Stabbing in PTR 3.1

Some guildies are already foaming at the thought of hitting the PTR, and I'm going to give it a shot as well. Plenty of rogue changes we can test in there, and if enough guildies sign up perhaps I could do some Ulduar coverage as well.

We're not quite there yet, though. The character copy screen reports an average 29 day waiting time (I kid you not). I've downloaded the 200 MB installing thing, but now my installer complains I need 12GB of hard drive space to slap the PTR files on. I hope that's not all to be downloaded, because that's my monthly bandwidth.

Except I don't have 12GB, not anymore anyway. Most of my harddrive is packed with anime episodes which I haven't been able to burn yet (I trashed the burner accidently)

Yes, I am an anime nerd. I study Japanese, so this was to be expected.
So what anime is on my hard drive you ask?

Naruto, of course. A ninja-themed anime. A bit overhyped, but certainly not a bad anime. Samurai Champloo, a samurai anime with hip-hop elements. Historically accurate usually, but sometimes fictional elements are added in that really make no sense (like graffiti with paint).
Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan (Club-to-death Angel Dokuro-chan, gotta love the name-see pic).

I can't say much about this one without spoiling the story. She has a huge bat and overreacts easily, and thus clubs one particular victim to death all the time, only to ressurect him right after. Oruchuban Ebichu, an anime about a hamster. Has a very rudimentary drawing style that reminds me of Shin-chan and Hamtaro. The theme is adult, though - it's full of sexual jokes and -my main reason for liking it *cough*- wordplay. And lastly, though only a couple of episodes, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a mecha anime. I also have a few DVDs with Rurouni Kenshin (another samurai anime) and Gundam SEED (another mecha anime).

Anyway. Back to the world of Warcraft, I have also added a few more blogs to my blogrolls, some of which were 'sleeping' when I started this blog but have recently shown some more activity.

This post has gone way off-topic, but yeah. I guess now you know some more about the real life me. An anime nerd/student of Japanese with a lack of hard drive space.

P.S. More serious posts about the PTR when I actually get on it, I promise!
P.P.S. No, I don't want you to call me Stab-to-death Aeltyr-chan.

Achievements: yay or nay ?

I finally made some time to reply to Pixelated Executioner's Shared Topic, namely my thoughts on achievements. Now, I know, this sounds odd since I already did a post that was full of achievements, but I usually don't pursue achievements for the sake of pursuing them.

I will go for achievements if they add to my character (examples are Fool for Love and For The Alliance).

I won't go for the Violet Proto-Drake for example, because it's too much of a bother.
If someone were to offer me to try some achievements from Heroics while in the particular instance, then sure. But I won't actively put a group together to try and beat them (an exception is the timed run for the Bronze Drake).

I use the Northrend questing achievements as an indicator how many quests are left in a zone. Like recently I gained the Grizzly Hills questing achievement, which was the cue for me that Grizzly Hills was mostly robbed of quest money and it was time to move on to other zones. I'm trying to get the achievement, but not for the sake of the achievement.

On that note, I've hit the 3k gold mark, so 2k more to go before I can fly my Bronze Drake !

PvP achievements
These are basicly an exception. When in a battleground I will try to pursue these, usually because it is the only way I can maintain my sanity in there. It gives me some extra motivation to go for the objectives instead of giving in to the general mindlessness that some battlegrounds turn into.

Raiding Achievements
A bit of an annoying topic. Some achievements you just get for clearing stuff. In a way, I'd like those. As a memory that I've been there, for when my loot has long been sold to vendors and we're raiding T9.
But the others ... well they're nice of course. Some of them are a nice challenge for the raid. However I think actively trying to get 'The Immortal' for example puts an unnecessary strain on the raid (and the healers in particular).

Conclusion
(You didn't skip the rest and went straight to this, did you ?) I would say some achievements are worth going for if they add to my character, and they are a good way of staying busy or getting more of a challenge out of something, but some achievements are really just there 'just because' and I don't think they are worth achieving just to achieve them.

Aeltyr sneaks and attempts to pick your pockets while you're reading his diary.

The noob hits Naxxramas 25

As I said in my previous post, I was signed up for a raid thursday. I made it into the line-up, so I bought me two flasks and got some buff food, and off we went. This was a split run, where we first went to kill Malygos and then went to Naxxramas to clear the Spider and Military quarters.

Malygos
Fun fight, sadly my WWS isn't really saying a lot of it. I did okay in the first phase, managed to keep up HfB and SnD most of the time. I didn't manage to chain ToTT on the tank due to being out of range too much, and somehow I could not judge the distance to a power spark so I failed at power spark killing (also, no death knights in this raid for some reason).

The second phase I usually stood around doing nothing except for running from bubble to bubble. I had proposed the other melee DPS (the better geared ones) to take hoverdisks first so it was quite late into phase 2 until I was airsurfing.

The third phase, well, I hate it. It's very chaotic, my unit frames don't show the combo points made by the drake abilities, and counting them is suprisingly hard when you have to watch your stacks, watch Malygos so you don't get caught out of a bubble when he focuses you, and stay with the flock of dragons. I guess this is a matter of practice too, and it did go better as we tried the second time.

Arachnid Quarter
We went for the achievements on Faerlina and Maexxna, so that basicly means we AoE'd every trash pack (hello Fan of Knives) and rushed after we killed Anub'Rekhan.

According to the WWS, my DPS on the fights:
Anub'rekhan: 2312 DPS
Faerlina: 2773 DPS
Maexxna: 2417 DPS

However, I was wrapped on Maexxna right after our Heroism and my Potion of Speed, and the ranged DPS was slacking in freeing me. I was wrapped for a full minute / 11 ticks and the fight only lasted for just under 2 minutes and a half.

