Posts tagged achievements

Not that Leafie has been idle: her new title is Guardian of Cenarius, which every druid should have. She finished off Cenarion Circle reputation by questing in Desolace & Silithus, incidentally earning the zone achievements along the way. Cataclysm certainly makes the rep grinds easier, doesn’t it? Less than 100 points to go to 10,000 achievement points total. I only just now passed the total of my departed guild leader. And just think: she quit the game when Cata landed, so she has zero Cataclysm achievements. Oh my.

Not that Leafie has been idle: her new title is Guardian of Cenarius, which every druid should have.

She finished off Cenarion Circle reputation by questing in Desolace & Silithus, incidentally earning the zone achievements along the way. Cataclysm certainly makes the rep grinds easier, doesn’t it?

Less than 100 points to go to 10,000 achievement points total. I only just now passed the total of my departed guild leader. And just think: she quit the game when Cata landed, so she has zero Cataclysm achievements. Oh my.

Firelands meta achievement mount: what we did the week after we finished off 6/7 heroic modes! We went back and did the wacky things required for Glory of the Firelands Raider and got ourselves some pretty purple birds. Not a lot of those on our server yet, I noticed. (The guilds that could have easily beaten us to it are busy with the race for heroic Rags.)

Firelands meta achievement mount: what we did the week after we finished off 6/7 heroic modes! We went back and did the wacky things required for Glory of the Firelands Raider and got ourselves some pretty purple birds. Not a lot of those on our server yet, I noticed. (The guilds that could have easily beaten us to it are busy with the race for heroic Rags.)

Do a fun thing often enough and it becomes tedious.

Well! Since the last time I wrote a proper blog entry with a theme and everything, we’ve gone 7 of 7 bosses in normal-mode Firelands, and I finished off the Molten Front quest line. I was about a week behind the main wave of people finishing that, in part because I went on a trip in the middle of July, and in part because there were some days when I just couldn’t bring myself to do the dailies.

I started out doing the quests on more than one character, but by the end I was just doing them on Leafie. It was taking me the better part of an hour on Leafie, and she is overgeared for simple dailies. She goes feral, smacks something until she has 5 combo points on it, Ferocious Bites, and it’s dead. All of the other characters I do the quests on take much longer to kill things. (Poor Aegidius takes forever. He has crap gear. He needs the Molten Front items far more than Leafie does.)

By the end, the dailies were soaking up all of my non-raiding play time. I am aware that if I let it, the game can occupy every single waking hour I have. So I have some rules: I don’t log in before 4pm on the days I’ve set aside as project days. 45 minutes to do unstructured stuff, four and a half hours of raiding, then my husband is usually home from work and I feed him & spend time with him. Those dailies ate every single one of those 45 minutes. I couldn’t do anything else.

Each individual quest was probably fun only the first two times I did them. By day 30 I was loathing them.

I finished them this weekend and then relaxed into some truly fun old instance running with my guild mates. We set out to get the dungeon master achievements for the guild. I had fun working on some Wrath reputations with Leafie and smacking things around. It was fun to visit old once-familiar content and chat about silly things that happened in it with my guildies. And what’s more, thanks to the RealID cross-realm grouping feature, I could do with with Trax! Yes, I was once again terrorizing innocent dungeon NPCs with my pancake-loving erstwhile partner in crime.

All this relaxation, possible because the dailies were no longer hanging over my head.

I realize that is a self-inflicted wound. A more enlightened person could have ignored them from the start. I wanted them over with, however. Yes, indeed, I am the sort of person who eats all of the vegetable on her plate that she doesn’t like before moving on to the one she does like.

Oh crap. That was what I was supposed to do this weekend. I was supposed to restock the guild flask factory with cauldron mats. Gah. Well, tomorrow is not a project day. Tomorrow I get to binge and do silly things if I want to.

