tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7329818718867222052024-03-14T02:05:30.631+11:00Who's Healing?A retribution paladin with an interest in the WoW economy.Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-30403709124101730922011-02-15T23:06:00.002+11:002011-02-16T00:33:32.052+11:00Losing my sanity<span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" >Oooh <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=5125/united-nations">Dark Phoenix Hatchling.</a><br /><br />Hmm...raise 55 reputations to exalted. Seems easy enough as a guild achievement. Ahahaha no...<br /><br />This is how I imagined this achievement would be done.<br /><br />'Oh hai guys, as part of this guild I think it would be uber awesome if we all chipped in and raise a faction to exalted each. So you super friendly guildie megachum, you get Aldor. And you bff, you get Scryer!'<br /><br />Yay, and then I imagined the guildies would go and exalt their assigned factions and we would live in a land of rainbows and unicorns and dark phoenix hatchlings would spew out of our overflowing guild bank.<br /><br />In reality however, this achievement is seriously aids, and I'm not talking the helper kind either.<br /><br />No, instead this achievement is assigned to the poor assface with the highest number of exalted factions upon hitting Revered with the guild. Unfortunately in this guild, that assface is me. So needless to say, that when I hit Revered, much rage was had when I discovered that with my 47 exalted reps the guild was eight short.<br /><br />Seriously how can an a GUILD achivement depend on one person???!<br /><br />Still, at least this achievement relies on rep grinding (which to be honest I was always going to do anyway), and it does reward a nifty pet.<br /><br />So what's the equation like? Well since dinging Revered with the guild, the Darkmoon Faire and the Booty Bay grinds are done and dusted which brings us to 49. Now I'm six short. So lets break it down...<br /><br />Bilgewater Cartel: 18579/21000 - I've recently finished the other Cata grinds so I'm back to wearing this tabard for dungeons. Huzzah!<br />Everlook: 15047/21000<br />Gadgetzan: 18989/21000<br />Ratchet: 20443/21000 - All the possible quests with the goblin towns have been down and now I'm stuck. Relying on grinding a gajillion pirates is super fun! (Note: The universal conversion for 1 gajillion is 2,382 pirates).<br />Hydraxian Waterlords: 16293/21000 - Yes, grinding to exalted with Hydraxian. I must be crazy. This grind is still another five weeks away.<br />Guild: 8435/21000 - If I finish on average six dailies a day with each daily yielding 40 guild rep this is 53 days away from completion. I say six dailies a day because more than that and I want to neck myself.<br /><br />So there you have it. I was considering grinding Raveholdt by handing in lockboxes but seeing as you need Exalted guild rep anyway to purchase the dark phoenix I decided to save myself from the irony that would have occured if I had finished the Raveholdt grind and then realised I didn't have the guild reputation to purchase the bird!<br /></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-28758778091591050802010-01-29T08:05:00.002+11:002010-01-29T08:12:15.819+11:00Wrath's most irritating list<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I like to think of myself as a pretty patient player, however I just feel that sometimes Blizz just likes being a jerk. So I had a look back and here are the most irritating things and events to happen this expansion...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating daily quest*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Without a doubt in my mind I cringe every time I do the argent tournament citadel daily. Its because even after I finish knocking off the three commanders and about a dozen gargoyles that are blocking my kite path, they will be there again tomorrow, waiting to suck.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating raid achievement*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I would have to put down the Immortal/Undying achievement. Not only can no-one not die for a solid 4 hours straight, you need to ensure that things totally out of player control don't happen during that time that might cause a DC; blackouts, partner/parental rage and dodgy ISP's are the main culprits here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating heroic instance achievement*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Less Rabi. *shudders*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating holiday achievement*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I'm going to go with the 'Be Mine!'. Whether you obtain your What a Strange Long Trip its Been holiday mount or not can hinge on this dreadful bout of RNG. Why this achievement in particular? Simply because it takes two levels of RNG to complete it. Firstly you need to hope you actually get a bag of candies to drop. Secondly you got to hope that out of the bag of candies, the right combination of candies comes up. These pesky candies almost derailed my year long effort and I feel for those that missed out on their drake this year because of this.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating heroic instance*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">If you tried to put together a group to do Oculus pre nerf, you would know the pain. Even now that the instance is actually fun to do, there are a lot of mental scars. The fact that Blizz put in lures for groups to not bail on the instance such as gems, badges and even a mount, proves how much of a failure this instance was.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating raid*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Similar to Oculus, a lot of guilds and players avoided Malygos like the plague. When the new weekly raid quest came out and Malygos was the boss, I still can't believe how many times I saw 'The Spellweavers Downfall' achievement appear in guild chat and in PUG raids!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating thing about phasing*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Phasing in a starting zone like the DK starting area is brilliant, you see a changing landscape and feel the impact of your DK making a difference. That's pretty awesome. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Phasing in an end zone like oh I don't know, Icecrown is not! So many quests in Icecrown require groups to finish and when they're phased you have no chance of putting a group together, especially later in the expansion when you're leveling your 2nd or 3rd toon.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The new ICC raid has also shown how bad phasing can be. For example, when you're hanging around outside the zone in waiting for someone to do that last minute gem or enchant and realise that they're in a different part of the phase!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">and finally....</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">*Most irritating toy*</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ah the good old Toy train set. Gee I really love that moment in raids when a shrill gnome voice pierces my ears with 'choo choo choo choo whooooOOOH'. Its no wonder that through the flood of complaints Blizz would've received that they brought out the smasher. I've seen people kicked from raids for popping one, and I have to admit, it feels strangely satisfying when they do.</span></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-23629169752826955392010-01-21T08:04:00.002+11:002010-01-21T08:10:04.333+11:00Who do you save?<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You're sitting down eating your steamed fish with oranges and see a single arrow flying from a hunter's bow, hurtling far into the distance toward the boss. The pull has just gone horribly horribly wrong. You hear a oh sh*tf*ck on Vent (coming from yours truly). Raiders start dropping off like flies and you start 'DI me' getting spammed in raid chat.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Do you DI...