spanning the continent

skywitch Wara

I took a few days off from "serious" playing to spend some time with my wife, but was back at it last night. Guess who has four paws, chicken wings, and is revered among the Skyguard? This guy! Okay, so revered is not as exciting as I had hoped (I somehow, mistakenly thought the [Airman's Ribbon of Gallantry] was available at revered, not exalted) but I love that the NPCs around the Skyguard camps now comment when I walk by. "The skies are safe when Waradwen's around!" Hee. I did pick up the [Skywitch's Drape], but that was more for the looks than the stats. It was essentially a wash with the other cape I was wearing but you have to admit it looks pretty hawt with our pink guild tabards. Well, maybe you don't have to admit that now, but you will when I get a screenshot up later today. :-D

More later. I need to actually get some work done today.

threatening wara

A short report and a quick question to my tens of readers. First, I want to say that Delos's boss spell rotation worked really well for me this weekend, especially the long fight variant. In fact, it probably worked too well. I ran a bunch of dungeons this weekend (and partial dungeons for Kara key runs) and kept stealing threat (or nearly stealing it) from our tank. Whoops. I did really nice amounts of damage and didn't have too much mana trouble. A few pots, an occasional innervate (but mostly I had that available for our healer), but overall very manageable. Woo-hoo!

My question is actually related to the previous paragraph. My guild officially uses KTM for threat management but there has been a recent desire to switch to Omen. I've been experimenting with Omen but had a persistent problem this past weekend. For some reason, it was seriously overinflating our mage's threat, or possibly not reducing it correctly. It seemed to work well with the tank which is what I'm mostly concerned about, but it was a little odd and I kept fixating on it rather than paying attention to the tank. Is this just me? Is there a new version of Omen that I haven't found? I should probably just ignore it, huh?

Enough for now. Type to you later.

I've got the Master's Key

So off to Kara I go! Hurray!

A group of guildies and I ran the Black Morass last night and I finished making my Kara key! That was quite a fun instance, too, almost non-stop fighting for the entire time. The worst part of the instance was when I screwed up our first attempt by getting too close to Medvih, starting the fight too soon. Not a huge deal, we just ran out and reset the instance, but it made me feel kinda dumb. Oh well.

I got some nice loot yesterday in addition to the key, so I passed on all of the shards from the boss drops (nothing useful to any of us). I got [Pattern: Stylin' Jungle Hat] from the instance. To celebrate my key, I went to the AH and bought myself [The Bringer of Death] which totally rocks (thanks again for the suggestion, Urthona!). Lastly, while farming the Ethereals, I picked up the [Enigmatic Cloak of Magic] from an Ethereum Prison. Something of a lateral move...I lose some spell crit and intelligence but pick up some stamina and arcane resistance.

In crafting news, I've got half of the [Primal Air]s for my Windhawk kit. Woot! I'm too impatient to farm the elementals myself, so I'm farming them from the AH. Seems to work well enough. I need to get working on those [Primal Nether]s now.

Anybody want to run something?

druish goodness from around the web

What else to do on patch day, other than highlight some druid and boomkin goodness from the past few days?

First, two nice posts from Laser Chicken (even if he is an Alliance pinkie):
- A clever idea to boost DPS and threat in Kara, particularly for Moroes.
- Also, Delos shares some good advice on spell rotations for PVE DPS. I'm all over that boss rotation...

Second, WOW Insider has a lovely boomkin UI. I haven't tried much UI customization but maybe I'll give this one a whirl.

And lastly (but not leastly), the most awesomest druid video I've seen in months.



You can tell it's authentic, 'cause his hotbar is full of moonfire. :-D

spendthrift Wara

I have the worst time saving money in WoW. I suspect it's the combination of gold being like Monopoly money and the fact that I like to buy cool, potentially useless stuff. Take last night for example...

I had managed to save up just over 600g through farming and running a bunch of quests. Not bad, right? Certainly as much money as I have ever had in my grubby little hooves at any one point in time. Rather than saving that money or even using it to buy mats for my Windhawk garb, I blow most of it on [Pattern: Windscale Hood] at the AH. The hood itself ([Windscale Hood]) isn't even that much of an upgrade over the [Druidic Helmet of Second Sight] that I'm hoping to get in the next couple of days (one more Gorefiend quest to do). But it's epic. And I can make it myself. Alas, Wara. Bind your money to your hand.

