Small stories of past events

While I was playing on Horde I experienced some new content. New to me anyway. While It’s been some time since they happened and I have slept many times since then, it means I cannot rightly remember everything that happened, they do bring back some good memories. So rather than file them away on some unloved corner of my hard drive, I thought I would share them as some sort of ‘postcard’ compilation.

HORDE LOVE RECOUNT LONG TIME:



This is an example of the thing that brought terror to me in every lfr I went into. The Hordies loved their recounts. Durumu ended with someone kicking every person who was in the bottom 15 in dps. Along with shouting “omg, kick the fucking noobs!”  The constant spamming of recount meant that you usually missed what was going on…

BRB POO:



So this was when we decided to go kill the Litch King on 25 man heroic for funzies. We had just made it onto the airship but had to pause what we were doing for fear of an unintended explosion...

MOBS UP TREES:



This was when I was farming Embersilk. I absolutely hate this place on Tol Barad. Mobs are all over the place, drop rate is shit, have to keep an eye on the timer so you don't end up in a battle and it's miles from anywhere. When the two mobs are fighting each other, often one would evade and then return to full health. Which slowed progress quite a lot. I longed to be able to farm in Deepholm again. As I can see mobs on my mini map I would often see the Horde patrols walking past. I decided to kill them and they went down pretty quickly. As I was running around I could see some more dots on my map, but nowhere to be seen on the ground. Thats right, in Blizzards wisdom, they decided to make them spawn in a tree... helpful...

Shiny mount!

After completing part two of flex I decided to log onto Emava to run a few dungeons to try and get me up to 85.

I ended up in The Vortex Pinnical again. I'd run this dungeon a lot leveling Zionxi so it wasn't anything new or difficult. Our pug group ran through and got to just after the first boss when the healer left. At that point the dps pally asked us to wait. I thought he had been observant and was reminding us that we couldn't really go any further. He then started yelling at the tank to go...

A healer logged in so we carried on. The pally then hit the broadcast recount button and spammed us with the fight details. This really reminds me of my days as horde, I didn't say anything but just carried on. He then did it again two trash mobs later.

[I][Emava] gz on having recount
[I][Pally] MIZ CLICK
[I][Pally] sorry for caps

We then got to Altarius, I didn't pay much attention to the loot that drops from here until this popped up.

Reins Of The Drake Of The North Wind

I didn't really know what I was looking at but I knew it was a mount and it was purple. I also knew that other people may have rolled need on it. I clicked 'need'. Worse possible ending is that I get it and get kicked for being a ninja. The loot box disappeared, I guessed that someone else was must have won it. Then the congratulations loot box popped up! I checked my loot table, I'd won it with a  need roll of 94.

The tank said gz, the Pally advised me that the drop rate for it was 0.7%. I announced in GC that I had it

[G][Emava] well blow me down, I just got [reins of the drake of the north wind]

[G][Marvv] gz <3

[G][Marvv] SHUSH JAMMY

[G][Monknessa] what did you win?

[G][Marvv] a mount I haven't got yet

[G][Marvv] JELLY OVER HERE

Slutmogs

I was on Emava going through my patterns and was linking a few to Farouche who was on his Pally.

I wanted to get a slutmog going for Pazima but the ones I could make were all a bit, well, tame. I remembered that I had a dress that I was given by Monknessa for when I hit 90 that was booby, I linked it over and then had a wonderful thought when he logged back on his main...

[Emava] you should try on my mail
[Farouche] it's going to look stupid but yeah link it all :D
[Emava] relog!

With that, I logged on Zionxi (for absolutely no reason as with the Bagnon add-on I can go through all my characters banks) and started linking the items.

I know from wowhead that males are more 'covered up' than females in the same bits of gear. Arse cheeks hanging out don't look so good on the hulking males of the species. I was expecting Farouche to look like some sort of glittery Butlins employee, what actually happened was 'spectacular'







So here is me from the front. Tits out? Check. Tiny pants? Check.







And me from the back ( particularity fetching when swimming) Arse out? Check check!

When Farouche sent me a snap of his char... dear lordy...







Ignoring the dead skin tone (dK's can't have it all) and the glowing horror movie eyes your left with someone who put their pants on over their trousers and decided it was a-ok to put on some glittery shit over their tunic like they were a body builder going crazy with the bronzer... The rear was just as bad, if not worse.






I'm sure there is actually a hint of bum cleavage going on there and the point of the vest just looks like his char was going for the 'trousers hanging off my arse' look.

I know Blizzard can't separate gear to be male/female, hell it's bad enough seeing something that looks great and seeing that is something you can't wear, so they seem to create gear for females and then 'fill in the blanks'... literally.

Just maybe they need to hey someone to have a look at both genders wearing it before they go 'that's the one!' and then take a cold shower...

Throne of Thunder: noob edition part 2

We regrouped to carry on with ToT. Currently we had the Council to do on the first part and then onwards into the next part.

We had Mack join us which was a blessing. Being part of RT1 he knew what was going on and what to look out for.

Council had always been my sticking point as I always get stuck in quicksand. Unfortunately we lost Jollyjane early on as he had to take a phone call from work. We had Zolder, as main tank and then Farouche stepped into the breach as off tank. We had everything under control. Mack was a boss on dps and the healers and tanks were holding their own. The bosses were dropping and it wasn't as messy as we thought it would be. Near the end of the fight, when Kazra'Jin and the Priest were both near death I somehow died. I was still able to 'direct' and relaxed into my role as chief kitty spotter. At one point all the direction the tanks needed was to get the bosses apart so the dps could have a good crack at the kitties but not long after that they were dead. We moved on to Tortos.

We got into a bit of a pickle trying to remember what we needed to interrupt by kicking the shells into Tortos. After a lengthy TS conversation that was as vague as it could have been Mack finally linked the ability from the dungeon journal. Doh! None of us had thought to look there! We decided to allocate a kicker and we started the pull. It didn't go well. We wiped on the furious stone breath as all the the shells were kicked before and the kickee didn't have DBM installed. Oh dear. We tried again. Traps were laid and we got further but still wiped. TS was getting more silent. Eventually we regained our focus, turtles were kicked at the right time and Tortos went down like a sack of, well, rocks.

We lost a tank again and Farouche lead the way into the cavern. Unfortunately he wasn't sure where we were heading so we were killing everything. We got back on track, rang the gongs and Maghera rose up with its main heads and back up singer heads. We had to wait. We needed another tank. At this point Alryisa logged on and came along to join us. Taking charge he soon had markers down for us and was going through the tactics, running around showing us where to go and when, just out of reach of the boss. Or so he thought...

As a testament to the fine tank he is, he pulled the boss while leaping around and got us killed just as Roly logged on to ts to see how things were going.

"We asked Alry to tank and he's just killed us!"
"Oh dear" (muffled laughter)

Alry was pretty thorough with the tactics, so much so we were all pretty confused.

"You should listen to him explaining this on heroic" said Mack.
"Yeah, there's a purple head too" Alry explained.

