Results tagged “wow”

Thanks to a bit of reflection and study Andro's DPS has improved somewhat (though still plenty of room for improvement). However, due to a lack of bodies over the late summer period there haven't been any guild raids for the last couple of weeks (and next week is looking doubtful) and I've not had the motivation to do my usual pootling around levelling alts. Actually, there is one exception - a chunk of time gaining some levels (and crafting skills) for my hordeside Death Knight.

This malaise isn't a new thing - it seems to strike occasionally, usually when guild activity is at a low ebb and commonly late in an expansion's lifecycle when there's a desire for fresh material. How do I get round it? Usually, as mentioned previously, by playing another game for a while to provide a break from WOW (which I've been playing since Beta) but also by writing (fiction and game support material for tabletop games).

Originally, the "relief" game was EQ2 (which I actually played before WOW - it was where my old Star Wars Galaxies associates withdrew when that game went to pot). Guild Wars, Eve, Warhammer Online, Champions and Aion have also provided some distraction (though of those only Warhammer was more than a solo effort, it being the venue for a number of the guild taking a break from WOW in autumn 2008 prior to the launch of Wrath). None had lasting appeal though.

My current "relief" game (and my second-longest MMO play experience after WOW) is Lord of the Rings Online (more commonly called LOTRO) where, surprise surprise, I play a mage-like loremaster named Lorelai on the Laurelin-EU server. I've played LOTRO in fits and starts since Beta, usually a burst of intense activity and then a long lull. I did keep meaning to kill my account (as I mentioned previously) but as it was a low-cost 6-month plan it was a cheap option. In fact, I did close my account (with several months left to go) but the last 10 days or so have seen a rewal of my LOTRO activity though most of the Kinship (guild) I'm in are inactive (one of my WOW associates is playing though). However, the game goes free-to-play in a week's time so I'm expecting activity in the game to pick up and possibly some of my WOW associates to take a look-see at the game (or to resume play if they've already done so).

I am, however, expecting to become more active in WOW again once my mana batteries have had chance to recharge (and I'm still logging on regularly to check in on the guild). Raiding certainly is a draw and the arrival of Cataclysm later in the year (I'm betting on mid-November, probably 17th, pretty much exactly 2 years after Wrath) is a dead cert, but until then I plan to take it easy (and have the small matter of a book to write ...)

Andro has been my main for most of my time playing WOW and has generally done okay in instances and raids. However, in ICC I've steadily been falling behind the DPS curve. Her gear is okay (room for improvement, but all in all not bad) and I'm (in most cases) familiar with the fights yet the gap between her DPS and that of our other Arcane mage (not to mention other DPS) seems to be steadily growing. There's only one conclusion to draw from that - the weak link in the process is me.

Looking at a recent log for Andro and my fellow Arcane Mage (it's a Deathwhisper fight), the difference in damage output is pretty clear cut - I'm doing 60% of the damage of my colleague despite near-identical builds and similar gear (he's marginally better, but not enough to account for this difference). Some of it is crit rating, but again only to a small degree, but the most obvious difference is casting time; Mage X casts 50% more Arcane Blasts than Andro does, which adds up (particularly with the Missile Barrage procs).

I'll freely admit I'm not as aggressive as some others, but even when pushing my hardest (and using Quartz and the like to judge latency issues) I'm not getting the results I'd hope for (which has lead to the odd friendly insults from the tanks ...). So, I'm not sure quite how I'm failing (though I have some suspicions) but I'm fairly sure I am. 

So, what to do? I think the best option is to use this as an opportunity to revamp how I play and try to narrow down where the issues are - it's just another mob to slay, albeit a very personal one.

I think hand-eye coordination and reaction time is a factor - the latter for both for me (as an "older" player, though to be honest almost none of us in the ravens are spring chickens) and my gaming rig.

A "back to basics" is in order, most likely starting with a clean UI (so I can judge if the software or my PC plays a role - I know the box struggles with some graphics effects like the Marrowgar fire-fog) and then working on rotations and play style to maximize my casting speed and aggression - if I'm dropping ABs in the rotations that could add up.

I'm debating whether de-macroing all my cooldowns and trinkets is a worthwhile part of this process - on the one hand it could be useful as a learning exercise, but on the other hand selecting and triggering trinkets and multiple sets of cooldowns is more likely to be more of a distraction from the core magery.

