let it begin!

In the spirit of BRK's recent post:

Wednesday's damage report

This is the Recount data from Wednesday night's foray into Kara. Yes, it is partly to gloat about being #1 in damage done, despite being dead for the entirety of the Maiden fight, but mostly it's to highlight the #2, my friend and guildie Linada, who just hit 70 recently and was on her first Kara run. Nerf hunters, yo!

feeling competitive

rawr

As I mentioned earlier today, I seriously considered respecing to feral last night to help my guild in Kara. Before offering, though, I made a frenzied tear through my bank so see if I was even close to geared well enough, because a night as tank with no practice and no gear sounded like a fate worse than death. Tanking with no practice but with adequate gear sounded painful, but in a fun sort of way. I highly esteem druids who can play multiple roles and hope to be one of those sorts someday.

So, where to start evaluating my gear? With BBB's guide, of course! And, you know what? I'm not too horribly undergeared, probably because this has always been an idea in the back of my head. As a leatherworker, I had a Heavy Clefthoof Armor set in the bank (actually, in my backpack, if you want to be specific). Similarly, I had my [Braxxis' Staff of Slumber] and picked up the [Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve] after hitting Exalted with those dudes. Now we're getting somewhere. And take a look at the snazzy cloak that I got on a previous Kara run when nobody else had any desire for it. Quick shopping expeditions brought in a set of [Dragonhide Gloves] and [Dragonhide Spaulders], as well as a mess of gems to kit everything out. Oh! And my newest shiny, [Darkmoon Card: Madness] brings in a ton of needed health.

Phew. That was a lot of text. So what does it boil down to? 9800+ health, 398 defense rating, 95 resilience, and 17,540 armor in bear form. Not terrible...not great, but not terrible at all. This looks like a fun new avenue to wander down for a bit, doesn't it?

[Edit 8/8/08]: According to the defense rating macro listed at WoWWiki, Wara's gear is enough to make him uncritable if I respeced to feral (with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest). Rawr.

the tower? the tower! rapunzel!

Last night Wara got to return to Karazhan, for the first time in months, and it was awesome. I logged in to do some dailies and fart around for a bit, and what do I see but a Kara group forming, and they need more. Woo! I actually flirted with the idea of respecing to feral, as we were short tanks, but ultimately I got to do what I do best, stand back and blast stuff. Yeehaw.

In a way that's very amusing to me, this was my first trip to lower Kara. Curator, Prince, Nightbane? Killed 'em all. Attumen? Um...quick, to WoWWiki! Heheh. The only boss fight I haven't seen yet are the animal bosses. I don't think they have anything that I want, anyway. Plus, I've heard their grapes are sour. That's just what I've heard.

It was odd at first, being back in boomkin form for a group adventure. All of my recent play as Wara has been solo, so I haven't had to think about threat or aggro or that sort of thing, and my recent group experience has been as Waradwenne, who couldn't pull aggro to save her life. Blessing of Salvation, I needs it.

The Attumen fight was quite straight-forward, as probably most of you know. Starfire, starfire, starfire, keep up faerie fire and thorns when you remember. A few minutes later, dead horse and rider.

Moroes was more of a struggle, and it took three times to get him down. The first round was one of those ridiculously close, can't believe we didn't get him fights, where we honestly got Moroes down to 1% before wiping. I got garroted early and spent probably too much of my mana trying to help keep myself alive, so by the time Moroes was at about 30%, I was OOM and very shortly out of health. The second try was just a complete mess. Among the party guests last night was the arms warrior, and he got loose early and wreaked havoc. I don't know if he really targets the healers on purpose, but it felt that way last night. It wasn't technically a wipe, because the RL saw what was happening and told us all to run out and reset the fight before we all croaked. Smart man, that druid. The third attempt was quick and efficient. We blasted down three of the guests, then were able to keep the fourth shackled while we downed Moroes himself. Fun. And for my trouble, I got a little rubber ducky! Hurrah!

By this time it was getting late for a Wednesday (especially after all the arrangements it took to get the group going in the first place), so we all had enough energy for just one more boss, Maiden. Somewhere between Moroes and Maiden we lost our enhancement shaman, so we were going in a little light, but it felt worthwhile to try. It turns out we can down Maiden with only seven. Well, perhaps I shouldn't say we, because I was one of the corpses. As we were entering her room and positioning ourselves, somebody must have come too close because first our warlock died, then I died. Since we were *basically* set, the tanks were able to corral her and we were able to continue the fight. Our RL came up with a plan: he'd battle-rez me, then I'd battle-rez the warlock. Good plan, right? Well, it probably was, except the Maiden took exception to my coming back to life and thwacked me on the head before I could get my rez off. Bitch. Stoutly, the rest of the group forged ahead and brought her to her knees. Lots of work for two badges, eh? Although, it's not like I did a whole lot. Hmm. Free badges!

So that was my fun for last night. I need to get my raid kit back together, although I don't think I'm out of anything except for flasks. All in all, a most successful evening, and I'm that much closer to having enough badges for the [Crystalwind Leggings].

all good things

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the end of the Purple Poxers. This was an amazingly fun and interesting experiment and I want to thank the other Purples for the chance to be part of the group.

