Ozruk is here to scare the tanks away

Apparently it would take a Call to Arms booty bag, 2 additional levels, duel wielded legendaries and a harem of fair Gnomish beauties if it meant there was a chance tanks had to fight this guy.

Me, I don’t care too much.

There is one thing I really like about this fight.

People expect to fail, so no one gets uptight if they do and they celebrate (for a good half a second) when we take it down.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for other fights.

The chains, the chains... too late!

Rom’ogg Bonecrusher will get you a little sympathy… a little.

You are still a noob if you don’t get your chains down in time, or get away in time, but as long as there are a couple still standing, he will go down and all is forgiven.

For me he can be a pain.

Yes I have the /tar chain macro (It’s on about 4 buttons so I shouldn’t be able to miss), but with my latency, I’m often firing up a cast 1 second after I already died.

Still, blink works wonders and I can normally get away (even if it means blinking with the chains, then dpsing them off)

Draenei can't jump

Asaad is Squidly’s bane.

Gnomeaggedon can jump and cast… in fact I’m not sure if Gnome can cast while standing still since he got mobile scorch, it just doesn’t feel safe… solo leveling will do that to a Gnome.

and I stack haste!

Squidly on the other had has to stand still for 2,000,000 SECONDS PER CAST… no exaggeration, go on… look it up

Throw in a touch of lag and Asaad’s Static Cling cast bar is a mix of

When the hell am I ever going to cast a spell in this fight

and

Oh hell, I hope this healer can cleanse the cling, otherwise I am once again a Van de Graaff generator… well until I die… again.

Proof reading my last will and testament... again

There is really only one foe in Cataclysm Heroics that Gnomeaggedon fears.

The Lag Monster!

Ohh actually, I have learned to live with him, no it’s not the Lag Monster.

I'd like to spend some time together... without your friends

No it’s not even Corla (prounouced Cooor she’s a hotty la la la)

Bad Gnome... Baaaad Gnome!

It’s him!

or is it Me?

Either way, if there is one way to piss a bunch of people off really fast in a REALLY EASY, EVEN A NOBTWADDLE LIKE YOU CAN DO IT fight, it’s to let one of these loose.. actually there are two ways:

1. it could be you wiping the party by letting him evolve, or
2. it could be you evolving and doing the wiping.

Then to add insult to injury, you get to live while the rest of the party does the “run of cranky”.

Only once in all the times that I have done Blackrock Caverns on heroic have I managed to prevent the Twilight Herald from enraging.

I carefully watched my guildy (Dingo the class confused Warlock.. more on him sometime soon) and moved when he did, and got to the end of the fight beaming!

Even that joy was short lived when I realised the healer was in the beam with me.

My UI, for some unknown reason either doesn’t show when the cooldown expires after 14 seconds, or does it so discreetly that I have never discovered where it is.

I usually manage to get out before I reach 80 the 1st time… but after that, well tanks, get ready to tank my Enraged Twilight Herald!

I did this last night.

As soon as I enraged I apologized.. after all I had lots of time to type while I was on the rampage. I wasn’t the only one to enrage, but I was certainly bore the brunt of the abuse.

Who was that?

The suck on the left

Do better next time!

Yeah sorry about that guys, I’ll do better this time. In fact I always try to do better, so no need to pay out.

I did better the next time, but not well enough.  Once again I wasn’t the only one to screw up and at least this time I wasn’t enraged, so I could at least help sort the out issue.

Unfortunately, even though the boss was at only 20% health, the tank decided that if you enraged it, you tank it.

So we wiped on what was a easily recoverable fight…

But the suck screwed up, so the suck left.

Then I went to the next heroic, topped the dps, sheeped and resheeped everything that was mine, counterspelled and spell stole like a pro.

The level of intolerance on individual fights that may cause difficulties for individuals just astounds me.

But then, I’m not sure why I expect anything different.  It is well known that people find it hard to empathize with what another person may be going through, to understand that there are circumstances possibly beyond that individual’s control that may effect their behaviour… and that is IRL, not in WoW.

Ah well…

Every god has to have his one vulnerability, and the Twilight Herald’s are mine.

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2011/04/12/just-because-you-think-its-easy/

Bitch, Moan, Bitch. It’s all you do! Where are the happy stories?

Admittedly I received this feedback while starring at the mirror. I knew I should have just checked Squidly’s hair in Culling of Stratholme!

But it’s FUN!

Everyone likes a good vent, especially when there is a bandwagon, or group therapy.

It only takes the most minor of things to turn something into the worst, the most dramatic, the end of the world is coming discussion. Not that I am suggesting that the current outrage sweeping the WoW Blogsphere is insignificant.

The Bitch:Joy ratio

Still, I noticed that right now I can quickly write 5 bitch posts for every one joy post.

You know, something good happens you tell one person, something bad happens, you tell 10 (or on the blogshpere 1,000) people.

You run 9 great heroics, but it’s the one shitful one that sticks with you, that you save the story to share with your guild, with your blog readers.

I still remember 1 of the good out of the 9

Well, 3 of the 9 actually and I’ve been meaning to share it with you, but how could I resist the bitch stories?

So here it is...

Taking a portal in time…

1st I want to reminisce about bygone days. Back in TBC my RL mates and I leveled through Outland together. We did OK considering we only played these characters for 5 hours per week (so I was included with my limited playtime).

We reached Shadow Lab (regular)  and we wiped. We wiped all night. We wiped for 3 odd weeks. Usually after about 3 hours of wiping we would go and do something else to relieve the tension and get a victory on the board.

When we got to Kara, we wiped, every night, every week, every month until a month or so before WoLK was released (just prior to the pre-WoLK respec and power boost). 4/7 posts during that period in my WoW life were about wiping in Kara (remember my great post-Curator black hole?).

That’s just not acceptable any more!

From the moment we got the pre-WoLK power-up it has become unacceptable to wipe. This has breed a lot of One Wipe Pansies.

So imagine my surprise when I join this random group in FoS.

The Heroic Heroic Random PuG!

I die a little when I get FoS. Yes I know I dream of challenges, but for some reason when I get FoS I cringe. I wonder if we will make it to the 1st boss. My 1st time in we didn’t and someone /ragequit after the 1st trash pull.

I know I can do it.

I know I have done it.

But I still second guess myself on entry.

I consulted HealerScore and GearScore.

Yes, I now have it installed, just because I want to see what happened to my own score, but I admit I scan others… Thing is I don’t then judge people by it. Have a listen to the latest THL (The Hunter’s Lodge) podcast for Brig’s interview with the GearScore author. It’s another one of those inventions created for the good of man kind, but used for the purposes of evil by other men.

Everyone was above 4k GearsSore, HealthScore was optimistic as well. I was the highest geared by the tiniest of margins.

