Tiddlywinks

Blake — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:37:00 +0000

Ahh, my favorite time of the week, Zul'Aman. After breezing through Karazhan on Tuesday and one-shotting every boss with an odd team make-up (no hunter, no warlock), in well under four hours, we continued rolling along and switched up our strategy in Zul'Aman a little.

We usually would go for Nalorakk first, but now that we have Akil'zon down, we went to him first, then quickly downed Nalorakk and bum-rushed Halazzi. Unfortunately, we needed about 5-7 more minutes than the timer allowed and we only unlocked two timed chests. But after quickly dispatching Halazzi, we moved on to Jan'Alai. After a few wipes - one close call - we tried a new strategy. After two tries with the new strategy, we downed Jan'Alai! We just barely pulled it off as we killed him five seconds after his enrage timer. I luckily got an invisibility off during his last fire bomb stage so I had no threat and as he went around and one-shotted our tanks, our DPS, our healing, it was just me, Legionaire and Harkor standing. Just enough DPS to get rid of him.

We are certain we can improve on the strategy next week now that we've gotten him down and I look forward to more practice and new bosses. From the second timed chest, Nefernetcher finally upgraded his staff from the Curator to the sweet Amani Divining Staff. Comador picked up a couple of new pieces (like he needed them) and we added seven more badges to our stashes.

However, I had to use those seven badges to buy a primal nether to make some Runic Spellthread. After making the thread, I headed over to the arena vendor to pick up a brand new pair of Vengeful Gladiator's Silk Trousers. However, when I tried to buy them, he told me I was short on points. What!? So I checked...1,874 points. Needed 1,875. ONE point short. Oh well. Next week they shall be mine (unless of course they announce the new arena season and set a date for the new patch).

Blake — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:22:00 +0000

Jan'Alai DOWN!

Blake — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:16:00 +0000

On Sunday, the Ungawa group ventured back into Serpentshrine Cavern and took a few more shots at Hydross the Unstable. We are getting the transitions down and are having more success on the adds that spawn when he transitions. On our second attempt, we did approximately 3 million damage and brought him under 50%, but we got dangerously close to him enraging - though an errant shot by a DPSer on a transition spawned four additional adds and wiped us. On our third try, we managed to do 3.2 million damage and I can tell that progress is being made. We took a vote after that attempt and voted to go on to see Lurker (I really wanted more shots at Hydross at that point since I know progress is happening). After we cleared one platform, we jumped down to Lurker and were assaulted by fish. We then realized you have to clear all the platforms above and the fish will despawn. So we went back the start, cleared all the trash from the start to Hydross, then started clearing the platforms, and after three platforms were cleared, we had to call it due to time.

Though we were unable to drop any bosses, we did see some nice items. The following dropped for us: Serpentshrine Shuriken, Pattern: Boots of Natural Grace (congrats Llyr), and a Nether Vortex.

Looking at the full damage report on the night, I tried to help a couple of the mages out as they were obviously having problems in there. When I looked up their profiles on the Armory, I saw that they had good gear, but just hadn't put that much time into them. There were green gems, items without enchants, and the spell hit rating was quite poor. I advised both of them that all the damage and crit in the world won't help if you can't hit your target in the first place. So hopefully they will heed some of my advice and next time have a better hit rating and put out some more damage.

On a whole, it's quite tough to think that we can progress in Serpentshrine Cavern with the DPS that we have. As I said after our first foray into the Cavern, if we don't have people who genuinely will put the effort forward and buff themselves completely, buy/farm consumables, enchant their gear, socket their gear with rare gems at the very least, and just work to get ready, how are we to progress? I know that we are working with individuals to gear them up and I talked to both the mages in my group about their spell hit rating and also posted about gems and enchants on our forums. But I feel that there are people who really aren't taking this seriously and while we do want to have fun, we should be focused on our damage and/or healing output as well.

Following up our gains in SSC (but still, ultimately nothing died), we continued on to Gruul's on Monday. After a couple quick resets of Maulgar, he went down quite easily and we had three tries on Gruul. Unfortunately, we were once again unable to get him down, coming up about 15% short in two of our three tries (again, the same mage I am trying to help was lowest on DPS - many people discount spell hit rating, but it is the single most important stat for mages on PvE bosses). We're definitely getting closer to getting Gruul down, but again, there were people asking for food, some didn't have their flasks, and the laid back attitude is nice in vent, but when that laid back attitude transfers over to how characters are played, it just causes problems.

With the Gold Team now forming up a 25 man group, I will most likely be departing from Ungawa and I wish them the best of luck. But I really would love to see the 25 mans with my Karazhan/Zul'Aman team. We have fun while raiding and everyone always comes prepared. We have all spent countless hours working on our gear, enchants, sockets, and reading/watching strategies. We function well as a group and I have high hopes.

Blake — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:45:00 +0000

It dropped! Last night we went to Zul'Aman, downed both Nalorakk and Akil'Zon in the allotted time periods, and while we were on our way to Halazzi, with the one Amani Hex Stick I had in my inventory, I got my Mojo! I'm so happy and I never thought I'd see my wonderful Mojo. I now own 53 of the 78 pets available to me - see my full list.

With 5 of those 78 not available until patch 2.4, I am 20 pets short of a complete collection. I'll be working on my fishing again this week to get to 375 and find Mr. Pinchy. Plus, with the daily fishing quests, and four pets coming from those, I need to work on my fishing now more than ever.

Isn't he cute?

Blake — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:24:00 +0000

Today some of the pricing was announced on the new Badge of Justice loots in the next patch and while the number of badges needed seems a bit high, I think it makes sense for the quality of the items you will be getting.

The other main change is that mana regeneration is being changed to be dependent on both intellect and spirit. From Elitist Jerks Forums:

Granted, but again, I'm more concerned with what happens with mages. Unfortunately, I checked my math again so that I can use an inequality. (I'd like to apologize if my math skills are not too honed for the company I'm in.)

s*√i*k

(s+1)*√i*k>s*√(i+1)*k

(s+1)*√i>s*√(i+1)

〖(s+1)〗^2*i>s^2*(i+1)

(s^2+2s+1)*i>s^2 i+s^2

(2s+1)*i>s^2

i>s^2/(2s+1)

This means that if your Int is greater than the given number (related to your spirit), adding Spirit will increase your mana regen better than Int. So, let's pick a number. Say, 400. That's your Spirit. This means that if you have greater than 199.75 Int, it is better to put one point of Spirit on than one point of Intellect, for purposes of mana regen.

