Thursday, February 26, 2009

Things can change with the quickness...

Afternoon blog lovers!

I mentioned in my last post that I was currently in hell (working 1st shift). Unfortunately I am still located there and I must say...

I'm alot more sleepy, however I am actually sleeping more then what I would on my normal shift! Definitely sounds weird that I am sleeping more on a "normal" persons shift then my graveyard shift.

eh...I'm not going to argue. More sleep is ok in my book and I can actually sleep next to my girl during the week...which is a good thing as well =P

I choose you WTFspaghetti!!

O yes, thats right! I busted out some old school memories from one of my favorite cartoons during my childhood days, Pokemon. I have no idea why I choose Venusaur...(thats right, I remember their names!)

Actually, I only remember just a few of their names. I used the power of google
to find this list lol

Anyway, back to WoWtalk

See, what happen was...

Last article I wrote about how guild recruiting was going great and how we actually cleared 10 man Naxxramas. Things couldn't of started off better and I was looking forward to keep the progression up.

Then things changed. It wasn't a huge change, but it was definitely a blow. Our main tank/co-gm and co-author of this blog, Mannyfresh or P, has had his days off at work changed. Instead of being off during our raid times, he is now only going to be able to make 50% of our raids.

Is it a huge blow? No, its not huge....but its damn close. The main tank of the raid is, in my opinion, the most important individual in a raid. The MT role is even more important when you are talking about 10 man raids. Take into effect that he is also in a leadership role and it is going to be tough without him on half of the raids.

What now?

We got to tai chi the situation! Take that negative energy and use it for a positive gain, feel me!?!

We are coming up with a couple different solutions to our very first bump on the road. The one that is probably going to happen is that he is going to start leading our second 10 man raid group.



Currently, we are not too far away from starting a second group, but our recruitment has slowed down.

It could have to do with the fact that I am working the first shift this week and there is noone online to actively recruit during the morning time, we shall see in the following weeks.

Weekly ID10T

I haven't posted my weekly ID10T in a few weeks, so here it is, back by popular demand. I must say that this guy is the definition of the phase "Epic Fail" - Read the story here

Until next time gals and gents (where did that come from? weird)

I'm WTFout

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Monday Morning...wait..what day is it?

Afternoon blog lovers!

So I am going to assume from my own analyzing, that most of my readers work or go to school during the week, more than likely between the hours of 8am and 6pm(ish). I want all of you that fall in that category to imagine working or going to school during my normal shift, midnight to 8am.

A normal day for me would be to wake up at 6-7pm, eat dinner, and hang out with the girl until I have to get ready for work. I clock in at work at midnight and clock out at 8am. I then go home and play WoW until around 11am / noon, repeat till the weekend.

For the next two weeks I am working my normal shift on Monday, then the dreaded first shift the rest of the week.

I'm not going to lie, I feel like I am living in the twilight zone currently. I have no idea what day it is, hints the name of this post, and for some reason there is now traffic when I go and come home from work (>_<)-p .

So just an FYI to those people who read my blog on a regular basis...one of your authors is stuck in hell. I will try to send a postcard every once in awhile...

Onward with the WoWage!

WTFspaghetti's 15 man choir: "ooooooOOOOOOOOOOO FO SHIZZLE"

Naxxramas

As I wrote about last week, our new guild first raid was this weekend. I was pretty f'n excited to see what everyone was made of and how good we actually would do. I was also a little nervous, I know how important first impressions are and I wanted to set a standard of how things were going to work in our guild.

Most importantly, I wanted to start on time! I always hated not starting on time with my old guild and I didn't want to give that impression during our first guild raid. Of course, we ended up started 20 minutes late due to 2 people that actually signed up, not showing up on time.

However, they did have reasons when I spoke to them later, but that is neither here or there...

Spider Wing - 1 shotted
Plague Wing - 1 shotted except for Loatheb (killed 2nd attempt)
Military Wing - 1 shotted except for Four Horsemen (killed 4th attempt)

Then we ran out of raid time for Saturday. I wasn't upset, but I felt we could have done alot better. However I was excited that within one week of recruiting, we got a full guild run together.

Its not like we did horrible either, so I was looking forward to clear the rest on Sunday.

Construct Quarter CHAOS!

Sunday started on time and 1 shotted Patchwerk. We then spent 8 attempts on Grob!!!

OMG, what the hell is going on here? It wasn't like people didn't understand what was going on, it was that at least 1 person would fail at some point during the encounter. We finally pulled together and killed em and collected our badge, both items were d/e'd. LOL

Just from that, we wasted 2.5 hours of precious raid time. Pretty horrible considering you have a maximum of 4 hours. From there we wiped on Gluth, but then made a quick change in the kiters and kill him. We had time for one attempt on Thaddius and die due to the polarity mishappenings.

