Fal's Follies and Other Amusing Stories

Happy THanksgiving eveyone

2011-11-24T09:50:00.000-05:00

Arlo's bestHappy thanksgiving all. And lets start a movement.

Err..Sorry for the gnome he Invaded when I was out taking care of some errands

2011-11-01T18:07:00.000-04:00

Again apologies for the gnome invasion, apparently he and some have rabid feral druid made some kind of arena team and he hijacked my story telling time, with stories of his supposed arena victories. Bah a gnome and a kitty cat goodness sounds like a bored animal and their play toy. The reasons for my absence and my revenge on the little feller I'll share at the end of catching everyone up on what has happened with Grai,Fanabb,and,the rest of the fellas.

First off Grai, changed after he and a bunch of fine friends took down Arthas. His aged seemed hit him all at once, he lost a foe that had daunted him since Lordaeron burned. He was a good man, even if he ran when Arthas slew his father the king. Named outlaw the same day he carried his private shame till he saw its fire finally snuffed out when Tirion slew Arthas. Now he is content to sit in Stormwind tinkering with of all things gnomish engineering, and cutting and setting the jewels he collects for my infrequent mining forays. He says that he has found peace in his retirement, I says he got to old to hold his shield up anymore.

Fanabb well he heard the call from the nightelves and scurried of to help Malfurion and the others help hold back the advance of Ragnoros's minions from the firelands.

Now Carack he's been up to now good again, as usual I know. This time though I asked him for some help with the little gnome problem I had. So he sends into all manner of strange places to get him some odd things, finally he tells me its all set. So I ask him what I'm supposed to do, nothing special he tells me just invite the gnome over for a pint and a bit and he'll take care of the rest. He has some limited skill in magic and poisons and such no I figures I'm safe. Bah the brainless sneak thief done screwed up big this time, though I must admit the gnome does look rather fancy duel wielding his maracas.

Think I have accomplished my final goal in WoW

2011-09-10T10:19:00.000-04:00

Its the Saturday after my personally most successful raid in a long time. We didn't kill any "new" bosses, I didn't get any loot, I just was able to accomplish a goal from way back in the days of vanilla WoW. The person who got me into this game was my oldest son, we had done the first two warcraft rts games together back before his mother and I split. He was visiting and he told me about warcraft on line game I figured that we should try it out. Well it was I think his and his brothers next visit down when he told me about these silly movies people make about warcraft. I thought he was pulling my leg to be honest, but a short you tube search later and we found our favorite movie Illegal-Danish. While we laughed at all the characters our loudest laugh was when the guild leader showed off the new tabard and the grief from his girlfriend. We laughed again and said how much fun it would be to have that god awful looking thing be a guild tabard even if only for a day.

Well fast forward about 6 years and many things are different, the boys now all live with me. The oldest is in art school and vanilla has been revamped to make it better. One other thing that changed is last night my guild Parallel went into Firelands with the star fish tabard displayed. So when I talk with my son this weekend I'm sure we will share a laugh about our favorite scene from our favorite WoW movie.

Continuing to give Book reasons to hate frost mages

2011-05-16T13:58:00.000-04:00

Let me start this by saying that I am not a elite PvP "a bad" would be much closer to the truth, but even a bad cab get lucky every once in awhile. I had a couple of those star alignment moments in the last week or so of arenas and I figured that I bore you folks with the details. Luckily these events all occurred when Book was busy playing with the cows. The first 2 happened partner with another friend of ours Wet, the third was with Gil earlier today.

The first one with Wet was against a lock,warrior team. We decide to open and burn the lock then come back for the warrior. Wet and the lock died about the same time, leaving me and the warrior. Frost mage at 35% hp and arms warrior at around 65%. Through the beauty of snares,blink,frost tombs and evocation I managed to survive with about 2% hp left and win the match. Wet said he felt bad for the warrior because he couldn't move.

The Second one I don't remember the warrior partner's class. But the warrior was at about 10% and Wet was down under 5% he disengaged and with the beauty of server latency two things seemed to occur simultaneously the warrior heroic leap and my tomb of frost. Ha landed just outsides of Wet's dead zone frozen and Wet finished him off.

Today's was my new personal favorite. Gil and I had time for one more match. We Que and get a team of Disc. Priest + DK. We nuke the priest together, the whole while the Dk is trying to keep me off the priest. Priest dies Gil is hardly down any hp + a victory rush to restore what he needed. Me I was down under 5%, evo was already gone, and I was waiting for frost nova and blink to come off cd. Well they did so I nova'd then blinked away, giving Gil the time to finish off the warrior and I ended the match with a grand total of 231 hp left.

I know all the wins were more a result of a unique class and a whole lot of luck, with a huge huge helping from my arena partners for doing most all of the work. Just wanted to share them.

For Bookley

2011-05-03T17:05:00.001-04:00

Made me laugh I'm a cruel person, but I thought of you. Bookley's alter ego,

Still finding excitement in different ways

2011-05-03T13:40:00.000-04:00

The last few weeks have been a bit different around the character sheet. As I rambled about earlier I have been doing a lot of arena, not a real huge change for me as I always have a fondness for PvP. Where the change has come is how I spend my solo time in the game. In expansions past I would either be min/maxing like a fiend or looking for a new trick to push whatever toon was the current "golden boy" over the top.
From Vanilla forward I have had a least 2 classes that were tank capable., at my craziest I had all four tank classes at end game. I would get excited about news of a new PTR had to copy over to get a look at the new mechanics, to be ready to into these new instances as soon as the went live. Wrath around the time they released Call of the Crusade the guild I was in was redefining what it wanted to do, so I ran pick up raids. It became insanely fun, it was possible if one had enough alts to raid almost every night. One of my fondest memories of that time centered around my priest; he had just dinged 80 maybe a day prior when a raid pugmate of mine asked if I wanted to fill in a hole in their 25 man ToC. I let them know that he was brand new but they said fine just don't make stupid mistakes, bad dps was better than dead dps. So I got carried I knew it they knew it but the funny part was the guild comments when the achievement system spammed guild that I had cleared ToC 25, was generally dang it you just dinged and already are raiding in pugs on that toon. When the format for Cat was announced with shared lockouts between 10 and 25 man raids a question on our guild forums openly wondered what I would do.
Well Cata dropped and the first thing I found out was that I didn't wanna quest, the new content was fun the art was awesome just felt like ugg not again. So I did a very Fal thing and made a new alt, dwarf shaman this time. Favorite race and a new to me class;non horde shaman. He was fun during the reworked content of vanilla,but stumbled near outlands as I have no love for hellfire or zangamarsh. Stopped playing him with the idea that I would take my mage into arenas. Did so and love it fast paced matches that can be done around the crazy schedules that my arena partners and I share. Then that part of me that draws me back into this game happened. I got stuck so I decide that I needed to level Graimerin wanted to play him in arena. I managed to get through all of the Mount Hyjal zone and again ran smack into quest burn out. Around this time a arena partner was leveling a warrior annoyed at some minor druid changes. He said that Archeology with rested xp was a decent way to level. So I figured it would be a change to the questing burnout, why not give it a whirl.
My WoW career is filled with seemingly small changes like this. What I found was a new desire, the thrill of wondering what is "behind" the current solve. I have yet to find anything "real" or game changing items, as a guildie was joking last night that the amber fossil rare was not usable in combat. I don't care, for me the joy is in wondering whats next. I sit here and have all the little plans, if I solve a troll item in Stranglethorn will I get the sword, do I need all the races to get my next epic. I get a rush when I near a solve in one of my desired races, and when the next one isn't the one I want well the next one certainly will. I love reading the little blurbs about the items in the profession window. For me the useless items are the vehicles that move the story forward they do this by sometimes sad, sometimes funny little accounts. I would be thrilled to get any of the "useful" items and if I don't there is always the next find. Well I've rambled way to much already and now must get back to the fragment fields happy hunting all.

Pets,Arena,Streaks, Oh My!!

2011-03-31T13:47:00.000-04:00

Hello again folks, I'm back with the 100th edition of my version of internet flotsam and jetsam. Today's meanderings will actually have somewhat of a focus. The fine folks over @Stormwind Bait Co. awarded the darling little frost mage of doom himself Lil' KT to a fine wielder of the arcane arts who also specializes in frost Dodickley.

Now how I came to be the proud owner of such a fine companion as Lil K.T. was a silly little jab at my friend Barklay. The contest was announced shortly after the still inexplicable druid changes about being able to remove snares by shifting, so in the nature of our shared sense of humor I decide to tweek him a tad. So what follows was what I came up with.

Hey You come over here for a second I have something I need to tell ya just can't be real loud about this. I think I just discovered why all the druids are in this crazy uproar over abilities they have had for centuries going away. Here let me show you this ragged bit of scroll that has that ancient night elf language on it.

The first part of the scroll is hard to make out but it looks like some rambling about how he stole my girl and then locked me up for 10,000 years having better ideas. Kinda gives the idea on who wrote this stuff if ya follow along with it huh.

Now this next part this is where the answer lie I think. Apparently if I'm reading this right he cast some kind of bizarre time warped massive spell steal on all druids. Now this is ingenious I tell you oh my the style the out of nowhere massive hit why this, this is beauty. Oh I'm sorry I got caught up in the pure beauty of that spell.

Well let me explain what this wonderful spell does. 5 years after my death all druids will no longer be able to escape any snare. So they can't steal people loves. But because we are taking away that from them I'll let them make everyone run faster so its a fair race. Ha Ha bird boy take that.

Of course because I am the master of Arcane when this happens mages will dominant even more in Warsong Gulch because those girl stealing druids can be snared.

They had thought they were prepared HA HA HA..

Now I just wanted to let you guys in on this, of course as a mage I firmly agree with everything Illidan did.

Dodickley

The rest of the title refers to a achievement that Barklay and I received last night with a huge help from Wetfoot. Bark,Wet and I had spent a very long and bad weekend in SoA grinding honor to fill in / upgrade a few pieces each and Bark and I were excitedly waiting for Tues for the arena reset. Our 2's team got stars aligned lucky and went 5-0. We were capped and liked the look of the week's stats so we stopped on those two for that team . Last night we grabbed Wet when he logged in and planned on getting in our 3's, well whatever orbital alignment was still in our favor as we tore off another streak of 7 in a row. Getting Bark and I the hot streak achievement, but sadly leaving us 3 short of Wetfoot also having his. He being the good friend and great all round person was happy for us and said "He would get his next time".

Am having a tremendous amount of fun in the game again, with the same folks that I have raided and generally ran around in Azeroth with for awhile now. Proving yet again to me that it is partially the great game Blizzard has made for us, but more importantly to me are the wonderful people who I play this game with.

Yes I heal in BGs and Arenas

2011-03-22T12:42:00.000-04:00

Hello my name is Graimerin and I'm addicted to, three things. One the quick nice flow to a arena match, the other the controlled chaos of a battleground, and a endless progression of Alts. Arena's they most scorned portion of the game for the majority of the PvE players because of the changes made to balance PvP to PvE, I have had my tow stuck in the water back when Season 1 first launched. Hunter,Rogue,Holy Paladin we didn't dominate we didn't get rolled but the team never made it out of season 1. Later BC ran with a druid,hunter combo up to getting enough ranking for current seasons weapons. I have currently 3 active arena toons. Team size and comp is every changing as more people from my guild are drawn in.
Battlegrounds or more specifically WSG way back in Vanilla introduced me to world or warcraft's pvp model. I did a lot of the dueling/mad cow levels in D2 and hung out a little in the battle.net ques back then. So here I go into WSG around level 33 or so. The day that my love hate relationship started with rogues; or more to the point my fear that if I didn't kill them I was doomed.
Dedicated healer of the light is waiting for the FC to emerge from the secret tunnel underneath the enemies fortress. Flag Carrier health stalwartly maintaining its level the big heal lights up just as he comes into range. He's mid cast this is the heal that will carry his team to a smashing route of the opposing team when, BAM!! swirly nonsense over his head and the cast bar disappeared, shortly there after to be replace with a release button.
That was my introduction to WSG when there we're no terms like resilience, arena teams/points just this slowly declining honor system that if you had the rank you could get the piece. 2 things grew out of that weekend, me getting hooked good with the idea of battlegrounds and altism. The altism, easy that was the weekend that Carack appeared on my character sheet; maybe the real reason I've always called him brat boy.
So know its 6 years later and I'm still PvPing my arse off. Have currently 2 dedicated healers for BG. A newly minted one time main Grai has hit 85, late last night. A crafted set off the AH and a very understanding guildmate last night managed to get my 5 wins, almost felt like stealing a week;but it will help arenas gear ramp up. My priest who I had intended to melt faces, has gone back to disc. damage mitigation anyone. Also currently in the rotation is my frost mage but that will be another day.
So as my friend over @ TheBait Company said of me :
lI place the blame solely on my guildmate and friend Graimerin. He’s a bit of PvP junkie, and another one of Parallel‘s habitual alt-oholics. He’s incurable.

Some drinkin' Music

2011-03-17T17:37:00.001-04:00

Happy St. Paddy's all

PS- Not a work or Kid friendly song for those who would like to know in advance

Annnnd in this Pasture.......

2011-03-03T12:29:00.000-05:00

They other night hanging out in Stormwind and in guild chat I got being randomly funny with my oldest son, Olli (character name). Who was actually resting his leg, he needs to do this because today we found out he blew out his ACL* 2 weeks ago when he slipped on ice. Anyways, back to the funny story. I forgot why now but we where being silly with what names you could come up with based on my character sheet. I thought that a Tauren Paladin named Ribramord would have been funny, heck still do. He thought for a minute or two and did honestly come up with the undisputed winner though. So now good citizens of the internets I present to you the terror of School lunches and currently the Mulgore region, in all his heirloom glory Graibeef and his faithful companion Gristle. Right now a one shot machine at level 10 with all the heirloom toys. The ones of mine that have funny stories or some that make me laugh generally will get played so I imagine he will level up some. Looking forward to doing battlegrounds and re-leveling a paladin amidst all the newness. Haven't tried one since vanilla that wasn't named Grai to level on a live server. So watch out comming to a battle ground near you...Graibeef.

*PS - While sore he's doing okay. We go 9-March to schedule his operation. Yeah the joys of a 18 yr old not being able to hang out in early spring.

Name changes and other such nonsense

2011-03-01T20:17:00.000-05:00

If you made your way here by design,thank you. Or conversely if this is a wrong turn on your browsing just pull up a stool for a few. Lots of changes have been going on here at the blog and on the character sheet. First of all Fal is now the undisputed PvE main. I say PvE main as this xpac has found my love of PvP stronger than it has been since the inception of arena back in early BC.
Way back in those days of god awful paladin arena gear with awesome stats Grai healed. Had some success with a Hunter,Rouge.Holy Paladin team. BC ended with me playing Padrad my BM hunter at the time and Elysse, Shrinn's resto druid, we were good enough for each of us at that time to get current seasons equipment. Wrath came and with it many changes, one for some reason I didn't PvP as much and hardly did any arenaing at all. Shrinn didn't play and with PuG raiding being okay with differing lockouts for 10 and 25 man groups most night found me anywhere from Nax to the Ruby Santctum. PvP interst withered away.
Cat arrived and I had a varied array from decently geared to ICC has nothing for me geared toons lined up and waiting to go. Fal the toon who had all ways been second to reach cap albeit generally within a week or two of Grai just always second. Well this time he went first. Fury dps is as good if not better than anytime in its history, we still don't have any form of CC but we do offer utility and a hell of alot of dps. The second and third toons are the ones that have surprised me and re ignited the pvp bug. Dodickely my frost mage you offers insane amounts of CC and can be very difficult to kill, while peeling baddies of ones healer very well. He is 85 and gathering gear for arena and rated bgs. Fanabb shadow priest of doom, my bestest dps toon by far at the end of wrath, is capable of absolutely silly damage in battlegrounds. So the bug is firmly back in me and apparently it was a tad contagious because Shrinn who is playing again and Olli my oldest son and I have a plan to form a 3's team and compete together in arena. Sure that either yelling through the house or over vent we will have a lot of laughs.
Grai for those that are wondering is enjoying semi-retirement in Stormwind doing his JC dailys and slowly leveling engineering. I'm sure he will resurface at some point,either getting beat on as the meat shield out front or standing in the back healing away.
Just figure I say hi after the long silience and see if anyone is left to say Hi back

Why does the healer have Shadowmourne?

2010-09-14T12:05:00.003-04:00

This post will attempt to answer that and all the other burning questions no one knew to ask. S'Ok last thing I posted on here was the impending demise of this bit of internet pollution. When I wrote that I didn't wanna play and most certainly had no intention of writing about the game again. Although being a incurable sentimentalist I couldn't wipe it away and now I'm grateful that I didn't. I can push the old out with a redesign and at least ramble on about a few new silly things, kinda like the title. Yeah I know be patient I didn't say I was gonna answer question fast did I.
Quick summary of who now is in the gang. Graim erin paladin has been around since vanilla, spent the most part of 2 and 1/2 versions of this game protection, (yes even in Vanilla)but now is either holy or ret. Falromord my beloved retired dwarf I hope Cata brings back my love for him. Fanabb shadow priest of doom and my favorite toon to pug with, dispersion for the win. Padrad dwarf hunter the toon that turned me into a crit junky, honestly survival in early wrath yes I love big yellow numbers. Carack my often neglected rogue the fun we had in AV in Vanilla at 60 your 80 now and rated bgs are coming I see a resurgence. Sheenah my punk rocker dk inspired by a in game friend who no longer plays, she always gives me a special laugh when I think of whom shes named for. Elyssia my inherited druid from when Mary wanted to try this new game out, and we quickly discovered that we needed 2 accounts; never could delete her and now she is also 80. Finally we have Dodickley not yet 80 but has maybe my best ever silly character back story, Mary used to play alot on her mage Shrinnpoof and I was at that time playing Fal alot. One of the boys wanted to quest together around that time so I made a new mage, a gnome of course and joking said it was the bastard son of Falro and Shrinn. Well she heard it laughed like hell for a few minutes and every time she sees me playing him she giggles again.
Alright-y well now that I have everyone caught up I guess I better explain the title. Ok everyone I need you to remember back to a time when paladins were laughed if we tried to do anything but heal. Well the guild leader of my original(still going thanks Dirz and Huna) guild was a holy paladin and I was a protection paladin. He was smarter than me and played the class the way the designers intended it to be played me I wanted to play it my way. Well somehow we kept each other alive long enough to get through a lot of the vanilla content doing it that weird way. Early TBC he rolled a 2nd paladin and for some reason was gonna be ret. , yes by now I wondered if he had spent to much time outside in the Florida summer. But I digress. Well he got that one to cap at that time and started to raid on her and do very very well, all the time wearing a mish mash of leather, mail and plate. Well I decide to try out ret for wrath and was blown away even after they nerfed us through the ground baby. With the release off ICC I decide that I no longer wished to tank or at least tank on Grai. He went holy keeping his ret off spec. Well last week I had the fortunate opportunity to go on a 25 man run with my old guild leader and good friend. While it is always fun to run with friends and just that chance alone would have made it worth it the healer got the blood's from the potato heads. Yes we are in the shadow of the new xpac for sure. Though I am doggedly pursuing it I only have shaow's edge currently, some day I want some youngster to the game to ask the tank "Why does the healer have Shadowmourn.?"

Uncertain WoW future

2010-06-11T23:25:00.002-04:00

I literally have been playing wow so long now that its ingrained into my daily routine. Like many things through out the years of my life it started out to be a great joy and now its something I do. Unsure of what I'm gonna do. Maybe Arthas and Deathwing are safe, at least I can promise I shall not litter the internet with more poorly written prose.

Im gonna take this sight down after the weekend not because I think it has anything anyone wants to see anymore but because I have stuff I want and need to do this weekend when the help is here.

Blasting away this is a few keystrokes.

Later all anybody hey if there is some one still turn the light out when ya leave

Re posting or compilling your choice

2010-05-26T12:27:00.004-04:00

After a very very nice chat with a guildy today it came to my attention that I havent made all of you guys suffer enough so I have done my best to gather all the relavent stories here in a re post. there are 5 oarts I hope I got them in order. The rest can be found @ Parallelguild.

Part I

2010-05-26T12:27:00.001-04:00

It is at twilight that I begin this story. My story, a story about how I came to be in this frozen waste land; and my pursuit of the traitor who changed my life. I'll try not to make this as rambling as my travels have been these last few years. Although I shall try to include many of the fine people of this great land of Azeroth that I have meet on my journeys, through this land and strange lands where we have fought the taint of the shadow; in its many forms and guises. Who am I ? You may wonder if you are reading these words, I'm just a simple Paladin once of the Silver Hand and now of no group, save a few dedicated friends. My name is Graimerin, I'm not a lofty hero but a simple man trying to find the answers that have eluded me for many many season.

I was born into a lesser house of nobility in fair Lordaeron, the second son of a second son. My choices were limited to entering the clergy or hopefully getting accepted into the Knight of the Silver Hand. While I follow the light I'm not a overly pious man, I do follow the tenets of the light. So I applied and was accepted into the knighthood. During my novitiate I was taught martial skills, from the wielding of mighty two handed arms; too the ability of holding a enemy at bay until others could dispatch it. My instructors often told me I was stubborn as a rock and about as bright so I gravitated to shield work. Marking my spot on the ground with the power of the light in me and allowing my comrades to dispatch our foes. My training during this time was multi faceted and develed heavily into the arts of healing and sustaining my comrades through skirmish and battle.

Then came the glorious day when I was to be knighted, no longer a novice I would be sent out defend, protect and heal the citizens of Azeroth. It was at this time that a terrible plague descended upon my homeland. The dead rose and walked again as mindless slaves to the demon Mal'ganis. Hope sprang in our hearts because our Prince Arthas was on the field of battle. A fellow knight albeit of greater standing by birth and martial prowess would save us. I was fighting in what we now call the eastern plague lands when the story of horror came to my ears. We had been disbanded and named outlaw by our Prince, whom if tales carried on the wind were true then but my beloved city to the sword wantonly killing men, women and children; in his misguided attempt to save them.

