purple poxic rashomon: Wara's view

The recaps of the Purple Poxers Premiere are coming fast and furious, so I'd better get my account out there before it becomes completely redundant. Not that that would actually stop me, of course...

7:00 comes and I log on, having been home for perhaps half and hour and having wolfed down dinner. The other purples are on already and we congregate at the Orgrimmar bank, dancing and cheering that we're actually all online at the same time. A few tweaks and button-presses later, I hear new voices in my ears! It's Madja! And Daxe Fifth Avenue! And after a little more fumbling, they can hear me, too! Woot! I have an historic aversion to voice-activated mics (they seem to clip off the first syllable, but I haven't used one in years), so I used the push-to-talk feature. Most of the time I remembered to hit the button when I had something to say. :-D After a few minutes of mindless chatter and idling, Daxe took over leadership duties and moved us out. Here we are, running south of Org to kill some sailors. I haven't figured out how to take a picture of the front of us all when running...my camera rotates back, so most of my shots of us are from the rear. A setting somewhere, I suspect...

We were so unbelievably OP for this region it wasn't even funny. No, it actually was funny. Admittedly these guys were lower than our level, so any of us could have soloed the area, but they dropped like...huh. I don't know a good dropped like simile. They hit the ground like a prom dress? Close enough. I, in fact, could hardly even get my first DOT cast before they were dead. I need to change that macro, so that I cast Curse of Agony and Corruption first, so I can at least do a little damage. Immolate just takes too much time.

We breezed through the sailors, then wreaked havoc on the Razormanes, killing them so efficiently I couldn't keep count. We turned those quests in, then started the long run to Thunder Bluff so Madja could get her bear form. RAWR!

Of course, the run to TB took us through the Barrens, and we couldn't help but test our skills on some higher-level mobs. Level 12 raptors? Toast. Level 16 hyenas? No problem. Well, except for Daxe dying when a centaur and his two pets came up at the same time, and none of us noticed until it was too late. *sigh* Poor Daxe. A short corpse run later we were back on our way. We safely made it through Mulgore (which still feels like home, despite my playing an Orc now) and to TB. Much milling around ensued while Madja spirited off to commune with the Great Bear Spirit, or whatever. When she was done playing in the woods, we flew back to Camp T to finish her quest, and we had to kill a Moonkin! A Moonkin! I had forgotten! How horrible is that? I almost couldn't do it, but then realized that I was a lock now and should be unaffected by petty emotions. Burn, baby, burn!

After nomming on some fried chicken, guess what we saw. A level ?? (to me, at least) thunder lizard Thunderhead. Dare we? Of course we dare! And down went dino! I was actually a little surprised that we could do it -- most of my spells were resisted -- but we managed to bring it down. Madja wasn't even a high enough level skinner to take its hide as a trophy. How tragic is that?

A brief flight back to TB and Madja had her bear butt. No comments from me on the size. Dance, bear, dance!

Once these serious matters were attended to, we were back to Orgrimmar to start the RFC quest chains. Collecting all of those [Lieutenant's Insignia] took a good three or four clears of the Burning Blade's cave. While we were there we grabbed the tablet I needed to get my voidwalker and eventually collected all of the badges we needed. Gazz'uz took a pretty bad beating, too. We must have killed him five times while we were rampaging through the caves. Insignia in hand, we were back to Thrall to turn them in. His Magnificence humored us while we took a few group pictures with him. That Thrall...he's some Orc.

By this time, it was getting late. Due to RL schedules, we only had about a half hour of play time left, so we decided to try a few pulls in RFC. We went slowly -- well, that's not really true. We were just careful and methodical -- and burned down a mess of troggs. By the time the evening ended we had collected enough dead troggs to finish one of the instance quests and were skilled enough to handle three of them at a time. Not bad for a bunch of level 11 and 12s, eh? Harisan did a nice job for her first ever tanking experience. No, that sounds like a backhanded compliment. She really did well. We used my voidwalker to tank a second mob when we were dealing with three at a time which worked pretty well. Tank one, voidwalker one, and sheep the third. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

As we exited, the second group was getting ready to start their run, and there was an impromptu Pox Arcanum party down in the Clef of Shadows.

Overall, it was a hell of a fun night. The plan for next week is to get Harisan's class quest done with so she can taunt, then decimate RFC. This is going to be an interesting experiment. I think we're all going to get very tired of the quests where we each have to grab one of an item -- like the early Hidden Enemies quest -- but we're going to mow down the kill-10-of-these-guys quests. Maybe we'll just do a lot of those quests and run instances. Sounds like a good time to me!

