WoW - The Dance Studio Has Finally Arrived!

Dark Legacy vs Marcus Maximi

Looks like Dark Legacy copied my post!!

- or maybe it was just coincidence :P

http://www.darklegacycomics.com/465
v
http://heal-stab-dot.blogspot.com/2014/11/wow-first-24-hours-of-warlords.html

WoW - Fey Landing

Are Blizzard ripping off Rift?

That is all!

Other stuff from blizzcon

Andriod hearthstone in December - yes yes yes, can't wait!
Gnomes v Goblins expansion - woot
Heroes beta not till January
Overwatch already close to beta - cannot.wait.

WoW - First 24 Hours of Warlords

Wednesday 13:00
I Facebook and Twitter @GAMEHampton to check they will be open at midnight. They say doors open at 23:00

Wednesday 18:00
@GAMEHampton come back and say they now can't open at midnight.

Wednesday 21:00
Even though I won't be able to play WoD I try to log into game anyway. A queue of 1500 awaits me. Oh well, back to angrily tweeting @GAMEHampton and @GAMEdigital

Wednesday 23:59
Have managed to stock up a load of completed quests for hand in when I get a WoD out of my collectors edition box.

Thursday 09:00
Kids dropped of at school and on my way to by CE and normal via a little bit of geocaching on the way

Thursday 13:00
Finally arrive at game shop and grab my pre-orders and head home.

Thursday 15:00
After logging my geocachnig activity it's time to go get kids from school and then go shoppnig and then get older kids from train station

Thursday 17:30
Cooking Dinner and finally get a chance to open the box and apply my key to my account

Thursday 17:31
Trying to login and greeted with a 3351 long queue and a 107 minute wait

Thursday 20:00
Logged in and errors retrieving character list.

Thursday 20:15
By hook or by crook I managed to get the characters loaded and logged in to MarcusMaximi. Stories of laggy hell on earth on Draenor abound so I may dally in Dread Wastes a little longer after handing in my quests.

Thursday 21:00
After handing in my completed quests and doing some more I am 33% into level 90

Thursday 23:00
Well that's enough of the expac for one night. 93% into level 90 and I've not finished Dread Wastes yet!!

Random Raid Notes: sunday raid

So years ago (it is now 2018) I made the following notes during a raid, I can't be bothered to tidy them up now so just publishing as is :)


started on sha - got a weapon

then onto Galakras, I died but we got him

then onto robot twat - no loot - died

into org

blind cleave killed lots of us as hot fix might have overdone it

shamans...skatty and all over the place - didn't die and no loot

nazgrim - easy mode

mljkorok - easy kill

spioles = 3 of us died imediqately - 1 shot

thok - died early = 1 shot

seigecrafter = 1 wipe, 2nd attempt died. so did he - SHOULDERS OF THE CURSED CONQUERER

paragons - died early - 1 shot

garrosh - 2 shot

Overwatch IS Titan!

Blizzards new IP has been announced at BlizzCon 2014.

Overwatch. The Movie looks awesome and the gameplay looks great. I can't wait to get hold of it.

And it's looking to go Beta soon (TM)!

I've been wondering recently what is going to appear in that last box on the battle.net launcher ap, I guess we have our answer (saves me writing that post about it now!)

But how did they get this all done without anybody knowing about it? My theory is that Overwatch IS actually Project Titan, and they didn't can it after all .. answers on a postcard to ...

WoW - Patch 6.0.3 Is Out!

Yep another patch.

There are a few class prolems solved and varous other things but mostly it seems to be the resolution of problems with the Iron Horde quest rewards ...

World Event: Iron Horde Incursion

• Characters that have completed the Iron Horde Incursion event can now visit a vendor near their faction's respective beachhead to purchase replacement quest rewards.
• Report to the King/Warning the Warchief: Characters with a healing specialization should now be able to select Ironmender's Totem as a quest reward.
• Thrall received a reminder that he is currently still on Azeroth.

WoW - The Chopper - Horde and Alliance

Last night I remembered to log on to my Hordey and check out the Chopper.

I did spend sometime wondering how to get hold of it; it wasn't in the mail. Did I have to go get it from a vendor?

Well, it turns out I already knew it?!? Had I logged on drunk and taken it out of the mail box?

I heard on The Instance Podcast the other day that the Alliance will have to spend 100,000 gold to get their version!

Turps said he definitely would as not many people would have it. I will too for that exact reason but judging by the look of the Horde version it won't be worth anywhere near that amount!

HOTS - First Real Game

Tonight the eldest lad insisted I show him Heroes of the Storm. To be honest I can't believe I haven't gone back on it myself.

So on we pop and there's another tutorial to do. We play through that and then we're ready to go.

I'm still not really sure what I am doing and am still doing the wrong mouse clicks for movement and attacks, but towards then end I'm doing it right more often than not!

The lad is really liking it and is asking why he can't have it on his account! Because you need to be invited to alpha!

Speaking of which, I had assumed that it was going to be the same as with WoD. Get invited to alpha but it is actually Beta which they haven't renamed yet.

Well, a week later it's still identifying itself as alpha. Not that you'd guess. This seems like a highly polished game and I'm loving running round as Jim Raynor killing Malfurion and Diablo!

