Alteriffic – Back to Healing

Well I managed to get my mining up to 150 by doing 3 or 4 circuits of Arathi Highlands.  I really wanted to make the trek over to the Badlands but I was desperate to get up to 150 I didn’t want to waste time travelling.

I’m going to do a few more circuits this evening in the hope to get upto 175 so I can mine Mithril.  If I can do this in decent time I’ll move onto Badlands and pick up a few quests.

Herbalism is going a lot slower, I can see plenty of herbs that I can’t gather at the moment, but I think Mining is going to be the one to focus on over the weekend.  I’ll probably spend a night on Herbing next week, probably when there’s some decent TV (or a movie) on.

Well last night I had a break from WoW and I have to say it felt good.  I managed to finish moving the last couple of bits from my old MTB across to my new one, and finally finish it.  I also boxed the rest of the old one up ready to be shipped off to a mate who’s buying it.

I cooked myself a scrummy dinner, and ate that and watched Rambo.

I thought about firing up the macbook and logging in but I stopped myself, as I wasn’t going to be able to play for more than 45 mins.  Now the new bikes all set up, and the nights are slowly getting lighter my WoW time will decrease rapidly I would think.

I’ve always been like this though so I’m not fussed, I love biking in the evenings, and really can’t wait to finally be able to get out more.

Dinged 40 Sunday night on Chunder, and am now the proud owner of a Dire Wolf to zoom about Azeroth on.  To celebrate both this, and my new ability to Dual Wield I rode through the Barrens mining Tin Ore to try to get my skill up to 125 so I can mine Iron (as I’m finding lots of Iron Deposits in the Zones I’m in at the moment).  Having a wolf made a ton of difference, and every time I would dismount to mine a node, I’d fight the nearest mob to try to get my 1H weapon skill up (as Chunder’s been 2H for as long as I can remember).

Knowing that my 1H weapon skill was virtually non existent, I threw firebrand up on both so that when they hit, I’d get a bit more bang for my buck (especially as I was using fairly low level weapons).  Once I’d worked my way down to RFK I thought I’d pop in and see how I got on.  My thinking here was that there would be a steady stream of mobs to get my weapon skill up, and also a few greens and some wool cloth to sell.  I didn’t really have any problems up until I got to the 2nd Boss and his 2 mates.  The first boss went down smoothly, and none of the mobs posed any problems.  I did make the switch to FrostBrand on my OH though, to save having to FrostShock the mobs as they made a run for it.

I managed 2 SM Cathedral and 1 Armoury run last night with a great group.  Bugged me that I lost Mograines Might to the Warrior, who had said he was only going to use it until Ravager dropped, and there was no healing mace, or Bezerkers Helm drop.  I did get the Scarlet Leggings though, which meant the evening wasn’t a total write off.

I dinged (should that be Dung?) 41 while in there, and with it came the joys of Stormstrike! Being in the middle of an instance run (and one that was going pretty fast, with not a lot of time between pulls as we were tearing the place up) was not really the ideal place to mess about with it, but I threw it up into my rotation as often as I remembered.  First problem was finding space for it on my barshotkeys though, as they’re pretty full at the moment.  I need to have a cull to get rid of some of the abilities I rarely use.  I dont need to have 3 heals hotkeyed that’s for sure.  I still found myself either using it after I’d shocked someone, or just forgetting to use it full stop !  It didn’t matter though, as I was top of the Damage Meters (something that doesn’t bother me, and to be honest Iwas surprised, as apart from the healer, everyone else was level 41 or 42 and I was off healing where necessary.

I need to workout what I’m doing more in instances I think, and probably get a totem macro set up, as I often dont bother dropping them.  I also have to sort out a better targetting method, as when the screen’s full of action I sometimes find it hard to target the right mob.  I need to get an attack on assist macro set up I think, as on my Lock I can just click on the target of target and then nuke away, with Chunder though I have to right click on the actual mob to start smacking them upside the noggin.

