The Farstrider Scout

Did I make a wrong turn somewhere on my way back from Florida?  I feel like I’ve been playing Alliance when it comes to battlegrounds on my druid lately.  Horde is making all the mistakes that Alliance normally would, and as a result, only luck has gotten us the occasional win.  I haven’t taken Arvelen to any BG’s at all, and my paladin seems to only have half luck – 2 AV wins back to back, but only after joining an AB where Horde started with 2, Alliance with 9, which slowly grew to a 6 on 15 fight.

I haven’t felt like playing Arv much at all lately, save to go to Gnomeregon once in a half-hearted attempt to obtain some [Petrospill Leggings] for Drekoran, and to go to Stratholme.  My attempts to solo there were quickly squashed, even with me dual boxing with the paladin.  I was able to solo up to Cannon Master Willy with 4-5 deaths, but there it ended.  Stratholme is vastly different from all the other old world instances that I’ve been through as of yet.  The undead come in so great numbers that it’s impossible to sneak by them, or run through them and feign death.  I eventually ended up doing a full clear of the area that I was travelling through, with some quick trapping.  Wyvern sting was worthless as well, at least until I got to the area filled with Scarlet Crusade, which became a whole different juggling act.

Needless to say, I won’t be trying for Scholomance either, even if I was able to put a key together.

It’s been a few days since I wrote anything, no thanks in part to my work schedule.  We went to 12 hour shifts for all of one whole day, but then I get told I’m going to day shift next week, resulting in another 24+ hours awake spree.  Ugh.  The upside to it was that I essentially got Friday off, since I got off of work at 8 am and stayed up until midnight with about an hour and a half nap to tide me over.

On to the main part of the post!  I finally finished BRD…  Solo, of course, and I cheated a bit.  I’ve already gotten as far as The Seven, and attune with Molten Core.  I ended up wiping when I tried to gather the torches and open the last doors that time, so I called it.

When I first started out to finish it yesterday, I figured “Hey, I’ll just talk to the guy to take me down to the Core, then pop out the exit and find myself in BRD where I left off!”  Yeah, not so much.  First, you have to be in a raid group to enter.  A quick invite to a guild member, switched the party to raid, and popped through.  Turned around, hit the exit and…  We’re back where we started.  No dice.  So, a quick thanks to the guild member for trying, and we head in the slow way.

Now, the nice thing about having gone so far before is that I already have everything I need to speed things through – a [Shadowforge Key], and “The Love Potion” quest completed.  So, I quickly run through, past the Grim Guzzler to Ambassador Flamelash, who is quickly killed… And this is where things change.  Normally, you would have to go through and fight The Seven, which is by far the hardest fight in the instance, at least while solo.  Then the doors would open and you could continue on.  There is, however, a large pool of lava between Flamelash’s platform and the Black Forge, with a small, fire elemental filled island.  So, if you have enough health and/or fire resist, you can just hop off and swim over to the Forge, which is behind the door that opens after the Seven.  And that’s exactly what I did.

The rest, as we say, is history.  The last bosses, Magmus and Emperor Thaurissan were absolute pushovers compared to the fight with the Seven, and within a few minutes, I had myself a new throne.

Apparently I spend too much time playing WoW…  This can be evidenced by the fact that I’m having trouble keeping up with this blog, among other things.  And its odd too, because I’m both enjoying the game, and not enjoying it at the same time.  I’ve also got a billion things to write, one of which is another short story, so that’s going to come next – meaning this will be short.

Getting groups together over the past 2 weeks or so has been like pulling teeth.  I think people are starting to get tired of the same old, same old, and are ready for new content… Content which consequently won’t be out for another two months at the very least.  The guild has managed to get a few instance runs going though, and last night I thought I had lucked out:  I got a group to Kara.

Needless to say, as a PUG, we didn’t get past Moroes.  By the time we had wiped four or five times, the trash mobs had started respawning, the main tank was falling asleep, and so we decided to call it quits.  I came out a few gold richer though, thanks to a quest turn in, and all the money that dropped from the trash mobs that we killed….  And I learned an important lesson: Going to Kara with a PUG is rough.