I am ashamed to say that I ran. My order disbanded, a man whom I looked up to turned monster, my life turned into chaos in moments. Southward was my direction hoping to outrun the tales of horror that ran before me. In my shock I never removed the items that identified me as a knight, and I would get looks for the citizens wondering if I was another monster coming to destroy their homes and lives.

Rumors continued about a mission to the North where Arthas was to finally confront Mal'ganis. I didn't go as I had given up my allegiance to the silver hand by then. Hindsight now shows that to be a wise decision as none of my former comrades came home from it. Arthas did kill Mal'ganis but the cost was horrible. But his is not my story to tell.

During this time of my wandering I somehow manage to find my way into the southern human lands near Stormwind. Where a call was going up for people to help defend the area against the incursion of beast and man set upon destroying what fragile safety they had won for themselves. I answered this call as more of a way of redeeming myself for the earlier cowardice act I had committed.

It was during this time that I came to meet some wonderful people whom I still call friend. The first was a memorable encounter that I barely escaped from alive. I had taken a commission in the killing of trogs in and around Dun Morogh area. I was to collect their ears as proof of kills. It was getting towards dark when the light can play tricks on the eyes. I saw a campfire and was going to approach to yelling distance when a axe comes flying out of the darkness. I raised my shield to deflect the axe and when I had a chance to focus saw this enraged dwarven warrior rushing at me trying to finish the job he started with the axe.

Now I had battled man and beast and things that were both and neither. Never a battle have I had like the one that day. The power with which he could swing that huge mace was astounding, what was worse was that he didn't leave many openings to counter attack through. Having taken a few small wounds thankfully nothing fatal I screamed that I was working for his king, helping to defend his homeland. That seemed to quell his rage and he slowly lowered his mace, and very gruffly in heavily accented common said speak human.

This is how I came to meet Falromord. A prototypical dwarf, strong as the mountain rock from which he came; and just about as likely to change. It was obvious that he didn't have a lot of trust of me but was willing to at least hear my tale. After I told him of what had gone on in my life these last few years

, he challenged me saying that if I truly deserved the right to my weapon and shield I would continue on this path and do what I could to help.

He accompanied me back to the mountain glory that is Ironforge, where he crafted me armor that replaced my old and worn set. Slowly we began to trust each other and set out on the road of adventure together. Many battles have we fought side by side theses last years. He keeping me in weapons and the finest armors that can be made. Me taking the brunt of these attacks upon my shield and sword arm as he destroys our enemies with the whiling dance of death he creates with his maces.

While there is much more to my fine dwarf friend I shall let him tell his own tale of how he came to be on the road that night.

There are others of whom I shall tell you latter but the hour grows late and this tale grows long so I shall did you goodnight for now.

Part II

2010-05-26T12:25:00.001-04:00

Apparently my friend and road companion for these last years of my life, Graimerin, has taken to story telling in his old age. Now Dwarfs and Humans get along well in most regards but there are a few things that dwarfs just do better than humans. Drink, craft the ore's of the earth and last but not least, tell tales. Now I read his and to be honest he left a few blank spots, if ya take me meanin'. I have seen much of this world and many a person in Lordaeron, but never one named Graimerin. The gray man seems to be a name he choose after what he calls his cowardice. I fought side by side with the man and have never seen a moment of cowardice in him.

He touched quickly on the night we meet in Dun Morogh. I also remember it well, if differently than him, I had just settled into my camp and heard this sound like troggs mating coming from the west side of my camp. I jump up and grab my throwing axe and threw it towards the sound. I chase after it with my mace ready to cave in another trogg head and continue cleansing my land of their filth. Well to my surprise I hear the sound of it bouncing off metal and wonderin' if I be battlin' a worthy foe ,an orc.

I let loose with my battle cry and swing my mace in hopes of either disarming or injuring my opponent enough for a quick kill. To my surprise my mace slammed into a shield. The blow bein' stopped cold. I quickly settled into my battle rotation consistently looking for an opening to land at least a blow that would give some advantage. The dark and the skill of the opponent only in my mind confirmed an orc was my opponent. Heh, ya can imagine my surprise when I hear a bull like bellow claiming that this interloper to my camp is not only human but on the king's business.

With the certainty that I could get my mace back to a suitable position to defend myself, I step back into the dim glow of the camp fire and allowed him to speak. Guardedly, he began tellin' me his tale of how he had abandoned his vows to the Silver Hand after the traitor showed his true colors and was tryin' to redeem himself by helpin' when and where he could in the southern lands. My first reaction was horror that one could break a vow, freely given, but these have been odd times of late in Azeroth. My people, the dwarfs of Ironforge have felt the bite of the traitor deeply with the loss of the King's brother with the traitor in the cold forsaken north.

I offered him what hospitality is to be found on the road. Warm fire, a bit of ale, and a fine meal if I do say so me self. During this time it appeared a weight had been removed from his shoulders, simply seeming to be able to accept a kindness started to change him. We settled into a uncomfortable comfortable kind o' silence that any warrior of the road knows these days and made our plans to sleep for the night.

The morning found me alive and ready to continue my cleansing of the kings land of the foul troggs that had sprung up like weeds, during these last few season of battling orcs and plague crazed undead. I started breakin' down me camp and finally took a long look at this stranger who came out of the dark last night, noticing that while only of middle years for a human his hair and beard where completely gray. Feelin' a bit of the wise ass in me creep out, I asked him what a youngster by dwarven standards was doing with all that wrongly colored hair and sorry attempt at a beard. Now friendship can be based on many things but to me, ours will always be based upon his reply. He calmy stated “ I have seen the gates of hell, my young 'Ramord and I am searching for the way back.”

Now I don't take too well to being referred to as young, espically by one of the short lived races. Although that twinkle in his eyes when he said it made me wonder what this man had truly seen. I tossed back over me shoulder a simple claim that I'm out to hunt some troggs and if he is still looking to fill out his bounty, mayhap we can kill twice as many, twice as fast.

I'm a warrior trained from the days when I could barely hold the mace that me father crafted for me, and have seen many a fine warrior take to the field. Still seeing how this man would run into a pack of this vermin and the call upon the power of the light and simply hold them there while I wadded through their ranks decamating them. There are trully many ways to gauge the measure of a man but for me tis simple, can he hold his drink, can he hold his own in battle and most importantly can he turn a phrase and make a joke. While his ability to hold a drink had yet to be determined he made me laugh and was impressive in battle. So after we had our share of trogg killing I offer the chance for him to return to Ironforge with me.

We returned to my beloved mountain home, which I am away from to much to suit me those and these days. We managed to close a tavern or two together, and while he cant drink like a true dwarf he is close for a human. After this I knew that I couldnt let hin return to his war with the armor and weapons he carried into my camp. So I took him offer to the great forge and set about a task that nowdays seems to be me lifes work. Crafting him the best weapons and armor that my small skill in smithing allows me to create.

Many battles have we waged on this world and distant others, we even manged to gather a few others into our group, but seeing as how he wants to be the story teller I let him continue this tale as my small part in correcting his mistakes is

Part III

2010-05-26T12:24:00.000-04:00

"This will be another one of them stories ?" Fal says as he rolls his eyes in my direction as he sees me writing in my journal. I simply nod as anything said will only start up his incessant questions and questionable commentary. I hunch up preparing for the peek over my shoulder as he stretches and stands on tip toes. "Back acting up old timer?". Gets greeted by something I shouldn't write down and a cuff to the back of the head that I avoid. This is generally the way we spend our days awaiting the call to Icecrown Citadel, let me stop rambling about now though and tell the tale I'm supposed to be telling.

Word spread through out most of Northrend of a tournament sponsored by the newly formed argent crusade. A martial battle to test one skill and possibly if the stories are true champion a city once again. Gone is my happy memories of the city to which I was born. That my old city almost crowned this monster the first time is a horror that I shall always carry. For a chance again to be from somewhere and not a wondering sell sword but again to have a home. I find Fal and tell him some of what I heard and some of what I hoped. He scoffed at me and said a home youngster you always have a home with me in the mountain. I tell it its a open tournament with champions from all the Capital cities. This peeked his interest and he softly grumbled into his beard "wonder what they call Champions back in Ironforge." Well if your so set on doing it he dead pans over to me we might have to practice up some long unused skills for both of us.

So for the next few weeks he took pains in showing me how little I remembered of fighting with a huge mace again in my hands. The inertia one must over come and then to control the swing as not to overbalance yet maintain a solid base. Lessons poorly learned in a distant youth, when the shield and sword called to me as my martial instruments. Although I had a good teacher back then they couldn't spin two monstrous weapons with which the ease Fal does. So under his glaring eyes I got a huge compliment. One day you will be okay. Then the pendulum swung back the other way as it must.

Fal may easily be my better in the art of massive damage, but I, I have mastered the sword and shield. The joy of wave of enemies bashing themselves away as I hold the ground on which I stand. It took him sometime to remember how to balance to adsorb the blow and recoil into attacking motion. He learned quickly and showed me a couple moves that I never learned so was taken a bit by surprise. He gently chuckled to himself and said something about a dang holy bubble.

Our martial skills to a level we felt comfortable with we preceded to the tournament grounds. We were greeted by goblin profiteers looking to pay little and get paid themselves considerably more for our work to fulfill their contracts. We find the contact person for this tournament and get given some task of killing off small scourge units and searching for some special swords. Then a piece of news that made me smile, jousting . For a minute I wondered if Fal would know the skills of mounted combat. Our first combat on the mounts they gave well trained steeds of war, was simply against target dummies. I carefully watch Fal go for his first pass. Flawless, up out of the saddle, knees flexed but braced all his weight balanced behind his lance and shield. His lance shattered under the impact of a perfect hit. He reined in his mount and rode past me chuckling and said to me "We Dwarfs do have a cavalry". Again this man of middle years as judged by his people, a group of season way past a number any human can live astounds me yet again.

My time behind a lance was during my training in the silver hand and jousting to me was time well remember from my younger years. As a set the lance into my stirrup as I prepared to charge my first target dummy, my mind drifted back to a time that seems forever ago. On the training fields in novitiate for the knights many an hour was spent this way. Some on similar stationary targets and some at hanging shields. The thunder as a train war steed bears down upon his target, to me its the finest music their is. A harsh pounding sound occasional punctuated by the trumpeting of my horse as he stormed to do his own battle with the opposing horse. Lost in this memory came sharp thump on my head and Fal gruff voice asking if I was scared of wood these days. I settle into my stance and the warhorse surged forward a solid thump in my shoulder and the sound of shattering wood let me know I had scored a solid hit.

After proving ourselves worthy of fighting for them we moved up to small sorties against Arthas's mounted troops slowly drawing out the unit commanders and not just his throw away minions. Once we even went against one of his undead worms. Fal shouts to me to keep out the hammer he made me as he has some armor he wish to try out. Some new combination of ore and the very elements of the earth that is supposed to shield one from the bitter cold that many of Arthas minions use in battle.

It has since slow done and soon we are told it will be a more proper tournament. But for the work and martial prowess Fal and myself showed and the work for some goblins to earn funds to pound out bents and such. We we awarded something dear to me and maybe to Fal also based on what he said to me. Me I am Graimerin of Stormwind again I rdie into battle in defense of my home. Fal well Fal on the other hand is now known as Falromord of Ironforge or as he so nicely put it. "where else is a self respecting Dwarf from".

Part IV

2010-05-26T12:23:00.001-04:00

Graimerin came to me earlier this day and asked me to offer my life's history for his journal. I scoffed at him at first and coldly told him that until very recently my history was the self same history of this world.

Let me formally introduce myself, I am known as Fanabb in common which will serve for this purpose. I am a night elf and priest of Elune, once immortal but now subject to death as any living being is. My race was the first to awaken and we heard the call of Elune. We venerated her at the most powerful of sites and basked in the glory of her power. We learned though that with great power comes the possibility of great danger.

The first I personally saw of battle wage on a vast scale was the first invasion of the burning legion. What many of short lived races have taken to calling the war of the ancients. Queen Azshara a great a noble member of my race was cruelly tricked by the foul demon Sargeras. He wanted a portal to be opened to allow his minions access to this pristine world. Many other wise and great members of my race discovered his plot and were able to close the portal before he was allowed access but at a cost that not only sundered the very face of the continents but changed my people forever. Those that weren't sucked under the waters of the newly formed sea and transformed into monsters managed to survive. But the cost of survival was terrible my race broke in two. Many took to boats and sailed away to one of the new continents and called themselves High Elves, the continued to practice arcane arts that almost destroyed us once. Our druids descended for centuries into the dream where they sought to protect our world with the aid of Ysera one of the great dragon aspects. Those of us that survived and choose to stay retreated to Mount Hyjal where for centuries we lived in peace within our forest and zealously protected our lands.

Being a priest of Elune after the sundering was a difficult time. Many of my race saw those of us that served as part of the problem. We allowed ourselves to believe we where above the rest of our race, that somehow we where better of a higher caste than they. I personally never had the pleasure of serving at the great temple. While I venerate Elune and know her tremendous powers I only saw her well once in my enormous lifetime. My service was out in the settlements helping to explore the forest and come to know its inhabitants. Cenarius the demigod was someone I saw more than my Queen. But I had freely given myself to a different path and didn't study at the feet of the great stag. I knew his powers and saw the great gifts he bestowed those that choose to follow him into the drudaic arts.

The war is chronicled many times over by those much more scholarly than I. I will simply add that destruction that vast should never be visited upon any living being. How the gods managed to save what we have of this world is simply a testament to their powers.

So the centuries passed as we stayed secluded in our false safety on the mountain until we came into contact with a new race. They called themselves Orcs, the were destroying our beloved forest and met with death from the sentinels who where its guardians. This was the beginning of the end for my life as it had been for centuries. Archimonde a old enemy returned again at the head of an army this time of undead and demon alike brought death and destruction to our mountain. The world tree was destroyed and our immortality taken along with it. Battle was joined by those that defiled the forest to protect what we could Orcs that we one time killed helped us save what we could of ourselves and our homeland.

It was during this time that we learned what had befallen our brethren that crossed the sea centuries before in there pursuit of the arcane. Their city in ruins and a monster raised from their sunwell our isolation had to end.

We gave up immortality in our hopes to preserve life as we know it in our forests. Many of my brothers and sisters still toil to cleanse our forest from the sickness that has enveloped it since the end of that war. I choose to leave the forest, to take the battle against this scourge army. I have tried in my own way to make a change in the way I view the short lived races of my home world. This was how I came to meet the human Graimerin and his friend and companion Falromord.

In my venture into the outside world I first choose to stay within my races area of control. I went to Silithus where the Cenarion Circle has maintained an outpost for time immortal battling the denizens of that inhospitable place. Where we imprisoned Qiraji to stop their rampart destruction of the land. The Circle decide to open the gates and to destroy them once and for all so that we could stop their spread.

I went out to help during one of the small skirmishes before we ventured into the vast prison when I saw a human and a dwarf battling the insect like inhabitants of this area and the very elements themselves. Having seen first hand the battle prowess of the races during the battle for our sacred tree I sought to offer what add I could. Calling upon the power of Elune I shielded the human who seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack and and cast upon he and his dwarven companion words of power to increase their fortitude while in battle. The skirmish was over quickly as those two seemed to be able to weave together a dance of death the likes of which I had never seen. When it was nothing but corpses left upon the desert floor the human turned to and said “thank you sir and may the light bless you. I am called Graimerin and this is my friend Falromord.” Not knowing what was proper for the ways of the people I simply said may Elune bless you in your battles against these foes.

Then I can only imagine it to be Elunes divine guidance that took hold of the human he asked if I would like to add he and his companion in their eradication of horrors of this land. Before I could decline his offer the dwarf barked that they didn't need any assistance and I should go back to hiding in the trees as my race had done for centuries. Offended by this rude comment from one of the lesser races I was turning to leave when the human quietly said to his friend that to decline aid in battle was to help was ones enemies and during these dark times enemies where plentiful but allies scarce.

Wisdom such as this human had just shown was remarkable to me in one so young, intrigued I wondered what help they might need or could offer me. I was unsure though because I had no wish to make friends with life forms destined to die; till I had to sharply remember that now even I could die. I decide to simply be as truthful as I felt comfortable with. I told them that I was a priest and could offer some healing and some other assistance if they needed it. Graimerin seemed pleased and quickly wanted to accept my offer of aid but the dwarf Falromord still seemed uncertain if not outright suspicious but apparently he trusted the humans instincts. Shortly after we met nightfall was upon us and we began the process of setting up a camp for the evening. I quickly saw that these where people used to the hard life of the road much more than I, even if they couldn't feel the land they way my people do the did respect it. A small fire was made and carefully banked and shielded as to not only protect us but also as not to give away our position to our enemies. They broke out their road food consisting of some dried meats and I assumed some dwarven spirit. I offered to share some of my food with them which consisted of cheese and fruit which they accepted with graciousness.

It was during the meal that the dwarf turned to me and bluntly stated that as far as he was concerned Grai as he called him was a overly trusting youngster destined only to see the good in people. He then furthered his point by telling me he trusted the stone of the earth and little else with the huge exception of the human Graimerin. I replied coldly that I trusted little but Elunes grace and her wisdom. He then asked why would I agree to this grouping if I distrusted so much; my reply then is as true as it is now that in Graimerin I sense a wisdom beyond the years a human could ever know. Surprisingly the dwarf chuckled and said “aye I know what you speak of, Grai seems to have ability.” Taken aback by this rather radical change I didn't respond but decide that this dwarf and human may bear watching as they seemed to be much more than the sell swords I initially took them for.

What seems to be merely a eye blink of time to me but I'm sure is much more has passed since that day. I still seem to be traveling with these two odd companions of the road and others have joined us, the wisdom I saw in Graimerin that day is still evident and always astounding. Falromord is still the gruff dwarf fierce in battle and friendship and always the defender and sword arm of his closet friend Grai. Me I still travel with them keeping them healed as the singlehandedly at times seem to need to win this war on their own. Graimerin talks of his need to atone for some stain upon his honor, Having traveled with this man I can not imagine him ever to be dishonorable but his demons he refuses to share as he purges the land of theirs.

Will I ever feel fully accepted by these people I'm still unsure as centuries of seclusion are hard to overcome. Although of one thing I am sure no one ever had more stalwart companions in such an unsettled time.

Part V

2010-05-26T12:20:00.000-04:00

I decide to write this bit about myself for two reasons, the first being called shy by Graimerin is a bit odd for reasons I'll go into later; and secondly Falro keeps asking what I know about the dishonor that is the central feature to Grai's stoicism. As the erstwhile leader of this motley assortment of people from the land of Azeroth Grai can be a bit vague when it comes to his early days. Being the one person in our group who has known him much longer than any other let me tell some of his past along with fill in a few gaps of my own.

I am Carack not the name that I was given at my birth nor the name I use in some areas of our world, I move through the world with the hope that I'm not remembered at all. Carack is the name that was given to me in my youth by my older brother. I was trying to sneak into his room when a poorly placed foot cracked some carefully placed boards he left assuming I would try to gain entry into his room. I will never forget the laughter in his voice when he yelled “ Hey Brat Boy isn't that the last sound a thief should ever hear.”. Then he broke into laughter and said you will always now be Carack to me. While this brother was not the oldest he is and will always be the one that to me can solve anything. He left to go finish his studies and start on the path that led him to his lot in life now. Strong, stalwart, compassionate this is my brother a man that has given everything but his life to people he hardly even knows, why because he says his honor needs to cleansed. Yes my brother is Graimerin, the gray man rarely these days do I hear laugh that shaped my youth and for that being taken from me I follow this road simple in the hope that someday my brother will put off the mantle of the gray man and be himself once again.

Its midsummer time again and as I was making my way through our lands and those on the other side of the dark portal many memories came flooding back in. Some of these are of a happier time and place and some trigger memories that are best left in the past. The happy ones are mostly of a young man and his brother. We would celebrate and honor our fires and look forward to traveling through the areas around or homeland. It was during this time that I found out I could move noiselessly through many areas. We would gaze in awe at the jugglers and laugh till we couldn't breath dancing around the flame poles. The sad memories occurred when I went by what is now called the undercity, a place now known more for fratricide and regicide than the shinning jewel of my youthful homeland. Gone are the times that I would sneak away to watch my brother in the various stages of his training. It was during these times that I came to understand that being unseen had many advantages. I will never forget the day that my brother was accepted into the order and others would now call him brother because of gifts he possessed. Although it was a only a short time until the darkness descended that still shrouds these lands. Ahh I must put off this melancholy as what is done is done and the people who once where friends, companions or a familiar face for the most part are gone.

It was shortly after being accepted into the order that Grai as he wishes to be called now made it home to our family and told us that he had met someone who he cared for deeply. Our parents being who they where questioned him about whether she was of noble birth, and I'm sure knowing them hopefully of a higher standing house than us. Grai tried to be as evasive as a honest man can be when questioned on matters of the heart but finally told us all that she was from Silvermoon city. Father instantly saw this as a means to move upward socially as his son was not only a Paladin but one that had contacts with the high elves. Mother was concerned about the fact that Grai would age in front of his paramour and she would hold her youthful beauty. For my part I was happy and a bit jealous as my favorite had found someone else to share his heart. I put aside the petty jealousy that was my first reaction when I saw the joy in my brothers face when he spoke of his lady.

During the time that Grai was away I started on what was to become my lot in life. Information about what was going on in the camps and just generally throughout my homeland had value and those that could get this information became a assets to our King. Needing a reason to be moving from city to village to the secluded farm, I took up the mantle of a traveling merchant. One who specialized in rare cloths and magical items. Having a high level of dexterity with my hands aided me in this and my many daggers that I kept concealed on my person made sure that I stayed safe. I always find it amusing that people find a wandering tradesman nonthreatening and will often times give away valuable information simply to know what is going on further down the road than they have traveled. It was in this way that I came to hear about the horrors of the plague coming across farms that were once full of laughter and joy where now burnout husk housing unspeakable monsters.