Thus, this change does not really benefit Mages at all, but it might have implications for very high-Spirit casters. It seems the rule of thumb would be that if your Intellect is less than half your Spirit, increasing your Intellect to the point that it is half of your Spirit would yield better regeneration than simply stacking Spirit.

So with my spirit really low right now, the added spirit from the new 2.4 badge items will drastically increase my mana regen which will be quite helpful.

The one thing I'm looking at here is replacing my Spellfire set with the new Sunwell Badge items. The Shroud of the Lore'nial is 100 badges, Voodoo Woven Belt is 60 badges (2.3 haste loot) and the Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips are purchaseable for an unknown number of badges (I'm thinking a mage pair of Gloves will appear shortly as these appear more suited for locks).

The difference between those three badge items and my Spellfire set is:

+119 Armor
+86 Stamina
+39 Intellect
+33 Spirit
+62 Hit Rating
-22 Crit Rating
-86 Damage

It's tough to justify losing 86 damage like that. But gaining 62 hit rating translates at almost 1:1 to damage or crit. So the total loss in Hit/Crit/Damage (all 1:1 relationships via different socketing) is -46.

So do you take the 46 point loss in Hit/Crit/Damage for 86 Stamina, 39 Intellect, and 33 Spirit? 39 Intellect = 585 more mana which is one to two extra fireballs per fight. It also is 0.5% extra crit rating (or 11 spell crit points). So the gain of Intellect offsets 11 points of that loss, so I'm losing 35 points (ignoring the 585 extra mana).

So to lose 35 Hit/Crit/Damage, I gain 86 stamina and 33 spirit. 860 hit points is nothing to just toss aside as meaningless, but it comes at a cost of damage. So the question is which is more important? Right now, with ice block and other damage avoidance options, it is rare when I die in a fight. However, how many times have I died by less than 860 hit points? I couldn't tell you. Add to that the 33 spirit. Doing some quick calculations, added 33 spirit and 39 intellect affords me an additional 45 mp/5 out of combat. With Mage Armor, that's an additional 13.5 mp/5 in battle. With an 8 minute fight, that's an additional 2,160 mana or an extra five firebals. With my fireballs averaging 2,400 damage or more, that's an extra 12,000 damage which would outweigh the 35 damage I lose. However, that assumes that I run out of mana after using all my gems, evocation, and potions, which I do not do (yet). And with more MP/5, I shouldn't in the future.

It's a tough call. I might wait for some more theorycraft numbers to come out and then rue the day I made my Boots of Blasting as the new Boots of Incantations look pretty nice...+12 stamina, +1 intellect, +23 spirit, -1 hit, -21 crit, +15 damage.

Blake — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:04:00 +0000

So nice. Just had the perfect run and got to max exalted with the Cenarion Expedition. With it, comes Enchant Cloak: Stealth and Ashyen's Gift. I probably won't use Ashyen's gift much, but it could be a boss ring I could switch out which gives me 21 points of hit rating to remove from my sockets. But since I forget to equip Scryer's Bloodgem enough as it is during fights, having to remember to equip a ring too might not be the best idea. But that now makes 19 exalted factions!

And my fishing is going well also. 318 right now. A ways to go to 375, but I'm making slow and steady progress.

Blake — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:09:00 +0000

I had been waiting to post about last Wednesday night since I took some great photos, but I keep forgetting to send them to my journaling location. Anyways, after a 2 week hiatus from Zul'Aman, I was able to rejoin the Gold Team as we went for timed chests and hoped to take down Jan'Alai. We started on time and completely tore through Nalorakk and Akil'zon both with time to spare. We got some cool loot from the timed chests and I walked away with Shadowcaster's Drape. I don't have many haste items, but this is the start of my haste set.

After Nalorakk and Akil'zon, we hurried to Halazzi, but ran out of time. It is rumored that in Karazhan gear, you should be able to get 2 timed chests and it takes Serpentshrine Cavern and Black Temple gear to get 3 timed chests. We will keep pushing it though to see if we can pull it off. I certainly would love to see the Mana Attuned Band from the third chest.

Even though we ran out of time, we quickly one shot Halazzi which gave us a lot of time to learn the Jan'Alai fight. We got in 6 tries (reset him quite a bunch, so it didn't take too long), but ran out of time in the end. However, on our last try, we completely cleared out one side of eggs and about 1/4 of the other side before we lost our tank and had to run out. I am confident that if we can keep our tank up, we can balance the DPS on Jan'Alai and take out the eggs in a timely manner. Next week he should go down. After that, we can begin working on Hex Lord Malacrass who drops the amazingly magnificent Hood of Hexing and sometime after that, take down Zul'Jin and clear the place out.

The thing is, last Wednesday, I genuinely had fun running with our Gold Team. We enjoy ourselves on vent, we have time to joke around - even during timed boss fights - and there's never any loot drama. The only real drama we have is people refusing to take items...Contrast that to last Sunday when I ventured into SSC with 24 other people. We wiped countless times on one boss, took an inordinate amount of time discussing strategies and other minutiae, and it just was too long. And as I go back and re-read my post on that subject, I just wonder how much more I can take in there. I know it takes time and sacrifice to progress, but I personally feel, that until we can take down Gruul and Magtheridon (there's a reason they were pre-requisites for Serpentshrine Cavern attunement), we have no business inside that place. And I'm not willing to waste 5 hours of my Sunday wiping over and over. I will probably give it a few more weeks, but will notify the leaders that they should look for a replacement mage and replace me when possible.

For my future reference, WowWebStats from 2/13 Zul'Aman: http://wowtid.com/wws/wws-20080213-1854

Blake — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:08:00 +0000

With the new patch coming out soon, a post at WoW Insider.com asks if the daily quests are leaving casuals behind. I left a long comment, but thought I would explain my daily questing rationale.

To begin, I usually log out in Shattrath - mainly due to the fact that I can port for free back there and then just start whatever I need when I log on and I can usually sell some enchants while standing around at the start or end of the day.

Since I'm in Shattrath, I'll pick up the daily cooking quest and check the daily battleground. If it's AV, I'll queue. If not, I'll evaluate my options based on the daily cooking quest.

If it's Kaliri Stew, I head to Skettis to get a Kaliri Wing while bombing and searching for the prisoner. If I don't find the prisoner while bombing, I don't do the escort quest. If it's Demon Broiled Surprise, I'll head to Skettis and do the bombing run and look for the prisoner. After bombing, I'll then take a free ride to Blade's Edge and finish the cooking quest while doing the four daily quests there. If the quest is Spiritual Soup, I'll again head to Skettis and bomb while searchinging for the prisoner and then head to Netherwing Ledge. While there, I'll pick up the quest to disrupt the twilight portal. I'll then head to Nagrand and cook up the soup and kill the 20 agents.

