Liquid Silver

Kara, Gruul’s, and Mag’s Oh My!

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:41:27 -0800

Some friends and I have helped friends get the Arena Grand Master trinket for their level 19 twinks. There have been some great fights in Gurubashi Arena in Stranglethorn Vale. Here we are the calm before the storm.

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Getting my key for Kara was a blast. I didn’t realize I took a screen shot while in Black Morass. There have been many trips there since. Because of the fast pace it is a fun time. I have seen a Hunter, Mage, and Warlock do the adds. I think I know the fight well enough that I MAY volunteer for the adds next time. We shall see.

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Found another obsessed pet collector in Shatt. Can you see Sloodhnon and me in the middle of this picture?

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I had my first run of Kara last weekend. Wow, did I feel behind. You read about these fights, you have them explained to you, and then you TRY to remember what you need to do AND not to do. Sometimes I felt my only contribution was that I brought cookies.

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One of the greatest parts of this run was the tank. He wasn’t just any tank but a faboo Gnome tank. I think my heart skipped a beat. But then was immediately replaced with my first Kara Badge of Justice.

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I had watched the Opera Event when Husband ran Kara the week before. He got Oz, which is the event I want. If you remember one of my goals this year is for a Wicked Witch's Hat. I don’t neeeed it. I just WANNNNT it.

We didn’t get Oz but the Hood event. It was fun! Just before we killed the wolf I finally was turned into Little Red Riding Hood. Yea… I had the foresight to take a picture to share with you.

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One if the biggest things I am trying to do is understand my DPS. So far I just do what I have read about. There are all these great tools out there and I am trying to actually read and understand them. It is the understanding them that has been the hard part. There are many numbers and so many conditions that vary.

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I was so overwhelmed when two items off Moroes dropped that were an upgrade for me. Until only recently I had been wearing a green cloak. I was staring at awe at the Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran that I totally missed that the Brooch of Unquenchable Fury dropped. I received two whispers and raid chat noob comments about putting my name in for the loot. Then the neck piece was mine.

Well I guess I can pass on the cloak, I did just PvP for my Sergeant's Heavy Cape so I can live with it for awhile. AGAIN I received the whispers and raid chat jeering. I said over vent “But I just got a piece??!! I have no DKP.” Which I was told that if you don’t take it the item will be a shard. In numbness I threw out my name for the cloak too. The cloak was mine.

But it didn’t stop there. We downed The Curator where the T4 token, Gloves of the Fallen Hero, for Hunter, Mage, and Warlock dropped. There was no hunter in group, and both the Mage and other Lock had what they needed. Again it was a take or shard decision. The Voidheart Gloves, my T4 gloves, are mine.

I walked away with 3 pieces. (Can you have negative DKP? *grin*) It made me laugh that my luck would be good enough that my two PvP items were replaced, the gloves and cloak. I was so happy with that change. The third item was the neckpiece which I was a wearing the best quest item.

I am very happy with my first run of Kara. I suspect that I will have many more.

…

…..

Oh did I mention that I helped down Gruul? It was messy. Some of us had never been there… and I didn’t even know I was EVEN GOING! So I didn’t do any prior reading.

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Then we were off to Mag’s Lair where we had the best attempt yet. He was down to 15% when we loss three clickers at once. We soooo have him.

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Ummm OK Doom

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:39:09 -0800

I was going to comment on Doom’s blog… but I decided I needed to share with you instead. More information about what goes on in the men’s bathroom. It enlightens my vastly limited exposure to such workings.

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Prolly Gonna Lose

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:08:25 -0800

As of last week I am on an Arena 2v2 team. My team is appropriately called “Prolly Gonna Lose”. (I didn’t have any say in the name we inherited it. Wonder if that should tell us something.)

Well our BM Hunter is all “I wanta Arena!”

Husband and I had this team that we never did anything, it just sat on Husbands character. Well we invited the hunter and started. I had done some skirmishes with the hunter a while back and it was brutal. The Frost Mage and Fire Mage combo was just … owwie.

We are all speced for PvE and are not going all nutty and doing double respecs like some people or some other people.