Wondering now when the free play character rotation occurs.

WoW - Guild Heroic Garrosh Down

I popped on to WoW this afternoon and did a couple of bits and bobs. Boreas asked if I wanted to come along to Siege tonight.

Well, he used to ask me a lot, but I never made it along, so he stopped asking. I said I probably could a bit later, he said it was flex so that should be fine.

Well, after doing all my other bits and bobs, I logged on and proceeded to try and find my headphones - spent quite a while cursing about where they could have gone before finding them in the first place I looked!

Then when I got on I couldn't get them to work with Teamspeak. Finally I got to hear the crew and the game but could not speak. That will suffice.

So I got a summon to the Shaman (who I think had already been downed) and joined 11 of my guildies(well most of the were) and off we pop to Nazgrim and he dropped like a fly and a door opened up behind him. Ah! That's how you access the next stage. I've only ever done this on LFR so usually that is where the raid disbands!

So off to Malkorok we go and he goes down and I get Malkorok's Tainted Dog Tags to replace Cloudstrike Pendant. Heroic Warforged no less!

Oops! At this iLevel I should change my loot specialisation to Holy, which Boreas reminds me of!

Wowhead says this is no longer available in game. I don't know what that is all about!

So we're in Heroic, which is the old Normal. I thought we were in Normal which is the old flex (hence the flexible raid size). So Heroics are now flexible too?

Everyone else is moaning about no loot drops. At least I have something!

So, now it is off to the Spoils and again a nice easy fight over before we realise it!

Next up is Thok and he gives us our first sign of trouble. We wipe at 0% when a tank and a healer have got him down the last few % - painful!

It was a pretty scrappy attempt so we were lucky to get that far. Attempt 2 goes a lot better, I even get targeted and manage not to drag him through the raid!

So then it's on to seigecrafter for another 2 shot.

Paragons next and this was nice an easy, which is good because I hate this fight and then on to Garrosh.

I can't remember how many attempts we had on Garrosh. Only 3 I think. We did the stack on the tank tactic in phase 1 even though I instinctively ran to Green on the first defiled weapon (whatever it's called!).

We didn't spend too long and he dropped quite soon. It was at this point that I realised why Boreas had made sure we had out loot specs sorted. This was the guilds first go at the Heroic* Garrosh where it qualified as a guild achievement so we got a lovely heirloom mace:

 

 Yep, that'll replace my Kardris' Scepter!

Everyone had being saying how ridiculously easy this was, i can't wait to give it another go!

* the old normal

WoW - Order of the Cloud Serpent

So tonight, 2 days later, I hit exalted with the cloud serpent dudes.

Riding on my Onyx Cloud Serpent :)

HOTS: What The Actual F**K?

I seem to be able to play Heroes of the Storm. On night 2 of WoW patch 6.0.2 are you taking the actual piss? I have anglers dailies to do ffs!

Oh, didn't I tell you? That only took a few minutes to download. It's now ready to play!

Latest Paladin Patch Notes

Paladin (Updated)
 
Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for discussion of why we’re pruning class abilities. For Paladins, the pruning focused on removing niche abilities, and trimming cooldowns.

•     Avenging Wrath is no longer available to Protection Paladins.
•     Divine Favor has been removed.
•     Divine Plea has been removed. Mana costs for Paladins have been adjusted accordingly.
•     Guardian of Ancient Kings is now only available to Protection Paladins.
•     Hand of Salvation is now only available to Protection Paladins.
•     Holy Light has been removed.
•     Inquisition has been removed.
•     Seal of Righteousness is no longer available to Holy Paladins.
•     Seal of Truth is no longer available to Holy Paladins.

    

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

There were a few mergers of passive abilities, and some tweaks to a couple of abilities.

•     Divine Light has been renamed Holy Light.
•     Divine Protection now lasts 8 seconds (down from 10 seconds).
•     Guardian of Ancient Kings now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
•     Daybreak now heals all allies within 10 yards for 15% of Holy Shock's healing (instead of 75%, split between each ally).
•     Grand Crusader now triggers from any avoidance, not just dodge and parry.
•     Hand of Sacrifice is now off global-cooldown.
•     Judgment is now naturally free for Holy Paladins, and naturally generates 1 Holy Power for Protection and Retribution Paladins.

               -  Judgments of the Bold has been removed.

•     Redemption’s mana cost has been reduced by 95%.
•     Selfless Healer no longer causes Bastion of Glory to apply to Flash of Light. For Holy Paladins, it now increases the healing of Flash of Light on others by 35% per stack (up from 20%). For Retribution and Protection Paladins, the effect on Flash of Light remains unchanged.
•     Sword of Light now increases damage by 25% (down from 30%).
•     The Art of War’s effects have been merged into baseline Exorcism.

    

Holy Changes

We made several changes for Holy, to go along with other larger system changes to compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy, and merged its benefits into Divine Favor. In order to follow through on our change to merge all types of Haste %, we removed the Spell Haste % from Seal of Insight to a Holy-only passive, so that it didn't also increase Protection's baseline Haste by 10%. Our changes to healer mana and mobility also indirectly increased the value of Selfless Healer by a large amount, so we brought it back down to be even in power with the other talents on its row. We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells. Lastly, we adjusted the critical strike chance of Holy Shock, to increase the value of Critical Strike for Holy Paladins.

