Cross Server LFG

I’m really looking forward to this feature in 3.3. I haven’t had chance to get onto the PTR to try it out but think it’s going to really help alleviate the LF1M tank or LF1M healer issue. The idea of just dropping yourself into the “channel” and letting the servers to all the work of building the group is just awesome.

Reviews on the PTR talk about how they got straight into groups with no wait time but of course this is irrelevant to the live servers as the player base is totally different. Let’s just hope the critical mass of players across the servers remains to keep the system vibrant beyond the first few days of everyone trying it out.

Northrend Levelling = Easy Mode

20%. “It’s the magic number, yes it is”.

It doesn’t seem like much but believe me when there’s 1.6 million XP between levels it really does. I am of course talking about the heirloom shoulders and chest and their stacked 10% per item XP bonus.

If you’ve read any of my older stuff you’ll see Gixa my Priest was levelled Holy spec whilst dual boxing with Brahmin. When I picked him up again having neglected him terribly (other than for his enchanting now at 450) I dual-specced Shadow and started realising that actually Priests can kill stuff rather nicely.

Gixa has been wearing the heirloom items since level 71 and despite all the negative opinion in the community atm regarding the state of Priests I can honestly say I’ve had a blast levelling him. At the time of writing he’s just dinged 79 having opened up the Sons of Hodir dailies.

Confession time. OK the 20% is nice but the icing on the cake for Northrend levelling is the wonderful Tome of Cold Weather Flight. I spent most of 71-72 on the ground primarily because I’m an utterly thick idiot! Still not sure if I was going to continue with Gixa and take him to 80 I held off on the Tome thinking it was 1000g well saved and I’d wait until 77. Yes, you’re all now thinking what an idiot! I too realised that I was of course going to have to spend the 1000g to learn Cold Weather Flying anyway. Suffice to say that immediately upon realising my stupidity I headed off to Dalaran and picked up the book. I also rather greedily purchased one for Naxaar who’d just dinged 68. Yes that’s yet another alt into Northrend but more on her another time.

So armed with his flying mount, which being a tailor had to be a Flying Carpet the levelling took on a whole new “feel”. Just like all those DK’s loving flying in Outland at 60 I was truly loving it at 71 in Northrend. It just makes life so much easier:

NPC: “Go there.”
ME: “OK I’m here now what?”
NPC: “Bloody hell you weren’t supposed to be here that quick!”.

It’s good, really good; but not great! Yes I’m greedy and Gixa’s Expert Riding skill simply wasn’t good enough. 5000g later and I now have five toons with Epic flight.

OK now we’re motoring on our Magnificent Flying Carpet rattling through Dragonblight, touching down in Zul’Drak and immediately upon hitting 78 heading up to the Argent Tournament to start working towards the Dagger of Lunar Purity. Sons of Hodir are open and Diplomacy should help minimise the time I have to spend with the big fellas.

See you at 80 shortly!

Anzu

Like I suspect many other players I’m currently running Sethekk Halls on an almost daily basis trying to “persuade” Anzu to drop his mount. As yet no luck and I’m certainly not holding my breath for it given the low drop rate. The problem is every time I see someone with one in Dalaran I realise just how much I MUST have one myself!

Who is he?
Anzu “the Raven God” is an additional boss in Sethekk Halls Heroic summoned just before the last boss (“Hmmm Trinkets!“). Why do we care? Simply because he drops (albeit a very small chance of) a mount with the same model as himself, ergo a very cool mount!

However, he can he only be summoned by a Druid on or having completed the epic flight quest chain. He’s a pretty straightforward tank and spank and by dual boxing Nadaar and Brahmin I have no problems getting to and killing him in around 20 minutes. This includes stopping to loot everything I kill. The only mobs you need to watch on the way to him are the Time-Lost Controllers. Kill these first otherwise they drop a really annoying charm totem that can cause problems.

As a multiboxer a bonus to this run is taking along a third level appropriate character and farming XP. I’ve being doing this with Gixa my Priest who’s now level 75 and still getting around 80,000 XP out of there per run although this is when fully rested. I’ve also got my Warlock to 68 so once she hits 70 she can tag along instead of Gixa. I’ll run her through SH normal to get the rep up to Honored so she’s ready to head in there when she hits 70.

Another Epic

After buying the Tomb of cold weather flying for Gixa I managed just one level of normal flight before succumbing to the inevitable yesterday and putting up yet another 5000g for Artisan flight.

Since Gixa is a tailor and he’d been using a normal speed magic carpet I decided to upgrade him to the faster version even though it probably cost more than simply buying a bird.

Double Vision

Not satisfied with the Crusader title on Nadaar, I finished off with a few cloth turn-ins for Brahmin the other night so I’ve now got two Crusaders in the camp. Felt good getting all those Exalted reps for Brahmin but the title really belongs on Nadaar.

You appear to have something over your head

Ah yes that would be my lovely new Crusader title on Nadaar. No self respecting Paladin should be without this title and so the rep grind began.

Having levelled Nadaar to 60 using Refer-a-Friend his reputation with the major city factions wasn’t great to say the least. Lots and lots of Argent Tournament dailies later and what felt like an endless stream of Runecloth turn-ins yielded the splendid title and associated achievements.

As an aside, Nadaar’s gear is rapidly surpassing Brahmin’s. Hmm not sure I’m too happy about that, yeah right!

Happy Pally

Been a while – again!

Ok so I’m not even going to bother trying to explain the huge gap between posts!

So much has happened since the last post which isn’t too surprising given the amount of time I’ve been away. I’m now the rather sad carer of four 80′s with the newest edition being Nadaar my ret/prot pally.

