would be wonderful.

(Real goal: On a PVP server... gotta get some PVP gear upgrades!)

**Any rogue suggestions are appreciated**
***I really like subtlety and might farm then waste honor on THESE BABIES unless I am convinced otherwise!***

Easy... Almost TOO Easy...

2008-05-05T10:29:00.002-06:00

As I've been playing my rogue, creeping ever so slowly to 70 (Dinged 69 this weekend yay!) I've been noticing a few things about questing, farming, and grinding in the World of Warcraft. Playing my level 35 Priest (shadow spec right now) is further cementing my thoughts on this as well.

Basically it all seems a heck of a lot EASIER than it was about 6 months ago when I was in a similar place with Tigersoul.

Tigersoul is my strongest character, one of the reasons he is my "Main Character".

Feral Druid if you were unaware... I kill very fast, I tank fairly well, soloing is a breeze and deaths are far and few between. But when I was questing in Netherstorm (where Katryona the rogue has been questing) at the same level as Kat - even as an early 70 - I died. A lot. Then flash back even further to questing in STV at 35, like Silverthorne my priest. I died. A LOT.

So here's my question. Has the game been made "Easier" in preparation for the new expansion? OR, have I just become a much better player. I think it is a bit of both, but unfortunately - probably more game changes than my own personal improvement.

It HAS been fun to get through areas faster with less deaths (not counting Horde gankings which are RIDICULOUSLY more common now than when Tiger was in the same spots... so I guess the actual death count is about the same. Probably not my rogue though... Subtlety spec is actually quite hard to kill - lots of avoidance and escape possibilities!), but is the game less of a game now with the "nerfing" of questing content?

I think I can appreciate how tough and strong I am now, since I went through a much tougher game a year ago. I sincerely hope that at least SOME of this toughness is because I've improved as a player...

BRK and Ratshag's Running of Da Bulls!

2008-05-03T22:32:00.007-06:00

Fer Sharvan!!

Today was the Running of da Bulls on the Cenarion Circle RP server. The locals were quite confused. I REALLY wish I had been able to see what the alliance in Ironforge were saying... My very first character in WoW was a Tauren... so they have a special place in my heart.

"Tigersoubull" was my entrant into the race. But he died too much and did not win. I have NO idea how the winner made it there so fast! (I was almost to Hillsbrad)

I was lucky enough to see a few of the bloggers (Ratshag, BRK, Bellwether) Thanks for the fun!

And I got a purple shirt!!!

Here are LOTS of screenshots:

Just over 2 hours before the race:

BRK does it Disco-style in front of all his groupies (looks like Tigersoubull fainted)

Look at that fine piece of beef!!

Shut up and get to the starting line!!

Wow look it's Ratshag there... Orcs are kind of small!

How many bloggers can YOU find in this picture? (I think I can see five...)

Hey look! I'm running by Bellwether of 4Haelz! She has a great blog!

She also witnessed my first death of the race...

The official race is done - the Herd heads for Wetlands en route to Ironforge!

That is a LOT of Bulls. I wonder if this is a record?

Those mean dwarves picked off a few of the weak.

Good thing we have thick skins in this cold!

Storm the gates of Ironforge!!

Swarm the halls!

There were lots of ghosts present too...

The number of guards that spawned was ridiculous.

I'm sure the alliance will have nightmares caused by their cruelty.

Unfortunately shortly after spawning in Elwynn (I finally made it into the tram only to be killed by some heartless hunter who probably doesn't even like steak) I had to leave... so I missed out on the hogger fight. :(

It was a lot of fun and I thank those responsible for setting all of this up!

A Thought on PvF

2008-04-30T17:22:00.001-06:00

Wow, two posts in one day after a dry spell of over a week?! What's going on?

I've been thinking about "PVF" (Player versus Faction) since The Big Bear Butt posted "I want /PvF!" Then today I read an answer to a different question about Group duels in my feed reader from MMO-Champion. Here's what the Blizzard staffer said (original here):

There are actually in-game locations where such events can be organized. The world arenas in Stranglethorn Vale, Nagrand and Blade's Edge Mountain come to mind as suitable locations for group "duelling" and combat practise. As for a group duel option (such as /groupduel), we have no current plans to add this."