I got so wrapped up over the past two days that I just didn’t have the time to post here, so I’ve got a bunch to unload before I forget it all…

First order of business:  Congrats to BRK on your one millionth site hit!  It’s kind of amazing to me to see someone’s personal site get the kind of traffic you do.

One thing I spotted when it was announced that the big number was approachingwas “Eustacius” commented on one of the possible rewards – a “BRK approved hunter license” – listing out some of the possible requirements (If you scroll about 1/4 way down the comments, you’ll find his post).  This sounds pretty cool, though a few of his requirements aren’t very viable for those that play Horde side.  I mean, I could probably kite something through Refuge Point, but it would be a lot more difficult than if I were Alliance…

In any case, given that list, I’m starting to develop some of my own little goals, some which might be more fitting of the license (I’ll leave that decision up to BRK though).  Here they are:

1. Kite any mob, crisscross, through Halaa, provided your faction holds the town (Completed last night)
2. Kite any mob, figure 8 style, through Halaa, provided your faction holds the town
3. Kite Banthaar, crisscross, through Halaa, provided your faction holds the town (Would have completed this if Alliance hadn’t captured it), keeping in mind that Banthaar is immune to slowing/snaring effects.
4. Kite Banthaar, figure 8 style, through Halaa
5. Chain trap 1 mob, crisscross, through Halaa
6. Double chain trap 2 mobs, crisscross, through Halaa

Keep in mind, this is just a beginning, and only the more hunter-related goals…  I have a few others (Finish soloing BRD, solo through Dire Maul, kill every named dragon as possible (to include Ony)) that while somewhat unrealistic, they give me something to work towards.

Next up:  The respec.  I ended up losing about 30 paper-doll DPS after the respec, which is 20 more than I expected.  I’ve also realized that my agility, sitting at around 477, is pretty low to be getting used in this spec, and I need to bring it up so that my Expose Weakness effect at least gives as much of an attack power benefit as Trueshot Aura did.  Right now I think I’m sitting at about 119/125, so probably if I bring it up above 500, I’ll be fine.

Downed Murmur for the first time last night, but no spear.  I need to pay more attention to the emotes and animations though, as Vree bit the big one on the second Sonic Boom or whatever it was, and I failed to notice that I had gotten the debuff and got lobbed.  Fortunately I was prepared with the parachute cloak and didn’t take any falling damage.  A quick tip:  Mark your range limit with smoke flares, that way you can run right back to your max range after the debuff ticks off.

And lastly, I profusely apologize to the mage that I killed in Halaa last night through falling damage…  I completely forgot that Arcane Shot dispelled beneficiary effects, to include Slow Fall.

It was rather amusing to watch you plummet to the bottom of the basin though!

How early is too early to wipe in an instance with a pickup group?

Scenario 1:  You’re in Steamvaults.  You wipe on the first 4 pack, the first elemental patrol, the 4 pack around the corner from the pair of Bog Lords on your right as you enter the instance, and on the patrol leading up to the first boss.  Everyone toughs it out, pushes through, and finishes the instance.

Scenario 2:  You’re in Steamvaults.  There’s some slight inital confusion as to which direction the group is taking, but it eventually sorts out.  Two pulls before the first boss, someone backs into the patrol leading up to the next area, and the group wipes.  The healer and a DPS immediately leave, forcing you to find replacements.

Scenario 3:  You’re in Black Morass.  Everything runs smoothly once the script is started, with adds being taken down before they get to Medivh, and portals being closed quickly.  The first boss fight goes well, and you move on.  Six portals later, and you’re facing off against Temporus.  No one realizes until it’s too late that Temporus eats beacon dragons for lunch, and the group wipes.  The tank and healer bail, and the group folds.

Scenario 4: You’re in Black Morass.  The healer bites it hard on the first boss, but you pull through and down him anyway.  Then one of your DPS group members discovers they forgot to pick up a beacon, and goes to get one (though we now know that you can’t, once the script is started).  In the process, they run the wrong way, aggro half of what’s left of the wildlife in the swamp, and are forced to run out of the instance with less than 300 health.  In the meantime, portals are opening, and your team is short one DPS.  They eventually arrive, and you plow through, downing the remaining bosses and completing the script.