Let the adventure begin!

We worked through FoS. It was slow going. I find that the trash pulls there suck most of my mana dry. I tend to spam chain heal because I know that even though everyone is on 100% health now, EVERYONE will be on 30% in 1 or 2 seconds.

I think we only had one death, I’m sorry to say it was the Mage. I don’t even know how it happened now. I was probably spending the 2 seconds healing the tank rather than the Mage.

Whatever the case, I think that’s pretty successful.

As the group was breaking up, shouting out their “thanks” & “great group etc”, just as the Mage left the party, the tank asked if we wanted to move on to PoS. (I’m sure the Mage would have been invited, but he probably left while the tank was typing).

PANIC!

I admit it, I panicked a little. I haven’t been to PoS and I was unsure. I informed the party of this and basically the only response was

Let’s Go!

We did. The details are all a bit blurry right now, but we did PoS and subsequently HoR (yeah same panic moment, but I now felt confident in the group).

Like I said earlier, it’s easier to remember the bad things than the good, the thing is in this case the bad thing was really a great indication of what good PEOPLE I was playing with.

It took 2 full repairs!

Yep, we had to port out once during the run to repair and at the end of the 3 instances I had to do a full repair again.

The True Measure of a Player.

• Screw GearScore.
• Screw HealerScore.
• Screw be.imba, WoWHeroes and all the rest.

THE TRUE MEASURE OF A GOOD PLAYER IS IF THEY WILL STICK WITH A PARTY AND A TASK THROUGH MULTIPLE WIPES!

There were no One Wipe Pansies in this group. If we wiped and it was obvious it wasn’t the luck of the RNG, we discussed it, we tried something different.

An example.
We wiped twice on Scourgelord Tyrannus.

• 1st time the Tank wore the Overlord’s Brand.. No heals for tank = dead tank.
• 2nd time we were all a bit spread out, running for our lives, for me to keep the party up.

So the Tankadin became the Healadin. The Resto Shaman became the Master of the Elements. The DestructiveDK became the DKTank.

We wiped as soon as the encounter began… But we just picked up our corpses and ran right back in.

After the fight I asked if they wanted me to stay Ele (the lesser of my 2 gear sets). The DK begged to be allowed to return to DPS as they weren’t confident in their taking.

More props to you for giving it a go for this encounter… and succeeding!

These guys were 1337!

• I don’t mean they were pulling 7.5k DPS while AFKing.
• I don’t mean they had an elitist attitude.
• I mean that they were smart, patient, forgiving 3k DPS with a solid tank and not bad heals.

WoWGods.com

I kind of hope that someone tells them about this post, because while I did thank them profusely for the run, I think they deserve a little more recognition.

There are so many WoWFuckTards.com sites around at the moment. I think it’s time that there was a WoWGods.com site. A site that sings the praises of those you want to group with and highlights the virtues that make a good, no – great, no – fucking awesome team mate.

Anyway we made it to the end… Yes we may have followed Arthas (apparently that’s an exploit?), but to be honest if I needed to use a GodMode function for that last fight, and I had access to one, I would have used it, because this group deserved the win more that the 1337.5kdps 15minute Heroic gangbuster groups that are so common.

We watched the ceiling cave in, we grabbed the achievement and we looted the chest on the ship.

What, no loot drama?

Now just in case I have sung the praises of this group enough, one final shout out to the DK, Dytox.

You see contained in that chest was a pair of cloth legs. They were a significant upgrade for me, but being cloth I could only greed them.

Based on my previous experiences I didn’t think they could be traded, so I just let out a bit of a sigh…

/damn… Those pants are an upgrade for me.

Trade window opens… Pants appear… Pants appear in my inventory!

Yay DK!
Yay Team!

My only regret is that I will probably never group with these guys again, certainly not all of them at once.

So dear readers, do me a favor. If you play Alliance on these guy’s servers, send them a whisper for me.

Tell them you heard on the Internet that they are some of the most awesome players to walk the earth.

Make sure you also tell your own awesome team mates the same thing!

Oh, and just for the record, 3 of them were from the same server.. the same guild.  Looks like it’s not just douchebags that run in packs.. but honorable gods as well!

Thanks for the Shards!

I make a point of thanking the Tank, DPS and heals (if it’s not me) mid run these days. I think it’s too important to leave till last last minute as people quit the group.

Aprillian from Ctrl-Alt-WoW (you know she’s a Mac user… Ohh the irony) mentioned the mysterious joy of the active DE button on the loot window and never knowing who the enchanted is, or who to thank.

So I’ve added a new role to my mid instance thank you list.

Thanks to the Enchanter for giving us the option to DE!

When I said this the other day, the Warlock was stoked at being recognized.

So my advice is…

Hug your PuG Enchanter today!

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/01/19/bitch-moan-bitch-where-are-the-happy-stories/

It’s been a while hasn’t it… no not so much since I posted, but yes I have been enjoying my holidays, my time with Odin, my new house and…

Well, that’s what I’m trying to say, it’s been a while since Gnomeaggedon got more than a mailbox check.

Squidly’s sick of random dungeons, because doing the same instance time and again doesn’t feel all that random.  He’s also run afoul of GearScore and Achievement linking… people on Twitter got to hear me howl about that, but that can wait for another day.

Gnomeaggedon Frost Nova’d and Polymorph: Turtle’d Squidly to get a bit of play time.  Something a little bit less about you (or them) and much more about me.

See that’s the thing about healing, ultimately it’s all about them…

• Keep the tank alive – he’ll save you but = them
• Keep the DPS alive – they’ll turn the DPS meters red with blood = them
• Loot drops and someone Ninja’s it = them (admittedly not as bad as Dechion’s experiences, expounded upon by the BigBearaggedon (no… not yet… but soon… sooon Mmmmwwwwhhhhhaaaahahhahaha! Make sure you read BBB’s last comment it realy sums up these fucksticks, forum trolls and bullies in general, as well as the true thoughts of higher beings like us)
• Loot drops for Squidly that’s an upgrade & he’s called a Ninja = them (yes another holiday adventure story for another time)

Time out for me, Me, ME I TELL YOU!

After Squidly started sporting nice new Triumph clothes and couldn’t remember why he was in Wintergrasp and the other battlegrounds any more (stupid f’n you can’t queue for more than one activity!), Gnomeaggedon reared his little green head and said…

Please Sir, can I have some more.. emblems… and FUN!

Queue Wintergrasp… Queue Random… hell, just Queue!

Gnomeaggedon had to go and buy some more faction mounts, because doing laps around Dalaran waiting for Queues to pop was wearing his Green Mechanostrider out.. bored.. bored… bored…

Don’t get me wrong, when the queue pops, and admittedly Wintergrasp often beats the random dungeon, I have a blast… A Fire Blast of course.