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">a) Tank</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">b) Healer</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">c) DPS</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">You know the answer before I even ask it, and the answer is of course b) you DI a healer. Well that's not rocket surgery and yet I see pallies get it wrong all the time! I've seen pallies DI whoever they can just to skip out on repair costs. The healers are the guys that are keeping you up and don't think they won't remember your clutch. Its your way of saying thank you, that the person you DI'd was at the top of your mind and your favourite person in the raid... left alive. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Congratulations, next fight you will notice more heals coming your way and its no mistake that you can find yourself still kicking when your fellow melee have long been faceplanted in the dirt. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Okay new scenario.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">All the healers are dead, so your next choice is to DI one of the following:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">a) Fellow ret pally</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">b) Warrior main tank</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">c) Elemental shaman</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">d) Boomkin</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">e) Shadow Priest</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">f) Hunter with Goblin XL Jumper Cables</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">If you chose a) you selected the second best answer. By DIing a fellow ret naturally you have chosen to DI a resser and what goes around comes around the next time something goes wrong. Secondly, by DIing him you have taken him out of the fight and have pretty much said...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">'I know I am going to die when I DI and there is no way I'm going to let another ret paladin outdps me on meters while I'm dead (yes even on wipes)!'</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The correct answer is d) the boomkin. They are big, fluffy and easy to see. These oversized soft toys have the power to let you perform your own Jesus impersonation next time you step on that mine or take too long on that void zone. You've got a second chance to dps and you'd better do it right this time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Oh and finally, never ever pick f) because that was the reject that caused the wipe in the first place! </span></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-52163304559517436222010-01-12T22:49:00.000+11:002010-01-12T22:51:16.628+11:00Death's Verdict: The holy grail<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">How hard is it to obtain this trinket? At this point in the game, the answer is 'extremely'. Those that have it are the envy of melee, and it probably ranks up there with the coveted Dragonspine Trophy of BC (not so much for rets but I remember a lot of unhappy rogues, hunters and enhance shammy's).<br /><br />With the guilds raiding nights being spent in ICC, the opportunity to bag one is scarce and the prospect of scoring the heroic version all but gone. That leaves the bleak prospect of trying your luck in a pug *shudder* or acquiring one through a gdkp run.<br /><br />I had been wanting an upgrade from my well worn Pyrite Infuser for some time, so last Sunday, I was in a gdkp TOC run and judging by the makeup of the raid there was all sorts of melee biting at the chance to bid on Death's Verdict. In the raid were five DKs, a rogue, two ret paladins, a warrior and a hunter. Judging by how fast things were dying, the group was well geared and really only there for the trinket.<br /><br />The twins fight eventually came and I started shaking at my keyboard as my character bent over to bring up the 'Death's Verdict' loot item from the boss. Cheers rang out on vent, from everyone including those not bidding on the trinket as they knew that they had just landed a whale of an item that would sell for a hefty sum. This run was going to be profitable. But making gold is not what this particular post is about.<br /><br />Before going on with this story, you should understand that how much an item is worth by how much dps it adds is not something that can be easily measured in gold value. A small increase in dps in an item may be exhorbitant (just think of the increase in price from low grade to epic gems for what is really a minor increase in stats). Why is this? Well I think the answer is pride (or epeen), with meters constantly being spammed for one reason or another if you are in that 'top 5', the guild is constantly consciously or subconciously reminded of who the top 5 best dps are.<br /><br />Getting back to the auction, DV began with bids starting at 500g with a 100g increase. Furiously, the bidding price quickly rose to 5,000g, and then bidding started to slow at about 6,500g mark. There were some softly spoken voices and awkward silences on vent as several people had noticed that I had refrained from bidding. As the countdown for the auction began to close I showed my hand. '7,000g' I typed into the raid screen.<br /><br />A new wave of bidding erupted and more cheers went up on vent. Vent began to heat up as the price quickly soared upward past 10,000g and those with not enough gold to bid started dropping out. The number rose to 15,000g and at this point only two bidders were left, myself and a DK from a top guild sporting Bryntoll and Whispering Fang Skull. Mono et mono, the game was on.<br /><br />The number kept rising and soon we smashed through the previous record set for an item on Dreadmaul, 19,000g for the Reign of the Unliving and a new record was set at 20,000g. Not seeing any signs of weakness in his bidding I tried to go for knockout blows raising the bids each time by 2k to which the DK would quickly respond to with a counter-offer. The raid leader started commentating on the auction like it was a boxing match; 'who out of these two players will take home the prize!' he announced. I then saw raid chat come up with the words 'what are the odds on two gold capped players bidding on the same item?'. My heart sank, this was getting expensive.<br /><br />'30,000g' I found myself typing. This was my psychological limit and in my mind was as much as I expected to pay, but even that amount was not enough. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I'm not sure whether I really wanted the item at this point or whether I just wanted to crush this guy with my wallet. The DK responded and the auction rose to giddying heights with the DK putting in a bid of 40,000g. I tried one final bid of 42,000g, 12,000g more than my limit. Alas the DK responded with 42,500g. It was over.<br /><br />In the space of 3 minutes the DK had lost 42,500g and each member of the raid had pocketed an extra 1,700g from a single item. I received a couple of consoling whispers and thanks for the extra gold, but I was too broken to respond. I was in shock, and even now, I still can't believe that I lost with a bid of 42,000g, especially when previous gdkp auctions of DV went for amounts of 13,000g and 5,000g. </span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-90961308890710639622009-12-08T20:08:00.003+11:002009-12-08T20:29:50.899+11:00Ripped in just four weeks!<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Well not really.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">I'm back for 3.3, and looks like just in the nick of time. In that time, I've been trying to shape up for summer and have gotten tanned up and shed over 11 kgs. But now all that hard work will go to waste as I risk DVT from sitting hours on end as we head into the most addictive chapter, the finale of Wrath.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"><br />I'm expecting to see little sun from here on and I'll probably look pasty as soon, like a light jaundice skin colour. Actually the whole 'yay i <3 vampire craze' might be in a blessing in disguise.