With Skettis finished and Blade's Edge done in one, I'll then head back to the Netherwing Ledge as the most money can be made there. I'll pick up all the daily quests there then head directly into the mine. Doing the two quests in there are the best way to start your farming - awarding 30g for a relatively small time requirement. Plus, the greys that drop from the mobs there usually vendor at the end for 4-5 more gold. Add to that the mobs frequently drop greens, blues, and I've also seen two purple BOE's (one pair of Leggings of Beast Mastery I found sold for 1000g on auction).

After that, it's a toss up as to what to do next. I might fly around a bit and booterang some mobs, if I haven't done Blade's Edge dailies, I might fly up there and complete those. More often than not, I'll gather Netherwing Relics as the mobs that drop them also supply me with netherweave or I'll head up to Netherstorm to collect mana berries if that is he daily cooking quest.

But once the Sunwell Plateau is opened to visitors, I will be spending the bulk of my time there working on rep and earning money through dailies.

Blake — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:15:00 +0000

//CAUTION: WALL OF TEXT

Yesterday was our first official visit to SSC with a set group of people that we plan on raiding with each Sunday. We spent a few hours learning the Hydross fight and while we were unable to get him down, we did learn a bit about the fight. It was the first time seeing SSC for most people in the raid and while we were able to handle the trash without problems, the first boss gave us lots of issues.

Basically, Hydross debuffs everyone in the raid so they take more damage depending on which stage he is in. Every 15 seconds the buff goes from 10% more damage to 25, 50, 100 and 250. So you have about a minute before you need to transition him to his other form. Each time you transition him though, he spawns four elementals. So the key is you need enough DPS to kill the spawns before you need to transition again and spawn four more. Our problem was we were unable to kill the spawns in a timely manner each time. Another problem we had is that when transitioning from one tank to the other, he drops all aggro. So if a DOT goes off or an arrow hits him at the wrong time, you can pull him back causing another transition and with 8 elementals, there is a wipe.

When you first engage Hydross, you have a chance to do maximum DPS as there are no elementals to worry about. During this first phase, the raid should be able to get him to about 80%. However, we were unable to do that. I didn't watch it as closely as I probably should have, but I think our best might have been 85-86%. The problem I have is that I can do a lot of burst damage and I get too close to the tank's threat. This is mitigated with invisibility as I shouldn't reach the tank's threat again through the fight, but that causes downtime as well. Either way, the problem is we couldn't get enough initial DPS on him. DPS will also be an issue later on...

After the first transition, he spawns the elementals and the warlocks are banishing one while the druid tank picks up two and another is tanked by an off-warrior tank. The DPS needs to be coordinated and work on the same elementals one after another. I've also heard that these can be AOE'd down, but I think that might just take a little too much coordination for our group at this time. As elementals went down, I switched to get an occasional fireball off at Hydross as a poorly timed fireball that hits after the elemental is dead would be completely pointless. There was also some time in there where I could get some scorches stacked while an elemental was banished, but usually, after we got the four spawns down, I was unable to do any real DPS as another transition was happening.

So where'd we go wrong? I'm still not sure what exactly was going wrong as we were all brand new to the instance and learning how the fight worked and what our responsibilities were. At first glance, I'd say we didn't have enough DPS. Towards the end of the night, I started logging the fights and I analyzed them with WowWebStats. Here's our third to last attempt. Sustained DPS numbers are off as there's downtime at the start where the tank builds aggro, but you can just see that there's a top tier of DPS and then a huge drop off. I'm 82% present since I did nothing at the start while the tank built aggro. I could have been helping with the initial elementals, but they only have 8k DPS, so if I had used my mana to kill them, I don't think it would have been efficient so I got ready to let loose on Hydross when we were ready.

Going on from there, we had our second to last attempt. Again, you see a top tier and then some dropoff in DPS. I'm again only present for 92% of the time as I'm waiting for the tank to grab aggro rather than working on the small elementals. For the last attempt, I started in on the elementals to try and help out a little this time, but an errant hunter arrow during the transition wiped us. Either way, there wasn't enough DPS being done and not enough coordination during the spawns to really get everything working correctly.

While the saying "practice makes perfect" is true, I feel that there's a point at which you're just banging your head against a wall and nothing is being accomplished. After 4 hours of trying to down him, I'm not sure how much more "practice" people can take. After seeing it 4-5 times, I think that's about as much as you should attempt in one night. Maybe more if you have soulstones and can quickly attempt it again. But after a certain time, you need to call it a night, have people do some homework, and have people work towards the next week.

When it comes to DPS and healing, these are what make or break a raid. DPS and healing not only comes from skill, but also from gear. According to Bosskillers.com, this is what you should expect gear-wise.

Gear must be extremely high quality. Every member should be able to look through their equipment and be able to say to themselves "I only need a few more upgrades from Karazhan or Gruul's lair."

Melee DPS: Karazhan quality weapons, lvl70 blue armor or better
Healers: Mix of Karazhan quality blue/purple armor or better

The problem here is I don't think we're adequately geared for this instance. If we don't have the DPS to down Gruul, let alone Magtheridon (not even attempted yet), how are we supposed to progress? I've spent thousands of gold on patterns, gems and enchants to ensure that I have the best gear possible and to ensure that I can output the most DPS. I've spent hours reading forums, learning about he mechanics of a mage and even though my talents are cookie-cutter, they do more damage than anyone else.

The problem is, I can't say that everyone else has done the same. I raid in full epic gear except for the Scryer's Bloodgem which I only use on bosses for the +hit. There were people in our raid last night that were in greens and blues. If we are going to be seriously attempting 25 man tier 5 instances, we need to make sure everyone is geared. Bosskillers recommends Karazhan quality gear. This means mostly purples, some blues, and there should not be any greens. Also, it means PVE spec and PVE gear. There's always going to be some PVP gear that just outshines any PVE alternative at this level, but for the most part, if you have resilience, you are wasting stats. Looking through the armory profiles, it appears many people are adequately geared, so it may just be a matter of looking at specs and spell/melee rotations. Also, while you may be wearing purples, if you don't have the necessary +hit or expertise to hit on a consistent basis, you are just wasting damage. Also, a quick browsing of profiles shows people with green gems in sockets and *gasp* EMPTY sockets. That is unacceptable for raiding. Go run 4 dailies and you can buy any blue gem you need. I think this was a last-minute fill in that I saw, but still, how can you be running around with green gems and empty sockets?