So here's my idea for a possible solution to the problem where you are really ticked off at some jerk of your same faction who stole a node, stole a kill, or even just watched you die when they could have easily healed you with a very low cost spell. Have a big quest line that eventually leads you to discovering flaws within your own faction (i.e. not everybody you think is on your side is actually on your side, kind of like Lady Prestor) - with the reward being a trinket or usable item (like the Everlasting Underspore Frond that makes food for you every day) that will transport you and the targeted same-faction offender to one of the aforementioned Arenas with an invisible fence not allowing the other person to run away or leave. "Two players enter... one leaves..." that sort of thing. THAT would be nice.

Will this ever happen? No way. Too many variables, rules and conditions to consider and implement, not to mention jerks abusing the option just to kill others to show off their epeen.

Kind of like the 70 Gnome Rogue who flew up to Katryona (at the time 65) and challenged me to a duel in the middle of the Firewing Bloodelves. /inspect to find out she has 16 Epics and 1 Blue. For my level I'm fairly well geared - Epic Engo goggles (she also had these) a bunch of blues and a few greens. But still... really what's the point? It's pretty much impossible for a 65 to beat a fully-epicced 70 of the same class. I dueled her because it didn't hurt me any, then before she would duel the 70 rogue I was with (I was actually helping HIM get Firewing signets) she spammed in /say "How Much HP?" "How Much HP?" He ignored her so she went away. But it was interesting to me that she would land on her Netherdrake and immediately challenge me to a duel while I was in the middle of fighting some Bloodelves, but would NOT do that to a 70 Rogue... Sounded to me like she was only interested in dueling if she was sure she would win. Sorry, but that is stupid. Sorry for the sidetrack there - but that type of person would probably abuse the proposed trinket.

An Update

2008-04-30T16:17:00.003-06:00

It's been a busy time what with a new baby and work and all. I've also been reading a lot, most recently the A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin. (I'm only on the 2nd book A Clash of Kings) Yes I actually found out about this through the blog of the webcomic Looking for Group. Usually I hear about good Fantasy series but somehow missed this one. I also read all the available books by Brandon Sanderson who is finishing the last book in Robert Jordan's amazing Wheel of Time series. I actually might like a lot of Brandon Sanderson's work more than Jordan's. It'll be interesting to see how the 12th book turns out. His downloadable book Warbreaker is really good too. So if you don't want to go to the library and like reading PDF books... go check it out!

Tigersoul has been on a bit of a hiatus - he really wants the Shattered Sun Pendant of Might but is seriously sick of dailies. He's getting low on cash for some reason and needs to get a group together for a Heroic Sethekk Halls run to finally get Swift Flight Form. He also needs to get back into the Arena scene. I think we need to start our teams over before the next patch fixes point buying. I haven't bough points and don't plan on it - our ratings just stink right now and so I think it'd be a good time to start over!

Katryona dinged 68 last night (which took me WAY too long but I got in a bit of tunnel vision there) and became honored with Aldor's too. Finally I can get the Aldor quests in SMV and start turning in Marks of Sargeras instead of the less available Marks of Kil'Jaeden. By the time she reaches 70 she will definitely have enough to buy the regular riding skill for flying and make a helicopter. Did I mention I think engineering is fun?

Silverthorne is finally 35 and is almost to my 275 Enchanting goal so I can disenchant all the otherwise worthless high level greens I find while farming/questing. While going from 33 to 35 I discovered the joy that is Shadow Priest (without shadowform yet) utilizing Vampiric Embrace, Power Word: Shield, Shadow Word: Pain, and Mind Flay = Pure Awesome! I was amazed at the quests I was easily completing. Oh yeah - Psychic Scream is handy too. Almost invulnerable and self healing while inflicting pain is awesome!

Soulsword is still at 46. It is hard to play him. My guild officers want me to get him up to 70 and spec Protection so we can have another Tank option other than our Feral Druids (one of which is also me). I like tanking all right... but do I want to be one of the ONLY tank options in the guild? Good thing I'm the guild leader...