It was a successful night though, and I shouldn’t complain.  1 blue and a couple of Greens to sell, along with a couple of stacks of silk & wool.  It was always going to be tough loot wise, as there was a Druid and Paladin (who I guessed would be after the same weapon loot as myself), and also the Warrior who would be going for the same armour.  Only 1 clothie meant they got a lot of loot

Having logged off on Wednesday night in SM, I logged back on and thought I’d see how far I could get solo.  I went into the Library and was managing to clear the first corridor up to the courtyard with the houndmaster without too many problems.

I then got asked into a group as DPS, and noticed that a guildmate was tanking so I thought it couldn’t be too bad.

HOW.  WRONG. WAS. I ?

Well the priest was called Iwontheal, which should’ve set the alarm bells ringing, but I knew I could heal our way through the library if needed, and I had faith in the Tank so we went in.

  First set of mobs and the priest decided to MC one of the mobs.  Now having played a priest, and one of the regular groups I played in had no real CC so we used it a fair bit I know when the spell should be used.   We had a mage with us, and had no use for MC so I dont know why the priest insisted on using the spell all the spell.  I thought perhaps he had only just realised what it can do, and was messing about with it on the easy pulls.  Nope, he was MC’ing mobs (and not healing at all) and just leaving them where they were.  At no time did he pull them back to us, so this caused more aggro.  I had an eye on the tanks health, and basically ended up healing and DPS’ing where I could.

The Mage didn’t bother to sheep any mobs, and the Hunter went AFK half way through to eat his dinner. Even with the Priest MC’ing, the Mage AOE’ing everything in sight (and consequently grabbing aggro and dieing) we managed to get to the room before Doan.  It all went wrong again at this point as just as we were killing the last of the group of mobs and I was about 15% health\mana he decided to MC one of the monks outside the room, which then he walked into the room to aggro Doan.  Another Wipe.

We went back in to find respawns, and the Priest back on a MC mission, and also Psychic Screaming everything in sight.  That was it for the tank and I, and we said our goodbyes and left.

I wouldn’t have minded if the Priest had said he wasn’t going to heal (as I was more than happy to) and actually did some decent DPS, but MC’ing when not needed is just a waste of a spot.  The fact that we got as far as we did was largely down to myself and the Tank being level 38 & 39, and able to manage a group of 3 on our own if necessary.  We should’ve tore up the place with the group we had, but idiots who either don’t know their role, or are not prepared to work as a team was our downfall.

I logged off about a bar away from level 39 though, and had a nice blue ring drop in Arathi which made up for the earlier nightmare.

Chunder’s well on course for 40 by the end of the weekend, which will mean I can get his wolf and then start on the necessary rep for the Raptor

FOR THE HORDE

Well this is my first post testing out Windows Live Writer.

I have to say installing the software was a royal pain in the arse !!  I hate Windows Applications (and Microsoft ones in particular) and this has certainly not changed my mind!!  I had no end of trouble installing\downloading the software on my work laptop, which is where I do most of my blogging.  After turning the firewall off, going through a wifi network (with no restrictions) and installing a windows update it finally installed.

Above is a test picture – a nice shot of Boog on her Dreadsteed atop the Thunder Bluff elevator.

With level 40 fast approaching for Chunder, I need to figure out what mount ot get him. I really want a raptor – but I dont think I can get him enough faction gain.

I do love the Wolves though, and the options for the level 40 Mounts are as follows

There’s the Brown Wolf

Dire Wolf

Timber Wolf

Personally I love the Swift Timber Wolf (which is a light grey colour, not sure what they do to it ot make it go faster, wash it in bleach by the looks of things) but of the level 40 options it has to be the Dire Wolf for Chunder.

I think Chunder would look better on a Raptor though, so I may spend a night doing all the low level quests that reward Darkspear Troll faction. Then again, I could just wait til I’ve got my Wolf to do this, as it would speed up the travelling between the quests.

