Fishing 375 … Finally

No major accomplishment but I did set a goal to get my fishing to 375 and I finally did meet that goal today.  Even though it is just constant casting I must admit that with the fishing daily and the pools of fish it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  At the same time though I am not looking forward to having to raise it again when WoLK comes out. 

** Note **  One thing to keep in mind about fishing is that while it does sometimes get boring, it is a easy and relaxing way to make money.  And I am not talking about just the fishing daily, but a lot of the higher level fish you catch can be cooked and sold for a decent amount of money.  I did not totally keep track but I made a couple of hundred gold while raising my fishing the last few points.  Not bad money for watching a movie and clicking on a bobber.

Why Pallys Are the BEST …..

This is one of the shared topics from Blog Azeroth . I must admit it was kind of fun to write.

Hammer of Justice – when your man is just lacking hitting all the right spots a Pally can hammer it home.

Concentration Aura – you ever been with someone who gets sidetracked just about the time everything is getting good ? Or the phone rings? Or the football game is on? With us you will not have that problem since we we only concentrate on you.

Seal of Command – I know all you ladys like a man that can take command of the situation and make it all happen just the right way.

Fire Resist Aura – No matter how hot it gets with us there is no need to worry about anyone getting burned.

Holy Shield – no need for protection when I have the holy shield all ready.

Lay on Hands – no foreplay from your man ? Goes to sleep right afterwards and leave you all alone ? Not us… we are always ready to lay our hands on you.

Holy Guidance – most guys are only guessing about how to make you feel just right. Not us, we have Holy Guidance to make sure we do everything you need done.

Blessing of Kings – increases total stat’s by 10% …. That is 10% more of everything you want me to give you.

2 handed weapon specialization – Now you are unlinkely to hear a pally bragging about his weapon out loud, but just know that it takes 2 hands to hold it and we are specialized in using it.

And the #1 Reason Why We Are the Best : Crusader Aura : Increases mounted speed by 20%. I will leave this to your imagination about just how good this feels.

Profession Decisions

Professions have always been one of the things that drive me mad in WoW.  I am always looking for what benefits me most and will last me the longest on the content I aim to see.  For example I went with enchanting for the ring enchants since they a help a lot with both overall stats and with threat (+ spell damage).  My next decision was whether to level engineering or not.  Since I got to raiding pretty late in my pally tanking career I decided to level mining and stockpile materials until I got a better feel for the professions in WoLK.  I currently have enough materials to power level Engineering, Blacksmithing, or Jewel crafting.  The question is which one????  I have an alt that can do all the mining for me to help with materials. 

I also understand that I could drop enchanting.  I know that right now compared to some other professions (leatherworking) that enchanting is kind of lacking with only the ring enchants.  But I really do like it. It makes me decent money with selling enchanting materials and I enjoy being able to enchant my own gear and that of my friends and guild mates.  So than the question becomes even if it is not the best profession for me, since I enjoy it should I still keep it? 

Currently I am leaning towards either Blacksmithing or Jewel crafting.  Being able to add extra gem slots seems like a big plus for me, plus the regular crafted gear seems pretty nice also.  On the other hand being able to equip 3 of the BoP Gems along with the trinkets with gem slots is also pretty nice.  Man this is a tough decision.  I have been agonizing over this for months and something tells me that I still have a couple more weeks to keep doing this.  I think it is going to come down to what BoP equipment the blacksmith can make.  I have knocked engineering off my list since even though the goggles are nice it seems like they can be replaced in the 10 man content in WoLK, in contrast the BC goggles lasted almost until the very end of 25 man content. 

From my point of view I honestly think that Blizzard is on the right track with the majority of professions.  I can not speak intelligently on Alchemy since I do not currently have a character with it maxed nor do I plan on raising it at all in WoLK.  As far as the other professions I think that anytime you see numerous threads on all different forums about what professions best benefit your class and numerous people are giving different answers than I think we have a winning scenario.  It seemed a lot like you were almost required to have certain professions in BC due to the amount of benefits they gave your class, and I do not think pigeonholing any aspect of game play is a good thing for the community. 