I was making my way back to our home city when rumors of what our prince had done not only to his father but the city reached my ears. I decide to speed north hoping to find my brother so that he could tell me that this was a story told to frighten children and could not be the truth. Knowing him as well as I do I looked for a holy site figuring he would be asking for guidance from the light. We met up outside a small chapel in what is now known as the eastern plaguelands and to my horror he confirmed that these rumors where true. Lost in away I had not been since I was a small boy I asked him what should I do. He told me to head for Stormwind and to inform anyone who would listen to me. I asked him what he was planning on doing, he replied that he was headed north in hopes of rallying the elves to our cause.

I made it to Stormwind but a horse can't move as fast as a rumor and a story of this horror precede me there. Once there I decide to turn around and head north again with the simple hope of helping my brother in some way. I found him a broken husk of his former self leading his mount who looked as ragged as he did. He recounted to me a horror that worse than any I could imagine, Silvermoon in ruins. He said then that he had shamed his order and himself by not being able to stem the tide of this horror. All that he cared for save is kid brother, brat boy where dead or worse. He looked at me and said until he could cleanse his honor he would be know as Graimerin, the gray man one devoid of hope and searching for purpose to his life. He told me to continue with gathering what ever information I could in these dark times as that would have a value that no amount of gold would ever match. I asked him what he was going to do, a small part of the man I remembered surfaced then and he said he was going to dedicate his life to the eradication of the horrors visited upon this land. I asked him if the leaders of his order couldn't stem this tide how would he. His response was coldly delivered “ I have seen a darkness that I shall carry until the light can cleanse this land.”

We parted then and I went about doing the task he had set for me, with a open ended plan to meet so that I could let him know what whispers I had heard in my travels. When we met back up he had some how gained the trust of Falromord a true servant of the light whether he knows it our not. As time has moved forward more have joined his cause and knowing my brother I'm sure he'll be present when we can cleanse this land if the light allows us to.

My love hate relationship with the weekly raid

2010-04-06T13:06:00.001-04:00

The title says it all. This week on my server weekly was Ol' Spikey himself, for my guild main toon this wasn't a issuse I knew I get the weekly in. But as I stated in the last post I love to pug, I like pugging both the 10 man and 25 man version of ICC on Fanabb as well as the 25 man version on Grai. What seems to happen on my server is that when we get the weekly as Lord Marrowgar the number of 25 man pugs drops dramatically. Added to that is the fact that multiple people will drop as soon as the quest is complete it just makes it frustrating. Although the week wasnt a complete wash as Grai managed to upgrade two pieces and Fanabb got a huge upgrade.

In the random silliness category watched someone try to form a Onyxia 25 man with what I thought was a ridiculously high gear score requirement. Was I trade on and off different toons for an hour and he was still looking. But I'm sure plenty of folks where glad to see a female gnome clicking off bunny ears on the Dal bank steps for the first solid 15 minutes.

Odd happenings Grai won a tier token in ICC and was asked if he wanted to sell it. I declined kinda nice having 2 pieces of the top non heroic tier raid gear.

As is generally the case a lot of fun was had not as much as say a Naxx or Uld weekly can generate but saronite is droping like a stone in price. Still like to farm the weekly with the lesser geared alts because I need badgers.

In the closing hour till announced servers back wonder what the weekly will be this go round.

Why I PuG

2010-03-30T14:30:00.000-04:00

Hello, if there is anyone out there anymore. Just wanted to write a post about what I've been doing in the game, and shamelessly steal a good idea. Kaelynn of Azure Shadows has started doing a weekly wrap up, what she reads what she has done in game etc.. So I throw my hat into that ring also, just that I'll be focusing on my PuG experiences in raiding current end game content.. Incoming disclaimer “Having 6 toons at 80 and a desire to raid to some extent on each I PuG. “ Now included in that should be the statement that I have been on my server 5+ years now but in that time have only been in 3 guilds. Each of those guilds raided to some extent based on there content and which xpac it was. In vanilla we had a alliance for BWL,MC and Ony. Burning crusade ushured in smaller raids and by then the friends list had grown so I would get whispers asking if I wanted to fill in a needed spot. Then Lk released and forming PuG's for raids became ok.

So here we are at the tail end of LK and my casually hardcore guild is moving thru ICC ( 10 man) at a pass that is very pleasing to our guild. Those are Tues. and Fri. night for Grai to strap on the holy set and heal and laugh and joke and be silly with my guildies. The 3 or 4 other night I seriously play are for the alts. This odyssey of PuG progression went ahead full steam when Blizzard added VoA. The guild I was in at that time wasn't concerned with consistent raiding but would do VoA if we happened to have it on a scheduled raid night. So I started having a extra lockout or two, Grai and Fal being the only two at cap back then. Trade at this time would have people looking to fill groups. The chance for purples and a passenger mount lured me into what I had always thought of a dark dangerous place to go a PuG raid. I don't even remember now if it was successful or not. What I do remember was that I wasn't ridiculed and apparently had the skill on my toons to do my part of the raid.

So as the alts leveled I was faced with a dilemma take a very limited raid slot or PuG if I wanted them to experience end game. At this time I was raid leading for my previous guild so I wrapped myself in a altruistic ideal that I would PuG the alts so as not to deny someone else the opportunity to see that content on their main. It was during this time that I had inadvertently caused some “micro” guild drama by hurting someone's feelings. Shortly after that I choose to leave that guild and see if I wanted to join a true hardcore progression guild. I had a couple standing offers and good friend and old guildy saw that I was unguilded and invited instantly. I declined and told him that I wanted to wander a bit. I had multiple 80's by now and trade chat was always lively with people looking for spots in raids.

So a unconscious decision to raid everyone led me to hang out with most of the folks from my old guild. We decide right from the first that we wanted to raid but at our casually hardcore pace. Let me define what I mean by casually hardcore. Any of these folks could be in true progression guilds we know are classes and we adapt well to what the fights require. In this though we decided that our raids are about having fun and kicking ass, nothing can match the feeling of getting a boss with your friends that many of them haven't. For me it doesn't have to be my first kill for me to feel that “we” accomplished something together. So as we are progressing our raid leader asked us to define a main toon and main and off specs. The perfect solution for me Grai would belong to the guild primarily as a healer but if need be I can be the meat shield still. Woot 5 toons that could be free to PuG if the spirit strikes me.

The one that stands out as a fluke a freak chance whatever you wanna say is the priest. Between badges and crafted items he hit 80 moderately geared. The guild raid that night was filled and I was a alternate, so I bounce over to the priest figuring I'd do a random heroic. Well a 25 man ToC was forming needed ranged dps so I throw a whisper get a invite. Now he might have been 80 3 days at this point. What proceeded was a loot palooza for him and a 25 man ToC cheeve. That was the day that pugging to me became really fun.

Nowdays its a silly joke in my current guild that I'm off pugging something somewhere. I get asked how I get into normally good ones. I don't have a answer lol. I know normally that I generally know someone in the most random of random pugs. Be they old guildies or someone that I have pugged with before, One of the best recent memories also contains one of the oddest. A guildy and I were in a PuG for ICC 10 We were looking for a healer old guildie joined then left never a word. The good was the run we had 2 druid healers on insanely geared and one properly geared for ICC 10. The pug was truly amazing made it to rotface when time conspired to make us call it. Next day same guildy and I on different alts join a VoA 25 and the person building it was on a alt of his also. He was one of the tanks for the ICC group and I dont remember for VoA. But it was hey are you the same person from last night which lead to who was who's alt. Maybe that's the answer just network.

SO that a rambling journey of how and why I love to pug raids. Next Tuesday hopefully some new bosses our at least funny people watching. The gang is gonna go pugging......

A Couple things

2010-03-17T12:57:00.003-04:00

One happy St. Patricks day to one and all. Secondly I havent dropped off the world I just post more often on the guild blog know which can be found here. Parallel . Ill still do some stuff here but most will probally be over there

Non Wow News

2010-02-22T10:26:00.001-05:00

Yes finally my son's leg has finally healed and the cast has been removed. Just figured this would be the quickest way to let everyone know.

Three and a half Tanks

2010-02-09T11:15:00.004-05:00

Well Yesterday say the arrival of the newest addition to my every growing club of 80's. Sheenah the punk rock DK. The little gnome that went to chill with the band and maybe hang out with the prince hit 80. What is fun about her is that I picked the race/gender based on a RL friend of mine and Shrinn's who also played and with whom I would generally have spirited debates about when punk died (late 70's if anyone was wondering). So tongue firmly planted in check I modified a Ramones' song title into what I could get on my server and poof Sheenah was a punk rocker was born. Obviously she didn't zoom her way to 80 but sat patiently on the shelf whilst others got their chances first. I honestly have spent time on her as every spec searching for the one the I liked the play style of and fit into my crazy idea of why I made her. Somewhere in the mid 70's I switched over to a dual wield frost build and the lights flashed and the bells rang and I had found her spec; because the for whom she is named played a gnome rogue and everything just kinda fit.

Well she had her spec but was still gathering dust, why I couldn't find the feel to play her. Then the LFD tool made it appearance on the scene and it was game changing for me and my legion of alts. While not the first of the LFD babies to hit 80 I knew she would get there. So I started queing as tank/dps when I wanted an instant dungeon of just dps if I like the area I was leveling in. I intentionally slowed her down towards the end so that I could try to max her badges so that she would have a decent start at heroics.

Well yesterday in my bestes new gear ranging from ilvl245 to ilvl 175 I figured if I que for a random heroic. It would have to be UK right? Uh no. I got heroic Old Kingdom. 3 trash pulls in I'm laying face down watching. Apologize to group for being undergeared explained I was brand new to 80 and apologized and dropped group. The response in party chat was thanks good luck etc nobody was being a jackass, which gave me a pleasant surprise. Couple gear tweeks later I decide to try to que just for heroic UK. Get a group go in and explain to everyone that I'm a brand new 80, but not new to tanking. Please follow kill order and give me a minute to get threat. Had 2 shaman a rogue and a ret pally, the rogue was keeping TotT on me and it went very well I died once or twice but no group wipes. Finished it and again thanked them all for taking it slow for me and again everyone was decent with well wishes etc..

So yes now I have 3 80 capable tanks that have each tanked heroics in the new lfd system. While I have a huge like of the tool I have found personally that on my new to 80 toons a quick heads up goes a long ways. I remember gearing my other tanks in guild runs mostly where we each new each other and what to expect. With pugs being the way of the new 5 man I found out that a quick "hey folks I'm a new healer/tank/dps just so you know hasn't ever gotten me a jerkish response.

So now with no 60 thru 80 toon to level I will be spending that time on my druid. Who has been on the character sheet second longest to Grai. Shrinn's original toon, the one I never new if I was gonna level or just keep cause it was hers. Her test out the game and she if she liked it toon. She currentlt sits at 39 now having done her share of runs in the new lfd system. Hopefully soonish I shall write her post of dinging 80.

So long for now all.

Hail hail the Gangs all here!!!!

2010-01-26T12:03:00.002-05:00

When I started this blog and came up with the silly title it was about 5 characters on Kael'thas alliance US side; Graimerin, Falromord, Carack, Padrad, and Fanabb. I wasn't sure what I was gonna write about as I had never thought about a blog and started because people I grouped with and respected had some so I wanted to give it a whirl. I quickly decide not to infect the internet with another gear/spec blog when there are others who already do that and much better than I could. So it evolved into a place where I write silly stories loosely related to the in game actions of my characters. I decide to do it this way as a ode to my paper and pen days when all the visuals where in our imagination.

Well what any of that has to do with the title is very simple I have managed to get the gang all to 80. Fanabb recently dinged 80, so one expansion late I managed to make one of my goals. Hopefully soonish I will be posting there version of the gangs struggle to bring down Arthas.

On a different topic what started as a off hand joke to a friend is gathering a chance to see completion also. I forget the exact comment that started it but i joking around said that having 2 of the 4 tanks classes at max gave me a look at the differences, similarities maybe I should level one of each just to see. Well as that stands now I have a 77 dk and a 31 druid both have tanked at current level and Im enjoying it. To me the DK is AoE tanking with more offensive cool downs and a diffent set of oh Shit buttons. The druid is still to low of a level for me to say for certain but I remember on Fal that for him it got easier as rage became less limited.

So in closing hopefully a return of the stories soon and hopefully updates on the goal to have all 4 tank classes at 80 pre-cat.

Yes, I am a 3.3 fanboy

2009-12-19T15:38:00.003-05:00

Hello fellow wanderers. Random LFG tool how awesome I think this is, almost game changing. I was always a avid battleground person on all my toons. Not withstanding the occasional asshat telling x number of people they suck and he,she,it are ubber leet; I readily enjoyed the random aspect of a on-line game throwing x number of people in for a common cause. I love running with friends and guildies always have, if ask pre-3.3 I would have cheerfully said I was anti-pug. That I would get the random asshats in battlegrounds and they were enough. Well 3.3 been out for a bit and I have pugged every toon I have that is above 70 at least once and multiple times on most. With by far the general experience being positive. Heck I even made use once of the random raid finder and ran into my old old guild filling in spots for a 25 man VoA.

A few things I have discovered more on Grai doing the random heroic than on Fanabb doing the random regular; first of which is the speed which 95% of the tanks chain pull trash. The other day did a random heroic daily on Grai that turned out to be Halls of Lighting. Double check make sure the tank is set right on healbot and away we go. We ran that dungeon + trash as AoE to the boss burn everything down. I was incredible fun for me playing Grai holy because in the average fast speed 5 man I never need to worry about mana and may only drink prior to final boss simply to have back to a full bar. No worries about judging wisdom and running into melee range to grab a little back or using divine intervention wisely. This run pushed me into every mana back trick I had including my darkmoon card. We finished and I had many real life things to do and was unable to continue as they were going on to chain run and pull I'm sure many more. Fanabb who is currently 75 moves a wee bit slower disc priest w/alchemy so I make free use of endless mana pot out of combat, the nice trinket with the + 40% boost and have to sit to drink, for instance in violet hold regular and the end of each boss waiting for portals again. It seems that the zerg mentality is definitively this patch's flavor of the month.

Heroic Halls of Reflection is probably the instance I enjoy most on my hunter. I get to use CC again, I try and frost arrow either the mage or the priest if they are both in AoE damage ill try for the rifleman but for me he is harder. Same thing with the casters on the gauntlet, some tanks use their AoE abilities other just save them for the last to be killed. I know blizz said that CC would be back in for Cat, just very glad that its made an appearance so soon.

My DK has even tank a few random dungeons. Soloing never need to worry about icebound fort or bone shield. Now I throw on the cobalt defense set pop frost aspects and have a different group of cooldowns to manage. Having played prot for so long on Grai its AoE tanking but different. Now get your AoE attack down and then insult the groups lineage,weaponry or sorry I meant death grip one taunt the other and have ghoul boy annoy the third. I mark on Sheenah because I not toatly confident in my aggro building on her and only had one fail group when healer was half and half on gear and at the low minium level for the instance.

Ah Carack my long ignored rouge, love him at max level for PvP never found a like of rouge PvE play. He was and is incredible fun in AV and annoying in WSG, but never leveled him fast and never felt comfortable in any spec but sub.. Done a few randoms on him and went assassination and do decent plus hes an enchater so I offer that lol.

Fal poor Fal is still languishing on the couch of WoW he's done a few random heroics but still havent gotten back into him post the fury nerf. When the shine dims down on the others he'll get his run.

Well I guess thats 3.3 for me on the whole a hugely positive at a time when WoW was getting stale. Perspectives change on many things and for me pugging has been a very good thing

Well it sure hasn't been boring

2009-12-08T10:49:00.002-05:00

Hello to all who still have this moldering away at the bottom of your rss readers, and to anyone whom might have stumbled by here on accident. Its funny haven't posted in ages and now find that still having this here old thing around might just come in handy. Seeing how I havent posted a story or even a blurd to say hello let me give a readers digest version of the last 5 months.

Summer was fun and busy trying to manage the schedules of 5 boys 16 to 7 and two adults with opposing work schedules was fun, yeah right. First semester of school lead to 2 honor role students and 2 merit role, the elementary school doesn't have a system like that. 12 soon to be 13 yr old son broke the tib + fib in left leg in mid-Nov. and that has been and adventure in and of itself. That fairly well hits the high points of casa Grai, and now onto the game which is what this silly thing is supposed to be about.

When I first started this thing it bloomed out of a pug run I was on with this at the time small guild called Sidhe Devils on my server. Members of that guild had blogs and that was my introduction to WoW bloggers in general outside of the magazine type sites. At that time I was in my original guild that I was currently GL and RL of. We were a moderately successful Kara level guide that had around 20 active raiders. I personal had gotten to a point where I no longer wanted to put out the numerous brush fires that flare up when any divergent group of people are communally seeking a shared goal. So I decide that a smooth orderly transition would see the guild on to bigger and better things and I could be one of the many again. Well that didn't happen as opposing factions took root in the guild and it split into two successful guilds that both continued to raid. Me I left and went and became of of the group of sidhe devils to have a chance to quietly remember what about this game I enjoyed.

Sidhe Devils is a remarkable place and when I first found it, I knew I had discovered nirvana. The place kids not the band.(grumpy old man segment). Adults who would understand in the middle of a raid, a 5 man or just general chatting in guild that life happens at the speed of life and people need to flexible and go with these changes. We raided and we wiped, and we raided and we succeeded, always putting whatever in the perspective of the time spent with our friends was time well spent. As Sidhe Devils grew into becoming a much larger guild it still to, kept the feeling of it being "Cheers" but everyone being "Norm". As time and growth bring changes to all things, so did Sidhe Devils face points of change. As a member of,and a holder of many found memories of the guild. It was during this time of change I decide to look at what I wanted to do or if WoW had for me run its final daily.

After much personal introspection I decide to leave, to venture forth into a different path in the game. Much of the process of where or if I will land on my current server is unclear. I said to a friend last night that I am befouled of a hellish dilemma in that I view myself as to casual to be hardcore and to hardcore to be truly casual. Added into this is the fact that I do like to ponder and view things for as many angles as I can wrap my head around leads to sometimes glacial like decision making times. Do I wish to someday write Grai's spin on how he and his gang were key elements of the downfall/ maybe redemption of Artha's, hey I'm a sucker for the sappy ending.

So I'm sure right now as much as I'm sure of anything I'll be playing somewhere. So if we share a battle group or a party or mabye even a raid someday in the future; please, please remember one thing folks. The pull is always on the wings. Good luck and many blessings to everyone this holiday season.

Carack's Memories

2009-07-02T17:27:00.002-04:00

Fanabb's history

2009-06-23T20:03:00.003-04:00

A Home City Again

2009-05-21T17:29:00.011-04:00

Adventures in Dragon Slaying ( Old world Style)

2009-05-15T18:59:00.002-04:00

As some of you know the old boring life style around the Gang's house has changed drastically for the good. My 4 sons are now living here which is a major change but that's already been posted now on to the WoW stuff.

My oldest Olli for purposes of the blog was questing out in the Badlands and saw Temperus the Devourer and wondered if I would give a shot a taking him down. So I made my way out to the Badlands and boom one dead dragon. Two of those perfect crystals which wield a nice rare bow and a usable plate Helm. He was very happy one for getting the dragon two for getting loot.

Well about this time the old man had a smashing idea!! Can we get a level 52 warrior into Onyxia's Lair. Well of we fly to wetlands and then over to thereamore I don't have the mudsprocket fp wasn't there when I was lol. So he flies over to mudsprocket and I swim. We get to the lady's dwelling and yes he could enter.

Well we clear the trash leading up to her and then I engage her. He got the non achievement achievement of dieing to the whelps during flight phase. Yes the Blizz gods will seek payment for 52's doing Ony. So we get her down he got the real achievement and it was a hoot.

The warrior helm didn't drop but he has a nice 18 slot bag plus other assorted vendor ables. Me I got to do something with my son had a great time and a nice moment. We used to do Warcraft II together and this brought back some happy memories. Its kinda nice to see him back into the game as he was the one that got me to get the original way back when.

Now he's chomping to reach 60 so he can turn in the head and be the dragon slayer for a bit.

Thank You

2009-05-04T14:31:00.003-04:00

Warning what follows is a non wow specific blog post.

Some of you fine folks know that the last week has been somewhat bizarre in cassa Grai. My four sons are living here now and it definitely changes the dynamic from a 3 person household to a 7 person household. I delighted that they are living here but the circumstances were to say the least emergent. In this last week I have discovered some things about the WoW community and blogging that I wanted to share.

First off to all my guildies in Sidhe Devils you are very awesome people. Your words of kindness and your simply concern for me and my family was awe inspiring. We flame asshats gleefully and may occasionally feed trolls. What I/we rarely do is thank the decent and considerate among us. So I decide to use this semi public forum to say thank you to a large group of people who made me realize that sometimes playing this silly game we share can be a way to help a real person not just pixels.

Secondly to anyone who I read and enjoyed as a blogger and I tried to emulate in my poor fashion thank you. I will never be one of the premiere wow bloggers, my silly little stories aren't those of ratters, i don't do the post that BBB does, I cant write that long (lol). The hundreds that are not mentioned I apologize to. Why am I thanking the other bloggers, well my oldest son read my silly stories about Grai, and Fal then about Burning Steppes and got excited about creating his own stories for his characters. We talked for along time last night about how his toon would be and how my would play a part in there story. His creativity has always been by drawing but this silly blog site gave us a chance to be closer and to share a common interest.

These are gifts that I would have never received if not for a game. Thank you doesn't seem enough, but it is all I have to offer. So the next time some asshat does what asshats do please remember that some of us appreciate those that blog and those that just say hello when we log into g chat.

Be well in Azeroth my friends and save some bad guys for me.

Into the Mountain

2009-04-25T10:18:00.012-04:00

Fal has been pestering me about another story, or at least his way he keeps saying " human you started telling these tales might as well continue." Then he goes into that gruff laughter of his race, always reminds me of stones falling down a mountain side. So for this tale as my short friend calls these it was a time when the whole gang was together. We had been pursuing dragonkin and Orcs in and around what was once the redridge area but is now referred to as the burning steppes.