We just decided to go for it. We stacked and spread like pros and after needing to kill the frozen head as we wouldn't be able to heal through it we lastly turned on the green one and gave it everything.

"I think we took less time killing it than I did explaining it" quipped Alryisa.

After an eventful evening, we decided to call it a night.

The snails await!

Throne of Thunder: Noob edition

A lot of aggro had been going on in the guild over raiding so what better way to try and reduce aggro by making another raid!

This one was by no stretch of the imagination a serious attempt. We were here to have fun primarily and kill things secondary.

We were late starting due to some technical difficulties for Chizal. When we did get there eventually we set to it. Everyone was summoned and ready to go.

We went off. Zorakan and Jollyjane pulling the entire top step of trash. They hurt. We wiped. Maybe we were a little too over excited!

On the second attempt only half the raid died. It was a valiant effort as our healers were under geared and one was a shadow spec priest!

We got through the rest of the trash with hardly any oopsys. Zorakan pulled the first hag and then somehow got pinged into the bushes and we were joined by a swarm of snakes. We had completely forgotten about them! Then, after getting through the other three yeah mobs, we got to the bridges... It was like people ping-pong. There were cows and dogs being flung everywhere. The bridges were the cause of more deaths than the two bosses we got through and the trash combined.

Zorakan had made it look pretty easy running around, add it always does when you're stood there watching. We needed to get across to the middle podium without being bounced or blown of the edge and also without pulling the angry Queen stood on it. It took me four attempts to get across... After this moment of madness and for me being bounced off the steps once and then getting all the way across the second time only to pull the Queen. We all congregated on the safe spot before the stairs and were shuffling left and right to avoid the bouncing trash add we regrouped. Eventually the Queen died (and a group cheer went out over ts) and we waited in the steps for the next trash to be pulled. It was at that moment that Roskva was here one minute and gone the next as he was bounced to his death.

"Did you fall off?"
"Yeah, I got hit by the one on the podium, I thought I was out of range but I wasn't..."

While Roskva ran back we dealt with the two phantom hags that were floating around. We accidentally pulled two. However, after feeling smug about the previous bridge we decided to go all pro and take them both out. We started running again and had a far better success rate this time. Nord performed 'leap of faith' on me (which always terrifies me as I think I'm going to land right where the boss/trash can get me) and we stood at the top of the steps, out of harms way.

"Clear the snakes"
"Ok"
"Are there snakes in the other bush?"
(Everyone turns around)
"No"
"Ok, let's go"

The last swirly frost/storm guy was the one who was keeping us from the Breaker. After he went down, we went in to his domain.

"Give me a couple of seconds!" Jolly announced. I started to go through the basics.
"If you have focused lightning on you, don't stand in a puddle"
"Ah I was just about to say that!"
"Please get out of the water before electrified water starts, or you be dead"
"Are we tank swapping on the normal stacks?" Jolly asked
"Yeah"

A few moments of silence ensued...
"Are we all here?"
"Yeah! Sorry I was back when I started talking!"

I got a whisper to put up markers where the pools spawn, unfortunately I wasn't the party leader and it was at that moment that the tanks had gone for it. It being a soft enrage we were not anticipating much trouble. A couple of us died. (Possibly due to not having markers so we just scattered like frightened chickens and then ended up out of healer range) Roskva was at one point the only one neatly positioned in the puddle when it spawned and then got hit by the lightning. Oops... We got him down by the third puddle and had another mini nerd scream.

We repaired and ploughed on.

"The angry Dino is next isn't it?"
"Yep!"

Standing in Horridons domain we had a brief run through of tactics.
-Tank the boss side on so we don't get hit by double swipe.
-Tank switch after every door.
-Get the adds down ASAP.
-Interrupt the Dinomancer.
-Don't stand in shit.

"Who is tanking first?"
"If Jolly goes first then we can switch when he needs to round up the adds"
"When am I tanking? First or second?"
"First"
"Ok! Let's go!"

We charged on. Horridon was coaxed to the first door. The adds came out and were focused on. The Dinomancer was announced and no sooner had he turned into a Dino that he was dead. The orb of control was clicked and that door was done.

"Great job, tank switch and onwards!"

When we got to the venom priests there were two of us with a large stack of the debuff. Nord was asking for dispels, I had eight stacks of it and had to run through puddles to get away from the cone attack of double swipe while still getting to the door. Eventually we were all up and running normally. The last adds were being dealt with when in inevitable happened...

"This is going far too smoothly..."

And with that I died! Instantly! I had no idea what hit me but I was up,running around, pew-pewing one moment and on the floor the next.

"Oh my god! You jinxed it!"

I got a res and carried on. Then Antdruid dropped. We were down to two healers. Not that I didn't have faith in them but being undergeared for what they were doing I didn't want us to come so far for it to unravel now.

"Can someone res Ant?"
"Cooldown"

Bugger. The tank and other druid were busy so it was up to us to get it done. The War God appeared and we flamed him down in a shower of arrows and sword swipes. Horridon was on his last legs... 3-2-1... NERD SCREAM!

Our rag-bag group had done it!

Beautiful

There are some moments when you do stop for a while, where ever you are in the game and you notice how much attention to detail actually went into it. Some things might be quite small, that you would only see if you were really paying attention, some are really large. Here are two, that I have kept on my Mac as I like them too much to get rid of them.

This one, I thought was quite funny. Pandas having chinese take-out.

And then this one. Took while I was waiting for some trash mobs to come back around before I killed a rare. Stunning.

2KG3R6VT2Q7P

Boosting

So I had a little help on Pazima to finally get me to level 75 so I could carry on with my professions. I'd scrambled from 68 to 71 pugging dungeons but could do with getting there a little quicker.

In stepped Farouche, who whisked me of to Dalaran for a date with the inmates of the Violet Hold. I couldn't pick up the quest but I was getting xp from the bosses and with the extra 9% from the anniversary gift from Blizzard (when I got reminded to use it) my bar was slowly working is way across.

I had a moment of madness when I reminded him that I couldn't fly yet in Northrend. I was being tight and hadn't forked out for it yet. I needed to go to Exodar to pick it up, as being a Draenei, it would be cheaper. He logged his Mage so that he could portal me across and then back again. When we got there I couldn't pick up anything... He mentioned that we could go to my next highest rep city, I looked at my reputation page...

[Faraouche] Whats your next highest one?

[Pazima] Oh wait! Revered is higher than honoured isn't it?

[Farouche] Yeah, where do we need to go?

[Pazima] TO STORMWIND!!

Because I'd ditched the space goats as quickly as I could, I hadn't build up much rep for them. Stormwind was my highest rep by a mile. So, he escorted me to the Alliance capital and I picked up Cold Weather Flying for 425g.

We made our way over to Azjol-Nerub, Farouche steaming ahead on his mount and me slowly catching up the rear. I found his dot and he said to come down. Even going down was slow...