•     Avenging Wrath now also increases all of the Paladin’s healing by 20% for its duration.
•     Beacon of Light now has a small Mana cost.
•     Denounce's range has increased to 40 yards (up from 30 yards).
•     Holy Shock now has twice the normal chance to critically strike (instead of having an additional 25% chance to critically strike).
•     Infusion of Light now also passively increases Haste by 10%.
•     Seal of Insight no longer increases spell Haste by 10%.
•     Selfless Healer for Holy no longer causes Judgment to grant Holy Power. It also is only usable on Flash of Light, no longer on Holy Light or Holy Radiance.
•     Tower of Radiance’s effects have been changed and merged into baseline Beacon of Light.
•       - Tower of Radiance now causes Flash of Light and Holy Light on a Beacon of Light target to refund 40% of the spell’s Mana cost instead of generating 1 Holy Power.

        

Protection Changes

For Protection, we tweaked Eternal Flame in order to reduce its massive self-healing amount, and provide better balance between talents on that row. We also added a new passive, Shining Protector, in order to give defensive value to the new Multistrike stat. Holy Wrath’s damage and cooldown were also increased, and Sanctified Wrath changed to buff it further, in order to give Protection Paladins more burst threat and damage, while retaining its core damage-splitting identity.

•     Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases damage reduction from Shield of the Righteous by 6% (scaling with Mastery, down from starting at 8%), and causes Bastion of Glory to increase healing received from Word of Glory by 6% (scaling with Mastery, down from starting at 8%).
•     Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing of Eternal Flame. It still affects the direct healing portion of the ability.
•     Sanctuary now reduces damage taken by 10% (down from 15), and no longer increases Armor.
•     Guarded by the Light now increases Stamina by 15% (down from 25%), and increases block chance by 5% (down from 10%).
•     Shield of the Righteous now reduces physical damage taken by 20% (down from 25%).
•     Bastion of Glory now increases Word of Glory’s healing by 6% per stack (down from 10% per stack).
•     Shining Protector is a new passive ability for Protection Paladins.
•     Shining Protector: All heals you receive have a chance equal to your Multistrike chance to trigger Shining Protector, healing you for an additional 30% of the triggering heal.
•     Holy Wrath’s damage has been increased by 100%, and its cooldown increased to 15 seconds (up from 9 seconds).
•     Sanctified Wrath for Protection Paladins has been redesigned.
•     Sanctified Wrath (Protection) now increases the damage of Holy Wrath by 100% and causes it to generate 1 Holy Power.

        

Miscellaneous Changes

We made a few additional changes to Paladins. We revised the functionality of Hammer of the Righteous a bit, such that its performance is about the same, but its tooltip is much clearer. We also made Stay of Execution much more attractive to use as an emergency button. We also revised how Eternal Flame interacts with Holy Power, and allowed it to once again trigger Illuminated Healing. One big change for Retribution that isn't mentioned here is the removal of Inquisition (see Ability Pruning), which will have a notable effect on their rotation.

• Eternal Flame’s periodic healing effect has been changed. Its duration now scales with Holy Power, instead of its healing. Its effect at 3 Holy Power remains unchanged.
• Hammer of the Righteous now deals 50% Physical weapon damage (up from 15%) to the primary target, but the primary target is no longer hit with the Holy damage.
• Illuminated Healing can once again be triggered by Eternal Flame.
• Seals no longer cost any mana.
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).

WoW - Waiting for 6.0.2

So, last night I finished all the mad stuff before 6.0.2 hit. I was trying to level Runesprocket the warlock from 87 to 90 before the pre-expac patch hit so that he could start the legendary quest-line. Obviously that wasn't going to happen!

The Americans have already got 6.0.2 but we have to wait until tomorrow morning to get it. I suppose it's their turn! So what am I going to do?

Well, it's time to restart those rep grinds.

Ooo, I haven't finished the Cloud Serpents. So I pop over to Jade Forest and pick up the quests. After a quick relog over to the banker to pick up some mats for bandages and cooking I am soon on the  dailies and knock them all out in about 20 minutes.

After loooking at how much more rep is needed it looks like I stopped doing these dailies 3 days away from exalted! DOH!

Whilst fishing up the minnows needed for one of the dailies I also got this ...

No back over to Halfhil to grind some more Lotus and Celestials before going to do bugland!

WoW - The Raid Browser and Ordos

Tonight I booted up the raid browser and queued up to do an Ordos fight.I didn't even realise this was here or how useful it is until finishing off the Wrathion quests on Timeless Isle!

So I signed up as a healer and was almost instantly in an Ordos raid.

I admitted that I was a newbie and someone gave me a few pointers - Stay out of the bad. Keep away from people with bad.

We took 2 attempts to get him down but down he went and I got ...

 ...a prot/ret helmet as I had left my loot specialisation on protection! DOH!

Never mind, it'll be good for levelling in Warlords of Destruction!

