Remeber When...

So yea, a while back I promised you guys a Druid PVP post...well today I'm going to attempt to write that one! :-)

Keep in mind, I'm not a PVPer. I've only recently begun PVPing just a little again and taken an interest in arenas. Mainly it's achievements pushing me towards this, but I do enjoy it every once in a blue moon.

So I've picked up the entire Hateful Gladiator set except the helm. I do have a PVP helm, but it's the blue one. I put off upgrading it til last so I can work on getting the off pieces.

With the pieces I have, I'm currently sitting at a whopping 358 resilience. But I only have two pieces gemmed and enchanted and I'm missing all of my off pieces.

Here's what I'm sporting as of right now (minus the helm of course):



The base resilience on these pieces will give me 306 with the set bonus included.

We've got three red gems that we'll throw a [item]Fractured Scarlet Ruby[/item] in to get our Armor Penetration up. Or if we're still struggling on resilience we can put in a [item]Lucent Monarch Topaz[/item] bringing our resilience up 24 points.

For the yellow gems we'll put a [item]Kharmaa's Grace[/item] in and bring our resilience up 40 points.

Blue will be [item]Steady Forest Emerald[/item] bringing us up another 24 points.

Now the meta gets a little trickier. I'm considering the [item]Enfulgent Skyflare Diamond[/item]. Caster's eat me up in pvp so it'd probably be a worthwhile investment. If I don't go that route I'll probably grab a [item]Enigmatic Skyflare Diamond[/item] for the stun reduction.

So there's our gems. We're up to 400 resilience rating. That's a little better...or at least we're headed in the right direction. Let's look at enchants.

For our helm we have [item]Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator[/item] bringing our resilience up 25.

Our shoulders will use [item]Inscription of Triumph[/item] adding another 15 to resil.

Cloak doesn't have a resil enchant, so I'll probably just stick to my 20 agility enchant.

Chest is a no brainer with [item]Enchant Chest - Exceptional Resilience[/item] adding 20 to resil.

For bracers you have a couple of options. Six to all stats is a good choice or major stamina, depending on if you're trying to make up some lost health. Either way, no resilience options for bracers.

Same thing with gloves. No resilience enchants, so we'll go for agility or stam depending on what you need more.

Don't forget to grab a socket adder to waist and throw a [item]Kharmaa's Grace[/item] in there to add 20 resil.

Legs will need to have a [item]Earthen Leg Armor[/item] kit on them to add 40 resil to our set.

For feet I'm probably going to stick with [item]Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality[/item] for the crit.

Since I'm an enchanter, I get to add lovely enchants to my rings. I'll probably stick with the 4 to all stats and not fiddle with the stam. But the options there if you need it.

Weapon is going to be another tricky one. Until I find better, I'll probably just stick with Mongoose.

We're up to 540 resilience now. Much, much better. :-)

Now let's look at our other pieces and see where our total will end.

For the weapon, I'm hoping to pick up [item]Deadly Gladiator's Staff[/item]. That'll add 84 to our resilience and I wont' have to use arena points to get it. :-)

There's a couple of options for neck. [item]Deadly Gladiator's Pendant of Triumph[/item] or [item]Deadly Gladiator's Pendant of Victory[/item]. One has more hit, one had more crit, but both give 34 resil.

The same is true of the cloak. One is for hit, one has crit, but both of them give us 38 resilience.

[item]Deadly Gladiator's Armwraps of Triumph[/item] give us 37 resilience.

[item]Deadly Gladiator's Belt of Triumph[/item] gives us 49 resilience as well as another blue socket to throw a [item]Steady Forest Emerald[/item] in it to add another 8 resil.

[item]Deadly Gladiator's Boots of Triumph[/item] gives us 49 resilience plus a yellow socket to put another [item]Kharmaa's Embrace[/item] in it to add another 20.

[item]Deadly Gladiator's Band of Triumph[/item] x 2 gives us 74.

For our trinkets, I'm personally going to try and pick up [item]Medallion of the Horde[/item] which won't give us resil, but is a definite must for pvp. As well as [item]Platinum Discs of Battle[/item] which gives us 95 resil.

We're at a grand total of 1028 resilience.

According to Elitist Jerks, the cap for reducing your chance to be crit has a cap of 1229.62. So we're still a little ways off, but really dog gone close. And none of that that's listed is arena gear. It's all purchaseable with badges and/or honor and Stone Keeper Shards.

