The sweet smell of progress April 29, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a commentToday we hit ZA again going for timed on the first, maybe the second boss and aimed to give ago to the other two bosses. We were going to go yesterday but we were lacking the people so a few of us went and had some fun beating up blood elves at Tranquillien. Anyway, today we headed in, we had a new priest with us as well and he got on well.
We got to the first boss fine, unlike the past couple of times I was healing the main tank whilst the other two were on the off tank (sounds a bit weird but our paladin takes a lot of spiky damage during those fights before the bear dude so he needs the healing). We proceeded to down him, despite the bear form tank accidentally getting the mangle debuff, it was very, very close but thanks to some holy light + greater heal + every HoT you like and swiftmend we pulled through it. Phewf. He dropped the plate healing helm I already have which the paladin tank took and then… I’m not sure what the other drop was, nothing interesting for me though.
Trash leading up to the second boss all went fine, despite slight lag from me and from a couple of others. We then proceeded to down the boss with many deaths including the tank right before we took him down. Another timed completed, woot! We got a healing staff and something else I forget. Two bosses in the timed, that’s some pretty good progress right there. Where we currently stand I don’t think we could do the timed any further as we don’t have the DPS but if we farm the first two timed and then the next two for a while we’ll get there eventually I’m sure.
We proceeded to take down the next two bosses, not a lot of trouble on the dragonhawk but it took a couple goes but then we managed to one shot the lynx. No paladin lewts for me but more badges is always good, I’ve got my eye on upgrading one of my two green (/shame) trinkets.
Overall I’m really pleased with Sapphiron’s progress and I hope to stick with them moving forward into twenty five mans before Wrath of the Lich King hits and maybe even carry on for a long time after that…!
Decisions Decided April 27, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Life, School, Thoughts , add a commentThat big ol’ decision has now been made.
After speaking with the band it was made quite simple. They are serious about Opium Toad and want to try and get somewhere with it and after presenting my predicament they pretty adamantly told me to stick around, in as many words.
That was it really. Nottingham it is.
More than that, I have now gone through the accepting and declining of offers process, there is no going back now, no way to change my mind. If the band collapses tomorrow I will still have to live with the decision. If they decide they are better off without me during the five or sixth months I’m going to be away then Nottingham will still be where I’m going.
For better or for worse, so long as I get my grades, I won’t be leaving Nottingham (save for sixth months in the US of course).
That’s that then.
Nice Surprises
Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Life, World of Warcraft , add a commentI forgot to actually make the post about it but Sapphiron did actually manage to down the Lynx boss in ZA on Saturday. More than that, we did it in two proper attempts, first attempt was good and we got him to about 35%, then we had a messed up and the tank died straight away because us healers were moving and on the next try we got him. As such I’m very proud of us, looking at Be Imba for the healers that were there only one of the three are even in a position to perform well in ZA according to that and we’re 4/6 in there.
I probably should start to take a meter to see if I’m actually healing as expected although it probably won’t tell me much, the other paladin healer that the guild has is substantially better geared than me (probably has more experience aswell).
In other WoW news, my latencies at home are still unplayable and I seem to be able to do nothing about it. Given that it happens regardless of whether my connection is going via my router or not I don’t think it can be a port forwarding issue. I also don’t think it can be a firewall issue because if it were the game would simply have no connection, I’ve never known my firewall to just heavily block something. This kinda leaves me suspecting my ISP but my friend has the same ISP as me and although I’ve had a few strange disconnects on his computer my latencies are fine.
I’ve also canceled my subscription due to my upcoming exams, although I may have carried on playing if I could play at home as it’s nice to have the game to relax with, without it I can’t really reward myself for having done some good revision as I don’t really want to play any other games. It might be for the best though, given that these are exams are so important.