<br /><br />Why did I stop? Well hmm... would I rather enjoy the horse racing, beers, bbq's and warm drinking nights or sit and play the dogs balls of content that is TOC 10 and 25. No brainer. On the flip side my absence has pulled me back in the pecking order in the cut throat world of quadruple raiding rets. I have managed to scrape enough gear together to get my four piece together and a few other bits and pieces (thank you gdkp runs!) This has kept me within striking range of the other rets, and my key mashing is making up for the gear difference.<br /><br />So heading into 3.3 I'm ready for Icecrown, get ready yo, Rexkicker is coming to town... Ho ho ho...</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-35250354338810603782009-10-04T09:59:00.004+11:002009-10-04T10:15:12.223+11:00Capped<a href="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac336/rexkicker/wow/gcap2.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 334px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 350px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac336/rexkicker/wow/gcap2.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Mmm the sweetest words that an AH baron can hear hear, and in my case thats 214,748g 36s 46c. For some reason, this is 2 copper shy of the supposed gold cap of 2^31 (although its really really close). Why its 2c short I just don't know, maybe its some kind of weird wow developer in joke.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">If you're wondering how to get there, well there is a lot of truth to the saying, it takes money to make money. Think back to when you were a level 10 running around Elwynn forest with your mining pick and collecting copper ore. At the time I was stoked to sell a stack for 1g 50s. A fortune for that level, and it was enough to buy up a whole suit of white vendor mail armor from the blacksmith in Goldshire. Well naturally as you open up access to larger amounts of potential gold (such as earning 13g for a quest), 1g 50s seems pretty trivial.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">A similar kind of thing happens when you have access to a large bankroll. You gain scale that can be used to purchase items in bulk or purchase expensive items. For example, I have no qualms buying up several thousands of gold worth of uncut and cut gems to resell later at a premium. I don't blink an eye purchasing cheap nobles decks at 4k to flip at 6.5k (sounds weird I know). I love trading in bulk with farmers for their entire stock of herbs, eternals and ore, I get a bit of a rush, as I wonder how much stock he has.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Unfortunately its a mixed blessing as that brings me to my next phase, what now? Since the 3.2 patch, accumulating gold has been the only real driver for me to play wow and the Crusaders Colosseum is hardly worthwhile content to keep me interested long term. I'll have a think about it, I might start pushing for the 500k gold mark. I might take a break from WoW or then again, I might stay to simply kick Arthas' arse.</span></span></div></div>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-86852576609720356352009-09-08T21:32:00.002+10:002009-09-08T21:36:51.866+10:00WTB axe racial<span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:78%;" >Is it just me or is anyone else sick of axes? What is with the dev's love of trying to turn my toon into some sort of glorified lumberjack? Don't get me wrong I love wielding big two handers as much as the next guy, but I like to picture my pally whacking the boss in the knee <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonya_Harding">Tonya Harding</a> style. Its not like I'm asking for some extremely rare unheard of weapon either, I mean being human, there's a nice 3 expertise from Swords OR Maces. That's half of the available 2h weapons and yet the last mace I wielded was the titansteel destroyer and my last sword was the Jin'rohk!<br /><br />My weapon progression this expansion has been....<br /><br />Jin'rohk > Whale Stick Harpoon > Titansteel Destroyer > Death's Bite > Betrayer of Humanity > Worldcarver<br /><br />So needless to say, when 3.2 hit, I eagerly hit up MMO Champion loot tables and found a sweet weapon called <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47069">Justicebringer</a>. Obviously a name that belongs to a pally mace, but nope, its another freaking Axe.<br /><br />Then when I heard that <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/19382694489-ghostcrawler--please-confirm-on-shadowmourne.html">Shadowmourne</a> was announced as a legendary weapon my heart skipped a beat, imagining a twin to the Frostmourne like on my Wrath load screen, I would finally have the chance to weild a legendary weapon, kinda like the big ass <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Strife">Cloud</a> sword in FFVII. But an axe...again? Seriously, wtf?!!<br /><br />Surely Blizz could make a legendary 2h sword that I could earn. It could have been a ridiculously long quest chain like oh I dunno something akin to the 'Insane' achievement and I would have been happy to do it. For a measly axe however, it had better just be a drop off Arthas, because that's all I can really stand.</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-22785266330599515182009-08-28T23:24:00.001+10:002009-08-28T23:27:49.696+10:00Can't do it<span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">There are some achievements you think how the heck are we going to get that? Scrolling through the list its not Firefighter that worries me, or Yogg with 3 keepers, its Kologarn's </span><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=2951"><span style="font-size:78%;">With Open Arms</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">.<br /><br />Asking a ret to not dps the arms is like asking you to stop jerking off. You can't stop it, its in your blood. Its one of the few fights that a ret is built for! A fight with three targets up is like a red rag to a bull, and my epeen is too big to take a dive like that.</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">The only way I'm going to get the achievement is if I die in glorious combat. I need to either get crushed by the right hand or fried by eye beams. My preferred way to go would be to get crushed by the hand because if I get scooped up by the hand my deeps is screwed anyway.<br /><br />With Open Arms? Not on my watch!</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-20163803056035228662009-08-25T23:26:00.005+10:002009-08-26T00:20:42.413+10:00Club Ret<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">So I notched up my 30th birthday yesterday, which definitely puts me into the older gamer category. How do I feel about it? Well I guess that's just a number, but I'm definitely not as high tech as the next generation coming through. Shit, I own a relatively up to date mobile phone but I still only use it to make phone calls and text. I'll be pretty much screwed when I update it to a touch phone and the lack of buttons will throw me off.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">It explains the low tech spartan nature of my blog. I.e. I'm too dumb to work out how to make it look nicer, and too zoned after coming from home and then trying to raid. Doesn't leave too much time to actually post as much as I would like.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">What does being 30 have to do with anything? Well not much but with age comes experience and wisdom. In turn that leads to MOAR DPS! Lemme explain. Currently, due to a lack of dks (sigh), we can end up in a situation where there are four ret pally's in raid. This can get up to FIVE in fights like Hodir and General V where our prot pally switches specs. That's right, we have a Club Ret.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">With five raiding rets there's not much separating me and them at all. Three of us are near identical with Worldcarver, 4 piece T8.5, DMC: Greatness and the OMGWTFBSHAX Libram of Valiance. The other two are not far behind in gear either, so there is plenty of pride on the line. The only real difference between me and them is that I'm pure ret whereas the others enjoy their second spec of tanking or healing. When I lose a boss fight, I get Recount spammed to thy kingdom come but more often then not I tend to come out on top.