And with the downing of Rotface on Monday (after several weeks of wiping) the Shattered Ravens are are the half-way point in Icecrown Citadel. Of course, it's the easier half of the raid (and we can manage the lower four and Fester without too many hassles now) but it's the first time we've been significantly through endgame raid content while its current so I'm happy. The closest we've been previously was Zul Aman in Burning Crusade where we reached Halazzi (with two more bosses to go) before 3.0 and the nerf bat dropped and things became trivial (though to be fair without Wrynn's  ICC buff we'd still be in the lower part of the citadel)

It's likely to be tough going from here on in. Next up are Putricide, Dreamwalker and the Blood Princes, fight's we've "looked at" and died on miserably, but then it doesn't seem that long ago that Saurfang (or even Marrowgar) were wiping us as quickly. The trick, I think, will be maintaining sufficient impetus to keep interest in the raids as far as the Lich King. We've got 2 or 3 months for this (as I don't envisage Cataclysm dropping before October, and November would fit the pattern of previous releases) so we'll have to see ...

While wandering round Dalaran the other day Maebh, my hunter, happened upon a most unusual sight - a gnome the size of a giant, constantly drinking and shifing between various guises (Iron Dwarf, Furbolg, sheep, mounted).

Of course, this quickly drew a crowd and eventually the secret of the unatural growth - Thunderbrew's hard Ale - became apparent (hence the constant drinking as the effect wears off after 10 seconds and needs to be kept fully stacked).

Last night the Ravens finally laid to rest one of the ghosts that have plagued us for the last month or so - Deathbringer Saurfang finally fell and we could push onward into the Upper Spire. Of course, it wouldn't be a Ravens kill without some oddity - most of us were going "damn, so close" when the kill message popped up. You can see how many of us were still standing ...

We took a brief look-see into Upper Spire (or should that be the Death Star , given teh rather strong resemblance) killing Precious and Stinky before being annihilated in our first clash with Festergut (before lag, communications difficulties and bad tempers prompted an end to the evenings fun).

You'll note that I'm not playing Andro but rather my paladin, Buliwyf, despite his being rather less well geared than Andro as we're a tad short of tanks at the moment. It's an interesting change from DPS (albeit terrifying at times) that on the one hand is less intense than DPS - stand at point X and hit the baddy, taunting at appropriate times - but involves a large degree of trust that the healers will keep you up. I'm not deadfully experienced as a tank, so people are placing a fair deal of trust in me but in many regards its less stressful than fights like HoR heroic.

Having just spent 95 badges on a shiney new (and very ugly) hat Andro is taking abreak from heroics too (while hoping for a fourth piece of T10 to drop in VoA). She'll occasionally come out to play, but Buli and Maebh, my hunter, can still benefit from Triumph badges and drops to some extent and so are the priority (as well as my mid-60s Druid and baby Warrior). After a couple of months of little in the way of ranged weapon drops, Mae spectacularly broke her duck this week, finally aquiring the Epic crossbow from Ingvar then the bow from Ick in Pit of Saron (the highpoint of a run that ended with a bugged boss :( )

Leafshine just pointed out (one of?) Blizzard's April fools japes - check out your armoury profile and in addition to seeing your transmogrified selfs, check out how much cheesing and ninjaing you've been doing (and the state of your fishing skills).

Quite cute, though neither of the girls are particularly happy with their dumpy new look (or the mustache). Not much of a change for Buli :)

EDIT: Don't foget to check out Blizzard's other offerings: the Battle.Net Neural Interface or the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number.

On 11 February 2005 the European servers for WoW launched and the Shattered Ravens were founded. Yep, the guild I'm in is five years old today.
 
We've moved servers since then (we were on Argent Dawn for the first 11 months before moving to Steamwheedle Cartel-EU to escape the lag) and seen expansions take us to Outland and the Northrend. Friends have come and gone over the years, and while I don't recall how many of the initial characters are still active (Andromache didn't come along for a few weeks I don't think, but my palatank Buliwyf was a day-1 character, as I believe was Leafshine), but we're still here and doing our own thing - not always successfully, but having fun nonetheless.

We've seen guild drama and loot drama, and had spectacular loot drops. We've killed raid bosses, and wiped repeatedly. Friendships have been made (and broken). We've laughed ourselves horse, and cried bitter tears.