Just as a point of reference i will quickly go over the shy folks that help fill out the gang as brat boy named them. Brat boy my affectionate name for Carack, whom I have known the longest of any of these fine folks that share the road with me. We meet in a different time and place for both of us, and by mutual agreement we don't talk about what once was back when the Undercity was our beautiful home and we had a Prince and a King. Carack is a spy, assassin, and sometimes thief that can blend in to almost any situation and literally almost disappear. He is our main source of information about what is going on in the world. As a collector of magical items and rare cloth he seems somehow undangerous, so he gleans information for people that they didn't even know they let slip. Next I would like you to meet Padrad I'm never sure if he's a cousin of Fal's or not, what I can tell you is that he also is from Ironforge and apparently was according to Fal overly influenced by two major events in his life. The kings call to follow his brother Bran's explorations concerning the titans and the according to Fal the Gnome invasion of Ironforge. Somewhere he manage to get a pet gorilla just like Bran's and he loves to tinker with his devices sometimes they work wonderfully and sometimes not so much. Then we have Fanabb a nightelf one of the last ones to join us a man of deep mystery and subtle magics. He has words of healing and words of pain, he like all of his long lived race is still mostly a mystery to me but he is a fine companion none the less.

Now to more fully set the time frame for you folks, this was a time when the King of Stormwind was still missing and his son was the prince regent with his advisor Lady Prestor. Unsettled in the human lands barely begins to describe what it was like. So Carack hears some tale about a Marshall of the alliance army being held captive in the dark iron dwarf strong hold of Black Rock Mountain. Fal and Paddy start cursing in dwarven about something called ragnaros and the vile nature of the darks in general and how they wanted to usurp Ironforge and are ready to fly into the fortress right then even if was to save someone they had never meet. We decide that we need to free this man if he still lives simply to get him out of the clutches of people who will torture and kill him for the hope he has some useful information.

Now for anyone who hasn't ventured into that Mountain fortress it is a daunting place with great dark iron gates that one must pass first to even enter then a tight rope walk across a chain suspended over molten lava to the Island where you find passage and stairs. We first entered a crypt type room at the top of this suspended island and both Fanabb and I sensed a restless spirit, but that is a different tale and one best told in the full light of day. As you move through the fortress you enter the quarry where slaves toil to keep digging out building stone and the dark ore that seems only to be found here. Being only a small party and not a full fledged invading army we slowly made our way through the outer quarry. Carack,Fal and I using skillful blows to the heads to knock senseless these slaves made our way to the prison area.

The prison like the rest of this fortress is a honeycomb maze of tunnels and rooms dug out of this mountain. We didn't have to worry about being silent anymore as the pitiful wails and moans of the prisoners was near deafening. This might have been the one thing that helped us that we didn't plan on. Fal gave a soft chuckle and turned to Carack and said that he wouldn't need to slit as many throats today as he shrugged his shoulders to seat his armor and ready his massive weapons. Paddy tossed a snack to his gorilla, Fanabb said a prayer to his goddess and I strapped on my shield. We made our way carefully through this maze avoiding patrols when we could and trying to use doorways and outcroppings of rock to descend on our targets as fast as we could and leave the dead where they couldn't be found. Carack disappeared ahead looking for something that would lead us to the right area of this deadly maze when he over heard a gaurd address a troll as inquisitor or questioner and hoped he would have information we needed.

He came back to tell us what he had heard and also let us now what he intended to do. Looking at Fal with a evil gleam in his eye his said " I do have one throat to cut today. You wanna kill his buddies while I do it?" and quietly chuckled coldy. Fal didn't miss a beat he just a calm and coldy replied just make sure to be done when i start the steel whirling boy. Swinging two of these I sometimes don't look real close as to who I'm hitting as long as I'm hitting something. So we move our group into position Carack seemingly disappears only to almost instantly appear behind his target, a dead troll he just doesn't know it yet. Knowing what was coming I still didn't see it. Anything of value on the Inquisitor was gone, his throat slit and Carack back behind me. Then trolls companions turn and see me standing there and made there death mistake instead of running away they ran towards me. Feet set shield ready I took the charge of the group knowing that death was waiting on them Fal, Paddy and Carack each take a offensive position and in seconds the 4 are dead. It is scary what that dance of maces, daggers and bullets do so quickly to their targets.

We slowly approach the door and we hear sounds coming from inside. A man's voice claiming that he will unmask this foul dragon plot and see Stormwind free. Thinking we had found a mad man if nothing else we open the prison door and see a man talking to what appeared to be a floating dragon head, The dragon head slowly turned to us and laughed and said well maybe we will meet but I'm pretty sure it will take more than you 5 to kill me. The imagine then blinked out of existence. The man standing there had been beaten and the gods know what else done to him came to attention and stated. " I'm Mashall WIndsor and now we will get my armor and weapons and we will unmask the dragon plot in Stormwind."

Well the hour grows late and this tale will have to be finished another time.

Im back and will try to post more often

2009-04-20T15:18:00.005-04:00

Hello again all. Been hectic around casa Grai the last few weeks. Between changing schedules, school vacations, teen age sons visiting for holidays April is almost over and I not even sure where it went.

Not loads of in game news. Fanabb is 69 resting up in Northrend. Graimerin was seduced by the crit side. Not much else new from the character sheet.

Personal wise Shrinn's health is okay nothing new good or bad on that front. John's B-Day is fastly approaching, this Friday. Guess who gets to play party planner lol. I'm good just trying to adjust to the new schedule with SHrinn working evenings now.

And a picture update on the Puppy.

Who has double in size since we got him lol he may be over 10 lbs by now.

SOrry so short and frantic style stories will return soonish.

Hello all again. Post puppy update post

2009-03-11T10:48:00.002-04:00

I promise for this post to be free of references to Tek. While having him in our household is wonderful it has effected the amount of time, I can hid in my cave where my computer lives. So I have been choosing playing over writing. Although today I have the opportunity to do both I hope.

Start with news about Grai. It is taking me longer than I thought it might to get used to 30 minutes seals. I didn't have this problem when they went from 30 seconds to 2 minutes but I find myself still trying or wanting to refresh. Haven't done any raiding on him since my computer issues have been resolved but have been able to do some instancing. Heroic UP was very good to me and the best tanking sword for my content drop the Red Sword of Courage. I was a very happy Paladin, for whatever reason I hadn't run that instance many times on anyone so to get the on a first time heroic was awesome.

Fal got invited to help out EoG on there 10 man Naxx Plague Quarter run. For many reasons it was Fal's first successful foray into Naxx. While i would like to say that I safety danced well I can not. I didn't die during the first phase but I ran to deeply into zone 4 and couldn't get out in time. Alas all was not a loss though thanks to some very nice loot rules I was able to roll on these .
I won them and the next boss dropped the t7 shoulders on which I passed and the other warrior on the run was able to get them.

Also have been suffering a bit of altitis lately. Having tons of fun on my discipline priest lately. He low 60's but showing marvelous versatility in that I can heal well in on level instances and do decent soloing damage. It is very nice to play a pure caster class for me something I have had trouble with in the past never getting anyone save Fanabb out of the 20's. Reflective shield and power word shield are a very nice combo for me at the moment and it is adding a huge portion of fun back into the game. I have to low 70's alts but just have no desire to re run northrend quest again at this time.

Well there ya go, the gang has been updated. Heading off to hellfire to smite my way to Zang and beyond have fun all.

He ruined my reputation

2009-03-03T14:22:00.005-05:00

As some of you may know we recently had a new addition to our family. Tek a Boston Terrier puppy. Well I work at a Vet Clinic and normally don't get all gushy over the puppies and or kittens that come in. Well on Friday Tek went to see the doctor and it was a cold rainy day here in Western New York so I carried him inside my coat.

Kinda ruined the grumpy old man persona I was working towards.

But here he is in all his glory, and yes he thinks he's the biggest dog in the room. Behind him in the photo is Shrinn.

I'm alive still

2009-02-26T17:54:00.002-05:00

A quick update on what is happening here at the rl home of Grai's Gang. This last week has been kinda a lost one towards anything productive. SHrinn MB arrived DoA Friday night bummer but easily worked around. The bigger issues is was that I came down with pneumonia. I sure i misspelled it. Well that put me in the ER all day saturday and has effectively put me on my but most of this week.

Yesterday Shrinn had her spinal tap a nasty headache has been the only negative side effect so far.

And the GAng got one member larger yesterday out 8week 4 day old Boston terrier joined our home.

I have a new power supply to order for my PC tomorrow Shrinn new mb should be in mid week I hope and then if all things smile at us we should be back.

So to friends we miss you all terrible each day but god willing only at worst another 7-10 days and we will be annoying you folks again.

Gonne be a bit dark

2009-02-11T14:33:00.002-05:00

It appears that my PC at the hard drive. One can only assume the stories where so bad it went into digital cardiac arrest. Posting thru the lovely Shrinn's old PC so wont be many updates new post till i can get the HDD installed.

Doubt the loss will be great just wanted to let the 2 or 3 readers I have know.

Will miss you much and be back and boring as soon as the pieces arrive

Fal's version

2009-02-09T17:46:00.003-05:00

Grai's Story

2009-02-08T16:02:00.001-05:00

, he challenged me saying that if I truly deserved the right to my weapon and shield I would continue on this path and do what I could to help.

While there is much more to my fine dwarf friend I shall let him tell his own tale of how he came to be on the road that night.

There are others of whom I shall tell you latter but the hour grows late and this tale grows long so I shall did you goodnight for now.

Why I havn't posted in a few days

2009-02-06T12:50:00.007-05:00

Hello again folks. Been trying to get used to some new glasses, they have transition lenses. Easiest way to explain it for anyone under the bifocal cap is this. Imagine your eyes are out of control zoom lenses, every time you move your view point(eyes/head) the image either gets larger or smaller and also becomes fuzzy or clear. That been my life the last couple of days. My dear Shrinn tells me I look like a bobble head doll with a bad spring in it.

Okay some quick updates and maybe a small rant upcoming.

Play time has been somewhat limited for above reason but did manage to get a couple runs in last night. Log into Fal and figured I'll waste time for awhile waiting to see if we would have enough people log in for some guild raids VoA/OS. Get a whisper from a old guildie who needed dps for heroic VoA/OS figured 90 minutes should be plenty of time and if the guild needed me I warned in advance that I would leave.

So I make my way to wintergrasp only to find out we are still filling spots ok short wait but no biggie. Well we finally assemble blow threw Archie like the sub zero winds we have been having over here in the east and move on to OS.

Now I have over an hour till a possible guild run should be no problem. Right? Oops we had mad problems. From people dcing,sleeping, going afk without warning all the wonderful lovely things I despise about pugs. So we are finally moving through the trash no major issues take down western drake. After looting him we move our position up some and somebody face pulls next pat. We lived through but the recount of who,why and what took about 5 minutes. Clear trash skip the whelp drake as we want to try and leave him up for the bonus loot. Clear rest of trash and other drake.

Now we approach Sartharion, the raid leader didn't have a pre planned set up for tanking or healing assignments did I say this was a pug already. So after a period of time we finally make our attempt. Wipe for many reason. Fly back in try again wipe again more reason some same some new. Now we decide to take down drake we left. 10 minutes later we are still talking, I love pugs.

We kill the last drake then take 3 more attempts to finally kill Sartharion. 6 heroic emblems average out to about 12g a piece in repair bills.

Now I will freely admit this was a pug. Also that I am very spoiled by our guild runs we have communication in general vent chat, we have a healer channel so they can plan and raid leaders and tanks know who's doing what; and we rarely ever have bickering. It was just eye opening to see how different life can be than what I am used to.

Ok rants done.

I forgot after that wonderful waste of time I've just chronicled we did manage a guild heroic of AN. Seeing how are secret weapon was on-line. Grai managed to get the belt of the last boss which was a big upgrade for him. No trinket but ended the night on a relaxing run with the guild.

Helping them find you

2009-02-01T17:51:00.002-05:00

The Big Bear Butt Blogger has ask that we throw up a short note concerning his reader. He upgrade something that wont talk to somethings else. So if you haven't gotten a feed update you need to re visit his sight and sign up for his new and improved feed reader.

The Big Bear Butt Blogger

So head on over and sign up if you haven't gotten your daily dose of bearness.

Raid Night Beatdowns

2009-01-31T07:56:00.007-05:00

Last night we had VoA and 10 man OS up on the calender raids. So the entire raid was logged in early and we decided to do VoA simple because we had Wintergrasp and assumed if you had control and the battle started you were fine. Well as soon as we start on the 1st trash pulls we get the raid will reset timer, from first trash pull to dead boss,looted, and portback to Dalaran maybe 12 minutes. 2 nice t7 chest pieces were the loot.

Now we were moving unto the second part of our schedule doing 10 man OS. Clear the trash and take down the two nearer drakes (left and right), then talk about if we wanted to try leaving the last drake up and decided against it. So we clear her out the way, I think its a female seeing as she has all the whelp eggs; then continue off to the big badie. Main tank on dragon, OT on add patrol and the occasional of heal boom another dead dragon.

So it was at this point maybe 45 minutes to an hour into the raid night schedule that 3B inquires if we would like to poke are heads into Naxx and see if revenge can be had after harsh introduction last week. Ready check for interest everyone is so we head over there.

Now the raid make up consisted of 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 dps. Windshadow(mt),Graimerin(ot),Ruune(heals),Para(heals),Lixie(heals),Cassie(dps),Barre(dps),
Ely(dps),Cal(dps) and Sinnas(dps). So instead of trying the kitting method for swarm boy we went with the tank and spank + power heal version of the fight. 1st attempt should have been a win but something happened I either taunted the wrong mob or something else incredibly moronic because at around 30% health and during a loctus swarm I ended up with not only the crypt guard but also the boss. 2nd attempt and a better behaved paladin it was dead boss Sidhe Devils first Naxx 10 boss down.

So heady on the wine of success, we keep going threw some minor trash, and come to the grand widows room. Really fun trash before boss just cause the groups are big lol and then we are looking at her, and her gang of four. So its decide I'll take the four attendants off to the left as wind occupies the lady on the right. Well all the dps types join me for the intial spanking off her attendants then they move off to her. I kept insulting their job choice and family trees while occasionally judging the lady and giving her a bash with the shield. When we would get the raid warning about her enrage I would call kill target, dps would switch and dispatch them. First time 90% of the raid had seen that fight and it was a flawless one shot.

Now it is starting to get near when Para one of our healers need to log off but we wanted to get one try in on the final wing boss. Position, explain, pull. Oops Para had some weird thing happen and he dcd. Now he's main tank healer and it turned into a Chinese fire drill but we got a great look at the mechanics of the fight. Switched out Night for Para and gave it try #2. This attempt was perfect ranged and heals all positioned well to make my spider grabbing job easier and we all got our spider wing achievement.

We started this at about 7pm server time. We were all back in Dalaran by 10 pm server time. We did for are smallish guild a huge night of raiding content. We all learned from the errors of our previous Naxx atempt.

In closing we kicked but. Wind as raid leader had ready explanations, everyone knew the basic dynamics of the fight, super healing, and massive sustained on target dps. .

Thank you very much my fellow guildies for sharing a ubber evening with me, it would have been fun just doing the stuff as our guild the success is truly icing on top.

I like Big Crits and I can not Lie

2009-01-28T18:31:00.004-05:00

With all apologies to Sir Mix-A-Lot nothing else conveys why I min-max on some of my toons. Case in point, my left for the dust bin hunter; dear ol' Padrad. He started his Wow life post BC and was my PvP battleground diversion. But he was originally a survival hunter simple to cause massive havoc to flag carriers in WSG. It was very fun to watch a twink get wing clip rooted as the rest of the alliance team crashed around him and got the flag back.

Then came the time to level out of the 29 bracket and challenge Azeroth and beyond so I went Beast Mastery. I went the spec that contained when high enough level the built in I-Win button. Now a enraged pet that isn't subject to CC or fear also was very fun in BG's, so I would get massive yellow numbers and still play to my favorite aspect of the game.

By the time I got Paddy to level 70 BC was waining but with the help of the darling Shrinn on her druid we did have the chance to experience some 2v2 arena love getting me the 2 handed s3 axe a couple pieces of s2 gear and generally just having fun in game together.

Well as some know her computer melted down and we haven't been able to replace it yet so with no arena on the horizon Paddy was relegated to the yeah I'll get to ya.

BM at low levels in Wrath offered some nice things pre 3.0.8 but was never over awed by the exotic pets. I mean come on the great dwarven hunter Bram(unknown spec) has his red gorrila; and Paddy has PrimalGrai so if Bram doesn't need a special pet Paddy didn't either.

Watched BRK's movie on trap dancing and how the survival spec put out massive crits and figured hmmm I do love big yellow numbers lets check it out. He gained almost 10% to his crit rating and the occasional free shot and now his traps actually get used. I've removed volley from the action bar, and am now looking forward to leveling so I can get a Polar Bear from dragonblight area.

I have no expectation of raiding on Paddy, heck I have Fal for big yellow numbers for raiding. Just now days when I run into to place a trap on my current target and auto attack changes to melee that big ol honking s3 axe goes Whoomp and throws up a crit sometimes. Yeah my melee weapon isn't a stat generator only now woohoo.

So while I do not link damage meters to stoke my e-peen ego I do run blizz combat text so I can smile when one of the dwarfs lands a massive hit.

I mean heck even Grai lands some impressive crits for a prot paladin these days, the old joke that pally's should duel wield shields would be awesome now.

So I shall take my leave of you fine folks now, and once again go in search of over sized numbers in blizz's scrolling combat text be they yellow or white, and sadly miss the days when Paddy's companion was able to generate orange ones.

But as Sir Mix-A-Lot said while i admit to my love of crits you other players can't lie and love them also.

My Little Warrior Done went and Grew Up

2009-01-26T15:12:00.002-05:00

For as long as I have had Grai, I have had Fal. At most I think they were 5 levels apart through all the journeys. From the vanilla WoW days to Burning Crusade and now into and through Northrend. One of the givens to having them both was Grai is the main and Fal is the other guy.

For vanilla Fal lived as a arms warrior happily swinging his big ol honking 2 handers. Remember the joy of the old mace specialization, that random stun proc was a life saver many times. Overpower please Mr. Rogue try and dodge I lived for that to light up. Then came Kang and i switch to bleed effects and axes.

During all that time when asked the answer was easy Grai is my main, yes even in the bad old days I had my main as a Pally tank. The Cathedral in the monestary how many times did I run that for my sheild seems like hundreds in retospect. We were know where near the ubber must have tanks the BC turned us into but I loved being out front just getting hit.

BC was Fal's first foray into to the fine art of fury warriordom. Had the old Rogue in Plate spec. , loved bgs where i could pop berserk and or death wish and eat locks for lunch. This was before whirlwind effected both weapons and oh the damge increase that brought to the party. Just there was absolutely no plate gear designed for fury warriors pre t5 stuff and the first badge rewards where all tanking. So Fal farmed and mined and dreamed of being a over the top dps toon.

Well then we got the pre patch for Wrath. We knew Titan's Grip was comming first it was gonna be a huge speed penalty, then when it came to live it was only a extra 5% to hit we needed; now even thats gone. To me all the changes along with the abundance of plate with prime stats for fury warriors leads me to call this the fury expansion.

The title refers to a simple comparison this is Fal's armory profile this is Grai's.

We Went, We Saw, We Skinned

2009-01-23T08:20:00.002-05:00

Sidhe Devils entered 10 man OS as a guild last night for the first time. We had 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 dps. We all knew what was needed of us and came suitably prepared. We left with achievements, skins of various styles and a sense of guild accomplishment.

As this was our first attempt we took down all 3 drakes. As I was on Grai I got to be the portal hoper and found out I need to be quicker to the glowy purple thing. We didn't lose anyone during those fights just shouldn't have our dps first through. The attendants don't hit me hard but they do hit non-tanks for a fair bit of damage.

We managed the lava wall like pros. Excellent calls for direction and which way to move, in or out. It showed one of the reason I truly love my guild. Everyone was ready and on their A game. Yes I know this isn't a difficult raid but to run a first time guild group with no wipes I believe shows that prepared we can tackle anything.

Also I have learned to be quiet. Instead of being a chatter box during the raid I actually shut up which might be a epic win for our raid leaders.

Tonight is the spider wing, hopefully good teamwork and people will pay off again. I know it will be a fun time spent with my guildies so any loot is a bonus.

We are Going In

2009-01-22T08:12:00.004-05:00

Well tonight hopefully Sidhe Devils will do our first guild raiding. We have Vault and OS on the schedule, for the 10 mans. Lucky me I have two toons to offer to help if we need spots filled. Grai who has tanked 10 man OS and Fal who has dps both. So if all goes well one of my guildies or maybe even me will get a nice bonus bag of emblems and gold this evening, along with a chance for tier gear.

On other news from the gang, Carack has gotten up to 425 enchanting. Woot to materials being lowered for those now the push to 450 in earnest. A certain bear wants the new stam to bracers chant.

Outside of that no real news except the grind for rep continues and most likely will for awhile still. Well work beckons, so i will hopefully write of glowing victories tonight in our raids.

Kinda like going Home

2009-01-18T00:03:00.009-05:00

Just after I got Fal his 400 unarmed skill and his 4 weapon skills to 400 achievement, I get a whisper from a dear friend needing help in CoT :Strath. I asked what they needed tank or dps , figuring tank. Well I got the first pleasant surprise when I found out they needed dps and that meant that lil 'ol Fal could go hit things.

Zaanah who had whispered me said the invite was on its way when the second pleasant surprise happened. Jerdaz was also in the group because he invited me, now Jerdaz is one of the legion of alts Kiernan he's a good friend and old guildie. So 2 of the group I know to be old guildies from Essence of Grandeur a very good guild on Kael'thas US. So I accept the invite only to get pleasant surprise number 3 Carrador and Azzarea, warrior and rogue respectfully are also in the group.

All members of EoG when for some odd reason they let me run it way back when. It felt to me like a EoG guild run back into heroics. Brought back many happy memories and i had hopes of forming new ones, and those hopes were realized.

