Zombies everywhere!

 Posted by at 11:38  No Responses »
Oct 042010
 

For as much as I enjoy playing WoW, I enjoy it on a whole different level when I’m playing with Cody. We spent the bulk of our time this weekend grinding out the rep outlined in the last post. We’re still working on both Netherwing and Cenarion Expedition, but the end is within sight on both of those. The only roadblock now1 is money, and that will come soon enough.

We had another smooth Sartharion run for the weekly last night. Having done the raid once before, my confidence in tackling it this time was substantially higher and I dove in fearlessly. Even when we prematurely pulled a pat2, I had no worries about picking them up and holding them while DPS burned them down. Even when we prematurely pulled one of the sub-bosses while fighting a pat, I wasn’t worried; just reacted. Definitely more comfortable in my role than I was a few weeks ago.

We also managed to convince some of our guildmates to stick around and do some achievement-oriented runs with us in both the Oculus and Culling of Stratholme. Cody and I finished our Ruby and Emerald Void achievements, having already obtained our Amber Void one. That leaves me to get Experienced Drake Rider, and then I can consider myself done with Oculus. Culling of Stratholme presented us with an opportunity to try and get Zombiefest…which we did! The strategy is a little weird, but in order to kill the requisite number of zombies, you need to kite3 the second boss into a building, allowing any killed zombies time to respawn. Once you kill that boss, they stop respawning in the front section. Once you down the boss, you proceed through the building until you’re out the other side. Now the fun begins. You go back to the first area and kite all of the zombies—around 85—all the way back through the town, through the building, and to the other side where there are more zombies. Then you AOE4 the crap out of them until they drop. 100 zombies in one minute.

Part of the urgency for doing these dungeon achievements is getting Glory of the Hero, which rewards the Red Proto-Drake. Scuttlebutt and rumor suggests that this reward, if not the achievement, will go away when the next patch drops. We were worried that the patch might drop tomorrow5, but it seems that the patch won’t hit until next week, giving us a little breathing room. It’d be very sad to miss out on such a cool-looking mount.

Speaking of patches, Cataclysm‘s release date has been set: December 7th, Azeroth changes.

  1. For me, anyway. Cody is an auction house maven and is absolutely rolling in it. [↩]
  2. Short for “patrol,” which refers to some mobs that are wandering around on a preset path. [↩]
  3. Kiting refers to pulling aggro on a target, and then leading it to another location [↩]
  4. Area-of-effect; an attack that does damage in a radius rather than just to a single target [↩]
  5. Blizzard always patches on Tuesday [↩]

Tanking

 Posted by at 12:00  No Responses »
Sep 192010
 

Somewhere in the last week or so, my tanking confidence increased considerably. Some of that comes from suddenly going from 4-4.4k GS to breaking 5k. Some of it comes from a few small UI tweaks. Some of it comes from experience. Some of it comes from just manning up and doing it more. But there was a fundamental change at one point where I went from being self-conscious for the duration of a dungeon run, to being completely unconcerned about grouping with douchebag players. At some point, I decided that if anyone was being bothersome, they’d just go on /ignore and that’d be it. If they dropped group, oh well, DPS are a dime a dozen1. If the healer dropped, meh, we’ll get another. Armed with my newfound lack of regard for jerk-ass players, tanking became way more comfortable.

Then Steve suggested I be the main tank for the weekly raid boss, Sartharion. Eek. I had tanked dungeon bosses, sure, but I knew most of those fights through-and-through from having run the dungeons so many times with Deowyn. Even then, there were surprises in store for me as a tank that I never bothered to worry about when DPSing. And now, I was being asked to group with not 4 others but 9 others and successfully lead them through much tougher content that I was far less familiar with.

I did it, though. And what’s more, we didn’t suffer a single death. And what’s more than that, our off-tank was originally DPS and switched to tanking when we couldn’t find another one. I don’t think he was even adequately geared for tanking2. So, y’know, yay for successfully tanking my first raid.

Then on Thursday, just after Wintegrasp, Steve and Cody again urge me to try tanking a raid. This time, it wouldn’t be some chintzy Tier-7 raid boss. No, this time it’d be a full Tier-10 boss: Toravon. I would again be one of two tanks, this time taking the role of off-tank while a better-geared Paladin main-tanked. Once again, we breezed through with no deaths. Granted, the 10-man VoA is much easier than the 25-man version, but all the same. Two raids, two successful runs.

Confidence: boosted.

  1. Though good DPS, mind you, are decidedly not, and I’m always grateful when good DPS are around! [↩]
  2. Which is to say, I suspect he was not raid defense capped [↩]

Flying discs, drugs, dragons, and laying out

 Posted by at 13:18  No Responses »
Apr 222010
 

It seems that the heavy breathing that accompanied playing frisbee1 on Tuesday over-exposed me to allergens to a sufficient degree that I had a sinusitis flare-up. Normally, once my allergies have come and gone, they stay gone. With all of the wonky weather, and the resultant effects on pollen distribution, I guess it’s not all that surprising. Fortunately, Claritin and Sudafed2 appear to be working their biochemical wonders adequately enough to keep me largely human.

Had a very smooth Sartharion run last night for the weekly raid. Five guildies and five pugs. No one died, and our resident tank and the pugged tank both rolled 100 on one of the items that dropped3. I’m getting close to happy with Deowyn’s UI, but I still feel like I have a long way to go before I have an adequate tanking UI for Jakosta. It doesn’t help that Jakosta doesn’t really do any tanking yet, and so I’m not just creating a UI that makes sense for leveling, but also one that makes sense for tanking in the future. This might be foolhardy, but the last thing I want to do is try to learn to tank while also learning my way around a retooled UI. So far, this is the best tank UI I’ve seen. It’s too cluttered for my taste, but it has a lot of elements that I do like. It’s also widescreen, which means even a direct adaptation would take some juggling.

I’ve spent more time fiddling with Jakosta’s UI lately than I have actually playing her. Maybe I’ll get a chance tonight.

  1. There’s a large contingent of 38 employees that utilize their lunch breaks for playing Ultimate Frisbee. I have been an infrequent participant thus far due to my damn allergies hitting more or less right when I joined the company and the weather got nice. [↩]
  2. Real Sudafed, not that placebo Sudafed PE crap. If it doesn’t have Pseudoephedrine HCl in it, don’t buy it; it doesn’t work. [↩]
  3. Our tank then won the roll-off by 2, so yay for her! [↩]