On the topic of Firelands… Tier 12 is a lot easier than Tier 11 was. A lot. The only truly annoying boss is Alysrazor, and she can be learned in a single evening. (Executing perfectly takes longer.) Ragnaros isn’t all that difficult until phase 3, and no, I’m not just being an epeen-waving eleet raider there. Ragnaros requires careful planning from your raid leader for the transition phases, then a solid algorithm that everybody understands for phase 3. It’s a dance but not a hectic, stressful, unforgiving dance the way, say, Nefarian was. (The incoming damage on the phase 2 pillars was, pre-nerf, ungodly in the 10s. And no, I don’t mean the 20% nerf, I mean the nerf earlier in patch 4.1.)

I healed all of normal T12 with exactly two pieces of heroic T11 gear. The gear requirements are not stringent. The execution requirements are (with the exception of Alysrazor) not stringent. The fights are actually fun. There are no interesting characters among the bosses and the scenery is bleah, but you can’t have everything. The dance you execute every week doesn’t make you curse the Blizzard designers. That’s a major improvement.

I’m okay with T12 normals. I’ll let you know some time this week what I think of T12 heroics.

I still understand completely why WOW has lost a million subscribers since Cataclysm, though. Tier 11 was with us for seven long months. People who’d been enjoying an accessible raiding game through the last half of Wrath were slapped in the face by T11. An accessible T11 that everybody knows has been nerfed is too little, too late.

Lord Rhyolith kill video!

We got the kill the first time we drove him into phase 2, which happened the instant we worked out the right tactics for phase 1. We were all surprised by the transition, to be honest. But it’ll be an easily repeatable kill. We didn’t do very well at avoiding avoidable damage, but so long as the volcanos were stomped quickly it was healable (we two-healed it). This fight is completely about the steering & the stomping. Having our rogue switch from assassination (lots of bleed & poison damage) to combat (lower dps overall, but instant on/off) was exactly what we needed to get perfect control of the boss’s steering.

Vid from our first Shannox kill! Well, perforce it was our first, since this is the first lockout of T12. Tonight we take a look at Lord Rhyolith and see if we can drive.

My view of the fight was probably not as much fun as the view of somebody chasing a dog around. I was healing the tank who held the boss. One thing you can see from this vid is how he brings the boss in toward the main raid for the spear toss, then moves him away again to make the dog fetch take even longer. We fought him on the plain to the right of the entrance. We marched down the hill & cleared everything to the right, then kept clearing until the boss was summoned.

You’ll also note that I was gibbed by face rage early in the fight. I was sure it was going to be a wipe at that point, but I hadn’t used my Innervate so I had enough mana to be effective after the brez.

Soundtrack is Solar Fields, “Kick Back”, from EarthShine.

Aegidius the belf warrior hits 85, honoring a bonfire in Nagrand. I feel that the midsummer shoulders are on the short list of the most ridiculous shoulder pieces Blizzard has ever inflicted upon us.

Aegidius the belf warrior hits 85, honoring a bonfire in Nagrand. I feel that the midsummer shoulders are on the short list of the most ridiculous shoulder pieces Blizzard has ever inflicted upon us.

Our Valiona & Theralion heroic kill video. Penguins ftw!

Last night, by the time I finally quit the game, I was happy to be rid of it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make myself log in today. It was just too much time playing too intensely. Leafie’s raid went overtime, which I hate, because I think people’s playing skills start degrading after about 3 hours of high-focus play. We did Blackwing Descent and attempted to clear all the heroic modes we’ve killed before. We couldn’t manage to get Maloriak down in the time we wanted to spend, but otherwise we killed H-Magmaw, H-Chimaeron, and H-Atramedes. We splattered Maloriak on normal after spending an hour on heroic unsuccessfully while frustrations rose, then had a messy clump of Nefarian wipes and then a kill that was our rockiest. Our first kill was cleaner! I made vids for all three of the heroic kills and for the Nef kill. I’ll do something with them when I have the stomach for WOW stuff later this weekend. After that I went off to tank for friends & family. Late. Which upset me. A new friend has joined the gang recently, who for some reason wanted to power-level a feral druid on a new server and play with us. I’ve played some board games with him and he’s lots of fun. He’s also a very, very good player whom I’d probably recruit like mad if he weren’t on west coast time like the rest of us. (I, as a semi-retired burnt out programmer, slack off and play with my east-coast-time raiding guild.) I might hang up Praet’s tanking shield and let him do it. Bears are rare but generally when somebody bothers to play them, they’re great tanks. He went kitty last night, though, I tanked, and we randomed into Praet’s first ZG. And, sans benefit of the LotD buff, we cleared it. The usual wipes on Venoxis happened as people learned what the maze was and what we meant by “green blobs chasing you”. We had one wipe on the panther boss, then tried the alcove + shelter from wave technique to lighten the avoidance burden. We one-shot everything else. And, as pictured, Praetorian got the Kermit achievement while tanking, so that was nice. Then I fell asleep instantly because it was nearly 11, and was awakened at 4:30 by a hungry cat pouncing on my toes.