Now way back in the days when Kara was hard Carrador would change specs sometimes OT sometimes fury depending on what we needed on any given run. So tanking wasn't gonna be a worry. Azzarea has always been a very good rogue timely interrupts and good dps. Zaanah is and always will be the person I think of when I think of frost mages. To many good runs watching her own the dps meters while maintaining CC if used and just a very nice person. Jerdaz is just a dam good player I don't care which one of his innumerable alts he's on his skill will show through.

So we decide before we even start the run that we are not trying for the 30 minute timer none of them had ever done starth culling on heroic and I have only done it as a Pally tank. So we get started with a easy lets just beat this attitude have some fun and see some new levels of content. Meathook gave us a bit of a problem the first time he kept interrupting Jerdaz's heals and the dot wiped us the first try. Second attempt after a few changes in our strategy we collected our loot and badges and moved on.

The rest of the run was good communication and even better teamwork. We executed our plan on the instance and got our rewards. Azzerea was able to claim the epic fist weapon from Mal'Ganis and we all secured 4 badges. Zaanah offered us a port and poof back in Dalaran.

I don't remember whom asked if we could run another one. We all agreed and decided that heroic Violet Hold was quick and close. Sounded like a winner so off we go to protect the citizens from the motley collection of felons from the azerothian universe.

Again I'm the only one who has done this instance on heroic, so we discuss which bosses we have seen and the strategies for them. The only 2 bosses the majority of the group hasn't seen are the bird boss and the ethereal boss. I had seen both so figured the rng would never give us both in one run and assumed I could explain on the fly.

First 5 waves no problem so what boss, Bird boss quick easy explanation burn him then clean up the adds. We aced it. Mana and food back up during our little break 5 more waves of trash dispatched no worries. 2nd boss ethereal I was there and the rng hates me. SO i give a quick and poor explanation of my prefered kitting method, forgot one major point that we needed to turn back the way we had come and not across the floor. Ooops that one was completely my fault.

So we regroup inside get our buffs reset and burn through the first 11 portals, nice. Now this time the group shined beautiful kitting and massive sustained dps we gets loot and badges. 5 more waves of trash and we get our big blue felon, dispatched her with no issue. 4 more achievements for my friends and the bonus one of not having any damage done to the door.

2 heroics cleared rep earned badges gathered and loot for all. I believe Zaanah got the epic bracers from the final boss in VH. For any group a good run and not a bad few hours invested. A group that had never done either instance on heroic defiently a good job.

Me I got a nice dps ring but the best part was new memories with old friends. This game we play sometimes sees us move from guilds for many reasons. Wishing to raid, schedule changes, wanna be in a guild full of bloggers; and many that are for lousy reasons. I left EoG to join Sidhe Devils because of blogging and burn out. So running a quasi EoG guild run heroic was kinda like going to your hometown. All the good things I remembered where still there maybe a little shiny er or maybe just a new suit of clothes. But the decent people I remember and miss are still there. 10 levels higher and wiser in the tricks blizz plays on us but still the same wonderful warm and welcoming people.

So to close this long and ramble post Thank You all for being who you are. The longer I play this game I realize its not the game that keeps me here its the people. Be they old friends, current friends or friends I have yet to meet. You are the ones that help me find fun and keep me coming back.

Have I said I love Titans Grip

2009-01-16T08:23:00.004-05:00

For almost all of my 3+ years of playing WoW I've been a Paladin tank. Every once in awhile, I would spec holy just to get a different view of the fight. Not this time around Falromord my dwarf warrior is getting more play time has better gear and is generally much more fun to play. Like alot of places the guild I'm in our healers are catching up with the dps and tanks, so we dont have enough currently to run multiple heroics.

Enter Fal from stage right. Short bad attitude and carries to very big maces. He just dinged 80 Sunday, but is currently hit capped for Titans Grip (TG), with the penalty still in place. Over 4k AP in 5 man groups and seeing how he has been running with a druid tank 28% crit in berserker stance.

He hits that primitive note inside me that says as a man I'm supposed to beat something up and take their stuff. I give our tank a second or two to get good threat generation and then KAPOW lets bring da pain.

He and Grai have truly always existed together since I started playing. They have normally never been more than 5 levels apart at anyone time. Just normally Fal provides money and gear to the pally. Fury warriors had it tough in BC wearing whatever cast off bits off armor we could grab as we approached Kara. Lots of leather and or mail gear, and Kara had absolutely no true fury pieces other than the T4 tokens.

This xpac we have TG, we have plate with hit,crit,expertise and oh yeah two big old honking weapons with outsized stats. I play more with Fal's spec these days than Grai's trying to squeeze out that last drop of dps. I use the EJ spread sheets to find out the best rotation for dps per rage point. I'm in nerd heaven.

Instancing is easy now, because our lack of CC doesn't hurt us these days. So will Grai always be the "main", I think so; or possibly I will have co-mains. I just know that when I see looking for dps for x these days I'm happy to respond and say I can do that.

I've Been Scooped

2009-01-12T14:34:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a very eventful day for little ol' Fal. When i logged in to do some quest in Icecrown a couple of guildies mentioned that CoT: Strat was the non-heroic daily and were putting together a group. They had a tank so I got to go beat stuff up. Ahh the joy of a lolgrip warrior.

So we went in and had a successful clear but we had another guildie that wanted to make the run but didnt , because we were full so we ran it again swapping Fal out for Grai to tank and Nas came as dps.

Then I had RL stuff that needed to be taken care off so I log off for a bit and got chores done.

Having a few free hours I hop back on and timed it perfectly as the guild was building a group for HoL, so I offer my dps and away we went again. Started the instance about 20% short of leveling and maybe 300 rep from honored with Argent Crusade. We figured out the first boss (don't let him grow) and the rest went down easy till Loken. Loken took 2 tries we decided to just eat the storm and keep pounding.

After loken i was 1400 ish xp from the ahhh so we did one last trash pull and this happened.

So I have a thing I do every Sunday night and when i got back home I check and see that The Big Bear Butt Blogger scooped me.

Thank you to all the guildies who made these last 10 levels very fun and lets go beat some more stuff up.

10 Man OS

2009-01-10T07:47:00.006-05:00

Got a whisper last night from a friend saying they needed help in 10 man OS. I said sure switched from Fal to Grai and away we went. Mostly a pug group but I imagine some of his guildies but about half of us had never seen it, including me. Clear what limited trash there is and then it was onto the drakes. They went down easy after the portal phases were explained.

Now we get to Sartharion again good detailed account of his lava wall ability, and we engauge. First attempt the MT positioned the dragon short of the spot and the melee got caught in the lava wall. Second attempt went like clock work boom dead dragon. 4 emblems for me in about 40 mins. no tier loot as I had a lousy roll, but saw a entry level wrath raid and had some fun.

My Favorite 5 Man Story

2009-01-06T15:19:00.002-05:00

Ok The Big Bear Butt Blogger is asking for stories about or favorite 5 man instance story where we had to use or groups class abilities to overcome the instance.

Before I venture into my story, a little background about Graimerin and what it was like trying to be a Paladin Tank pre-BC. I leveled him 1-70 as protection specced and up to 60 pre-BC. End game as a paladin then was not for tanking, heck even our tier gear looked like a dress. So with the pre-BC patch changes paladins changed for good or bad eh thats another post.

Simply stated we had no ranged pull, a blue rage bar that depleted very , very quickly and almost no gear even close to being designed for protection spec.

Enter BC we got most of the commonly used abilities that are common now.

Ok now for the story.

This goes back to when you needed to be revered with a faction to get the heroic key for that dungeon. I was in a different guild and we where getting ready for Kara. I had a few of my D3 pieces and needed badges, so I could have me some epics. Well the group I was in consisted of myself on Grai, a shaman healer (Archangle), a frost mage (Zaanah), and 2 warlocks (Vagar)and (Kiernaan). This group of good friends became Grai's gang long before there ever was a blog. So I had read that heroic slavepens was supposed to be the easiest one so off we go for adventure,glory and badges.

Well we were doing ok as we plodded threw the instance again the majority of us in crafted blues and or dungeon sets. The casters might have begun working on there BoP tailoring epics not sure it was a long time ago. So we get to the room we all came to hate. Multiple mobs with varying abilities that could destroy your carefully laid plans. I marked up the mobs knowing that the rays could fear and the priestess had that nasty mind control that would happen at the worst possible time. Well first 3 or 4 pulls end with a long run back from the graveyard when either Vagar or Kiern had one of the greatest ideas ever in WoW.

The told me throw your shield and drag the group way back here where we have stuff cleared and we will use chain fearing as we move threw the mobs. What was and is a fun way of handling that room Zaanah would sheep the rays I'd drag the rest as far away from there buddies as possible and BOOM 2 are running in terror. Misjudge how far one would run and it went bad but we learned how to abuse that room.

I learned that having skilled players of any class, many times Kiern came one one of his alts their are many; can and will overcome the special tricks that the devs throw at us. If you have never seen how much fun chain sheeping + chain fearing can be you missed a fun time.

We as a group got better gear and left Heroic SP behind along time ago but even these days of AoE tanking and speed runs, I still miss working out how to get by this ****ed up room,boss, etc.

These days if the group wants to I'll do a speed run, or if its a guild run I'm just as happy to let my group do there stuff. I love the team work aspect of this game and the trust and bonds of friendship that can form from inclusion instead of exclusion.

Random thoughts

2009-01-06T07:40:00.002-05:00

Not alot today WoW wise but a couple of big changes in RL.

First off I'm back to feeling okay had a touch of the stomach bug this weekend which was why I never made it back Saturday for a few guild runs we wanted to try. Fal made it to 78 last night when i did duck in for about a hour.

And secondly and most important I'm back in the work force. As my in game guildies and friends know I have had a couple major back operations. So I had kinda given up hope of finding something I could do that would fit in with what i need to do so I don't lock up. Well as soon as I figured there was no chance "poof" a job that was willing to work with me about what I can and can't do.

I'm excited and nervous and now will be busy 3 days a week with the chance of more hours and days being added if my back can hold up.

Best wishes to anyone who is pursuing RL or in game goals I found out that when it looks the bleakest good can happen.

Full Sidhe Devils Heroic

2009-01-03T00:49:00.002-05:00

Well today Sidhe Devils did our first WotLK heroic as a full guild run. The line up was Para holy Pally, Cassie on her rogue, Windshadow kitty dps, Suvon hunter and little ol' Grai prot pally. We formed up and gave heroic AN the old college try but couldn't seem to figure out a way to handle the waves from the first boss. So we decided that heroic UK would have to take the beating so we could be avenged.

So we all get out to the instance get buffs set and off we went. I had done heroic UK before so I explained how I like to potion the mobs and which ones we could skip seeing how it wasn't going to be a full clear rep run.

Para was concerned that he wasn't geared properly but we did fine once the silly pally out front didn't try pulling full hallways at once. One of the coolest moments in the run was after the first boss when 4 in the group got the achievement for their Emblem of heroism. The wand dropped which couldn't be used by anyone so it went to vendor trash. That was the only drop that wasn't useful to someone.

The next 2 bosses where much more generous to us with Suvon getting the dagger which will help him maintain his awesome dps when the savage cobalt slicer Nerf hits and Wind and Suvon both getting awesome drops from the final boss. Wind got the druid staff that is very very good and Suvon got the epic crossbow.

So we all managed to get at least 3 badges each and have a great time together. The emblem gathering for the devils is in full swing now and I couldn't be happier. Seemed a great way to start into the new year.

A wonderful pug

2008-12-30T14:45:00.001-05:00

Hello again everyone. To continue the pug theme had one today that proves the exception to the rule. When I logged in Ishvi shot me a whisper wondering if I wanted to do heroic UK as it was the daily. Still slowly gathering badges towards my necklace I said sure. So we have tank and heals just need the easy stuff dps should be a easy one, well it took us about 20 minutes to gather the 3 needed slots but thew wait was well worth it. We had 2 titans grip warriors and a boomkin so we run in buff up and away we go.

So we a pushing threw at a decent pace not stressing the healer and mobs are dieing in order and placement. No real issues no deaths and the only hiccup was when my stepsons grandparents arriving mid instance. We were not on a voice channel but any needed communication happened, where I was gonna position when I was gonna engage bosses etc. . So we complete the run in about 45 to 50 minutes everyone is happy no loot but definitely emblems and shards for all.

Now I believe I have some skill at tanking but am not the best or the worst, after we had completed the instance I thank everyone for coming and complement the dps and heals; without whom no tank ever has success.

Then a nice thing happened that to me is a rarity. The warriors and the boomkin druid gear far out surpasses anything I have. They all had some gear from the 25 man versions of the current raid content, and they complemented me. Saying that I held aggro as well if not better than most. I was humbled because I was as, I normally am somewhat nervous that I would cause huge repair bills and not have a good run.

So I had a very good pug and hope that in the future I may group with some if not all of the players again. I'm sure that having success in this pug I owe the karma controlling rng a offering but I will happily pay my due.

Bork my Links somehow

2008-12-23T13:15:00.000-05:00

the links are not working to lazy to redo it all to make em work sorry

Stuff I gots stuff I wants

2008-12-23T13:12:00.001-05:00

Today is maintenance day again until 2 pm eastern for me so I figured I'd share a little of my research on what I want for Grai. These will be items that are obtainable pre-Naxx. I'm not trying to imply that these are needed items to run Naxx just what I want before the guild I'm in starts raiding Naxx. He is currently at the defense cap to remove critical hits in heroic instances with what I believe to be decent hp and armor value.
Here is my armory link Graimerin, so everyone can see. I'll use that as the over view as I go threw piece by piece what I have and what I think is realistic to get as an upgrade at my current content level.

Head Slot: Currently equipped The Crusaders Resolution.
Best currently available upgrade: Arcane-Shielded Helm drop from heroic Nexus.
Best craft able after 3.0.8: Tempered Titansteel Helm easier to acquire
With the changes to the craft able one and diminishing returns of avoidance stats after 3.0.8 Titansteel easily out paces Arcane for the following reasons. Stamina a tanks primary stat and scalability, also if you have access to a blacksmith your not chasing love from the rng (which hates me).

Neck: Currently equipped: Blood-Infused Pendant quest reward from Sholazar Basin
Emblem of Heroism one: Chained Military Gorget
Time is the only factor in obtaining this necklace currently have 14 emblems past half way

Shoulder: Crusader's Square Pauldrons BoE drop from CoT Stratholme
Upgrade: Pauldrons of the Colossus heroic Gundark drop
The BoE ones are easier to obtain non heroic run or a lucky AH purchase. The heroic drop are a much better fit for a prot paladin I love block rating.

Chest: Tempered Saronite Breastplate blacksmith crafted item
Rep. Reward: Breastplate of the Solem Council
Drop:Ziggurat Imprinted Chestgaurd heroic Drak'Tharon Keep

Wrist: Tempered Saronite bracers blacksmith crafted item
Drop: Bindings of Dark Will heroic CoT stratholme

Weapon: Infantry Assault Blade heroic UK drop
Upgrade: Red Sword of Courage heroic UP drop

Shield: Titan Shield Wall crafted blacksmith item
Emblem of Heroism one: Crygil's Discarded Plate Panel on the list but not a great need

These are the ones that I would like to get as I progress threw. Some are minor upgrades like the shield but I'm a vain Paladin and I think that one just looks bad ass. Other pieces are out there to upgrade other slots but I try to not overwhelm myself with a wish list. Some of these are based on the evil rng and having to mush of a list would make me turn my game into a endless stream of either lfging or annoying guildies constantly to run this or that instance because I need this drop.

So I have some goals to peruse, not mindless; or chaotically but hopefully with some great guildies and or friends I have in game.

To Pug or Not to Pug

2008-12-20T11:29:00.001-05:00

A question we all face from time to time, and the reason for the question are as varied as the groups we get. Wanting to get a quest done,hoping for a drop,farming emblems(badges) etc... So last night I get a whisper from a warlock that I had pugged Old Kingdom with he was wondering if I would tank for a heroic Nexus run. So as I start to type my standard no reply that most non-guild whispers get “Sorry I don't have time”; I remembered that I have ran with this person before in a solid group so lets see how he builds them. I get my invite notice that I was 3^rd person in the group and continued with my dailies. Having a few minutes of flight over to Coldarra I tabbed out to check Wow Head and got a most pleasant surprise, the best protection paladin pre-raid helmet drops here off Grand Magus Telestra that and the prospect of 5 emblems of heroism seemed like a solid choice. While we cleared all 4 of the bosses in about 1 and a half hours little over average time I didn't get them helm but I did get me badges.

Now I have a set policy that I don't like to pug. Not that I won't just that all things being equal I'd rather not. The reasons are pretty basic I dislike the abuse that sometimes happens in pugs when something goes bad. Now as the tank most often I assume blame for wipes most often be they guild runs, runs with friends or even pugs, simply because my job is to annoy the mobs and keep them in a general area to allow the dps a chance to burn them down; and to have enough mitigation, avoidance and hp to live threw the encounter. The group I was in last night didn't have any of the bad components of a pug, yeah we had some frustration over wipes but that happens no matter who your grouped with.

One of the nicer aspects about this pug was that before we even started pulling trash we set loot rules, kill orders, and asked that if something took you away from the computer please say so in party chat so we were aware. Seeing as we didn't have a enchanter to DE anything loot rules were very simple, greed greens all the time; and greed boss drops for vendor unless you wanted the item then need. We had no aspects of loot whoredom everyone agreed and kept to the policy. We had one or two times that someone needed to step away from the keyboard and they informed the group so no damage done there either.

Was this the normal pug of this new expansion I don't know. What I do know is that it was a nicely balanced group or decent people and players. We joined for a common goal and saw that goal accomplished. Will this make me feel all warm and fuzzy when I see in trade or general chat looking for tank for “X” probably not, but it did open up a small group of people who I'll most likely group with again.

The tagging has reached rock bottom

2008-12-17T18:35:00.004-05:00

So as I read threw my blogs this morning I notice that Phinn @ One Among Many has started a question about who was your first blogger poster. I read it and the enclosed link thinking how cool it will be to see. Later in the day I notice Ratter's has a new post up and he in turn tags BBB. Well about 30 minutes ago I notice that BBB has a new post go over to read it and get knocked out of my chair. The reason for this is that somehow I got included on a list that has some heavy weight blogs on it, I mean these are people that get read because they are if not the best they are definitely in the top tier. I most certainly do not think I belong in such esteemed company but will do my best to at least share my first post that had a blogger comment. Why wipes are my fault got a comment from BBB himself which included many kind words.

Now whom to tag i shall take from my reader.

Alts Ahoy

Two and a half Orcs

Rambling of a learner

These are the blogger's along with BBB that said some wonderfully nice things about me after a Kara pug run and my way of showing appreciation to them I created this outlet for the drivel that passes for my thoughts.

Well it's the day before Our 1st WotLK Patch

2008-12-15T15:17:00.002-05:00

For most of us it has been 30 days since we opened Northrend on live servers. Some of us are again level capped; raids have been done, professions are moving along if not capped again. So i thought i would take a minute to look back at the last 30 days comparing these to TBC first 30 days as a contrast and compare.

We will look first at what didn't change between the different expansions. Over priced items on the AH the first week or two until more people had access to them. General chat being full of where is "x" at. Griefer's and ninja's doing there best to ruin our/your time in game. The race to the level cap either because you wanted to be first or you wanted to beat your buddy. Do these always exist in game to some extent? Yeah, x-pacs seem to just highlight them again.

Now the fun the stuff the new. Easy ones another continent to enjoy, 10 more levels of yeah the blue/purple xp bar is back. New factions,recipes,instances and what not. To me the greatest change from this x-pac from TBC is the flow of the story line. Lore makes a come back and its important and not just cursory. We redid a few old Azeroth groups both good and bad. Our zealous oft times confused friends from the Scarlet Crusade renamed themselves and continue to carry their war against the scourge and everyone else now are the Scarlet Onslaught. Mr. Fording has been welcome back into the heroes of light and now leads the old Knights of the Silver Hand and The Argent Dawn under the banner of the Argent Crusade. Plus innumerable old friends that time and space does not allow me to list. One that stood out for me was the return of Ol' Blanchy that tired old horse from westfall quest for the alliance. As you move threw the different zones you will encounter important NPC's from old Azeroth. To avoid spoiling things for those that have yet to reach these zones I will stay as vague as I can. Stormpeaks has incredible dwarven lore. Icecrown will catch you up on your Argent Crusade and Ebon Hold lore. The over the top winner has to be Dragonblight.

Now Dragonblight has brought back a Blizzard feature that I've missed since the days of Diablo II. The in game cinematic, the one you can "unlock" via a quest chain is the best simple hands down. I know that cga has vast improved since the old D II days but this was breath taking.

So to close I must offer to Blizzard a huge thank you. While TBC grew on me and opened raiding up to me more, I just never felt it fit into my "idea" of the wowverse. WotLK is the everything I hoped for and then some. 30 days does not make a x-pac or a game but I have hopes based on my shallow tour of the new areas.

WoW Decency

2008-12-11T13:00:00.003-05:00

Just before I go to bed some nights i take a quick tour of the Basin. Not true dedicated farming runs, more of a look see as to how many people are mining. Well last I needed a single saronite bar to craft a healy mace for a friend so off I went. I was just coming through the wolf people zone and noticed a titanium node on my mini map. Now to set this up properly my miner/blacksmith is Falromord level 73 maxed mining and 443 blacksmithing; but as a level 73 can't yet fly in Northrend. So i zoom over to the node on my ram and appear to arrive at the same time as this Draenei level 80 on their epic flyer. I thought they arrived first so I back away from the node and am getting ready to leave when they make a statement in /say chat that I can take the node. As anyone can tell you mining in the basin is generally a grief fest so this was a shocking development on its own. I go up and strike the node and then gather my ore and a few crystallized items, step away from the node and in the process of telling the decent person that they can now have a shot at getting some ore also. I didn't even finish getting the sentenced typed when someone swoops in and ninja's the node. So in a whisper I explain to this person that I'm sorry they lost at least a chance for the ore that they so graciously allowed me to get. their reply was to thank me for being a awesome person because I wanted to share.