We got in to the entrance and set off. I had been here a few times on Emava and was able to pick up the quests this time. I followed behind, trying to not take too much damage, popping my shield whenever things might get a bit sticky. At the first boss I went round an collected up all the eggs I needed to. Farouche was collecting everything as he was low on gold due to buying mounts (lolz).

We got to a bridge that went down, with lots of spider webs under it. Farouche asked if I could do 'that floaty thing'. I could indeed levitate him. 'Follow me' he said. he jumped off the bridge and floated down. I followed him, or so I thought. Veering wildly off course I ended crashing into a wall and grabbing the attention of some nearby ant-spiders. 'Fuck' I whispered to him. He came back to sort out the infestation problem I was having and ran back off. I got charged at again by more of them. 'Still fuck' I whispered. I was finding the whole thing highly amusing for some reason. I hadn't died yet but by god I was probably close a few times. Farouche rescued me again and we went off. Another boss was dispatched and then we were onto the last one.

There is a huge stairway dropping down to the final boss. I was still levitating and could see that Farouche had gone halfway down. I breezed off after him. Completely forgetting that I wouldn't actually follow the stairs, I took off on my little white cloud and drifted completely past Farouche. 'Fuck' I whispered again closely followed by 'This is hilarious'. I landed right in front of the two guardians and after  that got over what could only assume was there initial shock at a space goat floating in front if them, they charged in to get me. I was left with some words of wisdom...

[Farouche] You walk in Zionxis footsteps :)

Im a huntard and a priestard... This is not good...

Guild Chat

It all started with some innocent linking of loot...







And then it went down hill from there...

















Until finally...







Tangy yoghurt is serious stuff!

Downfall

After yesterday having a crack at part four flex: Downfall, and not managing to get past the goblin in the golem, a calendar invite was put up for it to try and be completed tonight.

We had previously been running RBG’S, which drained me of half my brain power. Not the best start in the world. To add in that I had also been spending most of my afternoon rep-grinding with the very capable DK Farouche, I was at a wow saturation point.

We stepped into Seigcrafters lair and had a run through of tactics. It was a lot to take in as there is lots going on in the fight. I havent completed part three or four in LFR so yesterday was 'first contact' with Siegcrafter Blackfuse and his whirring Assembly Line. This time thankfully I didn't fall off the platform where the trash is, trying to get down the tube. Most embarrassing to utter 'Oh bugger' on TS as my corpse is dumped in the middle of the boss area for everyone to gawp at...

We had our markers up and took position. We had Verdie tanking for us, which made it a whole lot easier. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing and could give out instructions. It was one of those encounters that I got better at the more times I died. I worked out my ideal positioning for the drills, swapped a talent to take care of the mines and made sure I was on max range for the blades. I did die a lot and I wasn't worth combat ressing which was both a relief and an embarrassment. It gave me the chance to see what was going on and see where those in RT1 positioned themselves etc but it also highlighted how far I had slipped down the gear scales. (Which is why I really need to be able to get a team sorted out for RT3 so we can get more people ready for when the expansion hits, myself included)

Back to the story, I wasn't the only one to die. We had many wipes on it. Some were for silly mistakes like not killing the mines but the majority were we just were a fraction or with positioning or a bit slow of the mark for moving an add etc. The more we wiped the closer we got though.
I decided that my nemesis was the laser. Every time I was kiting it away from the group I ended up dying and in more than one occasion I got trapped but the flaming shit that was everywhere (after a melee had it focusing on them) and the blades right when the drills popped up. My most spectacular death was when a saw blade focused on me and I strafed a bit to the right, which would have been out of harms way and then panicked. I then strafed left, into the blade and then got pinballed into two others. I stayed silent on ts but was laughing my ass off at my own stupidity privately. Eventually we had him down. And we all had a little nerd scream after. After that we ended up seeing the great orc himself, Garrosh Hellscream.

He was smaller than I expected and the beating heart thing above us was seriously creepy. We went through and gave it a shot with us stacking at one side and then moving. Unfortunately, due to us being tired/boss-boozled/idiotic we didn't make it.

We then organised another one for a weeks time. When it came round it was after reset so we went through them all again.

We ended up with a beautiful line of pale green across the middle of the raid bar. '4 hunters?' Rich and I commented in raid chat. This then increased to 5. '5 hunters?' 'This is going to be fun'. When we were ready Rich made us all aware that we were going with 'Transformers! Roll out!' Which then got reworked to the very apt 'Hunters! Roll out!'

Malkorok was dispatched in one. A vast improvement on when I was in LFR and everyone was running away from the puddles.

Spoils of Pandaria was also interesting, I'd done this once before, in LFR. It was interesting listening to the two group leaders talking to their teams and having to filter out what information was for your team. It was probably the most painless one of the lot and over in a flash.

There was also my second ever taste of Thok. I got dropped by the lizard-birds. Death number one.
I also had the unfortunate episode of talking to someone so my DBM was sending them updates. I had another two deaths in our first attempt. I got eaten when the boss turned around when I was trying to locate the second marker and I got eaten by it when it was chasing someone down the corridor. I quickly learned that if in doubt run away was a good ethos to have. Until we started to lose healers and then after I died the second time Roly declared over TS 'If your not near me you will die' Pink power!

We wiped on that attempt. Rich being the only one left alive and unfortunately couldn't bring the stupid dino down. I got a message from Farouche 'Aww you wiped on 1%' it was that tragic...

We gave the Dino what for on the next attempt, I died, again... but got ressed *hurrah* and actually made it to the end! OMFG! I didnt end the encounter staring at my ass on the floor. I had no end of re-rolls available to me so I had a quick check of what there was that I could possibly use. Not a lot so I settled with the gold.

Eventually we made it to Garrosh. This was the moment of truth.

I was tired, I had been working all day and been raiding all night. My brain was catching up with what I needed to do and my performance was at times sloppy. After dying AGAIN and AGAIN I was about to make it my last try and go and sort out my Bank Alt's guild tabs so that Chizal could use one of them to stash stuff. However, I wanted this kill, so I deleted the message I was going to send him about leaving if we wiped and set to it.

'Does anyone have a guild banner?' Alryisa asked on TS. dutifully three banners were placed in the marker 'Roly hates it when we do this' You could sense the frown of disapproval, even though he said nothing, as each of the banners plopped down.

After getting through the first bit and avoiding being killed by the Iron Star, we went into the next dream-like phase. We asked who goes down what side. 'Split evenly' was the decission. when we did split, as I was the last to load I saw that everyone had dissapeared off to the left, so I went right just as Alryisa asked 'Why is it just me and Roskva killing this add?' I joined in the fight and we were soon a Hunter trio taking it down. I dont know if I was imagining it but it looked like we were in the Temple of the Red Crane with Garrosh in the middle making lots of purple shit on the floor. We were soon dropped back into the action and killing mobs and weapons. Im pretty sure I died at this point and then got ressed (lolz). The interesting part was when lots of blobbs started coming out. They were everywhere... We were told to ignore them and not to kill them or they will empower, through the haze of purple swirling shit and the blobs the only think I could really focus on was Garrosh. We wiped. Oh my days, we were so close yet just didnt manage to get over the last hurdle. I could smell the achievment and wanted it so bad there was no way I was giving up, no matter how shabby my dps was (I feel at this part I was being boosted through, I was the worst geared player there by a long shot but it was great experience, even if I was completely shit). Alryisa was picking up on the hunters not missdirecting enough (there were five of us after all) and we dusted ourselves off and started again. We got through, all the way to the blobs and even with some of them becoming empowered, towering beasts we gave it everything. Zillions of hunter pets stormed into the fray. Crows were everywhere, Garrosh was still hammering Alryisa and then suddenly... Cust scene...

