Weekend Review in Focus

Had some play time this weekend to make up for not much pay time last week. Unfortunately I haven't been able to check out the new 5 man instance as yet however no big deal. However I stuck to my goal that I wanted to get done in getting my next 100 Badges of Justice and I did obtain them. Started the weekend with 69 Badges and ended up with 107 Badges of Justice. So I achieved my intended goal.

On Friday night our guild went back to Kara for the week Kara run with a few new faces in this weeks raid including one or two new members and a member alt. We did every boss up to Aran. Moroes dropped his Lucky Pocket Watch, guild Warrior MT got it and I picked up the Girdle off of Moroes. On Curator he dropped the T4 token I wanted and a member alt shaman won it on his first Kara run. I'm just not lucky with getting T4's and always loosing to and alt or a new member it seems. We tried Aran twice on 2 attemps, only problem was just the 4 elementals. We got him down to about 4% or so at best try before one the healers had to go so run cut short. We had no replacement healer in the guild so at that point we 9 maned it to the chest event and picked up another 2 Badges. Was probably the smoothest Kara run we ever so far all things otherwise one shotting all bosses up to Aran.

Weekend Raid Schedule:
Saturday: Over half members didn't show or at all. Cancelled.
Sunday: None rescheduled!
Monday: None Occured!

Hurricane Heroic Weekend.
Spent the rest of my time on weekend restocking some my depleted consumables since I haven't farmed much way over a month and since I never use the guild bank for anything either, I use my own supplies from my own bank. Rest of the weekend I focused on getting my 100 Badges of Justice. So Pretty much ran various Heroic in Tempest Keep Instances and Colifang. In Pugs of course! Its almost ironic, I never run much Heroics with my guild members as they mostly do BGs and Arena for their gear. Most members new 70's and old barely ever run 5 man ever or Heroics, at least I barely ever see anyone there. Most the usual guild members are never on or don't log on much usually or are playing alts. So Galo pretty much just run Heroics so If I run one its forming my own PuG group.

On Sunday ran more Heroic Pugs forming my own groups as usual. Usually make friends on most runs. I was logged on kinda late in evening so Invited a good Warlock friend I met in a Pug whose now joined the #1 guild on the server for a Mech run I was forming. Invited a Elemental Shaman friend that's in the #3 guild on the server I met in some other pug long ago. Had a Shadow Priest I knew in a few pugs back. So was missing a healer. Healers are usually hard to find these days especially when I can't find any on my friends list also. Eventually we got a Resto Shaman that said we would go who ended up being Orez a T5/T6 geared Resto Shaman from the same #1 guild on the server as my Warlock friend. Ah cool.

We Blazed through Mech in what would be for me at record Hurricane speed. Other than the Warlock having fun with the demons bombing them we didn't have a anything CC'd and I was just in my usual tanking gear. We ran the guantlet at full throttle speed nonstop and came back and beat down the Fire Boss in no time. I don't recall how fast that run was but it was non stop fast with the Resto Shaman healing. Mana was not a problem one bit to say the least and healer never had any mana problems either keeping up. As a matter of fact no one on the run did it seems. I even clocked over 340dps, Yeah!

As soon as the Mech run was over we headed to Heroic UB. On that run we had not a single thing CC and that Heroic run was over like a Hurricane and I had full mana to boot. It was over so fast we then right after that went next door to Heroic Slave Pen. The Resto Shaman said go and we blazed through there just as fast as the last 2 Heroics. Best I can recall we were in and out of that Heroic in less than 30 mins because I had an Elixir up when I started and it still had over 30 mins left when we were done. Talk about record speed for Heroics, it was like a storm going through each full throttle. I'll have to say I had more mana than I could almost spend and could seem to spend it fast enough. The run was pretty damn fun I'd have to say, everyone had a damn good time and fully pumped up after all three run. I even say the Resto Shaman doing DPS figure that! The Resto Shaman wanted to go for another Heroic but It was like really late late and had to call it a night. Yeah the Resto Shaman is now on my friends list now to say the least. Needless to say I was up 107 Badges of Justice after that and getting my new legging when Phase 3 of the Patch 2.4 gets unlocked.

Yeah it helps to be a bit Focused.

Screentshots - Isle of Quel'Danas

A view on the Bombing quest. That daily Quest has to be one of the funnest quest to do around on the Isle of Quel'Danas. Repeatedly!

Patch 2.4 & Magisters Terrace

I really haven't had much time to play since the new patch launched, been busy working that Job thing every day at night this week. I actually just home off the Job not long ago. At most this I've played a total of maybe and hour on Patch day and thats enough to do like 3 quick quests. So I'm a bit late in being able to check out the new Instance. I can only imagine Tanks and Healers are in much demand all around.

But I have being on the blog beat on my Trinket IPhone while at work reading everyone else impression of things. Since I'm off working for a whole week on my schedule rotation I'll get to check things out later today and this weekend.

Its Official, Its Patch 2.4 Day

Its been confirmed by a Blizzard Poster (Blue) on the WoW forums that today during the maintenance that Patch 2.4 will be patched in. Yeah.

Get ready for lots of lag in the new zone, broken addons and UI's, more dailys to grind as if 20 wasn't enough. New faction reps to grind as well as Badges of Justice to grind and Pugs from hell with the new 5 man Instance/Heroics as well and all the other good stuff.

Cheers its about time. Still need 31 Badges to get my new Badge legplates. I better get cracking.

Course Change Ahead Possible.