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">So whats the difference? After comparing five rets in raid there is a slight difference in technique, and I believe that it boils down to the timing of Avenging Wrath.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"><strong>1) Don't be too eager to pop your wings!</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">This is the main thing that I notice. A few of the rets will charge in and just blow wings straight away. Not in 3.2 buddy! Now you need to build that five stack from Seal of Vengeance up first before popping your wings. Since the stack is only applied from autoswings it takes roughly 12 seconds to put the stack on. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">If you pop AW straight away at the start of the fight, with the 20 second buff, you are really only maximising your dps from the final 8 seconds of AW since it takes the first 12 stacks to build up the stack.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">2) For your second wings, watch the bosses health</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">As a general rule of thumb I check the bosses health for the timing of my second wings (e.g. Ignis, XT, Hodir, General etc). If my AW cd comes up for a second time and we're roughly 55-60% of the way through the bosses health or less, I'll use my wings again straight away and it should be available for use for a third time later. If however, the bosses health is below 55%, I hold off on using wings until the final 20% so I can start spamming Hammer of Wrath!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">3) Popping a haste potion to build the 5 stack faster?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">I dunno, I've read this idea in two separate places twice now and it just seems well, totally f*cked. Apparently if you pop the potion before you enter into combat you can get your stack up really fast (and I'm assuming this would free your haste potion for later use). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">Well there you go, hope it was useful and my your deeps be epeen filled. I gotta admit though, rereading it I am intrigued by the haste potion idea. I will have to test it out on something like Ignis and see.<br /></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-51399545523643820022009-08-25T22:55:00.000+10:002009-08-25T22:56:41.864+10:00DIAF Rabi<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Since the 3.2 patch hit, for some reason I've been inspired to finish my 'Glory to the Hero' achievement. I owe this to the change in vehicles in Oculus where your dragon scales with gear which gave me the heart to venture into Oculus once again (I think I'm still mentally scarred from that freaking place). So I've been knocking out the achievements left and right.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">One of the achievements *cough* Less-Rabi is completely ridiculous. I must've spent about a dozen nights trying to knock it over that by the end of it, I just wanted to punch him in the head. I was getting so desperate for the achievement that I paid a shammy guildie 1k to spec into Reverberation to help get it done even though he had already done the achievement twice before and I could feel his relunctance in doing it again.<br /><br />So when I finished the achievement, I just spammed gchat with PROGRESSION!!!<br /><br />Damn, the drake is pretty cool though. Oh wait, no 310% flight speed? F*ck!<br /><br />Rex out...</span></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-9532019385523448432009-08-18T08:03:00.001+10:002009-08-18T08:06:51.746+10:00No need to res<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Recently, our team finally... YES FINALLY pulled off our Undying run. Our weekly lazy Saturday afternoon soul crushing/abyss crystal farming event paid off. Interestingly though, you don't actually need the same team from start to finish to grab the title. Our holy pally subbed in for the resto druid half way through the run and was rewarded with the title, the resto druid unfortunately was not.<br /><br />I've been doing this run for so long now, I'm actually pretty relaxed about the whole thing... right up until Sapphiron/KT fights. How do I feel about it now? Well I'm actually relieved as all heck, your brain just becomes focused on willing yourself to not be the that fails. Its never fun being the one that slips up that fails the whole run. The pressure of the Undying run gets to people and they end up doing all sorts of weird things that you know that they just normally don't do.<br /><br />You know what though, getting Undying is kind of like a perfect holiday, nice but not really memorable. Come to think of it though, our DK tank was so stressed out with the thought of doing Heigan that he refused to do it so we simply left him outside while we nine manned it. I lol'd when he scored the 'Safety Dance' achievement!<br /><br />Amyway, the best memories from holidays come about when things don't go according to plan like you lost your luggage, the food was crappy at the hotel or when you got ripped off by some dodgy souvenier merchant. In some sort of sick way I enjoyed the failures more than the clear as it's just plain light hearted fun to get stuck into the one that messed up.<br /><br />Memorable failures<br /><br />Even yours truly hasn't avoided the blame of a failed Undying run, I failed to make the jump on Thaddius (first time ever since doing Naxx) and then ran in before a charge was assigned. >.<<br /><br />Here's a list of other random things that happened during various Undying runs. To try and capture the level of frustration, I have tried to rank the level of fail, with an acceptable rng type mistake being a low level of fail to the very high, WTF ARE U SERIOUS erage type fail.<br /><br />Boss: Instructor<br />Cause: After clearing the trash up to Instructor, the tank takes a break and eats up on the ramp. Needless to say Instructor wasn't too impressed when he walked by and saw him just sitting there having a picnic.<br />Level of fail: Medium<br /><br />Boss: Four Horseman<br />Cause: After clearing three wings, the Holy priest decides to go afk mid fight and parks himself on top of the platform after the pull. Dies due to no debuffs being up on him and losing LOS to the other healers. Comes back on later and asks 'how'd it go?'.<br />Level of fail: Very high<br /><br />Boss: Sapphiron<br />Cause: Hero lock tries to squeeze off a couple more dots at the wyrm in the air instead of playing it safe behind the iceblock. After yelling on vent, realises too late that he's in trouble making it but gets there. Then decides to stand next to the iceblock instead of behind it...<br />Level of fail: High<br /><br />Boss: Kel Thuzad<br />Cause: Off tank fails to see void zone while tanking only one of the scarabs. Causes wipe at 2% of KT's health (this one was soul crushing!).<br />Level of fail: High</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-29712897829416760242009-08-07T22:52:00.001+10:002009-08-07T22:55:35.699+10:00I now pronounce you man and toon<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">The more I rack up achievement points, the more I realise I am wedded to Rexkicker the ret paladin til the end of my wow time. Gone are the days where I would switch off and muck about on an alt for the fear that the one time I do, I'm gonna knock over some achievement I won't have on my main.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"><br />So I am stuck. Is it just me? Well not really. This is apparent in the guild, where we actually have a shortage on full time dk's. Sometimes we have one, usually though we have none. This is despite almost everyone (including yours truly) having a dk alt. People simply don't want to make the switch and start their achievements all over again!<br /><br />My brother though doesn't have this problem. He doesn't care about doing achievements and is free to split his time between his warrior tank/rogue dps/priest healer. So he's happy to swap from one character to another.