I’ve been having a load of fun with him and the new badges available from 3.2 have given me plenty of opportunity to deck him and Brahmin out in some pretty nice gear.

With the introduction of 3.2 badges aren’t the only place for nice gear outside raiding. The new Trial of the Champion (TotC) instance in both normal and heroic versions drops some pretty sweet loot. In just two runs recently Nadaar got both the two-handed Axe Edge of Ruin and the lovely dps plate legs Legplates of Relentless Onslaught.

I’ve also been playing the AH a lot lately and earning a very respectable amount of gold. After the initial desire to hold onto it all I decided it would be far better spent on one of these for Brahmin. Very useful whilst out questing which brings me neatly onto my next WoW time sink, the Loremaster achievement. Now whilst I’m not entirely convinced I’ll ever get this I’ve enjoyed the questing in Wrath so much that I’ve decided to at least finish up the Northrend quest achievements with just Howling Fjord remaining. I’ll keep you updated.

WG WTF?

To say that Wintergrasp didn’t go too well last night would be a serious understatement. Horde must have been wetting themselves laughing at our ineptitude on the other side of those keyboards. So what happened? Well to be honest beyond no coordination which there’s rarely a great deal of anyway, I’m not so sure!

The way I play is as soon as I get into WG or whilst waiting at the portal I call out in chat for an invite [inv]. I’m a Grid and Clique healer so I NEED to be in a raid to be most effective. Sure I can target people randomly and throw out some heals but Grid gives me SO much more information and it’s just the way my brain’s wired. I’m no leader which is why I won’t setup a raid but once in I’ll then follow what’s going on in raid and general chat and unless otherwise directed go where the majority of my raid is to throw out heals.

Back to last night. There was basically no coordination coming from either the raid leader or any others in general chat. In my opinion it’s not really the job of the raid leader in WG to start shouting out strategies and orders. Primarily the RL has at a minimum setup the raid and assigned suitable RA’s to help with invites if required. Unfortunately a certain mage in our raid decided that had he been RL we’d be doing just fine and proceeded to start slagging off the RL and everyone else. As is always the case with any chat in WoW the lemmings quickly followed and generally started moaning in unison. After about five minutes of this I decided to call out the mage and suggest there was nothing stopping him from taking the initiative and offering advice and orders, IME 99% of people myself included will listen and follow. Of course the response I got was along the lines of “Brah – shut the f**k up you dont know what your f***ing talking about”. Knowing this idiot was annoyed and most likely a dumbass little kid I couldn’t resist baiting a little by replying and suggesting that he clearly wasn’t capable of stepping up to taking lead. A few more profanities back at me and chat then just descended into several people shouting about how it’s just a game, quite reasonably so.

Now on reflection I should have just kept my mouth shut and accepted that WoW is the home of a lot of idiots but ultimately I hope that anyone else in the raid didn’t get the wrong impression from my “outburst”. There’s one reason only I’m in WG and that’s to have fun. Whilst it’s great to win, quite frankly I have just as much fun when we lose but whichever way the battle goes it’s always spoilt by players who I believe to be far more vocal behind a keyboard than they would be IRL.

Come on folks. Try to act as if you’re talking to your mates down the pub ( or in the damn playground! ) and throw each other a smile every now and then in between the fireballs, curses and lifeblooms!

Level 80

So much has happened since my last post that I’m going to use that as an excuse for not posting. First and foremost Brahmin hit 80 on 2nd February and here’s a rather naff picture for prosperity…

Before hitting 80 I’d completed all the Northrend dungeons with the exception of Utgarde Pinnacle which was completed a couple of days later on normal so that was the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement sorted. I’m not hugely bothered by the achievement but my playstyle has shifted hugely in Wrath from TBC in that I’m now more focused on instances than questing. Prior to Wrath I think I just felt like I was always so far behind everyone else and therefore a little intimidated when it came to grouping. This is also the main reason I ran only one heroic on Daxaar during my entire time at 70. Wrath almost pressed the reset button for me both in terms of confidence and of course the toon I’m playing.

So what next? Well, having read up on all the gear lists for post 80 resto druids I started hitting CoS normal as much as possible to get Soul Preserver but as yet he’s refused to drop it or rather put it in the chest for me! I’ve also healed a couple of heroics starting with Violet Hold which believe me is a significant achievement for me and I’m firmly addicted to Wintergrasp. I’ll post separately about these adventures very very soon.

Greatest thing in WoW?

Easiest question in the world…Druid Swift Flight Form! Having levelled Brahmin through Outland after the release of Wrath I hit Northrend as soon as I hit 68. This means I never got to use flight form at all other than to return for some herbs and with two other toons with epic flight normal flight form felt painfully slow.

Wizz forward 9 levels and upon hitting 77 I’d managed between all of my toons to accrue just under 7000g. With Brahmin now effectively my main there was never any thought of not getting Swift Flight so off to Dalaran I went for Artisan @ 5000g and Cold Weather @ 1000g; expensive but worth every penny. Whilst epic flight on Daxaar and Nefaros was pretty sweet, Swift is just divine due to the instant cast and ability to herb without switching form.

Those Snowfall Glade Pups for Planning For The Future don’t know what hits them when I swoop in every morning. And I apologise to any frustrated player below 77 on the ground when I’m around but hey, I suffered for a couple of weeks at the hands of others.

Of all three toons I now have with Epic flight this is the one for me that truly is EPIC. Rather amusing since it’s the only one that doesn’t actually share that name.