Another thing that really upset me while we were waiting to attempt the boss is the lack of self-applied buffs. According to BossKillers, these are the MINIMUM, requirements:

Melee DPS use a Flask of Relentless Assault, Fel Strength Elixir, Elixir of Major Agility, Winterfall Firewater, DPS food, and any other damage increasing consumable. Poisons do not work on this fight: bring Adamantite Sharpening Stones.

Ranged DPS use Flask of Firepower, Adept's Elixir, Elixir of Major Fire/Frost/Shadow Power, and any other damage increasing consumable.

Tanks use Flask of Fortification, Defense Potion, Elixir of Mastery, stamina increasing food; anything that will increase HP or mitigation. Note: Stoneshield-type potions are useless because all "melee" damage is elemental (resistance gear check, not armor).

Healers use Flask of Mighty Restoration, Mana Regeneration Potion, Elixir of Healing Power; anything that will increase your healing efficiency or the amount of mana you have.

I brought a Flask of Pure Death, multiple Superior Wizard Oil and two full stacks of +spell damage food and even some +30 stamina food in case I needed an HP boost. On top of that, I was also prepared with more +stamina gear in case an encounter called for stamina over +damage. While clicking from person to person, I rarely saw food buffs and even worse, rarely, if ever saw flasks or potions. The reason I brought the flask of pure death is because it persists through death. Had I known we were spending 4+ hours in there, I would have brought two. Either way, for the first two hours of attempts on Hydross, I had my flask. I always had a +spell damage food buff and I always had Wizard Oil applied to my weapon. I was prepared. Most others weren't.

If this is going to be a serious raid, that requires that you spend time grinding for stuff you need. Take the money you get from a day of dailies and buy two flasks. Those will last you 4 hours and persist through death. Buy the food you need or ask someone if they can make it for you. And I believe everyone has oils, stones, or poisons that can be applied to weapons. They should ALWAYS be applied. I also came with 10 mana pots and 10 healing pots, but didn't use many, but if I had needed them, they were there. I also had a stack of bandages I could use in a pinch as well. I was prepared. Most everyone else wasn't. I realize we're more of a casual raid group, but farming these items doesn't take much time. Put the work in and we'll have more success. Don't put the work in and we'll continue to bang our head against a wall for weeks on end.

I guess in the end it just comes down to how serious about this everyone is. Do we really want to progress or are we just in there to have some fun and kill some time? Why should I put in over 100g to two flasks of death when I could just slack off and not use any pots? Why should I put over 700g into my new pair of boots when I could just use a blue? Why spend so much on different sets of helms and pants including the best enchants and best gems available when I could just put cheap enchants and cheap gems in them? Well, yes, I like doing the most damage. And it's not by pure luck that I do so on most raids I attend. It's because I've put the time and effort into making this one character the best he can be. I know my role and I do it to the best of my ability. Sure there's probably areas where I could improve my DPS, but the raid as a whole needs to be improved in my opinion before we can take Hydross down on a consistent basis.

Last night we managed to get him down to the mid 70% range a couple times I think during our best attempts. We we able to get up to 4 or 5 transitions at most before a tank went down or aggro was pulled back across the transition line. It's still a work in progress, but while I would like to share the same optimism of our raid leader, until we are able to take Gruul down on a consistent basis - after all, you just really need pure DPS there and you just really need DPS on Hydross - I'm not sure if we have a chance. I'll be there next Sunday and I'll come prepared, but until we get everyone Kara and Gruul geared, there's a limit as to what the raid can accomplish.

Blake — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Last week, after finally seeing Gruul taken down, I received my Earthen Signet (it goes well with the Blazing Signet that had been sitting in my bank). Just as I was about to call it a night after running a few quick dailies, Aracely messaged me and asked if I wanted to go to Heroic Underbog. Since I knew he had a great group already put together, I obliged and forced myself awake for a little while longer.

So not only would I be able to complete the quest, The Cudgel of Kar'desh, but I could also gain a little more rep and get me a little closer to exalted with the Cenarion Expedition (one of the few factions in the Outland I'm not exalted with). After turning in all my Coilfang Armaments, I am within 1,000 rep of exalted. So close.

So while I was able to turn in the quest and get one step closer to being a Champion of the Naaru (Vetarra received her title last night with the quest turn-in - CONGRATS!), I also got rep, and...Quagmirran's Eye dropped. Now, I've recently been using Icon of the Silver Crescent when fighting trash mobs and during everyday grinding, as I don't need the extra +hit that the Scryer's Bloodgem provides. However, the Icon really doesn't get put to full use. I use the extra spell damage whenever I remember to activate it, but sometimes, that can be 5-10 minutes between uses...not very smart. So the nice thing about Quag's Eye is that it has no "use" requirement. It's all on equip.

The Icon of the Silver Crescent adds 43 passive damage while the Eye only adds 37, but the eye also procs to increase haste by 320! for six seconds. According to Lhivera's page, with my current stats, the Icon adds 3 more DPS over the Eye. However, those 3 DPS are conditional on maximum usage of the "use" of the trinket. Unfortunately, like I said, I don't use the trinket to its maximum potential. So I'm thinking I'm going to use Quag's Eye for a while and see how it stacks up. It'll be really tough to figure out how it does do in comparison to the Icon, but it will be one less thing I have to worry about activating during fights.

((Yes, I know you can put the Icon in a macro so it will activate if available during every fireball, and maybe that is a better option for me, but for now, I'll try the Eye. I like to save my trinkets for certain points where I know I can get full use of the "use" feature, but if I'm not using it as much as I could, then waiting for those times doesn't make sense. We'll see how the eye stacks up.))

Blake — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:58:00 +0000

After a quick run around the southern part of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, I amassed 20 coins and bought two patterns of Festival Dress and Festival Suit. I now sit at 257 known tailoring patterns. There are 301 possible recipes I could know. A nice 85% of all recipes. A lot to go though...and none that easy to find.

Blake — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:35:00 +0000

((My apologies for the lack of udpates. I've been slammed at work and as such, missed Gruuls, Kara, and Zul'Aman last week and have already missed Gruuls and plan on missing Kara tonight - however, some stuff has happened...))