<br /><br />There is a definite split in game styles right there. Those that pursue achievements don't care for alts (they simply don't have the time to), and those that are altoholics don't give a damn about achievements. Unfortunately, I seem to have landed on the achievement whore half. It could be worse, I could have rolled a pure class and would be stuck doing dps all the time. At least this way if I ever get bored of ret I can switch it up (or at least temporarily).<br /><br />Each to their own I guess. Now where is that dk?</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-88194989808347636482009-07-19T15:00:00.002+10:002009-07-19T15:10:05.812+10:00All hail the Nightmare Tear<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">One item on the PTR has peaked my interest, the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/?item=49110">Nightmare Tear</a>! What is it? Well its the big brother version of the Enchanted Tear. The enchanted tear provides +6 all stats and is a prismatic gem (i.e. counted as a blue, red and yellow gem). The Nightmare Tear packs a bigger punch, and weighs in at a hefty +10 all stats. This beauty has sparked my interest from both a ret dps perspective and an opportunity to make some extra gold.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"><br /><strong>How do you get one?</strong><br />Made by a JC using a dragon's eye and five infinite dust.<br /><br /><strong>How many can you have?</strong><br />These are unique equipped so its 1 per gear set.<br /><br /><strong>Ret view</strong><br />Currently on live, non-JC pve rets snap an enchanted tear into the blue socket to meet the normal Relentless Earthsiege Diamond's meta requirement (i.e. requires one blue, yellow and red gem). Next patch however, all rets will need one of these to meet their meta requirements especially since JC rets no longer benefit from bold dragon's eyes being prismatic in 3.2.<br /><br />Still, lets break it down against the other blue socket choice for rets, the sovereign dreadstone.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#993399;">Sovereign Dreadstone</span></strong><br />Gem Colour: Purple<br />+10 Strength<br />+15 Stamina<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#666666;">Nightmare Vine</span></strong><br />Gem Colour: Prismatic<br />+10 Strength<br />+10 Agility<br />+10 Intellect<br />+10 Stamina<br />+10 Spirit (lol)<br /><br />Its pretty clear, come patch day I'm jamming one of these bad boys into a blue socket.<br /><br /><strong>And on making gold?</strong><br />My tip is that while everyone has their eyes firmly fixed on the titanium ore market the price of dragon's eyes is going unchecked. It seems a bit out of whack considering that people that buy up titanium ore are doing so in the hope that it procs an epic gem, whereas you can obtain a guaranteed raw epic gem (subject to ptr changes blah blah blah) in the form of a Dragon's Eye. So I reckon that I will snap up as many dragon's eyes as I can get and then drop them on the AH on patch day (some as repriced Dragon's Eyes, some as Nightmare tears).<br /><br />I'm backing that every JC and his dog will be hoarding their JC tokens for new recipes and the supply of Dragon's Eyes will dry up sooner rather than later.<br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-45128767389483954342009-07-15T00:28:00.001+10:002009-07-15T00:33:40.961+10:00Yogg downed!<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I could sense that Vandelay Industries <vandelay>was close to downing 25 man Yogg from our previous attempts, and we managed to get to phase 3 on Sunday so our hopes were high that this would finally be our night. On Monday though, things didn't begin so great. We were having disconnects, my brother was sick as a dog and so opted not to raid while one of our DK's net got capped (once you reach your broadband download limit, the bandwidth gets reduced to dial up speed). So we were forced to sub out the DK and I pleaded with my bro to log onto his rogue to give us a hand. To which he eventually agreed.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Our luck started to change then and after a couple of attempts, we had Yogg down to 25%. After a slight change in strategy we then took Yogg to 2% before a slight error in judgement cost us the kill and the raid was quickly overwhelmed with adds. At that stage I slumped in my chair and pressed my forehead onto the keyboard. I looked up at my clock, it was 11pm; we had been wiping on Yogg for a solid 3 and a half hours.</span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Normally we have a tight raiding policy, we call raids at 11pm and start afresh the next night. However, being Monday we needed to get Yogg down and no one wanted to wait another week. We had some of our best dps on and we needed to make sure we took advantage of that opportunity.<br /><br />'C'mon, one perfect run guys!' was the raid leaders call over Vent. And then it happened, we delivered that run!<br /><br />So last night we finally cleared Yogg, and its been a freaking long time coming. Our last progression kill was General Vezax on the 8 June, and after five weeks of wiping on Yogg I'm glad to have done it, otherwise I probably would've lost my RL sanity.<br /><br />Babam!</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-34087184569381071662009-06-30T19:28:00.002+10:002009-06-30T19:44:55.041+10:00Changes to Alchemy on the PTR<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Yesterday Alchemy was looking pretty sweet, but mmo champion has noted some changes to Alchemy on the PTR.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">First of all it looks like the epic gem transmute is on a 20 hour shared cooldown. This seriously ruins the whole thing for Alchs. I mean if you were an alchemist you would focus on the most valuable gem a cardinal ruby transmute (which now requires 1 eternal fire and 1 scarlet ruby).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I liked the former system better it gave a use for the rare gems and would keep epic gem prices pretty sane. Lets hope the devs see it this way and switch it back.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-37976971968694467062009-06-29T21:07:00.010+10:002009-06-30T19:28:33.662+10:00Prospecting 100 stacks of Titanium Ore in 3.2 PTR<a href="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac336/rexkicker/wow/gem_prospects.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 384px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 334px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac336/rexkicker/wow/gem_prospects.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Okay so I logged onto the PTR today and decided that I would prospect 100 stacks of Titanium Ore to see what the result would be. 100 stacks is a pretty fair idea as it gives 400 prospects so here are the results:</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#ff0000;"><strong>Cardinal Ruby 19 (4.75%)</strong></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#996633;"><strong>Kings Amber 17 (4.25%)</strong></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#006600;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Eye of Zul 10 (2.5%)<br /><span style="color:#3333ff;">Majestic Zircon 20 (5.00%)</span></span></span></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#ff6600;">Ametrine 21 (5.25%)</span></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#6600cc;">Dreadstone 20 (5.00%)<br /><br /></span></strong></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Titanium Dust 266 (66.50%)<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Scarlet Ruby 23 (5.75%), Bloodstone 94 (23.50%)</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Autumn's Glow 24 (6.00%), Sun Crystal 109 (27.25%)</span></div></span><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Forest Emerald 15 (3.75%), Dark Jade 104 (26.00%)</span> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sky Sapphire 14 (3.50%), Chalcedony 105 (26.25%)</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Twilight Opal 16 (4.00%), Shadow Crystal 104 (26.00%)</span> </span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Monarch Topaz 10 (2.50%), Huge Citrine 83 (20.75%)</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"> </div></span><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Note that the sum of the percentages is greater than 100% as there are multiple procs from one prospect. So it definitely appears that proccing epic gems is in the same ballpark as proccing rare gems in Saronite Ore. Our sample shows that there is a 26.75% chance to proc an epic gem. As a rule of thumb, this is like proccing an epic gem every stack of Titanium Ore.