I’m sure we’ve all heard the people in general chat saying things like, “LF4 More, Heroic MgT” or “LF2 More for H UB, need tank and heals.”  Why you would announce that you’re looking for more when you have neither of the most important classes, I have no idea.

Anyhow, no, I’m not actually looking for 24 more for Black Temple.  BT is, however, in my near future, I hope.  I raid in an alliance of about 5 guilds on the Whisperwind server.  None of the guilds can effectively run 25 mans on their own, so for some time we’ve had this alliance.  It start with Gruul, and moved on to Mags, SSC, TK and MH.  Now, we are set to hit the Black Temple.

Now then, I don’t agree with our progression, but I don’t have any say in these discussions, so my opinion doesn’t mean jack.  For some time we were running Gruul, Mags, SSC and TK pretty regularly.  We were spending 2 nights a week on TK and SSC, and we got to 5/6 in SSC and 2/4 in TK.  (That could be wrong on TK, don’t quote me on that.)

I have only participated in a couple Gruul and Mags runs, but I have been in a LOT of the SSC runs.  I was in the group that first killed Morogrim, FLK and Leo.  I was also in the first (and maybe only, I’m not sure) group that even took a crack at Lady V.  Personally, I wanted to continue down that path.  2 nights a week in SSC, the first night hopefully getting at least the first 4, then the second night taking out the last boss and then working on Lady V.

It hasn’t worked out that way.  You see, it was slow going at first.  It took us a couple months of 2 SSC runs a week to get to 5/6.  There was a LOT of wiping going on, as a lot of people had to learn the various fights.

2 months ago, I didn’t even have to sign up.  I could just log on shortly before start time, and they ALWAYS needed one or two more people.  Around the time we took down Leo for the first time, and got to have regular success in SSC, signups exploded.  Where before we were sometimes struggling to fill runs at all, we now had 30+ signing up for every raid.  We also took a hit in our efficiency, since many people each week were totally new to the instance.  I don’t think we’ve seen Lady V since.

Anyhow, shortly after that, the Alliance leaders decided to switch up our targets.  One night each of SSC and TK were dropped in favor of MH runs.  I don’t agree with this, but as I said before, I have no say.  I wish we could try to be at least a LITTLE more selective and make some honest attempts at the last T5 bosses, but that ain’t happening.  Instead we are moving on.

So, anyhow.  This Saturday, we are going to make our first foray into the Black Temple.  Now, I am already signed up, and though I disagree I am excited to finally see this instance, but I have a problem.

I need to get to 9k unbuffed HPs by Friday.  I think I can do it, but it will take some work.  I have an old pair of Earthsoul leggings that I can gem for stamina and swap out my present badge legs, and I also have the blue boots from MagT just sitting in my bank.  I don’t have the playtime to farm furiously for badges before then, but maybe I can pick up another useful piece or two.  Hopefully I can get there.  If I do, I will certainly blog about it!  Also, if anyone has any recommendations on what I could do, you can go ahead and peek at Pummra’s armory in my sidebar.

It’s been a little quiet around here lately, sorry about that.  I’m a key player in a HUUUUGE project at work, and our launch is this weekend.  It’s been one of those weeks.  I’m sur a lot of you out there can sympathize.  Anyhow, here’s a little bit about the latest goings on with PTD.

The Shammy Ditches the Elekk

As a lot of you know, I’ve been working my Stormwind rep so I can dump the hated Elekk with my Shammy.  I’m so sick of getting STUCK everywhere, I can’t take it anymore.  Well, the deed is done.  I conveniently saved the last couple of turnins that would push me to exalted for the mini quest hub in Elwynn where horses are sold.  The first thing I did was destroy that stupid Elekk mount.  Poor guy, don’t tell PETA.

Do I want to delete? HELL YEAH! I hopped on the cheapest horse on the lot, a beat up Pinto.

Wow, I sure look big on that thing.  I actually feel kinda sorry for that horse.  I hope he has a warranty!

So there it is.  Exalted Stormwind rep with my Shammy.  As an added bonus, I know where I’ll be vendoring and repairing from here on out!

