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Zul’Aman = Cleared July 20, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gaming, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Tonight I took part in my personal first downing of Zul’Jin.  This means that I’ve personally cleared Zul’Aman.  Surprisingly, the fight is kinda easier than I expected. As our raid leader was saying whilst we tried to down the previous boss, Zul’Jin is probably a bit easier.  It’s only his very last phase that gave us any trouble and we downed him at some point around attempt number 5.

Nothing interesting dropped of course but the 3 badges are always nice.

This puts my personal raid progression at

When I first dreamt of how awesome raiding must be, I never even imagined that I would get into the 25 mans, never mind all the way in to Tier 5. As things happen, it may be that I don’t get to see another 25 man until wrath.  Unfortunate drama within the guild (which I wasn’t present for and don’t really know what happened) caused a chunk of the raiders to leave and summer brought about inactivity in more.  We do have a core set of raiders big enough to do 10 mans successfully but I know most of us would love to be killing the big targets in the 25 mans. Our active raiders are trickling away but they are also being replaced. Tonights raid had two trial members in it, the same classes as the two core raiders we recently lost, and both of them seemed to perform very well in their roles so there is still hope to get back on our feet.

Vampires: NHS Style June 13, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Druid, Gaming, Life, World of Warcraft , add a comment

So yes, if you have any understanding of my title you’ll know that what I’m talking about is blood donation.  I first registered as a blood donor last year when they visited my school and tried to donate but due to not being 100% I hadn’t receive blood in the past meant that I can’t donate.  I found out that evening that I hadn’t and managed to forget to go last time they came round.  So, anyway I headed along and got through it all.

I had an appointment but it still seemed to take a while.  It was quite busy.  Overall it was alright, not particularly painful or anything. It’s just one of those things that it’s important and it’s something I can do to help and there’s no reason for me not to do it.  Simple really.  A bit of time and discomfort once every 4 months is worth it for the lives it could save.

In other news, my druid hit 60 just now.  I sent over 515 gold (!) from my main to pay for epic mount training, the druid would have the money if it wasn’t for enchanting…

Still, it will pay for itself once I hit 70 and can farm a bit better.  I was looking at a gold making guide and paladins ranked last in farming ability. Last. And I’m the lowest damage spec. I have no idea how I’ll ever manage to get epic flyer, I’m down to belowe 1000g after maxing alchemy and this mount training. I think its gonna come down to some hardcore grind after my exams are finished.

Alchemy Mastered… June 10, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Druid, Gaming, Gear, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

I just hit 375 alchemy on my main character.  I decided to do this as I’ve not really had a crafting profession for so long and also because I had read that the trinket is so good that BT/Sunwell guilds have healers dropping other professions to get it.  Thankfully its also probably the cheapest crafting profession to level, at first I gathered herbs on my druid alt (who dropped mining to get herbalism) and used them to level but once I hit 300 I would need Outland stuff exclusively and a 59 druid became a bit useless.  All in all I am about 1000g poorer than when I started, not too bad really.

The only problem now is that I don’t have the reputation with Sha’tar to get the recipe for the alchemists stone which I would then turn into this Uber trinket.  Looks like I’m in for a lot of Tempest Keep instance runs…

Ok computer, it’s on June 2, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gaming, Instances, Rants, Technology, World of Warcraft , add a comment

After buying a new graphics card and then finding out that I don’t have the right slot for it. Simply put I made a bad assumption that my computer was built at all in a way that would allow it to be upgraded when in fact it seems more like they cut as many corners as they could. I was hoping to get a quick and cheap upgrade to my computer to keep it going till at least this time next year but it wasn’t to be. As I essentially spent £50 on something useless I decided that now would be a good time to do what I’ve been saying for a while that I would - build my own computer.

Doing some eBay based price research revealed that the cost of buying the parts to assemble myself came up to about the same amount as buying a computer of the spec I want but without the graphics card (or actually just with a not very good graphics card as all the ones I’ve seen have ones included), perhaps a little bit more. I figure that paying a bit more to get exactly what I want as well as the experience of putting it all together is worth it.

Todays raiding experience has highlighted the need for this new computer.

As I had not been experiencing the persistent crashes - the computer just restarts for no good reason, error report contains the most useless crap reason it pulled out of its “We dunno what happened so here is something random we noticed” bag - recently I kinda thought maybe they had fixed themselves, as these things sometimes do. Alas today I was shown this clearly wasn’t the case. Before the raid started I got the first restart, then again after releasing spirit after the first wipe and then a further time after just having got back into Serpentshrine Cavern (my first time in there, kinda cool, didn’t down any bosses but that’s the way it is sometimes) again after a wipe. This combined with the other graphics card bugs puts a level of urgency on a new computer.

Not to mention, <20fps looks fucking awful.

WotLK-gasm May 9, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gaming, Life, World of Warcraft , add a comment

As anyone who reads WoW news will know a whole bunch of Wrath of the Lich King news appeared today.  I’m not gonna go into it all as it’s really not necessary but it does make me excited for the new expansion.  It should make it easier for me to experience more raid content due to the 10/25 man modes and the new zones are looking pretty awesome from where I’m sitting.

It’s looking pretty sealed that I will be buying it when it comes out and probably playing WoW for quite a while yet although it’s difficult to know how much I will play until then.  I’m surprised by how little I am actually missing playing WoW.  What happens with me and gaming addictions (if you want to call it that, what I experience makes a real addiction look like a walk in the park but I’m not sure I can come up with a better word) is that if it is displaced with other things so that I keep busy then I don’t really have a problem.  That’s how I can go away on fun holidays without ever wanting to play but can have trouble traipsing the mundane normality without a good WoWy fix.

If I find my life filled with things to the point that I don’t need WoW then I won’t play it and will probably be more productive at other things as well but until that time comes I’ll just keep having fun.

The sweet smell of progress April 29, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Today 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…!