Belated Birthday Bloggery 2009-11-09

1. Happy Birthday Michelle! You aren't getting older . . . I am:)

2. Happy Birthday to Meece's son, Sean! Get that nelf drood leveled!

3. And, finally, Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps, founded 11-10-1775. In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt:

“The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!”

It's been awhile since I last blogged, this has mostly been due to a need for renewed focus at work, and an attempt to focus on raiding in WoW. Well, the later focus has crashed and burned like the Hindenburg.

Meece and I are out of Eclipsed -- the guild broke up like a gigging rock band -- and are now in a new, far more casual family / social leveling guild called Kilrogg Fighters. I'm taking a breather from raiding to level a brand-spanking-new Draenei Shaman. While I have the option of moving and / or faction changing another toon from, say, Kul Tiras, over here, the total cost of doing that all at once is Too Damn Much Money™ right now. Tyrantos is now Level 35 or so after slightly less than a week of spending every second of WoW-playing since creation playing him. The /played timer shows just over 2 days playtime spread over that period . . . so I'm leveling fast.

My secret? Tyrtrinos the death knight has access to the necessary resources to buy two "bind on account" Heirloom items that give bonii to earned experience for good old Tyrantos. The items scale with level, so they will be useful all the way to Level 80.

Bloggery 2009-10-22

1. Pics of Parker from his visit last weekend, as well as Photographic Proof™ of the literary awesomeness of one Seanan Mcguire -- her book, featured on the new paperback rack in the front of the Arden Faire Barnes and Noble.

Oh, and the book itself, Rosemary and Rue, is a terrific read. Rosemary and Rue is to urban fantasy as Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor (another great book, by the way) is to military space opera: a sharp, witty, very well written first novel with great plotting, crisp dialog, intelligent world-building that will gain a vast following. I think that, like Lois, Seanan's work is award-worthy. I foresee Hugos and / or Nebulas joining the Pegasus awards on her mantle.

2. Weekend WoW: Another weekend, another FAIL Naxx-25, aka, the Floating 1d4 of FAILBOTTERY. Fresh run, started in Construct Quarter. Patchwerk, Grobbulus and Gluth were all one-shotted. I got my hopes up . . . then we hit Thaddius, aka the "White Death Knights Can't Jump" boss. This time I made the jump (about a quarter of the raid didn't) because I tried a couple of tricks to boost my Run speed. but the raid's damage output was far too low to take Thadd down before he enraged and hard wipes the raid. About 1/3 of the raid was not even geared for Naxx-10. One guy had mostly green (low level) gear from the lower end zones of Northrend.

Consensus on being geared enough for Naxx-10 is to have all or almost all Rare ("blue") gear at Item Level 187 - 200. This gear can be obtained through quests rewards, through faction reputation rewards, from crafters and from dungeon loot drops in heroic-mode dungeons. New level 80 toons have little business in Naxx unless they have the gear to survive.

I still managed to get enough heroic dungeon runs in to score my second piece of T8 with badges. The loot from heroic dungeons -- with one exception, namely Heroic Trial of the Champion -- no longer provides me with gear upgrades. The badges, on the other hand, can still buy some upgrades. However, the Emblems of Conquest that drop in heroics and pre-3.2 raids no longer buy me gear upgrades. The higher-level Emblems of Triumph are what buys the Tier 9+ and associated upgrades. I can trade the EoC's down in level, save them to buy other things, just no gear upgrades. I'm five Emblems away from my third pirce of Tier 9.

Bloggery 2009-10-15: Journal of the Plague (years)

With NO APOLOGIES whatsoever to Norman Spinrad's awesome novella from the 80s about AIDS.

I'm finally (two weeks later) feeling almost back to normal.

I've been passing the time -- when up to it -- playing WoW. Getting out of Clothing Discouraged and into Eclipsed was a blessing in disguise. Three *scheduled* raids a week, and this week we had a couple of Good Ones: Trial of the Crusader-10 and -25. I've tried TotC-10 once with CD and we wiped like a 12-pack of Charmin rolls on the first boss.

