New Guildie!

Drak'Tharon Keep (Heroic)

- Better off dead more like

4 AMOV guildies (Ultradeath , Valilor, Heloko & Rosentrantz - in height order) were online and looking to do some more heroic achievements. DTK looked like the next best bet (putting off Oculus as long as possible!) so off we went, we were just lacking 1 vital thing...a Tank!

I entered LFG, and asked for any tanks looking for an achievement run in / LFG, /trade and /general (I was in Dalaran) and nothing...until a whisper came in from Nynth. He said that he'd give it a go, was def capped but was also in a lot of blues/Lv70 epics and hadn't been there before - but being the gung-ho, equal opportunity people that we are, we gave him a chance.

First up in DTK was Consumption Junction. Here you have to tank Trollgore in a corner of the room so everyone is out of Line of sight when he does his Consume spell. Everyone caught in LoS when he does this grants him 1 stack of his consumption buff (including adds) - the achievement is to kill him before this gets to 10. The add were very weak, around 2k HP - easily controllable by 1 person but unfortunately we got the positioning wrong and he died with 17 stacks. D'oh! Looks like we'll be coming back...

Next up was Better of Dred. Here you have to kill 6 raptors with King Dred still active. We were a little worried about the warriors survivablity as King Dred hit's hard but Nynth had some pretty good skills and we managed to one-shot this achievement. Great! We were very impressed with his skills generally so we asked him if he wanted to join us, which he did, so it was win - win!

I guess the lesson to be learnt here is that undergeared people should be given a chance (unless there is some gear check somewhere) - especially people with high iLevel Lv70 gear, they obviously needed some skill to get that back in TBC so they obviously know what they're doing!

Mini Update

After a few unproductive days in WoW, yesterday was just the remedy!

Azjol-Nerub (Heroic)

Heloko, Ultradeath and myself went to AN chasing the 2 achievements which had so far eluded us; Watch Him Die and Hadronox Denied. Watch him die is probably one of the hardest to get and it was also first up. Here you have to kill the boss without killing any of the watchers.

Our first attempt was for me to try and kite all the mobs out of the boss room, up towards the entrance while everyone else nukes the boss ASAP. We gave this a try but I failed to kite them all up, some stayed behind and the group wiped. Ouch.

Our second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth attempt we tried another tactic, which eventually paid off. We pulled each group, one at a time, and killed the warriors/shadowcasters/skirmishers but left the watcher..the tank then picked these up and also the boss and we nuked him ASAP. This tactic needs a bit of luck and some good gear - anyone that gets webbed needs to be freed immediately and it's a touch task on the healer. Using Tranq shot on the the watcher gashra which enrages is pretty handy, I made a macro which auto targets it so I could fire it as soon as it was off Cooldown. We managed it on attempt six - we killed the boss and then wiped...but it was worth it!


The next achievement, Hadronox Denied, was a breeze compared to the last one. Using an exploit, I aggro'd the first group and FD'd, this reset the encounter so we could all run downstairs and take the boss down before any adds came. Easy.

- What happens when you don't take Succi

AN is now completely cleared! 2 more achievements down 14 to go :D

Obsidian Sanctum (25 Man)


After the successful AN run, the 3 of us joined a PuG to OS25.

Raid Leader: "Only 1 rule here: No Loot if you get hit by the magma wave."

Pretty hard rule but I've done this before without gettig hit so it wasn't impossible. A little worrying about what the PuG might be like though, when a RL comes out with rules like that in a PuG I usually assume the worst. That and his use of swearing didn't sit right.

Anyway, off we went, clearing the drakes from left to right and then onto Sarth. With the rule still fresh in my head I focused on not getting hit - which was probably to the expense of my DPS slightly but we killed him on our first attempt; I got to roll!