And we're still here, a wary eye on Icecrown Citadel and it's evil overlord while working our way through Ulduar while heeding the signs of the imminent Cataclysm. We may never face Arthas directly (our numbers are too few and our focus is more on fun than achievement which rather hampers raid progression) but we've played our part in this war.

Will we be here another five years? Who knows? The next expansion will bring sweeping changes to the game and it remains to be seen if that encourages people to play or prompts them to depart. What I am sure of is that I've yet to see an MMO that has the same depth and breadth as WOW, nor the same level of fun.

While not overly original, the new armoury features are pretty nice to look at (though the RSS feed is probably more practical use than the model browser. Anyway, a test to see if they work in MT (Sneaky bit of advertising there I see ... kinda preaching to the choir though :) )

And the RSS feed.

The Ravens haven't raided since before Christmas (a fact that has prompted a number of our more hardcore members to head off and form their own raid-focussed guild and after the pre-Christmas Heroic fest (and the completion of a number of Achievements) there's been a major attack of apathy. I sidestepped this for a while by levelling my baby hunter (not so baby now at lvl72) and doing some lowbie stuff but now I'm back at work I'm finding myself lacking the motivation do do much online.

On the one hand it's like the traditional seasonal overindulgence -  having gorged on the pre-Christmas additions to the game something of a break is called for - but there's also a measure of realization that we're once again in the endgame of a WOW expansion and the options (for Andro at least) are rather limited. She's about as geared as she'll be without raiding (a few additions left, but not stuff she's chasing madly) and she has minimal use for Emblems of Triumph. There's a couple of achievements left in reach, but PvP (BGs are a joke on Ruin) and Raiding form the bulk of those she has left to do, so the odds on completing them are slim - the Raven's are never going to be end-game raiders and I'm not going to move somewhere else.

Intstead I think it's going to be a quieter run up to Cataclysm that'll see Buliwyf (my Palatank) kitted out some more and my hunter and priest levelled to 80. I'll also finally get Eben, my Tauren Druid, to the level cap (he's languished around lvl40 since summer 2005!), but probably by bringing him Alliance-side so he can benefit from the resources of his Alliance cousins.

Assuming, that is, I don't get dragged into Star Trek online (seems unlikely) or one of the other MMO's out there (I am, in fact, contemplating dropping the LOTRO account I've had since Beta, though I may dip my toes into Eve once more). 2008's Wow challengers all proved to be damp squibs (Champions Online and Aion) and prior to that only Lotro and WAR held my interest fore more than a couple of weeks. Realistically, only Star Wars: Old Republic or Final Fantasy 14 have any chance of gaining a foothold (particularly as I still have Dragon Age to play), but you never know.

Last night the Shattered Ravens returned to Ulduar (our second guild visit, though some people have done it independently), but first more important things: Andro's fashion sense.

For the last few months Andro has been kitted out in T7/T8 and then T8/T9, including the Tier 8 chest. While a nice piece of kit, it's a tunic and so Andro has (in the words of our gnome rogue, Rivelinho, been "showing off her legs"). Being a modest kinda gal she's not been too fond of the various flavours of tights she's worn during this time  but thanks to all the Emblems of Triumph she is finally kitted out in four pieces of T9, including the robe. Yep, back in a dress at last! Oh, and shiny new dagger, wand (x2) and staff!

The Ulduar trip was slightly delayed by work-related issues and so after some personnel substitutions we quickly visted Obsidian Sanctum and promply salughtered the inhabitants (with, IIRC, only one death). In addition to a super-speedy kill of Sarth Andro managed to get Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows!

With out group finally ready, we headed to Ulduar and had something of a mooch in vehicles killing everything and generally being chaotic before taking a pop at Flame Leviathan (which we failed at on the first attempt, but did handily on the second. next up was XT Deconstructor, who was a boss many of us hadn't fought before and who proved to be good fun (even though Andro died).

Next up was Ignis, who we'd seen on out previous visited and whom was promptly one-shotted. Following that we headed to Razorscale who, despite a little bit of harpoon confusion and Leafshine needing to force a reboot mid fight ended well for the Ravens with both the armoured drake felled and the "Siege of Ulduar" completed.