Oops seems like I got off on another one of my tangents I am so great at.  Basically I guess it all comes down to what information is released over the next few weeks about WoLK.  I would really like to decide on my professions when the next patch comes out so I can have it max leveled for the release of WoLK.  I am almost positive I am going to keep enchanting; I just like it too much to give it up without getting something truly amazing in return.  As for my second profession…. Well who knows?  Maybe blacksmithing and maybe jewel crafting or maybe even something entirely different depending on what happens between now and than.  If you put a gun to my head and made me choose today it would be Blacksmithing. 

**update**  The one problem I am seeing with my plan is that since my Pally is going to be the main target for my leveling I am wondering if I should not keep Mining until closer to level 80 so I can pick up ore as I go through the leveling process.  Than around level 78 or so power level whatever my second profession choice is.  More decisions …..

Work in Progress … Still

You might be seeing some changed to the look of the blog over the next week or so.  I am currently playing with some different themes and pictures to see if I can improve the look and feel here. 

Thanks for your patience.

Dear Coren Direbrew … I Hate You

Dear Coren Direbrew,

I hate you.  No really I do.  When Brewfest first started I was so excited about the two mounts and of course the tanking trinket.  Over the last several days I have killed you no less than 5 times per day.  Some times as many as 9 times.  (hey I’m a tank so if I can not summon so what)  Still no love from you to me.  

Two days ago I come visit you just to day “hi” and my whole group manages to insult you and after 5 kills you drop a mount 4 times (3 rams / 1 kodo) and I … managed … to .. lose… the … roll … FOUR … TIMES.  I hate you. 

Yesterday I got into a group with all summons available, and than 2 of the people said they had alts sitting outside the instance if we did not mind letting them alternate different characters in for summons.  Hey works for me, the more summons the merrier.  In total we had 9 chances to insult you, beat you, and than rob you of all your good loot.  (5 from the group and 4 alts).  At the end I had every trinket I could possibly ever use EXCEPT the tanking trinket that I want and not one mount dropped.  /cry

I mean really what is a dwarf to do to get some love from you and the loot Gods?  Please in the name of King Bronzebeard have a heart and give me what I want.  Than perhaps we can work a deal about me not killing you anymore.  (no guarantees on this part but I can try) 

Love,

Honors

W O R K Is A Four Letter Word

 

Just a quick update that there has not been much going on for me in WoW this last week.  I had a lot of extra work assigned to me and I am working on getting myself caught up on that along with the fact that I attended Delmarva Bike Week this last weekend so I was out of town for the majority of that time. 

Should be back in game a lot more these coming weeks.  I did try my luck on the PTR but after my instant cast spells were taking 15 – 30 seconds to cast I got so frustrated I just shut off the computer.

Interesting Shatt Halls Run

Two days ago I had a very interesting heroic shattered halls run.  It was the daily and even though I had never tanked it on heroic I had done it so many times on regular that I felt confident in knowing the pulls well enough to make it through. 

After putting myself in the LFG tool I get a whisper from a druid asking me if I want to start a group.  After about 10 minutes we have the full group consisting of:  Pally Tank (me), druid DPS, mage DPS, pally Healer, and a shaman dps.  From the class makeup it seemed like a pretty solid group. 

Now I am not a big person on inspecting every persons gear in my group since I assume (bad me) that if they joined the run they know they can handle it.  After this run I might need to rethink this rule though. 

We get all buffed up and I start pulling.  I explain to the group that I do not mark much in the beginning since there is no need for CC until a little later in the instance.  Trash pulls are going good with no deaths but it is taking a while for the mobs to die.  I mean like some of the mobs that are not being killed are being brought down to around half health just from my consecrate and beating on me.  Oh well maybe they are just being cautious on not pulling agro from the tank.  No worry yet. 

We get to the first boss’s room and I tell everyone to get ready for boss.  Any questions?  None.  OK let’s do this.  Drop the 4 trash mobs and on to the boss we go.  I normally tank him starting on the right hand side of the room and than slowly move him when he drops the Void Zones close to the melee.  I see the shammie and the druid taking damage, tell them to move, they do not listen so down they go.  Great.  So it’s me, pally healer, and a mage left with boss at about 65%.  Well we stick with it and take him down with no more deaths.  The last 20% where you only use ranged attacks was quite interesting but hey we got it done. 