After being in Kara a few weeks Its a nice raid Instance. I find it overall fun and ok. Almost seen like a great majority of my time is spent there these days. Raiding is ok overall. Though it can be fun at times overall certain things I really don't enjoy raiding related like the constant disconnects, the numerous afks, the waiting around and wasted time. I just want to spend my time being productive because its not unlimited time. I'm often thinking I could of done something else in the time I've wasted waiting around not doing much.

One extra Heroics a day in the time wasted means much to me and my goals. I'm goal driven and oriented in how I've played WoW and Galo. I have fun going after my goals. Its also fun to see other guild members get their gear more so the ones I know in the guild for some time or run instances with they worked for it.

I just honestly can't shake the fact that on guild raids we are just not time efficient. The magic word here overall is time, your time, guilds time, my personal time. If im giving up 3-5 hours of my daily time in a group effort of many i rather it be spent efficiently and not starting raids late, have to endure afks, and constant disconnects or people just being late to raids. I can waste my own time if I want, but when others waste my time and others that's not a good thing to have to endure. In 5mans runs and Heroics there is very little of that to deal with and usually the run goes non stop for the most. A quick boss break maybe but nothing long. In 5mans as the tank i barely ever take a break. I do what i need to do before run start and when its over, but i dont personally try to waste the 4 others people in the groups time. Wipe may happen here and there but that's part of the run. Time is valuable your time or other peoples time.

So as this month ends I'm thinking taking a break from raiding a bit or commit less dedicated time to raiding. Spending 4-5 nights in Kara on my days off or nights at 4-5 hrs is a time killer and something that I get irritated about. I've made that concern clear on most our raids. We have a running joke on our raids where I usually mention my Flasks are ticking and wasting away. More than half my flasks are wasted just waiting around. So I probaby be spending most my time just running Heroics and farming Badges of Justice for my few remaining badge gear needs. Im just goal driven and focus in how i play and do things. At least in a 5 man as the tank I can get my daily badge runs done pretty fast. I may just need a bit of change from all the time commitment and time consumed recently raiding. Its just not to my liking with the guild raiding progress and some people casual attitude when it comes to TIME. Time is valuable though I can waste my own, I hate when mine is being wasted.
Re-Edited.

Weekend Update 03/24/08

I can't exactly remember too much details of the weekend and the Kara raid for last week entirely. Best I can remember we had raid days on Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat. Sunday think we were suppose to go back to Kara for Nightbane but not sure what happened there. I was in Heroics on Sunday and time I finished it would have been raid time and barely anyone was on so after a few mins I logged off and called it a day, needed a rest from anymore group activity.

So far with Kara our guild seem to have 3 major stumbling blocks on Bosses on weekly Kara raids due to various problems of different sorts which leads to problems with various bosses. Usually its with Curator, Aran, Nightbane. Various problem with the raid that causes problems that at different times can be numerous. Sometimes its the right people, sometimes its different people, other times its people doing or not doing other things.

However for the weekend we did clear up Curator after our 3rd try or so on Wednesday. 2 Weeks in a row he dropped T4 tokens for Warlocks and others. We got Aran on our 3rd or so try without having any Warlocks in group. Think we had 2 Rogues and a Shammy for interrupts and the problem was the 4 elementals mostly. On last try we got Aran we ended up having a melee each on a Elemental and that worked in getting Aran down with a few people dead. Illhoof went down on first try, few people hit the floor on that too. I tanked his minion and OT Illhoof at same time while also holding the imps in consecration at same time and that worked well compared to before.

Prince went down on first try and again two weeks in a row he dropped the other T4 tokens for Warriors and others. The Shammy that had won the T4 some weeks back over me got gkicked from the guild end of last week and all I could think was there went the T4 token I had lost in the roll, Oh well. On Prince I usually backup heal as needed, do all the dispelling and heal the dps in Phase 3. I don't go out my way to pick up healing gear. But over time I've obtained quite a bit of gear that's somewhere about +900 healing. On the Chest event which is usually fun we won again, this time my pawn made it all almost all the way to the other side talking out almost all in path. Picked up Battlescar Boots which can be handy and just slapped 2 Solid Stars of Elune gems on those. So have 4 Epic Boots of various kinds. Being only other shield wielder also picked up Triptych Shield of the Ancients on the chest event so good for my healing gear set. Also picked up Drape of Righteous on trash leading to the event since no one wanted it, so it be good for my farming spell damage gear set.

This week Nightbane was a problem. We've gotten him down 2 times before. Yet this week he was just a pain. DPS and healer kept dying to Chared Earth or on Phase 2 with the the rain of bones and Smoking Blast. DPS kept pulling aggo on Nightbane more than half the time, as that was clear looking at my "Target Target box". Omen was also acting funky with threat also. Once I can remember raid got fireballed. Think we did 4-5 attempts and after that I was just tired of it as I was just flat out of mana pots and all else. One the things became evident on the raids, people not carrying enough mana/healing pots as they need. Seen healers run flat out of mana and not even poping a mana pot. Why? Don't have any mana pots and didn't bring more than 1 or 2. On every raid I have at least 20 mana pots and 10 Mad Alchemist potions for mana just to make sure I don't run out for the entire raid run.

