Midsummer Madness II

It hasn't released it's grip on me yet this fire festival. The XP gain is great if you can handle the monotony of mostly travelling. It's like having 2 quest logs full of quests that have hand-ins dotted all over the place.

This can be boring, but if you're doing something else non-WoW based at the same time, then it's free levelling!!

I was working from home yesterday and whilst I was tap-tap-tapping away on my laptop I was putting PS the Rogue on gryphons to the next bonfire location. In 4-5 hours of inattentive playing he had done all 3 continents and all 4 Capital cities. And gone from somewhere late in level 59 to just dinging 61!

OK, for about 2% attention paid to him during these 5 hours that's not bad, over 1 level of XP. BUT, HotPants the Shammy went from mid level 53 to mid level 56 by doing all 3 continents and all 4 capitals.

I then got BitchSlapper the warrior finished on the home world continents and she went from 46 to 48 and that's without capital cities (apparently you need to be level 50 to get the capital city fires). I suspect if I dared take BS to Outlands then she would get at least a level out of all those fires, and a big repair bill to boot!

So in the mid 40s and the mid 50s you can get a level per continent but once you hit 60 it would appear that you can only get a level from all 3 continents. Maybe they have tapered the XP gain down at level 60 and beyond so that you don't miss out on all the questing and grinding fun in Outland.

Is this yet more evidence that Blizzard have given up on pre-TBC content so allowing you to skip a couple or three levels just with Midsummer Festival XP?

Oh, and before I forget, if you're not going to take you characters around all the zones of the world at least do the 2 dailies; Torch Tossing and Torch Catching and maybe even the third one: Striking Back.

At level 70 its lots of gold and blossoms for buying raid food THAT STACKS with normal food buffs.

At below level 70 it's a nice chunk of XP for 2 minutes throwing torches around.

Level 61 - 9,800XP per quest.

At level 56 it's 8,450XP per torch quest but Striking Back has now changed from Searing Gorge to the Silithus Frozen Lieutenant. Don't bother with him.

At level 48 it's 6,300XP per torch quest and Striking Back sees you in STV and an easy fight on the Water Elemental Island for 5050XP!!

At Level 49 it's 6,550XP for tossing and 6,300XP catching, but Striking Back is now Searing Gorge, so probably best to miss that!

44 it's 5,300XP per quest and the friendly fires give 2,600 and opposing fires 5,300.
43 it's 5x050XP

At level 35 it's 3,300XP per torch quest.

Get all your alts doing these quests every day, you only have till Friday!

Midsummer Madness

As you may have realised I have caught a bit of the midsummer madness.

I took HolyWarrior around every single bonfire (capital cities and all) and got a huge whack of gear.

This wasn't enough, I have now taken EvilBastard and HotPants around together and done every single fire (including capitals) on both of them too. Not only that but I have started doing them with BitchSlapper my warrior too.

HW and EB are both level capped so they got loadsa gold for it, but HotPants made 3 levels purely on the bonfires and discovery XP!!

This event is great for levelling :)

Two Bosses in One Night

After our appalling performance against Najentus the other night, we 2-shotted Naj and then moved onto Supremus and 2-shotted him too.

This was a guild first according to many, but we did do Supremus and Akama earlier on in the month.

Anway, 4 more badges so up to 239.

We Ain't Perfick

Last night we went back into The Black Temple, expecting to get Najentus and Supremus down and maybe Shade of Akama.

Nope. 7 tries on Naj - die die die. OUCH! Too much frigging about before using the spine :(

Tossing off in the Midsummer

More scope for cool referral links here but this post is about the Midsummer festival and also includes a tip about the torch catching quest!

Over the last few days I decided to try and collect ALL of the possible Fire blossom things for the midsummer festival.

Last night before the raid I finished off Kalimdor and got both the Orgimar and Thunder Bluff fires and only had the 2 fires in Dustwalow Marsh left.

After the raid I went and got them and then headed back to IF to hand in the 4 capital city flames and to do the torch tossing and catching quests.

Incidentally, the capital city fires give you a total of 100 blossoms and 20 summer festival buff foods so it's well worth it!

Torch Catching Tip #1: I was trying to follow the torch and click on it as it neared the ground to much failure. After a quick search it appears you don't have to click it and also that it has a shadow. So what you do is stand by the bonfire and then throw your torch. Angle the camera view to show you from above and then just follow the shadow around. I found the best positioning to be very slightly ahead of the shadow and not to stop when it looks like it has hit the ground, keep running. It will disappear briefly and then you will automatically throw it back into the air.