Hunter Gears Up in Karazhan

I also put together a Kara run last night.  It seemed like it might not go off, and I actually half-cancelled it, when suddenly two of our best tanks threw their hats in the ring.  We had 2 priests, a Warrior and Pally for tanks, and a mix of DPS that included my Hunter, 2 Mages, an Enhance Shammy, Kitty Druid and a Fury Warrior.  Interesting mix, to be sure.  Luckily we had the Shammy along who made the melee DPS very strong.

We blasted through pretty much everything.  We had one wipe after the ramp leading to opera, where we accidentally pulled the whole room.  Other than that, we one shot everything, skipping only Illhoof and Netherspite.  We would have gone back, but a couple people had to bail so we called it a night.

Loot-wise, it was both good and bad for me.  I actually got one of the best cloaks a Hunter can have in the Drape of the Dark Reavers.  Nice. I also happened to pick up TWO pairs of gaunts. I got the Gloves of Quickening from Maiden and my T4 gloves, the Demon Stalker Gauntlets from Curator. I already have the Crystalhide Handwraps, so I have some thinking to do there. Anyone have any thoughts on those three? None have enchants as of yet, the Crystalhide are gemmed but with easily replaceable stuff, no epics.

Anyhow, what I REALLY wanted though was a new ranged weapon.  No dice.  No Crossbow from Attumen, no Gun from the BBW (which I REALLY want…I am a dwarf!) and no bow from the Prince.  Bah, humbug.  Someday I will upgrade from my old, blue Valanos’.  I just don’t know when.

Well, that’s about all for now.  I do have some more in depth posts brewing, I just haven’t had the time.  Next week things should start to clear up, right about the time all the adulation and cash starts rolling in at work for the great job I did on the site.  We’ll see.  Thanks for reading!

AH Insanity is killing me.  Honestly.  I had fun leveling my warrior for awhile, got him to 40, and said “yay, time for plate!”  Then I saw the AH.

You have GOT to be kidding me.  10g for a pair of level 40 plate bracers of the Wolf?  25g and up for anything of the Bear or Tiger?  SERIOUSLY??

I mean, aren’t I going to be using this for, like, 5 levels or so?  Which at the present rate of progression amounts to about a week of playing?  /scoff  I guess I’ll be rocking the mail for awhile longer, until I can get some good quest rewards or something.

What I’ve found is that the insanity is all over the place.  Yes, I realize Blizz dumped a crap load of cash into the economy with the SSO dailies, but this is getting ridiculous.  My shammy, now level 45, is still wearing bracers and gloves from level 30.   I refuse to bow to ridiculous prices, and farm with my 70 to outfit an alt.

Now, in some ways I understand the ridiculous prices for, say, level 29 BOE blues.  I know the twinkers fall all over themselves for those.  But this craziness about other sub 70 stuff must end.  How long do we spend in those midlevels anyway?

Now, people -  the only way this will change is if YOU change it!  You must agree to not bow to ridiculously priced green stuff on the AH!  If we work together, we can move mountains, you and I.  We shall overcome!

I’m the Part Time Druid, and I approve this message.

And no, I’m not talking about loot.  I’m talking about my Enhancement Shaman alt.  Generally, I’m having a lot of fun with him, but I’m starting to notice a trend.

The ease of fights with him depends a LOT on the good old RNG.  If Windfury procs in a fight, it goes pretty quick.  If it procs a couple of times, it usually means I’m standing over a corpse.  If it doesn’t proc at all, however, the fight can sometimes be painfully slow.

Now, I understand that all fights are in some way beholden to the RNG for success.  Warriors love to see a mob dodge, so they can obliterate their foes with Overpower.  Feral Druids love to see Omen of Clarity go off, Rogues love to see their poisons proc in succession, and so on and so forth.

With this Shammy, though, I feel like the RNG has a much larger impact on the outcome of a battle.  This doesn’t usually translate into whether I succeed or fail, but it can play a big part, especially if I have multiple mobs hammering away at me.  (On a side note, I’m also not to sure about my ability to handle multiples…I seem to have had more problems with my shammy than any other class I’ve played when the numbers are against me.  But that’s for another day perhaps.)