On most our raids we usually have only 2 healers which is ok on lower half of Kara, but causes more problems on the upper half of Kara from what I have seen in our raids. So as a change the setup is now 3 healers on Curator onward in Kara as that caused us a lot of problems before also but that's also attributed by not having either enough guild keyed dps or healer on line at raid times also. For the most part the raid group was more consistent in makeup for the weekend raid. So far as a raid we haven't been very efficient due to various reasons, that raiding Kara has stretched over 4 nights. That has left me rather tired at times, often sleepy for early morning work as I get up at 0415. When a raid ends after midnight it makes for a long work day. Also leaves me less time to run Heroics for my usual Badges which averages 9 a day that I can do a run.

For the weekend finished up with 69 Badges of Justice. At least I'm close to getting my new legplates and more whenever patch 2.4 arrives which would be my next in line Badge purchase. As for this coming week not much raiding in Kara this week on my schedule since my work schedule flips back to working at nights.

Lastly I'm enjoying the new Hammer. So far its being fun to farm and whack away with my 2H Hammer. Load up the gear with spell damage and it fun!

I Got Me A Phat Epic Hammer!

This is my New Epic Toy. Ohhh no Galo has turned to Death Knight!

Recently acquired this Epic piece for some 2H fun. Was actually Inspired by Invisusira who's vids I like and is just a awesome tankadin. Her stuff is also linked at side bar and is a member at Maintankadin. Saw this Maintankadin Forum thread she had there on the board. So went out and acquired the HAMMER. Actually had not heard or seen this 2H before. It was added in the game back in 2.1 I think it was.

The only known crafter on my entire server is an Alliance NE Warrior with the Recipe to craft it. Thus as far as I'm aware I'm probably the only person with this Hammer and a Horde on my server also, because it was actually crafted by the Alliance NE.

Its one the best 2H spell damage weapon in the game Armory currently that's usable by a few classes for the spell damage primarily. But this is awesome in the hands of a Protection Paladin to use for the spell damage to power all spells when not using a shield and using a 2H. A high spell damage weapon with Seal of Righteousness does a lot of damage or with Judgement of Crusader. For Alliance that may be prefered with Seal of Vengeance.

Galo has Max Weapon Skills with every single 2H weapon a Paladin can use as well as every 1H weapon also. Fully skilled in all weapons including unarmed skilled. I love to use a good 2H for my spec. Its awesome to use in various encounters when or where a shield is not required. On equipt my defense only dropped to 488, just barely under uncrittable. So most loss was shield stats, Armor, Blockvalue and some defense. At least I have a solid 2H spell damage usable weapon in my arsenal to carry and use when needed. Hello Mob here I come.

How Did I Acquire it.
Had asked on Horde side and in the higher guilds but no one could craft it. So pulled up my Realm Forum on the WoW page. Looked in the Crafters Sticky page for all listed realm unique pattern crafters. No BS listed as crafter having recipe. Entered in search function on the same Realm Forum page "Hammer of Righteous Might". Got (1) hit. Was for a Alliance NE Warrior BS that just few days ago got the recipe and was listing it to be added to realm crafters list. BAM good deal!

Well don't have an alliance toon, so immediately created one a Human Paladin. Logged on Alliance side. Did a /who for the named crafter and BAM he was on but running raid in SSC. /W crafter asked if he had the recipe and could craft. Did a quick chat that I needed a Hammer crafter he said can craft it. Yeap sure can and he had the needed Nethers, but not the mats. Cool no problem. Next day logged on and the crafter was logged on. Chatted for a few mins that I needed the hammer crafted and if he could craft it. He didn't have mats and would have to acquire then. We had a deal and in 15 mins the time it took me to get to a Neutral Auction House and buy the item. I had my Epic HAMMER! I tested it out un-enchanted and SoR in my gear proc's for about 150+ yellow damage without JoC.

I guess its sometime good to just be sitting on a pile of cash with nothing much to buy but a New Toy. I'm sure the BS was happy. I can even use it on Shade of Aran doing dps since you can't tank him. Imagine 2 points in Reckoning. Hmm, lots of food for thought. Anyway a new Toy.

Gear Upgrades 03/18/08

Picked up the Gauntlets which dropped from Maiden on Friday which replaces my Felsteel Gloves. By picking up the Gauntlets with enough defense stats and blockrating on them to maintain uncrushable at 102.4% that allowed me to go ahead and spend the 60 Badges and pick the Girdle of the Protector to replace my Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard. When I replace a gear piece I still carry it in bag in case I need to interchange gear pieces for tanking.

Having both new pieces equipped brings my HP up to 14.5HP with 14.7K Armor. It leaves me just slightly below uncrushable but fully raid buffed that's fixed. However I always carry enough interchangeable gear to fix that also, which can be fixed by changing one ring or re-equipting my Blue belt piece as needed. My Defense has also dropped a bit also. So on any future upgrades I will have to keep my defense needs in mind also. So that leaved me with 31 Badges in the bank to save for my next badge item. It only takes me a few days to get up to 60 Badges or a week of 3 Heroics daily to get up to 100Badges on the badge grind. No Welfare Epics equipped or purchased here!

As for next item I'm aiming to replace my Leggings with the new patch 2.4 gear piece Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor (100 Badges) which has lots of avoidance for Boss Tanking. The Unwavering Legguards (75 Badges) are nice but will get those much later if can for AoE tanking Leggings considering patch 2.4 new items. All depends on how long it will be before patch 2.4 arrives and whether or not the new badge vendor will be unlocked or have to wait for that to happen on server, not sure.

Edit: Last night we started this week Kara raid. We cleared first 4 Bosses no problems. Opera we had R&J again. We seem to be getting those 2 for Opera allot. Picked up Spectral Band of Innervation last night from Attunmen for my DPS gear. Increase Badge saving count from 31 to 38 Badges of Justice.