We had done it! Garrosh was down! I had earned my achievement and got past the big boy. Not on LFR but on Flex (obviously due to half of RT1 being there!)



I earnt two other achievments during this, the first was Unlimited Potential and then Strike!

Me so pro!

Just a little bit of self promotion here! Through my horde days you needed a dps meter to see how close you were from being kicked from a lfr group. Now for me it's used to see how I'm performing against the other people in the raid. In lfr I look to see if I'm anywhere close to the other hunters, doesn't matter what spec they are, I just want to be beating them (petty as it may seem but if I'm doing better than them, I feel like I'm doing ok)

Chizal is on the 3k valor part of the legendary questline. We were going to do a quick (if any current lfr can be classed add quick...) run on the Gates of Retribution. The queue time was 45 minutes, to be honest, we couldn't be arsed with that! We weighed up the options for 'quick' valor. We could pug a group for scenarios and a dungeon to bag us 130 vp, we decided to go to ToT Pinnacle of Storms. 4 minute queue and we only missed one boss.

Chizal was healing, and I was doing my standard pew-pew. I'd made a wager that I would die on the last boss and it would be by the lightning whip. True to form it is where I met my maker. I wasn't even trying to die there to prove a point, it's just I never know where to stand when he is chucking that thing about. That attempt ended in a wipe and even though I was dead for half of it I still had my eye on the meter. I'd been pipped to the post by a DK during that effort, sad times.

The went at it again. I was in group five so as instructed my group were to run around like chickens during the intermission. As Chizal was in group two I headed to green so he could keep me up (in lfr the only healers I trust are the ones I know) and so this sassy chicken ran off to green. We stood in the swirly puddles like good little palidins and hunters. You could see the mess going on at the other stations where 'don't stand in the shit!' was going on.





Anyway... I steadily worked my way through my rotation. Things did get a bit lax when the wind thingy started and I had to keep straifing one way and running the other to keep myself semi still so I could still fire. There was the bouncing balls of lightning, adds from the intermission that we still hadn't cleared up and then DBM announces that my favourite way to die is going to happen shortly, girder your loins...
After all the times I've run this, it was the first time I noticed that there was grey foggy stuff on the floor that people were avoiding. AHA! This must be where lightning whip goes on! I could see that the floor is grey and the fog was grey, helpful. I concluded that the only place I would be safe was behind the boss or over the other side of the room. Boss was closer. So while everyone was running away at full tilt, I swaggered up behind him, got a face full of Mogu arse and kept shooting arrows into it.
If I were him and I had someone yelling at me, punching me in the legs (he's tall) and battering me with a shield and someone else continually poking me in the bottom with arrows. I'd ignore the little guy having a tantrum at me feet and knock out the the one using me like a pin cushion. One can only assume that the tank was shouting 'yo mama' insults at him to keep his attention so well.

The moral of this long winded story is that I am feeling particularly smug due to my Skada result. Obviously it's an old raid to be doing but even then you get players with decent ilvl and have more of a clue about what they're doing than me. So one can only assume that the DK Néon was having an off day...

The Chat Box...

There have been many a funny thing end up in the chat box. Either in Guild Chat or while in LFR. It takes me a while to remember to gather them off my drive and to put them up and also to be paying attention to the chat box when they happen!

Here are a few that I have witnessed so far, I'm sure there will be many more...


While waiting for Spoils of Pandaria to actually be started. The tank was shit, and someone took a shit!



Talking about the stubborn weeds. Pitney had twelve of them on the farm and was just expressing that it would have been worse if it was the 'tentical' weeds as they take longer to pull up...



This was when I had a brain fart and asked a lvl 90 if they minded if i rolled need on a ring that had absolutely no use for.

RT3 does ToES

After last week's poor advancement through Terrace of Endless Spring we managed to get a full raid group together. From the people committed to RT3 we had Chizal, Lightning, Sanndo, Jollyjane and myself. We had an off tank and four dps. It was coming up to raid time and a sixth member wasn't logged in and we needed to find people. Luckily for us, RT2 had been forced to call a raid for tonight and while they were making their own fun in the new PvP based raid 'Shrine of the Two moons' they decided to come and help us out.

I did try and convince a friend of mine to join in the 'new raid' fun. He was sat on his Rogue, slacking when I suggested he log his Hordie.
"You should log your horde, Jesters are rampaging at the shrine"
"How many of them are there?"
"Oh about ten, and one of them is Marvv..."
"I think I'll stay here then!"

Shamanessa, Raidana, Wilfwolf, Alrdruid and Raymus completed the line up. (Thanks guys!)

Raidana was leading on ts, even though it's a pretty easy raid to do as we must have done it no end in lfr it was good to have someone explaining the process and reminding us where to focus. It was pretty uneventful, no screw ups (well, not many) and it was all very relaxed we knew we were there for fun add it were, wanting to tick boxes of on our armory stats!

The Protectors of the Endless were first up. We briefly discussed going 'hard mode' by keeping Protector Kaolan up until last. We decided not to. I've done this before and it was a pain in the ass. Granted, no one had gear like we do now but it was traumatic and expensive enough for me to have 'done it once, never again'. The unfortunate thing about not being able to see who is typing can lead to unintentional dismissal of ideas...

Raidana: (on ts) so are we going for elite?
[Raid chat][Chizal]: Regail, Asani, Kaolan
[Raid chat][Raidana]: can someone give Alr assist?
[Raid chat][Zionxi]: noooooooo
Zionxi: (on ts) Oh, Raidana that wasn't meant for you!

We went for the easiest option as we weren't going for glory, just to get it done.

Kaolan didn't actually do much protecting (he's getting sacked in the morning) and bit the dust without much complaining. We moved him all of five steps before he dropped.
We were calling out to get our lightning prisons removed on ts
"I have lightning!"
"No you don't"
"I thank you"

Onwards to Regail. With Raidana calling out the add and also when to move for the lightning storm.

"Add... good job"
"Lightning, everybody out, and in"

"Lighting storm, out, in... Nessa!"
"Bahhh! I was running!"

"Lightning, out, in..."
"In-out, shake it all about..."
"I was just thinking that!"