It had been so long since I played Gnomeaggedon I had forgotten that I crafted a crappy PvP set and dropped my Arcane offspec for a Fire PvP spec.

OFMG! Talk about things dropping fast!

Yeah.. it’s me dropping fast… but those 15 seconds between 30 second Spirit Rezs are some of the most exciting I have experienced in a while.

Occasionally, OK rarely, I manage to get the killing blow, I manage to pump everything I have into my opponent in the shortest period of time known to Gnomes.

Of course it’s rare that I find an AFK’er in Wintergrasp, but when I do, I take full advantage of it.

Things drop slow sometimes too.

My favorite way to start WG now is to join the queue, then pop through the WG portal (because Alliance hold WG 19 out of 20 times), then mount up, fly up high into the sky and… wait….

When the battle begins I get a couple of warnings which I happily ignore, because I know what’s coming next…

Gnomeatrooper!

Gnomeston, we have a problem!

It’s the age old Gnomeaggedon problem.

Gnomeaggedon loves PvE, but he also LOVES PvP.

When the random dungeon queue fiiiiiinnnnnaaaalllly pops, Gnomeaggedon is sooo excited he just literally burns up!

It’s like PvP but the Mobs don’t target him, they target the thick skinned one in the group!

He has an OrGnomeasm in the 1st 20 seconds… Living Bomb, Fire Blast, Flame Strike.. Whoo Hooo Instant Pyroblast, Blizzard.. he, why am I dead?

The party finish the fight then start asking what happened… I shrug, thank for the Rez and charge at the next bunch of Mobs…

Living Bomb, Fire Blast, Flame Strike.. Whoo Hooo Instant Pyroblast, Blizzard.. he, why am I dead?

Mmmm maybe I better settle down…

What’s a Gnome to do?

Oh yeah, that’s what I started writing about before messing another pair of Megan’s panties just thinking about PvP Fire…

What the hell is a Gnome to do when he is bored, Bored, BORED as hell waiting for a queue to pop?

What’s the one thing slightly less boring than waiting for paint to dry… err I mean a queue to pop for a solo DPS?

I’m questing… with a dose of exploring on the side.

That’s not boring, it’s good money too!

Yeah, so you say… but I’m not talking 13 gold Northrend Quests, I’m talking 13 copper Azeroth quests

I got so bored, that I decided to try and complete the Loremaster Achievement, as well as the Dora the Explorer achievement (if I’m traipsing mindlessly around Azeroth, why not?).

Gnomeaggedon did most of his leveling in 5 man instances with mates, so both Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimador where sitting at about 400/700 quests.  I have been going hard at it though, so Kalimador is now up to 408/700… Eastern Kingdoms is sitting at about 662/700. I have also explored 6 zones in the Eastern Kingdoms.

I know this is the stage that people start to sweat… where am I going to find the last 38 quests to knock this one over…

Not me.. I’ve got hundreds of quests left to do!

How do you know?

Ahh glad you asked, because that’s really what this post is all about.

Azeroth Technology at it’s finest.

I went looking for an addon before banging my head repeatedly on my desk.. I knew it would be a questing addon, and since I have abandoned my use of QuestHelper and Carbonite, and QuestGuru likes to tease me by failing at important moments (like when I want to read the quest text), I wanted to find something else… what would it be called?

EveryQuest.. obvious really and it stood out when I was looking through the addons… ohh but wait, what’s this…

Loremaster… OK, stab in the dark.. this one is related to the achievement.

OK, rundown in 30 words or less (lol)

Everyquest is a list of Everyquest

Loremaster indicates the likelihood that a quest will give you credit for the Loremaster achievement.

Everyquest also allows you to sync your QuestGuru or QuestHelper history, or of course download the history from Blizzard.

ENOUGH!

Yeah that’s what I say all the time.. but in this case I mean for this post… I expect it’s taken you both tea breaks and you lunch time to read it… you must be starving… sorry…

Don’t sweat, you have a few days to read it before I try and generate a posting schedule again.. I’m back to work on Monday, so last chance to hit the sunny beaches of Victoria, which is much more pleasant that mowing the lawn for 2 hours and 40 minutes in the HEAT!

Right, sorry about that, my skin is redder than my hair right now…

Hope you all had a great “holiday”.. bahh call it what it is… Christmas and New year.

Think of me while you shovel your way to the font door, wishing you didn’t leave the window open last night, knowing you still have to shovel your way to the car, then shovel the car out, then shovel you way to the office door, the repeat it all on the way home.

Gnomer and Out of here!

We’re all going on a summer holiday… I just wanted the song, but instead you get an entire episode of The Young Ones… in 4 parts… looks like tomorrow’s lunch and tea breaks are taken care of…

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/01/06/whats-a-gnome-to-do/

I finally reached 78 and the instance options opened above me.

• Utgarde Pinnacle
• Culling of Stratholme
• Occulus
• Halls of Lightning

and…

• CoT

I signed up for a few of them, ran a couple of them just fine, but I wasn’t going to sign up to heal CoT.

Can I heal Normal ToC after being 78 for 10 minutes?

I checked with my mates:

You think I can heal normal ToC?

No bloody way mate, it’s hard!

So I stayed away from ToC in the LFG interface.

Until...

Vikingmetal came online and offered to run a few instances. I told him those instances I thought I would be OK with, which didn’t include ToC.

Next thing I know, the group is formed and I ask where we are going…

ToC

We survived…

Well actually we didn’t. We wiped once, there we a couple of additional misc deaths, but the Black Knight went down.

Mind you, the only one left standing was Viking, but I had managed to keep the group up long enough for him to solo the Black Knight to death.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was done. I had done it.

Feeling a little less unsure I signed up again. This time I was grabbed by a well geared and experienced 80 Tankadin.

We survived (ok, there may have been a wipe in there somewhere, but we won’t talk about that). I even got complimented for healing well above my gear… Nice!

One nub = a Wipe

Third time not so lucky. I grabbed Viking as he was heading off to bed. Unfortunately more of us went down than mobs (no, not bosses, mobs).

In an encounter similar to Rhii’s, we just couldn’t pull it off.

Like Rhii, I suspect that it was all the fault of one party member. Sure I am being unfair, but it couldn’t have been my fault.

This warrior has been plaguing me since Maruadon. Ever since he tried to tank the slimes and died. Then quit the group in a rage when I kite tanked 3 of them and killed them by myself while he abused the healer. If I wanted to tank… He was going.

Nub!

Ironically, nub is a badge of honor for him and even forms a part of his name… I need the Namescore addon!

I have mistakenly invited him to groups since. One VH run we got through by the skin of my totems, but he was always the 1st to die.

Problem is he doesn’t like to die alone.