The Druid Army isn't doing much lately. Too busy with other things (Mostly Rogue leveling and Shattered Sun dailies) - but they are building up some good mats for professions and Treesoul ALMOST has bear form. Yeah I know it's pretty sad. She's level 9 and it REALLY doesn't take that long.

On Fantasy

2008-04-18T23:33:00.003-06:00

Nothing of real import here...

Like many I'm tired of the "Daily Quest" grind - but I love regular questing. So it's allowed me to get to almost 65. 5 more levels 'til I have my second 70! I'm excited.

I love books. One of the first fantasy series I read (after Lord of the Rings, which while in no way my favorite - got me hooked on Fantasy books and probably reading in general) was the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander.

Good books - if you've never read them you should. Even if you have seen the old Black Cauldron movie! (or maybe ESPECIALLY if you have seen that!) They are "Young Adult" books and fairly easy reading... but don't let that stop you!

Anyway. Mr. Alexander wrote a short little treatise "On Fantasy" that I love. I linked it there for you. Go read it.

I'll write more about books later... pretty much entirely Fantasy books. But being as this is primarily a World of Warcraft Blog... That shouldn't be too far fetched.

On to Azeroth!

Kael'Thas and Friends

2008-04-15T15:41:00.003-06:00

I finally finished the Sunwell quest to get Kael'thas' head.

There are some MEAN pulls in there! It is VERY easy to wipe without a good team setup. And this, my friends, is why quite often you will see requests for "LFM Magister CC preferably 2 mages" Keep two mobs Baa-ing away and it makes it a lot easier. Add in a rogue or Hunter if you can't find a mage and you should be good!

A Hunter in my guild REALLY wanted to get the Hauberk of the War Bringer chest that drops off Kael, and she's been trying for days. Most of the time I log on and she's in there again hoping to GET to Kael and down him so he will drop this for her. Over and over and over. That's dedication for ya!

It's amazing how many groups this instance can kill. We made it through the very first little bit with more than one death... because of a rogue. Seriously it is amazing what one bad member can do in these instances. The guy comes in with no flash powder and no bandages, and says he's a real good rogue, but this isn't his account, he's playing a friends. And boy oh boy he was NOT good.

Anyway. We kicked him out and got another Rogue and we went very smoothly all the way up to the Priestess when the Rogue DC'd and the mage had to leave. The Pally Healer decided she needed to leave as well, so my hunter was sad. Then she was mad and wouldn't let me leave, and proceeded to grab another pally healer, a warlock, and a rogue. We breezed through the 5 man PvP fight (kind of fun!).

We then downed Kael pretty easily, losing only the rogue. Sunrage Treads dropped, so my friend wasn't happy that she wouldn't get the chest - but she got them anyway because they were actually an upgrade from what she had! So epic boots for her!

I checked out her armory earlier today and noticed she got the drop. Good for her!

Determination. It can get you what you want! So keep at it.

At Last We Greet You, Karazhan...

2008-04-09T17:11:00.003-06:00

Last night was so much fun that I was on for about 3 hours longer than I should have been.

Which then caused me to stumble into work MUCH too late. Lovely. Not good.

So here's what went down...

FIRST - I logged onto my rogue, got all the mats necessary - and made those wonderful Deathblow X11 Goggles that I wanted, then quested and farmed more mats getting my mining up to 367, and TRYING to get to 62 so I could "Show my pride" and actually WEAR the goggles. (Thanks for the comic reminder from an anonymous commenter - Scout Report is fun!)

Then my guildies logged on, and we have been planning on finally finishing up the now not totally required Kara attunement. We were expecting to take one or two of our members through Old Hillsbrad to get ready for Black Morass. We invited a 66 Ret Pally in the guild to come along to fill our group. Good that she came too, because there were some good blue upgrades for her!

Final setup was 70 Feral Druid tank, 70 Subtle Rogue, 70 Holy Pally, 70 BM Hunter and 66 Ret Pally. Durnholde is easy now. My guildmates do an amazing job as well... although we definitely need a bit more experience getting it perfect... I have to charge down mobs going after our hunter at times because we aren't focusing on the target I'm mainly tanking (Multiple mob pulls).