Last night, by the time I finally quit the game, I was happy to be rid of it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make myself log in today. It was just too much time playing too intensely.

Leafie’s raid went overtime, which I hate, because I think people’s playing skills start degrading after about 3 hours of high-focus play. We did Blackwing Descent and attempted to clear all the heroic modes we’ve killed before. We couldn’t manage to get Maloriak down in the time we wanted to spend, but otherwise we killed H-Magmaw, H-Chimaeron, and H-Atramedes. We splattered Maloriak on normal after spending an hour on heroic unsuccessfully while frustrations rose, then had a messy clump of Nefarian wipes and then a kill that was our rockiest. Our first kill was cleaner!

I made vids for all three of the heroic kills and for the Nef kill. I’ll do something with them when I have the stomach for WOW stuff later this weekend.

After that I went off to tank for friends & family. Late. Which upset me. A new friend has joined the gang recently, who for some reason wanted to power-level a feral druid on a new server and play with us. I’ve played some board games with him and he’s lots of fun. He’s also a very, very good player whom I’d probably recruit like mad if he weren’t on west coast time like the rest of us. (I, as a semi-retired burnt out programmer, slack off and play with my east-coast-time raiding guild.) I might hang up Praet’s tanking shield and let him do it. Bears are rare but generally when somebody bothers to play them, they’re great tanks.

He went kitty last night, though, I tanked, and we randomed into Praet’s first ZG. And, sans benefit of the LotD buff, we cleared it. The usual wipes on Venoxis happened as people learned what the maze was and what we meant by “green blobs chasing you”. We had one wipe on the panther boss, then tried the alcove + shelter from wave technique to lighten the avoidance burden. We one-shot everything else. And, as pictured, Praetorian got the Kermit achievement while tanking, so that was nice.

Then I fell asleep instantly because it was nearly 11, and was awakened at 4:30 by a hungry cat pouncing on my toes.

Fleetfoot earned her Defender title in our alt run last night. We were giving a trial to a tank candidate who didn’t have any T11 raid experience before last night. So we threw him in the deep end & made him tank Maloriak adds, Onyxia & then Nef adds in phase 3. You see the result: a kill! He made mistakes but that kill was no mean feat. I was a little sad I didn’t get to tank Nef myself, but I did at least have the non-trivial job of rounding up & kiting the Bone Warriors in phase 1. I did my best to climb that learning curve quickly. The trick is to have them die in a pile without letting them hit you much, which isn’t easy because they do not die all at once. I got closest to a neat pile on the pull that ended up in our kill. My notes on that task: Throw on a sword & shield and swap to Defensive stance. The Animated Bone Warriors spawn from purple swirlies on the ground. Watch for the first one then head over and wait for the meteor to hit & the warrior to spawn. The others will spawn from swirlies one by one moving counterclockwise around the edge of the circle from the first. There might be some gaps. Use Charge to close up gaps and heroic throw to pick up the last. Save heroic leap for later! I used Sunder on the first few to build some threat, then Thunderclap once I had a pile. You might be able to get away with popping shield block & cleaving a few times early. Then kite them back & forth across the hunter frost trap/other slow zones, using Intercept & Heroic Leap when you want to move to the opposite side of the pack. They do more damage as their lifespan ticks on, so be ready to pop shield wall once your mobility options are on cooldown. Project PUG Tank: no runs yesterday.