Anyway he was there for the fail ToC and constantly apologizing for his screw ups.

While he may not have been directly responsible for our ultimate fail, I think he all wore us down enough that we were susceptible to the Black Knight’s plague.

Postscript:

I’ve been 80 for a few days now.

I am definitely not going to heal HToC…

I will DPS it of course…

Well until we wiped 4 times and the Healadin suggests a change of tactics.. he will Tank, I will heal…

Mmmm, I warn him it isn’t likely to happen, but since we are saved it’s worth one more go…

End result…

We took the Black Knight down, only one death… ME! But late enough that they could finish him off.

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/11/16/i-did-what-i-couldnt-do/

Cross server LFG is on it’s way to us, soon if I remember right, and Presby comment from the other day got me wondering.

As things stand at the moment:

Instances and summoning stones

Right now our LFG PuG options are limited to our own realm. You can enter LFG from anywhere in the world for instances that are considered level appropriate (one of my bugbears, but I’ll let it go for now).

Once you group is formed you all head to the instance, well at least two of you do, and use the summoning stone located nearby.

Battlegrounds

Likewise with Battlegrounds you can queue from anywhere in the world (except within a BG… which annoys me a little.. you know there are 2 minutes left in your BG, why can’t you queue for the next one?)

The difference is that once the Battleground is full, you get ported directly inside the BG to the starting area. No messing about or traveling to Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands or Ashenvale (Mmm… triple A rated BGs!)

Pros and Cons.

Instances

What a pain it is when you get the group formed but no one is close to the stone. Worse yet, there is one or more people near the stone, but they’re the ones that are AFK.

At least if you only have one bag slot left and a durability of 10% you can drop by the bank, vendor, AH before you accept the summons. Maybe drop by the nearby quest giver and collect the quests.

Battlegrounds

I remember the good old days (cough cough) when you had to queue at the entrance to the BG… Assuming you weren’t ganked on your way in, or out. Zupa gave us a reminder of these days with the video that inspired him to roll a Mage.

So, no seriously they weren’t that good, though there some upsides. One of those was that if you had to enter through the BG door, you had to pass by the quest givers.

Even better was that 2 minute period where you get kicked from the BG could be used to make your way out through the entrance, or even to the quest givers inside AV.

While I don’t miss those days that much, I do miss the flexibility of exit.

What will the future hold?

Battlegrounds

Well we already have cross faction BGs, so nothing is going to change there is it?

Well I guess I hope it does.

I would like to be able to exit through the front doors and visit the quest givers again. It’s a pain being sucked from Outland to AV, then having to weave your way back to Alterac Valley to hand in the quests.

Likewise I would like it if you could queue for battlegrounds in the last couple of minutes. Maybe put it on a limited timer so if no BG pops within 2 minutes you have to re-queue.

Instances

Bugbear rears it’s ugly head.

• Sometimes I get nostalgic.
• Sometimes Blizzard forces me to be nostalgic.

LFG BRD or Slave Pens for a Holiday event?

Join the /lfg chat channel and beg, because you can’t use the LFG interface.

I can’t imagine that Blizzard will make the chat channel cross server… that’s a sure path to insanity.

So hopefully the modify the LFG interface to be more like the calendar drop down that includes everything and it’s dog.

Summoning Stones

This is going to be a doozy. Potentially the 5 member of your group will be from 5 different servers, so how are you going to get 2 people to a summoning stone?

Likewise you won’t be meeting outside the instance, so will Blizzard allow us to exit through the front door and visit the vendors and quest givers.

Maybe we will get a new interface option. One that removes the need to visit the summoning stone. Maybe we will get an instance drop down with the option to summon to the instance, or at least port to the instance (sounds a bit ghetto hearthy though)

Chaining Instances

Sure there is the chance you will join the PuG from hell, but believe it or not, you are more likely to get the PuG of joy… well, they will be good enough anyway.

These days if you like your group it’s quite common to chain instance runs. They are short enough, particularly in Northrend, that you can run 3 or 4 in the time it takes to run Vanilla instances.

So what do you do?
Rejoin LFG for a different instance keeping your group?
Select a different (new) instance interface option to get ported to a new instance?
What?
How?

Vendor time

Hopefully the LFG instance entry option isn’t like BGs. While it’s handy to be plucked out of anywhere Nd deposited back there when you are finished, things are slightly different with instances.

One of the good things about the BG LFG is that you can go do stuff. You need to go do stuff because it can be 1/2 hour between battles, especially now that the BG won’t start until the group is full.

LFG is, currently at least, worse. You can spend a whole night sitting in LFG. So what do you do?

You do something, anything while you wait. You grind, you quest, you BG. Whatever you are doing has a cost.

• Equipment durability
• Consumables
• Bag space

However Blizzard implements the cross server LFG, hopefully it will allow us to port home 1st and clean ourselves up before we meet our new friends.

Loot redistribution

Depending on whether you have been ninja’d or the beneficiary of the new 2 hour boss loot trade window, things are going to become a lot more complicated soon.

• Someone doesn’t follow loot rules (intentionally or not)
• You want to give that drop to the nice guy from that other server

How will this loot recovery/redistribution be handled in future, when it is highly likely you will never see the other players again?

Cross Faction Calendars

If we can “randomly” queue for and join parties, why ant we be more proactive?

You find that PuG of joy (don’t laugh, it happens), you have even managed to chain some instances together on one night.

Will we be allowed to proactively invite people from other servers. Rather than signing up for your realm’s Friday night guild run, why not sign up your new mates…

New mates, or maybe they are old mates. I dare say that most of us have old friends that play on other servers in your Battlegroup. Maybe they (or you) did a realm transfer but you still want to catch up with them occasionally.

Being able to plan your cross server instance runs seems to me to be a great feature… I guess we could all just join LFG at the appointed time, but I’d like a cleaner solution.

Mana biscuits

• I love making Mage food.
• I love consuming Mage food.
• I don’t like losing it after a cross faction BG.

I actually thought it used to carry over, out of the BG and back to your realm for future use. I noticed my health stone (generously donated by a nice lock… See they aren’t all evil!), came with me out of the BG, but my Mage water didn’t…

Doesn’t blizzard know how hard it is to squeeze water from a Mage? (blood = easy, water = hard).

So yeah Blizzard, let us keep our conjured consumables both in BGs and Instances.

What else can go wrong right?

Have you guys thought much about this?
What do you think we need to make this workable?

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/12/cross-server-summoning-stone/

On Friday night I romped through a couple of instances with my usual PuG tank.

Yo Viking!

He even trekked back from Northrend to help me out… See, puggers will cross the seas and stars to help each other out.

Then it was back to BGs and quests until I got an invite to Blood Furnace. The original DK tank had to go before the run started so another one was recruited.