Related Post: Galo's Karazhan Gear Wish List.

5 Weeks, a Weekend and Raiding Inconsistency

Haven't written much in last few days, just been busy with work and when I wasn't was stuck in Kara raids. With not much time to channel my thoughts In that time. Didn't feel like writing much here to say the least today. But Its maintenance day and my day off from work thankfully so I guess some time to write something of whatever comes to mind. Yet I really don't feel that motivated to write today either.

So lets see, last week was a real dump for 5 man Heroics picked up around 15 Badges for the week which wasn't that thrilling but its more badges all the same. On Friday/Saturday/Sunday after a full day of working as soon as I got home and logged on I was in a Kara raid until I logged off a few hours later and went to bed. Rinse and repeat all weekend. For that I picked up 9 Badges. That basically left me a bit tired and sleepy all weekend. Monday night or last night the guild did not have a scheduled raid so after logging on for a few minutes I just logged off and called it and early nap. So that's been the last several days. So its good to just have a day off to rest a bit.

Karazhan Progress
Well on Friday the guild put together a raid team for Kara. This is about our guilds 5th week in Kara so far and overall things are not consistent. Unlike our first 2 weeks in Karazhan we had a very good team of Tanks/DPS/Healers who were consistently the same on every run for that 2 weeks shooting all the bosses. 3-5 Weeks later the only thing consistent about the raid team makeup is both Tanks (Warrior MT, Galo OT) and 1 or 2 dps one being the guilds GM the Warlock which is also the guild highest dpser. Pretty much every raid that roster changes to just whoever is logged on at raid time or after. The regular group members we had before are nowhere to be seen or log on for raids inconsistently. Yet those members are our best players and best geared currently also. Being a small guild has it challenges with enough people logged, logged on working on gear on or elsewhere playing their alts. We also lost one of our guilds highest dpser and raid member a Hunter that was a really good player who quit. He was also my Heroics sidekick also.

So Friday we started the raid 1.5 hours late due to some newer guild members needing to complete their Kara key quest in BM, so the entire raid was on hold. We eventualy started and shot the first 4 Bosses no problem. We had no CC on Moroes, as we had none of our usual Priests or none of our 2 usual Hunters. Though we had one hunter in raid for some reason he did not trap. So I basically Exorcism one the Warriors adds, drop Judgement the other and OT Moroes while the group eventually dps them when the other 2 adds were down. I Healed on Maiden as usually pretty easy. Opera was R&J we did that no problem. Next up was Curator and at about that point right there progress ended for the night. We wipped on Curator over and over due to DPS not being able to manage and get the flares down in time as well as positioning. So we called it a night.

On Saturday we had a different DPS/Healer raid makeup and also had to reclear all the trash back to Curator. We wipe 1 or 2 more times I can remember. Next attempt we got him down which took 8mins and 45sec with the DPS/Healers spread out in a half circle behind the tanks. We also had the DPS warrior in the group on the flares also with the range dps since they had so much trouble on the flares. We got him down. We moved on to clear trash to the Shade of Aran from that point as well having to clear for new members doing their Kara quests. On way clearing trash some members had constant high latency issues as well as disconnect issues. Both these are very common on almost every raid which is a time soak. In the end we never got to Aran due 2 members being disconnected. I had to eventually go as it was late having to ready for my next day early rise for work.

Sunday the guild was back to Kara with a different DPS/Healer mix or 2-3 people and had to reclear trash to get to Aran. We also had a new guild priest as a healer in the raid who joined that day the guild. We had some the same problems with people having latency issues and disconnect issues. To be honest I really find this annoying and a big issue during every raid. We got to Aran and had to explain the fight to many who have never seen it before. I was changing gear for the fight when it started and I was still changing gear to spell dmg gear. In the first 10 sec of the fight Aran did Flame Wrath. Well I didn't notice it since I was fixing my gear, I took 2 steps from the door to Arans room I got caught in Flame Wrath we wipe. Yeah my fault I admit to it. 2nd attempt we started about a min into fight Aran did Flame Wrath and someone else moved, we wiped. As soon as the raid wiped the Priest who joined the guild that day gquit just like that with no word. So now we were out a healer and none the other various guild healers were on. We could not get a replacement. So we 9 man to the chest event and completed the chest event.

Though we downed a few bosses, some people got a few upgrades. Ask me how was the weekend raiding, it wasn't fun in my own opinion. I would rather say It Sucked!

A Tough Decision

Its been a slow week playing WoW as well I haven't really played any. My heart haven't really being in it much this week. Monday night logged on and not too long after I got a /w from the GM (Warrior) of the guild I had applied to "Accused" the previous week. So we did a Interview for a while.

Just the last leg of things in being interviewed I guess. So just got asked various questions about tanking in general and on content, looking at linked Plate gear to see if knew what the gear itemization was for. Knowing the difference between Avoidance or Mitigation gear and stats. Seeing if I knew the difference between one weapon use or another as well as if I was uncrushable/uncrittable in my tanking gear. Obviously those are all things I already know and have dealt with. So interview went well as well as asking other questions about their guild.

In the end it was up to me as I was offered the guild invite basically and just up to what I wanted to do. So I told the Warrior the GM of "Accused" I'll think about it and consider it and let him know. I thought about that decisions for days, and days on end. For me it was really a huge decision and with my Paladin. It was no small task a decision to make. I rolled around ever choice it would entail and decisions I must make going forward in going to a new guild and content as well as abandoning my guild and my guildmates.