Overall

I think it was a success because actually everyone stuck around and finally came through on a boss that was hard for the raid. Plus, I never killed Gluth before and that made me happy.

Morning Morni...o ya...Tuesday Afternoon Madness!

Logged in on Monday morning and I was happy to find a guild full of level 80 guildies! Hey, thats pretty cool, I am used to playing with just a few max level players during my main playing time (morning server time).

So what to do? Well, we took full advantage and cleared the rest of Naxxramas!!















Was it a full guild clear? No, we had 2 pug'd dps.
Am I counting it as one though? Hell yes I am lol...why not?

What a great feeling.

WoW hasn't made me feel this way since the good ol'days of Vanilla WoW and we cleared BWL for the first time. It did help that I got my t7 helm which means I am rocking my 4 piece set bonus..../dance

I have a couple other things I want to talk about but I will save it for another time. Until next time blog lovers, i'm WTFout!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Sunday Screenshot - Old School Fun

Happy Sunday blog lovers!

ya right....who really likes Sundays? It marks the end of the weekend and even though overall people love Sundays, deep down they don't.

Admit it!

no? ok...moving on...

Every Sunday I do a short blog post showing some sort of screen shot. Today when I was looking through my folder I found alot of old school shots that made me reflect on the good old days.


The day 40 man Naxxramas came out in Vanilla WoW and how it looked like on a PvP server. Good fun (and honor) was had =P


Check out this article I wrote when I first started blogging for some more old school memories.

Until Monday - I'm WTFout!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Screenshot, New Guild, Pandora



After reading about these challenges and seeing everyone's nice screen shots, I decided I would go ahead and see what my 6th screen shot is.

There you have it! I couldn't for the life of me remember why I took this screen shot. In fact most of the stuff in my screen shots folder is pure junk. I have a lot of old BG scoreboards (what can I say I like to stroke the e-peen once and a while). I can only assume I took this screen shot to blackmail Priestkush. Whatever the reason, I got a good chuckle out of it.

And, Yes. That is a Troll Priest. ( I miss good ole Hydropawnics sometimes)


New Guild

As I am sure you read, The good doctor and I have started a "casual raiding guild". This is a new experience for us and let me tell you. It is a lot of work. If we didn't already know that, we would have been in for a rude awakening. So far things are going well. Explicit's first guild raid is this weekend. I am cautiously optimistic that we will not have to pug anyone. I am also aiming for a first raid clear of the first four wings of naxx 10. Am I setting my sights to high? The Elitist in me says "no way, if I can join a random pug and clear to KT then we should be roflstomping this place." We seem to be getting a good core of people, Our unique raid times (8am server time, on the weekends no less!) have allowed us to gather a group of people that seem to all be seeking the same thing, progression in a relaxed atmosphere of players that strive to improve. I want our raids to start on time and our raid group to be a smooth, well oiled machine. It can only come from organization, and that starts at the top. This first raid will give us the opportunity to set the tone for all the guild raids to come.

Its interesting to see how the officers do things differently. Some times I think I am a bit to on the elitist side but the doctor balances that out pretty well with his personality. Other times though, Its the exact opposite. I am really looking forward to how the raids come together. I am sure you will get an update from the doctor on how things went.


Pandora


In parting I leave you with Pandora. Its internet radio that only plays songs you like! I have tried some of the other things out there that have a "if you like this, try this" function and was never very impressed. With this though, It was almost like listening to my music collection on my computer but with some new twists thrown in, definitely worth a look. Also has an app for Iphone and can be used with Windows mobile.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Blogger Challenge!

Morning blog lovers!

So our friends over at Frost is the New Black had an interesting article the other day. Another blogger, Maiara, made a post that challanged 6 other bloggers to go into their screenshot folder and choose the 6th picture. Then post it and write a little story about it.

Well Krizzlybear challenged your truely and I gladly accepted.

O yes, that big ugly SOB is Gruul. It was back in when TBC first came out and everything was new and excititing. I wish I could remember if it was the first time we took him down or not....I highly doubt it because he was a straight BEAST when he was first introduced.

I do remember our crazy GM stating that everyone should drop one profession and level up leatherworking in order to get the drums trinket for extra dps. It wasn't too long after we first took Gruul down that I quit the guild and actually quit the game for awhile.

I just started a new job and I started dating this girl. I am still at the same job and my girlfriend and I moved in together. As I stated plenty of time, World of Warcraft is digital crack cocanine. I came back shortly after we moved in together, about a 7 month break from the game.