The Reluctant Tank

Well it was a DPS DK, as a reluctant tank. Don’t get me wrong, he was happy to tank, he just wasn’t sure if he could pull it off.

That was his 1st clear indication to the party to be cautious. It was pretty much unnecessary, most of us measured him over the 1st couple of pulls and worked within his abilities, which were fine.

Most of us…
Not all of us…

There was one, a Ret Pally that was consistently pulling aggro… Every fight. I didn’t mind too much, it gave me something to do, but the DK wasn’t happy. He knew the natural order of things.

Pally was told

See the DK was the tank. He knew he was meant to be the only one getting aggro, the only one getting heals. It wasn’t like he wanted to tank, he had offered the job to the Pally at the beginning of the run.

Over the course of that BF run and into our subsequent Ramparts run, the DK asked the Pally on multiple occasions:

You want to Tank?

No?

Then stop pulling aggro!

DK tells Pally to tank

Just before we got to the 2nd boss in Ramps, just after the pull at the top of the stairs with the Dark Casters, the DK had enough.

Pally, you tank this pull, I’ll be right back.

The Pally jumped in as requested

Now I was healing, spam healing, but the Pally went down. The DK hadn’t gone anywhere though, he was waiting for this moment.

No sooner than my screen lit up red with AGGRO, did it revert to a more serene green as the DK leaped in and took control.

Not surprisingly there were no aggro issues while the Pally was face down on the floor.

Squishy Plate Wearer is Squishy.

As I rezed the Pally I pointed out he was too squishy and I wouldn’t heal if he was tanking. The DK knew this would be the result. My statement was just the completion of his earlier statements.

If you pull aggro, you can tank, you can die.

Leave the aggro Magnet job to the tank!

Back to the DeathKnight

So the DK took over again and there weren’t any more problems over the next few pulls.

Why only the  next few pulls?

Because the Pally took his bubble and went home, right before the 2nd boss.

What did we do?

We four manned the last two bosses. Easy peasy single target heals for the most part. No one else pulled aggro, no one died, except the bosses and the mobs that stood between us.

Moral of the story…

• If you pull it, you tank it.
• If you can’t tank it, don’t pull it.
• Let the tank do their job and save on your repair bills.

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/06/a-dk-teaches-a-pally-a-lesson/

Something strange is happening with Squidly.

He started out with all the best intentions.

• Level normally
• Explore Azeroth
• Soak up all the quests and instances

But I have just realized that this will never be.

Why so dear Squid?

Well there are lots of factors that mean I am hop, skip and jumping all sorts of content.

My Generous Predecessor

Let’s start with the obvious.

Gnomeaggedon has forsaken upgrades to equip the squid with the latest in Gnomish leveling technology.

Those heirloom items seem quite innocent at first. They allow you to complete the quests and explore Azeroth with ease.

They also allow you to skip 20% of the content you would endure at each level. Doesn’t seem like much up front, but it all adds up on the XP bar and subtracts from the quest log.

I was joking with my favorite tank of the moment that I was doing my 3 quests for the Hellfire Peninsula.

Tank asks: Why only 3 quests?

Squid replies: Well, currently it feels like I only need to do 3 quests and it’s time to change zones.

This is a slight exaggeration of course, but it’s not that far from the truth. I do a little research, identify the best items, then just cherry pick those quests or instances.

Sometimes I am forced to do prerequisite quests, but I am leaving a trail of unacknowledged quests behind me.

It probably doesn’t help that I have BiS items in 5 slots thanks to the heirlooms. That’s less time I need to spend anywhere.

End Game Instances and Raids

More to the point mid-game or old end game instances.

There was a time when you had to grind BRD for the experience and gear. Now you just hit 68, port to Outland and you have gear and experience(s) that leave the old world raids and instances in the dust.

Right now Squidly is staring level 64 in the eyes.

Time to prepare for the heroic Outland instances I think to myself…

Or not!

Once again, less than 12 months ago, I needed to consider my gear progression carefully. I wanted the best gear from quests and instances so I could tackle those heroics for badges to open the doors to Kara.

Now, I am focused on what I can pick up by 67 or 68 so I can jump on a boat and sail to Northrend.

Funny, as I was really looking forward to pitting my Shaman skills against the Outland heroic bosses… But now that I can sniff the sea, even from Outland, the yearning to set sail has struck.

Lack of Achievement

The Achievement frenzy that took hold of Gnomeaggedon’s soul just isn’t present in Squidly.

Oh yeah I still love it when they pop up and I’m not afraid to share them with you, but I don’t care about clearing the Azeroth instances, I’m not concerned about ticking off the heroic achievements in Outland.

I just can’t wait for the secret door before the Outland boss’ room that will take me away to lend my totems to the war against the Scourge.

Epic Mounts & Flying Mounts

Talk about skipping content.

Why fight your way to your destination when you can just ride real fast, or better yet fly to your end goal.

In fact I would happily compare the change in leveling speed to that you experience when you 1st upgrade to an epic land mount, or to an epic flying mount.

Necessary… No!
Faster… Hell yeah!

Too much Talent

I think one of the changes that makes it so much easier to skip content is the access to the whole talent tree.

I’m using talents that only became available to potential level 80′s and I have been since before I was 60.

I realized I was grinding out level 63 elites and level 65 quests with relative ease… Then I realized I hadn’t trained up new skills since I turned 60.

I was 3 levels behind in new skills and still slaughtering 5 mobs at a time!

Not only that, but due to Blizzards dual spec toolbar bug, I wasn’t even using max rank spells. For example, my Chain Lightning, bread-and-butter-Elemental-Shaman-bomb, was 2 levels behind what I could cast.

Did it matter?

Nope, all the points in my improved blow-the-face-off-the-enemy talents were making up for any forgotten ranks of spells.

Maybe Northrend will provide the challenge.

Maybe, just maybe, Northrend will be a little more interesting, a little bit more challenging on Squidly.

Gnomeaggedon one or two shot nearly everything on his trek through Northrend. He didn’t replace a piece of gear until around level 77.

Squidly on the other hand will be entering Northrend with gear up to level 63, maybe he will pick up a couple more items here or there, but he is going to walk off the boat with gear designed for mid-Outland, not starting Northrend.

Maybe the game really does start at the end

I have never been in this position before, but now I understand why everyone deserts Azeroth.

It’s not just that they are level 80 and working from Dalaran.

It’s that no matter how hard you try, Blizzard doesn’t want you in Azeroth (yet), they want you in the Fjords.

Make money running a WoWguild?

OK, completely off topic, but I was just reading this post (The Cost of Being a Goon) over at Outland Bound.

It’s worth a read if you jaw hasn’t dropped yet today!