Tsulong was next, as there were alts and some who hadn't completed the green fingered achievement, Alrdruid took it upon himself to keep the plant alive. I got this achievement last time I was here, seemingly by accident. It was only when it popped up I actualky looked around and spotted it. Not sure what the benefits are to keeping the plant alive apart from the achievement! This also went quicker than it did last time, hardly any adds spawned (or so my untrained eye lead me to believe) most of us only got feared once. We were aiming to dip into the sunbeam once we were on ten stacks, the amount of times DBM screamed at me that I had twelve stacks was frightning. I'd be running over to it while trying to dodge the shit on the floor only to be a gnats whisker away from getting in and then it moved. At one point I was standing in the other side to the group and as usual, I was nearly dead. "I'm gonna die!" I squealed over ts trying to find a healer. "There you go" Alrdruid soothed, my health bar slowly going back to green. Once we had Tsulong under control, several people got the plant achievement. Good little tree!

Lei-shi was our sticking point last time. And this time was no different! Raidana went through the tactics and we accidentally pulled. Seeing as weer were slightly against the timer we went for it, probably not the smoothest of boss kills and didn't set out tanks up for the best start! Somehow we lost a tank and a healer near the end, just before the last spawn of Animated Protectors. We got the healer back up just before they spawned and had to go for broke, if wet didn't make it through this it would be game over. The tank courageously held them off until weer got them down and then faceplanted. Lei-Shi then started chasing everyone while we frantically tried to get away. Somehow I managed to get aggro without realising until Raidana said over TS "Zionxi is tanking" heals poured in like they were going out of fashion. I started running away like she had cooties without thinking about it. "three percent!" Blam. She decided to stop harassing us and go hang out with the Sha of Fear.

The last boss, you could see how far we had come, literally. A few skeletons littering the floor on the way up. This was where it got serious. Kill this and we had done it!

A marker was put down so we could see the protected cone area to stand in when breath of fear was active. And it began. We popped cooldowns and went for gold, ominous cackle took half the team away and all of a sudden we were left with lots of cloudy stuff being chucked at us. It seemed from nowhere there were six adds all at the side who needed dealing with. I ventured out to deal with one of them, the group hadn't returned yet and the breath was coming. I ran back and almost had one foot in the cone when it activated. I went running off like a loon, health rapidly decreasing. It wasn't long after that we wiped. Too much focus on the boss and not enough focus on the adds. Second try, we concentrated on the adds and only the boss during breath of fear. The ominous cackle was infuriating Raidana "what! I've been picked again!" I think there was only one time that he wasn't carted off to the 'bandstand'. While he was over there, the rest of us for the adds down. It made everything so much easier. It seemed to be taking longer but upon hitting 5% we had enough time to host a party before he went beserk. Triumphantly we got it down and ran around his neon corpse with our glowy speed up buffs. "Ooh shiny" "look at my golden stripes" (secretly, I think we had more fun running around like idiots than killing things...)

Should it be a privilege?

I'm lucky enough to have found a home in a great guild. Everyone is friendly, non-elitist and willing to help.

It's the willing to help that had recently caused some strained relations between guild mates and also highlighted the divide between those who make things happen and those who want things to happen.

Recently, there was an incident where two raid groups were doing flex. The ability to have any number of people between 10 and 25 means that it's an invaluable tool. A way of people to see new content and learn while being able to have the support of people who have done it before, while it's slightly easier than normal mode but more challenging than lfr, and without the idiots screaming like children when things don't go to plan (essentially, to complete lfr you should be so pro you would have soloed Garrosh HC while blindfolded otherwise GET OUT NOOB! *kick*) Getting back to the flex, RT1 and RT2 were in there learning the mechanics. On their own at their choice. This caused some issues. There had been a guild wide flex put up for the same day but had been taken down a day or two before. People had signed up, and then not logged in for a while to suddenly see it not there, to then look at the guild roster and see that there were many people in SoO, to then put two and two together and get five.

The divide in people's attitude started to show when I got a whisper asking if they were doing flex. I had an invite to it still because I'm back up, but due to levelling my chars and only logging in on my main when the raid had already started I didn't see it until it was too late. I replied that they were (which was true) this then caused uproar from two members. They saw flex as a way of being boosted by the main raid teams, and the only way they would be able to get gear. When it was explained that it was a raid for primarily RT2 to learn the tactics with help from people who had done it. It was then stated that it was on the calendar for everyone, it was then cancelled but they did it anyway, how was that fair? Unfortunately this was being said in whispers and in guild chat so that everyone could benefit from the argument.

The explanations that were being provided just were not good enough it seems. I had already said that for the purposes of getting gear we were trying to start a third raid team, however this was going to be "impossible to do" and we should be doing flex as it's "there so people can get gear". What people were failing to realise is that flex isn't an easy way to progress. It's harder than lfr and is there to enable you to just take an odd number of players in. It's brilliance lies in the fact it enables your whole raid team to participate, back-ups and all so that everyone can keep up to date and standard before taking the bosses on in normal mode.

Many times it was suggested that they could take their own team in to do whatever they wanted. After much arguing it was decided that a guild wide sign up would be created for the Gates of Retribution. So anyone who wanted to do it could, no matter if they had experience or not. This also caused uproar for another member when they decided that they would voice the 'opinion of the guild' and log into ts, go into the raid channel and shout the odds at the people in there. It showed their true colours and they were swiftly removed from the guild. Needless to say they didn't take too kindly to it.

The day of Flex came around and the person who had made a big deal about it and insisted that an event was made so that 'everyone could benefit, not just the raiders' wasn't even online! He was supposed to be the raid leader but he didn't even show up...

Where do you draw the line between holding people's hands and letting go?
Should people expect to be carried through raiding by the more experienced members or should they make their own teams?
Should flex be used to boost people or is it better to be considered as another raid level along with normal and heroic?

It was frustrating to say the least. Many times I've said that we are getting the third raid team up and running, still people either ignore it or just don't think it will work and then moan that they can't raid. We are so lucky that there are a lot of really helpful people in the guild but they also need to realise that if they tried, they could form a team of their own. Some people it seems, just won't get off their backsides.

The Patient

My two alts needed levelling up. I couldn't get their professions any higher if I didn't and that's all I really have them for. It was with a heavy heart that I plunged into the world of dungeon finder to get me some much needed xp.

The reasons I've put it off for so long are probably the same reasons most people have alts that are languishing in the 40-to-60 region. Upper and lower Blackrock Spire and the people you encounter via pugging.