Do this 4 times and you have completed the initial quest.

Torch Catching Tip #2: Don't attempt this quest when your other-half is watching streaming video over the i-net. TiceNits was watching Eastenders - Grrr!! I was constantly failing to catch the torch even when I was stood underneath it as it landed. Turns out I only "thought" I was there - frigging lag!!

Once you have done the initial quest (as well as the torch tossing quest) you can then do the daily version of each. This time you have to catch 10 torches and you have to blow up 20 of the fires for the tossing quest.

At this point I realised I had not done the Zoram stand quest, so popped out there and completed that and its follow up.

Back to IF to hand that in and get the Fire Festival Crown and then start on the mini-chain that will lead to you fighting Lord Athune or whatever his name is.

At this point (only done the 2 dailies once each and not done the Striking Back quest) I had 592 blossoms!

I already had the pet flame and the shoulders from last years event so I picked up the "weird dancing Dranei on a fire" non-combat pet for 350 blossoms and the chest piece for 100 blossoms. Leaving me 142 blossoms. The only thing left to get is the Sandals for 200 blossoms and then I have every single item you can get from the festival - maybe.

Apparently it is not possible to do this all from scratch in 1 year, so I'm glad that I already had the flame and the shoulders from last year ;)

Vag Wipes

I must check the referral links in a few days and see what search terms have been used to get here! LOL!

No, this post is not about feminine cleanliness products, it's about our evening of wiping on Lady Vashj.

Wednesday is not an official raid day but we had 26 sign ups for the Vag raid on Group Calendar. I was a late signer but TiceNits reckoned I would not be dumped because I am such an uber healer and we would need the cream of the cream to down her. Yeah, whatever!

So I made no rush to stock up and repair and carried on flying round Kalimdor desecrating horde fires.

I got a raid invite, accepted and was still allowed to accept and complete the desecration and honouring quests. Then I got a summon or two but just wanted to get the Azuremyst and Bloodmyst isle flames.

That done I HS'd back to shat, picked up some supplies and repaired and took my 3rd summon to SSC.

In we went, we cleared trash, I topped the healing meter with a good 3.5% lead. Out of 8 or 9 healers I got up to 22.4% of total raid healing at one point!!

Anyway, we got to Vag and had 5 or 6 tries on her, I don't think we ever got more than 1 shield down. In the past we have got 3 shields down, this was a total blow out.

We tried several different groups/classes for the striders and had little or no to organisation on taking down the tainted elementals or dealing with their tainted cores.

TiceNit's couldn't loot the core when she downed an elemental in try 1 and someone else had the same issue in phase 2.

Raidleader tip for Lady Vag: Put loot on FREE-FOR-ALL goddamit!!

Anyway, considering it was an evening of wiping it was taken with good grace and aboeve all we had fun. FREE-FOR-ALL - remember next time please NicePallyClassLeader!

Attention Deficit Raiding

I was planning a relaxing evening last night, roaming around getting Fire Blossom things for the midsummer festival whilst watching TV on TiceNit's PC.

I got persuaded to go to Kara. Firstly they wanted me to tank and I said if they get 2 healers and 7 DPS then I will respec and tank it. Eventually they got 2 tanks, 1 healer and 6 DPS so I went as healer.

I wasn't on TS, I had the headhones off so I could just hear the tinny game sounds and I watched TV!

My attention was far from on the game except during boss fights. We had 2 Warriors tanking, 2 Pallys healing, a trigger happy mage, shadow priest, shaman, hunter and maybe a couple of rogues. We 1 shot Attumen, Maiden, Moroes, Red Riding Hood, Nightbane and Curator.

I got Red-Riding Hooded and caught it in time and started running, but I ran in the wrong direction and died, we still got him down though.

The trigger happy Mage was constantly getting aggro and getting 1 or 2 shotted, even though I was paying attention to him he still died soooo many times!

We only wiped once. The tank managed to pull Curator and an extra group when trying to pull Curators trash, we recovered quickly and wiped the floor with him before he got to his second Evocation :)

So, 11 Badges later and the total is up to 235. I'm soon gonna have a really nice badge chestpiece and weapon. I think I need 250. But I also want a tanking shield, so may need to do a few more Karas yet!!