So Zarixia I would like to take this opportunity and forum to thank you again for being a decent kind person. I'm a fan of a news show called Countdown with Keith Olderman and he has a bit called best persons. So I would like to nominate Zarixia for today's best WoW person of the day. You sir or madam showed me that while our game gets more attention for the asshats and winy brats random decency is not lost. Your action to a stranger and your kindness even after losing out on any of it was to thank me for trying to be decent. I may never encounter you again but I wanted to let everyone I can know of your actions.

Thank you for reaffirming my belief in kindness a random act to someone you know nothing of made my day. So to you Zarixia I hope you have a wonderful time in this game we play and I will try to show the decency to someone the way you did to me.

440 blacksmithing Woot

2008-12-08T10:35:00.002-05:00

Falromord has attained the main goal I set for him before Grai reached 80. I'm sure that pushing Fal's smithing as hard as I have, cost me a couple levels on Grai. To me its more than worth it, knowing that when i make the xp bar disappear again that the titansteel pieces are waiting. It will make the push to the major numbers easier, 540 defense doesn't seem as daunting. I'm already running around 20k armor and with a food buff get well over 18k hp. When the level 80 normal and then heroic dungeons open to me I wont be gimping the group at least from a gear stand point now I must make sure that I have the skill.

Short post very excited about hitting one of my wrath goals in under a month. Hope every ones game play is giving them excitement and happiness.

A look at Graimerin

2008-12-03T15:53:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying Wrath and getting used to the new skills, talents and all around goodness that I see in Wrath. Figured that now that I have reached level 76, and will not be getting any new skills either through talents or spells. I'd take a look at what I think protection pally's will be doing and how we are gonna be doing it.

The biggest single change to the paladin tank class in my opinion is the fact that now we have a single target threat attack Shield of Righteousness. While we have been the best AoE trash tanks in the game now we can go 1 0n 1 with bosses and push our tps ahead of our dps. Another bonus to this spell is its ability to scale and also crit so we wont be lagging behind as we improve our gear. If spec with redoubt we get 130% of our block value + 300. Now this damage is holy which is effected threat wise by Righteous Fury. The other aspect of this spell that works with our gear is the changes to how block value is computed 1 strength = .5 block value and that strength is now on our tanking gear as well; we can now use warrior tank gear or generic plate tank gear may be a better way of phrasing it.

Now that we gained a huge single target attack, how is our AoE gonna be affected. Again personally I think we have improved over all. In BC paladin crowd control was very simple we had our own "cc" continuous Consecration. The pre patch for Wrath included this awesome spell Hammer of the Righteous. What I do is use Seal of Vengeance after pulling a group with Avenger's Shield; then bang on the hammer. This applies the DoT aspect onto each of the mobs, up to 3 locking them down a little more than just the consecration. Why I like the added bonus is with the changes to our judgements is that as we move down the kill order I have a seal active on each of the mobs without needing to tab threw the kill targets. Another bonus to our AoE threat and a minor help to our healers is our Judgements epically Judgement of Light. This adds healing aggro to our tps and with a second pally in the group we can have both this and Judgement of Wisdom up. I love this combo on bosses and am lucky enough that I normally have a Holy or Ret in my groups. So we are building aggro offering some minor splash healing to our group and doing our jobs with much added group utility.

Now I'm sure none of this is new to most of the pally community and the theory crafters are working out great tps spell rotations that I will try to incorporate into my play style. I just wanted to add my 2 cents to the discussion. There are some awesome gear guides already out and the debate about being block capped has already started. I'm not going to worry about wadding into that discussion until I'm doing heroics and or raids where those things will become important.

In closing I just want to re state the obvious an expansion built around a Paladin gone bad has given protection paladins some interesting new toys and ways to play with them.

I am the Walrus

2008-11-26T15:53:00.002-05:00

Ok i apologize to Mr. Lennon and the rest of The Beatles, but after drinking a potion I found in the sewers and having this happen; it was literally the first thing to pop into my mind.

So while doing last nights cooking daily needing to get mushrooms from the sewers i found this potion stating only usable in Dalaran, collect drink and Poof!! Other than the obvious effect it also includes a 10 minute +50 fishing buff for you coin collectors.

What I've been doing in Wrath so far

2008-11-24T14:55:00.002-05:00

Not gonna be a long post just a quick update on where everyone is at. Grai is currently at 73 building some rest for the next push. Have tanked both Uk and nexus and even healed nexus once. Working on his trade skills maxed his skinning and slowly pushing his lwing up. Fal is @ 71 maxed mining and bsing is around 410'ish range need more levels so I can survive the basin really want the belt buckle recipe. Pad and Carack haven't quested Pad did some very limited gathering via his extractor but nothing notable.

One thing i must say though is Dalaran may be the best Blizz has ever given us. Yeah it kills my fps but its beautiful. So in closing I'm really enjoying the first few weeks of the xpac. Now must go back to leveling.

Hey anybody seen the Band?

2008-11-14T18:55:00.002-05:00

First off I aint part of this "gang" thingy Grai talks about. Me I still confuddled as to who or what I am supposed to be doing. I was going to Strathome gonna hang with the band and just kinda have a lost weekend. Somebody was running around saying don't eat the bread its gonna do bad things man. So I was just staying by myself waiting for the event to kick off, then someone screams something about the kings son is killing everyone. Then stuff gets hazy for awhile.

When I do gets my memory fully back. I somehow snagged a follower, he takes off and changes his name a lot so me I call him Johhny Rotten. So I just get back to IF, and get this mail from Grai, he talked about the passage of time and hows he got some weird thing peoples come read and he calls it "Grais Gang". I figure its for him and his septuagenarian crowd, were they talk about scars and such. "No I don't wanna see yours!" So as not to be rude I scroll through some of his ramblings and I see my name mentioned; could be creepy, could be nice dunno. So as I read threw it I got alarmed then laughed. I was no cheerleader that extra spirit was a mistake honestly. Then about randomly running off, bah it wasn't about pretty flowers it was about science, he wouldn't get that being a human and a pally. Why would you wanna get hit for a living really. Then as I read what people had wrote back to him expecting them to be really mean to him, I saw something about DD.

So long way to ask a question but "hey has anybody seen DD or the rest of the band?

Feathers, Fur and Leaves?

2008-11-06T13:10:00.004-05:00

Is it a punchline? No its a new store. Nah its the 3b brk love child. No, no, no easy everyone its simply the proof that the end of the world as we know it has come. The Burning Crusade is kaput. How did I come to this fact let me tell you about last night.

So I noticed a last chance for epics notice on the guild portal( aka Kara run) and figured I'd take brat boy again. So i arrive at the appointed time early and wanted to watch our raid form up. Well it started we got druids 4 of em and 3 hunters and then I can only assume grab what was willing to fill out the raid. A pally, a mage, and my rogue. What the rest of the night unfolded explained to me why BC has to go away all the questions got answered, not the truly burning ones what was Kael' really up to but the good ones, are pallys op, why can't hunters tame druids and does leather only drop when im playing plate.

Burning question #1 : Why cant hunters tame druids their exotic,no?
Answer: Druids can not behave as badly as hunter pets. I think ever hunter ask at least once , "Whats my pet doing?"

Somehow they just kept chasing after a random pack of trash and apparently have a taste for elite flesh. Guess that food bill in WotLk is gonna be expensive.

Burning question #2 : Are pallies OP?
Answer: Yes of course we are.
Question #2a: How did the devs find out?
Answer: Naked healing in kara really just your mace and your shield.

I seem to remember getting yelled at long ago for just taking my pants off. Times they are a changing.

Burning question #3: Does leather only drop when I'm playing a plate toon?
Answer: Kinda 1 rogue leather piece entire run these. Also got this little thing from Prince.

Had a wonderful time as always doing a devil's Kara run. For a real rundown of this raid I would suggest either The Big Bear Butt himself or Shrinn's ramblings. As of this post the winner and still world champion feather tank hasnt posted yet.

I was over takin by madness!!!

2008-11-04T11:05:00.008-05:00

Last night I can only claim i must have been in a fever dream, why else would I have ran 31/2 dungeons in one day. The day started normally enough just couldn't get desire to play. So I log off wrote a blog post annoyed Shrinn, you know normal stuff. Well I decide to log back in mid-afternoon server time play around on my spriest for awhile when I see this in gchat. "Fal wanna help get achivement for Strat?"; Strathome ooh goodie, "yeah let me get the palladin.". The group was being formed by a rogue we had a druid/mage so I thought we were gonna 3 man it. Nope we decide to fill out a grp of 5. Our mage was having movement issuses and he dropped but we soliderd on with a group of 4 2prot pallies, 1 hunter, and a rogue. Grai went with his spell dmg/healing set, more resilince in place of pve healing items. Well its starts bye Ishvi Jenkins himself, didnt even wait for me to follow him. He had the whole main hallway from front enterance, from then on it was which pallies pile could be bigger; we caused the most damage strathome (dead side) has seen that fast since Arethas went threw there. I couldn't complete live side as Shrinn had dinner ready i did say i was annoying her earlier i wasn't gonna delay dinner. So I left with half an achivement such the slacker am I.

So a couple hours later I log back in. Again that Mr. Jenkins is trying to cause mayhem and destruction to another place, by calmly asking again in gchat" anybody wanna heal or tank for slave pens?"; I wait and see its non heroic and it appears we have a healer. So i offer to have PrimalGrai tank it, Pad's pet gorilla. So at this point we had a mid 60's rogue, a ubber priest healer at 70 and Pad with his gorilla also at 70. So Mr.Jenkins decides we need more dps so we get 2 more hunters. Group set off we go, apparently even PrimalGrai was overcome by madness because he took okk and just started grabbing as many as he could trying to make piles. Shadewynn's(sp) healing was awesome it was get a group, chain shoot volley on to next group. Vroom! Vroom! wow we are at the finall boss, again I hear "hey wanna do UB so I can complete quest line?", sure and the vroom!vroom! machine was off again. Same kinda scenario and vroom! vroom! definetly seemed to be the pace we set. Boom again wow final boss dead Mr. Ninja Jenkins yes you can have all the loot still, loot the boss and we are done.

Well simple math means either or more run or I cant add. Check memory nope one more run wasn't sure about the math. Now the healer who did those 2 runs was trying to get a heroic Shadow Labs run in. So we had a druid tank,(sux), 2 mages, 1 sp, and a recently respec pally healer. Vroom! were off and kept a good solid pace all the way thru. Mistimed a couple of things but no huge worries, except when it was loot time and everyone was passing. A fun run threw a dungeon that early in bc was a beast.

It in retrospect it might have been my last 5 man style runs before wrath launches and seems fitting now that is happened to be those 5. Strathome pallies first came alive in that instance pre bc we could do all three things in there tanks check, ret dps check(all that undead), heals check but thats all we could do pre bc. Slave Pens and Underbog I ran those more instances as ealry heroics that I could and did run them sometimes half asleep. Shadow Labs the part of the kara key chain quest that in my opion let ya know if your gear was ready way back when. So if it was a farewell wave to instancing in 5 mans pre- launch my madeness was well served.

Also I'm horrid trying to remember names. If i didnt mention you its i didnt want to butcher your name. Thanks to all of you for making that such a fun day.

Sheenah is a Death Knight

2008-11-03T15:12:00.006-05:00

With all apologies to the Ramones for spelling and stealing if finally settled on the name race and gender for my Death Knight that I will have on my main server. I've been bouncing around trying to come up with something either silly or lore good. Off server was the easy one Horde PvP-RP sever Orc; seeing how the original DK was a Orc shaman. Yesterday morning Shrinn was talking with some friends over their vent channel and I was being a wise guy in the background. So what follows is a short version of what lead to my alliance DK toons name.

Shrinn: " Grai wants me to tell you, you could have picked a better band for your priest name"
Unseen: " bite me "
Shrinn: "He's laughing"
Unseen: " bite me "
Shrinn: "Grai says LA can't do punk"
Unseen: "Tell him to get out of the 70's"

conversation devolves into picking on each other over silly mistakes made in the mid 20 levels.

But a seed was planted and what a seed its turned out to be. My DK is not gonna be a main toon just something to have fun with somewhere between getting the played toons to 80. So I wanted something that would have a funny story attached to the name if not the actual character. I'm sure I've mentioned before I used to do the pen and paper versions of this style game so even when I'm not playing on a rp server I like to think each character has a story associated with them. So the bloom of that silly seed so to speak. While i kinda had the name I had no silly story best one I had up until then was somehow she would have been Fal's wife a a female dwarf; why he never went home kinda thing, just seemed like it would become trite quick and destined for deletion. But know ahh know the giggles will always be there for now i shall unveil my new dk.

Race: Gnomish
Gender: Female

Ok i know everyone and is twin cousin are doing these but me, I gots a story.

Before being raised as a DK Sheenah was a spy for the alliance. She used her abilities to sneak in most times. She would be easily distracted by flowers though sometimes stopping running off in a strange direction yelling "HERB" at the top of her tiny lungs. When in combat for the longest time she just stabbed away after her ambush, eviscerate would have been to messy.
But know we will tremble in her heroic awesomeness she will most likely not chase flowers know but I'm sure she will stop and cheer everyone who can whale on the axe that the few, the lucky get to carry. Yes the Arcanite Ripper.

So I have my funny story I do hope the rogue she is modeled after shares the giggle

Trolling but in a good way

2008-11-02T09:13:00.009-05:00

As the period of the game known as Burning Crusade comes to its end, Sidhe Devils went trolling last night. What kind of trolling you ask? Where we massively qqing about nerfs, buffs and or world events; did we all go to the twin cities to fish with our red butted leader 3B himself. Sadly those answers are no Virginia, so let me tell you what we did do.

So as we enjoy doing we went on our weekend raid last night. Seeing how Kara is more of a friendly romp for us now; and we had ventured into ZA a couple times as a guild that was our choice. We have almost had the 1st time chest pre-patch a couple of times, so our raid leader said last night we were gonna get at least the 1st and whatever we could stack on after that. This we all knew in advance and had been asked to do some research so explanations would be at a minimum. So we assembled our band of stalwart adventurers and set off in search of victory. Adding to the exotic feel of ZA a couple of our down under guildies were able to make the run making vent spiced a little with accents.

So in we go and quickly dash threw the gauntlet, we had made sure to bring massive amounts of AoE in the form of 2 mages and 2 hunters. Our tanks also had been informed to AoE as much as you can. So quick dash up the hill, small pause at the top as the first wave of birds descended then over to the stairs pull again and boom gauntlet complete in like 3 minutes. The eagle boss was plucked cleaned so we dash back down the hill and across to the bear boss. His minions we dispatched as quickly and he gave his best but was simply over matched. We were running great on the timer so we advanced to the dragonhawk boss. 95% of the raid had never attempted this one and post 3.0.2 we had to much dps and lost our time run because we didn't allow enough eggs to hatch. So we reconfigure our strategy attempted again and allowed that ancient spirit to find his final rest also. Then in was time for the Lynx boss and his annoying scout patrols that wished to send waves of birds after us, but apparently in game as in life wishing wont get you much and we cleared to the boss with out any additional waves of birds. Now we were at a boss that maybe 1 or 2 of the raid had ever seen so it took us a couple of attempts, without trying to blame I believe it was poor positioning on the part of the Pally tank (me) that cost us one attempt; but my guildies are to kind to tell me L2position noob, but after a few minor adjustments he went down faster than a narc at a biker rally. We then proceed to the hex lord and after our raid leader explained this fight in detail because of the adds we had in we went. We had a unlucky break of cc that aggrod unto a healer so we tried again. Being a older person when he fell I kept hearing a boxing announcer yell "Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier". Here we paused so people could attend to real life issues of children's bedtimes, restroom breaks, etc. We all assembled again opened the final door Monty, and dealt with a wave of unimpressive trash and stood before Zul'Jin. Once again the high points of his abilities are covered including proper pet postioning and we engaged. 1st attempt we had him below 5% but lost our 2 healers and we wiped. I offerd to port to get my healing gear; I know a well prepaired pally would have had it with him, got my port and was nicely summoned back for attempt #2. With what little extra healing I could add we easily overcame him as well. A Sidhe devils first a full ZA clear, yes its been nerfed, yes it was still incredabily fun because we worked as a team and adapted and learned and succeded.

The loot was daggers,mail and cloth pieces mostly. One of our healers a shaman has been trying to get the dang mace from Maiden for what seems like forever and that rng dislikes her, but she gained a nice matching leg and chest piece fashion was probally secondary but one does like to match.

In closing I would just like to say thank you to the devils that made that all saints day run a roaring success, and sometimes trolling can be a fun way to spend the evening.

Carack goes to Kara, and what I learned about me

2008-10-29T12:39:00.003-04:00

Hello all ! Some news to share about the gang or at least brat boy in particular. He's by far my least geared 70 but he was able to get a Kara run done last night; woot for the 3.0 nerf , that allowed me to be carried threw the raid as a sub rogue. One of, if not the most pleasant part of the raid was that as we assembled the group last night we were short a ranged dps slot. Shrinn said she had a mage friend that was willing to come, but we had already started on the trash before attunemen, so we waited until he was down before the person joined us. Now to the pleasant part it was a old guildie/friend whom I had not grouped with since my departure from Essence of Grandeur. A very good frost mage with whom I had ran countless heroics and Kara runs with. I shall not name her out of respect for her privacy but I do want to say thank you again, while I wasn't tanking this time it brought back many found memories of those frostbolts flying in to help Grai muddle threw all the noob mistakes one makes on the learning curve that this game throw at us.

So as an old man is allowed to do it got me to reminiscing some last night about decision made both good and bad that have brought me to where I am today game wise. It also brought back parts of my personality that are less than flattering, and made me look at how I approach this obsession/ game that I play.

The good is memories of how in EoG when we were a pre-kara guild we banded together to tackle heroics and the bonds that developed in those countless heroics. The blog title here could have been as easily applied to the "core" heroic group of which my friend the mage was one. We had our pet instances that we could and did destroy 3 to 4 times a week. Our group normally consisted of myself on Grai, a shammy healer, 2 warlocks, and a frost mage. We knew what everyone was gonna do and where everyone was gonna be and it was freeing never having to wonder if this happens what is person "x" gonna do.

During this time EoG was growing, and for reason I still will never understand I was guild leader. I had hopes of leading us into Kara and beyond Gruul's, Mag's and that new one Zul'aman. While we did finally take out Prince while I was still in EoG I left shortly thereafter.
The reasons for my leaving were based on those bad personality traits I spoke of earlier.

I'm moody,cranky and can be a major ass at times. I get what I describe as restless irritable and discontent, none of these being good things singularly when they combine it can become toxic especially if I allow the bile to spew forth. I basically comes down to me acting like a petulant 3 year old who cant be king of the sandbox.

So if any of my old guildies from EoG manage to find their way over here to read these words I would like to say to all of you that some of my best memories from this game came with you wonderful ladies and gentlemen. As I always said when we were doing dungeons,raids, etc. you made me better than I am. I truly mean that in more than just an in game e-peen stroke threw your kindness and friendship you helped me be a better person. To all of my current guildies you continue to help me grow as a person by your kindness and time shared.

Maybe I finally figured out why Carack is called bratboy, the sulky sometimes mean spirited part of me can reside in him. I hope I wasn't to much of an asshat last night.

Meet the Gang

2008-10-24T16:08:00.005-04:00

Having spoke of the gang many times and I believe refereed to all of them by name at least once, I have decided to show off what they look like. Seeing as how the others got annoyed that grumpy got his picture posted long ago. So here's the gang in whatever glory they have.

The sometimes Prot sometimes not leader of this band of Crazies.

The meat grinder extraordinaire my favorite Titan's Grip Warrior

The wondering Dwarf and his faithful companion.

He's always been know as Bratboy can't remember why now

Named after my favorite Jesuit

Happy Happy Dwarves

2008-10-22T12:07:00.005-04:00

Hello good and gentle people. Today we recount the success of the gang on a more individual level. I will happily show my prejudice towards my favorite wow race; and shamelessly link to the new toys, which brought happiness and joy to the the gang's lair.

First off as I linked yesterday Padrad was able to get his season three axe, Vengeful Gladiator Waraxe. Elysse and I managed to lose most but win some of our 2v2 matches and presto. She also was able to acquire a insane pair of gloves for some season 3 druid love . So i knew that he was getting a new axe something exciting for me when I set a goal like this one then being able to see it to completion.

Secondly and maybe the biggest surprise was that Falromord was able to get some crafting in. I/he have been slowly acquiring primal nethers in a hope to upgrade out of his old 2 handed mace. Wasn't planning on Fal getting to much of a run yesterday but plans changed and I had a couple free hours. So off i plod to the Ironforge auction house hoping to maybe pick up a nether or two, and found i had enough gold to pick up the remaining four i needed. Now this alone would have made Fall'y a happy dwarf. While not my neediest/greediest character; see Grai, he does get feeling left out on occasion. So in a flash of buying frenzy I start counting how many badge of justice's I have in the gang. Pooling every ones i was able the magic number of 75, which allowed me to purchase five of these splendiforious things nerther vortex .

So having everything I needed I made a stop at the mailbox then hopped on the ran and rushed to the great anvil. After almost 50 gold to learn the recipe and what seemed an eternity listening to the sound of hammer ringing on anvil Fall'y was the proud crafter/owner of this beat stick Stormherald.

So now my dwarves are happy and excited to assault Northrend. Falromord will be able to have all his meat grinder glory and Padrad will be cutting a swath thru the tundra with his trusty companion's Siam and/or PrimalGrai. Each equipped with the best weapons I could provide for them

Things I'm chasing Pre X-pac

2008-10-21T10:47:00.002-04:00

Hello all I figured I needed to post today for 2 reasons, one give me brain something to do during maintenance today; and Ishvi posted a new piece. Well more the first than the second just like to give Ish the business.