So is the Enhancement Shammy’s reliance on the RNG a good thing or a bad thing?  It can obviously be good on those times when it works in my favor, and a back to back Windfury two shots an equal level mob.  It can also cause me huge headaches when I have to lean on shocks and boring white damage whilst fighting multiple enemies.  I’m thinking that it also gives me a certain level of unpredictability for other encounters.

Can I take on equal level elites, for instance?  Or even elites a level or two below me?  With my druid, elites were never a real problem.  I had many tricks that I could use against them.  With the Shammy, though, I kind of feel like if I attack an elite I have to pray that Windfury does in fact go off.

So, are there any other classes that are as reliant on the RNG for success?

I’ve never been much for the rep grind.  Never.  I have 2 70s, a level 60, and numerous, numerous alts of virtually every range.  I have a grand total of 2 exalted factions, SSO and Violet Eye, both on my druid.  I think I got soured on the whole rep grind due to the Timbermaw Furbolg pre BC.  Back then, you had to grind a LONG time just to get to stupid Winterspring.  (I did notice, however, that they made it much easier.  Now you only have to complete one quest to make your way through the tunnel safely.)  Since then, I’ve always avoided rep grinds.  The 2 exalted factions I have came naturally, through Kara runs and griding out cash for my epic flyer.

That being said, I find myself in a rep grind for the first time.  I’ve been spending a good deal of time on alts of late, and in the interest of letting my 60 shadow priest accrue some rested XP, I picked up my 42 shammy recently, and have since gotten him to 45.  He’s a lot of fun right now — Windfury crits FTW!  (As an aside, if you ever want info on Shammys, Too Many Annas is a good place to start!)

The problem?  I cannot stand the Elekk mount.  I don’t like how they look, I feel like they are “slower” than the other mounts, though I know they are not.  I especially don’t like the fact that I fricking GET STUCK ON CRAP ALL THE TIME.  Especially doorways.  With every other mount in the game, you can run into just about anywhere, not so with the stupid Elekks.

So, I made the decision that I needed to get a different faction’s mount.  Taking a look at the state of my reputation, I found I was already revered with Stormwind.  A horsey sounds good to me!  I punched up WoWhead, and analyzed the factions page to find some level appropriate quests to boost my SW rep.

Off I went to various parts of Azeroth, and struggled to find quests that were worth my time in terms of rep and time.  I bemoaned this on the guild channel, when a guildy asked me something:  had I gone back and done all the starter quests?  No, I had not.  I had assumed that rep rewards had diminishing rewards based on level.  It turns out they do not.

Wahoo!!!

I jumped the nearest bird and headed to Stormwind.  I left Stormwind riding my ugly purple elephant, and took a hard left towards Northshire Abbey.  Yes, Northshire Abbey.

It turned out to be quite fun to annhiliate the old level 1-5 content that was there, completing all the quests, and netting pretty healthy faction awards.  I did feel a LITTLE weird, since there were level 1s and 2s actually doing honest leveling, so I tried to stay out of their way and finish the quests quickly.  I also made sure to kill only exactly what I needed.  I didn’t want to lay waste to the area and screw over the poor level 1s.

It sure was nice to blow through a lot of that stuff.  I remember wiping once or twice to Garrick Padfoot, and a single Chain Lightning in his direction ended him this time.

I also had a bit of nostalgia, as that was the first zone I played in the game.  I still remember watching the cinematic for the first time, then the flyover narrative intro to the human race.  My first character, a human rogue.  Way back in the day. 

I also remember that from the very first quest, I could see that WoW was different, different and far better.  I had played every major MMORPG previous to it, and from quest 1 WoW blew those others out of the water.  Asheron’s Call, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and more — none of them held a candle to WoW.  In a way, I guess WoW was kind of like I was the other night, a 2 ton bull charging through a china shop of level 1 content.  WoW to the MMORPGs that preceeded it was kind of like me compared to the Kobold Vermin running around Northshire Abbey.  Most of them died before they could raise their protest of “You no take candle!”  It was much the same for WoW, they nuked the hell out of the competition in an instant.

That’s why whenever I hear mention of the “WoW killer,” I just don’t believe it.  Blizzard has been on their “game” for a long time, and I expect it to stay that way.  The only WoW killer, in my mind, is World of Warcraft 2.