Hope that helps all you PVP junkies out there. :-)

Patch Time is Upon Us

It's that time again. The glorious day of a new patch awaits us not far on the horizon. I'm really excited about this one. Usually I dread patches and they inevitably make silly changes to classes and abilities, however this one is not that bad. Druids are getting a slight nerf with some of the cat abilities, but it's not too terrible. I'd say it has a lot to do with feral druids easily hitting 5k dps in most of the raid dungeons.

I'm really excited about the new druid skins. Nothing new for Boomkins and Trees yet, but from what they say it won't be too far off. Night elves still look amazingly better than Taurens, but the new forms are a vast improvement from the old, so I'm very excited.

Along with the patch comes new dungeons, new raids, new mounts, tabards, vanity pets, and achievement's galore! Definitely a lot to look forward to. This also means I'm going to have to get my rearend in gear and get the mounts, pets, and tabards from the current tournament quests so I'm not too far behind on the new content.

I'm currently sitting at 77 of 101 possible pets. Not too bad if I do say so myself. I'd, of course, like it to be higher, but I'm getting down to only the pets I have to farm again and I'm really dreading that.

The new patch is also bring a few interface changes which could be very neat. One of the things is a in-game item comparision. If this works the way I hope, there's one last add-on I'll have to worry about updating at patch time.

Fishing's getting a new item available as a reward from the dailies. 100 gold for a grey item? Bring it on!

Cooking is getting a few nice changes. The Chef's Hat, a worthless item except for the ach before, now allows players to cook faster while wearing. That's pretty neat. At least it does something.

Mounts are now available at lower levels and a few have had their speed increased. That's definitely good news for alt lovers. They're also lowering the gold required for training and purchasing mounts as well as including mounts in faction discounts. Too bad I already rounded up all those! :-( Mounts are also down from a 3 second cast to a 1.5 second cast.

Players can now get experience from battlegrounds. Good news for PVP lovers.

They're also adding in an available 'turn off experience' for a 10 gold fee. Now this could be pretty cool, especially for those who like to raid old world content and those who like to have twinks for pvp. The way I understand it is you pay a fee to this dude, he turns off your experience, then you go on your merry way to gain no more xp. If you decide you would like to lvl some more, you go back to said dude, pay 10 gold, he turns xp back on and you go on your merry way to lvl. You will not receive anything for xp you might have missed while you were in 'no xp mode'.

Pretty neat idea. I guess we'll see how it plays out.

Also new mailboxes, ports, and flight paths. I'm definitely excited they're adding in a port to the Dark Portal. That will make me go finish out my BC reps fo' sho'.

We're also getting a new Children's week in Dal. Woo hoo! Does this mean three more years before we can own all those pets? I suspect so!

That's not everything. For a completely list check out Wow Insider's list here or visit Wow's website and check out the PTR notes.

The future looks bright friends!

So Yea

I have the most amazing group of people ever! I gotta say my guys are awesome!

I told you that we ran a ten man Naxx the other day and while a couple of people had to go, most of the group stayed the entire run, and didn't complain. Not once did they want to give up or go home. They stayed and toughed it out and we got everything but stupid Kel down. grrr we're coming for you Kel!

So last night we charged back into 25 man Naxx with a few of our out of guild friends and we got everything but Thaddius and the last two guys down. We consistently got Thad down to around 5% or so but we just couldn't finish him off before the enrage timer. We ended up going about 50 minutes past raid time because everyone wanted to keep going. Even when I called it I still had a few that wanted to keep pressing on. I'm so extremely proud of you guys. You're hard work and dedication this past week has definitely been very refreshing for your GM.

And to top it all off, one of the officers from Karaviri was very impressed with you all. He said I had an awesome group of people and he was very honored to have run with us and would gladly run again if we needed him. That makes me smile. :-) I'm very happy that you guys were impressive enough to want pugs to come join us again...and not just because we made progress, but because of our attitudes. Because you all didn't bicker and fight, you stayed positive, gave it your all, and kept going back even after the wipes. That is what raidings all about and for others to see that too, well that's awesome for me! Nothing makes a leader happier than watching her family be successful and happy in whatever they do.

You also had another outsider say that our crew was the best raid she's ever been to that not only progressed but that she was actually enjoying being in. THAT'S awesome! I don't know if you guys realize it or not, but it really is.