Quote of the night: "Hey, Ess. Did I enchant your chest yet?" - Daxe

not forgotten!

I really haven't forgotten about Waradwen in all of this Pox Arcanum madness. Really. I haven't played him a lot because of some Guild Drama that has essentially made it Not Very Fun to be online lately.

There has been a lot of turnover among the Slackers lately. As both the Kalimdor Slackers and Slack Attack we've tried to strike a balance between being a more casual, family guild and a guild that does some raiding. We're not in Black Temple, of course, but we're in Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. According to WowJutsu we're #17 on Arathor (#6 Horde-side). Not bad, I don't think, especially for a family guild.

Lately we've taken a turn towards being more raid-focused. It's not that we're demanding people raid nightly to stay in the guild, but it seems like there's a large fraction of the guild who is just there for raiding. Guild chat is often silent, other than people looking for specific gems to be cut or for enchants for their gear. We've also had a more than a few people come in lately, gear up through Kara and our routine one-shots of Gruul, then jump for a more hardcore raiding guild, which really bums everybody out. I've complained about this change in attitude a bit on our guild forums but it doesn't seem to be changing. Progression is the order of the day. Having fun in other ways is less important.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I've been a Slacker since I started playing WoW (not a huge amount of time, I realize, but still significant) and don't really want to leave, but at the same time I'm not sure I like where the guild is going. We've lost a bunch of people lately, especially from the more family-oriented members. It's just...it's just not as much fun now as it was six months ago, and what's the point of that? Avoiding the problem isn't a good long-term solution. Pox Arcanum is significantly more fun, so I'm spending more time on that project but poor Wara is getting neglected, which totally sucks.

Any advice, readers? The options that I see at this point are: (a) stay in SA and try to get into the raider mindset; (2) stay in SA and feel like a second-class member because I'm not working towards Progression; (iii) leave and try to find greener pastures elsewhere. I'd love to see the end-game content, but I haven't even finished a complete Kara run yet. I've been in on a Gruul kill, but I suspect that could've been 24-manned if I weren't there. Maybe I need to find a guild who is still clearing or has just recently cleared Kara and jump in there, not try to start serious raiding in TK and SSC. Hmm. I just don't know what's available. Anybody looking for a Boomkin for Kara?

poxing day

Tonight's the big night! Well, the big night, take two, I suppose. Nevertheless! Big night! Tonight the Purple Poxers descend on Anvilmar and will shake it to its very core. Tonight our run of domination begins and we will not rest until Illidan Stormrage, Lord of Outland, himself begs us for mercy.

Of course, by the time we get to Illidan, everybody else will probably have moved on to downing the Lich King. Whatever. We'll still be having more fun than all of them combined!

/sing A-Poxing we will go, a-poxing we will go...

and we're off!

The Grand Experiment officially commenced last night, although the Purple Poxers didn't get a lot of adventuring done. Sadly, Nas had internet problems and couldn't log on. Still, we were able to get our guild formed (yipee!) and our tabard designed (yahoo!) and mess around a little bit. I took a couple of screenshots that are good enough to share. I'm hoping Dax or Madja got better pictures of the group shot, as they were closer to the center and I was off on an edge.

Dancing and joking around, waiting for everybody to show up.

My best group shot.

A proud Purple Poxer (Poxette?):

antiPUG anticipation

Little Waradwenne hit level 10 earlier this morning, so she's ready for Wednesday's big night. I'm so excited. We've all been online the past few nights independently leveling and starting our professions and have been having a good time in chat. We seem to have a decent number of crafters at the moment, so I've decided just to pick up two gathering professions. The stacks of copper bars sell nicely, so I have a few gold coins jingling around in my purse, some of which will go towards our guild tabard Wednesday night. I'm following Og's great advice and trying to flip a little on the AH, too, but I've just started. It's hard to buy stuff -- even if it's relatively cheap -- when you only have a few silver to your name. :-D

I've got two pictures to share with you tonight, before I hit the sack. First, I took a nice picture of Waradwenne's first meeting with Thrall.