Now, in each of these scenarios, I have described it more or less how I remember it playing out.  In each of the scenarios where the group performed extremely poorly, no one left…  But all it took was one wipe to cause people to leave in other cases. 

I can understand being booted from a group, or even /gkick’d if performing poorly or making too many mistakes in a hardcore raiding guild.  I can also understand a lot more tolerance for such things in non-hardcore guilds.  But PUG’s are a totally different animal.  So how early is too early for a wipe?  How much “benefit of the doubt” should you give a pickup group before dumping them, or booting the “problem child” if there is one?

I’m gonna keep this short, because my head is about to explode, but things could have gone about a billion times better today.  Starting with being moved to the day shift for a “training” (read: maintenance, no training involved) day, which screwed up my sleeping schedule, it just went down hill from there.  Going to have to stay up for another 24+ hours to reset my sleeping…

Got home, internet goes down for 3+ hours, and has been sketchy ever since.  I’m really not liking Mediacom right now, as it’s been like this for the past 3 weeks or so.

Got a group for Steamvaults…  And misdirected a patrol of water elementals on the priest instead of the tank.  We managed to survive, but I wasn’t pleased with myself.  On a good note, the [Beast Lord Mantle] dropped, so I now have a 26 second cooldown on my traps.

Got a group for Black Morass…  Forgot to get a beacon, so when we downed the first boss, I asked if I could go pick one up.  They said sure, even though you apparently can’t once the script is started.  I got turned around, went the wrong way, aggro’d half the map.  Vree bit it right off, and I made it out of the instance with 30 health left… And portals had already started popping up.  Combat rezzed Vree and moved on.  Clockwork the rest of the time, but when we were done, I bailed.  I’m surprised I didn’t get booted for what I did.  /shrug

Here’s hoping that tomorrow is better.

I had another post all thought up for today, but after what happened this evening, I’m throwing that out and MAYBE saving it for another day.  Anyhow…

I may have stated this before, but this has got to end.  I have been having too much luck, and eventually karma is going to come around and bite me in the ass.

Probably not even an hour after logging on, I was in a Black Morass group.  It took a little wrangling, as the healing paladin and rogue had to leave before we even got started, but we were quickly able to change it up with the current tank, a warrior, now doing DPS, a new prot. pally tanking, and a priest for healing.  It was a first time thing for me again, but the people I went with were pretty experienced, it seemed.  We cleared out a sizable area, but the warrior accidentally tripped the event while dragging a large pack of crocks and spiders over to the main group, so we just let Medievh die.  We finished clearing and were still waiting for him to reset, so the warlock and the warrior went AFK.  A short time later, everything is reset, the warrior comes back, and the warlock summons a healthstone shindig (can’t remember what it’s called).  The warrior asks if everyone is ready, and everyone except the paladin and the warlock say that they are.  Mistake #1.  We start the event anyway, and the paladin moves up to the first portal to tank…  And the warlock doesn’t move.  2 portals later, the warlock goes “AFK quick…”

…  What?!

Needless to say, we continue to 4 man the portals, slowly getting overwhelmed.  The warrior eats dirt, and we decide to withdraw.  <sigh>  Medievh resets, we start again, this time doing well now that the warlock is actually with us.  The first boss goes down, and [Melmorta's Twilight Longbow] drops!  Woot!  We ask to need, and roll on it – even though it’s got slightly less DPS, it’s got a higher end damage, and +stamina which will help in PvP.  New bow in hand, we rest up briefly and move on to the next set of portals, eventually coming face to face with Temporus.  The paladin says he’s using his beacon, and a bronze dragon appears… and immediately dissapears.  Shortly thereafter, everyone except for me is dead.  (Yay for FD.)  The priest is soulstoned though, so we get everyone back up, and the warrior, paladin, and warlock decide to call it quits.  /shrug, oh well, no great loss, I pretty much got what I wanted from Black Morass.  I’ll have to go back later for my Kara key quest, but hey, I’ll be better geared, plus I’ll probably, hopefully, be running with people I know and can trust.  Either way, the day is starting off really good.