I can't sing enough praises of you guys. I'm thrilled that you all did so well this week. We got everything but THREE bosses down! That's awesome! We did it with pugs, which is even more amazing! AND you had an awesome attitude the entire time, even after all the wipes. I'm so proud of you all.

Keep it strong Sacred Pack!

and...I <3 you Lil....:-)

Raiding and the Like

I have to say, this past week my guild has been awesome! Wednesday night was a fantastic turn out for us and we blasted through wings of Naxx and attempted the new boss in Vault. It was a great run all in all and we only had two pugs with us. (Thanks to Twilight's Call for helping us out!)

Saturday I took ten of through Naxx10. We had a great time. A couple of people took alts and the rest took mains. We had to stop a couple of times to switch out some folks and I even healed! Crazy I know! We ran through and cleared everything but Kel. I was really impressed. We could have had him but it was getting late and we had already spent a good 6+ hours in there so I think everyone was getting exhausted. I'm thoroughly impressed that everyone wanted to keep going though. Every time we'd loose someone I'd ask if they wanted to call it or keep going and everytime everyone wanted to keep going. It's truly a remarkable thing to get 10 people together that want to keep pressing on. I'm impressed guys. :-)

Last night was another awesome night for us. We had to pug 6 people all together. (Thanks Karaviri and Family til the End for helping us out!) We downed four bosses leaving us only three left for tonight before the last two guys. We had a little bit of trouble on Four Horsemen. I'll take the blame for a lot of it. I had never done the fight the way they were wanting to so learning to lead it was a new thing. But they were patient with me and I was patient with them and we got through it and now I know how to lead a new fight and my guild knows another strat for those guys. :-)

I truly had a blast last night as I hope everyone else did as well. :-) Many thanks again for those that filled in for us. We love you guys and are happy to have you as part of our extended family. :-)

Oh and I <3 you Lil! :-P

Updates from Sacred Pack

Since I haven't posted properly for over a week now, let's have some updates!

Ahtabat is one away from her Fawn. And her 75 pet achievement. :-) I'll receive my first tournament pet not today, but tomorrow probably so that'll finish me off. I'm very excited! :-)

Battle Bots are now live. Go here and pick yours up if you haven't already. The only thing that disappoints me about them so far is you have to redeem a new case of battle fuel every day. I want an unlimited supply dang it!

Nakar is a proud new daddy and Akarra is a proud new grandma. Congrats to both of you!!!

Zara and Teacc should be expecting their little bundle of joy in the coming weeks. :-)

Kroff and I are still NOT pregnant nor do we plan on becoming pregnant for a while. :-P

Sacred Pack has it's 25 mans up and running again and I gotta say, I'm impressed. We've done well in what we've done thus far. We're tearing Naxx apart and I'm hoping to have it cleared by Sunday and us back into Uldar on Monday.

I'm very grateful to our friends at Twilight's Call for filling in the spots we have open. You guys are awesome and we love having you as honorary family members. :-)

Oh and Liliann is awesome and I <3 her. There ya go Lil :-)

New Boss!

So my head is killing me this morning so if some of this is kinda random, that's why.

Last night Kroff threw together a ten man Uldar and in we went. We downed FL, Razorscale, and XT in one shot each and decided to skip over Ignis and charge on to new things. We hit up Kologarn and killed him one shot and went onto Auriaya. I wasn't in the group that worked on her last week, but I picked up what to do and we charged in and tried her. She actually wasn't that bad. It's a little bit of movement, but the main aspect is having enough damage...and enough aoe damage to take down the adds as they come in. Tanking her wasn't any big deal...except I died right before she fell over.

That seemed to happen a lot last night. I felt squishy for the first time in ages and I don't know why. I'd like to caulk it up to it being a new dungeon and a tougher dungeon, but I may need to re-evaluate Aht's gear, gem, and enchant choices.

In any case, we downed Auriaya and moved onto Hodir.

Here's a fun fight.

Hodir himself isn't too bad. What makes or breaks this fight is the movement. None of us had done this fight before and none of us had read up or watched videos on it. Del got online real quick and read us a strat and we tried him out.

Let me attempt to describe a little bit everything that's going on.

Okay, first off you have Hodir himself who must be kited around. Reason for kiting is ice shards that fall from the ceiling and squish/knock back anyone beneath them. Your warning is a little blue circle on the ground where they are going to fall. So I had to kite him around so I wouldn't be death to falling icycles.

