Hellscream's Downfall

When the ten man group I ran with broke up in January I figured my progression days were over. Burned out on tanking I'd been having fun doing damage. Unfortunately I don't really pull numbers that would get me in an upper tier raid group that is still raiding after a year in the Hell that is Siege of Orgrimmar. So I figured I'd never see Heroic Klaxxi dead let alone Garrosh.

Guess I was wrong.

DBM says I had 128 heroic wipes but I now have one victory!

The guild leader wants to see Garrosh on farm to make recruiting easier. More than two months until Warlords come out but this guy is really enthusiastic. I plan on staying involved through all of it. And shamelessly using the title on all my under-geared alts...

Kalimdor Today, the World Next Week

I gave up on Minfernal around Christmas time. Figured it's been long enough that the camp might be less intense. So with today's restart I decided to get the three farmers in different shared realms into position.

Was tuning my macro so figured there was something wrong when it beeped. But it was not wrong! Swooped down on a spawn before the reset!! Naturally I was worried that the servers would hiccup before I finished but my insane luck held…

Wanted to call him Server Restart but the name was "reserved" or something. Tried a few variants until one worked.

This was truly fortuitous. With the Qiraji Guardling becoming available next week, I should be able to get Kalimdor Safari done which completes World Safari and gets me the Zookeeper title.

Should Try to Get More of These Right Now

Was doing a couple of quests in Townlong Steppes to get Friendly with Shado-Pan when NPCScan rang it's bell: Lith'ik the Stalker was nearby! Had to fly around a bit to find him but eventually landed nearby. Managed to pull him without his friends... then died in seconds. *lol* Was completely unprepared for his abilities. Ended up dying three times until I could get a kite worked out. Eventually...

Whew! Unfortunately I hadn't read Lore's excellent guide on Panda rare mob loot. Went through all this trouble to have Plate Gloves drop that the Death Knight didn't need. Didn't even get a bag. Oh well. The annoyance of finding him did remind me to check on _NPCScan.Overlay. It hasn't been updated in forever but there was a fan update that I downloaded. We'll see.

I'd gotten spoiled by the ease of killing Sulik'shor. Managed to get both the Druid and Death Knight his Crystal of Insanity so I could branch out to stalk others... they're a capable team. It's also early enough in the expansion where there isn't too much competition. Yet that's not what these rares appear to be about. They seem to give items that are mostly helpful in leveling. What I'll probably do in the future is keep a 90 parked close by on the opposite account in case NPCScan pops up while questing.

First Two 90s Done

Got a ninety leveled on both accounts now... what's next?! *lol* There is so much in this expansion it's going to take me a while to unravel everything. In my mind that means a failure on Blizzard's part. It was frustrating not to know where to train flying. Now with phasing it's difficult to know where and what needs to be done next. I don't mind losing the tabard + dungeon grinding. It certainly feels more engaging to have quests and factions to interact with. Yet there's no overall way of telling what's left to be done to engage those factions. Leveling lets you pick and choose where to go so some help would have been appreciated.

Thankfully there are external sites that address this need. For me it's all about WoWhead. Their Pre-Raid Gear Guide and Reputation Quick-Facts are priceless. The only problem there is where to begin! Need the various dailies unlocked but I want to optimize it. Neither the druid nor death knight have the required iLevel to do heroics so that will be my first priority. Thankfully Blizzard made a hotfix a few hours ago that makes the initial Justice Point gear available without having to have the Golden Lotus faction. Just need to figure out which pieces are weakest so I know what to pick up first.

I would like to get the Shaman and the Horde Warlock up to 90 now but I want to figure out how everything works first. Then I'll know where to quest and how long to instance. Been watching some guy named Archon and he seems to echo what I've heard elsewhere. Instance til 87 then start questing at the "right" place.

One thing I know for sure... it will be invaluable to have a Panda flying toon on both accounts. Since mining gives experience and skinning doesn't, the death knight hit 90 first. Train flying immediately then I was able to carry the druid around on the rocket. Makes questing a cinch!

First Scenario Live, Yawn

Didn't see any official announcement so I was surprised when a guildie got the Theramore's Fall achievement. Opened up the Instance menu and sure enough it was active. Ended up being in the queue for a little more than twenty minutes. Not that big of a deal since I have to get quest logs full for release day.