In other news, I'm getting to the point where my quest log is full of Dungeon and Group quests which is rather bittersweet. I love being able to run around and do stuff for myself on my own schedule (and many of the "group" quests I've been able to solo). Now I need to start relying more heavily on others. It's a good thing I'm in a kick-ass guild, eh? :-D

epic weekend

So guess who's got two thumbs and epic bracers? That's right...this guy! I've previously written about my desire to make the Windhawk set of armor and have been spending much of my online time farming the mats (or making money, so I can farm at the AH). The most difficult pieces are going to be the [Primal Nether]s, and I need three for the entire set. But, but then last night I had an epiphany...I didn't need one nether for each piece. I could make the bracers without a nether and I had enough materials to make the bracers. Hurray! I present to you my newest, coolest pieces of kit: the [Windhawk Bracers]. Woo!

my first heroic

Last night I ran heroic Sethekk Halls with a group from the guild, to help another druid finish his epic flight form quest. I had been on for a few minutes trying to farm primal airs for my Windhawk set when he started asking for another druid to help, but I was nervous about running a heroic so I mostly ignored his call. When he whispered and asked me specifically, though, I explained my anxiety then decided, "What the hell," and joined the group. Good decision!

The five of us were me (boomkin), two mages for ultra-uber DPS, a feral druid tank, and a healer on her first heroic (in fairness, an alt healer of a raider running her first heroic as a healer so it's not like she didn't know what was going on). This ended up being a really good group, with lots of CC and plenty of firepower. Plus, Bora's a really good tank and leader, so that made things *so* much easier.

We had a few little stumbles (FYI, the Ravenguards on heroic can't be sheeped...whoops) but overall the run went pretty smoothly. We had a bad strategy on the first boss and wiped but fixed that pretty quickly for the second time. He spawns these elemental adds and we tried to just ignore them and burn the boss quickly, but that wasn't such a good idea. We survived the first wave of adds but died as soon as the second wave spawned. The second time around we just burned down the elementals as soon as they spawned, and that seemed to work pretty well. They weren't elites, I don't think, so they didn't put up much of a fight.

The Raven boos, Anzu, wasn't a bad fight at all. For those of you not familiar with the fight, there are three statues that can be brought to life by a druid's HoT and give really nice buffs while they're up. My job: keep them up. At Bora's suggestion, I tried writing macros for each of the three but couldn't get the syntax quite right for whatever reason. The macro would target the right statue, but then wouldn't cast Rejuvenation. I'll have to figure that out sometime later. What I did last night, though, was to use my essentially-unused second hotbar for each of the targeting macros and the rejuv. Much of the fight for me was hitting 1, 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, repeat. :-) That's not entirely true, but it's pretty close.

Flushed with success after taking down Anzu, we progressed to the third boss. This fight was much harder but we got him on the first try. I say we, but I actually had little to do with the fight. One of the mages and I went down after the first arcane explosion (I think our pillar was defective) but the remaining three were able to take him down. Amazingly. These raiders are pretty good, I tell you what. I knew Bora wasn't going to be able to battle rez me during the fight, so I tried to run back in. Sadly, this didn't work. I got stuck at the entrance and it wouldn't let me "zone in while an encounter [was] in progress." Or something like that. Oh well.

We got some nice loots for the run. Three [Badges of Justice], hurray! My first badges! As the only leatherworker, I got [Pattern: Stylin' Crimson Hat] and [Pattern: Shadow Armor Kit]. Nice. I also picked up the [Sethekk Oracle Cloak], a slight upgrade, and a [Large Prismatic Shard] from a disenchanted drop. Not bad at all.

I logged off about an hour after I had intended to, full of excitement and confidence. I survived a heroic. I was helpful and brought some useful skills to the group. I'm still not ready for Kara, but I think I will start running heroics on a regular basis. All in all, a really good night.

preheroic gearfest

As inspired by BBBB, here's a listing of my current gear and what I'm working towards. I'm starting to think that I'm ready to try a heroic dungeon or two...