Makes me want to start an exclusive guild…

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/01/skipping-old-end-game-content/

Selling houses, buying houses, flame striking Gnomes, totem dropping shamans, questing, grinding, instances and mates.

RL has been as messy as my WoW time and I am struggling to maintain a single thread of thought. I could just release the week of posts that were scheduled for last week… but that would require straight thinking.

House sold

Sold Mum’s house for more than expected. This is good because it will help to cover her debts which are more than expected.

House hunting

There’s enough left over for us to hunt down and frost nova a house. Our choices are a bit limited and more than one real estate agent has scoffed at our budget or turned up their nose at the thought of cheap arses buying through them.

Bidding on a couple of houses in the bush just outside of Melbourne… next to where the devastating fires burned through earlier this year… cant be thinking straight.

Easy heals

Squidly has run quite a few instances as Resto. Only wiped once when our tank got a little cocky in ZF with the scarab beetles, and I was on the other side of a wall… Actually we didn’t wipe, I just lost 3 party members, then the DPS Pally and I cleaned up the rest.

My damage might not be high in Resto, but my DPS is often higher than other party members.

Yeah I get a little naughty and throw put the more than odd chain lightning, generally it’s too easy.

High dps

Ran BRD last night while the wife went partying. The priest preferred to heal so I went a little silly. Lowest level toon, highest damage & double the DPS.

Who says Shamans are OP?

Mind you, spammed chain lightning has a way of attracting unwanted attention…

Messy totems

Still coming to terms with the plethora of totems I have. You would think the new totem bars would make life easier, but I think they are making me sloppy.

We wipe 3 times on one set of trash in BRD before I changed my totems, pulled out the OP healing stream totem and suddenly the priest was left twiddling his thumbs while the mobs crumbled into a pile of broken bodies.

Still need to work out what to drop and when, but it’s amazing what a difference they make.

Support class my arse, we are a one man band of ultimate destruction!

Pain Barrier Discovered

Until BRD every instance has been, well a cake walk.

In ZF, we were pulling all the pyramid mobs to us, rather than waiting for the script.. too easy.. of course, then we had to wait for the script to play itself out anyway.

But BRD was different… we had to watch our P’s & Q’s.  Generally we didn’t, but we hit one patch of trash that handed out butts to us on a plate… multiple times.  OK, once we got it sorted out (different totems, kil

l order – Kill the F’n MEDICS!, etc.) it was all good… but it was still a challenge like none I have seen since TBC.

No one likes a run from the spirit healer…. But Ohh how I liked the fact that I had to actually watch the screen rather than bang my stubby on the keyboard blindly!

OP healing stream

I blame healing stream totem for my Resto DPS. The healing done scales with spellpower, so with the truckload of spellpower I have I am left twiddling my… thumbs.

Piss weak mana stream.

Healing stream may leave my jaw dragging on the ground, but mana stream makes me wonder why I bother.

It hardly seems to make any difference. I hang around it after the battle is over dreaming that my mana bar is going to fill up. In the end I just recall the totems… feels like a quicker way to regain mana.

Why doesn’t it scale with Int or Spirit? Healing stream totem benefits from spellpower, why can’t mana stream benefit from something… anything.

WTB Mage!

I admit it.. I am fundamentally opposed to the concept of purchasing food and drinks from vendors, it’s just unacceptable!

On Friday, I flew Gnomeaggedon down to Tanaris and filled THD’s bags with food and water, then relogged.

On Saturday I did the same thing to another party member.

I wish I had done that last night before BRD!

Likewise I can’t find my Portals… I know they are somewhere.. maybe on my other toon?

Why does Astral Recall have to be bound to the same place as my Hearthstone?  You would think that it would be bound somewhere related to my ancestors… maybe to the closest graveyard to my intended destination?!?

Ohh yeah.. I still miss blink…

Boob hunters

/chuckle. Spell checking typo.

Needed one more for ZF and Mara the other night. Called in a mate on his hunter. He was lower level than the rest, but I figured if he was there the mobs would hit him before me.

We all jumped off that 1st bridge in Mara to skip 3 mobs… Everyone but the hunters pet. He brought the 3 mobs with him.

I couldn’t resist and whispered

Noob Hunter

He didn’t make that mistake again, even took over his bear to throw him off a cliff later.

Mates

Our official Friday runs may have broken up, but we are still close knit, doing a lot of stuff together, we are still our 1st choice for “PuG” members.

Noob Hunter is actually Mr. Offspec. Who would have thought I would be inviting him to groups… but the dynamic seems to have changed and it’s all fun again.

Gnome but not forgotten

Tree Hugger Dave has been joining Squidly a bit too. It’s been nice having him along, I like to out dps toons 5 levels higher than me…. I mean repay all those healing favors he has done for me. I even like it when he blows his health in exchange for mana… Silly Locks! At least I have something to heal.

Anyway, he wanted to run the daily instances before we Alted out for the night.

HVH was ummm, well it was over before it began.

It was so quick, too quick.

I though that dragon did some sort of teleport you in so I can kill you move… Not if she’s dead before she gets the chance!

THD was right about the Tanks fawning all over the healers. He got more compliments in the span of that quick run than Miss Universe does when she his the pages of playboy. Hell, even I was getting compliments for my awesome bottom of the meter damage.

Single totem bar

These new totem bars are great, but I don’t find them easy to change on the fly. I now have 3 of the bars, but because they are “pull down” style action bars, I cam never remember what’s configured on the other bars, and fumbling for a different totem mid-combat is a PITA.

I just wish they showed all the bars all the times.

This would free up some of my toolbar as most of the essential totems would be represented, and I could cherry pick them, or drop the whole bar depending on the situation.

Achievements

There has been a constant stream of achievements for Squidly… But as I haven’t filled you in since level 20 and my latest achievement is level 50, I won’t bother with the holiday slideshow.

Sorry, what… you want a holiday slideshow

The list goes on…

Apart from quite a few instance achievements, I have been scoring a whole pile of BG achievements.

Battlegrounds

WSG and AB… Well WSG at least.

I have been meaning to hit the BGs since I hit 15. It only took another 30 levels to actually get there.

OMFG Shamans!

1st one I popped into had already started. I popped my totems and was immediately attacked.

• Opponent dead.

Couple of minutes later I get jumped by 2 opponents.

• Opponents dead, flag returned.

Couple of minutes later I get jumped by 3 opponents.

• Squidly dead, reincarnates, 3 opponents dead, flag returned, Not so Fast earned.

Couple of minutes later, 5 opponents…

• Squidly dead, but we are winning the BG anyway.

Pretty much the way every WSG has gone. Once they realise a Shaman is guarding the flag, they send half their force to ensure they can get the flag.