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"> </div></span><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">The dust is also pretty nice, 10 dust is needed for a repeatable hand in quest for a JC token. So 266 dust would yield 26 JC tokens. The epic JC patterns need 5 JC tokens so our sample was enough to earn 5 patterns. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"> </div></span><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now lets look at Alchemy which has flown under the radar a bit as alchemists can also make epic gems via transmutes.</span> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-size:78%;color:#cc0000;"><strong>**This has changed since the last build on 30/6/09** </strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"> </div></span><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">3 Sky Sapphire = 1 Majestic Zircon</span> </span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">3 Forest Emerald = 1 Eye of Zul</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">3 Twilight Opal = 1 Dreadstone</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">1 Majestic Zircon + 2 Eternal Life = 1 King's Amber</span> </span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">1 Majestic Zircon + 2 Eternal Shadow = 1 Ametrine<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">3 Eye of Zul = 1 Cardinal Ruby (available through a quest to do five transmutes.)</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </div></span></span><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">I tried out the transmutes mainly the Sky Sapphire, Forest Emerald and the Twilight Opal ones (I didn't bring any Eternal Shadows or Lifes with me to the PTR ao I couldn't do those). The result was amazing though, my Alchemist is Level 70 450 transmute spec, and she <strong>procced multiple gems</strong> (had a two-proc with Eye of Zul twice out of the five transmutes).</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"> </div></span><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Since she has 450 skill, I think that lets her do the Cardinal Ruby transmute as well, so with 17 Eye of Zuls I was able to do five transmutes. Again she <strong>procced double Cardinal Rubies</strong> twice! </span><span style="font-size:78%;">Quick tip though, if you are at 450 alchemy, make sure you pick up the quest before you do the transmutes.</span></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 242px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 121px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac336/rexkicker/wow/gem_transmutes.jpg" border="0" /> <div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:78%;">Note that there is currently no CD on the gem transmutes on the PTR. To be honest I don't expect there to be otherwise rare gems will be totally worthless again just like in tbc. </span><span style="font-size:78%;">Looks like Alchs are gonna have a pretty sweet ride this patch.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">So after my initial stack of 100 titanium ore, and with some help from my transmute spec alc my total epic gem return was:<br /></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Cardinal Ruby 26</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Kings Amber 17</span></div><div><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Eye of Zul 2</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Majestic Zircon 25<br />Ametrine 21<br />Dreadstone 25<br /></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Bring on the patch!</span></div></div>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-21594700385052856232009-06-16T23:24:00.005+10:002009-06-18T00:51:26.053+10:00General Vezzzzzzzzzzzzzz *snore*<span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">General Vezax is by far the most boring fight I have encountered!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">To clarify, my guild uses a simple strategy that involves having a DK tank that blows his cooldown whenever General enrages. This removes the need to kite the General in this phase so it becomes a really long tank and spank. I don't even move so I just sit on the boss and play one handed while the other props up my head trying to prevent myself from falling asleep.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">The worst thing is this torture goes on for a whole 10 minutes! The fight would be pretty cool if I had something to focus on like being on interrupt duty like the rest of the melee but with Hammer of Justice on a 60 second cooldown, it's really only handy for clutch interrupts. I almost want to slit my wrists if there's a wipe because I cbf sitting through another 10 minutes of that.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">In comparison I love the rest of Ulduar (apart from Flame Leviathan). The keepers are all well thought out cool fights, and Mimiron is my personal favourite. Dodging mines, explosions, void zones its all guns blazing non stop action. The General Vezax fight just feels out of place, and it would have been much better to just go straight to Yogg Saron after the keepers. It would just keep the pace of the raid up</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">I reckon they should have swapped General with Ignis, it would have been better if General was optional!</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-76028033834474070692009-06-09T19:01:00.008+10:002009-06-09T19:11:32.404+10:00Ruby Shades con artist<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">I was hanging around in IF the other day on my bank alt and I had this guy that wanted to con me out of my Haris Pilton Ruby Shades. It was a bit of a laugh so I just took some screenies of the conversation... Enjoy!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345250454532955042" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 294px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmuIyRcsfoYfxLuXdSwsFeNJE6SRYQHfQv_WaOE0E_Jwy6bVC4Vgl3D9S3nMhSrv9bYOXJfEMRqo9n6XMRXVAvXF8c5pEqQVHlEGDlHKUueyJjX4XS_5V2Vrz7kzet0busrjkMYpat5fN/s320/rubyshades1.JPG" border="0" /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345250707963702402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 268px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 83px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9NWZniRqMhDHKML6CvBQctScreKsZLmMH4ALH_y7LcbD64uj9Ow50NKqC_kygfXO_TT150H0jpyQ2M7AJ4Di9kZHC_Y_VnDGjOXEWPKCa8UxOrGqlgBkMAwPHbgiWgM3wxOXrSaTcKNP/s320/rubyshades2.JPG" border="0" /> <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345251102555335090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 254px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf0-MG03wwan3C7ME7I-lQ2Dc78CkNXroYufXJ2kpZz_u1WJjfy_gx0w3ZA7rzStKqvHaGGthlXTyISDy9fbgquO9iMk603kWyBdOv4eN7HEGF4PMeCdtP2bcLwRDmdUi2qqCmbSEdudit/s320/rubyshades3.JPG" border="0" /><br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345251246340895634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 191px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4rB-RPbZtYJibdQl1xVTKGhwtDCqwhdpct8NeeVRFE0ahlKEx_0eDfK9s_-TAIfYw-HorDoNHu_0z_vTpvsmctikO1Glv0_e88B0H8wAaQJVmvFNcZSflkqP_ZCnenxAAdyRdbTkpr8iR/s320/rubyshades4.JPG" border="0" /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345251474329620738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 210px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-XSeFyNj38gM-K6GuaADYNh-3FrNth1pqCI8uDZRpCpKJFBPe0AaC9gEwmMyxWany-ZmzS4N5UrGtN0aOZ7uFg70G8tEs1EFF2O1jTVEB8yxlAw2V8kP1KM1Cr389ulBCajaFdQrtXRz0/s320/rubyshades5.JPG" border="0" /></p>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-14453159857684533422009-06-01T23:45:00.003+10:002009-06-01T23:53:53.637+10:00That's just weird...