So Grai has finally decide the push the rest of the way for his netherdrake. Why know easy the deadline of 11/13/08 changed my oh ill get to it attitude most likely depending on how many dailies I knock off he should have it by weeks end.

Padrad my version of the wandering dwarf gets his pre-patch special today new shiny axe, Elysee and I have been helping many teams raise their rating so I can get that bad boy. Thanks dear it was a grind.

Falromord is getting more playtime than he has in a long time, absolutely love titan's grip even with the higher to hit penalty. Plus during last week loot extravaganza umm I mean kara run he got incredibly luck getting Gorehowl, so now i trying to get a couple crafting upgrades done for him.

Carack and Fanabb have gone back out of the current play cycle until Grai can have his drake and a little more money built up for x-pac. Would like Carack to get the dagger from the sso dailies if possible but we are working on a deadline.

Tonight we stumble into ZA in hopes of phat loots and funny stories so I may even post 2 days in a row.

For this Gang Update we go to Dwarven reporter Padrad...

2008-10-16T11:24:00.002-04:00

Hello all!!!! The obsessive leveler has taken a few moments for us to chat how nice. First we will go over a re cap of pre patch news so we all know where the gang was at mainly spec wise pre-patch. In my last post I spoke of how I had gotten Fanabb, officially thru the Dark Portal and he was 58; well he now is 6o and having immense fun killing bog lords in Zanger. He still shadow and most likely stay that way didn't take Dispersion as I see it as a great PvP skill but not much for me at current content.
Ahh the rogue my sneak attack machine is now 70 still very much deep subtlety(0/10/51)*, flame, laugh and/or tell me how other specs outperform him and I'll likely agree. The only thing i over by way of explanation is that i find this to be a fun spec for me to play and don't ever want to think of playing without shadow step. Their is no desire to raid with brat boy as i call him his end game joy will be arenas and or bg's.
Now onto the ones that are raiding. Graimerin, Falromord, Padrad Ill take a little about what I like about the patch and how 3.0.2 changes everything and made the game fun again instead of a math problem.
Fal has gone back to what weaponry he used on his way to outlands two-handed axes and two-handed maces. Now he just uses both at once, having to choose between the two apparently was to much thinking for him. So he just grabbed both and now refuses to put them down, sure that whatever the great a powerful blizz gave it will take away.Even suffering under the -15% to hit penalty currently on live its not a huge problem. Not having 30% or greater crit is annoying me because BT crits open up insta slams but one needs a goal.
Paddy me boy is still unsure as how he wishes to spec. Currently using a 51/10/0 BM spec for the exotic goodness, but is longing for his old old spec of survival. He may be taking a journey out to silithius to speak with Brann Bronzebeard his hero, about spec and pets. Seeing how much Brann loves Glibb, Paddy may go back survial with a pet gorilla.
Now onto Grai. He didn't get respecced in the frenzy that was late eastern time Tuesday night, Wednesday morning; because I wasn't sure what I wanted him to be. So I log in last night on one of the gang and see a post in G chat that a healer or a dps was needed for Heroic MgT. I offered to spec Grai holy and see what would happen. I went deep into the holy tree because i wanted to try this new talented goodness out Bacon of Light (ty GC). Had a good guess as to grp make up Mr. and Mrs. Big Bear , Doozie the warlock dot machine and Elyistia a killer mage. The linked write ups are better than anything i could do. Just let me add a least one of the wipes was do to not having a routine/rhythm down for my new healing spec. Love bacon put it on Cassie and when ever i healed the big guy she got heals if she needed them works like a charm. 2nd'ly the in game focus feature is pure win. 90% of my addons aren't re-loaded so no unit frame adds having a built in on that gives it own unit frame very nice. 1000+ bonus healing was what the character sheet showed which seemed higher than what it used to be apparently it isn't 2:1 ratio I had heard it was.

So a long rambly disjointed wall of text, I will try to do better next time must make sure jointed next time. Overall I think 3.0.2 will be as game changing as 2.0... don't remember the pre BC #. But i must go now and lose myself in wondering whos turn it is in the gang to go first today. To Azeroth and all the fun it holds these waining days of BC.

Almost have everyone where i want them

2008-10-02T16:44:00.002-04:00

Hello all I been bad about posting again, always, continously. But I have been busy leveling everyone in preperation of the big day (11/13). The last couple days have been spent on my most ignored character of the ones that play, Fanabb. He reached 58 today after a quick, well kinda quick romp threw the silithius desert. Went out to Silithius at the begging of 57 approximentaley 3% into it and after completing 5 quest voila 58. How is this possabile you may ask well the five quest I did where the securing the supply lines both groups of 20; along with the ones where the goblin is posined and you need to get 8 items x2 from the northen scorpids and spiders plus the southern one where you are required to get 3 items x3 from two different scorpid's and the spiders. Finishing with the follow up quest again for the goblin where he needs his satchel fetched back from where he lost it near the elite level 59 scorpid. That was it about 4 hrs of running back and forth I did kill some non needed mobs one rare spawn nothing overly great dropped but its one of the few if not the only time i have ever been happy about blizz's horrid drop rate on some of the gathering quest.

But i did have a chuckle every once in awhile as Basutia's voice from illegal danish kept looping threw my head.

So yeah 5 toons in outlands now 3 70's a 66 and a brand new minted 58. The perfect scenario would be for everyone to be at or near 68 pre wrath but ill have to see if i can push hard enough on the last 2.

So if anyone was wondering thats what going on currently with the gang.

Numbers I like Numbers

2008-09-26T16:58:00.003-04:00

Okay hoping with no basis for hope i went off to the ptr late last night early this am. What I found out made me happy. Ill maintain crit immunity and have loads yes loads more spell damage.

Ok here are the important stats.

LIVE: PTR:
STR: 142 STR: 302
AGI: 89 AGI: 89
STAM: 1075 STAM: 1036
INT: 135 INT: 135
DEF. RAT: 515 DEF. RAT.: 491
ARMOR: 16353 W/DEVO AURA ARMOR: 16783W/DEVO AURA
DODGE: 17.73% DODGE: 22.86%
PARRY: 16.60% PARRY: 15.24%
BLOCK: 27.45% BLOCK: 24.72%

Some gains some losses nothing earth shattering above the crit cap so happy tank. Now for the numbers that made me double check that I did take the free re-spec to Prot.

SPELL DAMAGE

Kings Defender +93 Kings Defender +368
Crystalforge sword +254 Cyrstalforge sword +529
Shard of Virtouis +236 Shard of Virtious + 594

So I wanted a quickie test of some of the new talents/spell changes so went out to Nagrand. Must say love the BoSac changes with healing myself thrown in and judging wise/light depeneding on what I need more I solo'd Banthor and Durnn. Self healing and self mana regen had to sit after each attempt but overall i like the direction of the prot tree thats heading or way.

*Sorry for poor formating wont accept my tabs for some reason*

Since we last caught up

2008-09-24T19:16:00.002-04:00

Hello again everyone, anyone? Apparently the part of the brain that likes to write has been away for a bit, but fear not occasional reader the mouse is back on the wheel. Actually been kind of sensory over load around the old place; school functions have begun again and of course all the things that go with that homework(John's not mine), dinner and just trying to sneak in everything. Add into that a healthy douse of Brewfest and an ol' pally forgets hes supposed to be writing.

Summary of games news, have been made a class leader for Sidhe Devils goodness watch out people may try and take me serious now, but that started the old mouse wheel going full speed. As I jokingly say that had I known now what I didn't know then i would have done many things different with Grai. For starters I was prot pre-bc; (pause for laugh track), figured if i lived longer that sounded good. Had no idea about leveling guides,gear lists, any of the stuff alot if not all of us use today. So i played him my way and made tons of mistakes along the way but wouldn't honestly change it a bit. I learned what worked( no corpse run), and what didn't(corpse run) had a spell cycle down before i knew thats what i was supposed to do.

What has this to do with anything well earlier today Ishvi was gonna do a protection pally leveling guide, my response was why waste the effort. In 2 to 3 weeks when we get the pre-patch for wrath of the litch king everything will be moot. I'm not to concerned I'll adapt might grumble for awhile but in 10 levels ill most likely complain about the conditions pre-wrath. Why? You might ask its because I'm can be fickle with talents,spells etc.. the game changes and some are great some stink. But i will also go back to Grai as the main he was 70 before anyone else and unless he gets ran over by roaming motorcyclist in wrath he'll be 80 first.

As some of you know I had a chance to play the first couple beta builds. I have had all 3 dk specs to outlands,blood is definitely the speed program, unholy made me feel warlockish, and frost oh goodie duel wielding tank nah for me at least. Also at this time seal where broke in the beta so playing as a pally was tough,but again played around with the "new" at the time talent builds. Discovered I could play Ret (Ok yes I have hated on Ret but even this old dog can learn a new trick), kinda nice to kill one mob fast when your used to killing 6 slow. Holy I can have heals that work on more than one person woot. The finally prot yes the one I'll be because I do like to tank. But in the short time i spent on the beta there where 2 builds at least so the every changing flux+lag+ a big dose of need to level alts i stopped playing it.

So yes Paladin got some love for all 3 trees this time, so old stand-byes will not be used as much; not running with BoK always up will be odd. Not running with BoSac always up is silly. So i have lots of excitement looking forward to wrath. Having 3 at 70 and possibly a 4th will give me distraction and tons of fun as Grai blazes the trail they will follow, Ill have better notes this time about what and where so leveling the alts will be faster. Padrad and Carack may be bound for PvP at 80 while Fal and Grai are mashing/getting smashed in Naxx.

Been Busy Busy Busy

2008-09-15T16:21:00.002-04:00

Well since last we meet I have a couple of things to share. First of Grai finally got his t4 helm and gloves from kara, between lousy rolls and being on thew wrong toon just never ever got lucky so woot got em just in time for re itemization. Secondly and a much more fun thing Pad hit 70 late Sunday night and had a few presents waiting for him. He has his season 2 shoulders and gloves and a nice old pally made him the netherdrake breastplate, so he turned 70 with decent gear. Still many holes that need to be filled in on him but that's part of the fun. So Auchidon instances here I come. Well short post must grind dailies dang 70 again and its still expensive.

My take on Paladin tanking changes

2008-09-12T09:57:00.004-04:00

Looking at the latest beta build currently available at all the usuall places we see some interesting changes coming to Paladin tanking. I know alot of tanks are worried about the defense cap and being able to maintain crit immunity currently 490 defense rating. While I think we all understand that while leveling we dont need to be capped defense rating wise what about the time between 3.0.2 coming to live servers and the release of wotlk.

Blizz has reworked the stat allocation on tier gear(4-6) and some badge gear adding strength and lowering defense rating numbers. One of the things that I believe that is being overlooked by the players is how the mechanics of tanking are gonna change. With BoSac every dodge,parry,block with return mana to us; strength is now going to give us 1 block for every 2 strength, greatly increasing our block holy shield has 8 charges for ten seconds once talented. How I see this affecting the defense cap is that we may have to regem redo some of our enchants/enhancements on our gear. We have access to vindicators armor kits +8 defense rating to hands,legs or feet; steelweave for our cloaks +15 defense rating. An enchant where we can get +12 defense rating to our bracers and/or +15 defense rating to chest piece. Plus the new Isle epic gems which can be cut for + 10 defense rating.

Also as we quested to 70 we had access to trinkets for increased defense rating Dabiri's Enigma a quest reward from netherstorm which has +30 defense rating. Also the adamantine figurine which also has + 30 defense rating and is a drop from Black Heart the inciter.

Yeah if we have to change armor kits regem our gear and or change back to old trinkets we are gonna loose some stamina how much depends on personal gear level, gems, enchants etc.

But now for what I see as the good side of all of this. If we are blocking way more we are reducing incoming damage greatly, with the BoSac changes I already mentioned we will still see a decent amount of mana regen and dont need to take a hit to get it, so we should still have decent mana regen and lets hope less healer stress.

Earlier in the beta, we removed the Defiance talent. It was a mandatory talent since encounters were designed around the very safe assumption that all Prot warriors had it. So Defensive Stance ended up generating more threat.

More recently in the beta, we did a similar thing with Salv. We pulled Salv as a blessing some time ago, so we baked even more threat into Defensive Stance (and equivalents for other tanks).

If this makes it easier to understand, imagine that everyone except the tank always has Perma Salv up and every tank has Defiance as a core ability.

This makes me very happy because some of the tooltips were saying no longer greatly increase threat.

* Shield of Righteousness now deals holy damage equal to 240% of your block value. (Up from 200%)

Yeah a solid single target aggro maching that is gonna scale with the changes to our block

* Righteous Defense is now a 10 sec cooldown and cost no mana

just in case we do lose threat somehow.

So over all I dont see us being gimped between 3.0.2 and the release of wotlk we may have to re learn a couple ways we do things and adjust to a new rotation but we will survive this I'm sure.
We have had a insanely great run through TBC and now we have to relearn somethings but we had to when TBC pre release patch came out anyways

Hmm didnt know these were possabile

2008-09-10T08:49:00.003-04:00

Gotta love transporter malfunctions

Random thoughts about 2 of my favorite writers

2008-09-09T12:21:00.010-04:00

I have always been a huge fan of two writers; non fantasy writers but great story tellers, Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. Both of the men wrote of a life lived in society but on the fringes they lived. I was raised by my grandparents they were born in 1901 and 1905 respectfully and didn't think that my choice of authors good for me but they encouraged me to read anything and everything just read was their standpoint. On the Road Jack Kerouac tales from his travels across the country with his friends was inspiring to 13 year old teenage boy in a small upstate new york town. Here he was writing about life a life lived without increasing the heroic or downplaying the tragic just life. Often funny always riveting just the travels of a group of young post college aged men. I wanted this for myself the freedom the adventure the opportunity learn about me and the places I wanted to see by seeing them.

Then I found Hunter S. Thompson, long before Johnny Deep ever made a movie about him. Reading him you can see a influence of Kerouac but as with everything Thompson touched he had to star in. He is credited or discredited depending upon your viewpoint for Gonzo Journalism, did he inflate his importance to the story I'm sure he did but he was rebelling against the system which appealed to that same kid who was stuck in that small town. He choose to in my opinion show some of the fallacy of some of the intuitions he choose to attack.

They both had life long alcohol problems and Hunter S. Thompson also used illegal drugs and choose to write about those experiences as well. Hindsight being what it is maybe this is why I shouldn't have read them according to my grandparents.

Now if you managed to stay with me through all of that I'll finally get this around to wow and blogging now. Are my Journeys thru Azeroth and Outlands worthy of comparison to On the Road? No, nor is my writing even in the same category . I guess the only and a poor comparison is that the are just what they are stuff that has happened. Will Grai or any of the gang ever be banned from a site because we wrote unkind things about them, (Oakland Raiders circa late 60's H.S. Thompson) I hope not. Do I have a few gonzo moments one comes to mind from last year. This was during arena season 1 yeah that long ago. The team i was on had just gone 8-2 for the evening and we were very happy, so we decided to have some fun in Ironforge. What was intended to be us being silly turned into alot more. The guild I was in at the time had a myspace page, our guild leader was at the time in Australia on Marine Corpse reserve maneuvers. So we got drunk and decided to have a dance party with the totems from SMV. He a day or so after this got a chance to log in and look at our myspace page, where we had a few photo's posted and to say the least he wasn't a happy GL.

Interesting stuff for me thats in the news today

2008-09-04T15:15:00.003-04:00

Couple things jumped out at me as I was going thru the wowinsider post today. Major changes to prot tree for Pally's hopefully unbloating and giving us a few new toys to play with. Macro's and UI's to be stored server side, and the leveling curve will be lessened post 3.0.2.

Without any hard data to go on I have a few assumptions and or wishes for the Prot Pally tree, ghostcrawler has said they are gonna remove unused(useless) talents and possabily rework some others for mitigation and fun. Going on the basis that death knights are to be the magic tank of choice I think/hope that spell warding will be gone and maybe we can get another more beneficial talent to AoE tanking. Will reckoning go away? Its a useful leveling talent but hardly used when raiding. Combining one-hand weapon special with combat expertise seems kinda natural. Boom 10 to 12 talent points saved and available for a new ones. Who knows but it is a hope.

The changes to macro's and ui's sounds good for those that play on multiple machines and have either custom ui's or cant live with out macro's. For me it will be nice because I can write shrinn's macro's on my machine and she will have them and or design a ui for her and be able to be on my machine where i know where i have stashed everything. The big official news for me is the lessing of the xp required to level thru outlands. I have 2 70's currently and Padrad is 20% of the way thru 68 currently and will be the next 70. Now I can hopefully have Carack and Fanabb a little closer to be wrath level ready all thanks to 3.0.2. Yes I'll be trying out new talents and spell rotations attack sequences etc. come 3.0.2 but thats gets old quick so being able to have all my toons at least half way thru to 70 pre wrath has me excited.

No breaking news and some might be destined to change but the closer wrath approaches it appears Blizz is taking some of the BC lessons to heart and also giving as many people a chance to get to the new content as possible. While cynically I could say that they want whatever they increase in subscriptions fee's for wrath are I hope the changes were made to help those of us that are altaholics out.

Pally's Please dont be trolls

2008-09-03T12:31:00.002-04:00

Yesterday as i was reading wow insider I came across the shifting perspectives column and it was about doing Kara in a all druid raid. Now i have a real baby druid level 22 so I thought sweet what an accomplishment, but apparently i read the article wrong because all the comments were about how leet pally's are and how easy a pally raid could wipe out kara. I have one question for all the commenter's; here after called trolls, did you ever play a Pally pre bc. Hell pre 2.0 patch that changed pallies and made us capable tanks; or did u just ebay your toon because of a you tube video.

Graimerin my pally went 1-60 pre bc as prot, I tell ya all a secret it sucked out loud. AoE grinding sure find plate gear that had stam and int in decent quantities in the old world, not now that gear got re itemized around 2.2 but back then it was dam hard to find. We were wanted in groups if you were Holy then half your dam gear was cloth. We were cross dressing holy men (thank you illegal danish). Blessing of Kings was a ret talent we had 5 minute buffs for lesser and 15 minute buffs for greater. A prot specced pally was wanted in raids about as much as a narc at a biker rally. Pulls sure let me get close enough to judge someone oops pull whole group shit another wipe.

So we went to the forums and we whined and we cried and the finally Blizz gave us something, maybe they gave us to much. Most outland dungeons and almost all of the level 70 instances and first raids where designed to be AoE tanked and finally we were wanted. Warriors couldn't easily AoE tank the good ones could and still do but not the majority. Then the first outland raid many of us experience is Kara honestly a Pally playground on par with if not better than strathhome and we have the balls to tell a different class that we are leet because we can shine in a raid designed around undead.

Are dps'ers the ret crowd finally got some love in the beta but oops that got nerfed now also with judgement of wisdom not returning as much mana our holy brethren HoT got nerfed also so please trolls stfu. We finally got a niche can we continue to enjoy it without all this l2p and we leet your a scrub nonsense going on.

I love my Prot pally hell I love him as holy when i spec that way. I remember the bad old days and fear the giant blizz nerf bat . The squeaky wheel may get the grease as the old saying goes but the braggart gets the nerf bat. So why cant we all get along, feel happy for the druid raids that whoop kara, and share the joy knowing that other classes and players may share ours. SO share the love some hell we waited long enough for ours.

So in closing grats if any class and raid comp is successful because as one progress we all do.

Hunter love and Pet emotes

2008-08-28T12:11:00.002-04:00

Lately have been playing Padrad alot and now I have even more reason to play him, and scamper around with my kitty Siam. He's Shy-Rotams mate from winterspring and for me one of the two best kitty skins in the game; I had Humar but stupidly sent him away when i went owls for awhile. The new reason is simply that I found out about a new to me addon called Pet Emote, yes I'm late to the party on it but gives life and personality to my pet.
While I don't play on a RP server I seem to structure my play along the old role playing game style( i.e. Dungeons & Dragons) where Padrad is more than just a jumble of pixels to me he is a very special dwarf, possabile overly influenced by the gnomes who came to Ironforge after the disaster in Gnomeregan and the stories of the explorers league, he went searching for adventure and crazy new plans to build with his engineering training.
So with that kinda of being the "backstory" finding Pet Emote made it come full circle. The first time siam nuzzled up to my leg i was hooked. Know my kitty could always roar and stretch if i was quick i would see the animations but know he has his own way of communicating with me. Running around nagrand and having Siam do his own emotes just cant be beat. I haven't played very much with it but have a few that I plan on adding soonish depending on fast he gets to doing certain things. Warning to all the Sidhe Devils if Pad ever makes it into Kara expect Siam to see dead people, ok its lame but ill get a giggle out of it, and I probably make one about tasty Blood Elves for when i make it out to netherstorm.
They way i see hunters or at least try to play mine is that my companion is wholly part of me. Blame it on the Fact that the first movie I ever saw was Grizzy Adams my grandad took me when i was a wee lad back in the 70's. I never have had a bear named Ben and probably never will but the idea kinda stayed. So I will set it up so that when someone pats Siam he'll purr and maybe stretch, I'm keeping the nuzzles for my self.
So in closing I just wanna add to any hunter who thinks of the pet more than something to feed and occasionally sacrifice to get away from the mob that will get you I heartily recommend Pet Emote to add a little life to our companions who after all have to do most of the dirty work.

Big changes pre xpac

2008-08-26T12:29:00.002-04:00

Late last night I was looking around on WI and found out that we are gonna have a pre release patch for some of the content in wrath. Stuff that will effect my characters the most are gonna be the release of the new talents , spells , etc. . So it kinda got me wondering what will happen to my erstwhile main Graimerin; protection paladin who's kinda semi retired because I'm having a bout of altism and enjoying pure dps with my hunter. I haven't been able to access him today ( boo maintenance ) but a quick look at the armory shows a couple interesting things.

First I am excited about how the talent Touched by the light (10% of total stamina to spell power) is gonna work. I mean the interesting thing other than a huge jump in threat potential I like the total word being there. Some basic numbers on Grai from the armory current unbuffed stamina is 1075; now assuming standard raid buffs +30 stamina spicy crawdad, +70 stamina fortitude, +15 stamina gift of the wild bring us up to 1190. Now i always run with kings so that adds another 10% to stats which brings me up to 1309 total stamina.