More personnel substitutions followed as the hour was getting late, but we wanted to see more of the complex and so pushed on into the Antechamber of Ulduar. After the trash pull from hell (prompting comments of "so that's why they leave those up") we paid Kologarn a visit. This proved to be the most troublesome fight of the evening (as fatigue and/or alcohol took its toll) but on the fourth attempt we got him down. A couple of notable moments here: the tank discovering that Kologarn really was sitting in a bottomless pit (splat!), a rogue following him in the next fight (oops!) and a mage who can't tell her left from her right (who, me? Looks innocent).

And that's where we left it for the night (it being gone midnight, not that that stopped us taking a quick trip to Pit of Saron HC) but with plans to return to Ulduar in the near future to continue where we left off.

Is it evil of me to think that the following isn't a bug per-se, rather natural selection in action

[Horde players do not receive a parachute when the Kor'kron Troop Transport is destroyed during the quest, "Assault by Air". ]

Work has been taking its toll on my playing recently but I've still managed to do a fair number of runs and get Andro her second piece of tier 9 (and some new trousers, prompting a revision of her enchants and gems) and for Buliwyf to slowly gear up and head off into the Epic 200+ territory.

Though I wasn't scheduled to participate (but was down as a reserve) young Buli found himself tanking the Plague and Spider wings of naxx on Monday (save for Loatheb which Awl, a druid tank, handled) as well as Sapphiron and a couple of cracks at KT. I'm still something of a novice in the tanking stakes, but it's a fun change from Andro's DPS-age. A lot to learn still (like don't turn the big icy dragon!) but my confidence is increasing and his gear has benefited greatly from 5-man TocH and Naxx/OS loot drops. I do need to work on some of his repuations (currently Sons of Hodir and Argent Crusade) after which point he'll hopefullt be a useful member of the Ravens.

In other news, the guild are trying to run 2 Raids a week - one progression-oriented on Mondays and a more general "fun" one on Fridays (though that one is heading to Onyxia tonight and is oversubscribed while Monday's Ulduar is rather healer-light!) Fingers crossed both raids will go off well (particularly as the coming Monday is the first one in 3 weeks I've not been down as reserve for - the Ony run already had 12 by the time I knew I'd be free) and that we continue to keep up the impetus. Fingers crossed too that the increased raiding keeps the guild's "high flyers" happy and that we dont' have another bout of departures to more raid-focussed guilds. We'll have to see.

Last night, on our second visit (and our fourth attempt of the evening) the Ravens downed Malygos, Aspect of Magic, ending the Nexus War (as far as our participation goes at least). On each attempt phases 1 and 2 went like clockwork save one stupid mage (that would be me) getting splatted. The first couple of phase 3s were chaotic, but we steadily improved and despite a couple of deaths (stupid mage again, and our tank) the rest of teh team were able to bring Big Blue down. Killing him also elevated a number of Ravens to the rank of "Champions of the Frozen Wastes", and there was a certain amount of title swapping going on ...

Technically, as Leafshine mentions, that means the Ravens have completed the vanilla Lich King content (so only 2 - soon 3 - patches of stuff to work on). As it was still early, we decided to head to Ulduar (which many of us hadn't seen) and promptly smacked Flame Leviathan (on the first attempt) and Ignis (on the second). Both fights were pretty smooth, though getting an achievement for being stuck on Ignis' molten "crotch pot" (as it was quickly named by the group) is a bit icky. Decent loot was had by all (including an upgraded off-hand for Andro!).

It was getting late by this point, and rather than learn a new Uluar boss fight we decided, after a bit of peopl swapping, to head to Wintergrasp and assault the Vault of Archavon. A number of us have done the bosses there in PUGs but we'd only ever done Archavon as a guild (and a couple of attempts on Emalon, defeated by the timer). Cue three one-shots (Archavon and Emalon bloodless, and Koralon with a smattering of casualties. Cue more loot (or shards in the case of Archavon's stuff), though persuading young Blayse to keep the Mage Tier9 trousers proved to be something of a challenge (there were three of us present - Blayse, Magariz and myself - all of whom lusted after the trousers). We also got a Grand Black War Mammoth for our troubles (grats to Deacus!) After something of an absence I think future visits to VoA are likely.

(Add to the raid success a quick 5-man trip to COS - with Deacs giving people a ride in his new Mammoth-taxi - wherin Andro finally managed to win the bronze drake!)

All in all, an excellent evening.

I was off work last week, ostensibly on holiday but in practice suffering somewhat from the lurgy. There were a couple of days I just slept, but I also got in a fair chunk of WOW playing.