Fleetfoot earned her Defender title in our alt run last night. We were giving a trial to a tank candidate who didn’t have any T11 raid experience before last night. So we threw him in the deep end & made him tank Maloriak adds, Onyxia & then Nef adds in phase 3. You see the result: a kill! He made mistakes but that kill was no mean feat.

I was a little sad I didn’t get to tank Nef myself, but I did at least have the non-trivial job of rounding up & kiting the Bone Warriors in phase 1. I did my best to climb that learning curve quickly. The trick is to have them die in a pile without letting them hit you much, which isn’t easy because they do not die all at once. I got closest to a neat pile on the pull that ended up in our kill.

My notes on that task: Throw on a sword & shield and swap to Defensive stance. The Animated Bone Warriors spawn from purple swirlies on the ground. Watch for the first one then head over and wait for the meteor to hit & the warrior to spawn. The others will spawn from swirlies one by one moving counterclockwise around the edge of the circle from the first. There might be some gaps. Use Charge to close up gaps and heroic throw to pick up the last. Save heroic leap for later! I used Sunder on the first few to build some threat, then Thunderclap once I had a pile. You might be able to get away with popping shield block & cleaving a few times early. Then kite them back & forth across the hunter frost trap/other slow zones, using Intercept & Heroic Leap when you want to move to the opposite side of the pack. They do more damage as their lifespan ticks on, so be ready to pop shield wall once your mobility options are on cooldown.

Project PUG Tank: no runs yesterday.

I has a bear. This happened Thursday night when our poor main tank had a 2500 ping and we couldn’t push heroic progression as a result. We did a couple of ZA runs to fill the time with something interesting. I almost regret having the bear. I feel that I should have kept passing until everybody else had one. But I healed another two bear runs and I won the one bear I decided to roll on.

I has a bear.

This happened Thursday night when our poor main tank had a 2500 ping and we couldn’t push heroic progression as a result. We did a couple of ZA runs to fill the time with something interesting. I almost regret having the bear. I feel that I should have kept passing until everybody else had one. But I healed another two bear runs and I won the one bear I decided to roll on.

Bear runs

My guild ran several ZA bear runs yesterday, with a variety of compositions. Two of the runs were successful. A couple more ended with the timer expiring in the middle of the lynx boss fight. One ended in an ignominious wipe on the trash before the bear boss. I healed a few of those, including one of the successes and the wipe. Here are my notes.

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Fleetfoot had a very good day today: roflcopter, Cho’gall kill, and her first kills of the Conclave of Winds and Al’Akir. Storm’s alt raid now lacks only Nefarian. Storm-Medivh-US is recruiting, by the way. 2/13 hard modes in our main raid, and 11/12 normals in our alt raid. We’re looking for 1 tank, 1 melee dps, and 1 healer. A plate dps with a solid tanking offspec would hit two needs in one good player. 10s, no plans to run 25s. Raid times are 8pm eastern, Tues-Thurs. Alt raid is Monday night. If you want a gang of mostly adult board gamers to raid with, no sexism or racism in chat/vent, and a quiet assumption of your competence, we’re the guild for you.

Fleetfoot had a very good day today: roflcopter, Cho’gall kill, and her first kills of the Conclave of Winds and Al’Akir. Storm’s alt raid now lacks only Nefarian.

Storm-Medivh-US is recruiting, by the way. 2/13 hard modes in our main raid, and 11/12 normals in our alt raid. We’re looking for 1 tank, 1 melee dps, and 1 healer. A plate dps with a solid tanking offspec would hit two needs in one good player. 10s, no plans to run 25s. Raid times are 8pm eastern, Tues-Thurs. Alt raid is Monday night. If you want a gang of mostly adult board gamers to raid with, no sexism or racism in chat/vent, and a quiet assumption of your competence, we’re the guild for you.