So there you have it. My sixth screenshot in my screenshot folder, who would have thought it was Gruul..../shrug.

Now its your turn!

Its easy. Go to your screenshot folder, choose the sixth image, write a post about it, then challenge other bloggers!

I will challenge the following bloggers:

  1. Darraxus, from Darraxus the Warrior

  2. Ribeye from Too Many Alts

  3. Green Armadillo from Player vs Developer

  4. Arthak from Arthak's Apothecarium

  5. Fish from Gnome Warrior is an Oxymoron

  6. Drug from Shields Up!

Lets see some of those screenshots!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Old memories, new beginnings, and a world event...

Morning blog lovers!

Lets get right into it shall we?

WTFspaghetti's 15 man choir: "OOOH HELLL YESSSSS!"

Love is in the Air (pfft, ya right)

I know everyone is happy that the "Love is in the Air" event is over, whether they admit it or not. I haven't talked to anyone that enjoyed the event and there are posts all over the blogmosphere backing that opinion up. When I cleared out my bags, I was amazed at all of the space I had lol. That by itself made me happy the event was over.

If you tried to complete the world event and you failed, it was more then likely due to the fact that RNG pwned you with the Bag of Candies drops. I know it pwned me....atleast I thought it did...

Spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday trying to get those candy bags to drop for me every hour. I remember thinking to myself before I went to work on Sunday night...

"This is it, if I don't get a Candy Bag right now then I have no chance of completing the World Event!"

/deep breath

Teknizzle receives [Love Rockets] and [Flowers]

/Y DAMN YOU RNG! DAMN YOUR UGLY FACE!!

Sorry, got a little emotional there....cough...anyway, right, back to the point.

So when I got home at 9am, the event had officially ended. However, there were still a few NPCs that had hearts above there head, urm ok.

Teknizzle receives [Love Rockets] and [Flowers]

Yup, but then something magical happened. Right before I was about to log, I decided to try it one last time, but could not find an NPC with a heart over its head. This was about 11am or so, well past the time the event officially ended (6am). I run around looking for one for about 5 minutes and just when I am about to give up and log, I find one hidden in a tent in Thunder Bluff.

Teknizzle receives [Bag of Candies]

What do you know, I got my third bag of candy! After sitting there for 5 mins, I finally looted my last heart, "All Mine", and got my achievement / title. I was pretty happy about because I thought my chances were over after spending all that time on it.

Take that RNG, you sob.





In other news...

After weeks of contemplation and thinking of any possible solution to my problem. I have decided to leave my guild after being a member for over a year. It was pretty sad but it had to be done in my opinion.

It boils down to that we have to recruit. No big deal, but here is the thing....its not my guild. The GM plays on his alliance server 95% of the time. What really pushed me over the edge is when we needed 1 more dps slot for our weekly Naxxramas group, the GM told us no because he was going to raid with his Alliance guild.

Why would I spend more time and effort recruiting people to that situation? There are a select amount of people that are still with the guild that I wish would join me in the new guild, but that isn't going to happen due to facts that I would get into.

They all understand why I left, but for some reason or another, they just don't want to give it up. What is really sad is the individual that I became really cool with in the guild will not be joining me. I can tell our relationship probably won't be the same after talking with him earlier today. Oh well, nothing I can do. Hopefully it doesn't turn out like that.

Introduction

Our local Death Knight, "P" and myself are the proud Co-GMs of Explicit. Coming up with the name with guild names was alot funnier then I imagined. We had some bad ones, some crazy ones, some latin ones (lol), but only 1 or 2 good ones. Everybody seemed to like it and the rest was history.

Because of our unique raid times, 8am server (PST), we seemed to find our own niche. Recruitment is going pretty good so far and I can only hope that it continues. Our first raid will be this weekend and I for one am setting the standard high. I am excepting a full clear of the four quarters and atleast some attempts on the last two bosses. We shall see!

If you know anyone that might be interested in active morning guild or that wants to raid in the mornings? Have them check us out. Currently we are only raiding on the weekends, 8am PST. Weekday raids will start once we get more people.

Go go go go morning guilds!

Arcane and Mages

Wow o wow do I dislike what Blizzard did to my arcane Mage.

Before I get into it I do want to say that Arcane Mages are not broken. I do not think that we completely suck nor am I going to stop playing because of what Blizzard has done to the spec.
Now that I have my anti-troll disclaimer shield up and charged. I have two major issues with the current spec, rotation and mana.