The usual non-hunter drops where there and then woah, the Fury of Five Flights was there! I rolled an 89.....and I won! The Leader took a while to respond and then said "I'll see if you got hit" (His mod recorded who did) but I was ok. He then said he wasn't sure because I had "Noob DPS"...WTF? I came 4th with 3.2k which is pretty good in my opinion, especially for hunters as this isn't a hunter friendly fight (How big is Sarth's hit box?? Really?!?!) anyway, after some umming and aaaahhing I got it, sweet! My first drop in some time :D

The drama didn't end there though - Heloko called the RL a pr*ck, which was more than fair enough and the RL even agreed that it was true. Heloko then rolled for the Wyrmrest band and lost the roll but the RL gave it to him anyway!

I'm not sure what the lesson here is, maybe it's to call the RL a Pr*ck when you're in a PuG to get more loots! XD


Obsidian Sanctum (10 Man)

I had arranged an AMOV run at OS10 at 9:30pm and 6 of us were ready so we had to call in 4 randoms to fill the gaps. Present were:

Asaron (DK Tank)
Succi (OT Feral Druid)
Heloko (Healer Paladin)
Valilor (DPS Hunter)
Ultradeath (DPS DK)
Gloam (DPS Paladin)

We filled in another 2 healers (Oddybody & Chemic) and one other DPS (Can't remember who) and off we went.

Again clearing left to right, we stayed out of the 1st portal and entered into the third, with Asaron and Heloko staying outside in all 3. Being Asaron's first time to OS, he never got to go inside a portal so he missed out on seeing all the naked women mud-wrestling....unlucky Asaron, maybe next time ;)

- Next time Asaron

There was a good DPS race going on, Gloam, Ultradeath and I were keeping up all the way around, I pulled ahead after every drake fight but on the trash Gloam and Ultradeath closed the gap...pretty tense stuff! I was probably only 5k ahead in total damage before Sarth but I managed to steal top DPS spot in the end....better luck next time Gloam/Ultradeath, MWA HA HA!

So the first AMOV OS10 run was a complete success! We'll start farming this short raid weekly now and as it was such a breeze, we'll try Sarth +1 Drake next time!

Some random bits

- Pirates vs Ninjas

- AMOV about to get stoned

- Fun with a Paladin almost goes wrong


- Strange bug if I press jump at the same time as mounting up

Uludar Approaching!

To fail to plan is to plan to fail

With 3.1 and Uludar fast approaching (early April it's expected) now is a good time to take a step back and set some goals to aim for before you leave them behind and focus on Uludar.

After pondering about this for a while, here are my objectives in order of importance:

1. Kill Kel'Thuzad and Malygos and earn the title "Champion of the Frozen Wastes"


2. Complete the achievement Glory of the Hero and earn a Red Proto-Drake


3. Get to Exalted with the Kalu'ak


4. Earn the Chef title


5. Complete some old-WoW content

Options 1 & 2 are the main things I want to do, 3-5 are pretty much optional. Lets see how I do!

Glory of the Hero

Will be mine

There's quite a few achievements to complete to get the proto drake but I'm quite far in...here's what I have left to do:

AN
Watch Him Die
Hardronox Denied

Old Kingdom
Volazj's Quick Demise
Respect your Elders

DTK
Consumption Junction
Better Off Dred

VH
A Void Dance

Gundrak
Share the Love
Less-Rabi

HoS
Good Grief
Abuse the Ooze

CoT
Zombiefest!

Oculus
Make it Count
Ruby Void
Amber Void
Emerald Void

So quite a bit then! Feel free to leave any tips!

Poll Time!

Which wing of Naxx do you find the hardest? Vote here: http://twtpoll.com/2cppve

Coming Soon: My next post will be some nice Marksman Hunter tips!

A need for achievement....

What a fun night of heroics! While not everyone really loves achievements, no-one can argues that they have made heroics a lot more fun - with the added bonus of getting a proto-drake when they are all complete!

Last night a crack unit of AMOV guildies went after some achievements.