I used to heal with Pazima belive it or not. Instant queues were very handy. I knew I wasn't going to be the greatest at healing but I wanted to try it out. (Bearing in mind I had never gone into a dungeon until I was level 83 and when I did them as achievements I could one-shot everything so I never really had to pay attention.) I went into Scarlet Monastery without any guildies as back up and had a really good group. I kept everyone alive and only faltered right at the end when I got aggro and died, but managed to keep everyone else up (my healing spec is Holy) I was whispered by one of the dps who told me "you're a really good healer!" It boosted my confidence no end and made me belive that I possibly could be a healer. It then all went south with the next group. My then guild master came with me on a similar level mage and we went into the same dungeon. We had a tank who want willing to wait for anyone and was pulling left right and centre. He would run out of range pull everything but not keep aggro and lo and behold I want able to keep him and the group up when we were effectively getting slaughtered but as the healer, it was my fault. I should have been prepared for this as I had often seen healer bashing going on and should have expected it to be 'my fault' but considering I was trying my hardest at a class I was learning I could stop myself from feeling angry and hurt. The gm said nothing, probably due to his love of being top dog and left me to be verbally abused by someone who thought they were the God of WoW. The last straw came when I was called a retard for dying when I had aggro off of mobs that the tank had failed to keep control of. At that point the gm did say that was unfair as I did have aggro that I shouldn't have but I had had enough. I quit, the gm stayed and then told me that they found a better healer who knew what they were doing. I found my trainer, activated my second spec as shadow and stayed in it, never wanting to heal again.

Fast forwarding six months, while I was in my horde phase, I started levelling a druid as melee dps and tank. I stuck with dps as I knew I couldn't get myself into too much trouble with it. Due to being on a 'normal' realm, I could quest without fear of being ganked and some dungeons I missed altogether by out-levelling them. I remember being in Uldaman and the healer and the other two dps left. There was me and a warrior tank. I stood there in my kitty-kat form just waiting for the inevitable.

"Druid, can you heal?"
"I can, but I warn you, I'm not very good"
"It's fine, I'll pull small groups, you ready?"
"Ok"

True to his word he pulled the world smallest groups and I didn't have to break a sweat with the two spells I had at the time. I don't know if he was aware I didn't even have a healing spec but nevertheless we ploughed on until weer got to a boss where we had to wait.
"You did great but I think we need to wait now :)"
I was pleased, I think I had given myself a way out clause as I didn't have a healing spec as then if I was shit, there was the answer. There were a few dungeons like that where I had been called on to heal while the actual healer was afk or had quit. I  levelled Emava quite far and only had to heal a few, short times.

When I changed back to Alliance I missed my kitty and after a month, brought her back with me. It's at this point I took an interest in Pazima again as Emava was level 72 and Paz was only level 58. I had levelled enchanting as far as I could on her and needed to get her actually levelled up to go any further.

After making my way through numerous Blackrock dungeons I was almost losing the will to live. I was plucked out of dungeoning hell by an old guild mate who ran me through Hellfire Ramparts and The Blood Furnace until I dinged 60. Bless him, he was greeding on the loot when I saw a ring I could use when I was level 61. I asked if I could need it (silly as he had no use for it but it's just polite to not be a ninja) "of course you can you stupid space goat" was the reply. Sure made me laugh! I did then ninja some gloves that had gem sockets in and laughed when he saw that I had rolled need. After that I was in my own again but at least I was on new dungeons that didn't take an age and a gold badge in orienteering from the Scouts to complete.

Off on my merry way I went, determined to make it to level 65 so I could further my enchanting and now jewelcrafting career. Queuing as dps sure didn't make it quick but no way in hell was I queuing as a healer to make it quicker. Most of the dungeons I had seen before after running them to gather cloth and so was fairly comfortable with what I was doing. I was in The Blood Furnace again when the healer we had decided, mid way through that they needed to go to class. My heart sank, I knew what was coming. Most of my stuff didn't have any spirit on it so if I ran out of mana I was screwed.

"Priest, can you heal?"
"I can but I'm not very good"
"It's fine, let's go"

With that we were off, staying in range, madly focusing on the nameplates of my pug group and being unable to loot anything, I dutifully threw the three healing spells I had at them. All was going relatively well, I had my heart in my mouth panicking at the thought of failure but we seemed to be ok. We entered a boss room and the Druid tank ran off into the room. We died. "omg I was silenced" I posted into the instance chat. "hah never mind, I'll pull smaller groups, I didnt realise they could silence" I was in love with this little bear! Rather than bitching that I hadnt been able to keep them up he was accepting that shit happens and even though I was not prepared for healing I was giving it a shot. The rest of the dungeon we worked through slowly and steadly, we never did get a healer. Before the end boss I did get a bit worried again...

"Should I swich to Holy?"
"Nah, youre doing fine"

We survived!

Another group I went into, the healer went AFK and ended up being kicked. We had a hunter on the team and with the clever use of CC we got through most of it without needing a healer. The tank was a monk so was able to kip themselves up. Things got a bit hary when the Hunter decided to just start filling everything with bullets and got more aggro than the tank could keep off. Seeing that he was about to peg it, I shrugged off my Shadowform and started to heal without even being asked. And I did ok again, I was slowly coming around to healing but I just knew that I would be more comfortable if it was with a group comprised of just guildies.

The flip side and the one that you most frequently see happened with Chizzorz and I. We had a Pally tank called 'Sainsburys' (had some random letters in it like ű but can't remember what ones exactly) while I was levelling Emava and he was shall we say, an arsehole. He was launching himself through after wanting a quick run (that's nice but what about the rest of us?) And left Chizzorz to die and went straight onto a boss. I left him to it to go back and combat res Chiz. He was mighty pissed off to have been just left behind to die after the tank didn't want to hang around long enough to make sure he had all the aggro. The worst bit came when he launched himself into a load of trash and we all piled in after him, he then shouted not to attack and called us all 'retards, complete retards' after we wiped. Chiz told him that is not our fault and he shouldn't get so arsey as it's just a game, I told him to give it a rest and our other dps reported him for language as she had a six year old at next to her watching. It's people like this you find in the majority of dungeons and worse in lfr and they almost ruin it for you if you don't remember that they clearly must have nothing better going on if they get so worked up about a level 75 dungeon.

I guess that's why you get the Patient title, you have to be a saint to put up with it all....

Ore Farming

As I started ore farming on Emava so she could provide the mats to Pazima for her jewel crafting. I would keep having to look up where I could find certain ores. So far I've found Fel Iron, Adamantite and Colbolt the hardest to find as there are always Hordies around,  which makes it a giant pain in the ass to find.

To help any budding miners on their way, here are the spots I've farmed ore in and on the whole, I've had quite a lot of it. I have included up to where I am currently with mining, as I level I will be able to get other ores so will update accordingly.

Copper: I stuck with Elwynn Forest for this one. There are loads of nodes around the rocks and in the mines to farm. There is a hill near Jerrods Landing that has a rare nearby, the hill has no end of nodes on it and is a great place to start, after that just move around to any rocky areas and then follow the mountains round.

Tin and Silver: I went to Hillsbrad Foothils for these. Unfortunately so did a lot of Horde. There is a cave full of tin in the snowy area on the hill. First time round I didn't manage to get any of it as there was a lvl 90 Hordie mining it all /sadface. Pretty much all you have to do is just keep circling around the snowy bit and the stuff will keep respawning. Sliver is quite difficult to find in this area so I did have to make a return trip for it and went around the areas outside of the snowy bit so I could just mine them and not tin. (This is to make sure that when I go back, I know that the green circles on GatherMate are going to be silver if I'm outside of the snow area and mostly tin if I'm in it)

Iron and Gold: I went to Western Plaguelands as it was only a stones throw away from where I was and you just need to do a great big loop. I found no end of iron nodes but only two gold, it just wasn't my lucky day! I did go back and found some more though. Just make sure you avoid the black bears on the hilly bits of your not a high enough level to kill them without much trouble add they can bumble over the top of a rock and take you completely by surprise!