Rez everyone and move on.  Gauntlet is no problem and Blood Guard Porung goes down without incident although it is very slowly. 

At this point the mage DC’s and after a couple of minutes I start looking for a replacement.  Find a warlock since there is no CC available.  Now suddenly the healer has to go help their guild so they leave.  Find a shammie healer in LFG tool who agrees to come along.  Trust me this is where the run starts to get interesting. 

The shammie healer is definitely over geared for the instance and he tells everyone in the group how great he is and points out every single flaw.  Lucky for me he could not find anything about my tanking to complain about so I was let off easy on that point.  But from the tank and appointed leader of the group’s point of view I felt bad.  Yeah some of the group were under geared (I had figured this out by now) but they were at least trying.  I kept pointing out that we were over halfway done so let’s just keep moving and finish this run. 

We pulled almost to Warbringer when the healers comments were getting worse and worse and he was posting damage meters after every pull and yelling at the dps for their terrible numbers (they were bad but hey we were not wiping so stop complaining in my opinion) Well this was too much for the shammie dps and he said a lot of bad words to the healer and left.  I wish I could say I was mad at him for leaving us but in reality he lasted longer then I would have.  So off to the LFG tool I go. 

This time we get a druid dps (boomkin) who is also over geared for the instance.  Warbringer goes down without incident and we move on to Warchief.  At this point in time the healer starts whispering me that he does not think we can kill boss with the dps we have and wants me to kick the warlock and druid so we can bring in other dps.  I refuse and say that if we wipe 2 times than I will disband the group and we can bring in any one he wants too.  He agrees and while I am hoping the comments in party chat will stop they don’t. 

So we clear all the trash to Warchiefs entrance and I explain the strategy I use.  Everyone go inside the room and spread out.  Healer goes in to the right rear corner so any mobs that run towards him have to go through my consecrate.  I tank him just a hair to the right of the entrance so the ranged adds have to run inside. 

After the first Blade Dance I knew we were in trouble since people just did not have enough stamina to hold up.  Even though the healer and I were fine it did not take long for us to get overwhelmed and die. 

On the run back I tell everyone this is the last go.  So if they have any tricks this is the time to use them.  I also again explain that all healing from the healer is on me and they need to pot, bandage, etc to heal themselves. 

Everyone back inside and gets buffed up and the healer whispers me again.  He still doubts we can do this but he is willing to go this one last time and watch us wipe.  Only change is he is dropping some of his +healing pieces and adding some +damage to see if he can heal and help with the dps. 

So I pull, everyone goes inside and stays spread out, all adds staying on me, and down goes warchief.  Not even one death this time.  No good loot but at least we completed the daily quest and I got more badges which is all I really wanted. 

After the run I reflected some on the healer’s comments and if I could of handled the situation better.  I mean as the tank and appointed leader of most 5 man groups I feel like it is my job to sort of be like a coach and keep morale high, keep the group moving, and keep them excited about doing the best job they can.  In this circumstance I felt my hands were tied since the healer was so good, and as we all know us tanks love well geared healers to keep us alive.

Productive Kara

This past Friday evening I logged on and there was talk of a full clear Kara run. We had a few people who were locked into a run from earlier in the week that stopped at Curator and since they wanted to finish there run themselves later in the weekend (never happened) we decided to make a second group and just see what happened. I volunteered to help tank since I really could use the badges.

Remarkably the run filled very fast with the exception of healers. We had none on from the guild that were not already locked into a run. So the raid leader checked the LFG tool and found a priest and pally healer that were available for the whole run. I will admit that I was a little skeptical since they were both unguilded with decent gear so that kind of worried me.

By the time we had found the healers we were already starting the summons to Kara and pretty soon we were underway.