Head: [Stylin' Purple Hat] (crafted BOE leatherworking)

Neck: [Brooch of Heightened Potential] (Blackheart the Inciter, Shadow Labyrinth)

Shoulders: [The Dreamer's Shoulderpads]

Back: [Spell-slinger's Protector] (quest: Bring Me The Egg! in Nagrand)

Chest: [Living Crystal Breastplate] (crafted BOP leatherworking)

Wrists: [Clefthoof Bracers of Intellect]

Hands: [Expedition Gloves of the Invoker]

Waist: [Eighty Silver Links] (quest: Murkblood Leaders..., Zangarmarsh)

Legs: [Haramad's Leggings of the Third Coin] (quest: Undercutting the Competition, Mana Tombs)

Feet: [Grim Boots of the Invoker] (world drop)

Ring 1: [Dreamcrystal Band] (Ogri'la)

Ring 2: [Band of Dominion] (a present for hitting 70)

Trinket 1: [Ancient Crystal Talisman] (quest: A Spirit Ally?, Zangarmarsh)

Trinket 2: [Charm of Alacrity] (quest: Voidwalkers Gone Wild, Hellfire Peninsula)

Weapon: [The Essence Focuser]

Off-Hand: [Draenei Crystal Rod of the Invoker]

Idol: [Idol of the Moon]


At the present time, I'm leveling my leatherworking skill so I can make the Windhawk Set ([Windhawk Hauberk], [Windhawk Bracers], [Windhawk Belt]). Beyond that, I don't know. [Badge of Justice] rewards, I suppose. I'm not ready for Kara, clearly, but I'm over 6k health and 7k mana unbuffed. Seems good enough for heroics, right?

At any rate, comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

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Incidentally, if you play a druid (or are interested in playing one) and aren't reading BBBB's blog, what's wrong with you? Get thee thence, posthaste!

key weekend

I had a moderately busy weekend in-game and ended up with a few nice new pieces of gear, as well as [Restored Apprentice's Key]. Woot!

Saturday night I was screwing around, PvPing a little, and trying to figure out what I was going to do when the scheduled raid fell through, because not quite enough people showed up. Guild chat was full of people looking for something to do, so I suggested, "We could help Wara get his Kara key," not actually expecting people to be interested. Almost before I knew what was happening, I found myself in a *fantastic* group, plowing into the Shadow Labyrinth. The balance seemed a little odd, but it worked out really well...we had three druids (representing all three branches of the talent tree), a mage, and a shadow priest. The fights weren't too bad, actually, although the fears from Ambassador Hellmaw were a serious pain in the ass and lead to my only death of the instance. For a guy who usually dies frequently, I was very pleased with my ability to stay alive. :) The gear drops weren't particularly useful for me, but I did get the [Brooch of Heightened Potential] from Blackheart the Inciter. "TIME FOR FUN!" Heh. After downing Murmur we swapped in another guildie who also needed the key fragment, grabbed it, then danced around for a bit.

Flushed with triumph and feeling only moderately tired (it was pushing midnight at this point back in reality), we pressed onwards to the second fragment. By this point we had lost our druid healer to PvP and our shadow priest had dropped out, so we were left with two druids and two mages. Not a good group to actually clear the Steamvault, so we decided to just run to the key. After an initial aggro (and subsequent death), I was able to stealth myself through the field of nagas to the pool where the second key fragment lies. Our other druid had the bright idea of giving the mages run speed potions, so between their invisibility and some quick running, they were also able to make it through unscathed. Well, relatively unscathed. Hurray! The second guardian was a piece of cake and we celebrated getting the second key fragment. By this point I was exhausted and called it a night.

Last night we make a quick run into the Arcatraz to pick up the third and final key fragment. Our group last night consisted of a warrior tank, myself and the resto druid from the previous night, and the two mages from the second key frag run. Arcatraz is pretty tough, man! Or maybe I'm just still undergeared and undertalented. We did reasonably well, though, wiping only once after an accidental aggro of a beholder-looking-thing. A death watcher, I guess it was. Before getting the key fragment, we took out Zereketh the Unbound, which was one hell of a fight. I think I acquitted myself well, battle rezing our healer when she went down about two-thirds of the way into the fight and keeping myself alive to spam moonfire at the very end when both our healer and at least one of the mages went down. /flex. He dropped the [Idol of Feral Shadows] which I walked away with. Hurray! We got ourselves resurrected and healed, then beat the snot out of the third guardian and picked up the third key fragment. Before logging I turned in the quest, so now I have the Restored Apprentice's Key in my hot little hooves.

Tonight (tentatively), we're going back in to to help Thrall escape from Durnholde Keep and to help Medivh open the Dark Portal. That means that by late tonight I may be able to enter Karazhan! W00t! Not that I'm actually ready for Kara, of course...my gear is still pretty indecent, although it is improving. I may even be able to consider heroic instances sometime soon...