(Again, 6.0.2 stats as I forgot to get a screenhsot when it dropped!)

WoW - Wrathion? You Mad Bro? Judgement of the Black Prince

To finish the Chapter V achievement after getting your legendary cloak you need to go fight Garrosh. Even if you have beaten him before.

So I joined up with LFR and got into a raid just starting. Great I'll ave to do the whole thing! Well it didn't go too bad until the Garrosh fight itself.

It's been a while since I've done Garrosh and apparently the tactic is now to stand on the tank and just soak the defiles (or whatever they're called here!) during phase 1 and only swap between the two other spots in phase 2.

Well we started with a couple of stupid wipes before actually getting to phase 2 and then another wipe when the room filled with empowered blahblahs.

Eventually we got him down on about attempt 4 or 5 with a very scatty fight. A kill is a kill though! So back to the Inn to see Wrathion again.

Looks like he isn't very happy ...

Wrathion says: Idiot king!
Wrathion says: Fools! Imbeciles!
Wrathion says: A complete waste!
Wrathion says: You were there! Is it true then? What happened in Orgrimmar?
Wrathion says: That fool king!!
Wrathion says: I did everything in my power. The whole world was his, he needed only seize it!
Wrathion says: Oh sure, another year of fighting. Enormous casualties trying to take Thunder Bluff. But the rest of the Horde would've caved, eventually.
Wrathion says: TONG! DRINK! NOW!
Wrathion says: What? Yes, I was backing the Alliance.
Wrathion says: I thought Hellscream's victory was assured before he turned half of his Horde against him. So I changed my allegiance.
Wrathion says: Oh, don't look so surprised! I'm a black dragon. My loyalties are my own.
Wrathion says: But that idiot, IDIOT Wrynn! "High King" indeed!
Wrathion says: Why did he allow another warchief? He could've united the world under the Alliance banner. What a fool I was to trust his ambition!
Wrathion says: Should've taken over the throne room myself. Like Auntie Onyxia. Get things DONE.
Tong the Fixer says: Enough!!
Wrathion says: Uhh... wha?
Tong the Fixer says: Talk! Talk! Talk!
Tong the Fixer says: Always you speak. Never do you listen! You ignore the lessons of Pandaria!
Tong the Fixer says: You see, there is balance in all things. Wisdom etched in our very fur: Black and white. Darkness and light.

Tong the Fixer says: When the last emperor hid our land from the rest of the world, he also preserved the homeland of our ancient enemy, the mantid. Why did he do this?

Tong the Fixer says: He did so to keep the land whole. Living with the mantid for ten thousand years has made us both STRONG.

Tong the Fixer says: So it is with your Alliance and your Horde. They are not strong despite one another; they are strong BECAUSE of one another.

Tong the Fixer says: You mistake your greatest strength for weakness. Do you see this?

Wrathion says: ...you ...you're just a WAITER!

Wrathion says: I promise you this: I will stop at nothing to prepare this world for the battle to come.

Wrathion says: Next time, I will leave nothing to chance.

Wrathion says: NOTHING!

Tong the Fixer says: ...He destroyed my inn. He left no tip. He is not nice.

Wrathion's agents whisper quietly to one another.

The End is Nigh ...

So tonight I finally logged back on and went to Timeless Isle and handed in "A Timeless Discovery" and then picked up "Secrets of the Timeless Isle" and then handed it straight in! Then some twats trained some Blazebound and Flamecore elites straight to the quest giver area and killed me! Thanks kk!

Then I picked up "The Emperors Way" and joined the raid browser with /rb

Within a few minutes I was transported to another realm (eek Scary!) and into a Yu'lon fight and then straight into a Niuza fight afterwards. Then people left and I was left standing there with only a few people in the raid.

Then the horde attacked. I tagged Chi'Ji and then died a few times, including to a horde attack. I didn't know if I got credit for it and then I sat there trying to find the Celestial Challenge achievement in my achievement pane.

Then Xuen got pulled and I tapped him and he died and I got the achievement! Woot!

So back to Wrathion and all the dudes start talking to me ...

Wrathion says: Champion... you've done it...
Wrathion says: Few mortals possess such spirit, such power. Believe me - I have tested many!
Lorewalker Cho says: A legend is born!
Anduin Wrynn says: This is history in the making...
Kairoz says: ...Interesting.
Xuen says: Hero, you are an inspiration!
Chi-Ji says: I knew you were destined for greatness.
Niuzao says: Not bad.
Yu'lon says: The pandaren will sing your praises for ages to come.
Wrathion says: To complete our great work, we will need a sacred place.
Wrathion says: Travel to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and meet me at the Seat of Knowledge.

Once back at the seat of knowledge I let Wrathion tell my story and then handed in "A Pandaren legend" which rewarded me with Timeless Essence of the Black Dragonflight - use it on your cloak to make it ORANGE!

Then you can take the quest "Judgement of the Black Prince" which requires you to complete the Siege of Orgrimmar raid and kill Garrosh.

It doesn't matter if you have already killed him. You need to do it again!

I had heard that it takes 10,000 gold to get a new cloak and loads more to upgrade it. Well it cost me 7,000 gold and 87 gold for the upgrade to get my retribution version.