Second, my first group picture with a soon-to-be-antiPUG-guildie. Daxe is the tailoring specialist right now, having made an extremely helpful set of bags for our toons. I had forgotten how painful it is to run around with only 16 bag slots available! She also made me a nice [Barbaric Linen Vest], which she claims makes me look like I'm actually wearing a top, and some pants which are in the mail [Handstitched Linen Britches]. Here we are meeting in Razor Hill, flirting and laughing with each other. Very fun. Dig my plunging neckline, too. Hawt, right?

antiPuG alt

Whoops. I totally forgot to mention in my last post who I am in the Grand AntiPuG Adventure. I'll be Waradwenne (I know, recycled name, so be it), a female Orc warlock. She's hot and she's gonna kick your ass, man, so you'd best watch out...

more antiPuG goodness

Holy crap is this idea popular! About lunchtime yesterday, Ess's blog nearly ignited from the fast and furious comments pouring in. It was almost all I could do to just keep up with it all, let alone get a word in edgewise!

As of last night, we have two and a half groups of 5 who will adventure and quest together, roughly based on time zones. As of now we've got the Two and a Half Orcs (and a brother), the Game Dame, Ess and Mr. Ess, and a few other people whose blogs I'll link as soon as possible. There's a few open spots in Group Three (the Yellow Poxless), so if you get over to Ess's blog soon you might be able to weasel your way in.

We're going to play Horde on Anvilmar, a PVE server, on Wednesday nights (at least). Group One (the Green Poxed) are left-ish coasters, so they'll meet later than we Group Two Purple Poxers, but there's going to be some overlap so we can all mess around together. The plan is for us all to get to level 10 by next Wednesday, then meet in Orgrimmar to continue our festivities. Screenshots to come!

antiPUG

WOW blogger Ess has had what I think is going to be a seriously fun idea: the antiPUG. A group of five dedicated people who will start new toons and play them only together, on a regular, organized basis. Yeah, it's really a thin excuse to roll another alt, and we probably won't get to end-game content, but who cares? We're going to seriously pwn until we get there. We'll be like a freaking steamroller, plowing through Azeroth and (hopefully!) Outland. W00t. And actually, I don't see why we won't be able to do end-game instances and heroics if we plan our class balance decently now.

So what do we need? I'm thinking a druid tank (but maybe I'm biased), a priest healer, a mage for hella-AOE action and sheeping, a lock for serious DPS (and some cc), and...something else. Another druid could bring kitty DPS, backup bear tanking and caster off heals. That's just my bias, though. Maybe we should have a pally or warrior tank instead of the druid and have the fifth person as a druid. Decisions, decisions.

more screenshot goodness

It's Lunar Festival! The time when all of the world gets invited to celebrate in Moonglade. Where they all spend their time PVPing. Bastards.

My current wartime gear, for comparison. I really feel like a doofus in that hat.

While waiting to finish the Gorefiend quests in SMV the other day, I caught this nice picture of myself on top of a mountain. I almost want to wear those [Spectrecles] around town all the time.

Near the end of the Gorefiend's Armor quest, the dragon thought he'd like some beef ribs. Sadly, the ones he wanted were mine...

If you look closely, you can see my foot sticking out underneath his right eye.

Other than those, nothing terribly exciting to report. Do you guys like seeing these pictures? I take them for myself, but thought y'all might like to share. If not, I'll quit wasting your bandwith.

I'm planning to go raiding tonight. I think we're going to go hit up Loot Reaver again. I'm still moderately undergeared, of course, but I think that I can do a little damage. Better to have my peashooter in the fight than a 24-man raid, right?

group quests in SMV

I finished a couple of long quest lines in Shadowmoon Valley last night which makes me quite pleased. I couldn't find a group in the guild to run any instances (hypothetical raid starting in half an hour from when I logged on, despite nothing being scheduled) so I decided to go do the quests that would get me neutral with Netherwing. I zipped through the quest line -- only the crystal collection was frustrating, because I had a hard time finding the doogies that drop the crystals -- and found myself ready to face Zuluhed the Whacked. I polled the guild and found a couple people to help: a resto druid, a level 68 lock, and a 70+ balance druid who was working on his Netherwing rep, so he couldn't actually target Zuluhed. Okay, so we had megaheals, but were a little light on DPS. We were about to bag it for the night when a 70 rogue chimed in on the general chat, looking for people to drop Zuluhed. Hurray! I ended up essentially tanking Zuluhed (Panzerkin ftw) and the rogue and I burned him down pretty quickly. Not quite quickly enough to avoid the first summonned add, but almost. We freed the dragon and I picked up the [Netherwing Spiritualist's Charm], a nice healing off-hand do-jobbie.