The raid leader was our normal warrior main tank with me handling off tank duties. I have only been in the guild for about 3 weeks and with my work schedule I only make about 2 raids per week so they had no idea what I was capable of and what I could handle. We cleared the trash to Attumen and the plan was for me to tank Midnight and than the warrior tank handle Attumen. Only problem was by the time Attumen was in my consecrate and starting to beat on me it was enough threat to make it difficult for the other tank to pull him off so I just tanked them both with no problems.

After this point the raid leader did have a little more faith in my tanking so to speed up the run for the rest of the trash we alternated pulling everyone but AoE pulls which I handled completely.

We were flying right along and regretfully no really decent loot was dropping so I was DE’ing everything that dropped. (i was the dedicated disenchanter for this run) Before long we had to make a decision. One of our guild members was trying to finish a Slave Pens run so that he could kill Nightbane to get the remainder of his quest completed for the “Hand of Adal” title. After some discussion we decided to save Nightbane for last and continued on the run. (by the time he finished SP we were out of Kara… oh well maybe this week)

We barely had even a death and had really no problems at all until we got to Netherspite. My job was to take the green beam first and red beam second. Green beam was no problem for me but I had never taken the red beam. (only 2 boss’s I never tanked in Kara and it is netherspite and prince) On our first attempt the transition went smooth, I took the green beam and we had no problems at all. After the first banish I moved into position for the red beam and picked up the big ol’ dragon with no problem at all. We had him at about 35% when the person on green beam lost it and before they could recover Netherspite was back to almost 90% health. Pally DI used for the wipe recovery and we let him reset. Netherspite take two went remarkably well up until about 25% when I went splat. Not sure what happened since even when I looked in the combat log I was not getting hit for much.

(Editors Note – I have since learned from other tanks that I need to dance in and out of the red beam every 5 seconds to help control the health debuff stack. Never knew that so hopefully that will work better for me this coming week)

After Netherspite was down we proceeded to keep the train moving right up to Prince. First time we wiped do too unlucky infernal drops that left us with no place to move him. We reset the encounter and proceeded to drop him with no problem at all.

Only boss left was Nightbane and we had one person volunteer to leave so we could bring in an extra healer. No problems at all. Warrior tank on boss himself and me picking up all the adds during the airborne phase.

All in all no major loot for yours truly. I did pick up the Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden which found a way into my boss tanking set. Other wise at the end of the night the guild had picked up 22 void crystals and two excellent healers. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that no only were they superior healers who know there class very well, they also enjoyed being around us and decided to join the guild. So even though this was farm content for us it still was a productive night.

Raiding Tank ???

You know I never had any aspirations of raiding when I leveled my pally.  I just wanted to be able to tank some dungeons, move on to heroics, and than maybe just get into some Kara groups.  I was just looking for the happy life of a simple minded dwarf tank.  Now I am starting to become a raiding tank.  (that’s a good thing)  Not that I am trying to compare myself to the other pally tanks who are tanking in T6 and Sunwell content, I know most of you guys can do Kara, Mags, and Grull with your eyes closed and eating a pizza, but to me this is exciting and new.  The game is feeling exciting to me again. 

This past week I logged on for our weekly guild Gruul’s run.  (23 guild members and 2 pug DPS was final count)  I had signed up for the raid but knew that since my level of gear was not as good as some of the other tanks that I might get left behind.  Hey no problem from me I understand completely.  Instead I was indeed brought into the raid and utilized to tank some on the High King Maulgar event.  I started off with the Priest Add (no problem there) and than once one of the other tanks went down I was able to grab his add and hold it while we burned it down.  Our warrior main tank handled HKM.  Overall no problem at all and the best part was the Paladin Shoulder Token dropped and I won the roll.  (Justicar Shoulderguards)  These were a big upgrade for me since they replaced the blue quality PvP shoulders. 

Next we moved on to Grull himself and proceeded to wipe the floor up with him.   We used the same guild warrior main tank to handle Grull and he again was superb in his tanking of the boss.  Next came the loot and having my heart break.  The Paladin Leg Token dropped and even though I was the only one who needed them we have the normal loot rules that only one epic per night with no exceptions.  I was fine with this just a little disappointed.  But no worry’s there will be more nights on Gruul.  So as we were getting ready to move on I hear the person who won the roll say on vent to give it the Hammer since it was a large upgrade for me and all they wanted it for was there off spec.  I could not stop thanking them enough and was down right ecstatic. 