<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">I originally had something else planned to write about, but that will have to wait for another day. At the moment, all the action is about Ferraro, <a href="http://ferarro.blogspot.com/">Paladin Schmaladin</a> and <a href="http://www.retpaladin.com/">Retpaladin.com</a>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"><br />It turns out that Ferraro was actually seven Ferraros (or is the collective term Ferrari?) where when one writer decided that when they had enough of the stalker/fan mail, a new blogger would takeover the blog and continue to be Ferraro (kind of like the Phantom and how the legend passes from father to son). It seems a pretty strange explanation because I didn't notice any change in the style of the blog. I mean, its pretty hard to write in the same style as someone before no matter how hard you try.<br /><br />I thought about removing Paladin Schmaladin from my blogroll but its actually more interesting if it stays. So the Ferrari... err yeah that's it, have been great writers and have provided the community with good solid information. I'm talking about the paladin stuff here not the personal or gadget content.<br /><br />Still it doesn't excuse the identity theft of some girl that had no idea PS ever existed. As if the internet wasn't weird enough! It kinda brings back all that cliches from the late 90's of how anyone you meet on the infoweb is an axe murderer.<br /><br />What's most disappointing is that Ferraro represented every teenage boy's wet dream. An attractive, intelligent and funny girl that was awesome at video games that turned out to be a... well... guy (well at least two of the Ferrari were guys according to Ferraro No.7's post). Be who you are, for those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind. I think that was how Ferrari's sig went, pity they couldn't live up to the first part.<br /><br />How do I feel? Well it reminds me of when I found out the truth of Santa Claus, sometimes ignorance is bliss.</span><br /></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-17788596305789562072009-05-30T15:54:00.000+10:002009-05-30T15:56:37.142+10:00Powerlevelling Inscription<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I feel that the time is right for my shaman alt to take on Inscription as a profession. Yes I've missed the boat on the glyph market and darkmoon cards and it would've been much better to do it before 3.1 came out. This isn't the goal though, its the ability to produce cheap vellums thats the attraction.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have never been interested in making an opportunistic quick buck. Sustainability is my game, preferring to list auctions and then go off and spend the time productively e.g. raiding, rather than sit in trade and watching the AH. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Whats the current trend? I like to delve into cheap but in demand enchants like Icewalker, +8 stats to chest and enchant bracer greater spellpower. Previously I've been purchasing vellums from the AH to test the market. Now, by cutting out the middle man and producing vellums in-house production costs should fall increasing profitability. So the shammy has dropped her rarely used herbalism profession for something a little more productive. At a price of 2k gold to powerlevel, Inscription is relatively cheap compared to the gold vacuum of blacksmithing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;">Inscription prediction</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">When Inscription originally came out, as a concept where the bread and butter income was glyphs I hated the idea. What good is a profession (or any business for that matter) where you do not have return customers. You have a business where what you make is of such high quality that it never breaks, never becomes outdated and therefore never gets to be replaced.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Compare that with enchanting and jewelcrafting, gear gets replaced and at that time, you return to your friendly JC or Enchanter for a recustomisation of your gear. Better still, a new piece of gear might throw out the balance of your other pieces so you regem or re-enchant your other pieces to suit!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">What I would like to see is either some kind of fuel made by inscribers to power your glyphs or a time decay that degrades the glyphs over time (say a month). That way it encourages repeat business and keeps inscribers in a job. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Strangely enough the impact of dual specs has made inscription worse. Sure there was obscene profits when 3.1 hit but once everyone had their new set of glyphs then what?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">For example pre 3.1, if you were a a pure dps class say a PvE rogue and you wanted to do arena for awhile with a PvP spec, you could respec and reglyph. In 3.1 you just switch specs whenever you please. No need for new glyphs, great for the average wow player, really poor outcome for inscribers!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Its not all doom and gloom for insribers though. Hybrids potentially need three or more specs e.g. pvp/arena spec, pve spec and an off spec. My guess is that long term, the ongoing demand for glyphs will be driven by hybrids so when making glyphs keep this in mind. If the devs bring out tri-specs Inscription will be largely killed off.</span></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-90106589380913468602009-05-25T19:56:00.002+10:002009-05-25T20:06:29.095+10:00DPS Rage<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I was just flicking through <a href="http://dpspaladin.blogspot.com/2009/05/art-of-dps-part-1.html">Jong's</a> blog on how he does dps, and yep he likes to rage up to get psyched.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I 100% agree with that method. When the dps is on there's a huge amount of personal rage flowing through me. It gives the edge I need and like a sith lord, you just give into the hate and just let it take over. Its common knowledge on guild vent that I hardly talk during a new boss fight because I shut out well... everything. When someone asks a question at times like this, my tagline is 'Can't talk dpsing!', which basically sums up how I feel at the time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Unfortunately this kind of gameplay is also expensive (talking about RL money here not gold!) when either a) I die stupidly in a boss fight or b) when there is a wipe on a boss when it has a smidgen of health. What usually follows in the event of a) or b) occurring is this...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">1) Slam mouse on the table.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">2) Remove headset from head.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">3) Throw headset.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">4) Swear.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">5) Inspect headset and mouse.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">6) Realise headset/mouse is now broken (or makes a funny rattling sound that wasn't there before).</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">7) Get p*ssed off that it is now broken and swear some more.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">8) Open packaging for new mouse/headset.</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">9) Channel rage inward and focus dps more.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Its a perfect feedback mechanism! The more I rage the more dps is put out. I kind of feel like a fury warrior in RL in a way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">No kidding, my headset is replaced about once every three months and yep it's due to be replaced again. Come to think of it, my right earpiece sounds a bit dodgy if I tilt my head to one side. Time to shell out another $30 for a new Logitech headset from Officeworks.