To Nas, Dax, Ess, and Mr. Ess, thank you. You'll always be Purple Poxers to me. Watch out for that hole, next time you're going to the Wailing Caverns...

brief screenshots

So much to catch up on, so sleepy and lazy. But, for my beloved readers, I offer two brief screenshots before I go to bed early tonight. First, Waradwen is now exalted with four factions (gotta get that Sha'tar rep up next!):

Second, in budding bad-assery, dig how cool Waradyne looks in his shiny new [Flying Tiger Goggles]. Sweet, eh?

pre-vacation update

I'm heading off on vacation tomorrow, so I figured I'd give the ol' neglected blog a brief update before we go. That way I'll have a set of goals in front of me when I get back, rather than having to make it up as I go...

Waradwen: Wara's largely in a holding pattern these days, waiting for Wrath. Due to some /afk issues, I haven't had the blocks of time to commit to raiding, which really sucks. Running around with the Murlocks has been totally fun and awesome, and I'm hoping that I can schedule more time to be with them when we get back from vacation. I think we've got enough people to poke our heads into some 25-man content, but I'm not sure if we're balanced enough. Hmm...something to ponder.

Gear-wise, Wara's pretty well set for the content he's seeing. I've resigned myself to the fact that he's not going to be decked out in T6, and that's okay. He's almost entirely dressed in purples at this point, when he's wearing his inappropriate-for-a-boomkin cloak. I really need to get some better legs, though, and am even contemplating PvPing for the Season 2 version. As much as I dislike the idea of using PvP to get gear for PvE, those are pretty nice. Hmm.

Waradwenne: Nothing new to report since last time. We had to cancel our group this past week for some family issues and I'm gone for next week, but after that we're ready to keep tearing up the Old World. 'dwenne's fishing is up to 225, so we're planning to go run around and do the quest from ol' Nat next session. That should be fun.

Rotaan: The Dwarf is up to level 47 and is building up that tasty, tasty rested XP. He's been rather peripatetic lately, not being able to decide on a zone to level in and bouncing between Tanaris, Stranglethorn Vale, and the Hinterlands. He stuck his nose into the Blasted Lands this past weekend and liked it, although most of the mobs were just over his head. No pun intended. The goal for him is to keep leveling, making the most of the rested XP available. He's going to do some PvP before he hits 50, too, so he can build up enough marks to get a [Black Battlestrider] at 60. Sweet.

Everybody else: Same plan as Rotaan, essentially. Leveling as much as the rested XP allows. By the time I get back from vacation, I think that everybody should be at the max amount of rested XP, so I'm hoping to get on a cycle where I level one toon one night until he's out of rest, then switch to the next. We'll see how long that plan lasts. :-D

a poxer looks at 40 (part two)

As alluded to earlier, the Purple Poxers hit 40 last night following a run through RFD and two runs through the Scarlet Monestary's Cathedral (and some fire fest fun, to get Daxe and I over the hump). So, what makes this group tick? Why have we meshed so nicely and powered our way through dungeon after dungeon, week after week? The other Purple Poxer bloggers have already written their views, so I might as well add in my two cents' worth. Several of these ideas are probably redundant, and naturally many of them feed into one another, but here's my unorganized list of success factors:

1. Awesome group dynamics. We all thought about our toons for a little bit before selecting them and are reaping the rewards now. We have a pally tank, who is amazing for collecting and managing groups of mobs. We have uber-DPS coming from our fire mage. My Orc warlock doesn't bring as much DPS as I might like (I just installed Recount and am dismayed by my damage done), but I bring some decent pain. Our druid can do nice damage in cat form, then is available for emergency heals if needed. Last, but not least, our priest healer is teh awesum. There's no other word for it. We also do a lot of different *types* of damage, so if one mob is particularly resistant to fire damage we can hit him with arcane and frost and physical damage. Rawr.

2. Dedication to the group and the experiment. We've all taken this pretty seriously and essentially are taking almost a raider's eye to our prep work. We have a pretty well-defined idea of what we want to accomplish each night and subsequent "homework" assignments (set hearth in UC and meet in Camp T, for example). This mindset allows us to be focused and productive for the time that we're together, and usually that results in big wins for the Purple Poxers. Woo!

3. Maturity. No n00bs, no asshats, nobody bragging about how l33t their DPS is or how huge their epeen is. I think this goes for all of the Poxers, but I know for certain that it's true for the Purples.

4. Luck. I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of this group and I think we've had a lot of breaks go our way. We managed to find one night a week for our shared adventures and have had very few weeks when we couldn't meet.

5. Limitation. I think that playing one night a week has actually helped our overall success. We haven't tried to overschedule (doing damage to our /afk lives) and haven't gotten ourselves sick of the toons (or each other) by trying to do too much. Plus, the forced slow pace has allowed us to really reap the benefits of the rested XP. I think I get a level's worth of XP for each session, so that certainly helps to push us along.

6. We haven't really been challenged yet. Let's face it. These dungeons are not the most difficult fights. It's not like we're burning through the Black Temple every week. That said, we're regularly cruising through instances that are "set" for three or four levels above where we are and constantly running into artificial barriers, like quests we can't start for two more levels or gear we won't be able to wear for another several weeks...

I'm both proud and pleased that we've come this far and am really looking forward to what adventures the next 40 levels bring. We're making plans for Zul'Farak now, but I know I'm casting the occasional thought towards Hellfire Peninsula, and beyond.

Other views of 40:
Ess
Daxe
Harisan

Other thoughts on Pox power:
Ess
Daxe
Harisan


Oh, and before I forget: Hey, Blizzard! Need a group of play-testers for your new (or old) content? We'll try out all the dungeons for you! We'd just need, let's see, five beta keys? That's not so much to ask, right?

a poxer looks at 40

More to come later. In the meantime, don't miss Daxe's awesome shot of the whole group.