Beware, if you have 2 epic cloaks in your bag and use the timeless essence it only gets applied to the first cloak in your bag(the lowest slot number) not the first cloak you acquired..

Patch 6.0.2

October 15th Baby!

WoW - Legendary Quest Luke - Darth Vader Rip Off!

I logged on tonight. Dumped a load of crap out of my bags and then bought up the mercenary contracts from Lion's Landing that a comment on Wowhead had suggested would help, then it was off to the Red Crane's Tai Chi Lapsang Souchong Temple to have another go at the Wrathion-Deathwing fight.

Wrathion, I am your father!

So, I pop the spectral brews and get my 3 minions rolling for 10 minutes then I try and pop the contracts. Uhuh! You have to be in Lions Landing!! WTF???

OK, F**k you - I'll do it without you.

BONG!! Not! You are in the wrong spec ... tick tock tick tock, buffs ticking down whilst I drink mana juice.

BONG!

Wrathion says: I'm a black dragon. I won't need any help.
Chi-Ji says: Are you certain? You are filled with doubts and fears, young Prince.
Chi-Ji says: You have not fully reconciled with your past. Now is the time.
Wrathion says: What - wait - father!?
Wrathion says: Please - don't make me do this.

Wrathion dead. WTF?

... and again ... and again ...

Check gear ... OH FFS I am in Ret gear no wonder my heals aren't very good!

Please tell me I wasn't in ret gear when I was trying before, I must have switched to ret to farm the brews ... must I? Please tell me I didn't just spend days pointlessly grinding those brews!

OK, lets try again ...

... 2 minutes later Deathwing is dead and I have bags full of pointless contracts and brews!

Right, off to Mason's Folly - NOT the Inn to hand in and get my epic cape!

Wrathion says: Welcome back, champion!
Wrathion says: Excellent work with the celestials. Can you believe how chatty they were?
Wrathion says: I just wanted them to hand us our reward, but they were just, "talk talk talk talk talk."
Wrathion says: I'm sorry - where were we? Oh yes! I have something for you:
Wrathion says: The very spirits of Pandaria are supporting us in our grand crusade! Behold:
Wrathion says: The strength of the White Tiger.
Wrathion says: The wisdom of the Jade Serpent.
Wrathion says: The fortitude of the Black Ox.
Wrathion says: And from the Red Crane, a shining beacon of hope for a better world!
Wrathion says: Our world.
Wrathion says: There! It is ready.

talk talk talk - LOL!

Sod the talking, I haz item level 600 Cranewing Cloak!

So back to the Inn and Wrathion is now on his own, Anduin has buggered off and Wrathion want you to go to the Timeless Isle. Well that's enough for now.

to be continued ...


*Update: added cranewing cloak image (with patch 6.0.2 stats)

WoW - Legendary Grind Line on the Timeless Isle

Finally, after nights and nights of grinding those stupid spectral pandas on the Timeless Isle I have several of each type of Pi'iju (sic!) Brew.

I then flew MM over to the alliance fort in Krasarang to pick up the mercenary orders and realised I needed lots more bag space!

As it's approaching midnight I've decided it's probably not the best time to be dumping stuff out of my bags so I'll do that tomorrow and then head off and hopefully take out DW!

As a bonus I picked up all 50 of the epoch stones I needed for a quest and have many more timeless coins than I'll need. Yes, I only did a couple of days on the Timeless Isle when it first came out!

Really should farm more epix!

A Timeless Achievement

Last night as I was grinding crap for the legendary quest-line I got an achievement ding. It was for an achievement that I started just after the Timeless Isle became available. I thought I'd even achieved it. Obviously not!

WoW - The Next Stage of the Legendary Questline - Celestial Blessings

Wednesday has finally come round and I got to go and grab my last Runestone. I dropped into Halls of Flesh Shaping first, just in-case the RNG was not in my favour, and it wasn't. ZERO runestones.

So next I went into Vale of Eternal Shadows and luckily dropped straight into the Sha of Pride and a quick one shot there (with a death for me!) and I had the Runestone and didn't need to abandon group!

So a quick trip back to Wrathion and picked up the quest for the Heart and into the Pinnacle of Storms. Unfortunately this group was right at the start so I had to do all 3 bosses! But do them I did!

Back to Wrathion and now I have to go talk to the dudes in the temples before doing the Red Crane Challenge.

So first off I went and picked up the Celestial Offering which gives you a nice buff even if it's in your bank. (unless you're a Hunter apparently!)

Then I went over to Jade Forest and spoke to Wrathion outside the temple who took me on a cutscene adventure to get to the dude inside.

Then I headed over to Kun Lai and Townlong to get the 'speaking to the dude' credit before heading to Krasarang Wilds for the Healer challenge.

This I sucked at and failed about 5 times before deciding it's bed time.

There are two things that should make it easier.

1. The Healer trial being in Krasurang allows you to pick up a full complement of buffs by using the Mercenary Contracts available from Proveditor Grantley or Ongrom Black Tooth for 10 Commendations which makes things a bit easier. Only downside is you have to fly halfway across the map to rebuff if you fail.*

2. You can also now use  Misty Pi'jiu Brew  Thick Pi'jiu Brew &  Bubbling Pi'jiu Brew from Timeless Isle in any of the trials as well for yet another boost.**

I'll also look up strats before trying again tomorrow.