Looks like it’s off to WoWhead when I get home to try to get a list of Quests to plan my way through for when Chunder hits 40!

To be honest in the time I’ve been writing this entry (only about 10 mins) this idea has really grown on me, and I’m looking forward to it no end. I like having a few things to do out of the ordinary quest lines, and while I may not get the Raptor straight away, I’m determined to get enough rep to get the Epic one at 60

Now the Orange or the Olive one, at least I’ve a few levels to make my mind up lol. It’s a shame that they dont offer the Ivory Raptor as an epic mount anymore, as even though it hasn’t got any armour on it, it’s a beautiful mount

On another note – after hearing some good things about Windows Live Writer from fellow WoW Bloggers I’m going to give that a try.   I only seem to blog from work so needing a Mac Blog client isn’t much of an issue for me right now.

Well not a great deal happened over the weekend in WoW for me, apart from a bit of AH flipping, and a couple of levels on Chunder.  But I managed to get a few hours in each night this week and have got Chunder up to 37, and am well on course for hitting 40 by the end of the month.

I have really enjoyed getting back on Boog in the last week, and with Mia and Kit now hitting 66 I’m sure I’ll be playing her more and more. However, I do not want to neglect my Alts, and so I popped onto Chunder to get a couple of levels (and try to make a dent in the journey to 40 before the end of the month (only 7 days to go, and 3 levels !!!!).

Against my better judgement I popped over to STV, knowing that if the Horde were in control of Nessingwarys camp I’d be able to chain a few of the XX Mastery quests together and probably grab half a level in no time at all. It wasn’t to be though, and I spent just over an hour getting ganked, and then doing the rez\gank thing about 10 times to get me far enough away so I could rez\hearth . Not happy, but I only have myself to blame. As Boog was nearby (Deadwind pass) I thought I’d send her over for some revenge, but that also turned to shit when I realised that the 1 x 70 there (and her three level 50 mates) had been joined by another 2 70’s.

Myself and another Horde Paladin put up a brave fight, and allowed a couple of low level Horde to hand in a few quests but we were soon overrun and then corpse camped.

I dont know why I bothered with STV, as I knew in all likelhood what was going to be waiting for me. I do really like the zone thought, it’s just a shame it’s such a gankfest (at least up near Nessinwary).  I did have a totally different experience from a Dorf Pally and Human Priest later in the week though, when I spotted them while I was fighting a couple of raptors (and at about 30% health and mana) and found myself MC’d after the fight.  The paladin then proceeded to heal me up to full health, and then they saluted and left me alone !  I was shocked to say the least, but it has restored my faith in that not all alliance are ganking shits.

In other news, the company I work for have finally shut down the back door everyone in the IT Dept was using to have unrestricted net access, so no more WoW related browsing at work I can still blog, and read blogs through Bloglines, but no video game related websites (other than a few odd ones) can be accessed. I’m a bit annoyed about it, but not as much as the fact we now can’t use Scrabulous on Facebook !!!! I constantly have about 6 or 7 games running, which will now have to be checked when I get home.

Chunder popped into SM Library last night (Wednesday) with a crazy group (32 Hunter, 31 Lock, 39 Pally, 40 Druid and Chunder – 37 Sham).  The Bear tank decided that he would chain pull, which was fine until we ran the Lib a second time and didn’t have the paladin as they’d gone to train new abilities).  1 wipe and a couple of deaths for him as I couldn’t keep up with the healing from the multiple mobs and no drink breaks soon slowed him down though.  There was no marking, and no kill order, but the hunters boar managed to OT one with no real problems, I took on a caster and with earth shock interupts and grounding totem managed ok, and the Lock and Pally healed\dps’d the bears target.  It was late so I’ll give the Bear the benefit of the doubt, but he wasn’t keeping aggro on more than 1 or 2 mobs at a time.  It was certainly not boring, that’s for sure !

Aplolgies for the wall of text, I’ll try to find a couple of screenshots break it up a bit