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">This also probably explains why I fail at arena. I tend to get blindsided by my rage and focus on just hitting stuff. When I nerd rage I become more riled up and well playing worked up in Arenas just makes you lose more.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Is it healthy to play like this? Well it gives me an outlet to release the pent up rage stored up from say work or rl. Way better than that 'Woozah' method Martin Lawrence tries to do on Bad Boyz II.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">My doctor however, would disagree. Earlier this year I had a blood pressure monitor strapped to me as I have unusually high blood pressure for my age. I had to leave it on for 24 hours while doing my normal routine. When the results came back, I had a hard time explaining why my blood pressure peaked during the period of 7pm until midnight (i.e. raid time) when in fact your blood pressure is actually supposed to come down!</span></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-51655699879483120602009-05-12T23:03:00.003+10:002009-05-12T23:26:35.846+10:00RL Dilemma...<span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sometimes I write posts that never see the light of day. When I write these posts, I email them to myself and think it over, usually after re-reading it I just trash it and start all over again. This is likely to be one of those articles, oh wait since this one's appeared on the blog I must've posted it...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Well I've been battling with something during my WoW career, and that is dealing with RL. I found that as I was getting better with my paladin my life getting worse. I was overweight and becoming socially isolated (apart from chatting on Vent with some close guildies). </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Recently, I read this book called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28book_on_Pickup_Artists%29">The Game</a> by Neil Strauss, an autobiography of a writer who delves into the world of Pick Up Artists (PUA's), and in the course of doing so becomes a master PUA. Once I finished the book, I thought 'Hey I could do this!' and set about seeing if I really could.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I started reading the sequel 'Rules of the Game', which is a quasi self help book. The focus is on living the book and not just reading it. I tried to treat it like a game, what the book told me to do, I would do it 'because it said so'. As I got better at the Game, I levelled up! I signed up to personal training, bought some new clothes, had a haircut and started to see if I could change (and of course try the art of pick up). It all sounds a bit new-age, but honestly, what could be so wrong about trying to improve your odds in meeting a potential partner? One thing that The Game did teach me is that while physical attraction is a key driver for men, for women its more of a mental attraction. Luckily, I do have a gift with the gab, so I guess for me its more about putting struture around my game and being more concious of how I set up my approach.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">That was a few weeks ago. Fast forward to last Saturday; I saw this attractive brunette in her late 20's at a Jazz club, and started to chat her up using some material that I learnt from The Game mixed in with my own stuff. Since she was holding a present at the time, I decided to open with the line 'Hi there, what did you buy me?', which was met with a laugh and the conversation opened from there. Things went really well and after about 20 minutes, I pulled out some cool dance moves, kissed her and got her phone number... but I'm also pretty sure that she has a kid.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now sorry if I sound like a kent, but that changes things. I've been really wrestling with the thought of calling her. On one hand we got on really well, on the other, I'm not sure if I could handle it. Should I walk away or see where the path ends? Since I met her on Saturday and its now Tuesday, is it still acceptable to call her? Hmm... so many thoughts running through my head right now.<br /></span></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-39598136620952649662009-05-07T23:18:00.002+10:002009-05-07T23:31:38.720+10:00Ulduar nerfs and XT<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">So Ulduar got nerfed, and to be honest I'm happy it did.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;"><br />In 25 man Ulduar, my guild (now called Vanderlay Industries) was coming up against a brick wall in terms of dps. We were hitting enrage timers on both Razorscale and XT Deconstructor and simply weren't progressing past Laviathan. XT in particular was the problem, if you couldn't down him (or is it a her with that voice?), you couldn't progress. I was stumped, I couldn't figure out how on one hand, Vanderlay could easily smash the Patchwerk 3 min achievement week in week out, and yet not have enough dps and hit enrage timers on XT! Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenge and facerolling Naxx hardly provides that. The step from Naxx to Ulduar was simply too far!<br /><br />Post nerfs, I like how those bosses play out now. In Naxx gear, its doable but with flasks. That's how raiding should be, and will help separate serious and casual guilds.<br /><br />We're up to 7/14 in Ulduar, clearing Leviathan, Ignis, Razorscale, XT, Kologarn, Assembly of Iron (I really should just cave in and call them Iron Council) and Hodir. We're working on Auriaya and once I figure out a clean kite path and pull, I'll write it up. Anyway... <br /><br /><strong>XT Deconstructor Strat</strong><br />Our strat for XT is different to other guilds. Strats I've read say for raiders to spread out so that the bomb doesn't get in anyone's way. What we found that if melee gets the bomb they have to run through a spread out raid, doing damage along the way.<br /><br />Instead we've gone for the stacked raid approach, where the raid stacks up and if you get the bomb you just move away from the group. Much easier for the melee to find an open space if they get the bomb (yay melee!).<br /><br />From there on its just a dps race, focusing on going all out when the heart pops out.<br /><br />Cheers!<br /><br />Rex<br /></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-47451176977193552152009-05-06T23:50:00.002+10:002009-05-06T23:57:54.311+10:00Argent Squire pet<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">Its amazing the dodgy comments coming up every time someone gets their squire pet out. My personal favourite is: ‘hey kid, wanna raise my flagpole?’<br /><br />The funniest moment is when you see a male priest running past with their squire boy. The comedy just writes itself!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">Ah well, its almost midnight and I'm pretty buggered, I'll write a better update soon.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">Cheers,</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">Rex</span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-732981871886722205.post-47851998617048020022009-04-15T21:35:00.002+10:002009-04-15T21:44:59.024+10:00Benched<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:78%;">F*cken hell. On the bench for 25 Ulduar.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">So while I was fuming from the sidelines, I decided to check out the Argent Tournament. I have to admit its pretty damn cool, and while still an 'Aspirant' rank, a.k.a trainee, its shaping up to be a heck of a lot of fun. Especially for the paladin class which looks hella sweet in the shiny plate armor and a FREAKIN LANCE!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;">Definitely awesome.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:78%;"></span>Rexkickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12597886843063085708noreply@blogger.com1