* Cut and pasted from Wowhead comments
** also ripped off from Wowhead.

Heartstone - Easy Mode

I was listening to episode 46 of The Angry Chicken Podcast yesterday and Garrett and Dills were talking about how it is easier to gain ranks at the very end of the season compared to the start as you are not playing all the people that are racing back up to Legendary.

Well, last night was the last night of the current season so I jumped on my Paladin Undertaker deck to see how far I could get.

I spent a couple of hours on it starting at the top end of Rank 16 and made it to 4 star Rank 12 with barely any losses!!

That is the highest rank I have got to and the bonus stars took me to 3 star Rank 20!

I then played another few games and made Rank 18 before heading off to bed!

WoW - Third Trip into LFR For the Runestones

Saturday night, and what better way to spend it that bashing your head against Galakras in LFR! Well, there are many better ways, but this is what I planned.

If I manage to get 2 Runestones off the first 3 bosses then I can go and kill Lei Shen again and not have to wait until next Wednesday.

I have never been on the tower team at Galakras before (tell a lie, I have once, when I was very drunk and therefore can't remember it very well) so was a little nervous. It turned out to be fine. To start with the leader wanted to go when we were only at 19 people. Err ... No!

Then we had a wipe because one of the NPCs died and the DPS was all over the place. On the second attempt we got him but there was no Runestone.

Then it was onto the big robot thing and this was an easy 1-shot for once, but no Runestone either.

This means I will need to get at least one Runestone before going for Lei Shen and it will have to be on Wednesday /sadface.

After the Juggernaut it was off to do the Shamans(sic) We had a wipe here too and then got them on the second attempt and I finally got a Runestone. Well. Still one more to get next week then.

WoW - Runestones Week 2 Day 2

After my wander around the Beta earlier I popped into Siege to see how many Runestones I could get tonight.

The adventure started well with Immerseus giving me a stone but then the Protectors and Norushen were tight arses. The run finished with a wipe on the Sha of Pride followed by a quick kill and another Runestone.

9/12 Runestones and 1 four boss raid wing to go this raid lock out

So I drop into Gates and they've already dropped the Shamans (sic) so it's a little wander through some trash and we're at General Naz. After the obligatory 'No deeps on def stance blah blah' we got down to business and he was soon dead, bringing my total to 10 Runestones.

At least tomorrow I won't have to wade through the whole of Gates. But I will have to fight the 3 bosses that seem to give the LFR groups I join the biggest problems.


So, will I be able to get 2 Runestones from 3 bosses. Unlikely but we'll see. Watch this Space.

WoD Beta and PTR - My Latest Observations.

Apparently patch 6.0.2 is up on the PTR with the Blasted Lands/Dark Portal changes.

I thought I would go and have a look on the Beta. Apparently the Dark Portal is red now.

Nethergarde keep has been taken over by the horde but it does still shows as having an Alliance flight path on the map. I reported this as a bug.

The alliance seem to have a base on the beach just south east of Nethergarde but no-one seemed to have a quest for me.

I then went to the Red Portal but you can't just go through it. It turns out you have to speak to Kadgar via his dialog box and he will sen you through.

As he does so there is a great cinematic and the otherside of the portal is quite a daunting; until youdrop back into the game and it's nowhere near as scary!

Stood there at the top of the steps looking out over Hellfire Peninsula, or whatever it's called in Beta, took me right back to TBC :)

WoD Beta - Mists Gear Doesn't Change Stats in WoD!

Well, it would appear that your MoP gear doesn't change stats when you change specs. I popped into the Beta tonight and joined a dungeon queue as a healer.

Once I got in I let the crew know that this was my first outing as a healer in Beta.

I had heard, like Blizz claimed for MoP also, that the healing was not going to be about keeping everyone topped off but more about keeping the team stable around 60% maybe. So I was mentally prepared for what could look quite scary.

Off we go and things turn VERY SCARY very quickly. Everyone keeps dropping down super fast and my heals are doing maybe 5-10% repair work! People keep dying and ressing right at the start of the dungeon and running straight back into the fight and dying again.

It is not helped of course that I am portrait click, heal button press healing as I do not have my healing spells macroed and have no addons installed. Come back Grid, all is forgiven.

As it turns out this was not my problem. I had assumed that all my Ret gear had turned into  Healing gear when I spec-switched. After a full wipe the tank asked in /party why I was in strength gear. "Doesn't it swap?" I asked. "Not MoP stuff" was the answer - DOH!

I quickly changed gear and we pull again and soon wipe on the first boss. This time it is purely down to click press healing. I make my apologies and say the group deserves a better healer and leave.

They were all very nice and amicable about it though, not a single "Nub!"

WoW - Legendary Runestones Week 2

Well, I didn't manage to do all 14 bosses tonight, so I haven't finished yet! I did however, manage to get the ToT bosses done.