Featuring:

Valilor - Hunter DPS
Tommytank - Warrior Tank
Heloko - Paladin Healer
Succi - Feral Druid - DPS
Rosencrantz - Mage DPS
Deepcreepy - Rogue DPS

and the non-AMOV :

Deltares - Noob Rogue DPS

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom (Heroic)

I just logged in and checked who was online in the guild - including me there were 5 of us, 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS...the scene was set. Unfortunately one person couldn't join in so we had to enter LFG for a random and up came "Deltares" - at the time a person on Heloko's Friends list as "good DPS" (emphasis on "at the time").

We decided to hit the Old Kingdom as there's lots of achievements to be had there so off we went. First up was the respect your elders achievement. Here we have to kill the boss Elder Nadox without killing his guardians. The challenge is managing the adds and keeping them a distance from the boss as the guardians make the boss immune.

On our first attempt we couldn't keep the boss from getting immune and the healer died and we wiped. Not surprising really, it was our first attempt and it was a bit fiddly. Attempt two is when the fun happened. We went in, started doing better on the boss but as soon as a guardian spawned, Deltares - the random rogue - killed it, making us fail the achievement. When asked why, he said "I don't have the time or the gold for the wipes". Nice. A little more lip came in the form of "I was the only survivor" - which not only invalidates his gold excuse but was also incorrect as I too had survived. To cut a long story short, we killed the boss, failed the achievement and booted him from the group.

Leaving just Tommy Tank, Heloko, Succi and I we ventured on, which was pretty handy actually as the 4 man achievement The Party's Over was up next. We did this one on our first attempt, it wasn't too tricky, you just need decent burst damage for one person gets sucked (sorry, don't know how else to describe it!). After this boss Rosencrantz joined us bringing us back to 5 men. Big improvement over that Rogue, that's for sure!

Next up was the difficult Volunteer Work achievement. The boss here summons one of her volunteers and sacrifices them to give her a buff. Usually you'd just kill the volunteer but the achievement is to not kill any. On our first two attempts we wiped. When buffed she hits very hard with an AoE attack which can kill the tank and also any other Melee DPS around (Succi). She also puts a circle on the ground which we all have to keep out of. When we succeeded, the tactic was to disarm her reducing her damage (Tommytank did it on her first buff, I used Scorpid Sting with Chimera Shot on her subsequent buff) and to avoid her AoE damage/circle. Done.

The final boss was a 2 min time challenge for Volazj's Quick Demise - we didn't have any tactics here, we just went for it as quick as possible...which was too slow. 2:51 was our time. Not too much of a problem though as we just have 2 achievements to come back for!

Nexus (Heroic)



I had 2 achievement to do here before I finally had no need ever to return to Nexus so off we went.

Split Personality was the first achievement up, not too difficult if you can control your damage. Our tactic was to take one image down to 5k health then move on to the next, then the next and then to AoE them to zero. Our first attempt didn't go to plan, one of the images seemed to give up the will to live a bit too easily so we all ran out of the boss room and it reset. Attempt 2 was a complete success. 1 down 1 to go.

Chaos Theory requires you not to kill any rifts, which means to survive the tank needs to take all the damage from the rifts and everyone else stay a safe distance behind - killing adds, and the whole fight has everyone back peddling down the plateaus. This was pretty difficult - we did it on our first attempt but only just - we wiped but with Rosencrantz dying breath he killed Anomalus - getting us all the achievement. Sweet!

Just before the last boss I thought I'd have some fun with Tommytank as he played around with his UI.

/p Tommytank: "blah blah blah UI etc"
/p Heloko: "yak yak yak etc"
/w to Heloko: "Psst, shall I have some MD fun with Tom?"
/w from Heloko: "LOL, yeah go for it!"
/p Tommytank: "blah blah blah more UI stuff etc"

*Valilor sneaks off round a corner and spots a mob*
*Valilor presses the MD macro button (casts on tank)*
*Valilor shoots mob and then stands still*

/p Heloko: "Yeah that should fix your UI and LOOK BEHIND YOU!!"

The mob was pretty easy but it was fun none the less. It was just a shame there was only one around ;) We then went on to kill the 2 boss'. Tommytank also got the intense cold achievement and I now had no need to ever return here!