"Hey lets get Black Morass out of the way too!" I say

"I don't think we can handle it... Especially not with my heals" says our better-than-he-thinks-he-is healer. (He's awesome)

"Well let's go anyway!"

CHARGE!!! 18 waves later... Ba-da-bing that was EASY - but you know what? Probably the most fun I have ever had in an instance! I think we will continue getting others through the Kara Key process just because getting through the dungeons and BM is a great learning experience. And its FUN.

We only had one death on Temporus the 2nd boss - But that was only because the Hunter was a bit trigger happy and got a bunch of aggro before I'd even engaged him! The jerk didn't even drop the Hourglass of the Unraveller for us Other than that Chrono Lord Deja and the final boss Aeonus were pushovers.

My tactic on all the rifts and bosses was to position myself between the boss and Medivh, and when a new mob spawned and headed off towards Medivh (Stubborn bums have to be physically hit to stop them from bee-lining to Medivh - so no easy Ferocious Roars or Faerie Fires :( ) I would target and swipe him or lacerate just as he got close to where the Rift-boss was. That was usually good enough to keep them on me. Swipe was especially effective in getting the attention of those little whelps that spawn in 3s. Other than that we had our hunter and rogue picking up the runaways as well as burning down the Rift-bosses to close the rifts. We did a really good job.

It was also nice to laugh at the naysayers who said we couldn't do it!

After turning in the CoT quests I am almost Revered with KoT (hit honored on the way through), so I picked up the Heroic CoT key and the pattern for Drums of Panic. I have a feeling these will be fun in AV, AND even better it allowed me to finally cap my LW! 375 yay!

So of course we had to go into Kara to see what's up in there. Even just the front area is a lot cooler than many other instances - there's just a... Aura to the place that the developers really put some thought into this one. We died a couple times - but I turned in the first quest from the outside (and died) and now I have to find some diary.

Awesome night.
- Cool goggles for my rogue (and Tigersoul is jealous)
- Maxed Leatherworking
- Karazhan Master Key obtained for 4 of my guild officers so we can now organize runs
- Began discussing changes to guild structure to allow for some very laid-back Kara runs.

We'll see how it all works out.

Engineering Is Fun and Expensive

2008-04-08T13:44:00.003-06:00

I finally made a marathon push leveling Engineering on Katryona up to 350 so I could make my first epics, the awesome DPS machines that are the Deathblow X11 Goggles - even more exciting is that when I get to 70, I can upgrade them to the even MORE Awesomer Quad Deathblow X44 Goggles!! (provided I can find the Schematic!)

Then I looked at the mats required...
Heavy Knothide Leather (6) - Skinning on my main - this is no problem.
Khorium Power Core - 3 Khorium Bars and 1 Primal Fire - I haven't even SEEN Khorium yet. AH maybe?
Hardened Adamantite Tube (2) - I need 6 Hardened Adamantite Bars - so 60 Adamantite Bars. Yikes.
Felsteel Stabilizer (4) - 8 Felsteel Bars (16 Eternium Bars & 24 Fel Iron Bars to make the Felsteel Bars) I can farm these, but it'll take a long time I think.
Primal Nether - No problem - Tigersoul has a couple of these.
Living Ruby (2) - At 50g a pop... these will be fun.

IF I were to buy all of these, the total cost would be about 500g according to my Server's current economy. Yikes! And since I powered my Engineering from 335 to 350 by making the ridiculously cheap White Smoke Flares, I didn't have to farm a lot ores... so I have a ways to go to max my Mining. And I can't even get Khorium until I'm maxed. Eternium will probably actually be the hardest mat for me to find.

These goggles rock. So I might just steal money from Tigersoul and get them made. Woohoo!

So to outline my "Marathon" from 330 to 350 (so not quite a marathon since I only went up 20 points, instead of 26.2) I made the following items:
Adamantite Grenade - 330 - 335
White Smoke Flare - 335 - 350

WOW pretty tough huh? Nice way to quickly level through those levels. Those flares can be kind of fun too. I would love to surround the flag with a bunch of those in a WSG match...