First off was Pinnacle. In here the first 2 bosses were stingy. Then we had a wipe on Lei Shen. But the 2nd attempt got the job done and I got my guaranteed Runestone.


Then it was onto the Halls and on boss 1 I died, but still got my Runestone :) Boss 2 followed shortly afterwards with another Runestone!

The final boss was another one-shot and another Runestone. So Halls was very nice to me tonight.

So 7 Runestones down - 5 to go.  Methinks I won't be finished this week, but if I leave pinnacle until last next week I should easily be OK to get the heart without having to repeat Lei Shen.

Twitter

Today I separated my MarcusMaximi twitter account into 2 separate accounts.

It was originally intended to be for everything MarcusMaximi. WoW, Hearthstone, Rift, Geocaching and anything else I use that monica(sic?) for.

I hadn't actually used it for much of anything anyway. So I created a new account called @MarcusMaximiWoW for anything computer based. It's not just for WoW and Hearthstone, but it will predominantly be Blizzard Fanboi crap!

The old account I will be using for geocaching stuff. That's @MarcusMaximi and is linked to my other blog - Meandering With Marcus.

WoW - Legendary Progress - Titan Runestones

Tonight I went into LFR to start the Titan Runestone collection as we have the Gaze of the Black Prince buff still going.

So I started off in Pinnacle of Storms and 1-shot all three bosses, but only Lei Shen gave me a Runestone

Then I did Halls of Flesh Shaping, when I zoned in the first boss was dead, but we 1 shot the last 2 - Primordius and Dark Animus - who both kindly gave me a runestone.

Then into Siege and of course the obligatory wipe on Galakras with 30 minutes before a server shutdown that is apparently going to last 10 hours!

Hopefully tomorrow I will go in and do 14 bosses and get a 50% drop rate and be finished this part of the quest chain in 2 days!

WoW - Legendary Quest - The Massive Halls of Thunder Typo

I know I am late to the game here, but it still threw me for a bit.

When I picked up the Echoes of the Titans quest I checked what it said in the wowhead guide on the legendary questline and it said that the Titan Runestones drop from raid bosses in the Chambers of Flesh-Shaping and the Halls of Thunder.

This, apparently, is what the quest text also used to say and this had me a little confused as it said it was the last 2 wings of Throne of Thunder. Except the last 2 wings are "Halls of Flesh Shaping" and the "Pinnacle of Storms".

Well, it turns out they were typos in the original quest text, plagiarised verbatim over at wowhead, and have now been corrected in your actual quest log as well as the actual quest page over at copyhead.com

Incidentally, as of patch 5.4 you can now get your titan runestones from the first two wings of Seige of Orgrimmar too!

Well, I am now queued up for Chambers of Storm Pinnacle Shaping while the Gaze buff is active :)

Hearthstone - Power Overwhelming and Shadow Madness

I was just playing what I can only assume was priest control deck against my pseudo zoo lock.

I had a couple of Jugalos out, a Blood Imp, a Voidwalker and something else.

He played shadow madness against one of my Jugalos and then gave it power overwhelming. so it was a 7/6. He then smashed my Voidwalker in the face with it, dropping it down to a 7/5.

He ended turn expecting it to die, except it returned to my deck. Presumably because the mechanic that would return it to my deck at the end of the turn was played before the power overwhelming. I guess he then expected it to die.

Except, it must have done this as the turn was ending and landed in my deck after his turn had ended, because once in my deck it didn't die!

He then emoted "Oops": I said "Thanks!"

I don't know if it would have died at the end of my next turn as I then smashed him in the face for in excess of 15 damage on what I think was turn 5!

WoW - Legendary - Spirit of the Storm Lord

I picked up the next stage of the Legendary questline a couple of weeks ago now. The Spirit of the Storm Lord requires you to get to the last stage of the Isle of Thunder (well that was obviously done a long while ago now).

Once you have unlocked the final courtyard you need to thrust the Lightning Lance into Nalak and survive long enough for it to be tempered.

I wowheaded the quest and fond that it was best to go to the northern steps, thrust the lance and then run north away from him.

This I did, but walked backwards for too long before just turning round and running so I took a big hit to the face.

I then ran around kiting the ad whilst all the NPCs fought Nalak and then I died just as I got the tempered item - woot!

Off for another chat with Anduin and the Black Prince...

Heartstone - Miracle Rogued

Tonight as I was racking up the losses in ladder - I keep forgetting to go to casual when doing my dailies on my rubbish heroes - I got gimped by a rogue.

I think it was actually the first time I've fought one.

I was quite low on health so his Leroy - Shadowstep - Leroy was enough to do for me!

Hearthstone - Military Quarter Down

Boss 1 - One Shot
Boss 2 - One Shot
Boss 3 - Two Shot - oops!

Hearthstone - Instructor Razuvious

I finally decided to unlock the third wing tonight and did the first boss. The above screen shot was from my first attempt. Do you think he won?

WoW - Legendary Quest - The Thunder Forge Scenario Easy Tactic

The night before last I was tooling around The Isle of Thunder doing the dailies and I finally hit exalted with the Black Prince. I had all of the Sigils or whatever and the auction house is laden with cheap Trillium so this was the sticking point.