 

The load screen looked all exciting. I haven't read any of the books so I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen. But there was enough chatter on the beta and clues elsewhere that I knew Theramore took a big hit. After the load screen you go right to a video where Goblin_Caption_001 laughs about dropping some sort of bomb right on the steps of the central tower in Theramore. There was no back ground or story leading up. Just... bomb.

Then I'm in a group with another elemental shaman and a hunter. All of us are DPS--wonderful! No more reliance on the Tank/Heal/DPS triad. Which begs the question... what was the queue time for? Not waiting for the right combination obviously. It was probably some sort of server load balancing. Guess that's okay. There wasn't any lag or connectivity problems so I suppose that it nice. But it seemed like there should have been less of a wait.

It was all pretty simple though my shaman is one of my best geared toons. The other hunter and shaman didn't do too bad it seemed. Each class and spec has survival tools that should be taken and used. That is, if you're able to quest solo you would be able to do this scenario fine. I think I will try another with the Priest in heal mode. Will it be faster or slower?

Group composition aside there was very little story there. Had to kill some captains and clear off the docks. Jaina sends us to kill a seige engine right out of Isle of Conquest. Then you grab a few  banners then meet back up with Jaina. Kill a boss then done. You're led around by the nose via the tracker in the top right. That's it. No follow up video or extra sequences. Really no lead-in or introduction to the Mists of Pandaria.

Overall I have to say... meh. The Cata opening event wasn't terribly dramatic but it seemed more fun killing mini bosses and getting xmog gear. And it's no where near as fun and immersive as the Dark Portal opening. Blizzard probably wants to spend time on content that's going to last longer than a week or two. While I can understand that I'm still left with... meh. I was disappointed enough to complain on the scenario blog entry. Admittedly the tabard is something to keep around and I'll get it on all my 85s. But .. yeah.

Inferno Skeleton Kings Tells me GET MOAR DPS

Ugh. This was a bit of a bash-face-in-wall kill. Died five or six times 'til I found a spec that worked. Ended up using the Scoundrel along with the fire pet and it took almost ten minutes. *sigh* Need more gear. Yet I won't be able to farm much inferno for it. Not sure if Hell will give me upgrades. Can't afford upgrades in the auction house. So… yeah.

Civ5 was free this weekend so I put in a few hours. Erm. A few hours turned into ten. *lol* I used to be into the TBS games yet they seem a bit more tedious now. I miss the classics like MOO, MOM, and Empire Deluxe. Didn't quite need the time investment.

Still… there are times when I might load this up. Could be worth the $7.50. Or $12.0 for the GOTY. Got twenty hours to decide.

Diablo on Hell isn't So Hellish

The real challenge was getting through Act 4. Some of the larger areas with runner-bosses were goddam insane. So I was all dreading the fight with Diablo since the Templar isn't there to help out. Turned out to be cake.

Though I really enjoy using Seven-Sided Strike for the immunity, stun, DPS, and hilarity, I had to give it up in favor of Krippi's spec. Double-flash is incredible considering how it even affects Diablo. The rest of the stuff he had I pretty much used already except for the Keen Eye rune. Forgot about the armor buff and it does help.

Now… time for some Inferno repair bills…

All Done Despite Maximal Foot Dragging

Fighting for egg spawns is the worst. I wasn't able to get anything for the alts. And it took every ounce of will power to finish up the 600 eggs seen in this screenshot. *sigh* Horrible event.

Heroic Yor'sahj the Unsleeping Now Resting Comfortably

This took some real effort – felt great to down this bastard tonight. I proposed tank changes that ended up being used so I even felt valuable. *snicker* We're still #6 on the server (#3 for 25s) but I don't think we'll take too long on Ultraxion.

Two Tiers Ago is Damn Easy Now

Since the DK already had it I was able to sneak in the Druid. *lol* Should have Sinestra down soonish.

Back to the Classic Grinding

Very busy in Warcraft right now. Currently Love is in the Air is going while the Lunar Festival (pet) winds down along with it being Darkmoon Faire week. *dizzy*

So far the mage has been pretty luck getting both the pet and the funky mask.

The Purple Bird

Finally knocked out Glory of the Firelands Raider on Faerune. Glory of the Cataclysm Raider is going to take a bit longer, heh.

Another One of Those Clawed Thingers

Took a while to get a Mr. Pinchy on Martini so I wasn't looking forward to it on Aenara. But the Benevolent Mr. Pinchy was kind! Fished him up and got the Magical Crawdad first use!!