In the middle of this leveling Outland crashed on Dragonmaw and Lag spiked to 2800 in Stormwind. I wondered why I had only made 3 Fel Iron Bolts instead of the 10 I should have... Finally I was able to get to 350.

Hopefully tonight I will get those Deathblow goggles made!!

If you want to powerlevel your engineering from 1 - 375, Tentonhammer has a good guide. It's still an expensive undertaking. I have not followed this guide too much, because I've been having fun leveling as I go! Happy crafting!

Tigersoul's Addons

2008-04-07T20:15:00.003-06:00

In my quest to figure out what was causing my freeze, I went through a lot of my mods and deleted, changed, reinstalled, and dug around. While doing so I thought I'd talk about my addons.

I ended up removing PitBull and am now using CT_Unit Frames from CTMod instead. I really miss the enemy castbar. Anybody know of any good low-resource mods that indicate what the enemy is casting?
I liked Pitbull, but CTMod is a bit simpler to use for now. Simple is good.

Here's a list of Mods I use and like:
Ace - Since I started using this I LOVE it. Especially the WoWAceupdater!!
AllPlayed - Fun tool for Altoholics and Moneytrackers
AtlasLoot - It's nice to see what rewards are available in instances, from reputation, and pvp
AutoProfitX - Not sure if it's even supported anymore - and there are other options - sells junk.
Cartographer - Too much good to say about this one. It rocks.
FuBar - FuBar is Fun! Just a fun little thing that'll display COUNTLESS little doodads (NO not THAT Doodad!) (Hee hee hee!) to play with or just get info from.
Omen - It's Omen! I just need my guildies to get it so I can Tank more effectively.
Parrot - The Ace description is the best. "Floating Combat Text of awesomeness. Caw. It'll eat your crackers." With the 2.4 combat log update, I'm still trying to get it back to its previous level of awesomeness.
ProfessionsBook - I love professions. I love alts. This helps me see what recipes/patterns/etc in my AH browsing can be learned by my alts, or if they are too low or already know it. It also lets me browse through and link their patterns when not on that char. Very handy.
SimpleMinimap - Allows scaling and mini map placement so your map is where you want it to be.
TankPoints - Helps you determine what gear might be better for tanking. You should still use your brain. Only evaluates gear.
Auctioneer - I love Auctioneer. It's too much fun. That's all I'll say or this post will go on forever. I would love it even more if it were Ace compatible... Only problem is that it can really eat your system resources when you scan a lot.
CTMod - My first mod ever, and it's been hard to get away from. Haven't used the raid interface much yet, but I really like the bar placement and import abilities. Usually it gets my other mod info as well, so it makes setup for alts QUITE nice. There are many many other functions I haven't looked into yet... and with my lazy "Simple is good" attitude, it'll be a while before I look into them!
Deadly Boss Mods - Haven't used the raid functions yet - but the BG helps are awesome.. although I'm still half-heartedly trying to figure out how to move the dang AV timers from the CENTER of the screen. Why do I have to be so lazy?? =p
ItemRack - It has been 6 months since the last update. Still - this mod is awesome. Easy to use, easy to set up, and awesome. I tried some of the others, but this one got me hooked. We'll see if I try another again later.

Sunwell Portal Problems Fixed

2008-04-07T18:44:00.004-06:00

The problem was an infinite loop caused by a library used by a couple of good mods. Questhelper, Gatherer and a few other mods use the library Astrolabe. Update this library and it should fix the problem.

Unfortunately for the moment I have deleted Questhelper from my Addons. It definitely was helpful in leveling Katryona up to her current level, especially teamed up with Cartographer. I'll probably reinstall it with the astrolabe library found in Gatherer since it REALLY is a useful tool. I was just happy to not get sucked into that infinite loop!

Sunwell Portal Problems

2008-04-04T12:26:00.002-06:00

It seems that every time I try to teleport to or from the Isle of Quel'danas - World of Warcraft totally and absolutely Freezes. The casting bar goes all the way up to where I should teleport and WHAMO... everything stops. Sometimes I can Alt-Tab out and force close WoW, sometimes I can't and I have to force shutdown my computer and restart. Log back in and I'm where I wanted to be... but what a hassle.

