Monday, November 30, 2009

Pilgrim event

The Thanksgiving Pilgrim event was great for boosting all my alts' cooking that were under 300. But I only leveled my Druid's cooking to 350 (go go 80+ turkeys!).

But it was quick and cheap. I loved it.

Otherwise, my druid's gearing up is starting to hit a wall. Unless I get lucky with a heroic drop, its now waiting for enough badges to buy items from the conquest vendor. Her heal set is almost 2000, and her tank set is closing in on 1900 gear score.

Once both her sets hit 2000, it will be time to get cracking the Death Knight's tanking set.

Most fun instance of the week? Mmm. I think the UP, where we had a Paladin that was just chain pulling all the way. The only places we stopped was the 3rd and last boss. everything else, as soon as the last mob dropped, he would run off and pull the next group. Made for a very fast run - maybe lass than 30minutes.

Real-world.
Had a great weekend with my brother visiting, although most of the weekend was spent planning for our parent's visit in 2 weeks time. Really looking forward to seeing our entire family together for the first time in almost 12 years, as my youngest brother is making the trip to the US for the first time.

The kids got some new toys as well. The eldest already finished a new computer game we got her. And we put up loads of Christmas lights. Swag/drape lights along the front gutters of the house, and icicle lights along the garage roof's edge. Also added stake lights tot he pathway to the front door, with the kids' deer statues on the lawn.

Inside in the playroom, we hung LED rope lights all along the ceiling. My wife will be erecting the tree inside during the week I am sure.

The Holiday spirit is very excited in our house :D

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Bear tanking gear

Well my Druid-bear is get a piece or two upgraded every night (which is usual for a "new 80" character".

Got 1 tank upgrade last night doing Heroic UP. According to Wow-heroes my tank gear score is almost 1600.

Sounds about ready to try tanking some normal level 70+ instances. I have been practicing my Druid tanking techniques while questing. Ranged pulling, Feral charge pulling, etc. All to make sure my head is learning which buttons to push to a) keep aggro, b) do damage, 3) keep myself alive if needed.

I was able to solo the level 74-76 elites in Dragonblight without any issues.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Bearing up!

After getting distracted on Sunday night doing the cooking quests for the WoW Pilgrim's event (5 of my 8 characters leveled up their cooking to 300+), my Bear-druid got her playtime.

I started her off by just doing Wyrmrest reputation quests to get her head caster enchant. Played as a bear and started practicing the new key lay-out, tactics and strategies (as compared to Cat-druiding).

It was an interesting experience, and in short order I landed in instance groups doing the heroic daily, as well as Trail of the Crusader. Both I healed. I got the Black Knight's trinket for my tank gear on the 1st try!! /celebrate

In the Heroic, I got another tank upgrade the ring of the final boss in DTK.

I am pleased with my first nights of attempting to create a bear-set. I was also able to get some rare-BOE gear from our guildbank, that helped with a solid starter bear-gear set.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Bear gearing

Last night I started to review what I needed to do to convert my Cat Druid to a Bear tank.

I researched a couple of popular Bear blogs (Thank you BigBearButt) and selected a talent spec. 10g and 30 minutes of respecs later, I have a good 5man to early raid spec.

I also spent some time learning how Bear's generate agro, and creating some macros to work with my bear (Initial pull, Battle Rez, Oh crap-self-heal, etc).

Then I started research my gear (Thank you Shifting Perspectives from Wow.com). I first took stock of what gear I had using the Equivalence Points UImod, to see what combination of gear that I already owned can start a bear-set. It was UGLY :D

But I had 2 or 3 decent pieces.

Then back to researching upgrades to get raid ready. With my current gear - I would be concerned tanking anything but sub-80 instances - never mind heroics!

But my gear research give me a good list (see below) of BOE gear to hunt for on the AH, as well as Heroics to run (as well-geared Healer) to collect some tank gear.

The big priorities will be run UP, OK and HoL heroics as often as possible, as it has the largest number of drops that I can use for upgrades.

