Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Super Chicken has flown the coop, I repeat, super chicken has flown the coop.

So, back when I started playing WoW again after my IA deployment to the Philippines, in May of '07, I joined one of my best friends on their realm called Bladefist. It were a PvE realm so being ganked wasn't an issue unless you were stupid enough to run around flagged. I played on Bladefist happily until Aug 15th when my divorce began, my ex-wife logged in and started causing all sorts of drama in guild chat. SO my friend and guild leader gave us both the /gkick. He also told me that once everything was sorted out I could come back. So I re-applied to the guild. Within the 2 weeks it took him to get back to me, I had found a geat guild called Omen. That was the guild i had been looking for. Mind you HordeLand Security was a great guild, as I had been there for about 15 months, but they weren't really progressing. When I had left, we had killed Attumen the Huntsman twice, and we had wiped on Moroes twice. Omen, had Karazhan on full clear farm, Gruuls and Magtheridon on farm, and were in ZA, SSC, and TK.

AND THEN... there's always an "and then".... Problems really arose there too. A couple of guildies were engaged. He left her for whatever reasons. She logs into game, says some stuff in guild chat, leaves guild and logs off. A couple days later he logs on for a few, gets whisper bombed and logs off. About a day later the lead Guild Manager kicks him, saying "Anyone that invites him back will get kicked too." When asked why he did that he replied "Anyone that interferes with my personal life on a game is not welcome here." Apparently, the GM was dating her younger sister. He's 37, her sister is 20. So he is letting a piece of ass about the same age as his kids (if he has any) ruin a friendship between one of his RL friends and him. Along wit this, people thinking that was a pretty bitch move, left the guild. Along with them, anyone who were friends with them, left. After that, people who didn't like certain things about the guild left. Then anyone who group primarily with anyone who left, left. So in the span of about 2 days almost 1/2 of the guild /gquit. I was on of them for reason #3.

Here recntly I have been getting bored with WoW. Re-levelling a character is something I loathe so much, I don't have any other toons over 27. That being my rogue. So I was speaking with Tzia and her guy and I tired starting a toon on Deathwing. Again, my issue with re-questing all the low level quests reared it's head again. So I mulled it over a couple days and as of last night I no longer have the super chicken on Bladefist, but I now find residence on Deathwing as well. I will say, getting used to being flagged pretty much everywhere is going to be an experience. If I don't like it still, I have to wait 30 days to tansfer back, so I may as well make the best of it.

*Cheers*

Thursday, September 18, 2008

In case anyone were to wonder...

WOW: $200 Million To Run

September 18th, 2008, 2:48 am by James Fudge

female_blood_elf-640x WOW: $200 Million To Run genresBlizzard has spent around $200 million to facilitate the operation of World of Warcraft according to data gleaned from the recent Activision Blizzard Analyst Day. That number includes the cost of running customer service, continued development and server costs - a small price to pay for this cash-printing MMO that is popular around the globe. The popular MMO currently has 11 million subscribers worldwide, and has $1 billion in revenue this year. Pretty impressive numbers.



(This news article pulled from www.crispygamer.com)

Monday, September 15, 2008

New perks for Druids in WotLK

Druids

- Entangling Roots: Can now be used indoors.

- Brambles (Balance): Now increases the damage done by your Treants,
and also damage caused from your Treants and Barkskin has a 5/10/15%
chance to Daze the target for 3 sec.

- Celestial Focus (Balance): The stun proc now works with Starfall.This
talent no longer has Wrath pushback protection, but instead increases
your total spell haste by 1/2/3%.

- Control of Nature (Balance) has been removed.

- Focused Starlight (Balance)is now Nature's Majesty (Balance):
Increases the critical strike chance of your Wrath, Starfire,
Starfall, Nourish, and Healing Touch spells by 2/4/6%.

- Force of Nature (Balance): Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes, down from 3.

- Furor (Restoration): Now increases your total Intellect while in
Moonkin form by 2/4/6/8/10%.

- Hurricane: No longer has a cooldown (was 1 minute).

- Improved Mark of the Wild (Restoration): Now a 2-point talent, down
from a 5-point talent.

- Moonglow (Balance): Now also works with Starfall.Moved to tier 2, up
from tier 5.

- Moonkin Form (Balance) no longer increases your attack power or
causes you to regenerate mana off melee attacks, but now has a chance
to cause you to instantly regenerate 2% of your total mana every time
you critically hit with a spell.