Monday saw a return to Naxx and after tanking the first couple of Construct Quarter bosses

 with Buliwyf, Andro swapped in and was able to kill the last two bosses and "complete" Naxx (and get the achievement). We sailed through until Thadius and then proceeded to wipe a number of times. A router failure by one of our healers meant we had to rejig things and bring in a replacement, but after a couple more goes we prevailed. The last attempt went like clockwork. Practice makes perfect?

Something else we did repeatedly last week was the Headless Horseman. Both Andro and Buili had everything they wanted from him, though Andro, as a mount and pet collector wanted the Horesman's mount. It dropped twice for us in the fortnight, both times when Buli was tanking. First time out it went to young Magariz, the second to Buli (so Andro is now green with envy!)

Andro did, however, finally manage to complete Rapid Defense at Wyrmrest Temple and to complete a number of achievements in the AV and IoC battlegrounds (we even won IoC a couple of times - the Ruin/Emberstorm battlegroup is horribly biased against the characters of Ruin as we're cross-faction and either up against other Ruin players (where the chances are even and the numbers favour Alliance) or facing a dozen German PvP realms (which henerally means a loss for the Ruin players, both Horde and Alliance).

My third major character, a Draenai hunter named Maebh (Mae for short) finally hit 60 and in her second AV managed to find a picture of Foror and Tigule (which Andro, with a zillion AVs under her belt, has singularly failed to do :) She also learnt to fly, which makes life in Hellfire Penninsula a much more pleasurable experience than Buli or Andro had. Though force of will (and willingness to wander outland in nothing but a tabard and lingerie) she completed all of the Hallow's End achievements bar getting the cloth had. After six days of trick or treating she was forced to admit defeat and wait until the 2010 season!

Also in hellfire Penninsula is my Orc DK, Clavain, who was originally created as a means of bolstering the funds of my younger hordelings but who as instead set out to explore the world (and principally so I can see the Horde-side of Outland and Northrend before Cataclysm hits). He went to Outland at 58 and, being broke, can't fly like Mae but that's not slowed him down much. He did die once in Silithus when I went (through five years force of habit) to the Alliance flight master and, upon clicking them, was swiftly butchered.

Finally, last night saw the Ravens go onto The Eye of Eternity for the first time. The first few times were chaotic but we soon learned the phase 1 fight (and are getting there on phase 2). Out few attempts at Phase 3 were disasterous, but it feels quite doable and we're hoping for a return trip (and success) next week. As light relief Angeliqa (who grew up horde-side as a blood elf before defecting to the Alliance) set her black tabby to wandering Malygos' domain, chased by the Stinkers a couple of us owned. Very odd to be fighting the Guardian of Magic and his minions with love-crazed cats and skunks dashing about the platform (antics based on Pepe le Pew for those who don't know it).

Yesterday also saw two new recruits to the Ravens, the first not known "in real life" but only through the game. Historically we've been fairly restrictive on recruitment, but fallign numbers (due to people moving Horde-side, to other severs, or stopping playing) has prompted a more open (if still cautious) recruitment policy to ensure we have the numbers for raids. There'll probably be a couple more shortly, after which point we'll take stock and see how numbers go for our raids.

I was pootling round Dalaran (as you do after being thrashed on the Isle of Conquest again) when I spotten a message from my good friend Breanni of the local Pet emporium. It seem's that I'd been selected to look after another of her strays, a baby penguin named Mr Chilly. Me and the young chap immediatel bonded over a bucket of raw mackerel and a jingling ball.

I'm glad to say he looks a lot calmer than his cousin Pengu who always looks rather demon-possessed.

Brewfest is here again, and Ironforge (and Origimar) are full of drunk characters weaving their way around invading dark iron dwarves and scoffing pretzels and sausages while wearing leaderhosen or dirndals.

As ever there are a host of achievements and having reached a grand total of 190 Brewfest Tokens yesterday Andro logged on this morning to take her total to 200 so she could buy the last thing she needed - membership of Brew of the Year club - earning her the title of Brewmaster.

Gaining the Brewfest meta-achievement was the last thing she needed for the "What a Long, Strange Road it's been"... meta-achievemnt (i.e. completing all the achievements for all the major festivals). The reward for this is much sought after: a Violet Proto-drake (a 310%-speed mount) which means Andro can join that club who "accidentally" go AFK on the landing platform in Dalaran to desmonstrate the size of their 'mounts.'