I've made lots of decisions in my Paladins life, many times I've gone against what usually is course of things. Sometimes I've chartered my own path different to may others of my own class. I've taken at times the path less chosen and often at times the more difficult path vs the easier path. I navigate my own course and chart my own ship in the waters before me. So last night after not playing WoW for days consumed in though. There is no way I could write and explain my decision on my blog. I really wish I could looking at the possibility of a T5 guild and content.

Its assuring to know I was accepted to join the T5 guild which is #3 on my Server. In the end I /w the GM warrior and said thanks for all considerations and turned down the offer. That decision is monumental and was not easy to come by as I gave it some thought. I also had a long private word with my guilds GM as he was on at the time also. When this guild was formed I was the last person to sign that charter, even though I was guildless at the time. I met my GM in a PuG back then and a fair guy. So we had a private discussion after I turned down the guild invite to the T5 guild as this was the first time he even knew of my impending decision. Whatever road lay ahead with myself, him and the guild Its possible I may come to a decision I may in time regret. There will always be other guilds or T5's to consider. When I reach that path in the road on the road ahead I guess I'll make that choice again. When its no longer fun to play WoW I can find better things in RL to do.

Weekend Update 03/10/08

Barely played WoW this weekend as spend most that time working. Only played just long enough to get in a single Heroic run for a few more Badges. So not much on the WoW front from the weekend.

Screenshots - Omen Tanking TPS

A good properly geared P.Paladin can generate a heck of a lot of threat or TPS (Threat Per Sec) when or as needed on a single or multiple mobs. Captured these shots from various screenshots at different times in various instances. Hard to believe the numbers sometimes that Omen captures. On Demons/Undead I can generate a lot more threat on those mobs. But on average with no mana Issues I can usually average somewhere around or over 700+ easily most the time when I need to get up there in threat on a single mob in a good rotation in current gear. But as they say "Screenshot or didn't happen". So there they are. 1st one is Tanking Curator. 2nd is single Demon in Botanica. 3rd A Demon in Arcatraz.

Some People Can't Handle The Truth

I was logged in at Shattrath at the Scryer Bank doing some stuff. So I see what seem like a Protection Paladin right next to me standing there. This his Armory profile. So just being curious I was checking his gear to see how he was coming along as a Protec Paladin. After looking at his gear I kindly asked him if I can ask him a few questions. So we chat for 5-10 mins about Protection Paladin, gear and Talent points.

Asked him a few questions as to how long he's been a Protection Paladin and why he had certain enchants and why he had some points the way he did. Said he was protection spec since lvl 1 and that he was spec the way he was to tank for players in epic gear. I kindly offered him some pointers that would of greatly help him improve his gear and use of talents and even tried to refer him to the Maintankadin Forums for Protec Paladins to aid him. What became obvious was that this player said his gear was all fine and that he didn't need any of my help. Hey that's fine. Wished him well and that was that.

I like to think some people are smart enough that they can listen to someone that plays their class that may be able to offer them advice and make a informed decision based on the advice they may get. I've asked and gotten advice from others much better at my class spec, but I never took it as an offense to clearly improve my gear and spec. A few good Paladins helped me along the way, because I was willing and open to listen to their advice. Clearly there are some people that will refuse your advice no matter how much you try to assist them. Some people will take any advice you may offer them as an offense in how they spec their gear or talents.

Making Friends in WoW

I could of titled it "How to Make Friends" but I'm not a expert or anything close on making friends in WoW or am I a real socialite (see Haris Pilton) at it either. However I do make a lot of friends in WoW and often its from PuG instancing. Much of the Friends that I make come from the fact that I just plain PuG allot. Some my guildmates are so afraid to run instances with people they don't know they only run with guildies. Ask if they know anyone else, most the time they don't know other friends and its obvious why.

Lets stroll back down memory lane a bit. I'm a avid solo player just my style. When I hit 70 I had (0) friends on my friends list. Was that a problem to me, NO! Because I played the solo game and was good at soloing it leveling while I mastered the art of tanking tons of mobs for fun and kicks and learning how to master playing a Protection Paladin. I was often guildless. But at 70 when it was time to gear up and run instances I had (0) friends and had no guild to lean on. So I learned to look in LFG channel and ask in /4 and /2 for LFM for regular 5 mans and then later on after that 5 man Heroics for groups.

Over that time I've made a lot of friends on my server. That's an understatement as well. I've made so many friends running PuGs that you notice that their is a cap to how many friends can actually fit in your friends list. Yes it has a limit where you can't add any more friends. So often when I make new friends I've had to unfortunately look down my friends list and decide who I haven't seen lately and remove them as friends. Had to just so I can add new friends to my list. Yeah that's a good problem to have, so many friends that you have to delete old friends to make friends for new friends. Do I bother my friends, No. But when i'm I need to fill a 5 man group they are my go to list first.

Now I don't understand how some players say they have a hard time making friends. I can only say you need to get out more from under your own guild and run instances with other players and hopefully add a few friends. "Yeah, but I hate to PuG with people I don't know". Hey whatever rocks your boat that's up to you.

On my daily instance PuG runs I often add new friends to my list of people that can play their class well or who appears to be good ok players. Everyone starts from somewhere. But I add new players all the time to my list. However at least 20% of the people on my list are all fairly good healers and enjoy getting better at healing. I have less dps friends on my list, dps is everywhere but yet quite a few good dps players are on my list as well. Of all the people on my friends list they are scattered across many of the top raiding guilds on my server and other guilds. Now if you can't see value in that with friends then not sure what to say.