Military Quarter
We had two new priests practicing Mind Control on Razuvious, so we had a few bumps until the fight was under control (nonetheless they did a good job).

Razuvious: 2714 DPS

On Gothik I was fairly slow in getting to mobs despite being specced into Fleet Footed (can't compete with charge) so I kinda sucked on that fight.

Gothik: 1135 DPS

The Four Horsemen fight really didn't work out for some reason. Our ranged tanks kept dieing, people (including me) were plagued by frequent disconnects, etc.

So in summary, as expected I was sort of carried through. I didn't completely suck (at least I stayed above the tanks) but my lack of decent gear (half of my gear are blue quest rewards that don't suffice for the Superior achievement and I lack Expertise and to a lesser extent hit), decent buff food (I used Spicy Hot Talbuk and Dark Desire) and in the Malygos case, experience with the fight really hurt my DPS.

Due to not having any KP yet I only got one piece of loot, Dislocating Handguards. I will probably get an expertise enchant on that.

Also, getting Trollwoven Girdle crafted will help in getting some more expertise - in any case it is an upgrade to my current PvP one (Eviscerator's)

EDIT: Post edited and pic added. I would also like to add two things I forgot to say in the first place, namely that you can hear a mail sent in by me on Episode 77 of The WoW Insider Show, the podcast of WoWInsider, and that I added Gone Rogue as a link into my blogroll. Definitly check it out!

EDIT nr2: a nice guildie told me how to use anonymous WWS reports, so here it is. I am Heian.

The Love Fool

I have a confession to make. I wasted my time on getting this title.

Instead of questing to earn money, doing dailies to raise my reputations, or instancing to gear up, I dashed around the cities, giving love tokens to everyone (and I really mean everyone). Was pretty fun trying to find an Orc Shaman or a Troll Rogue, too - in the end I camped the graveyard in Wintergrasp, found and sapped an Orc Shaman and showered him with rose petals, and I had to sneak into Orgrimmar, and climb up the gryphon tower to find a Troll rogue.


But I did it because it fits my character. I'm on a roleplaying server, after all.
My character is a mix between Duffman, Johnny Bravo and Duke Nukem, only he is not as muscular as them. He does share the trait with Johhny Bravo of thinking he's sexy but failing horribly with every girl he starts talking to.

Anyway. I did get some gearing up done, namely I managed to pick up another Librarian's Paper Cutter that was underpriced, and I did enough heroics to get my Mirror of Truth. I also hit Revered with the Knights of the Ebon Blade so I can buy my Arcanum now. I'd prefer to wait until I get a headpiece that can take a metagem before I spend money on that, though.

I've also started leveling my Fishing and Cooking further -I stopped doing that when I hit Outlands- because I'd like to be able to supply my own buff food. That way I just have to buy flasks (at least until I switch from Mining/Engineering to Herbalism/Alchemy) and I'm ready to raid.

I'm signed up for the Malygos/Naxxramas run of Thursday, so we'll see if I can get in to do some stabby DPS.

Did any of you (try to) get this title?

Not dead yet

No, I'm not dead yet. I just have been very busy, both in real life and in game.
Since this is a WoW blog, I'll concentrate on the in-game stuff, and I'll tell you my story using achievements I gained in these few weeks I've been playing WoW again.

PvP
I felt in the mood for PvP when I got back. As I had said in my previous post, I got me an Eviscerator's set, bought me two Traditional Flensing Knife, respecced Muti/Prep and hit the road.

I got Call to Arms.

The reason I didn't get this earlier is fairly simple: I always forget to pick up the daily.

I joined a raid with the people from Beyond Defeat and hit the Horde capitals, netting me three leaders - I sadly had to leave before we killed the Elf, so no bear for me yet.


After some mucking about in Wintergrasp for some honor and Stone Keeper Shards, I respecced again to a Muti raid spec, minus of course the two talent points I was missing because I was still 78.

PvE
I hit Storm Peaks to do the Sons of Hodir opening questline, because I was told it's pretty awesome, and also started questing in Icecrown a bit.
Both felt extremely slow on my little snowy gryphon (the bad part about switching your alt as your main I guess) but eventually I did hit the big 80.


So then the next task was doing normal instances to gear up for heroics to gear up for raids. I bought my Hateful Glad's Cloak as a filler cloak until I can get a decent one crafted or drop.

My guildies were kind enough (or desperate enough) to invite me to some heroics anyway, despite my DPS being barely that of the tank.

I also was invited to a casual 10-man Naxxramas run because the rogue that was supposed to come had some PC trouble and had been installing WoW for a few hours, but still wasn't there yet. We did Plague and Construct Quarter, and I got the T7.10 chest and some nice shoulders.



I bought a Librarian's Paper Cutter and got it enchanted with Mongoose (no funds for two of those sadly)

Some other day Alliance managed to drug Horde and conquer Wintergrasp somehow, and the guildies formed a PuG to VoA 25. I, of course, was there. Outrolled the only other rogue in the raid (he's better geared anyway) with a 96 and got me the T7.25 pants. (Yay set bonus !)


So yeah, it's been quite a productive week. I gotta get some stuff gemmed, and really gotta get my cooking up, other than that I think I'm good to go to ride along the weekly 25 man Naxx farm runs.

PS: One of the heroics I did was CoT Strat, and yes we did the timed run, and yes I won the drake. Let me tell you, it sucks having that thing in your bags and not being able to use it yet. But at least it'll be there when I quest my 5K epic flying together. No silly gryphons for me !