AH hunting will very slow, as I just spent the past month gearing up my Shammie, and gold funds have been drained.

As excited I am about working on my Bear, and learning how to tank as a bear, this weekend is AV bonus weekend, which means my Hunter will crawl out from under her rock, and attempt to gain a couple of levels gunning down the Horde and running to the Relief Hut!

The List
Helm
Titan-Forged Leather Helm of Triumph 40 Wintergrasp marks
Quest: Headguard of Retaliation, from the quest Vengeance Be Mine! in Utgarde Pinnacle.
Eviscerator's Facemask, a Leatherworking BoE.
Enchant: revered with the Argent Crusade
Meta: Austere Earthsiege Diamond

Neck
Titanium Earthguard Chain, a Jewelcrafting BoE.
Chained Military Gorget, available for 25 emblems of heroism.
Torta's Oversized Choker. BOE

Shoulders
Trollwoven Spaulders, a Leatherworking BoE.
Spaulders of Egotism. BOE Naxx25 drop
SoH enchant

Cloak
Durable Nerubhide Cape, a Leatherworking BoE.
Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions, available at honored with the Wyrmrest Accord.
Cloak of Tormented Skies, a Leatherworking BoE.
Enchant: Enchant Cloak - Major Agility.

Chest
Heroes' Dreamwalker Raiments, available for 80 emblems of heroism.
Darkheart Chestguard, available at exalted with the Ebon Blade.
Enchant: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats

Wrist:
Bindings of the Tunneler, off Skarvald the Constructor in heroic Utgarde Keep.
Dragonfriend Bracers, available at exalted with the Wyrmrest Accord.
Drake-Champion's Bracers, a BoE trash drop in Oculus
Eviscerator's Bindings, a Leatherworking BoE
Enchant: Enchant Bracer - Major Stamina.

Gloves:
Heroes' Dreamwalker Handgrips, available for 60 emblems of heroism.
Gloves of Fast Reactions. NAxx25 BOE
Enchant: Enchant Gloves -- Major Agility, Enchant Gloves -- Expertise, Enchant Gloves -- Precision, or a Heavy Borean Armor Kit

Belt:
Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt, off Ingvar the Plunderer in heroic Utgarde Keep.
Trollwoven Girdle Leatherworking BOE
Ley-Whelphide Belt. Occulus BOE
Eviscerator's Waistguard, Leatherworking BoE

Pants:
Savage Gladiator's Dragonhide Legguards, available for 60,000 honor or 45 emblems of heroism.
Mind-Expanding Leggings, available at revered with the Kirin Tor.
Enchant: Frosthide Leg Armor.

Feet:
Titan-forged Boots of Triumph, available for 15 Wintergrasp marks.
Boots of the Neverending Path, available at exalted with the Argent Crusade.
Boots of Captain Ellis, available for 40 emblems.
Enchant: Tuskarr's Vitality, but you may want to use Enchant Boots - Superior Agility, Enchant Boots - Greater Fortitude, or Enchant Boots - Icewalker

Rings:
Keystone Great-Ring, from the Prophet Tharon'ja in heroic Drak'tharon Keep.
Titanium Earthguard Ring, a Jewelcrafting BoE
Ring of Earthen Might, another Jewelcrafting BoE.

Trinket:
Darkmoon Card: Greatness.
Valor Medal of the First War, available for 40 emblems of heroism

Weapon:
Enraged Feral Staff off Ingvar the Plunderer in heroic Utgarde Keep.
Enchant:Enchant Weapon - Mongoose or Enchant 2H Weapon - Major Agility,

Where to get drops:
H Occulus (Helm, Ring)
H VH (Helm, Cloak)
H OK (Neck, Shoulders, Legs, Ring)
H HoS (Neck, Boots)
H Nexus (Shoulders, Chest)
H HoL (Cloak, Gloves, Boots)
H UP (Chest, Wrist, Belt, Legs, Staff)
H CoS (Gloves)
H DTK (Belt, Ring)
H Gundrak (Belt, Boots)
H AZN (Trinket)

R CoS (Cloak)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

WoW Patch 3.3 - LFG thoughts

With the next WoW patch on the horizon, I started thinking about how this will affect my playstyle and army of characters.