For instance the guild I applied to a few days ago I know at least 5-10 people in that guild (I was approved, however I haven't decided). Several of the people in that guild on most regular days are in at least one of my daily Heroic run, so I know some their members and they me likewise. That factored into my application when I applied to their guild because I was known on the server to some degree. Some of their members had alts that I also ran with that I didn't even had a clue they were in the same guild. But if you don't get out and do a Instance run here or there you lessen the potential friends you can make. Many of my friends have me on their list as well of friends when they are looking for a instance and need a potential tank. As a tank I never have a problem finding a group but its good to have friends. My all time best healer was a Resto-Shaman I found in a PuG, we ran many Instances together that helped us both. You never know the friends you will find and where.

You can make friends in your business dealings. I always need enchants or JC services and other things. When I find a good enchanter and one that has many enchants that I may need I pay them well for their service even though they don't ask in any way or demand a said fee. I also put them on my friends list for later service needs so when I need a enchanter so I can easily find them. Many times I've used the same enchanters over and over or another on list if one is not logged on. Those people get to know you over time. When you ask for a favor your not some random unknown person they don't know. Often as said before many those people happen to be in top guilds other than my own. In short you can call that networking. Do I use my guild enchanters yes a few times but my guild is quite small. Often I use the enchanters that I have dealt with before. If I cant find one I find new ones for my needs. its building relations with others and making friends in the process.

Sometimes you can help a person out on a quest if you have time. Though its not my usual way of making friends its a way to be known my many others by supplying your time. Who knows you may make a new friend. However I don't get asked much to help on many quests unless like Ring of Blood in Nagrand or something. The thing is you have friends in your guild that become friends by mutual association of same guild. You can make friends by helping out others on a 5 man Instance run, you find lots of new players at the level cap that way. You can find some very good players in Heroics you may never know exists that can potentially make your friends list or recruit list. You can meet people through your business dealings.

All are different things you can do to meet new people or friends, but if you never do anything different you will never know who you will or won't potentially meet them. At least that's how I've met all my friends and I have quite a lot. I'm also quite well known on my server too. Thanks to PuGs. Yeah I know, you hate PuGs right.

Slow Days, Just More Badges.

Seem like slow days playing WoW, not too much happening to speak of that's that eventfull. Did a Heroic run yesterday with some guildies at Mechanar and for all the times I been there the Sun Eater never drops but picked up some badges. Ran some more Heroics in Pugs and picked up some more Badges. The usual PuG stuff but nothing major. So all in all picked up 14 Badges yesterday on the Heroic farming circuit.

So I'm now over 60+ Badges, and though I know a gear piece or two I like to pick up I'll just wait a while and farm more badges for now. At least have patch 2.4 gear to farm for. Most my days are just running Heroics farming Badges. And other than the occasional farming herbs when I spot them or going fishing my days are really seeming to be getting a bit boring.

I got more Herbs in the bank than I know what to do with. Alchemy continues to go well as usual. There is a gouging feast on mid level herbs on my server for some reason with a 20 stack of herbs going for 12-18g. Lots of price gouging going on there. But I'm just too busy to attempt to step in and regulate that market on those herbs. If anything it makes my mid level alchemy elixir sell more. Oh well. Making money is also boring these days also. I'm sitting on so much of it that's its just no longer fun making more of it, but I keep making more just selling a few things. Flask of Pure Death has been selling like oxygen! Thus I've now gone thru a full stack of Fel Lotus in making Flasks. My few Major Elixirs sells well slowly also. Sold all my Golden Darters from fishing. Furious Crawdad keeps selling slowly. The money just rolls in. Even that's boring now. Mr Pinchy 2nd wish was a 2hr buff for +500 HP so one more wish left on the cooldown.

There really aren't much for me to feel like doing these days. When I hit my daily 12 Badge goal I usually just call it a day. These days just about the only thing I do really is farm Badges. Its the one thing with gear improvement farming badges I can completely control. No Kara for me this weekend as will be on the job. After a while even that seem to get boring day after day farming badges. I'm thinking I might need to soon go on a break from WoW or spend time working on other things of interest in RL. Slow days it seems.

50+K Milestone

Its no easy task when you do this thing called blogging for fun with a lot of time and effort consistently. However over the weekend a few my favorite blogs Honor's Code one my favorite Paladin (Tankadin) and Mystic Chicanery (Holy Paladin & Alts) hit the big 50K site visitors mark. They both may not be as big or as well read popular as one of our favorite WoW blog BRK with 1 Million plus however both have been around a long time and have both great blogs.

Thats a lot of daily readers, visitors, WoW searches and more. I have no clue here when this site hit 50K. Its says 64K on the sitemeter.

Congratulations to fellow bloggers both on having great WoW blogs and the commitment to keep it going.

Reflections In The Mirror

Imagine yourself and where you are in the game. The time, advancement, commitment, work ethic and effort you have invested in your main character, faction grinds and your combined effort you dedicate to your skill and the attention you put into your gear and all else.

When you take a hard look at yourself in the mirror inwardly at all your efforts. Can you Honestly say to your self that you wish you could find another player like you? How about 9-10 or 25 players/guild members just like you?

Absolutely Yes!