So, I take my new bow, scratch up the materials for a new scope, even though I just made one (finally) yesterday for the Valanos, and it’s off to Dr. Boom!  I wanted to see how much of a difference the new bow actually made.  Just for shits and giggles, I throw myself in the queue again for Shattered Halls and Steamvaults, plus the 5-man portion of the inital Netherwing quests, and start plinking away.  200 arrows later, we have our results – Valanos had some higher peaks, but Twilight was much more steady, and match the average peaks that the Valanos put out.

I’m sifting through the Recount results from our testing when I get a tell – interested in a Steamvaults group!  Hell yes!  We get in the group, and it’s a mage, priest, warrior, druid, and myself.  The priest/mage is apparently two-boxing, and wants to swap out so that he only has to do one job, so we pull in Sheru, a rogue friend of our that does some good work.  Things go smooth as can be for the first third.  Naga just dropped into my traps like ants into honey.  A few traps broke early, but Vree managed to offtank long enough for me to get my mob under control, or get to range and burn it down.  (Is it me, or are naga extremely squishy?)

The second portion started getting a little hairy – Sheru got spotted repeatedly while trying to sap and eats dirt (sorry Sheru, couldn’t resist. ), but we were able to hold things together with the druid doing some amazing off-tanking/off-healing and dps, seemingly all at once, and me trapping, scattershotting, and shutting casters down with silencing shot/arcane torrent.  POW! second boss is dead, dropping the [Recoilless Rocket Rifle X-54], which is promptly sharded.  /cry, no rocket boots schematic for us.

We move on, only to wipe on Kalithresh.  Probably mostly my fault, as he had started going for the priest, so I misdirected on the tank, fired a distracting shot, and began the pull for an aimed shot.  Mistake #2.  Big time.  At that exact moment, one of the naga tanks is triggered, and it was too late by the time I switched targets.  The damage had been done, the tank was dead, and the druid was now trying to tank it out, but we just couldn’t hold.

So, we run back, pick up the pieces, and start all over again.  Things go like clockwork this time, and we down him with only three tanks used.  New record for me – the last time it took 4.  The tank loots, and lo and behold: [Beast Lord Leggings]!  Holy crap!  Needed it, got it.

Now what was I saying about Karma?  2 upgrades in one day?

It’s got to end sometime people.

After running Shattered Halls twice in as many days, I’ve learned a lot – and I’ve discovered that I have a lot to learn.

Yesterday’s run went relatively smoothly, even with a swapout of people right before the first boss, the tank’s keyboard batteries slowly dying, and one wipe on Bladefist.  We were lead by an experienced paladin, and I thought that I had absorbed everything that she told us about the instance.  The only wipe was caused partly due to the fact that I was unable to burn down the adds as I had been assigned, and we got overwhelmed.  After reassigning the warlock to that duty, we took him down rather quickly.

Today’s run, while put together by our healer, was led by yours truly, and boy, were things different. 

First off, I learned that there are some areas that paladins can tank better than warriors…  But it takes a good healer/tank combination to pull it off depending on what it is.  My hat is off to Kaido, our healer, and Maydea, our tank (Forgive me if I misspelled your names, the Armory isn’t available at the moment).  We managed to go through the entire instance with any real need for crowd control. 

Second, and this is a theory, not actual tested-by-myself fact, but I think that I would have been better off trapping if I had pulled my designated target first, and then misdirecting on the tank, as opposed to misdirecting on the tank and trying to peel my target out of the Consecration field.  It just didn’t want to happen.

I have a lot to learn about marking packs, and explaining directions.  The only other players who had been through the instance before had been the rogue, one time, over a month ago, and the warlock, who had been there before, but stated that she had marked for a heroic yesterday, and didn’t want to do it. 

So I volunteered myself, and started marking.  I quickly gave that up for 2 reasons – A) the tank was pretty much able to take on 7 elites at once, and B)  trying to pull a mob out of the consecration field to trap was an exercise in frustration for me, and something only the warlock could perform… At which point, trapping it was useless.  I was more likely to DPS down my target than it coming out.