Rotation

First thing first, the reason why I loved my arcane mage before this last patch was that he was fast paced. Arcane Blastx3 then Arcane Barrage. Only time you would use Arcane Missiles is when you get the buff "Missile Barrage", which the five pulses would shoot out of you like a machine gun.

Now, since the last patch it isn't even worth using the mana for the Arcane Barrage spell. Your new rotation becomes ABx3 then regular Arcane Missiles.

It is no longer fast paced at all. It is like comparing a AK47 to a pump shotgun, except the bullets cause the same about of damage. The AK will shoot five bullets in 2-3 seconds, the shotgun will shoot 5 bullets in 5-6 seconds. This probably upset me the most even though its not a terrible decrease in my DPS...about 100 to 200 less. Its the principle and a change of play styles.

Mana issues

This is major and has dumb founded me. Lets say you are sticking with your rotation that I mention above ok?

You start to cast your third Arcane Blast. Immediately, you are already hitting Arcane Missiles while it is casting because your a good player and trying to rack up as much DPS as you can.

Arcane Blast finishes and you already cast Arcane Missiles. Perfect right? Wrong. Missile Barrage proc'd so your Arcane Missiles just cost you 10-20% of your mana. Lets say you were using Arcane Power too, a buff that increases your damage by 30% and the cost of mana by 30%.

You just spent 35-40% of your mana on one spell. I know Arcane Mages are awaiting patch 3.1 to see how the spirit changes will affect this, I know I am.

My point is that you really, really, really need to be aware of your buffs and your how to manage your mana.


Thats all folks!

Fun stuff people! Kinda long post, thanks for all who actually read the whole thing =D. All raids have reset and with that being said I wish you all luck in obtaining those purtty purples.

Until next time, I'm WTFout!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sunday Screenshot - The reward at the end of the tunnel...

Yes o yes, after weeks of speculation, I finally got my t7 shoulders!

Hope your Sunday is a memorable one (a positive memorable!), I'll see ya Monday

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Why everyone should do "Love is in the Air" event...

Morning blog lovers!

Friday is almost here already? I feel like I have been in a zombie state this week, its going by so fast! I'll take that as a good thing and try to make it through another day till freedom, the weekend.


Go go gadget WoWtalk!

WoW's current world event, "Love is in the Air", is by far the most annoying event I have done. I have done all of them since the achievement system came out last October, so Hallow's End till the present.

The reason why is because you have to rely on others in order to get everything done in the short amount of time you have. PLUS, if your main playing time is during the peak time for your server, good luck finding a NPC with a heart about its head consistently. THEN, you have a chance to get "heart broken".

Heart broken - a debuff that last an hour unless another person uses an item that is in limited supply.

Non-peak hours issues

So I did the event for a couple hours in the morning after work, during non-peak hours and it went smooth, sorta. The only thing I had issues with is that once you got a broken heart, it was hard to get another person to mend it. There just wasn't enough people on and doing the event.

On the flip side

Before I came in to work, I logged in and started on the event. This is during the peak playing time for my server and I must say it was quite a different experience. The cities were PACKED with people running around looking for the NPC love slaves. The local, trade, and LFG channel was also slammed with people wanting to trade conjured items and everywhere you turned you heard pleas from people about un-breaking their hearts.

Unlike during the non-peak hours, I did not have any problem getting my heart unbroken. The major issue was that there wasn't enough NPCs available! I ran around Thunder Bluff trying to collect the items from the NPC love slaves for a little over an hour and still didn't get all the items I needed. Pretty depressing and annoying.

Why everyone should do this event?

Why you ask, because their is ALOT of money to be made. In every major city you have to collect 3 major items from love slave NPCS. Each one of these major items take 5 minor items to make into one of your 3 major items. (Hope that made sense) Also, for the title you need a few items like rose petals and love rockets.

All of these items can not be put on the Auction House, HOWEVER, they can be traded. I traded 5 cooked pies (one of the minor items) for 60g. I also sold 3 bouquet of flowers (again one of the minor items) for 150 gold. The love rockets and the rose petals were going at 30 gold a piece as well.

Lots of money to be made I tell ya.

Pro Tips
  1. You can do the beginning quest line with any level character. You don't even have to go out of the Major City for the majority of it and its a lock that you will get atleast a couple of rose petals and a love rocket. Log onto your alts, do the few simple quests and then sell em.

  2. Hell, I am not positive on this one, but you could even make a brand new character. Just run him to the major city and you should be able to complete the few quests and profit.

  3. There is one minor item in each major city that seems to have a very low drop rate. For the horde its pies in Org, flowers in TB, and cards in UC. These items are what sell the best.