Committed Elsewhere....... I Wasn't There

Well its maintenance day so no WoW this early in the day, so leaves time to blog I guess and stroll the blog beat a little. Anyway last night picked up some more badges from Heroics..... PuG groups as usual. Little after I logged in around 9PM A PuG group needed a Tank so was politely asked and invited to ready made PuG group for a Heroic Botanica run. We didn't have any guild raid scheduled tonight. So sounds good love Botanica. Love PuGs too, I guess I play and live in PuGs.

While we were still waiting for the healer at the summoning stone to show up a few more people logged on in the guild about that time and the GM asked if they wanted to head back to Kara and take a shot at Curator. Those that were on in guild seem to agree considering the event of past weekend. Guild just seem to be lacking good geared dps and the usual raid members that cleared Kara from the core group.

So I got a /w from the GM asking if I wanted to be in the raid forming for Kara. I was already in Netherstorm with a PuG group ( 2 Hunters and 2 Shammy) at the time at the summoning stone waiting for the PuG healer (Shaman) to show up for Heroic Botanica. So I declined the Invite to Kara. The Guild Warrior Tank was already there so they had at least a Tank also. However when I'm committed to a group I'm committed to a group whether it be a PuG group or any other. So I gracefully declined Kara and stayed in my Heroics group. I run PuGs allot and one of my personal cardinal rules is I never abandon a PuG group once I've committed if nothing is inheritantly wrong with the group. Whether for guildies, anyone else. If I'm committed I stay committed to a group.

So while I ran Heroic Botanica, the guild formed a raid group on Kara and added 3 other non guild members to fill out the raid group. Heroic Botanica was smooth as usual and dropped every boss like clockwork. As I was finishing up the Instance saw a wall of green text in guild chat. Seems they were having problems on Curator, same problems again from last friday night. Apparently they were having various problems downing the flares in time reading the green text in guild chat as well as having someone to soak the Hateful Bolts. For some reason it seems they kept swapping people in and out the raid looking at things. However it didn't seem the raid was going well on Curator as I could read the guild Warrior MT was clearly frustrated also.

Finished my Heroic Botanica run, got my 5 Badges to add to my stash and had another smooth run at Botanica. Not long after it seems the guild called the their raid on Curator and seem all those was there was frustrated to some degree looking at a wall of green text. Some the guildies logged off immediately after and called it a night and a end to the week raid cycle. Felt for the guildies and their frustration as well, but I wasn't there. I was committed to another group at the time. Not long after that got invited to Tank for another PuG group in Heroic SP and with 2 Mages, and 2 Priests one being shadow was another smooth sailing in Heroics for another 3 Badges and a few more friends for my friends list. I guess I could say I personally had a good night. Clearly that was not the case for the rest of my guild. As for this coming week Kara run, I know for sure I won't be there...... I'll be too busy working on the Job during those night raid time schedule.

Yeah frustrating for me and my guild as well. I may be a good Tank, and geared as best I could be considering my own circumstances. But obviously to a great degree much of my own progress is tied to the efforts of 8-9 other individuals in a 10 man raid who when its game time decides to show up with their game face, skill and gear. My own individual effort stands for itself I spend my time in Heroics farming Badges to earn Badge gear for upgrades. I've always said when WoW no longer becomes fun, I can always take a long vacation.

The Saga of Wasted Raid Time.....Continues

If I had written this on Saturday it would have been lengthy and I would have had my first Blog Rant in the entire lifetime I've had this blog. So fortunately there will be no such rant from me here :) I'm just not going to go into much of the wasted time saga. However since its been a few days things has had time to mentally simmer and become a bit less clear so I can just recall things in short and as I remember it.

However last week was short on WoW as I worked most the week at nights, was off as of Friday morning from work. So Friday night was our Karazhan Raid as planned all week so most the raid  guild members can attend. So far our prime raid days are Friday & Saturday Night at 5PM server time or 7PM my time for Karazhan due to the scheduling of all in the guild that raid so far. 

At 1850 (My time) I logged in and started to head to Kara and we started getting raid invite soon after. We barely had enough people on to fill out the raid. People logged on here and there at different times. At around 2045 we had enough dps people to finally fill out the raid as well as our guild MT was also late. Anyway we finally got going and started with Attumen & Midnight and I tanked them both at same time picking up Attumen when he spawned. After that our Warrior finally showed up and we did downed Moroes & Maiden nothing special. All went down like clockwork and no drops to talk about from those bosses. Sounds fine there.

But the constant Afks in between were just that, constantly for all kinds of reason as well as constant disconnects. Disconnects happen at times, but man it was allot. So it was a lot of just waiting and waiting and waiting. For Opera we got the Wizard of OZ which I think is just rather fun. So I held aggro on Roar though we kept him feared for the most part. Tanked Strawman and grabbed and tanked Tito when he showed up. We got the event down no problem and was just fun. More Afks again on way to Curator as we took the back door!

We cleared trash to Curator fine. The Mana Feeders are just a damn nuisance as usual. Always a pain there on those. At Curator it seems rest of raid we just not having a good night. Since we did not have many of our usual members on the raid we were rather lacking in the dps department and healing department. This time warrior and I switched up and I was tanking Curator. Curator don't hit that hard. Trash in Heroics seem to hit much harder than Curator. Anyway we got to first evocation and after the dps group struggled and just could not get the flares down in time and well as Tank barely getting any healing (10 sec +) while the dps group just could not down the flares in time. I eventually died from arcane flare damage. We wipe! Almost 30 mins to regroup it seem to take.