On Friday night, after taking a week off from raiding, I awoke with the need to set some things on fire. The lovely Amatsuterasu messaged me just as I awoke, requesting my presence as mage tank for High King Maulgar. I obliged since I knew it was the only time during the week I would be free for Gruul's Lair. I quickly donned my stamina set from the bank and received a summons and was ready to go. We had some problems with the initial pull as this new group I was with did things in an odd manner. They used a Paladin to go in and initiate the fight. He would then bubble and I would have to try and grab Krosh off of him. The first time it worked, but my heals were not enough as the only healer on me was having mana issues. After I went down, the attempt was called. The second time through, the pally pull didn't work as planned (I think a hunter jumped the gun) and Krosh was sitting in the middle of everything. I was able to keep aggro and stay alive, but with his fire novas, anyone near him was toast.

The third time through, we got it all down, and Maulgar went down without a problem. Our first attempt at Gruul went quite well as we had some people who had never seen the fight and they needed to just see what happens once to figure it out. Our second time through, we finally took down Gruul. And while he dropped two Leggings of the Fallen Defender (I do not have good luck with Fallen Hero drops), it was nice to see him go down. The only problem is, I couldn't figure out what they did right and what our raid does wrong. I'm thinking it's a pure DPS problem as we have more people who are focused on having fun and gearing the way they want, rather than understanding how their class works and how to maximize their DPS. There's always the same few people at the top of the DPS charts, and there's always the same few people who are contributing far too little. Gearing them up would help I suppose, but if they don't understand how to use their abilities to the maximum benefit of the raid or how to watch for multiple events and avoid certain things, it's tough to progress. Also, if you aren't willing to take the time to learn the fight, and have the add-ons that should be required, how are we expected to be able to progress in a timely manner?

After Gruul's though, we were polled to see if we wanted to continue on that night. So, I was able to see Serpentshrine Cavern! We didn't have the necessary tank gear to take down Hydross, so we skipped ahead to Lurker. For the majority of people in the raid, it was their first time seeing SSC, so we only had time for two shots at Lurker, and we didn't get him down. But I have now seen inside SSC and look forward to going back again.

On a completely unrelated note, though I have been collecting pets in my spare time, including the Spore Bat and my beloved Bananas, I hadn't really been going around and picking up lots of random pets. However, last weekend, I took it upon myself to travel to Netherstorm, Exodar, and all over to obtain as many pets as I could without spending a fortune. As of last night, I had collected 41 of the 73 pets available to me. I have excluded 8 pets as I cannot get EU only pets, Engineer only pets, or the Panda or Zergling as I chose the Diablo. And as much as it hurts to do so, I excluded the Blood Parrot. As I am already at maximum hated reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers and I am also revered with three of the Steamwheedle Cartel factions, there is no possible way for me to grind to friendly with the Buccaneers and then back again. If I had known about that option earlier in my career, I would have done that, but it is much too late to do so now.

But back to my pets. Yesterday, the Darkmoon Faire arrived in Terokkar Forest. I hopped over there, turned in the Dense Grinding Stones I had saved up and caught up to Flik as he chased his frog around. I bought a Tree Frog and a Wood Frog. I then made the trip back to the Grim Guzzler, a run I know all too well from grinding Thorium Brotherhood reputation, and bought some Dark Iron Ale Mugs. I threw one at the feet of Morja, her pet Jubjub arrived, and I was able to get a Spawn of Jubjub. In seven days, it will hatch and I'll have my very own Jubjub! However, this weekend, I was not aware that I could get Mojo just by blowing a kiss to someone outside Zul'Aman and now I'm quite upset. It may be a long time before I get to find Mojo inside Zul'Aman itself, but one can only hope.

Tonight, I might continue my search for a Firefly or start questing for a Smoldwerbeb and Worg.

In the realm of recipes, nothing too new to report. I bought a pattern for the Black Belt of Knowledge yesterday. Probably will never craft one, but I'm getting closer to all the recipes...

Today also begins the Lunar Festival in Azeroth. There are no pets to be had, but the important thing are the patterns. One year ago today, I was but a young mage and my tailoring skills were not high enough to earn the patterns. There is both a Festival Suit and a Festival Dress to buy. Oddly enough, these are not soulbound, but I have never seen them on auction...perhaps I will collect extra coins and sell a few of these throughout the year like the Green Winter Clothes pattern I'm saving.

Love is in the Air also begins in a few days and that will be my one chance this year to obtain Peddlefeet...let the grinding commence.

Blake — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:29:00 +0000

Last night was fairly uneventful. I camped out in front of Mythrin'dir in Darnassus waiting for him to restock Enchant Shield: Greater Stamina. It took him over an hour to find one in his stockroom, but I finally acquired that bind on pickup recipe from him. While sitting there in the city, I saw a lot of enchant requests, including one for Enchant Bracer: Major Defense. Realizing that this is a fairly common recipe I didn't have, I headed up to Netherstorm and killed a few Nullifiers until it dropped. With that complete, I went to Felwood, upped my reputation with the Timbermaw a bit and then called it a night.

Waking up this morning, I saw Enchant Shield: Shield Block on the auction house and I bought it with the money I was saving for a tailoring recipe. But since I had not seen that formula on the auction house before, I figured it was quite rare and I snapped it up. Three formulas in 2 days isn't too bad. Leaves me at knowing 190 of the possible 217 enchanting formulas - 87%.

Blake — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:46:00 +0000

In this first installment of my add-on spotlight, I am highlighting a recently discovered add-on from one of the greatest Warcraft-related sites, WarcraftPets.com.

What is it? The MiniPet Addon is a perfect addition to my ever growing pet collection. Basically, whenever you zone in or out, portal, die, or whatever, it reminds you and places a small box at the top of your screen you can use to summon a random pet in one quick click.

Installation: It's quite simple like any other add-on and it takes up very little memory space - hardly any really - doesn't register in my top 10 resource hogging add-ons.

Drawbacks: Just one - it can't always tell if you have a pet out or if you misclick. If you click the button to summon a pet while moving, the button goes away as it thinks you summoned one. Also, if you are flying around and lose your pet, it can't tell the pet is gone. However, the nice thing is, with this add-on, you're much more aware of your pets and realize when they do go missing much sooner than before the add-on was installed.

Blake — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:53:00 +0000

Following up on our successful outing into Zul'Aman on Saturday, the Gold Team returned on Wednesday. The instance was fresh and we were ready to go and finally get Nalorakk down in 20 minutes. Unfortunately, it just wasn't our time. On the last pull before Nalorakk, my sheep broke really early, immediately lay down an immunity totem and I couldn't resheep him. With the immunity totem out, none of the other mobs went down and I was immediately killed by lightning bolts. We quickly ran back in, but we were about 5 minutes too late after we one shot Nalorakk. We continued on, had a little problem with the gauntlet (we made it through in one run, but I didn't survive the whole way through - nor did Nefernetcher - the perils of AOE'ing the eagles down). Once at Akil'zon, we one shot him - our first time ever and we were prepared to head towards Halazzi.