  4. This world event is very very short, it ends this coming up Monday. You might want to save all your conjured items till then to get the most bang for your buck. Its a risk, but if you ask me, its a pretty low risk.

There you have it, a breakdown of the current world event, "Love is in the Air", through the eyes of WTFspaghetti.

Searching for more information on the event? Go check out our friends at /hug, he always has a great article on world events.

Until next time, I'm WTFout!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Unbreak My Heart!

Keep this one nice and sweet (get it? Nice and Sweet? Valentines Day? LOL....no?....ok.../fail)

Having your heartbroken in the WoW's current world event, Love is in the Air, completely sucks.

Get ready for the next 10 days in all channels across the world of Azeroth, "Unbreak MAH HEART! Say you'll love me again!"

Yes, that is a picture of an artificial heart. Don't worry, I'm freaked out a little too. Cya tomorrow!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Monday Morning Warcraft - Elitism, Upgrades, and Patch changes...

Monday Morning Warcraft is a weekly post that illustrates random thoughts and events that occurred over the weekend in the life of a wowhead. Feel free to e-mail me with questions, suggestions, hate mail, ect... mlange0385 at yahoo dot com

Morning blog lovers!

Ahh Monday...

God I hate you, out of all of the days in the week I have always despised you. I know its not your fault and someone had to take the first day of the week...but I don't care /threat

Now that I am done personifying a day of the week, how was your weekend? I had alot of stuff going on in real life but I also got my fair share of WoW time in. I got a decent amount of upgrades and I didn't spend too much money on repair bills, can't complain right?

Back to real life for a second, (just one paragraph, I promise) I found out this weekend that I am moving! BLAH, I hate moving. Like really.....I hate it and come to think about it, who doesn't? So within the next 30 days or so...my wow time will be completely shut down due to the fact of everything getting setup and transferring my internet, tv, utilities...

/wrist

Onward with the WoWtalk!

Ya, you know it, WTFspaghetti style!

Naxxramas

I can't help to be disappointed, but I really shouldn't be. My guild did a pretty good job in Naxx this week. We one shotted everything except the Instructor (one tank not knowing how to use taunt while bone shield is up) however, for the first week since we stepped foot in Naxx, no progress was made.

We are still 11/15 in regrads to Naxx bosses. Gluth is doing a great job in being our road block right now and I will say...it blows. At first the problem seemed to be the kiting, so I logged onto my mage and respec'd him to pretty much ALL frost. Then the problem was PURE dps, with the all of the zombies being kited and crowd controled, we couldn't beat the enrage timer. We gave it three or four good shots before calling it. Kinda left people, including myself, feeling blah...


Let me upgrade ya!

PRECIOUS! O how we do love our preicous'ess. First off, if you don't know what I am referring to when I said "precious", shame on you. I don't think you can be a World of Warcraft fan and not a Lord of the Rings fan...

Anyway, I like I said above, I got alot of decent upgrades this weekend. First off I got into a 25 man Naxx run with one of the top guilds in our server. God I forgot how entertaining "elitist" are on vent. For the record, I have no problem with "elitist". That doesn't mean I can't poke fun at them though right?

Of course everything was one shotted and I actually picked up one of my "best in slot" items for my main hand, [Wrathstrike]. I was the only one that rolled on it and won it with a 20 lol. Hooray for elite guild.

During our Naxx guild run, I finally replaced my blue bracers with some well needed epic ones. (I forget what they are called and I can't look them up due to being at work ><.) I also picked up my T7 chest piece which means I now have enough for my set bonus, woot for me. RNG wins again!

I mention a couple of times about my T7 shoulders dropping in previous post and what do you know...this weekend they actually dropped! I only had to beat one person with rolls and I rolled a 85.

SOLID! Thats what I am talking about!

WTFspaghetti's 15 man chior: "HAAALLLEUJAAAH!"

Did the hunter just roll a 93!?!

WTFspaghetti's 15 man chior: "DUN DUN DUN DUNNNN!"

Pwned by RNG again. I sure hope they drop again because my current shoulders are so damn ugly looking.

~Monday Morning Madness~
  1. There are some exciting class changes coming up in the new patch, 3.1. One of the ones I am most happy about is Blessing of Kings becoming a base spell.

  2. Another wild change is the fact that consumable ammunition is being removed from the game. Woah...that is wild and I know that just made alot of hunters happy. What about the bags that gives hunters a buff to their range attack? When I find out, you know you can find it here.

  3. Another upcoming change with patch 3.1 is the introduction of duel specs. This makes alot of people happy, including myself...but I don't know how much I will use it personally. You are still going to have to pay gold to respec. You just don't have to go to a trainer and all of your bars and gyphs are setup.