- Nature's Focus (Restoration): Now a 3 point talent, down from a
5-point talent. Also moved to Tier 1, up from Tier 2. Now also
includes Nourish, Entangling Roots, Wrath, and Cyclone.

- Nature's Grace (Balance): Now also reduces the global cooldown of
your Wrath spell by 50% while in effect.

- Nature's Grasp (Balance): Can now be used and can proc indoors. This
is now a base ability at level 11 and has a 100% chance to proc.

- Nature's Reach (Balance): Now also reduces threat generated by
Balance spells by 15/30%.

- New Spell: Revive - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead
target to life with health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat.
(Ranks 1-7 added)

- New Talent - Genesis (Balance): Increases the damage and healing done
by your periodic spells by 1/2/3/4/5%.

- New Talent - Improved Insect Swarm (Balance): Increases your damage
done by your Wrath spell to targets afflicted by your Insect Swarm by
1/2/3%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Starfire
spell by 1/2/3% on targets afflicted by your Moonfire spell.

- New Talent - Nature's Splendor (Balance): Increases the duration of
your Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom and
Flourish spells by 10/20/30%.

- Omen of Clarity (Restoration): Now a passive spell. Now also works
for spells (healing and damage). Proc rate is roughly 6% with a 10
second internal cooldown.

- Vengeance (Balance): Now also works with Starfall.


- Challenging Roar now has a 3 minute cooldown, reduced from 10
minutes.

- Faerie Fire (Feral): Now an 11-point talent, down from being a
21-point talent.

- Feral Charge (Feral) is now a 21-point talent, up from being a
11-point talent.

- Feral Charge (Feral): Can now be used in Cat form.

- Feral Instinct (Feral) no longer increases threat generated in Bear
form, but now increases damage done by your Swipe ability by
5/10/15%.

- Feral Swiftness: The movement speed buff can now be used indoors.

- Improved Faerie Fire (Feral): Now also works with spell hit, in
addition to ranged and melee hit %.

- Improved Tranquility (Restoration): Now also reduces the cooldown of
your Tranquility spell by 25/50%.

- Mangle (Feral): Now increases the damage done by Maul in addition to
Shred.

- New Talent - Mother Bear (Feral): Increases the bonus attack power
for Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by an additional 20/40/60%, and for
each friendly player in your party, damage you take is reduced while
in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 1/2/3%.

- New Talent - Natural Reaction (Feral): Increases your dodge chance
while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by 2/4/6%, and you regenerate
1/2/3 rage everytime you dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.

- Primal Tenacity (Feral) now reduces damage while stunned by 5/10/15%,
and reduces the duration of fear effects by 5/10/15%.

- Remove Curse can now be used in Tree of Life form.

- Soothe Animal can now be used on Dragonkin as well as Beasts.

- Soothe Animal is now instant cast.

- Subtlety (Restoration): Now a 3-point talent, down from a 5-point
talent. Also moved to Tier 2, up from Tier 3. Also now only reduced
threat for Restoration spells, and reduces the chance that your
healing over time spells (Lifebloom, Regrowth and Rejuvenation) will
be dispelled, rather than all Druid spells. Threat management for
Balance can now be found in the Balance tree, within Nature's Reach.

- Survival of the Fittest (Feral): Increased to 2/4/6%, up from 1/2/3%.

- The mana regeneration penalty when in Bear Form, Dire Bear Form and
Cat Form has been removed.

- Tranquil Spirit (Restoration) now also includes Nourish.

- Tree of Life (Restoration): 30% snare penalty has been removed.

- Tree of Life (Restoration): Can now cast Dispel Curse.

- Tree of Life (Restoration): You can now cast all Restoration spells
(Healing Touch) in the form, but Tree of Life now only reduces the
mana cost of your healing over time spells (Rejuvenation, Lifebloom,
Regrowth and Flourish) by 20%.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

You think they'd tell the DPS....

So there I was on a Karazhan run, and we're at Prince Malchazar. We're on our second attempt, no one is sure where the first one went wrong, but we wiped faster than a group of 12's in RageFire Chasm.

So, we're on our second attempt to kill Prince, and he's down to less than 2% when the tank dies. How? Again, no one was sure. So Standing there is a healer, and the super Chicken. Prince was at 4733 health; yeah, seriously. Of course no one yells that to the Chicken while Prince is whacking away on the healers, so I'm in the middle of a cast of Starfire. 2.5 seconds go by and he's tore through the healers, running at the last surviving member of the raid, me. I get nailed in 2 shots, the startfire cast never being completed. After the group wipes, someone reports Prince's health.