We then went on to finish the Cipher of Damnation quest line, which makes me extra happy. The rogue and I needed to down Ruul the Darkener, then we all went to face the ginormous fire elemental. I had seen Gruul and some larger-than-life characters before, but he was still freaky. Our balance druid swapped for his warrior who needed the quest, so he tanked and the rest of us brought the pain. We had an overzealous pally join us, letting the resto druid heal from the outside (he wasn't nearly ready with the quest line). The pally kept trying to steal aggro from our warrior (the warrior had to actually warn him to slow down at one point!), but otherwise the fight went pretty easily. I kept myself happily at about 85 to 95% of the tank's threat, basically using my "boss" spell rotation (Insect Swarm, Starfire, Starfire, Starfire, repeat) and had no mana trouble at all. I chose [Oronok's Ancient Scepter] as my reward, but it's not an upgrade. I'm a bit of a softie (if you hadn't noticed) and liked the reminder of Torn-Heart in its tooltip. Into the bank until I need the cash or bankspace or learn to disenchant.

In all, it was a fun night. I don't think I'll have much trouble finding groups for the heroics and pretty soon I'll have my Champion of the Naaru title! Well, assuming we can down Magtheridon, that is...

down with Gruul

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I got to go on my first 25-man raid Friday night, when I went with the guild to rout Gruul from his lair. We've had Gruul on farm for a while now (the guild had recently killed Gruul for the first time when I started playing, eight-ish months ago) so I figured most of the other people would be well- or over-geared and I could do some damage with my suboptimal gear. I was right and it was a freaking blast. Fortunately for me, I had read up on the overall strategy for the raid so I wasn't completely lost and could basically play follow the leader. "There's someone doing my same job. What are they doing? Right, that guy comes third of Maulgar's council. No problem." :-D

Here we are at the entrance, getting organized and buffed for the first pull.

Same time frame, with my character info open, so you can the effects of the buffs. Over 10K mana and health! Also, you can see me contributing to the taunting of the first pull, by mooing at him. Moo!

Trash mobs down, we pressed into High King Maulgar's chamber. While moving to my starting position, I caught this view of the King and his council. Little did they know they were all about to die...

And the aftermath:

HKM dropped [Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender], but I didn't have enough KSP (our version of DKP). Maybe next time! He also dropped [Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi], but again, not enough KSP. No worries, though!

Here we are in Gruul's chamber, waiting to rain firey death on his ugly head. He's the one under the giant red arrow, if you weren't sure.

I think I did pretty well for the fight. I managed to keep myself alive until about the third cave-in that I saw, which, well, I didn't actually see until it was too late. Bastard. I kept myself well-separated from the rest for the Shatters and remembered to use Barkskin appropriately. I healed myself a little (one pot, a Regrowth) and kept an eye on the people around me, until falling when Gruul was at about 30% health.

We dropped him on the first attempt, taking less than an hour for the entire raid. Well, about an hour and a half, counting the pre-raid organization, buffing, and random waiting around. Gruul dropped two tokens for the hunter/mage/warlock legs and I decided to forego any of the other loot in hopes of getting the shoulders next Friday.

---

I spent much of the rest of my time in-game this weekend charging after gear. Saturday I got a good Mech group together and picked up the [Warp-Engineer's Prismatic Chain] and the second half of my Arcatraz key. I chose the [Sha'tari Anchorite's Cloak], which seemed to be a nice healing cloak for that set of gear. Plus I like the way it looks, so I'm wandering around in it most of the time.

Sunday I got a group together to finish the Gorefiend quests in Shadowmoon Valley and got myself the [Druidic Helmet of Second Sight]. Woo! I need to get it gemmed, then I'm ready to rock and roll with it, but...oh, man...what a goofy looking helmet. I keep giggling at myself as I run around with it on. Heh. At least the Tier 4 headgear looks like antlers. This looks like...I don't know. Giant yellow rabbit ears? Fuzzy bunny FTW!

first raid!

Tonight I ran my first 25-man raid, as Slack Attack stormed into Gruul's Lair and kicked some serious ogre ass. We one-shot both High King Maulgar (and his council) and Gruul. I survived for most of the raid, falling in a cave in with about 27% health left on Gruul. I took several screenshots that I'll share when I'm less tired. For now, however...