  4. Who would have thought that my first piece of Valorous gear wouldn't be on my main, my shaman. Not I, but it happend on a heroic Vault run. Somehow I was the only Mage in the raid, so the raid leader didn't ninja them (!shock!) and gave me the loot. So I am now the proud owner of some [Valorous Frostfire Gloves].

  5. After multiple runs of heroic Violet Hold, I finally picked up [Mark of the War Prisoner]. That means I can completely hit capped for raids and I will be able start focusing of my dps stats.

How did your weekend go? Until next time, I'm WTFout

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Sunday Screenshot

Yes yes...I know other sites do the same thing and I don't like to straight copy other peoples ideas...but

...in this case I am. /fail

Being bored with some Savory Deviate Fish and my flying carpet

All things must end sooner or later, so let the end of your weekend be filled with purples and no repair bills.

Cya Monday

Thursday, February 5, 2009

What Makes a Player Good? Most Fail Pug Ever.

Earlier this month a discussion raged across the blogosphere (who coined this term? is it patented?) about what makes a WoW player good. I enjoyed reading everyone's opinion on the matter and I thought I would chime in (better late than never!).

There are 2 "stats" that all wow players have to one degree or another. Lets call them Knowledge and Execution.

Knowledge: skills acquired by a person through experience or education.

Execution: the act of performing; of doing something successfully; using knowledge as distinguished from merely possessing it.

So we have Know How and Can Do. One of these "stats" alone does not a good player make. (help you, I will)

Player A and B both stood in the fire and died. Player A stood in the fire because he did not know standing in the fire was bad. Yikes! Player B died because although he knew standing in the fire was bad, somehow he just couldn't make it out of the fire. Player A failed due to a lack of knowledge, Player B failed due to lack of execution. Having the knowledge but no ability to perform get us no where and vice versa. So a good player is going to both know what they need to do, and be able to do it.

My idea extends to raids as well. Raids fail because people either didn't know what to do or, they knew but were not able to accomplish their goal. The hard part is figuring out which side of the equation is lacking. Repeated wipes on a boss need to be analyzed as to why it happened. Does the raid need to change its approach or strategy? Knowledge issue. No point in attempting the boss until you realize what needs to be done differently. Everyone know the fight and their responsibilities? Execution issue, Wipe away.


Most Fail Pug Ever.

Since our guild is to small for anything other than 10 mans I try to make sure I join Pug 25 man groups every week for my emblems of heroism and chance at better loot. Normally all goes well. This week however, I had the misfortune of joining The Most Fail Pug Ever (which will now be referred to as MFPE). So I join the MFPE for 25 man OS and right away I see signs of trouble. The raid leader can't seem to decide if I should tank or dps. I don't particularly care but after switching gear sets 3 or 4 times ( I do not have outfitter) I start to get a bit annoyed. I make my way to Wyrmcrest and as soon as I get there a raid warning pops up saying I am the offtank. This is all well and good except for the fact that last he told me I was going to be dpsing, So I had none of my gear with me. Once we finally get started it turns out that I probably could have stayed in as dps because every pull there are 4 tanks fighting over the mobs. /facepalm.

We stumble through the rest of the instance. People are dieing every pull but we managed without a wipe. Great! Sarth down, time for loots!

MFPE loot "rules": Main spec before offspec

* First item looted. Resto sham item. "accidentally" master looted to enhance sham.

* Second Item looted. T7 set piece. awarded to a guy who "won" the roll with a /roll 100-100

* Third item looted. T7 set piece. awarded to ^^That guy^^ who is not even the right class for it.

* Bag of spoils given to someone who didn't even roll.

My first thought of course was that these guys are all in the same guild. Nope, apparently total strangers and the master looter just made a mistake. several mistakes. IN A ROW. The sad part is I BELIEVE him. I think rather than being some part of a loot conspiracy, this guy was just a total dipshit (short on execution). At least I got my emblems. Lesson learned. I will be running my own pugs from now on and master looting them. Anyone know a good site to find established raid compositions?

Till next time

"pimpin ain't dead, ho's need bread"

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Upgradeitis

Upgradeitis: The condition of a WoW player after a length of time with no upgrades to their gear set, Can Result in loss of desire to play WoW

I had been suffering a bit of this disease lately. My tanking gear had not improved in 3 weeks, I was being asked to DPS things instead of tanking them. I didn't feel like my normal sexy tank self. So I took a page out of my Fiance's book. SHOPPING SPREE!!!!!