Unfortunately not so much joy in AB. Seems like there are a whole pile of coordinated premades grinding XP, either that or we Alliance have suddenly become completely crap at AB.

Battleground XP

Holy crap ton batman!

Have fun and earn XP!?

Where do I sign up… Ohh the BG interface. Let me sign up now!

Honor is flowing, XP is flowing, Horde blood is flowing… Good times.

Great times when you can queue for a BG anywhere via the PvP interface, and not only will it pluck you from whereever you are, but will put you right back there when you are finished in the BG!  Just be careful that you don’t accept the summons in a recently cleared space… you may find a welcoming party when the BG is over.

Anyone ever joined the BG queue while instancing… That would be interesting…

Ready Check

Mmm, where’s  Squidly.. WSG WTF!

Nice that I am never lower than middle on the BG stats page. Often 1st or 2nd in heals, usually top 3 in damage…

Repeat after me… O…. P….

Up front with my totems

I haven’t worked out the range on my totems just yet. Every battle sees me charging in with the tank to drop my totems, then beating a hasty retreat to let loose with the chains… Heals or lightning, it’s all the same… Mass destruction.

I think the issue is I am dropping the Magma Totem, so just have to get in there, but maybe I don’t.

Mind you, I am still not quite sure of distance either. The Gnome v. Draenei perspective always makes me feel like I closer than I am.

LFG, no effort required (or is that exerted).

At some point in time I think we have all turned off auto grouping in the LFG interface. Makes sense at 80 where you can (or want to) pick and choose.

Not so much at 50.

Last night there were 6 people LFG BRD, with not one group between them. As soon as I hit 50 I started whispering them all… 1 minute later the group was formed!

We probably would have started 30-60 minutes earlier if we either:

• Had auto join selected
• Looked, whispered and invited.

More random unstable thoughts about, but I don’t have the presence of mind to put the words into the editor…

PS: Post of the day award goes to Rhii @ I Sheep Things: The Long Defeat

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/09/16/random-stream-of-unconcious-rambling/

Quick note: do not release! Never release until the last party member is dead AND the call is made to release and run.

If you release you most likely won’t be allowed into the instance or the bosses room. If you aren’t in the instance (even as a corpse) when the boss goes down, you just lost all loot, emblems and credit for the kill.

If you can’t get in, you may as well watch and cry. Better yet, watch and learn as I did while watching a Heigan fail… I learned, danced and got the achievement next time around.

If you release before the call is made you may cost your party/raid 10 minutes while they wait for you if there is a rezzer safe and ready to go.

Mmmm so much for a quick note…

Anyway, back on topic…

I would love a key to the bosses room. One that let’s me reenter the battle. I don’t particularly like sitting idle, especially when I die in the 1st 5 seconds to some random screw up. I want to get back in there and help out.

Time for Fun!

One of my most hated, yet strangely most loved boss fights was in Shadow Lab.

Yes that nutso boss that would get you to turn against your friends every 30 seconds. The one that you would wear your worst gear to so you didn’t oneshot the Mage (yeah me). You know the one… Blackheart the Inciter.

You see this boss had a very itchy aggro trigger finger. He would reset aggro after each fun session and anything from healing, restoring mana through to picking your nose would give you aggro.

This was a nightmare, because more often than not you would blow your mana and health while mind controlled.

So this mechanic was absolute fail right… Right? Wrong!

Ping Pong

We soon learned that one of the easiest ways to beat this boss was to play boss ping pong.

More often than not I died early, so usually I would be the paddle at the other end. When I died, I would run into the instance, stop and wait.

When time for fun finished, I would sit down and eat…. Mmm health… Mmm mana… Mmmm aggro!

He would come running through the instance with one thing on his mind… Stomp the Gnome.

When I could see the whites of his eyes, I would call out and my part mates would start healing and mana regen.

Boss stops, turns around and runs back to the now fully healed and mana’d party, with me hotly on his heels.

There were occasions where we saved the day when there was only one player left alive… He would reset because we would tease him by repopping in the Lab.

I dare say this is considered more exploit than creative use of game mechanics, but, ummm, whatever…

It was worth running back

Now the whole point of this is I loved feeling useful, even when I died so early. I knew that as long as I got back to the instance quickly, I was getting a shot at the loot and I might make a difference.

I got real lucky in a VH instance recently when we lost 2 players right off the bat on the last boss. They broke the cardinal rule and ran back, but couldn’t get in again.

Why was I lucky?

Because the two items I had been grinding VH for both dropped… and the only other clothy was waiting at the front door.

His loss, my gain.

Didn’t stop me feeling bad for him… Afterall, I died too… In fact the absentee priest rezzer me… But I didn’t release, so I got the loot and he didn’t get the chance (and there was nothing I could do to change that).

So give us a boss room key. I’m happy if you have to earn it, maybe defeat the boss 10 times…

Give me a key to Sapp’s room, make it tied to the Fall of Naxx. That way those of us that always seem to call it a night while staring at Sapp get a chance at that end-raid gear… Will I ever get the chance for KT’s head token, before extended raid lockouts?

Go on Blizz… You know everyone likes to back door mobs…

If nothing else, get KT to come to us everytime we kill his cat!

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Last week was Old World night and it was pretty much a flip of the coin… AQ40 or Black Wing Lair (BWL).  Thanks to Prelimar, we knew it wasn’t going to be a cake walk, so really it just came down to which we thought we could do before 1am when one of our Tanks had to log.  We chose BWL because one of our crew had done it the hard way, uphill both ways in the snow back at level 60… so someone knew which corner to turn and when.

There were only 7 of us as Zupa was otherwise disposed, so off we trotted to the zone.

Of course 1/2 of us had no idea where we were going… memory is a fragile thing, especially after so long, but soon enough we had found the orb, clicked on it and all 5 of us where in BWL…

Mmmm, hang on, there are meant to be 7 of us…

Damn, 2 people are attuned, we will have to run UBRS…

Hey, where did all those Mobs come from… who pulled the room….

WTF Mr. Tree!?!

Clearing the unending trash just wont work!  It isn’t trash in the traditional sense, and even with your feathers of uberness be struggling to solo it… Ohh dead… hope this isn’t setting the tone for the night

UBRS the slow way….

OK, so we need a quick run through UBRS.. go go go… no leave the trash… OK take out the trash… but do it on your own…

Everything was going fine until we got to Gyth & Rend Blackhand, then it was time for comedy of errors…

Error 1: You can’t skip the event, don’t jump the other way… Ohh you are behind a closed grate… great!

Comedy 1: Take Gyth down slowly until Rend Blackhand dismounts then finish it off… all good in theory.. it’s slow at 60 and at 70 you can get a couple of shots off before Rend dismounts…  At 80, we had 1 shot both of them before they were in the room… Event failed due to uberness.