Characters (level 80):
Paladin - Tank/Healer
Priest - Healer/Ranged DPS
Druid - Healer/Melee DPS
Shaman - Healer/Melee DPS
Death Knight - Melee DPS
Rogue - Melee DPS

In total I have 1 tank, 4 healers, 1 Ranged DPS and 4 Melee DPS.

Patch
What patch 3.3 will introduce is a new Looking-for-Group (LFG) and Looking-for-Raid (LFR) tools. This will allow you to find groups or raid groups for each character faster. But you can only use one of these tools at a time.

So LFG for 5man instances or 5man heroics, or raids (10 or 25man). But the LFG tool will also have a "join random" group feature. Meaning it will automatically match you with a group that needs your function (Tank, Heal or DPS).

So what am I getting at?
Based on my own (and other's) observations, you ALWAYS struggle to find tanks and healers. In each 5man group you need 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS. In 10man raids, 1-2 tanks, 2-3 healers, rest DPS. 25man raids 2-4 Tanks, 3-6 Healers, rest DPS.

So if you look at the group function each character can perform - the 2 key ones are healing and tanking. A group cannot start a raid or an instance if those slots are not filled. Yes, you can start with less DPS - it will just take longer to kill stuff (as long as your healer can keep the tank alive).

So back to my thoughts for my characters.
I think my paladin is already in the best of position - she has both specs right - heal & tank - to fill either role.
My druid is Feral-cat geared and talent specced. I plan to change her talents to bear, and start changing our some of the feral-cat gear for feral-bear gear. Once again to fill both key roles (tank and healer).
My Death Knight needs to get a tank talent spec, and has no tank gear - so I will need to work on building a basic tanking set for her.
My Shaman, Priest and fine with how they are specceed and geared, and the same with my rogue.

But why?
To enable my characters to getting into groups/raids quicker. I do not want to "hang out" LFG/LFR for hours (or even 15 minutes).

I want to log in, join LFG/LFR, and be able to start running the instances within a couple of minutes. By talent speccing and gearing for those key, in-demand roles in groups/raids, I aim to keep my down time (waiting around) to a minimum.

Remember the Goblin saying: "Time is money, friend!"

Friday, November 6, 2009

Holy Torchlight!

After dinner and my daily AH duties in WoW, I fired up Torchlight (Diablo clone game).

Looked with mild interest at the very cartoony characters, and started with the Warrior. An hour later I switcher to the Vanquisher/archer, and another hour later the Mage/Alchemist.

After Midnight, I shut down my computer thinking.. OMG! Diablo Addiction is back.

What a fun fun fun game. Took all the best elements of Diablo, got rid of some of the annoying problem (no shared stash between characters), and made a very easy to play fun game.

Highly recommended.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Torchlight

After reading some good to great reviews of the game, I got it this morning from Valve's Steam service.

It will be nice playing a Diablo-clone, even if it just have single-player.

/afk from WoW for a couple of days.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Shammie and the Jesus-beam

Last night my Shammie joined a guildy for a run through regular Halls of Lightning. We both wanted the daily reward to get the Sons of Hodir rep token.

Joined by a DK tank, mage and undergeared Hunter, we made short work of the instance. Only deaths were twice the mage for some reason. On the second and last boss. Second boss, the AE damage got ahead of me and I just could not keep him and the tank up with Chain-heal spam.

On Loken, he went AFK and we pulled, and Loken's AE damage took him down. However we 4 manned Loken, while not running our of his Lightning AE damage attack. I was able to successfully heal through it.

I felt very pleased when all 4 group members thanked me for a great job healing. Who said healers get no recognition?