I always try and save the different currencies in WoW until I start feeling the effects of a mild case of Upgradeitis, That way I have the cure ready and waiting for that rainy day. This week I have been pretty busy with RL stuff, so my WoW playtime naturally is suffering. When you only have an hour to play you really cannot get all that much done. No heroic daily, No heroics period. So I have been logging on to spend my various currencys.

Over the course of a day or two I bought:
an epic ring with honor
an epic trinket with Wintergrasp marks
an epic tanking ring with Emblams of Valor
and depending on how the bids go, a sweet epic tanking cloak at quite a discount below market price from the AH
I also got the tanking legs from 25 man vault.

Guess its time to grind some more gold for enchants and gems.

Another case of Upgradeitis averted. I should be so fresh and so clean for my boss crotch session in Naxx this weekend.

The Dirty Face of "RNG"

Morning blog lovers

Topic of this post is something that everyone that plays wow has gone through. (If you haven't then you are either the luckiest person or you don't farm instances for gear.)

O yes, that is right. The dreaded RNG loot on a boss. The acronym"RNG" stands for the word, random. In regards to World of Warcraft, the acronym is used to to state how loot off a boss or npc is random.

I will use our friend Darraxus from Darraxus the Warrior as the perfect example. For the past 2 or so months, Darraxus has been farming a level 58-60 instance(Undead Strat) for a mount drop. This drop is very rare and from reading his posts, he has probably done over 60 or so runs with no luck.

Now, lets say that I go in there on my first time and get the mount. PERFECT example of RNG pwning Darraxus.

We have all been there before. Farming a certain instance for a particular item that NEVER seems to drop for you.

First time I got pwned by "RNG"

I remember 4 or so years ago when I was leveling my shaman. At this time I was on my very first server and I was as certified noob. Shaman was level 34 when I discovered the instance, Scarlet Monastery. After seeing HOW amazing cool looking Herod's Shoulders looked, I knew I had to have it. I leveled from 34 to 41 on my Shaman SOLELY in this instance and never saw it drop ONCE. It was so upsetting that I rerolled to a different server and changed from the horde to the Alliance.

RNG got its revenge on me when the character that I rerolled for, warrior, got the shoulders on its very first run lol....really makes you want to scream! lol

Memorable Moments of RNG Pwnage
  1. Trying to get my Draconian Deflector from the last boss in UBRS. Finally got it after 60+ trys

  2. Bad Mojo Mask from Zul'Farrak for my mage never dropped. Easily killed the boss that drops it 20+ times.

  3. Perdition's Blade from MC. One of my good friends in real life saw it drop once and got out rolled by a mace spec rogue with the exact same about of DKP.

I remember being over at his house watching him play and hoping that it would drop after 30+ kills of Rag. After it dropped him and I were jumping up and down cheering....then he lost the roll and I actually fell out of my chair. Its really funny now, but he at the time...man /crickets.

Since then he has quit the game due to his daughter being born, but I think the reason why he won't come back is the horrid memory of that night lol.

What about in Wotlk?

Well, we haven't had too much of Naxxramas on farm yet. We have had the Plague and the Spider quarter cleared for about 6-8 weeks. Still haven't seen all my loots on my Shaman yet, so I am having a bad feeling about the dreaded "RNG", sticking its dirty face in my business. Only time will tell...

What about you guys? Any haunting, funny, or memorable RNG stories??

Monday, February 2, 2009

Monday Morning Warcraft - A Weekend Full of Win

Monday Morning Warcraft is a weekly post that illustrates random thoughts and events that occurred over the weekend in the life of a wowhead. Feel free to e-mail me with questions, suggestions, hate mail, ect... mlange0385 at yahoo dot com

Morning blog lovers!

The weekend came and past. Damn that was quick!

Seriously, that is why I don't like my weekends to be full with stuff to do. The weekend seems to last longer when you have absolutely nothing planned. I will say this though, it was fun. The UFC fight and the Super Bowl were both this weekend and I was only disappointed in one of them.

UFC fight, Bj Penn and GSP. First of all, the card in general seemed to be lacking a little bit. The main fight really wasn't a fight at all either, Bj Penn got SERVED. I wouldn't ever think that I would see Penn throw in the towel, but when he did I couldn't blame him. He was getting worked on every level and overall it was a little disappointing because I been waiting for this fight for a long time.

Super Bowl was, as I hoped, a good game and a great time. I couldn't stay for all of it because I had to get a nap in before I went to work, but it was an awesome game and I applaud to that. My stomach is in alot of pain from all of the variety of food that I ate. Ugh...seriously, it still feels pretty bad....moving on to a different subject.