If only they'd told the Chicken, I could have instead cast 2 Wrath and an instant Moonfire, more commonly known as Spamfire. "Why" you ask? Wrath commonly hits for 1600-1800, critting for 2250-2400, while Moonfire hits for 500-650 and crits for 1000-1200.

Innervate the Priest........ times THREE?!?!

Yes, it's true. We did it. We put 3 innervates on a Priest. It was ZOMG! MANA! the total MP5 for that 20 seconds was over 4000.

We did it once just for shits and giggles in a Heroic Botanica run. The second and third times we did it, mass hilarity ensued. And yes, in a Heroic of all times. And yes, the priest did die every time.

You know those AoE pulls near the first 2 bosses, correct? How most the time the Pally goes in to establish some AoE aggro before the rest of the party starts in to burn down the lashers really fast? Well, we had 2 Feral Druids, a Holy Nova specced Priest, a Lock, and the Uber Boomer, your truly. We get to the first AoE and the priest yell over Ventrilo "INNERVATE ME I'M GOING IN!". The thought of this was just too tempting, so three Innervates are tossed on the priest and he runs into the middle of the mobs, Leeroy style, and begins spamming Holy Nova. He gets 6 or 7 casts off and his mana never drops. He dies with 100% Mana. The Boomer then has to run in, pop Barkskin and cast Hurricane while the two Ferals are casting Hurricane and the Lock does Rain of Fire.... Boomer tank FTW! We proceeded to do this once again on the next AoE pull as well, with much of the same result, regardless of the priest having 3 Druids casting all 3 HoT's on him as he went running in.

Mind you, this is Heroic, and here we are fucking around.. lol

I did mention there are 3 AoE pulls, didn't I? The third and final pull went even worse than the previous two. Because you do remember there are two large groups which you must mow through, literally, just before you can take the 5th boss of Botanica. So the boomer and a feral pull the two masses and right on que the priest jumps in. No seriously, he JUMPED between the druids and started spamming Holy Nova once again. Druids do the Barkskin -> Hurricane while the Lock spams Seed of Corruption. And it proceeded as follows: Priest dies, Boomer dies, Ferals die, the remaining 10-12 mobs swarm after the Lock and 3 Seeds pop, killing the rest in the Lock's face. It was all he could see. A mass of pissed off flowers charging at him, then dying just before they got to him.

Additionally in this run, we discovered that the Menders, have this very nice 30 minute buff. 295 Bonus Spell Damage; needless to say this was one VERY happy Boomkin when he was pushing 1500 Bonus Spell Damage. The Starfires were flying, and critting for over 5k.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Silly Druids and the tricks we play.....

So I figure I may as well start this off with a bang...

This was an actual event, not in any way made up. Sadly enough.


So my group was planning on running through SLabs to try to get the other druid in the group the Moonglade D3 Gloves for his Resto spec. But we all had the daily for Mechanar (Regular) and figured since we had just came out of Botanica we'd 4-man Mech for the daily then head down to Auchindown. We quickly found out that the mobs we needed were not there at the enterance like previously believed so we called it a bust and bailed. Well, on the way out the newest 70 Paladin whom just got his mount was sitting at the point looking towards Cosmowrench. Not on his mount, just standing there. Myself and the other druid hopped up on the ledge and both went into Cat Form. While in Ventrilo, we keyed up and said "Hey, wanna see something cool? Just stand there and watch this!" We dashed in Cat Form down the ledge, and crossed at the point, taking a flying leap, hurling ourselves off Mechanar and into the Twisting Nether. Being Druids, we naturally shifted into Flight Form and proceeded to fly off.

It looked cool, and was fun as hell. But this is where it gets even funnier! The pally, whom we jumped in front of jumps off Mechanar as well. I had spun my camera around and watched him do this. He then comes over Vent swearing, I immediately start laughing my ass off. He also cast his bubble, after realizing you can't mount while moving, in hopes that he would hit the ground. Alas, this was not the case as he sped into the Nether. Being the smartass that I am, keyed up, "Nice one nubsauce. Now take your ass to Plaguelands and retrieve your corpse. I bet you really scared the shit out of some alliance. 'Oh my god! It's raining hairdressers!' "

I then proceeded to switch to the main lobby for vent and passed along the event to the rest of the guildmates, whom proceeded to laugh til they cried, and heckled said Pally for 3 days about the incident.