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So much for that then July 24, 2008

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

After my last post you can imagine my surprise when logging into WoW 5mins before raid time hoping to maybe run Kara that I saw the guild message of the day saying we were doing Magtheridon.  I quickly flicked up the guild roster to see that we had 20 people online, which I’ve not seen for a while.  So yeah, so much for never seeing 25 mans again.

I’m happy to say that we got him down on the third attempt, after some bad luck on the first attempt with the cave in coinciding with a blast nova and then one of our cube clickers lagging right before a blast nova on the second try.  No loots for me there but he doesn’t actually drop anything I want now anyway, my chest is better than the T4 one now.

In recruitment news, we seem to have paladins growing out of our ears now.  There were a total of 6 paladins in that raid, four of them holy.  I wouldn’t mind this so much if they weren’t all so much better geared than me.  As it seems we’re picking up stragglers from all through Tier 4, 5 and 6 we’ve got some people with very nice gear, some for more than one spec and it is making me feel a little inadequate. I am slightly doubting whether I’m up to this hardcore raiding malarkey - I got called out twice before the raid about the lack of enchants on my gear, which is of course a very fair criticism. My main issue with the enchanting of gear is the difficulty of finding an enchanter. I seriously can’t wait till WotLK where enchants will be trade able on the auction house, once that happens you can pretty much guarantee that my gear will be enchanted up as I have no problem spending money at the auction house so simply.

After downing Maggy we got two Karazhan groups together and headed in.  As not everyone had that much time we only did the first 3 bosses. However, I’m very pleased to say that the lil Paladin wannabe - The Maiden of Virtue - finally dropped the Shard of the Virtuous and so that is one slot finally epiced out.  As I intend to get this enchanted I decided not to continue saving for the badge healing mace and instead spent it on the belt instead and also bought an epic gem to help pay for said enchants.

Overall, a pretty satisfying WoW evening. It looks like I may get to see SSC and TK once more, perhaps even Hyjal and BT one day…

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.

A nice Deadmines surprise July 3, 2008

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

I’m a registered Altoholic and primarly play Alliance so naturally I’ve done Deadmines a lot across many characters, and I do mean a lot. I ran my friend through it so many times to try and get twink drops for his warrior it was insane. From this long history (well, y’know, as long as it can be for just over a year of playing) I’ve come to expect the worst from your typical Deadmines PuG. So when I get a whisper from a level 15 warrior I don’t have great optimism for the potential of completing the dungeon.

It didn’t look any better once I was in the group, we had me playing my level 19 warlock alt (who I’m really enjoying at the moment), another warlock- level 18, a mage - level 19 and a level 19 ret paladin serving as a healer. Given that, I was worried this was gonna be a complete waste of time.

We actually managed to get through the whole thing, without a single wipe, or at least without a full graveyard run since we had soulstones and used some sneaky tactics. Using a combination of off tanking using my Voidwalker we managed to get through most of the situations. I was having to use every warlock tool available to keep things in check and it made for a very fun experience. The fact that it took 2 and a half hours doesn’t even bother me because it was such a satisfying experience. I was also pleasently surprised that I managed to pick up the Emberstone Staff, even despite the caster competition for it.

Who knew it was even possible to complete Deadmines with a level 15 tank (who did ding 16 during the run)?

On this note, I’m having a lot of fun on this warlock. I’ve gotten a warlock to 19 before (blood elf female, not really keen on the character and also horde side so not much use for farming) and it was alright but this time round I’m really enjoying the play style, I may actually try and keep it up, it’s good soloin’ fun

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…

25 man fun June 5, 2008

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

And no, it was not a gay orgy.

So tonight I got to see 25 man bosses going down, for the first time ever.  We started out doing Magtheridon, which we managed to one shot and I managed to survive and keep those being healed by me alive despite absolutely crippling lag.  It got pretty tense approaching the cave in but we got through it.  One of the 3 tokens was the Paladin one, my last blue is my chest so I could really use it.  Unfortunately, due to it being my first 25 man raid kill I didn’t really understand the bidding system, nor did I actually know how much DKP I had anyway, so it went to a shaman.

My lag seemed to be improving at this point and we headed to Gruul’s lair.  Mualgar went down on the second try, I’m not entirely sure what happened the first go, I was happily healing my hunter duo when I was 2 shot by Mualgar himself.  Next try was much more textbook, except of course that I disconnected the very second the pull was made.  The mage tank stayed alive through my DC (I’m not sure how exactly, as it was my target and no one elses - I guess the others just picked him up) and we got him down.  He again dropped the paladin tokens, this time I bid but I was against 2 shaman this time and they seemed keener to lose their DKP, it wasn’t a huge upgrade for me so I let it go.

Gruul took a little more convincing to get down.  Since it was my first time fighting him (same with mualgar but that seemed much simpler for the healer) I was worried that I would mess up on the fight.  After quite a few wipes the raid leader took all the trial members out of the raid, people were dying on shatter and since they had 21 manned Gruul for a few weeks now it seemed worth taking people out in order to get him down. After this we wiped a couple more times and then did get him down.  Again, the paladin token dropped and this time I bid and won.  It wasn’t really a massive upgrade but I really wanted to get some Tier gear as I’ve not had any before.

There was also some fun drama loot, the Dragonspine Trophy dropped (for those who don’t know, its a very good trinket, it may be best or 2nd best in slot for a few classes, I know its the reason why guilds that outgear the encounter by far still come back and do it) and it seemed most of the physical dps wanted to get their hands on it.  These problems were fueled by the DKP manager saying that DKP was allowed to go as far into minus numbers as they liked, essentially the bidding war could feasibly continue forever.  It was eventually sorted by the guild leader cutting in and giving it to the person with the highest DKP. Really, there was nothing else that could be done and any other way would have just resulted in one person with a massive DKP debt and a whole load of disgruntled dps.

Once I got out I shelled out a good 320g to get a Golden Spellthread to put on my new legs. 30 DKP and 320g for about +25 heal upgrade and a little bit of mana and hp. I guess those kinds of gains means I really am into endgame.