Mitheral and Truesilver: Burning Steppes. The best place ever to farm this. Just go in a massive loop round the outside, there are so many nodes, some practically one on top of the other. Three laps got me nearly 300 ores. Don't go inside any caves and whatnot as tempting as it might be as this will just slow you down.

Thorium: I chose Winterspring. Purely because there was a tailoring pattern I wanted. It got a bit fiddly trying to mine it all. It's not a straightforward loop around the zone, with many mountain ranges to navigate. I was able to mine Rich Thorium Vein right of the bat which helped but after two loops around I only managed to get 150 ores. Was expecting more from a zone that size. Will try Un'gol Crater next time as it's a case of just going around the outside.

Fel Iron: Oh how I hate thee... Hellfire is the place that has the most. But it's also full of other miners. I've been ganked quite a few times by lvl 90's who were also there farming. Out of the whole area I have discovered at most 25 nodes which is quite depressing. Monknessa did send me a screenshot of her map so I could have a better idea of where to look for them. I did have a small success farming it in Nagrand, when looking for other veins.

Adamantite and Khorium: This was ridiculous to find. I went to Nagrand to find this and had to contest with the level 90 Hordies trying to gank me and steal it. It had a respawn with the rare Khorium vein which lowered my chances of getting anything. Unfortunately my jewelcrafting on Pazima is at the point where I need the ore to make the powder so I couldn't really skip this part.

Cobalt: This had been a trial too, have tried two zones Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. Neither of which produced much considering how big they are. Luckily the veins I did find produces a fair amount of ore and I did manage to find one or two rich Cobalt Veins so I had enough to get started with.

Saronite: I'd tried Sholazar Basin for this but with the many level 90 Hordes hanging around it was just ending up as a rather tiresome and long corpse run. Even though its essentially a big loop to get round all the nodes, it was taking far too long. I decided to go to Wintergrasp. There was less ore to be found and some I couldnt get to due to the mobs hanging around but all in all it was less stressful/gankfilled area to farm.

Obsidium: This ended up with me back in Vashj'ir. I really dont like this place. The swimming around 3d nature of it meant that I would constantly be swiming into mobs and then not being able to work out where they were to try and kill them. Once I had worked out the route around the Shimmering Expanse, the respawn rate was really quick and I could gather a lot really quickly. Plus my water form on my Druid made the swimming bit painless.

Elementium: Urgh, this was like Fel Iron ore all over again. The loop recommended around Twilight Highlands was huge and didnt seem to provide much. I spent a fair few hours trying to gather enough ore for Pazima to prospect for gems. It was painful progress, although I managed to go from 83 to 84 while doing it. I could also see someone else farming in the other direction to me which wasnt helping matters, I didn't try Uldum but I would have thought that it would have been quicker to farm due to less people.

Ghost Iron: I started off by doing laps in The Jade Forest. Near the Sri-La Village. There were quite a few and any mobs I ran into were manageable. I needed to get to the Silken Fields to start doing my Imperial Silk so I ventured into Valley of the Four Winds. Parked myself at Halfhil and then went around the farms and the lakes. It was much better than Jade Forest, I only pulled one mob which I could just run away from. Two laps round and I had got from 500 to 585. and had more than enough for my JC to prospect.

Images that made me laugh...

We have a section on the guild forum for 'Too good not to share' items. Pictures about WoW or other general funnies that we have found on the internet. I came across these and a few I have shared but the rest are sitting idly on my desktop. Rather than keep them for myself, why not share them with everyone!

 



Older than WoW its self... This person has been playing since WoW was just a sparkle in Blizzards eye!

 



If someone wants to make this cake for my birthday please, feel free!

 



Can't help but think - How long did it take them to finish fighting over who was going to be what colour? How long did it take them to get their mogs? And where is the Pink Power Ranger?!?!

 



Dominos online ordering. Many times I've thought about what you would put in this box... "be sexy" was as close as we got when ordering during a flat warming party...

 



All those people who charge at the doors on battlegrounds, with their combined effort maybe one day they will force those computer gates open with the power of pixels!

 



The gods honest truth. It took me an hour to complete this dungeon as no one wanted to run it. I was on my Druid while I was still horde and had to take up the position of Tank, Healer and DPS at various points during this dungeon. Almost made me want to sack off being a druid and re-roll...

 



It's a heinous crime! (and a bloody good episode!)

 



This one I love. The amount of comments I get about my slutmog barely covering the 'essentials'. Although I have a bit more coverage via a few chains, you would have thought that I would have been dead far more times than I am if it actually worked like proper armour! (although I am not too sure that I 'can' actually die any more or I would have to re-roll as an undead...)

 



Oh my god... I want one of these. The cutest thing ever made!

 



This is as old as the hills. I splurted my drink when I came across it as I immediately thought of the Pallys in guild being like this! (Our Pallys are tough as old plate boots so it would have to be a  really big spider or something to make them bubblehearth ;-) )

 

 



 

This is evident if you stand around in a city for long enough, you always hear the moaning about things being changed and the excitement about other things. (Excitement, confusion, boredom, hatred since and repeat) I think the story is told so much better because its a panda...

 



Monknessa brought this to our attention on the guild forum. How many times has this happened. or you find one, get excited, enter into battle and then find all your pets are ten level higher than it so you just have o make its death swift and painless...

 



Oh if only this was real! I have the Celestial Steed (top right) people are always telling me it looks naff because of all the glitter and shit. If only it was an actual My Little Pony... *swoon*

 



My absolute favourite things in WoW. Sod the Pandas, sod the shiny new loot even sod killing Garrosh. These snails win hands down every time. We ran a raid to the Forgotten Depths and even with us knowing what to expect we were on TS just counting down how many people got eaten by the snails. It was and still is the funniest raid I have ever done.

 



LFR angst. Every raid has someone who has to get arsey. It's like some Blizzard rule that if you don't have someone in there who is having a bitch-fit about something then you are doomed to fail. Needless to say its those very same raids that usually have you crying with laughter as people engage their typing fingers before their brains...

 



Ok, I may have made a hasty decision with the 'cutest thing ever' now I have to make a decision. LOOK AT ITS CUTE EYES!!!!

 



The look on this healers face kinda sums up what they feel when they get yelled at to heal. "You stand in the shit on the floor, you're not getting healed" "KICK THE NOOB HEALER! OMFG!"

 



The Alliance ARE unicorns! We are precious and magical. And we just killed your Warchief. Suck on that *snort*

 



Yeah, this is how I feel every time I have to go there... and OH JOY! Looks like I'll be going there AGAIN to farm ore *waves worlds smallest flag*

 



 

This is what happens when Warlocks have a disco....

