Monday, May 30, 2011

Achieving by AFK

I haven't been doing too much in WoW lately, because I've been busy IRL on non-raid nights.However, for the times I've been at home, I've managed to do work towards an Achievement even when I've been busy - Bloody Rare.

Basically, I park an alt in an appropriate location, occasionally coming back from being AFK to tap the keyboard so that I don't get kicked out of WoW... and with a little help from the NPCScan mod (yes, I've extended my addon list to a grand total of 3!), picked up the rares as they spawn.

I'm working on the Outland rares rather than the Northrend rares, because I think people are probably spending less time in Outland than Northrend at the moment, but I think when it gets to Loq I may have to park my hunter at the camp spot rather than an alt - that's one rare I'm pretty sure I won't have time to relog another character for!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Windrunner Interlude

Although I did play Warcraft 2 quite a bit - it was my first RTS and I loved it - most readers of this blog would know that Sylvanas Windrunner in Warcraft 3 is one of the main reasons I started playing WoW and rolled a hunter in the first place.

Even though her pre-banshee life was short (in terms of campaign maps, anyway!), I couldn't help but admire her tenacity to keep fighting, trying to protect Silvermoon from Arthas. She just kept coming back, and even after she was dead, she used her new Dark Ranger powers to her advantage and became the leader of the Forsaken.

However, I recently read the novelizations of the Warcraft 2 campaign plus expansion: Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal, where Sylvanas' older sister Alleria's story is told.

I was totally struck by how similar Alleria's story was to Sylvanas' - both were exceptional rangers, leaders and tacticians, loved and protected their family to the last, were willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause and pursued their enemies with a reckless burning passion.

I'd never given much thought to Alleria after playing WC2 - the lore behind that game didn't come through as well for me, whether it be because Blizzard improved their storytelling in WC3 or because I was too young to pay much attention - but after this I think I'd really like to know where she is and what she's been up to.

I don't know if she'll replace Sylvanas as my favourite ranger, but if Blizzard brings her back with an epic storyline.... who knows? :)

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Wish they'd make up their minds...



Multi-shot damage has been reduced. It now deals 120% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 137%.

Anyone else tired of having Multi-Shot damage changed each patch?

I have to be perfect to kite on Magmaw as it is; a nerf is going to make it that much harder... all I can do is hope that I'll still have enough aggro from a full Focus bar to make it work as MM.

Well, either that or start trying to get better gear from the new raiding tier so that it won't matter :P

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Impressions of the Zandalari Uprising

So far, ZG has been a lot more fun for me than ZA, purely because it's changed so much.

It also seems more of a challenge, since the last two bosses are where most PuGs (and even guild groups) fall apart.

In fact, I haven't even killed Jin'do the Group-breaker in a guild group yet; the PuG stat bonus helped with both of my kills.

However, there's one thing I did take away from a guild ZA run that I find interesting: a taste of how fun it can be to work things out for yourself.

It's really a little like the elite soloing runs I do - wipe until you figure out the right way to do things.

On my first foray into ZA with a guild group, we went in "blind" (not reading the strats) and figured we'd work out any changes from the old 10man raid on the way.

After wiping a few times on the lynx boss before realizing that we didn't need to spend valuable DPS time on killing the water totems, our priest was still having a little trouble keeping us alive, running out of mana and losing clothies in particular to the cat spirit.

I idly clicked on a totem to read the buff description after biting the dust during one attempt and said, "Hey , what happens if you actually stand next to the totem?"

Of course, once we figured out that the water totems actually gave our priest practically unlimited mana and also helped to keep the DPS alive during the split phase, the fight was a breeze.

Sure, we could have saved ourselves the repair bill by reading up beforehand, but I'm really glad we didn't - it made me feel a tiny bit like being in those top guilds that do this type of thing all the time, figuring out how to kill bosses when there aren't any strats to read.

I mean, I know it wasn't much - the healing circle the dragons in Vortex Pinnacle leave on the floor is a similar concept - but it still felt like a huge lightbulb moment when we figured it out!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Back in Business

After weeks of respeccing to Survival for Magmaw in Blackwing Descent, Patch 4.1 finally made the Multi-Shot change I was looking for: a big enough buff to MM AoE that I would be able to kite parasites.

Although my Focus management needs to be absolutely perfect to pull it off, I'm ecstatic to report that I can now afford to stay MM for this fight, meaning I can stop feeling annoyed at having to respec every week and our raid leader can stop feeling guilty for wanting me to do it, even though it was my choice in the first place!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Well that's depressing...




***QUEST SPOILER***

The poor dragon entrusts her last egg to you with her dying breath, and you send it in to fight and "die" for you? Yeesh.