Thursday, February 26, 2009

When hard work and luck meet

So as you are aware, I have been hunting the spirit beast with great effort for probably the last week. Sure i have spent a lot of time prior to that looking and spamming macros, but i never really caught a scent of Loque'nahak. But times had changed over the past week starting with a couple sightings of King Krush, the big green devilsaur. I even killed him once to get my northern exposure achievement. That set in motion some hard core looking and hunting of the spirit beast since the rare spawns are thought/known to come in succession on a 6 hr repop timer. Knowing what time zero was, I had to come back at 2am to look. Alas, i only caught a blip of Loque with my macro before it was gone. I had continued for a couple days to look with great ferver spending a few hours a day/night in Sholazar Basin searching around the times when i estimated a spawn would be coming. I had even started to get my guildies involved who i think were beginning to pity me for looking so long without getting it. Now as you can probably tell, and see, last night at 5:40ish pm EST I was just flying around SB and spotted Loque. Its funny because i was not even really looking too intently on finding him. I was just kind of casually flying around killing time. Sure i was still hitting my macro, but i wasnt focused on it as a mission. Sure enough I see him in the location just south of Pitch (black lion) on the map. I starting shaking and flipped out. I came in to a land and didnt see a soul around. All my other sightings occured with someone killing it already or having just tamed it. So here I am alone with Loque, I hurriedly dropped a trap and dismissed my raptor. I was shaking so bad i even missed the tame beast button once. But i got it the next time and he came right in to my trap, and i knew he was as good as mine. I was geeking out pretty good at this point just watching the taming channel count down until he was mine. Thanksfully, a guildy Burritoman was in SB also herbing so i yelled over /g chat for him to come over and look. I had him turn on his speakers and everything so he could hear the roar and see the moonfire ability that Loque has. It was kind of nice to have someone else be there to share in that moment of trying out a new pet. Thanks Burr. After that i went to dalaran to parade my new pet around and taunt the horde a little by beastial wrathing by their bank. I pretty much told everyone i knew that i have it. Now I just need to get it lvled up to 80 so he can come to Naxx. I also havent settled on a name yet.
Additionally, we tried Malygos 10 man again. We wiped 3 or 4 times before giving up. I have at least seen all 3 phases now, though we barely got into phase 3 before the enrage. Stacking sparks and moving Maly seem to be hard, but im sure we will get it eventually. We will need to start focusing a bit more on 25 man naxx for some gear upgrades, but most of us are geared through 10 man naxx now.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Naxxramas Cleared

Ok, so my group which is group 3 of blood for bloods naxx 10 mans ran on saturday. I intially didnt know what to expect since we were planning to two heal it up through 4 horsemen and patchwerk as well as bring along a guildy who is a prot warrior but still low on gear. It worked out really well though since the prot warrior got a lot of big gear upgrades since our MT and OT dont need any gear. We cleared everything with relative ease and a decent pace and finally came to the 4 horsemen where through experience we know we require a 3rd healer. Fortunately, a leet resto druid friend of the guild signed on who only runs 25 mans, and he popped into the group in the place of the prot warrior and on we went. We two shot 4 horsemen then one shot the rest of the construct quarter. This was mind blowing to me since we had at least one pug mage in the group who was learning the fights, though he had real strong dps. Somehow we just kept going and kept downing bosses without any major highups. We then ported up to sapphiron and one shot that ice dragon for our 3rd key to malygos. Onto Kael'thuzad who our group had never downed before, and i had only attempted once. Now conceptually, this is not the most difficult fight. Simply survive phase 1, then once KT strikes you engage him and have two very simple rules. Heal anyone who gets iceblocked immediately, and stay out of the red void zones. Thats all you have to do. If you can do those two things and have reasonable DPS, KT will eventually go down. The problem is that the margin for error in those two things is very small. The window to heal an iceblock person is 3 seconds so the healers really have to fire off some flash instant heals. The red stuff you need to get out of real fast or you will instantly die. This is a huge problem for our raid members who have some lag. Needless to say, getting up to the learning curve took 4 or 5 times, but we got him. I think i gave myself carpal tunnel clicking buttons so hard those last 10% of KTs health. I was freaking out.
The night turned out well for me on the gear front as well. I got the Nerubian Conquerer as well as the Wraith Spear. Now I for the longest time as a NE hunter have mostly refused to use guns. I always thought it was too much of a dwarf thing and that the loud concussive banging would bother me. But if you look at the gear in Naxx, there really arent any good bows or crossbows as weapons, but only guns. So i decided for the first time to level my gun skill and use a gun as a ranged weapon. I know I dont play on a RP server, but sometimes i like to dabble in it. A NE would never use a gun, but this time it will be an exception. My bow strings simply can not withstand the frigid cold of northrend, so I had to move to a gun.