We quickly cleared to Halazzi without incident - I got to enjoy a 300% haste bonus a couple times as well - and we strategized our meeting with him. As this was only the second time we had ever faced him, we went over everything in meticulous detail. On our first attempt of the night, we got him to Phase 3, but when a healer went down, all was lost. We quickly regrouped, talked about what could be done differently and what we saw going on in that first attempt and we downed him the next time through! In just three meetings with Halazzi, he was down. Our healers did an amazing job with the Holy Fires, DPS did great with the totems and we have made progress once again in Zul'Aman. He dropped a healing leather item, but our tree was already wearing the Robes of Heavenly Purpose, but we forced the leather item on him anyways. The one great drop of the evening was Akil'zon's Talonblade which went to our main tank, Aracely. I quickly put Mongoose on it (oddly enough I was walking around with enough mats) and the blade seemed to work quite well on Halazzi as I was unable to pull aggro even without Salvation on (if I really tried though, I probably could have).

((As a side note, I added two more random images to the banner rotation - Me and Vetarra and Me in the middle of a row of Elekks

Later today...my first add-on spotlight post - why not since everyone else seems to be doing them?

I also have turned the "Journaled at" text into a permalink in case for some odd reason someone wants to link to one of my posts.))

Blake — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Talk about domination. Last night the Gold Team rolled into Karazhan and completely cleaned the place up. We rolled through every boss except Attumen (skipped) in about 4 hours. No wipes. Took on many fights and a couple bosses with just 9 people, and walked out with some greatly upgraded gear for new recruits and 22 badges to boot.

Nefernetcher and I were determined to put up big numbers and by the end of the night, we didn't quite reach our goal of doing 50% of the raid damage, but got close. I came in right about 28% and Nefernetcher was at 20% or so. Like I said, domination.

Nefernetcher was also running a nice damage meter that recapped the boss fights and on Prince, I did 100,000 more damage than the next closest person. Of course, we got lucky with infernal drops and I didn't have to move at all (pretty easy just sitting in one place while the tank does his thing).

In the end though, another run without Soulfrost or Sunfire, but 22 more badges puts me at almost 100 again after buying the Icon, so I need to see what I can waste them on.

Also, after returning to the city, I resocketed a couple of items, replacing an epic gem with a rare one and adding another Veiled Noble Topaz to my robe which puts me within 2 points of the hit cap (I saw too many resists last night). I then saw an advertisement in chat for a pattern for Gloves of Spell Mastery on the auction house. I quickly went to look at the price and it was only 280g! I borrowed 100g from Dylana (yes, I've been slacking on my dailies) and quickly snapped it up. Since I had never seen the pattern before, 280g was a steal in my eyes. After buying it, the seller messaged me asking if he had under priced it. Since Wowhead lists it at 250g, I told him I didn't think so - as no one will buy it to make it - people will only buy it to be a completionist - like me. He found it in a locked box and made a quick 280g off it. Very nice, and it rounds out my epic world drop set nicely. I still have quite a few patterns to go and no gold to buy them with right now. Back to Netherwing dailies!

Blake — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:43:00 +0000

Saturday night, the Gold Team convened once again and finished the last two bosses of Karazhan that were left untouched on Tuesday night. Illhoof didn't go down without a fight as he sacrificed our warlock near the end and I was close to being out of mana and couldn't help too much with the imps. He did die though and our druid friend made off with a couple new items (though the staff didn't drop). We then went up to Netherspite and again he didn't go down as planned. Our warlock (again causing problems) got stuck in a void and died so I had to pick up the blue beam early. That made me unavailable for the blue beam during the second phase so our hunter picked it up and we subbed a warrior in at the last minute. A druid scooped up the warlock so he was available for the third phase and it was easy from there on. Rook picked up a nice ring and I can't remember the other drop.

With Karazhan clear, we quickly headed to Zul'Aman to see if we could attempt the timed event. It was going perfectly as we were clearing trash when our tank disconnected. After he was able to get back in, we knew the timed event wouldn't happen so we took our time and explained everything in depth as we had some new people along. Nalorakk gave us some fits, but we got him down on the third attempt, and though I thought I didn't need anything from the first two bosses, he dropped something that made me a very happy gnome: Executioner Enchant!.

We then moved on to Akil'zon, cleared the gauntlet without any problems, and had three shots at him. No luck. We recleared the gauntlet again in one shot and took him down after two more attempts. As we moved on towards the third boss, our tank and hunter disconnected and couldn't reconnect. ((Apparently there was a large AT&T problem Saturday night)). So the raid was called, but we are getting much better with Akil'zon's strategy and he should be on farm status quite soon.

Blake — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:46:00 +0000

((OOC: Not much to report. Didn't see much action this weekend due to severe lag spikes hitting the Southern California Time Warner cable population. Cleared up finally on Monday and we took down Maulgar, but again continue to have problems with Gruul.))

Blake — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:04:00 +0000

Now that I've decided to use the Vengeful Gladiator's Silk Cowl or the Collar of the Aldor depending on the circumstances, I need to find 22 hit rating in my sockets.

The first piece to resocket are my pauldrons. They currently can trade 4 spell crit for 4 spell hit via a Veiled Noble Topaz. 18 to go.

Unfortunately, the only place to make up the rest of the hit rating is by replacing Runed Living Rubies with Veiled Noble Topazes. So 9 damage becomes 4 hit and 5 damage. So it's a trade of damage for hit at a 1:1 ratio. And unfortunately, 4 at a time, so that's 5 rubies that need to be replaced.

The other option is to replace a ring with Ashyen's Gift. It provides 21 hit rating and would leave me one short of the cap which is no big deal. However, it is of course a trade off.

Replacing the Violet Signet of the Archmage costs me 23 intellect, 17 crit and 6 damage. Replacing the Signet of Ancient Magics costs me 17 intellect, 8 damage and 10 mp5. Now, I haven't really noticed a significant increase in mana regen with the 10 mp5, so that would be the ring I swap out, but losing the mp5 during a boss fight isn't the best option.

However, if the 21 hit is equal to crit or damage when it comes to sockets, you have:

Ashyen's Gift: 44 "points"
Violet Signet: 46 "points" + 23 intellect
Ancient Magic: 31 "points" + 17 intellect + 10 mp5

A tough call. I can also just keep my rings the same and lose 20 damage from sockets in exchange for 20 hit.