I whispered the hunter and told him I had some time if he wanted to get games in so that I had my 30% in for the week. He immediately sends me an invite. THEN he queues us up. It then immediately pops for us.

WHAT!!!

My crowd control keys were all set up for PvE not PvP.

Seriously I didn’t even have FEAR on my main bar.

We have access to vent and I am talking to myself. (“Talking” is delicate. It was more colorful at the time.)

Did I mention I couldn’t find my FEAR!

We lost but barely. We should have won. We had the second guy down to less than 10% and if I knew where my Fear was in the beginning that would have made the difference.

So ….

Hooked up to vent and after some choice words…

And reminding him that Hydra doesn’t PvP.

We tried it again.

Won. Won again. And won. Won again. Oh and then we won again.

(The rogue rogue team was the best. Coming from a PvP server I expected more.)

Then I called a stop. We were not back even to 1500 but I didn’t want to press our luck.

Silly hunter queuing us up for matches without our communication set up AND Fear not even on my main cast bar! Well I went 5-1 my first week in Arenas. We should have won them all. I really expected to lose more. Chalk it up to beginners luck. I am sure that this winning streak will fix itself this week. Aurum calls it “Waiting to get smooched to gnome paste”.

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The Pally’s Wish

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:58:52 -0800

Kestrel linked this dozy of a Pally Warlock joke.

It made me bust out laughing.

You should check out the rest of /emofire.

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Just one

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:00:29 -0800

I am self sufficient on the Horde side. At level 29 I am my own “Main”. Then one day I received a note from Aurum.

“Would you make contact with the guild DTK and tell them thanks for the great games. That J- rogue is a good player, start with him. Noticed while I was Backstabing him he had a nice … tabard…for a Blood Elf, just thought you should know.”

Sounds good… a new mission… wait… WHAT!

First Ratter was all concerned about needing a “friend”. He is an Orc and I totally respect his opinion, but I have a mission here. I need to focus. It looks like Aurum now has the same thought about me talking to people. These are just not things I would ask Hydra about … she can be kind of scary and evil like.

/sigh

I am supposed to be reporting back findings from the Horde side. So making contact with individuals that know Aurum would make sense. I would at least have something to talk to them about.

I made the initial contact for Aurum and it has been a boon. With my nose in the auction house I chat away with my new found friends. We have had many philosophical conversations about well… killing Alliance. *grin*

In one of my many meetings with J- in the Horde War Room I pinned him down to take a picture.

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Much love comes by way to him from Aurum, which he seems to return, and extend to myself. Aurum is right… he does have a nice…*clears throat* …tabard.

This was a great start in this new mission. Apparently Aurum is recognized by some on the Horde side, which when I reported this back to her she was shocked. The information being sent to Hydra and Aurum has been well received. I continue my quest for contacts.

My guild is not a guild of one anymore. Mycalderick joined me a while back. We just have not crossed paths since. As luck should have it, he found me stranded in Felwood with resurrection sickness and my hearthstone on cooldown. (What I will do for a pretty dress.)

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We queued up for AB to get me out of that death trap. So we had out first Guild run!

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We actually went up against some of Aurum’s colleagues in FE. *cue appropriate Alliance smack down music* They out damaged me and had a great healer…but you need to bring more to beat me.

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Recently I came against my first real WSG glitcher or exploiter. We still won.

There was a very handsome human rogue that showed up dancing in the Horde graveyard to protest the glitching. Without me saying a thing, Horde left him alive, but Precious did take a bite or two out of him. I was quite impressed with my teams honor.

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In a conversation with one of the members of DTK, RJ said that he had someone that would like to meet me. Well I met him.

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He rocked my world with his healing.

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When we would run together the boards would be very similar to this one.

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But something unexpected has happened… his RL avatar is leaving for a year. My reaction?

Nooooooo!!!

/cry

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*wipe tears of pain* I guess I am just going to have to learn to always run without my favorite healer. This maybe a good thing because I really think he looks better in a dress than I do.

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What do I have to report? Horde are people too. With new friends it has been making my reports better… but Aurum is right … most do have nice… tabards.