We take a shot at Curator again and same thing. We wipe and then we had trash re-spawn. We called it a night at that point. It was 0140AM at that point. Was a lot of wasted time in between all them hours and having to switch people in and out. I was a bit fuming at that point to say the least. I let the GM as he too was in the Kara Raid that of my discontent as well as everyone else with all the wasted time. If everyone wants to waste time fine, I could go do something else in that time. If i'm wasting my own time thats not a problem, other people wasting your time and my time thats a problem.

For Saturdays Raid I was logged on time and ready. Barely anyone one or ready for the nights raid. "Hey aren't we raiding tonight", Yeah, just people not here. A hour later people still not on. I finally logged off for the night to work on other things I needed to do. As for Saturday Night no raid occured that night. Nothing Sunday and until raid reset Tuesday not much else will happen. On Saturday we lost one of our raid members a Hunter who can do some really good DPS and one of my usual Heroics sidekick. It was not clear why. So was a very disappointing week.

On Sunday after contemplating things for a while I decided to fill out a Application to one the top guilds on my server "Accused". I happen to know several good people in that guild just from doing a ton of 5 man PuGs and Heroics. Looked at it as a chance to have a more reliable guild and a progressive one with good reliable guild members. They happen to be doing SSC and TK but that's besides the point. I'm always in Heroics so I work on getting my own gear on my own time. I got put through the trial loops of doing a Heroic SH run with a few of their members I knew somewhat. I'll have to say I was a bit quite nervous. All those members wear full T5 gear at least. The gauntlet was not a very shining moment as squishes kept getting killed by one shot. Anyway we finished the run and I didn't ask too many questions after that. 

It seems from their website seems some their members approved and a few that I knew. However do need to talk to one or two of their guild leaders when online. To be honest I just haven't decided either way at this point what I will eventually decide to do. Do I really want to be in a Top guild that's already raiding in SSC/TK? Am I hardcore, No. I don't really think so, but I'm just dedicated to what I choose to do around the schedule that I have. Being in a small guild is ok. Not having enough members for raiding is a problem and cost each person a ton of wasted time. Our small guild may need more members or just more quality members geared at 70. I haven't decided on what I will do, but when I meet the bridge I'll decide whether to cross it or not. 

Fishing Project: Mr Pinchy Caught & Soulbound!

Well I finally caught Mr Pinchy this morning after I caught him the first time when he actually got away. He is an extremely rare catch in Fishing if your skilled. He seem to take a while to catch this time. But it pays to have some persistence! So far I have used only one wish and received the Mr Pinchy Gift which contained 5 Super Healing Potion & 4 Super Mana Potions with a 2 days cooldown on use. I'm hoping I can at least get the non combat pet and a "Benevolent Mr Pinchy". So far I've only ever seen one person on my server with the non combat pet which is very unique pet.

So after he got away the first time when he did I made a fishing project of re-catching him again and cataloging the entire catch till he was caught. For that I had to buy me another Guild Bank Tab in my Alt Personal GuildBank to hold all the catch to log it properly.

Re-Catching Mr Pinchy
To re-catch Mr Pinchy I bought a lot of Aquadynamic Fish Attractors. Which gives over +100 fishing for 10 mins. Fishing Skill (375) + Fishing Rod (+25) + Fish attractors (100) =500 Fishing. Used a total of 33 Fish Attractors to result in a successful catch. Fished for about 30-45 min daily or when had time when Highland Mixed Pools were spawned. Basically just going to all the three Highland Lake areas. Really need at least 475 fishing to Fish in Highland mixed pools properly. Anyway everything that I caught was placed in my Alt Personal Guild Bank in a Project Tab.

Fish & Catches results:
9 Empty Slots for Furious Crawdad Stack Sold (9x20) = 180
Furious Crawdad = 347 (17 Stacks)
4 Empty Slots for Golden Darter Sold (4x20) = 80
Golden Darter = 63
Motes of Water = 61
Goldenscale Vendorfish = 4
Huge Spotted Feltail = 11
Enormous Barbed Grill Trout = 9
17 Crates (One was opened thus the Fel Iron)
23 Inscribed Scrolls

Inscribed Scrolls resulted in:
11 Scroll of Stamina V
15 Scroll of Intellect V
2 Scroll of Spirit V
4 Scroll of Agility V
3 Scroll of Strength V
7 Scroll of Protection V

Crates resulted in:
39 Knothide Scraps
18 Netherweave
11 Fel Iron Ore

Economics of A Catch
On our small populated server I do well at fishing. Fishing is good business! So though catching Mr Pinchy is a goal of many avid Fishermen the catch can be just as economically valuable. However if you fish Highland Mixed Pools for fun you get nice food Buffs with Spicy Crawdads from the Furious Crawdad. However it you sell the fish which I do both use for Tanking/Raiding and sell on AH.

1 Furious Crawdad Stack (20) 28-30g. (1.40-1.50 each)
1 Golden Darter Stack (20) 22-24g. (1.10 -1.20 each)

From the Valuable Fish Catch
4 Goldenscale Vendorfish = 24g at Vendor trade only 6g each.
17 Furious Crawdad = 510g minimum.
3 Golden Darter Stacks = 72g minimum.
Total 606g minimum + other fish + fishing loot + Primal Waters from Motes of Water.

And I will sell all those fish also, not that I need the money either. Who says fishing is not valuable when you do it for just FUN! Golden Darters you can fish from the Highland Mixed Pools or just from the lakes itself. However for me I just fish for relaxation and FUN. Now Mr Pinchy is caught for my project I've done everything in fishing I wanted to do. Form now on its just fun times when fishing.