Blake — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:27:00 +0000

I've been doing some more research into my helm dilemma. Apparently the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond theorycrafts to about 40 damage.

So my choices remain:
Spellstrike Hood / Vengeful Gladiator's Silk Cowl / Collar of the Aldor

Stats  Spell   Cowl  Collar
Armor   145    409    164
Stam    28     59     30
Intel   12     23     35
Spirit  0      0      17
Crit    24     36     39
Hit     24     0      0
Resil   0      33     0
Haste   0      0      0
Damage  60     56     52

So the dilemma lies in the sockets. With the Diamond giving me roughly 40 damage from the 3% increased crit damage and the 12 crit rating equaling roughly 9 damage, the numbers get a little closer.

For argument's sake, I'll run the numbers just taking the hood switch into account.

Going from Spellstrike to Collar is:
+19 armor, 2 stamina, 23 intellect, 17 spirit, 15 crit, 0 resilience, 32 damage. -24 hit.

Going from Spellstrike to Vengeful Cowl is:
+264 armor, 31 stamina, 11 intellect, 0 spirit, 12 crit, 33 resilience, 36 damage. -24 hit.

Wow, put in those terms, one of these should be my new helm. Since both lose the same hit rating, we can ignore that stat. With 12 crit = 9 damage, 3 crit = 2.25 damage, we can wipe out the crit difference and pretty much the damage difference. That leaves it up to the other three stats which are going to be pretty situation dependent.

Cowl has 29 more stam and 33 resilience (PvP only) while the collar has 12 more intellect and 17 spirit. Since spirit no longer factors into evocations, it's a tough call. I use mage armor on most boss fights, so the spirit will come in handy there to keep my mana pool high and the 12 intellect also equals 180 more mana while the cowl offers 290 more health.

Now I just need to figure out how to make up the 22 hit that I'm below the cap. It'll probably just be some resocketing of my Spellfire set. As I'm reticent to sacrifice 20 damage on my gloves for 15 spell hit. Back to the drawing board.

Blake — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Every Thursday night, our fantastic guild, DarkLight Resolution has guild night. It's a night where we put aside Karazhan, Zul'Aman, heroics, and whatever else and offer our services to anyone in the guild. Need a run through the Underbog? A trip to the Scarlet Monastery? Help with a particularly troubling quest? We're here to help.

Occasionally on guild night we also have outings that bring the guild together as a whole. A few weeks ago, I led an assault on Zul'Gurub and there were quite a few players in their high-50's, low-60's that came with us 70's as we tore through the place. They all got some good gear and we all had a bunch of fun.

Last night, King Elros and Queen Eirama led us into the Molten Core! It's my first time in there as a 70 and it's been well over a year since I've stepped foot inside the core. In my previous life as a rogue on the Emerald Dream server, we would have weekly excursions into the core when we could round up 40! guild members. The farthest I had ever seen was through the first four bosses.

Last night, in under two hours, we plowed through not just the first four bosses, but the first 7. We then lost a few people as the scheduled outing was for just two hours and we had 23 people show up. With just 15 or so people left, we continued on to Golemagg and quickly took him down. Without any more Aqual Qintessences, we were unable to continue to Majordomo or Rag. Hopefully I will have a chance to see them this weekend as I have never had the opportunity to partake in either of those battles.

While I of course didn't need any gear or any other drops from the Core (I am already exalted with the Dark Iron Thieves), I did get a nice amount of Hydraxian Waterlords reputation, putting me at just over friendly. Unfortunately, I figure I'd need 10-12 full clears of Molten Core to get to exalted. And since this is the first time DarkLight has ventured into the core in over a year, a lot of people had fun and I'm hoping it can become a more regular outing.

Now, to finally finish my Hydraxian quest to find that damn Eye of the Emberseer...

Blake — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Last night was pretty amazing. When I talked to my mage trainer, he had some amazing updates for me and I am now able to ice block and I have rethought my current skillset - rather than being able to Clearcast, I have instead decided to have Icy Veins. With those changes and my new Boots of Blasting, Mindblade and Icon of the Silver Crescent I was outputting some ridiculous DPS. Though I couldn't quite tell first hand, reports from Nefernetcher put me at about 1600 DPS for many fights.

So we pretty much blew through all of Karazhan with just one wipe on Nightbane. This time we had a couple different people accompanying us and they seemed to bring the good luck with them. It all started on Maiden when she dropped the Shard of the Virtuous - an item we had not yet seen after countless kills. Congrats to Harkor on his new mace. We continued on and every boss seemed to drop something that could be used in our raid - though I did make it out of there with 6 void crystals (which were immediately used to enchant Mongoose for Lunatic's Kings Defender). When we got to the Prince, I hoped for the Fallen Hero helm as I've been waiting way too long to complete my Karazhan Tier 4 set and after we one shot him, it dropped! I was lucky enough to outroll the hunter who will be joining us in coming weeks (she unfortunately rolled a 1), so I now finally have my Collar of the Aldor! But not only that, he dropped Light's Justice - another item we had not yet seen which would have gone to Harkor if he had not just acquired the Shard. Instead it went to the wonderful Jorix. It was her first time accompanying us to and she seemed to bring the good luck with her.

So now that I have the Collar of the Aldor, Vengeful Gladiator's Silk Cowl, and Spellstrike Hood available to me, I have to make tough decisions on what to wear. The Pauldrons of the Aldor are my every day shoulders, so the Collar gives me the two piece bonus where both my fireballs and frostbolts cannot be interrupted, but going from Spellstrike to the Collar nets me 19 armor, 2 stamina, 23 intellect, 17 spirit, and 15 crit at the cost of 24 hit and 8 damage. When compared to the Collar+Pantaloons, I gain 51 armor, 12 stamina, 50 intellect, 17 spirit and 45 haste at the cost of 11 crit, 50 hit and 19 damage. Once again, the 50 spell hit loss is the biggest problem. I can resocket my Spellfire set to gain 39 hit, 30 stamina, but I lose 54 damage and I'm pretty sure 45 haste and 50 intellect won't make up that amount of damage. I guess the Collar will just come out where I can't afford interruptions (Akil'zon), the Vengeful Silk Cowl will come out in PvP and for now, Spellstrike remains for raiding.

Blake — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:12:00 +0000

Some of the theorycraft I've been hearing say that the Pantaloons of Arcane Annihilation are better than the Spellstrike Pants. Of course, with a replacement of the pants, I'd swap out the Spellstrike Hood with the Vengeful Gladiator's Silk Cowl.