Hangin with trolls April 26, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Instances, Internets, World of Warcraft , add a commentLast night we made some progress in Zul’Aman, or at least, I think it was progress for the guild, it definitely was for me. We took down the first three bosses (Bear, Eagle, Dragonhawk) with the Bear going down within the timed event. No lewts for me as it was mostly DPS cloth that dropped and a resto druid belt but I’m just pleased that we got them down. Be imba puts my performance level as only just inside the first 25 mans, not even able to do well in ZA but still me and the other healers who are of a similar level I think (it was two resto druids last night) got right through those bosses, actually one shotting the first two (if you don’t include a very quick fail and recovery on the bear, oopsies).
I think all in all this puts many of us in good stead to start the 25 mans all we really need is the numbers, it seems we don’t have enough for even two Kara groups going at the same time yet so the next level is a bit far away. It’s healers that are mostly lacking I think which just puts a bit more pressure on me to be active.
I think we’re going into ZA again tonight although my internet connection is being very temperamental when it comes to WoW, I’m constantly experiencing 1000+ms latencies whilst the rest of the stuff I do on the internet is fine. We’re gonna be trying out Halazzi the Lynx (again, gonna be a first for me) which, according to WoWWiki, is a gear check for both tanks and healers. With that in mind, I will be very surprised if we down him.
Over a year or What this blog is really for April 23, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Blogs, Internets, Life, Thoughts , add a commentI hadn’t realized that I started blogging that long ago and of course I’m very glad to say that no one is reading this blog still. I never set out with the intentions of becoming some big blogger, not at all, I don’t really know why I started other than perhaps because I’ve always loved writing and at the time I had no outlet for all the thoughts and opinions buzzing around in my head.
More recently I’ve come to realize that actually the point in this blog is quite simple.
It documents my life in these nuggets of text but unlike an actual diary it’s on the internet so it’s at least possible for people to read it. Because of that fact, I have to organize what I write into something internet friendly but perhaps more importantly I can’t write anything really stupid that I would never want to read again. That’s the massive risk with me and diaries, massive exaggeration of feelings and events so as to make myself look unbelievably stupid if anyone (or even myself) where to read them.
So yes, in twenty years I can look back at the posts in this blog and remember the chunks of my life I am experiencing now, the things I might forget such as the fun of my first gigs with opium toad or my feelings approaching my A level exams.
That’s what’s important to me about this, the fact that it’s on the internet just means I can use it to maybe get things indexed on google…
Off to Outland
Posted by Sharny in : Druid, Gaming, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a commentI finally got my Druid to level 58 today, it’s been a long road since I decided I wanted to level up a Druid, initially it was because I thought they were all uber in PvP, y’know, being able to dps like a cat and then heal themselves. They also appealed because they use the same talent tree to both tank and dps, meaning that I could do either at any stage of leveling and that would be nice.
Now I still like druids quite a lot but I’ve grown a bit more keen to play a dps class for a bit since I fancy doing the damage instead of just having to heal it. With that being said, I do enjoy tanking a lot aswell and in fact enjoy healing a great deal too. So it looks like I really like everything WoW has to offer basically, go me.
Perhaps in the future I will have 3 characters at max level, my Paladin who is already at 70 of course and currently trying to progress with my new guild (which has been a lot of fun so far and thanks to some lucky drops I’m actually becoming pretty decently geared compared to others in the guild) would either heal or tank I would think. Paladin tanking is something that I find cool simply because I like taking down lots of mobs at the same time and the AoE threat is really where its at when it comes to that.
My druid would either tank or heal. I wasn’t sure about druid healing at first but after trying it out on the TTR (the arena tournament test realms for those who don’t know) I found it to be very statisfying, something about healing makes me feel much more useful than when I’m playing a dps class.
Finally I would have a pure dps class such as a rogue or hunter to fill the dps slot. I recently started a rogue on a PvP server and got to level 6, I don’t really know if I’ll continue or not but I would really like to try out leveling on a PvP server just to get that experience. If I could get my 3 max levels (probably level 80 by the time it actually happens) then that would leave me a very happy bunny although given the amount of time its taken me to get my druid to 58 don’t expect it too soon…