I wonder if others have been having similar problems.

I guess it's possible that one of my addons is causing the conflict. I need to go through and revamp them anyway. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with Pitbull. There are some things I really like about it, but since installing it some simple things are missing - like the capping indicator in BGs or World objectives like capping the 3 buildings in Hellfire Peninsula isn't visible.

Anybody have any suggestions for a good Pitbull replacement?

APRIL FOOLS!!!

2008-04-03T20:55:00.005-06:00

Wait... what?

I'm too late?

Dang. I hate when that happens.

While not WoW related - I am in LOVE with this little girl!

She's definitely too cute!

So in WoW news, it's still kind of hard for me to get through all the Sunwell quests every day - and I really want the Tabard. I also want the Neck piece they have available - but I'm not sure if I want Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve or Shattered Sun Pendant of Might. Tough choice! But... is it better than the Haramad's Bargain I've been wanting forever!?

Took my now level 60 Rogue through Ramps with some guild members... we had no tank. Having no tank was much easier when we had a 70 mage come back and help us out. It was a lot of fun, although our level 60 Shaman we had with us kept dying. Lucky for her almost every boss drop was perfect for her, so she got lots of nice loot. I was happy to get the Sure-step Boots from the quest Weaken the Ramparts. Not bad. Now to get to level 67 so I can equip the Tigersoul-made Fel Leather Gloves and 69 so I can equip the other two pieces of the Fel Skin set sitting in the break! Having a "higher level" rogue is a lot of fun. I'd better do a couple more AV's before I'm in the higher bracket!

Baby Girl and the Sunwell

2008-03-26T12:23:00.002-06:00

We had a baby girl on Easter which is why nothing has happened here. Longest break from WoW I've had in a while too, and it was quite nice. She's a gorgeous dark haired little beauty.

We returned home with our new little baby Tuesday afternoon - so I didn't have to wait for the maintenance to be completed. I logged in, installed the patch, and got a quest to go speak with somebody on a boat at the Sunwell offensive. I must say I like the changes to Shattrath. It is definitely a more interesting place now - and I like the Sunwell Tabard! Hopefully I'll be able to get one.

The biggest thing I learned from my first excursion on the Isle was that our server has a ridiculously wide gap in the numbers of alliance players versus the number of horde players. Alliance-side Dragonmaw tops our Battlegroup in Arenas, and our top raiding guilds are quite a bit further than the Horde counterparts. But when there are 40 lvl 70 Horde running around an area where there are 10 lvl 70 Alliance... you will be ganked.

I was able to see some of Magister's Terrace - and I barely made it into the instance because of the mass of horde hanging around the summoning stone.

So. So far I think what I've seen is very cool (although nothing that new if you've played through the Blood Elf starting zones!) - but it's a somewhat small area for the number of lvl 70s running through!

Rogues are FUN!

2008-03-21T14:23:00.003-06:00

As I've mentioned a couple of times, I've been playing my rogue Katryona a lot lately due to some slow times with where I'm at on Tigersoul right now. Basically it's hard to get my guild together for instances to get us into Kara. However we did Slabs last night and got the first key fragment for a bunch of our members. We would have done more too, but I had to go. Having sick family is no fun.

But Rogues ARE fun. Oh yah... the title already says that. Well I'll even say it again, again! Rogues are FUN!!

I love the ability to sneak around and kill things quite quickly. I thought I wouldn't survive long, and there are times I don't survive long enough sure - but with all my evasion and escape techniques, I live a LOT more than I die.

It's silly, but one of my absolute favorite places to be as a Rogue is surrounded by lots of pick pocketable humanoids. Sap-pickpocket, sap-pickpocket, Mwahahahahaaa! Do it some more!! With subtlety talents, unless I am attempting more then 2 levels higher than me they rarely resist unless I'm positioned weird. And then I Vanish and keep on going.

