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?