Not this time, bunky! While we were only able to down the first 3 bosses in 25-man (Beasts, Lord Jaraxxus, Faction Champs), we were able to finish 10-man (Twin Val'kyrs, Anub'arak). Then we did 10-man Ulduar and managed to buzzsaw our way through Flame Leviathan, XT-2000 Deconstructor, Ignis, Razorscale, Kologarm, Auriaya, and the Assembly of Iron. We went bounce off Thorim. Left are Hodir, Freya, Thorim, General Vezax, Mirimon, Yogg-Saron and Algalon. As dessert I managed to get into a no-fail Naxx-10 PuG, and dropped Gluth and Thaddius to finish Constuct Quarter (and this time I made the jump!), Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. I am missing one boss -- Instructor Razuvious, in Military Quarter -- from my personal Full Naxx Clear.

New additions to my gear include a ring and boots from Ulduar-10. With the emblems from here (3 per boss dropped) I got my Tier 9 gloves. Now I have 2-piece set bonii for Tier 8 and 9 -- nice because the bonii do not overwrite one another. My "gear score" is in the mid-2400s, good enough to pug Ulduar once I know all the fights.

That's the problem: reading about the fight strategies is not enough for me. I need to actually fight the boss in my assigned role, to really understand the strategy . . . and for many groups, this does not work because they do not want to take the time to teach you the fights (and I had a very bitter experience with this on Marty in Naxx back in April . . .).

Now I'd like to get the guild to run Onyxia's Lair. This is a raid from Original WoW that has been owered up for Level 80. Ony's another draconic loot piñata, or so I am told.

On Sunday I get to see my grandson. Camera in hand, of course. :)

The art of magical mail enhancement, or "Pimp My Armor"

No, not with blue pills....note the spelling of the noun in the title.

One of the most interesting aspects of WoW raiding is that raids are in and of themselves, not all that lucrative in terms of gold. Raids really pay off in gear looted. Most gear you get in raids cannot be obtained any other way.

However, once you haul home that Tier 9 chest token and trade it in on the armor piece you want, the question becomes "How to make this nifty piece of gear better?"

WoW has two professions that let you do just that: enchanting and jewel cutting. Just about every piece of gear can be gemmed, enchanted, or both.

Of course, the chants, gems and gem cuts require skill and materials. Materials can be bought or "farmed." Enchanters "farm" most of their own materials by disenchanting unneeded magic items -- a kind of recycling. Gem cuters prospect raw ores for gems.

If you are in a guild, you cn usually find a guildie who can be persuaded / bribed / browbeaten into chanting the gear or cutting that gem if provided the materials without charge. Many chanters will do this for free just to get skill increases; these folks advertise their availability in the Trade channel, WoW's global answer to Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Yes. Trust me. Trade chat is devoted to kids hassling one another. Or to things that belong in other channels, like Looking for Group.

If you are not in a guild, or your guild lacks a chanter or JC, and you prefer to not have brain cells leak out your eyes as you read the drivel in Trade (I always /leave Trade, never stay in it. If I want this level of inane drivel in my downtime fun I'd watch reality TV or pro wrestling), you can pony up gold in the Auction House and buy one use scrolls with the chant or the gem cut you need. Of course, that's a bit spendy -- epic gems run 200-300 gold a pop and top end chants are 200 gold or more each. Figure an average of six gems and eight to eleven gear slots (depending on class) that need chants (head arcanum, shoulder enscription, chest, cloak, pants, boots, bracers, gloves, melee weapon, shield / offhand weapon, ranged weapon).

Expensive? yes. But the other day I saw a guy (not me) get raid-kicked despite having decent base gear -- Tier 7.5 range, not bad stuff, really, but no gems and no chants. Without mail enhancement, you get raid-kicked. Skinny-kid orcs start kick sand in your face and steal your date. Even gnomes look down on you. Gnomes!

Is my gear pimped? Does Kel'Thuzad (the end boss in Naxx) love his kitty cat, Mr. Bigglesworth?

Epic gems...1500 gold. Enchantments, 2000 gold, One shotting Kel'Thurzad? Priceless

Fortunately gold can be gotten. I am one of the engines on the realm's economy. I gather raw materials -- leather from slain beasts and herbs I find in my travels -- and sell them on the auction house to crafters. I then buy crafter's wares, completing the circle. I also do several daily quests every time I log on, each nets me about 14 gold each.

I made about 3k gold this weekend. That's about normal for me.

The problem with Rush Limbaugh owning a NFL team...

...is that the only formation the team would be able to use is "Right Wing"

This Week in WoW...