Well tonight I dinged 'Exalted'. So I hearthed back and bought up my Trillium and went and handed in my quests.

The next quest in the legendary chain is The Thunder Forge. 

Here you have to go to the Thunder Forge and help Wrathion :

a) Outside by killing stuff. Easy. Stand in blue orbs.

b) Inside by helping the Defender protect the Blacksmith. Harder and Hectic. Keep the Defender topped up on HP for more damage.

c) Inside again. Right royal pain in the arse!! I was trying all kinds of tactics. Once all my gear was red I was dreading hearthing out and having to redo everything (you don't need to apparently, while dead you can go outside and resurrect and call your repair mount.)!

But I didn't need to. Three attempts of the following strategy got me the quest complete, even with all my armour at 0%!!

You resurrect at the door by the spirit healer then run down the steps and then click all of the anvils whilst taking the smallest circular route you can around the central spire. Quick as you can. Speed boost may help here! Potions, enchants ... anything.

Yes. Forget saving anvils for insanity. Click all the anvils as quickly as you can to give the defender massive DPS boost and then have a pop at the Sha yourself.

Twice I was close but the insanity got me. The third time the Sha was already at 21% when I got within range and after 1 judgement the Lance appeared.

Wrathion 1 - 0 Sha of Amalgamation

Hearthstone - Crazy Game Story

Tonight's crazy game story is yet again revolving around the Knife Jugalo.

My opponent had nothing on the board, I had the good old Jugalo.  On turn 4 he played Leroy Jenkins.

It, of course, summoned the 2 whelps which, of course, triggered the Knife Juggler special trick. The odds were high that at least one knife would hit Leroy, and pretty good they both would. Which they did! LOL!

WoW - Key to the Palace of Lei Shen

As I was tooling around the Isle of Thunder I picked this up. Not sure whether it was from a rare mob or a chest. I wondered what it die.

Well, it turns out that it opens up a quest called Treasures of the Thunder King which you can get from Taoshi who is underneath the waterfall at 51,46

You can only loot this key once per week but you can stack them up and use all you have one after the other.

It lets you in to do a loot run and there are achievements available too. Look it up on wowhead.

WoW - Even Giants Fall

I ran in to do this quest and stated randomly killing priests. Then they disappeared and the boss was active.

OK, I think, lets get down to this and I am getting him down to half health, but then he heals up. This goes on for a long time, then I run away!!

I checked up on wowhead and it turns out the best way to solo this, especially if you don't have a dispel, is to make sure the Hydra priest is killed.

I killed the Hydra and then the Hawk and then I easily killed the boss.

Hearthstone - Never Concede

Never, EVER concede a game in Hearthstone.

I was playing with the pally against a druid (my nemesis).

At the end of his turn he already easily had lethal on the board and I had two pretty poor cards.

I played Onyxia and ended turn. All he had to do was hit me in the face.

He proceeded to take out my other cards leaving me with the Dragon Queen and two 1/1s. I could not believe it!

It was now my turn. He had 19 health. I was in single figures.

I popped the Shattered Sun Cleric on Ony and then popped the Blessed Champion on her too. Making her up to 18 attack. So I smacked him in the face and then killed him with a 1/1 whelp!

Hearthstone - Hunter Class Challenge - Loatheb

Now that the second batch of class challenges are opened I had a go at them. The Mage one was easy but the Hunter one was a little out there.

You just get loads of spiders with a death rattle of putting a beast card into your deck. I thought he was bugged at first as he had a health of 75!!! I was wiped off the board pretty quick

The second go I got a few beast up and he put some spores up which I ignored, then I did something and suddenly my remainder 2 beasts had attacks in the 30s!!

It turns out that if you kill the spores then all your minions get +8 attack.

Well that's going to make short work of that 75 health!!

Third time lucky, he hit the floor in double quick time!

Hearthstone - Druid Class Challenge and Quarter 2

I've been on holiday for a few days, and of course the second Quarter opened whilst I was away.

Whilst I was waiting for that to open I have been trying the class challenges. The rogue one I got down easily, but the druid one has me stumped. Faerlina gets me all the time ... easily /sadface

So, back to Quarter 2. This wasn't quite so easy.

I used the Mage deck again and one-shot the first boss but the last 2 bosses each took 2 attempts. Still, not too bad.

Hearthstone - Quarter 1 - Maexxna

The first 2 bosses were easy sauce, Surely the Spider Queen was going to rip me a new one and lay all her eggs in it. In two weeks I'm going to have a big boil burst and millions of little Maexxnas are going to come flooding out. Yeah?

No! Maexxna went down just as easily as the first two bosses.

What deck have I been using this whole time. The low budge mage deck from Icy Veins.

Here's the screen shot just before I take my final turn...

Kel is a little shocked ...

Yay, another legendary, if a little crap ...

I'm not the only one who thinks that card is a little crap ...

Oh well, time for the Druid and Rogue class challenges which I have just unlocked.

Or maybe not. The whipped my ass! Special indeed ...

Hearthstone - Quarter 1 Boss 2

After the easy first boss I thought it was going to get harder.

It didn't ...

Kel, was nonplussed ...

Another slot opened ...