While I'm kiting him around I'm having to constantly bounce so I'm not standing still. Reason for continual bounceage is because he works a lot like the last boss in Nexus where you get a staking debuff on you if you stand still. I imagine this was a lot harder for the healers than for me to continually bounce around like an idiot. (Haha)

While I'm doing all this, the dps is having to break four NPC's out of a block of ice so they can help kill Hodir. One of the NPC's cast's a beam of light that gives 100% haste buff if you stand in it. So while I'm avoiding falling ice and bouncing around, I'm trying to move into the beams of light or at least move Hodir close to the beams of light so the melee can stand in them.

After a little while, Hodir decideds to freeze the entire ground. At this point, he knocks two huge ice crystals to the ground while he's casting his nine second freeze. After the crystal's fall, everyone has to run over and stand on it because it creates a snow mounds that frees the player from getting frozen. The crystals that fall here look exactly like the others, except there bigger. It took us a couple of wipes to realize this.

Alright, so after the freeze, the dumb NPC's are frozen again and the dps has to break them out so they can help again. While this is going on, Hodir switches attacks and the offtank, wearing frost resist, has to taunt him off the main tank so the main tank doesn't get one shotted. Yay Del! This part actually wasn't too bad with our add ons. Once I saw what to look for I could do more than just wait for Del to call it out to re taunt.

So there's the fight. It doesn't sound too complicated until you start doing it. And honestly, it wasn't that bad of a fight when you get the movement's down. It's just learning it that's the fun part. We had him under half way last night when we had to call it and I'm confident that we can get him down with another week.

Excitement!

I mentioned a while back I'm completely addicted to the Twilight series. I've read all four books, own the soundtrack, own the first movie and I'm totally stoked about the second one.

There was only one concern I had about the entire thing. They introduce the werewolves in the second book and you see them 'transform'. This kinda bothered me because even though the entertainment industry has a huge potential for CGI and special effects, they also manage to screw stuff up a lot.

I fear no longer!

Check it out.



I think I just peed myself a little.

Achievement Whore

So here's what I've been doing...achievementing!

43

That's right! I'm 43 out of...however many are on our server. hehe

It started last weekend. I sat at the fountain at Dal and tried to get my last three coins I needed. And an hour or so later...ching ching! Three achievements one right after the other. I also managed to get the Strand Crawler from the fishing daily which put me three away from getting my fawn. /cry

Monday was Memorial Day so we spent most of the day on WOW goofing off. I was doing dailies and Kroff wanted to do something with me so we grabbed a couple of people and went and pwned the BC dungeons for the achievements. I finished off my Outland Dungeon Hero with the seven + dungeons we ran and racked up a ton of points.

Then on Wednesday I hit the 500 daily quests done. Woot woot! Honestly, I'm surprised at myself. I HATE dailies. Despise them with a passion. But, I've really buckled down and started doing them. Not every day, but pretty dog gone close. I gave 1000 gold to a guildie to get his cold weather flying and I've been broke since. So dailies it is! And I'm loving it. Not the dailies, but the gold I've been collecting as a reward for doing said dailies.

Thursday I went and played around in Caverns of Time and finished off my Keepers of Time rep to get the last one I needed for both 25 Exaulted Reps and The Burning Crusader.

Friday we took time off from WOW and went and saw Star Trek. OMG awesome...please go see it. I'm not a huge Trekie but I like the Sci-Fi movies. My dad is the Trekie so I've seen all the movies. I don't know that I would have gone to see this one except my husband got an iching to go see it so we went with a couple from work. Definitely worth it. It was really good even for those who aren't huge trekies.

Saturday was another day off from WOW since we had company over that evening.

Sunday I was able to play a while and finished off one the groups for the Argent Tournament. /sigh It's going to take me forever to finish those. *keep eyes on goal* Pets and Mounts and Tabards galore!

I also was able to get the To All the Squirrel's Who've Shared My Life and Pest Control achievements yesterday.

That was fun!

I'm going to play around with the cooking one's one of these days. It's one of those things I just need to sit down and do. I'm also going to attempt to get some guildies and go pwn all the classic raid dungeons to get those ach's out of the way. If I keep plundering away at the Tournament dailies I'll soon have enough to get my pets. :-)

Achievement whore out.