But it's hard to justify the change after running the numbers. The change from Spellstrike to Pantaloons+Vengeful results in a gain of 296 armor, 41 stamina, 38 intellect, 33 resilience, and 45 haste. These gains come at the cost of 14 crit, 50 hit, and 15 damage. Since I am currently 2 points over the hit cap, I'll need to find 48 hit rating points through socketing. I definitely need to resocket my Pauldrons which will find me 4 hit, leaving me 44 short.

The logical thing to do is resocket my Spellfire Set and go for the socket bonuses. Right now they are all filled with Runed Living Rubies for +54 damage. Resocketing them will give me 39 hit and 30 stamina, at the cost of the 54 damage.

Throwing those numbers into the change, switching from spellstrike gives me an additional 296 armor, 71 stamina, 38 intellect, 33 resilience, and 45 haste at the cost of 14 crit, 7 hit and 69 damage.

So the question is, does 38 int, and 45 haste make up for the loss of 14 crit and 69 damage?

A loss of 14 crit means I lose 0.64% chance to crit. A gain of 38 intellect means I gain 0.475% chance to crit, so I really only lose 0.16% chance to crit - not a huge deal. 45 haste means I cast my spells 2.85% faster. Assuming I put out 900 DPS (just guessing, haven't run any numbers), 45 haste is equal to 25.65 more damage. However, with a crit rate of 33% and crits hitting for 4,000, a loss of 0.16% crit equates to really only 2 damage lost (though I'm pretty sure I'm not doing the math right).

However, the intangibles here are I gain 710 life which is a big boost for me, I gain 570 mana which is another fireball, however, with the mana gem buff and potions, I should not run out of mana during any encounter. The 296 armor is negligible and the 33 resilience is worthless in PvE.

I figure if I'm going to go for haste rating though, I'd need to get the Runed Spell-cuffs to replace my Veteran's Silk Cuffs which would net me 1 armor, 25 haste and 5 damage at the cost of 5 stamina, 14 crit, 8 hit and 13 resilience. With the 7 hit I lost switching away from Spellstrike, that would leave me 15 under the hit cap which would be remedied by losing the 20 damage enchant on my gloves in favor of the 15 spell hit enchant.

So, when all is said and done, I gain 297 armor, 66 stamina, 38 intellect, 20 resilience, and 70 haste at the cost of 28 crit and 84 damage.

I lose about 90 damage, but cast 4.5% faster. I gain 660 stamina and 570 mana. But now that I think about it, the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond also puts out 3% increased critical strike damage. Assuming crits 1/3rd of the time at 4,000 damage, that's a boost of 40 damage. 70 haste is 4.44% faster casting and assuming 900 DPS, that's another 40 damage. In the end I lose 0.8% crit strike chance which is a lot, but not sure of the damage cost there. GRRR. Stupid haste rating going and screwing everything up.

I just can't figure out if the losses outweigh the gains or vice versa. Oh well. /sigh

Blake — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:11:00 +0000

So the rumors are that later today, my mage trainer in Stormwind should have a brand new talent for me to learn called Icy Veins. Also, even though I am a fire mage, he has promised to teach me how to Ice Block like those crazy ice mages with their water elementals. And not only that, he also has told me that he will be able to teach me how to create mana emeralds that I can use THREE times before they disappear! What fantastic news. Hopefully he has everything ready for me when I am ready to venture back into Azeroth later today.

Also last night I was thinking about my new Boots of Blasting. The pattern cost 700g. I then had to buy 4 Shadowcloth for 200g since no one wanted to trade for my Spellcloth. I had one Primal Nether saved up, but had to use 10 badges to buy another Nether. Assuming a cost of 100g for a nether, I spent 1000g for my new boots. That doesn't even include the 8 Large Prismatic Shards I had to use or the new Runed Living Ruby I had to use to resocket my Spellstrike Pants. When all was said and done, I probably spent around 1500-1700g for a new pair of boots (including all the mats I already had for myself from tailoring or enchanting). All for a gain of 6 hit, 6 crit and 12 damage. Worth it? I guess so since I spent it.

With that extra 12 damage though, I am sitting at plus 999 fire damage completely unbuffed - no Arcane Intellect or anything else. Tonight we should be raiding Karazhan so I'll see how high I can get with raid buffs (no consumables).

Blake — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:34:00 +0000

Another great night! It started out on the Netherwing Ledge doing the daily quests. I did them all except for the Twilight Portal and the Crystals as I didn't have time to collect all 40. Unfortunately Gruul's was canceled due to poor attendance so I was able to continue with my Netherwing questing. I went over to Nagrand and did the Twilight Portal, found some more crystals and came up 175 rep short of Exalted. After offering up a reward in general chat for an egg, I finally found one in the fortress. I flew back to the basecamp, turned in the egg and became exalted finally!

After a meeting with Illidan, I was escorted away on the back of a dragon to Shattrath and rewarded with a Netherdrake. The Onyx Netherdrake is now mine! It looks absolutely amazing.

After getting my Netherdrake, I returned to Ironforge for my daily check of the auction house and I saw the Pattern for the Boots of Blasting for just 500g with a 700g buyout. Without hesitation I bought the pattern. ((According to Wowhead it sells for 1800g))

I then needed to buy 4 Shadowcloth as no one in the trade channel wanted to trade Spellcloth for Shadowcloth, used 10 of my 101 Badges to buy a Primal Nether and whipped up my very own pair of Boots of Blasting. I immediately looked to buy 8 Primal Earths off of the Auction House, but they were cheap so I offered up gold to the guild rather than buying them from a stranger. No one would take my gold though! 5 separate people (out of just 9 online at the time) offered me 8 free primal earths. What a great guild. I found a great enchanter to do Boar's Speed and I now have a new pair of boots (subject to testing of course).

Old Boots:
134 Armor, 36 STA, 26 INT, 19 CRIT, 12 HIT, 31 Damage

New Boots:
145 Armor, 34 STA, 25 INT, 25 CRIT, 18 HIT, 39 Damage

So yes, I have a new pair of boots. By dropping just 2 Stamina and 1 Intellect, I gain 6 hit, 6 crit and 8 damage. But because I gain 6 hit and I was at the spell hit cap before, I am able to replace a Veiled Noble Topaz with a Runed Living Ruby resulting in another 4 damage gained. So very nice.

Just a shame I had to spend so much time trying to obtain the Boots of Foretelling off that damn Maiden of Virtue.