In a word, mixed. Very mixed.

I've gotten zero guild invites since Clothisis and I left Clothing Discouraged. Not. One. Clo's now in a guild, but I am hesitant to join a leveling guild when I want to raid. I did try out for a couple pf raiding guilds the other day . . . 25 man Naxx, the bane of my life. EPIC FAIL again. I caused a wipe on Thaddius because I could not make a jump across a chasm to fight the guy. My DPS would have made the difference (< 25 k health left when Thad enraged and hard wiped the raid. . .). I failed the jump . . . seven times!

"Consider your application declined, Tyrtrinos. You are FULL of FAIL!" /kick

PUGs were few and far between this weekend. I managed to get ToC pugged just about every day, and I managed to do 10 and 25 man Obsidian Sanctum (the latter with 1 drake up) with CD's old allies in the guild Section One, If they were recruiting DPS, I'd go there.

Another possibility: bite the bullet in a couple of weeks and spend the $55 to move Martkishar (troll shammy, the one in Gwenny's guild) over to Kilrogg and change his faction to Alliance from Horde. Shammys are IN DEMAND for two reasons: One, they can heal. With the Chain Heal spell, shammys are the best raid healers in the game. Two, shammys have an ability called Heroism. When the shammy hits heroism, the entire raid gets a 45 second increase in attack speed by 1/3. Heroism is an ability needed in many boss fights in places like Naxx.

The other other option is to build Tyr's tanking skills and gear set. My tank gear is only OK. nowhere as good as my dps set. Good tanks are in demand. I'm not sure how "good" I am.

On the WIN side, I did get OS 25 and 10 done and I have been piling up gold and achievements.
I'm now at Exalted reputation with Ironforge and will start working on Exodar reputation ("Exalted Champion of Ironforge") as step 3 in a six step meta-achievement. OS 25 was done with one mini-boss drake up, so I got the "Twilight Vanquisher" achievement. I completed all the holiday insanity for Brewfest and got "Brewmaster". Since my new IF rep now enables me to buy mounts from the dwarves, I bought some epic ram mounts for "Filling Up The Barn"

Oh, and one piece of new dps gear -- Tier 8 chest, with badges. I now have the 2-piece set bonus for Tier 8.

WoW Bloggery 2009-09-23: LF Guild

It is Brewfest season in ol' Azeroth. What with ram-riding keg runs, Dark Iron Dwarf attacks at the oddest of times and more free beer than a frat party, there is much happy fun.

The Great Puggery also continues as well. With my work schedule change, raiding is going to be occasional at best for awhile. This means pugging heroic instances, especially the Daily Heroic quest and Trial of the Champion on heroic mode. There are very few busted PuGs on heroics these days, so it is easy to spend a half hour farming 3-5 badges -- gear upgrades take between 15 and 60 badges to buy per piece.

I'm one piece shy of having a full set of epics. The trinket I really want drops in a raid I cannot seem to get into, or when I get into it the trink does not drop, or the raid breaks up...Naxxramas, 25 player. 25-man pugs are tough to organize and run.

My most recent gear upgrade is this nice polearm that dropped out of Heroic Trial of the Champion. Serious DPS increase with that item. Also scored some good boots with badges

Mounts and Pets: Two new mounts -- a bear (600 gold) and a Hippogriff (150 Seals of the Champion, from dailies and Heroic ToC) -- and a pet Wolpentinger (bunny with antlers, kind of the Easter Bunny meets Cernunos) from a Brewfest quest. Several other mounts and pets can be earned with Seals . . . so I joust and do the other Argent Tournament dailies religiously.

Right now my "weakest links" are my trinkets. Both are item level 200, the last such items I have left.

On the hot news front, Meece and I are no longer members of the guild after three separate incidents over the last two weeks. I won't go into details of the he said-she said, but the last straw was being told to laugh it off when the remarks were not only tasteless but bordering on criminal. Discussions of sex are fine, but even those have limits. When Meece raised her concerns over this, she was basically blown off with "(the offending party) is just that way, he does not mean anything by it . . ."

Yah, right. In other words, "just suck it up and put up with (that individual)"

With three youngsters in the house, two of which play WoW, Meece is taking no chances. We /gquit within seconds of one another. If I want to be treated that way, I'd stay at work or ride e-Tran all the time.