A quick note on this for any other non-BM hunters out there. There's no way we can do this on our own, you'll get trapped 3 times on this boss and unless you have any method of getting out of it (pots, PvP trinkets, Human racial etc) it's impossible. The two ways of doing this is to either get someone to heop you out (Heloko did this for me with Hand of freedom) or to no join in the fight!

Violet Hold (Heroic)

His name might be vegetable he's not food!

Here I was after the Void Dance achievement and Succi was after the Dehydration achievement but it's a lottery for which boss will turn up. Unfortunately neither one we wanted did turn up so we just did a standard clear....or so I thought. There was one other achievement AMOV would get.

No skin off my back....

I'm pretty much invincible these days, well AMOV must think so as they went for the "Kill Valilor Achievement." This achievement is possible with the Moragg boss - when he puts the Ray of Suffering on Valilor everyone nukes the boss. Ouch. I died unsurprisingly as the healer somehow forgot to heal me too! LOL. I probably deserved it for all the "Misdirection fun" I had in the past ;)

It was getting late and Rosencrantz logged out here and in came Deepcreepy.

Utgarde Keep (Heroic)

Initially we just entered this dungeon for the first boss and the On The Rocks achievement. Pretty straight forward here, we had Succi to Off-heal should Heloko get frozen or to Off-tank should Tommytank get frozen so no problems there. Achievement unlocked. Not a lot else to report here, pretty straightforward clear - my DPS was over 3.5k on the last 2 boss - that's a new record for me in Heroics :D

Achievements

So a pretty successful night! Only 7 heroics I need to go to now for achievements, so hopefully they'll be over soon. My main concern is with the Oculus as no-one really enjoys running that heroic and to do all the achievements it will require it to be run at least 3 times...


Enchanting


Dinged 450! I don't even want to think about how much that has cost me - I've never sold any items i can DE since I started learning enchanting back at level 1o (probably) - I could be rich beyond my wildest dreams if I didn't!!

Coming up soon....

Friday: My mysterious egg hatches!

Sunday: AMOV's first Raid (Naxx 10)

Update

Nothing too exciting to report but here's an update:
(You can click on any picture for a full size version)

Malygos doesn't like my cooking

Very, very, very late one night I joined a 10 man PuG for EoE. Hardly anyone in the group had fought Malygos before and after 4 wipes we called it a night.

Good experience though, along with KT these are on my "hit list"! (Also title: Champion of the frozen wastes)

New Hat

Don't you think my new hat looks much better? It's from Naxx (see earlier blog posting) and it's called the Arc-Scorched Helmet.

Also, how happy does Sartharion look?

Val-rus

Found and drank an Underbelly Elixir in the Dalaran sewer and went through a temporary transformation. Some people might even say it's an improvement!

Last time I drank the stuff I had an epic duel with DK Asaron - literally bugged and went on for over 10 mins!

iSlow

With iTunes playing a video podcast back, I ran through Dalaran and into a bank to be greeted by the lowest frame rate I've seen on my iMac!

Ouch!

My iMac isn't brand new - it's the first of the new design iMacs but still, 3 FPS? Not right! Still faster than banking at the Halifax though.

Kinder Surprise

I finally made Exhalted with the Oracles which I had been grinding for a couple of weeks for so I can now finally buy the Talisman of Ablution and the Mysterious Egg.

The talisman is OK, it's good for farming as you get mana back from each kill (for me about 560) but it's not that much really considering a Chimera/Volley shot from me costs 807/857.


The egg however hatches in 7 days (which will be Friday) and I have a 2% chance of the reins of the green proto-drake dropping! Sweet. Not getting my hopes up though, 2% is very low but could be cool. Obviously if I fail i'll just buy another egg on Friday, they cost just under 3 gold. I'll keep you posted on the drop on Friday, fingers crossed!

...and finally












My first title - "World Explorer"

I put this on last as it's not something to be proud of, it just takes some time, a flying mount and being able to alt + tab (Or expose) to wowwiki...

Definitely not a waste of my time (tries to convince himself)