I have gone entirely subtlety so far. I LOVE it. In fact, both the lvl 70 rogues in my guild are Hemo/Shadowstep builds (can you tell we are a non-raiding guild on a pvp server?) but they've chosen slightly different emphasis's that somehow seem to work well for them. I don't understand not taking Cheat Death though. I LOVE that one. For a while I think I'm going to try putting all points into Subtlety just for fun. I'll respec to something more useful closer to 70.

Before I get to 60 I need to complete all the Sunken Temple quests and finish the AV quests. Sadly the last AV quest I have is the one where all you have to do is Defeat Drek'thar. I've done about 10 AVs (and got some NICE xp from those quests too!!) and my HK's went from 20 (all world-kills usually helping other allies in trouble or revenge on gankers) to over 300. AV is fun. Strange that in the 51-60 bracket I haven't won yet...

Now for some linkage!
There are some really good Rogue Blogs out there that have helped me a lot.

http://doomilias.com/ - Sure sure Doomilias talks about poo a lot, but he also has some really really good tips on playing rogues. All his early posts are Mutilate-centric, but he has tried out some of the others as well. Also has the best Nerfs ever. Picked me some up for the wife and kids just yesterday! Oh and for me too.

http://www.parrydodgespin.com/ - Valenna blogs about a multitude of topics, but my favorite so far is her pre-Kara Rogue gear guide. I'm looking forward to using it, or start picking some of those items up when I get to Outlands SOON!

Common Courtesy

2008-03-20T14:10:00.003-06:00

Too often people are greedy jerks on the internet - especially in online games. Anonymity, much like being part of a huge mob, turns people into major idiots.

Now in MMORPGs, there are terms for such people; Loot Whores, Ninjas, Greedy SOBs, you get the picture.

Now this person I grouped with wasn't exactly one of those, not quite... but what they did was definitely inconsiderate. A guild member who I helped get attuned to Ogri'la the other day needed help with one of the group quests in Ogri'la. Guardian of the Monument

Party setup was as follows, Me the Feral Tank, Guildmate BM Hunter (party leader with lag problems to boot), Arms/Fury Warrior, Holy Pally Healer, Combat Rogue. Of the 5 members, 3 were on the quest, and those 3 were also not the most geared 70s out there. The Warrior, like me, had his Netherwing and Nether Ray mounts, and more Epic gear than me (Mostly PvP, but on a PvP server that's what you NEED). So basically he and I were helping these people new to Ogri'la.

So we get to the big Simon Says marker and I start directing people where they need to be and asking who wanted to use their shards to activate the Guardian, when the Warrior dismounts and activates it before anybody was ready. So the Simon Says game doesn't go properly because people weren't ready, and the Guardian comes. Now I'm not sure if the fight is harder if you mess up the Simon Says part, but this guardian really isn't that hard either way. Just WHY did the guy start the event before anyybody was ready? The Guardian goes down, and hey, nice! A blue Apexis Crystal! Everybody Greeds because this is a pick up group for the most part, but wait a minute - Why did the Warrior NEED it?? I'm a little annoyed but just get past it and we all head back to the Skyguard base so those who needed to could turn in the quest.

Wait a minute what's this? Why is this Warrior now walking on the ground on his dragon with me on autofollow?? I should have been mean and played a trick on him. I considered it... but I'm too nice.

Suddenly he comes back and says "Follow" and flies north to the Fel Cannon place and then says "If you provide the Shards to summon Need the blue crystal everybody else pass" Huh? Now in general that's not a bad idea - but when you've already Needed a blue crystal without telling anybody this "rule" and you also don't even give anybody else the OPTION to use their shards to summon... that's crap. If you want this to work - at least do a /roll on who uses their shards to summon and basically get the blue crystal. His method was rude and greedy, and not a good example to these new-to-Ogri'la 70s.

I am not Exalted with Ogri'la yet - I haven't done their quests for a while because I haven't needed to - I was going for Skyguard rep as Ogri'la doesn't have anything I really want (other than their Tabard, since I somewhat collect those). I still have close to 800 Apexis Shards in my bags, no idea how many I have in my bank. The Warrior claimed to have over 4k. It costs 35 to summon the Guardians. I thought the way he went about it was lame and inconsiderate.