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Warlock Nominee

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:20:11 -0800

A vote for Shaaroon is a vote for cleaving the budget!

Brought to you by Arrens a hard hitting interview of the presidential nominee for 2008.

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Crossroad Raiding and Goal Complete

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:22:56 -0800

Because of my RL avatars fuzzy head… we haven’t told you about the last two weeks and THEN forgot what went on prior to that…

So looking through screenshots BOY did a lot of stuff happen that I have not talked to you about.

There was the WSG game where our “team mates” wanted to farm Horde for “honor” which is not tolerated by anyone in our guild. So the outfits come out… or just pure naked toons.

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Then there are our Horde friends who were out numbered. With us dancing it was a team of three Alliance against about six Horde. For the last cap we had a Horde escort. I haven’t laughed so hard in a WSG in ages… my sides hurt after. Battlegroup forums CAN be a love fest… here is the post for this great game. I collected the pictures for your enjoyment.

2008 DTK & FE 3rd Flag Cap

Then there were the games where we would pick someone randomly and the goal would be for them to have the most deaths. Doesn’t happen often but if you have upset a friend on either Horde or Alliance you get put on the top of this list. Another candidate would be if you had "pwn" or "twink" in your name.

Another game I have heard played is betting on who on Alliance side will say “Let’s farm for Honor!” These people are so typical and most likely will have the most deaths.

*looks around checking if anyone else can hear* Our healers don’t heal them. =P

Alliance has long queue times. Here we are hanging out in Shatt with a Horde friend.

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One of our healers just got her fishing hat! Here we are twinking in style.

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Again what do twinks do while we wait for a very long WSG to pop? We raid a Horde tower killing all the the level 40 elite guards so we can take a screenshot.

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Spreading love in WSG with picnic baskets

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One of our best hunters in our bracket is Ulti. Well I actually beat him all my little roguish lonesome in a 2v2.

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Here is FE getting ready to raid Crossroads in Booty Bay. Once we crossed there was a flagged level 70 attacking a 63 Night Elf... so we jumped in… got that Pally under 60% health too. Well too many 70s showed up and… whoa… wasn’t it convenient that all our 70s were there too. =P

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Remember my goal of picking up my Alliance Battle Standard… it was third on the list. After a week of having my honor points … I was dragged over there to pick it up. So my first goal was to use it randomly and take a picture to share it with you!

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Remember Cossroads?? Well I didn’t make it then... Hydra went. I had 9 Coins of Ancestry and needed one more for a festival outfit. Well I just picked up the one in Ratchet. Where is the closest one to me? Crossroads!! Survived the guard didn’t die at all.

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Whew… so much fun… just wait for Iridium’s and Hydra’s update!

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Evil Check

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:33:47 -0800

So I am thinking that it must be a warlock thing…this being EEEEE-ville. On my first raid outing with guild… what do warlocks do while waiting? Put up a fake “Click for cookies” say and summon a Doomguard.

That made me laugh… particularly when it was the summoning warlock that was sacrificed. *giggle*

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What really endeared me to my new warlock guildies was something more mundane than that summoning. It was doing dailies out in Skettis.

I was hanging out after the Mag’s Lair run with the other locks. I invited the others to head over with me to Skettis to do the dailies. Well… truth… that is where I was heading and if they wanted to come they were welcomed.

So then there was three.

Well I find the hardest part of the Skettis Escort quest is to find the guy. Lucky day! Someone found him quickly at the southern spawn point. Just as I reached the spot waiting on the third to land… a Human warrior ninja the escort quest! Now I was in shock. In all the time of doing this escort I have had Horde do it… full groups do it… but one guy? Never. So I took flight to camp another spot.

Without skipping a beat the other two locks AGRO everything!

I mean the birds in the sky, the mobs on the ground, even the yellow-you-don’t-have-to-kill-me-birds. Pulling all of them to the warrior …then they died. Dumping all the agro on the quest ninja.

I watched in shock and awe. Hovering.

But he wasn’t dead yet.

I agro a Monstrous Kaliri and flew it right down to our ninja.

Dead quest ninja.