The Super Bowl commericals that I saw were pretty good. I really want to see the new G.I. Joe movie when it comes out solely for the badass factor. Anyway, here is a link to view all of the Super Bowl Ads 2009. Remember, with businesses paying 3 million dollars for a 30 second air time, its safe to assume that they went all out. By the way, Congrats to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the most winning franchise in NFL history. (6 Super Bowls titles)

Ok ok, now on to the good stuff. O yes, lets begin the WoW Talk!!!

WTFspaghetti's 15 man choir - Haaaaalleluuuujah!

Thats what I am talking about.

First things first, I dinged 80 with my Mage on Friday. Yay for me, I now have a dps and a healing class to mess around with at max level. Next is my tank, Paladin, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Welcome back to the Stage of History, FIGHT! (Mage style)

It was nice having my Mage being my second 80 because I had ALOT of upgrades waiting for him in the bank. I also got my tailoring up to 440 and now I am sporting my ebonweave robe and gloves.

I also took an hour out of my day farmed the mats for my Deathchill Cloak which is WELL worth it. I was rocking about 1500-1600 dps in heroics before my cloak. I am now around 1700-1800 with just the cloak added. Anytime your dps goes up 200 from one item, it is a WIN.

Currently, I am obsessed with hit rating. I am at work so I can't check exactly what my hit is currently, but I know it is atleast 250-270ish. Which works out to about 7 or 8% of my 17% that I need for raiding. With my talents, I am rocking 14% which is good for everything besides raid bosses. Spell Hit has always been a bit of a mystery to me because I never really raided with my Mage in TBC, so I am not calming to be an expert at it at all. I would check out Player vs Developer's post, he sounds like he knows what he is talking about. I have it permanently linked on my page under the Mage section, but here it is again.

Overall, I am pretty excited about getting my Mage to 80 and doing this thing they call, damage dealing. We shall see how it works out.

Naxxramas

O yes, O yes. I know you been waiting seating on the edge of your seats waiting for me to talk about our guilds progression in Naxxramas.

/end sarcaism

Well, it went how it should go. Learn from your mistakes and collect the loot.

I am happy to report that my guild is downed 11 out of the 15 bosses in Naxxramas. We would have taken out Gluth, but due to the Super Bowl we had to call it. Which was complete weaksauce, but hey...Some of us had a party to prepare for =P

It seems like we finally have a stable group of people that are going every week instead of 3-4 different people a week. This makes a HUGE difference in regards to progression and it has been showing.

We rolled in the Death Knight quarter and cleared that place out within an hour or so. The Four Horseman fight wasn't too bad, pretty simple actually. I was super surprised how easy Gothik was...I mean when we 1 shot a new boss, you know it was SIMPLE lol. With the Four Horsemen, it only took us 3 or 4 tries before everyone was on the same page. (2 of the 4 wipes were due to one person)

Overall, I am looking forward to clearing the rest of the Construct Quarter and start on the last two bosses, Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. Now you might be reading this and think to yourself, GOD, they must suck...Naxx 10 man is ezmode LAWL

I will kindly have to agree, but for us its challenging enough and that is all that matters. Especially when you are in a super causal guild and have limited playing time.

In other news...

~Monday Morning Madness~
  • Guild made a solid attempt on 1 drake up during OS

  • We decided to leave Tenebron up, the one with whelps, and I think that was our first mistake

  • Everyone did what they were suppose to do, we just couldn't get it done. I think next week we are going to try with Vespiron up. His debuff is alot more manageable I'm sure (25% less HP)

  • It really gives you a sense on exactly how hard 3 drakes up on 10 man OS really is....I really couldn't imagine healing or dpsing it. Talk about some coorindation....

  • So the Lunar Festival is going on and as I mention in my other post, I am having some major issues chosen which toon to do it with. My oldest toon, Mage, or the toon that is the newest and already has one of the world event titles.

  • I have decided, even though I don't do any sort of role playing, that I have to get the "Elder" title on my Mage. It is the right thing to do in my mind, even though I know its crazy lol.

  • I haven't decided if I should get the title on both or not.....I probably should....eh...who knows. More to come on this subject at a later date lol

  • I been saying all last week that my T7 shoulders are going to drop, well they didn't. Three weeks in a row the same shoulders (Rogue, Death Knight, Druid, Mage) dropped...weakness

Quote of the day
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”
- Malcolm X

Song of the day
"Magic Carpet Ride"
The Second
Steppenwolf

"Magic Carpet Ride"? You might asking yourself...

..."thedoctor, what made me pick that song?"

Well I will tell you in the form of a picture

O ya, you know you are jealous =P

Until next time, let your loot be phat and your repair bills low. I'm WTFout of here!

fo shizzie