Error 2: Wait for the mobs to come out of the grates… don’t run behind it… nevermind…

Comedy 2: Tank kites Gyth… no DPS at all… still scared that tank may accidentally fail event due to doing too much damage.. Ohh there’s Rend, ohh Rend’s dead… all done.

Comedy 3: General Drakkisath.. remember when he was hard, there was all sort of planning, strategy etc… I wish I had the time to get more than 3 spells off… and that was only because most people were asleep I think.

Back to BWL

Razorgore the Untamed

What. A. Blast!

Seriously awesome fun.. I was doing AoE coverage for the Mr Z! while he mind controlled Razorgore.  I was burning mana like there was no tomorrow, but seriously, that is one awesome fight.  if you have never done it before you want to grabs a 1/2 dozen of your mates and give it a go.

Just remember your objective is to MC Razorgore and protect the chaneller while you use Razorgore to kill the eggs.

This would have been an insane fight at 60 with 40 people stretched to the limit.

He did drop me 1st piece of the Netherwind set… Happy Mage. But MP5???

Vaelastrasz the Corrupt

This was a fun fight… it’s already pretty clear that Dragons are the order of the day.. nothing special to report on this one, but it’s fun to see a big one like this drop before you’ve had the chance to wind up any sort of rotation.

I haven’t mentioned much loot yet.. there was lots of loot, but of course it is all relative… 3 pieces of loot between 40 people would make people sad these days…

That said, there would have been one happy Hunter with this drop… Oh well, time to flex the DE finger…

Broodlord Lashlayer

Lashlayer was no challenge, but then not much was, except that someone kept pulling extra trash mobs… No it wasn’t me, sure I didn’t want an easy run, but I was being a good little Gnome on Friday.

Where was the Hunter?

Well that was a mistake

We clove through the trash like butter… it was fun, but slow going.. if only there was a way to speed the process up…

Mmmm maybe pulling entire rooms (unexpectedly) wasn’t the way to speed things up.

Maybe that was a mistake… even TomTom (I think it’s TomTom giving the commentary near my portrait) thinks so…

Mr. Tree… you will need to settle down or be disowned by your friends… not sure why the other 5 are so uptight tonight though…

Firemaw

Firemaw was fun.. lots of fun… because people died.. yeah I know that’s sad…

For the last 50% it appeared that there was only a healer and I alive, turned out there was a tank in there somewhere too, but it was a buzz thinking we were actually going to wipe, then pulling the rabbit out of the hat.

Ebonroc & Flamegor

Don’t remember anything special about Ebonroc or Flamegor… another dragon… another dead dragon… or two

Chromaggus

Chromaggus on the other hand was fun.

We wiped once, but it wasn’t Chromaggus per se that did the deed… although it was his debuffs that caused my mates to turn on the raid.

The thing that struck me about this fight, was that you needed to use an exploit (the funny pillar) to avoid the damage.  Mr Offspec told me in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t an exploit to drag the dog 1/2 way through the instance to a specific spot on a ramp where most of the raid could hide from it’s effects… in fact, it was working as intended… Blizzard designed the encounter this way.

WTF!?! So here’s an “exploit” built by Blizzard as the only way of defeating the encounter… but hey, don’t use things that may or may not be an exploit in the game… seriously, there needs to be a pop-up…

This exploit is working as intended

Yes, yes, I know all loot is hunter loot…. but how much Hunter loot is going to drop?  Seriously!

Ohh what’s that… mmm this naughty Gnome is going to roll need on those Nemesis Spaulders.. just to DE them, then tell all my Warlock readers about it….

Dear Warlocks.  I rolled need on a lock set piece, purely so I could disenchant it!

BWL (Black Wing Love)

Apart from the over abundance of Dragons, BWL is a beautiful place.  The view from Nefarian’s balcony is stunning, taking in 2 zones.

As we were approaching Nefarius (for the 2nd time from memory), Zupa came online.  I just had to tell him what an amazing place this was.  The encounters in here are fantastic, lots of crazy variables to take into account.  Sure it was a breeze as an 80, but every one of the encounters was interesting.. probably would have been more interesting if the bosses lasted longer, but I still had a great time.

Foolsss…Kill the one in the dress!

Lord Victor Nefarius

So we had reached Lord Victor Nefarius without any major problems.

Once again the dynamics of this fight are great and we were challenged… 3 times we were challenged, before we threw out hands up and admitted defeat.

Don’t get me wrong, I am sure we could have taken him down, we just got unlucky.

We have decided to take the luck out of the experience next time by crafting a few of the cloaks that are specifically designed for this fight (and one other from memory).  Of course for that I needed the Cindercloth Cloak pattern, which I promptly went and ground out before heading back to town.

So we will be back to BWL, probably next month, equipped with crappy cloaks that will get a single use.. but it will be worth it.

Gnomeaggedon’s BWL Review

My BWL experience 10/10

We lost a couple of people then.  It was an early night due to other commitments… but my night wasn’t over yet…

There are naughtier Gnomes out there than me!

Popped into Ironforge for a quick repair, restock and bag drop, and what do I see…

A very naughty Gnome…

Two things struck me…

1. It’s a female Gnome letting it all hang out… you think there are a bunch of teenage Gnome lovers out there that are more likely to buy from her? (It’s OK Kriz.. I know you aren’t a teenager, but it’s still ok to admit your liking for Gnomette cleavage).
2. She looks like she’s a Rogue… now tell me, would you trust a Rogue with your RL money?

Killing time and Achievements, one fish at a time

We had lost all of our tanks, so while I waited till an interested tank rolled up, I got in a spot of fishing…

1,000 fish caught since Achievements came into being…

I seriously need to get a life…

One serve of Ahune to take away please

Our Tankadin came back online, so I was going to get a crack at that Scorchling, “one” more time.

Zupa even came and joined us…

Zupa even got an upgrade… you wouldn’t believe what it was…

Yep, one of those 3g Vendor Cloaks… well at least someone found a use for them!

Unfortunately there were no Scorchlings about… another year goes by without a sighting by Gnomeaggedon.

Consolation Prize

I did pickup something to turn Krizzlybear’s heart to Ice.

It was kind of by accident… you see as our resident Disenchanting Enchanter, I just roll Greed on everything in 5 mans.  It’s just what I have been doing for ages… it’s what my mates want me to do… So I do.

Unfortunately for Mr. Offspec, he threw up a message in /party chat asking only people that WANTED it roll for it.  Why he didn’t SPEAK up sooner I will never know… what’s the point of being on Vent if you can’t get urgent messages out.

Anyway, end result was I won the roll… he was very disappointed

I however, had a consolation prize…

Now I just need to find some bag space.

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/07/10/gnome-weekend-that-was-bwl/