New Boss Down

We went to MH last night and we 1 shotted Kaz'Roger'Roger - WooHooo!!!!

The waves were quite tough and we wiped once or twice but got to him pretty quickly. The thing with Kaz is that he casts a debuff more and more often and it drains 3000 mana. If you don't have 3000 mana then you bomb the raid so it's important to get away from the raid.

Even though I had lots of shadow res gear I still got this debuff loads of times, I was Judging Wisdom and chugging super mana potions whenever possible but I still spent most of the time away from the raid!!

But we one-shotted him!! The guild tried him once before, last week, whilst I was on holiday, but it was great that I was on another boss first :)

I got no gear but the 2 badges obviously, so 224 badges now!!

We then went and tried Az-Gallore but couldn't get past his waves. It was late though so after 1 wipe we called it.

WoW Hacking? Now Blog Hacking!

OMFG, poor old Jagoex over at Warlock Therapy had his blogging account hacked and his entire blog deleted!

What kind of sick fuck would do such a thing? What the frig did they gain from doing it?

I can't believe it. Jago writes an amazing and very enjoyable blog and I am gutted for him.

Jago, I hope you recover swiftly. To the hacker: I hope you burn in hell you fuck!

Holiday

Hi folks. Bean on holiday and I'm back now.

Was cool, but glad to be back!!!

Shammy Update

Tonight I got a guildie alt, TiceNit's druid alt and a main level 70 to blast my shammy, HotPants, through Zul'Farrak.

Seems like only a few weeks since I pugged my rogue through there and it was fun.

Shammy is now ready to do the final grind to level 58 and then onto Outlands :)

First Sight of Teron Gorefiend

We went back to Black Temple after killing Akama on Sunday. Target: Teron Gorefiend.

Took us nearly an hour to get to him and then we wiped on the first set of Shadow Death debuffs :)

I had played the flash game which can be found at some random danish or german site and was scared about it cos I couldn't win the game :P

Luckily paladins can Bubble and Mages Ice block as he is casting the debuff and they won't get it. Rogues can probably do CloS too.

So we start the second attempt and the MT dies in about 5 seconds - oops! One of the pallies puts DI on me but it hits just after the Shadow Death de-buff hits me.

The raid wipes and some poeple get out to reset it (maybe) and we wait out the debuff to see if it kills me.

Yes, Shadow Death burns through Divine Intervention and kills you and summons the constructs.

NicePallyClassLeader obviously didn't hear the chat on TS and having successfully reset she runs back in just as I die!! Hahahhaha! Classic wipe #2

So on attempt #3 I died pretty early on to normal damage/normal debuff and eventually we wiped on 48%

Wipe #4 - MT got 2 shotted right at the start. :(

Wipe #5 (2 hours in) first set of constructs got us!

Wipe #6 I got the Shadow Death but I hot-keyed them wrong so they didn't work and I wiped the raid.

Wipe #7 again someone let the constructs get to the raid :(

Wipe #8 - yawn, another quick one and this time I DI NicePallyClassLeader right at the top of the steps. In range of Gorefiend? Oh Yes! hahaha.

Analysis: The cast time for shadow death is pretty fast so you'd have to be really on the ball to spot the target change, then spot that he is casting the debuff rather than something else and then hit your bubble or ice block. I didn't manage it.

BRK Wears Eternity

Sorry, just had to say. After tonight's raid I checked out a couple of my fave blogs. Those include TJ and BRK and found TJ's BlogTV. So I lurked for a while!!

The one thing I learnt from the whole thing was that BRK only wears Eternity. Woot - So do I, show's he has good taste even if he has noisy dogs!

Hehehe

That's all, move along...

BT Woot

Started about 20:45 and Supremus dropped at 22:00 (3 shotted). We did have an extra wipe on his trash about half way up the hill though, and then I may have caused a mini wipe during recovery, but I wasn't the first to die so I suspect someone else did the actual body pull while trying to rez!!

He left us these little pressies which was very kind of him:
Idol of the White Stag
Wraps of Precise Flight
2 Badges

So off we popped up to the Shade of Akama encounter and 1 shotted him at 23:00. So now I can officially say I am 3/9 in Black Temple!!