First boss is downed successfully, with no hitches, and we move on to the Gauntlet of Fire.  For those that don’t know, this consists of a long hallway with 4 packs of non-elites spaced every so often, 4 packs of non-elites that come charging down the hallway at you.  To mix this up, at the end there is a melee elite and two elite archers that lob explosive, burning arrows at you as you make your way up the hallway.  You can’t stop to rest, because there’s no where to hide from the arrows which will eventually fill the hallway with fire.  So I explain that we have to keep moving, and not stop.  The healer accidentally triggers the event, so we head into the fray…  And the entire group just charges down the hallway, ignoring everything trying to get to the end, leaving me standing there wondering what just happened.  Total. Wipe.  Looking back on it, it’s somewhat hilarious, but we managed to get past it after I re-explained (a bit clearer this time) what had to be done.

Finally we get to the Warchief, and I halt everyone at the base of the stairs after killing the two guards to explain how the fight goes.  Midway through the explanation, we get jumped by an assassin.  No matter, burn it down, finish the explanation, and charge.  I’m slightly behind everyone else, and before I even get to the stairs, I’m jumped by a pair of assassins.  “Everyone needs to be on the platform at the same time” states the warlock.  So that’s why the paladin had us stay on the stairs when she briefed us yesterday…

After a near total wipe, we recover, start over, and things go smooth as can be.  The warchief goes down about 30 seconds after Vree dies, leaving me to handle the adds on my own.  I managed, but it took me twice as long since I had to trap each one as it gets to melee range, back off, and unload on it again.  I was starting to get swamped, and there was an add beating on the healer by the time the fight ended.

All of that left me hoping to get more groups that will let me mark and pull, as I clearly need more practice.  And I still haven’t had any Beast Lord gear drop for me!  ARRGH!

The word looks odd when you write it more than one time, but that’s why this post is so late.  Started off this morning with nothing to say, decided I’d have something later on…  And so I put it off, and ended up getting so wrapped up in the game that I forgot about posting until it was time for bed.

The morning started off rather slow, with just a few BG’s – EotS for the daily, and a few AV matches with 1 win, 2 losses.  The last match had over 8 people sitting AFK in the cave!  Got fed up with that, so I moved on to other things.

Went up to Netherstorm to have a whack at “You, Robot“, and, as I was essentially petless, Negatron stomped us soundly.  Apparently when it says 3 are recommended, you probably need 3 to do it.  So I put myself up as looking for a group to do that, and threw in Steam Vaults and Shattered Halls for good measure.

The Steamvaults invite came first, so we went, failing to get anything we really wanted aside from the second Kara key fragment.  I’ll be going again, I’m sure… and again, and again, and again.

By that time, several guild mates were on, so I enlisted their help in downing Negatron after bringing them up to speed so we could all do the quest.  It was a close fight, but Negatron was toppled, and the three of us walked away, victorius, wearing our [X-52 Rocket Helmet], and I now have a macro to be paired with my flying machine:

/s Engine failure!
/panic
/s We’re going down!
/s EJECT!  EJECT! EJECT!
/em pulls the ejection handles.
/dismount
/use X-52 Rocket Helmet

Trust me, the results are spectacular.

Level 70, baby!  Awwww, yeah! /flex

Went on a Shadow Labyrinth run for the first time with some friends, mostly to get the first key fragment for Kara, but also in the hopes of downing Murmur.  It was rough getting to him, with 3 wipes before Blackheart the Inciter.  2 of them I managed to feign death and survive, but only barely, and of course my [Goblin Jumper Cables XL] were on cool down, since the healer had died right after the first wipe, so no soulstone was available.

All in all it was a good run though, despite the lack of worthwhile gear dropping.  The tank though, passed up everything, despite his growing repair bill.  I got lucky, with only 5 gold on repairs…  But that was somewhat offset by the stack of pet food I had gone through, not to mention the 3200 some arrows I went through… Yes, that’s right, 3200 arrows.  I drained the top two rows of my quiver twice, restocking midway through the instance with my arrow makers (That bow I have is a killer on arrows).  Those things are the greatest thing since sliced bread for a hunter.

That didn’t quite get me to 70 though, but 2 quests in Shadowmoon Valley, and 900 gold later, I was winging my way over Nagrand to help fight at Halaa.