This was warlock bonding at its finest.

But evil? I mean he was a quest ninja. Maybe it was a teenssy weency evil.

We did redeem ourselves enough to keep our Alliance membership. The Lock instigator offered to help the guy with the quest and the ninja refused… so the lock helped anyway. I do think he tagged all the mobs for the loot though. *giggle*

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Eating Glass

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:07:59 -0800

*wave*

Hows it going?

…

Good. Good.

…

Not much around here. I mean not really. Well there was this silly little run Husband had of Gruul’s Lair.

I am not kidding. Yea. He picked up the Malefic Mask of the Shadows as his first ever real raid loot.

Yep. Yep.

Oh and I shouldn’t forget that he also went on a non DKP guild run of Karazhan, where he picked up off the Huntsman the Worgen Claw Necklace. Someone passed on since it was a minor upgrade for them and BIG one for Husband. Then there was also the Girdle of Treachery he picked up out of a chest. AND his 22 Badges of Honor for a complete clear of Kara. Did I mention this run of Kara was done in one night? No. Oh sorry.

Husband did the Oz fight and I watched… that was a lot of fun.

…

Me?

Oh nothing really. I mean my head was so fuzzy I didn’t volunteer for either the Gruul’s or Kara runs this weekend. But I did get called in to help in a group. Very sweet of them. Something about needing a geared warlock (thanks everyone).

Where?

Oh sorry. Some little place called Magtheridon's Lair. My guild had a spot in their glass eating team. Basically it was a “Calling all Warlocks!” campaign.

Glass eating you ask? Well I didn’t know either…and online actually was no help on the term either.

Glass Eating = (my definition) for a large group of people to learn through a tough technical fight. The raid has wipes for different reasons but each time learning form those wipes. Then modifying and improving on the strategies.

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I believe this was the third week they tried. But I have been a bad guildie and wasn’t really paying attention.

Interesting thing getting pulled into this raid. I got a call on my home phone, then a call to my cell phone, and once I got on vent it was “Talk to the raid leader now!”. I spoke with the RL and then I was in the line up. Told me about some videos and went to watch them…particularly the cube clicking and banish/fear elements.

Okay…

Here is what happened…

I had 3 videos, about 22 minutes worth. After an hour of watching, re-watching, note taking, created list of questions, print outs, timing and visual cue notes… I started to FLIP out. I had so many scrawls all over my notepad I about had a panic attack. You know I have not done anything bigger then a 5-man?? Now I am on the glass eating Mag’s Lair team?? Someone should have their head examined.

*looks down at her notepad* Maybe not? Maybe they are lucky that they can call on me three hours before the raid and I can be this prepared for a 25-man raid.

But you know… I didn’t do bad. I was slow to click once… I was in the middle of the room banish/fearing and a bad timed quake bounced me away from my cube. But I sure hope that was it… because I didn’t see what else I needed to change. So I underlined my note to self to put my back to the wall in advance.

Deadly Boss Mods helped a LOT with the cube clicking. I had long ago learned I am twitchy with instant DoTs. To combat this affliction (punny… Yea my head is still a bit fuzzy), I target my assigned tank first and use them as my cue instead of the mob. Worked wonders in Mag’s Lair. I do have to figure out how to see if someone else is Banish/Fearing an elemental, because I noticed I was over lapping with other warlocks. This is not an efficient use of time or mana. Didn’t happen often, but I am wondering if it is something that can be easily fixed.

I ate glass for the first time with my guild. I hope they didn’t regret having me. It was pure joy!

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Got Sick?

nobody@vox.com(Hydra) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:36:49 -0800

Sorry it has been slow around here... I have so much to let you all know about. But I have been sick....head...cant think...sinus pressure... neck pain... fuzziness kind of sick.

About all I can do is be pointed at things to kill. Been keeping the instances down to a minimum since I am not at my best.

My Tank FINALLY had the shield drop out of Shadow Labs the other day. What that take? Four months for the thing to finally drop. There must have been 50 runs for hellmaw to make it drop. She doesn't even need it since the reputation one was better. Things like this make me believe that Blizzard really does hate raiders.

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