This was his little stash:
Praetorian's Legguards
Amice of Brilliant Light
2 Badges

Badge total 222

Ants

Totally Un-Wow-related, but as I walked into the office this morning I walked past the coffee machine and this post-it note was stuck to it. This made me chuckle so I just had to share!

Najentus Finally!!

The guild has taken down Najentus once before. But this time I got to be in on the kill :)

We wiped 3 or 4 times before but that last time really came together. Really.

The new pally tank trying to heal next to me got spined 3 times in a row and I got the spine off him each time. The first time I got it I used it but it didn't work. Turns out I didn't have Najentus targeted.

Raid Start: 20:35

Najentus Down 22:05
Fist of Mukoa
Boots of Oceanic Fury
Pattern: Swiftheal Mantle
2 Badges

At this point I was 7th or 8th on the healing (for the entire duration of the raid). A druid was top, then a priest, then another druid, then a shaman then 2 pallies then me and NicePallyClassLeader who swapped places regularly. So I determined to at least become top pally healer.

Half way through the Supremus trash I suceeded. Then before we got to Supremus I overtook the shaman. During Supremus try #1 I overtook the 2nd druid and reached 3rd place on the healing tables. WoooHoo!!

Then 45 minutes from our Najentus kill we had our 1st Supremus wipe. Then we wiped again. Then it was raid over :(

2 more badges of justice though so 218 :)

Impromptu PvP

Hehe. I was boosting TiceNits' druid alt through STV tonight and we were just finishing up and going to the rebel camp to hand in quests and all hell broke loose.

Seems 2 rogues , a shammy, mage and a rogue, all level 70 decided to wipe out the alliance NPCs. (RP server here) I sat around watching for a bit and then decided to get involved. I was on EB so I thought "lets have some OP fun". I got a few DOTS off and the 2 rogues anihilated me :)

Finally an alliance hunter, priest, mage and rogue turned up. I managed to kill the shammy before being ganked again and while I was runnig back the others took the advantage of a dead healer and saw them off. No healer. No life expectancy :)

I hung around for a while, the NPCs respawned, the horde stayed away :)

Back to Mount Hyjal

We finally went back to Mount Hyjal and this time we have a pally tank (not me unfortunately) :(

The waves were much easier and we 1 shot WinterTwat but I didn't get to test out whether Blessing of Freedom works because the one time I did get Ice Blocked I didn't even notice as I was in with the Melee keeping up JoW. I saw myself taking damage and assumed it was splash damage and just bubbled. Good job that works!

He kindly gave me Blessed Adamantite Bracers. I checked the DKP site and outbid NicePallyClassLeader by 1 DKP. Mwuhahahahha!!

Anyway, as of this moment we just wiped on AnEnema. I had 183 Shadow resistance going because it supposedly stops Carrion Swarm. It didn't. What else could it be useful for?

Starting AnEnema trash again.

Lost pally tank in wave 4, we rezzed him and carried on and made it to AnEnema and wiped at around 25% Grr :(

So, onto attempt 3...

I went in and judged wisdom because I was running out of mana far too fast on previous attempts and it seemed to work out much better.

We killed AnEnema. So 4 badges for the whole evening, but no more loot for me :P

216 badges total.

Sunday Raid: Karazhan

Errr WTF, we had most of the raid filled out and I was waiting outside BT and it was suggested we go to MH instead because we didn't have enough DPS.

I'd have said it was more sensible to do Najentus, Supremus and Akama if we were short of DPS rather than trying the waves of mobs in MH. Then someone left and a bit of drama broke out about Guild kicks if people left raid.

It all got sorted and then we went to Kara. Huh?

EB was saved so HolyWarrior went.

We had 1 tank and 2 other healers so I went in my ret gear for some fights and managed to overtake the tank on the damage meters! Haha. Moroes saw me switch into tank gear and offtank Moroes. When the tank got stunned he came straight to me, so I succeeded there!

Then onto Maiden I switched into my healing gear and we took her out. Then I put my tanking gear on and offtanked a very iffy Romeo and Juliet fight where she was constantly getting heals off so it prolonged the fight a lot and I lost agrro a couple of times :P

Then I switched back into healing gear for a 2-shot of Nightbane and back into tanking gear for offtanking Curator.

Holy specced in tank gear I was sitting on 13,890 Health. I was impressed with that.

No loot obviously as it's Kara! But we got Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, R&J, Nightbane and Curator down in just over 2 hours. So 11 badges for that run taking HW's total to 212