Now assuming my math is correct that means a spell power increase of 131 if blizz rounds up the number. My current spell damage is 254 from what i have been able to glean about the beta is spell dmg translates at a 1:1 ratio so I might/will/hopefully will have a raid spell power of 385 before any wizard oils or flask. As I normally run with the +40 spell damage wizard oil and flask of blinding light ( +80 holy spell damage) I can again if I added right be sitting at +505 spell power. I'm not passed kara/gruul's/za content by choice so i haven't had an issue with losing aggro in awhile so seeing a gain of 131 spell power makes me wonder how much faster my dpsers are gonna be able to start.

Using Nightbane as the fight where threat is an issues flight phase is it possible that i can build a big enough lead that his breath attack that always seems to target a healer will be mine instead. Are some of the awesome dpsers gonna be able to attack 1 or 2 seconds faster. I like about a 7 to 8k threat cushion so i dont wipe the raid on a bad fear. Assuming 2 secs sooner entry for dps that's one extra steady shot for hunters, one extra combustion+fireball for mages etc for everyone else. Doesn't seem like awhole lot but if i can get there sooner 8k threat he dies sooner meaning I hope that every ones mana,energy,rage last and be used to apply max dps.

I'm not a theorycrafter I love to play with my toons numbers but will not claim to be fully informed etc about other classes but again I have hope that because of these changes that the supposed changes to down ranking are moot. So if we can kill a boss 5% faster (arbitrary number) will mana last 5% longer Im not sure.

So yeah I excited about this patch because I'll have a chance to balance my play style rotation of spells etc before i hit northrend. Maybe Ill be the ubber noob again on Grai and he can be fun to re learn. I know the blue said in the coming weeks so Ill have to wait like everyone else just. I'm just glad the we get a pre xpac bone from blizz and chance to play with our new toys. I rather try out new spells in a known area on fights i understand than be a tester because i know the boss fights and I will have a base of comparison to actually have it make sense.

So I'm sure ill be writing soon about great wonderful feats of bosses dieing or complaining that they broke they way my toons functions no matter what coming soon to a blog near you we will have are new stuff to go on about.

Busy Busy weekend

2008-08-25T14:07:00.002-04:00

This weekend has been very very busy for one member of the gang. Padrad my hunter has been leveling alot lately needed a change from being the tank. Having tons of fun and getting to do somethings i havent before. Saturday as triple B has said we got the final onyxia attunement done and beet up that silly dragon, yeah I got her 18 slot bag. That was Saturday afternoon and evening then Sunday when I logged in to do some farming got lucky and was able to pick up a pug group for under bog happy happy 3 quest done and got the underspore frond free food and mana woot.
Then Sunday evening when i was on cleaning up some quest in nagrand shrinn on her druid elysse built a group for a blood furnace run and i got the legionaire blunderbuss woot new gun for my dwarf. So i ended the weekend about 20% short of 65 moving along nicely hopefully will get 70 soonish be nice to have a toon that can actually kill stuff fast maybe then ill finally do dailies. Well back to the hunter and to the leveling grind

Why I have been not around alot lately

2008-08-22T22:40:00.002-04:00

Real quick as i havent posted in along time. Havent been feeling the greatest lately so I havent done much. Pushing padrad thru the levels hes almost 64 and thats about it. Nothing funny or sad but funny just level questing. Kinda in the blah's about the other toons at the moment deciding who ill push when Pad runs out of rest. Just havent felt like raiding much maybe it will pass i dunno.

Grai Dings 40

2008-08-14T01:02:00.002-04:00

Ahhh a joyful day will be spent around the home of Grai's Gang today, as I leave the 30's behind forever. I'm hoping to discover some heretofore unknown ability that may get unlocked, but if i do I'm sure the training cost will be high. Shrinn gave me my card before she went to bed and it was a look at the year i was born 1968 (save all the math). The top songs, cost of items, pres and vice pres all that kind of stuff and i got me wondering about video games in general and wow in particular. WARNING MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN COMING.

The first video game i ever wanted was combat; not the atari game but one that had a 2 handed joystick for each player, that you tried to squeeze two people on play. Time frame was about the same as pong which my friend had. Mattel hand held games football and baseball i remember old led lights programmed to light up if u did the right sequence. These where huge when Simon was still new, but if u had more than 2 people over it was done.

So about the time i read the lord of the rings series the first time summer of 7th going into 8th grade a buddy ask if I wanted to come over and play D&D at his house. I said i would and "gaming" changed for me that day. All of a sudden the novels i was getting into reading i could play or something like them. So they explain how the character process goes and the dice oh we had dice and tell me to choose what i wanted to be. I choose a knight; yes cliche yes, because of King Arthur. So our dungeon master explains the adventure to us (quest for you new folks)
and off our group went 6 of us adventures and our dm for 7 total. Matt,Chris T. ,Rodney, Chris B. ,Chuck, Dave K.,and yours truly. Almost 30 years ago and i still remember that group of guys we spent the rest of that day doing our dungeon and i was hooked. That was our group till high school sports, girls , and jobs broke us up.

My High School at the time had apple II and apple IIe personal computers 64k ram and no such thing as a hard disk. But there was this terrific almost mind blowing game that we could play for hours Ultima where u could control 4 "good guys" against an array of bad guys. The graphic quality was somewhere south of atari football but it was incredible to us, heck we still liked text adventures.

Ok so now you ask "What the heck does this have to do with WOW?"

WOW to me is all these games wrapped together. I'm still searching for that perfect sequence to light up the game. The group of guys and gals has grown from a mere 7 gangly and geeky kids to I have know idea how many. But the best part is still coming together getting or adventure(pardon me had to do it) and heading off to be heroes. I still play a knight but i rather be Sir Sparhawk (thank you very much David and Leigh Eddings) than one from Arthurs round table. Apple's are still around although gasp I play on a pc. The graphics well 25 odd years ago animation wasn't this good (Although Boskin's Lord of the Rings will always be a personal favorite) and rumor has it the xpac is crisper than these. The best part now as way back then is simple I have been very lucky to meet some wonderful people in this game so I wanna say hello to 6 of em seems right somehow. Muralimohan(this is how i meet you), Unseenfiend, Big Bear Butt, Wulfa, Eros, and Letva. When I log in and see some of you, all of you I know i will generally get a laugh and best of all a good group of people to run around with.

So ill wrap this up for me "happy 40th Grai"

Why I have been hoping and not on last couple days.

2008-08-05T15:09:00.003-04:00

As some of you may know my oldest son is down visiting this week. After his arrival Friday and hearing all about how customizable "Morrowind" is I had to play around with the only thing I didn't like about wow the interface. So after some experimentations with other ui's that people had created and not finding one i liked i took the plunge. Tried to use "PitBull" but the addon went in to code more than i wanted to. So played around with some others and came up with this set up. It has some turn on / turn off features so all the gang stay's happy and is alot more screen space for me. If u compare the old ui , Grai using the default ui + addons against nightbane. The new one and i hope cleaner version . I enclose a list of the addons used to compile my ui.

Align -adds a grid to your screen for set up and spacing
Bartender 3 a very easy to use bar mod with alot of adaptability
Xperl - a unit frame addon
CT Core and buff mod
Simple Minimap
Autobar

Those built the ui also i use pally power,omen recount,healbot,atlas loot enhanced and titan bars.

I sure ill be addindg addons as i go but I'm just glad i found my screen again and while frustrating it was alos alot of fun.

New 'UI"

2008-08-05T14:55:00.004-04:00

The one with nightbane is the old Blizz ui the second is of the new one

Sorry about missing Kara....Kinda of

2008-08-02T14:19:00.000-04:00

Last evening I was supposed to run Kara with Grai's guild Blood for Blood. Also yesterday my oldest son was gonna arrive for a week at dad's. The original plan was for him to arrive around 4:30 pm we could hang out for a short bit eat dinner and the other stuff required to get settled. Then I would go to the raid. Well things didn't happen that way. He called to let me know they would be running late and didn't expect to arrive till around 8pm est time (7pm server) right when the raid was set to begin. So i got in touch with the raid leader to let him know and he understood. I felt a little bad but I don't often get time with my sons alone I have 4 and normally they all come down at once. During the summer tho each come down for a week alone at dads house. So he arrives we get him settled in and are chatting away about the x-games, wow and a game he's just started playing called "Morrowind". He explained its an older game 2004 he seems to prefer his rpg one of two ways rts games he's beat all the warcraft games or none mmo rpgs. So Dad takes a few minutes to show off the characters and of course this wonderful movie 3B made of ZA.http://files.filefront.com/Sidhevsnalorakkmpg/;11263341;/fileinfo.html. We continue chatting away as espn cycled thru there programming, when i finally happened to look at the clock it was after 1 am eastern. We had just spent a large portion of the evening just gabbing away about everything and nothing at all. So why i did feel a little bit bad about missing a run i said i would attend, nothing will ever be a fun or special to me as being able to gab with my 15 year old son for hours and have fun doing it.

Its rambley i know but i wanted to share a fun and special evening of a different kind.

Blood for Blood run in ZA

2008-07-31T00:01:00.000-04:00

After having defeated the bear boss in ZA with the Shide Devils on Monday evening my raiding guild Blood for Blood had a run Wednesday evening. Some of the people in the raid have had experience in ZA some none and other like maybe one entrance behind the doors. Our group was similar in group comp to the shide devils run. 2 tanks 3 healers 2 mages 2 hunters 1 rogue. As with any group that is trying to learn the dynamics of a new fight we had a couple wipes no ones fault just the learning curve. So we got the bear boss down on our 3rd attempt and we felt pretty good about or raid composition so we decide to give the bird boss a shot. We ran and completed the "gauntlet" the first time out and we all felt good about that. So we had people in the raid with experience explain how this boss fight would go, spread out dps and be prepared to run under boss during electrical storm. Our first attempt things got confused and we didn't get boss below 80%, so we run back in and prepare for 2nd attempt which would be our last because time was getting late. I wish i could say we gloriously defeated the eagle boss but no such luck although he was below 50% are timing on the storm was off. So I still think of the run as a success because we are still building our teamwork and each attempt at the bosses we get better. So the next time B4B goes into ZA bird boss be on notice we know your tricks now. So for all of those who joined me in there again ty for the building teamwork and the excitement of learning new encounters. We might have ended on a wipe but i think as a group we improved with or without phat bird loot.

How I View Paladin Tanking

2008-07-30T15:50:00.000-04:00

First off I didn't come up with this I found it in the Paladin forums along time ago. I would love to give credit to the originator but I don't have their name anymore.

"My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
While I draw breath, they shall not perish.
So long as they live, our enemies will fall.
I am defender, protector,guardian;
I am Paladin."

The first time i read that i got goose dumps. OK i admit to being a nerd whole heatedly; but this is how i view an instance, a raid or even just grouping up to do a quest.

Zul' Aman

2008-07-28T23:25:00.000-04:00

Some times the game gives one back to you. I had a poor run last Friday night on Grai in kara; and i have already ranted about that, this one is a happy tale of fun more fun and success. 3B had set up a one boss run into ZA for the sidhe devils for Monday evening mainly for some of us to see it and get our 20 slot bags for the quest. He asked if Fal would be willing to be the 2nd tank, I was more than willing so we had the team set. 2 tanks 3 awesome healers and 5 very powerful dps. Now I have never seen the inside of ZA before so i had a few nerves I really like my warrior Fal just was concerned about his gear. So we start it up and handle the first couple pulls okay a few problems and maybe 2 wipes more from some people being new (see dwarf tank) more than anything else. Now we are on the boss full raid buffed Fal sits around 17 k hp and 13k armor a little light for za but we gave it a shot. First try something went wrong most likely my fault but 3B said lets try again. After we run back we take a break to do the hex toads and got a purple tailoring pattern. Again 3B lightens the mood saying hey we already got an epic relaxing me a ton and calming my nerves alot. 2nd attempt I go down way early and leave 3B alone on the bear boss a 2 tank fight by most descriptions. Well our healers kept him up thru 3 changes with mangles and cleaves, yeah we have ubber healers i can't say that enough. So i offer to switch out Fal for Grai he has better overall gear and I probally am better at pally tanking than I am at warrior tanking. So they have to summon me and thru all of this there is no complaining or whining everyone is just waiting. So now I'm really nervous again, I have played Grai with sidhe devils before but he was holy at that time, so my first tanking experience is on the 1st za boss and I don't wanna cause a wipe because i missed a taunt or some other boneheaded move. So 3B says to start I pop the wings run in judge a righteousness and away we go. I'm watching the countdown to form shift so I don't have a consecration down so 3B can taunt and get threat. 1st switch was flawless now I have to taunt of the best druid tank I've ever seen. I'm thinking of everything that can go wrong but he switches form I hit righteous defense and bang I have the aggro. So we continued thru the fight and before i know it the boss is down. It was really nice to see new content and to be honest the nerves made it better, I wasn't worried about failing and getting "blamed" I didn't wanna let my team down. It was incredible fun because the stress wasn't about oh we gotta get thru this its was a fun run because we all looked for the fun in the run. So maybe wow gave one back or maybe its about finding that special group of people to run with. To all the sidhe devils I'm terrible with names so I try not to add any ones name so i don't forgot anyone. But I will yell as load as i can that we have some of the best heals and dps in the game, plus a great druid tank and i wanted to thank all of you again for letting me tag along to have some great times in this silly game we all play.

Grai's Kara run

2008-07-26T12:50:00.000-04:00

Last night was Grai's turn to run kara. He's currently helping a friend try to get some of the new people in his guild geared up to try and make a push to see some higher content before the xpac lands. It wasn't what one would call a smooth start, apparently we had a few last minute change of plans, but the group finally got formed. So we get thru attunemen without any issues and head over to the stairs. After pulling the 2 groups of non elite trash someones pet attacks the elite group of 5 first wipe of the night. Then we get thru moroes 2 tries, first one we had a problem with shackle and traps but we got it figured out. Now is when the run gets interesting, we are moving thru upper ballroom pulling the non elite trash that near the doorway to maidens hallway. Again we had someone pull the elite group so I run over to where the healers are grouped consecrate have all the nasties on me and then poof they leave me. 3B on my honor this is the truth, when the mobs suddenly depart from me I look up and see that i got DI'd; yeah one of our pally healers Di'd the tank. Needless to say we wiped again. Ok we clear thru to maiden, as MT I was setting up who would have Blessing of Sacrifice (BoS) on me so that at least one healer wouldnt be silenced. Ready check done I pop the wings run in judge righteous on maiden drop a max rank consecrate turn around and the ot decide to use every max threat ability and pull maiden off me, still don't know why. We wipe again. 2nd try same people same assignments
I do my little pally wings run in have maiden locked up with threat dps is going fine then boom I'm dead. The BoS pally healer who is supposed to be healing me has a full mana bar but I'm dead. I take the blame for alot of wipes but not this one. So his guild leader asked him what was he thinking, his response was that he was casting BoS and a down ranked holy light. Quick check of the combat log and he must have been casting holy light rank 1, So his guild leader a person with 2 70 pallys asked him nicely to use a higher ranked spell because he was the main healer for the mt. 3rd try after or dps ret pally switched to healing gear maiden goes down. Now on the the ushers a pain but doable we had a shackle so we only had one at a time. First pull I'm dead before they even tried to Ice block me again the same pally has a full mana bar and makes a statement that the Ot should MT these because apparently I cant. When asked again why he has a full mana bar he flips out cursing and accusing people of saying he's not healing. When it was pointed out that he had full mana bar he gquits and then leaves the raid. By this time im angry well maybe a little past angry, I understand wipes happen, I always take blame for wipes because as a tank its my job to make sure they don't happen. So I did something that I'm not very proud of a cursed in raid vent chat. I'm not a prude lord knows but i try to be civil and not use vulgarity because I've found that it has no redeeming aspect to most conversations. So i get up from the desk and walk around the house. Shrinn glanced away from her screen for a minute and ask "that bad" so I told her that I cursed over vent and am upset with myself and at this point the entire raid. By know we have spent over 2 hours for 5 badges. Well after we shuffle spots around we continue. We managed to one shot everything else up to chess. No illhoof because we didn't have a warlock. I hate to blame people more than i oppose cursing but I was glad to see that pally leave.

So it turned out okay I guess and I apologized to everyone for cursing in the raid. It just truly made me appreciate the smoothness of a good team of skilled players and not preeners. I gave my friend my word that i would help their guild so i will stay with them for awhile. As with everything in life it wasn't all bad, it was just a trying run that felt like a grind.

I'll put on my optimist hat and hope that are next foray is better and we learned as a group how to work together. As they say hope springs eternal,my spring got a little stretched i just hope it didn't go doing and break.

Why wipes are my fault

2008-07-25T10:40:00.000-04:00

As the readers of Wulfa's blog already know SL went smooth last night. 2 1/2 wipes not perfect but not bad either. I would just like to explain here why I think most wipes are my fault. I have 2 tanks, and being the tomato can out front can be very fun most times for me. I mean how hard is it run in and make things mad at you and get hit. I often thought as a tank i have the easiest job, swing block thunder stomp or consecration depending on who's getting beat on(grai or fal) . So wipe one was completely my oops as I asked Xiliah(spelling) our SP to mind control one of the mobs in blackheart's room; now being tank they asked me to mark well i really marked the wrong mob, never have your Mc'd mob be closest to the next pull or u get them all. So after we run back and everyone was very nice and didn't question what was i thinking. We then cleared thru blackheart and vorpril and are on our way to mur'mur. After have a refresher on how to pull that hallway we get to mur'mur no wipes. On mur'mur our first shot didnt work your friendly short legged tank didn't get out of his aoe in time down goes the grp. Run back 2nd time we get mur'mur.

The reason i take fault for wipes is twofold #1) did i mark things wrong i.e. first wipe #2) did i not annoy all the mobs enough. So if I only have 2 jobs to do I should be able to handle that right. I'm not chain trapping, mind controlling or focus shackle or sheeping, I'm just trying to get hit and keep everyone in an area so the DPS can do their thing. So if i dont preform properly it can cause a wipe. We all know stuff happens but in general, I'll assume responsability because well its mine.

I have ran with tanks that think they are the be all and end all of "tanking", once in Gruul's I ran with a self described "god" tank we wiped but oh well. I make no claim to being anywhere near that good. I try my best to have the proper gear and I hope by now a little skill, but first and foremost I try to be a team player and do my job.

So when the runs over and hopefully team mates,guild mates or pug mates get some gear I can be happy for them because we all got the job done. The credit I think always goes to the following in the following order, CC/DPS if you are doing 2 jobs its harder than mine, healers without whom we would get nowhere, then finally the meat sheild why tanks last you ask and my only answer ever is always the same " I just get hit" and how hard is that.

wow way longer than i thought i would be if ya hung in thru all of it ty

Hmmm isnt the tank supposed to have a sheild?

2008-07-24T15:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon as i was checking mail and what not on the character sheet; I got a whisper from a guildy they needed a healer for Sunken Temple. Although Fanabb is shadow at his level its not a big deal so i said "sure throw me an invite." Well we all get there warrior,hunter,mage,rogue and me(shadow priest). Sounds like a killer group for ST, we have 4 forms of cc and including shackle for those nasty undead. Well we were progressing fairly well get thru all the mini bosses figuring out who's cc what and kill order etc. . Was running oom(out of mana) alot but i could normally heal 2 pulls before i need to drink. We drop down to the dragon area and then the warrior links his off hand weapon he's been using. What the tank is duel wielding. I have 2 tank capable classes so I'm thinking what is this guy doing. Needles to say it turned into a wipe fest. I have a huge problem with ST other than the fact that i have to go there to do the lvl 50 class quest i stay out. So I run back get back into the instance and immediately get lost. So this continues for a few minutes, we have respawn and apparently some of the group thinks i can solo them (insert laugh track). After 2 or maybe 3 more gy runs we are up against time now( dinner hour) so we decided to try to summon the dragon didn't work as i ended up oom again.

So please all you warrior's & pally's pls if u wanna tank bring a shield and help out a poor old priest every once in awhile.

Or if ya wanna tank without a shield roll a druid.....rumor has it BRK still needs pets so u might even get to be exotic

my rambling rant is over and this one was definitely a misadventure worthy of the gang

Going Public....well kinda

2008-07-23T18:13:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the ever chatty gnome (shrinn) among us its time for me to share this address. Talking to myself isn't good ( or at least that what all the doctors say). Alot of major changes in the last couple of days. Grai is back to prot (for this week) and trying to help out a friends guild with some progression. The rest of the merry band is now in Sidhe Devils, and having a wonderful time.

The main reason i started this was a way of saying thank you and a poor attempt at imitation. I'm as nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Numbers, formula and just about any machine tool I'm good with, writing is not a strong point.

But hopefully i can add a funny story or two here about some of the silliness i have a tendency to get the guys into. Farming nagrand at 59 because i have a mote extractor and hey primal airs will pay the repair bill. wondering why at 52 my aggro radius in zangamarsh is half the map. These are truly the misadventures of some of the character sheet.

Well thats all for today......Gonna tell a few people about this know i guess.......

Uggggg

2008-07-12T13:02:00.001-04:00

Last night was one of the tough ones. Just couldn't seem to get the heck out of our own way. We made it to chess but at 3:30 am est we decide to say phooey. I think most of had our heads someplace other than the game. The healer most likely the worst one. 15 badges so Grai is down to 7 more for the badge chest piece. Hopefully with the new cp ill be over 1600+ healing here's hoping.

Falromord gets to go tonight not a guild run. Helping out some of the wonderful people over at Sidhe Devils. Will be incredibly fun just to be pure dps. No OT no MT and no healing just get to go in and break somebodies stuff. Ah the beauty in simply being a angry dwarf. Being fury in Kara i have no drop list just badges and if i could hope maybe an odd piece of t4. But for a smooth run and good teammates ill give up drops, i need a fun run tonight had the work one already