So at the end of 2 boss’s I was now sporting the Justicar Legguards and the Justicar Shoulderguards.   

Now came a kind of defining point for the guild on this night.  We normally raid from 6:30 to 10:00 pm, but since HKM and Gruul had dropped so fast we were left with a full raid and no plans on what to do.  Several people said lets go kill Mag’s (this was originally scheduled for the next night) and after some debate among the guild leaders it was finalized to head for Mag’s Lair.  I say this was defining since while the guild had been able to kill all these boss’s before, it was never able to be done on the same night.  

I was both scared and excited.  I had never been in Mag’s lair but I had watched several videos of the fight and read enough strategy guides to know all about clicking.  The only problem was that I was not the only person making my first venture into visit Mag’s. 

One of our pug dps had to bail out (I don’t think they had faith in our ability to kill Mags) but we quickly found a replacement from our own guild.  Trash was no problem and pretty soon we were face to face with Mag’s himself.  He is a lot more impressive in person than on the YouTube videos, if I do say so myself.  The raid leader took a few extra minutes to go over the whole fight and hand out assignments.  Luckily for me I was tanking the mob just inside the entrance door and clicking that same cube, I say lucky since with the door being there it gave me a good point of reference to be able to get back to the same spot each time.  So we had the count down and started the event.  I was actually tanking the 3rd mob that was to be killed and had one healer (priest) keeping me alive. I was actually very surprised that they did not hit very hard and I needed very little healing. 

With all the adds down we started in on the big guy himself.  Everything looking good, no deaths, the “clickers” told to click on vent and in raid chat, and one person got turned around and went to the wrong cube.  Wipe.  Hey no problem at all it happens to everyone in the heat of the battle.  So we all run back and get set to go again. 

Mags take 2 was perfect (at least from my point of view).  The clickers were right on top of it, and towards the end when a few of the assigned clickers died we were able to transition people right over and continue with no problem at all. 

By the end of the night we had killed HKM, Gruul, and Mag’s for the first time in a single night and with plenty of time to spare.  I was very excited, both by my new set pieces and just by the fact of seeing new content I never thought I would get to see.

Blogging for Money ?

I now this is not pally related but there has been an interesting debate over at the Blog Azeroth forums recently about people blogging for money using ads. There is a lot of people both for and against it and both sides have some very convincing arguments, all of which I have read thru while trying to learn something new.

You see I am a totally new blogger and I am learning the ropes as I go. So when the more experienced bloggers put something down about how they feel about something I sit right up and listen. In my opinion if they have managed to keep their blog going for a while and keep up the writing than I need to listen and learn from them. The interesting thing is that some of the more experienced bloggers agreed with the opening poster about making money on a blog, but they disagreed with the amount they were trying to make. Where the original person was trying to make a total profit off his blog, most of the more experienced bloggers are only looking to make enough to pay for the hosting and domain fees.

Which brings be back around to why I am writing this post. I managed to keep an open mind while reading all the different comments and opinions but the more I looked at the money maker blogs the more I did not like the fact that I was seeing a lot of gold selling ads. (the original poster also had a post for setting up a private server which is a violation of Blizzard’s ToS and this was pointed out to him by several posters). Not only that but while there was several decent blog post, the majority of the post were just links to other peoples blogs. I assume this is there way of getting a lot of trackbacks and thus getting more hits per day. But in reality is there any point to getting a ton of hits if no one ever wants to come back to your blog?

I mean I do not kid myself that my writing here is not worth much to anyone but me. When I made the decision to start this blog it was because I was looking for a creative outlet to get back into writing some and to give my opinions and thoughts on a game I dearly love. At this time I am not looking to make a single penny on this venture. In the future will I feel the same way? I am not sure. Right now I have all the aspirations of one day being a major blogger like Matticus , having my own domain name, and hosting my own blog, but that is a long ways off. Hopefully if that time comes I will remember the “why” I started this blog and resist the temptation to “commercialize” in an attempt to make major profit and just be content with trying to make enough to sustain it.