Also, I am still on the hunt for spirit beast and rare spawns in Sholazar Basin, and I finally got one. I spotted King Krush (large green dino) and nuked his big green butt down. It was a bit harder since i had recently tamed a lvl 76 raptor so with him as my tank holding aggro was a tiny problem. I did manage to kill King Krush relatively easily still, and got myself the northern exposure achievement. Unfortunately, I had to log back on at 2am EST to see what would spawn next for rare spawns at the 6 hr repop timer. So i logged back on and was circling. For one second my targetting macro went off for Loque'nahak and I spun around spamming my macro, but it was gone. I dont know if someone beat me to the tame, whether it was a pet of someone already who didnt change the name and mounted up, or what. But i got that huge adrenaline rush only to have it gone instantly. Oh well, i will find it eventually. It took me weeks and weeks just to see Krush alive, so i think i am getting closer and the hard work is going to pay off soon.

I also did my first Strand of the Ancients BG which was interesting. I expect now in full PVE gear to get obliterated by PVP players in season 4-6 gear. I simply cant match their survivability normally. But it was sweet that I actually managed to one on one kill some people. Sure it was normally a lock who wasnt looking and i would drop an intimidate on them and nuke. But it was good to do some PVP again. For those that dont know, when i turned 70 and was still a solo leveling noob, i was told i was too weak for heroics, so in order to get stronger i just did BGs and PVPed for what seemed like months at a time. I had full S2 gear, when that was still good, and had really gotten pretty good at it. Maybe i will regain some glory eventually. LOL, i even joined a guild 5v5 team. Hunters are notoriously bad at arenas due to the whole moving around thing, but we'll see. I have never done an arena, and dont have any PVP gear other then something i got off of Archavon. It will be painful.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Why do you torment me so spirit beast?

OK so as all 1 or 2 of my readers knows (if anyone even reads this), I have been looking for the spirit beast Loque'nahak for weeks if not months. So i am doing my usual flying around SB last night spamming my targeting macro when what do i see? My macro yells at me that it has found its target and i zoom in to find the spirit beast has already been tapped and IS BEING KILLED by a rogue who was just mining ore. At least they got the achievement, but god my luck sucks. The one time i fly the opposite direction of my normal route and i am 1 minute behind to taming this beast. This was like catching a glimpse of my dream just to have it being killed in front of me. Stupid rogue who will remain nameless unless you zoom in on the pictures. I have screen shots to document that i have at least seen the spirit beast. Unfortunately this is probably the closest that i will ever come. fml.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Naxx cleared by guild


Ok just some pics from my groups run of naxx showing us doing our first guild downing of Saphiron. We only have KT one shot since we knew people had to leave, and we got owned by ice blocks and red stuff. Not to be outdone, guild run #2 cleared naxx and took down KT. That group is mostly composed of Team Awesomesauce. Good job for them, soon i will clear naxx and now onto Maly.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

There is no justice

Simply put, there is no justice in WoW. Here i have been searching for the spirit beast for weeks at a time and spending 30min to an hour a day, every day circling scholozar basin spamming a targetting macro to catch a glimpse of a rare spawn. And what do i see yesterday in dalaran, a freaking lvl 77 hunter running around with spirit beast. They said it was their very first time in SB ever and they saw spirit beast and got it. That shows there is no justice in WoW, no benefit for hard work, it is nothing but a game of luck. That is the last straw, and i am no longer going to be spending hours upon hours looking for a stupid pet that someone who doesnt even know what the thing is, is just going to tame or kill.

p.s.- B4B has cleared all 4 wings of naxx. Only sapphiron and KT yet to down.