 

Annnnd we're done! Hope you like them, they certainly have made my WoW down time more interesting!

Flex funnies

After the officers meeting on Thursday, Alr and Monknessa plucked me from my slacking and  transported me into the world of Flex.

At first I couldn't get in as they were just finishing the Fallen Protectors but I kept clicking 'teleport to instance' and eventually rocked up.

We needed to get to Norushen and we hugged the rock face as we made our way through the trash. We came across 'Vanity' and while the melee had to drop down to it, the majority of the healers and I stayed at the top on the ledge, out of harms way. As I fired off my first shot, Barney scuttled down the sheer drop to join in the fight. I was concerned after the trash was down that he might pull extra mobs trying to make his way back to me. I needn't have worried, like a mountain goat/unrealistic computer character he managed to scale the vertical face and return to me, like the good little pink dinosaur he is.

We got into Norushen's domain and took up our positions. I don't quite know what was wrong with me but I only remember three bits of this fight (which might go some way to explaining why I ended up like I did)
-I remember dying almost instantly and feeling like a complete twat because I had no idea why I had died.
-I remember being ressed (they're was no getting away from it with two Druids and a Death Knight on the team) and thwacking the boss about a bit, seeing an add pop up, my brain went into auto-pilot and before a tank had a chance to pick it up I fired one shot at it. It decided it wasn't going to stand for that and waltzed over and bitch-slapped me to death. It didn't go unnoticed that I had died again...
-I remember people talking about loot and the tier peice that drops. There is a chest peice and there were a few people who wanted that. When the loot box opened, I re-rolled as everything this boss had to offer was an upgrade. I got gold. Never mind. I asked for a res to avoid keeping people waiting with my loading screen and then, once alive checked my cache. Omfg. The rest of the team were lamenting over their gold or the fact that they got worthless loot. 'I've got the chest' I whispered over ts.
'What! But you were dead!?'

Sha was uneventful, we did what we were supposed to, killed what we were supposed to and most of us survived until the end *side steps away*
This time I didn't roll on anything and was happy with the few breadcrumbs of gold that was thrown my way.

The funny one was the great piñata that is Iron Juggernaut. I'm not sure why Blizzard put in a boss like this after they introduced the soul destroyer that is Spine of Deathwing in the last expansion. Actually, maybe that is why!

We cantered up to the gates to take him on. Mind was in the Sky Golem. Upon seeing 'Juggers' the realisation of what was in front of him hit home...

"DADDY!!!"



If only he had turned around but the uncanny resemblance between 'father' and 'son' was clear for all to see. Unfortunately, Mind was quite happy to kill his 'father' and pillage his rusting shell...

While we were waiting (for what, I have no idea. It was like when you group up before going into a nightclub but you don't actually join the queue) Stanza decided that he would let curiosity get the better of him and he went for a gallop around Juggers. All was going well. We watched him dally around dipping in and out of the fences add he skirted around the boss. Ts was mainly silent, as we waited for the inevitable to happen.

DBM announced that we had initiated the fight. 'Have fun! :)' it joyfully told us. We all were watching Stanza, up one minute and down the next.
"Good work"
"What were you doing?"
"Stop dying!"
"I wanted to see how big his aggro area was, I found it..." Stanza explained as he ran back in.
Juggers reset and was further back. Stanza went around again and pulled the boss. We waited for his nameplate to say 'dead' but it didn't happen.
"That was a panic vanish!" He gulped as he appeared in front of us. Juggers disappeared again.
"I wonder if I can run there and back before he respawns?"

Without waiting to hear our pleas, he was off. He made it there and he made it back.
"Go for lap two?" He asked while running back again.
"You should have just stayed dead" Alr sighed as Stanzas little blue pony disappeared into the distance.
As he was running back Juggers decided to make an entrance. Stanza swerved behind him.
"That, was close" he laughed as he swung back round to the group.
"Why did you not take our Rogue sacrifice!" Someone wailed. "He wants to die!"
"Shall we just kill the boss?" Zinta asked. 'Yes' rang out over ts as everyone tried to agree at the same time. And with that, we set to it...

PvP woes and success

Most days we have a RBG session to 'take out your real-life stress on those hordies - they totally deserve it'

We always try to make it a guild run (need 8 people to be from Jesters to make a win rbg win also count as a guild win) but try as we might, for many nights now we hadn't managed to get that elusive guild team win. The days ticked by, tensions started to get a bit fraught.

There was a RBG starting last night, there was also an alt-run for ToT which got called a bit erlier than it could have been as some of us were going to do the RBG. We had a team of 7 so were a person short for the 8 but also had a spare spot going free too. Roly whispered that he could join in but he only had PvE gear. The Gulid Master coming along to get battered by Horde -or potentially another Alliance team? We were not going to pass up that offer! We then had Vinzlage offer to join us too, brilliant! We were all excited and ready to go. We had ten people ready so didnt need to pug for our last member.

We pugged a tenth member a few nights ago and he was a disaster. He wasnt healing anything (I say 'anything' as he wasnt healing us, he must of been trying to heal the rocks, but wasnt showing up on the healing chart at all...) and was telling us that what we were doing was poor tactics, even though there was all of us on TS talking about what we were doing etc. He then decided to go off and get the flag from the middle after we had spammed raid chat telling him not to. This resulted in the opposition team going nuts, taking our tower that had the flag and resulted in us losing the match. Our RBG leader was not happy. Shouting the odds over TS and typing the 'groups' feelings in raid chat. 'Can we just kick him?' 'with pleasure' *boot*

Vinzlage asked what our strategy was, It usually depended on what battleground we were in so we didn't really have a plan. He gave us teams which didn't go down well with the group organiser. We went into the first battleground. It was Warsong Gulch a capture the flag battleground. We had a brief 'discussion' before the doors went up about what we were going to do. We decided that the best plan of attack was to go with Vinzlage's idea of splitting into teams of defending, attacking and brawling as we had followed the old tactics so many times and not got far. It was with a bit of heel dragging that our group organiser conceded to try it. The first flag was taken by the Horde and with Vinzlage giving directions over TS it wasn't long before our organiser started shouting orders to us over what Vinz was saying. There was a tense moment as Vinz then graciously conceded that the leader wasn't for turning and opted to follow his instruction instead.

In the meantime, Roly was finding life on the battleground a world away to what he was used to. Lamenting over TS that his holy spells were merely tickling the opposition rather than the crippling blows he was used to in PvE "they're only doing 40k... I'm not used to this". Unfortunately the Horde were not about to offer him any leniency and mercilessly set about bashing him into the ground at every opportunity. At gates up on the next RBG he asked if he was to defend again. "yes, because you're very squishy" Vinz replied, there was no denying it for someone in plate, he was so squishy it was alarming.

Warsong didn't end well, we were not in our flow. We lost 2-3. Not a huge margin but it was enough to make the organiser a bit fraught. "It was our first one of the night, our first ones are always bad before we get into it" Monknessa reminded everyone. Which was true, most of us had gone from fighting bosses that had a set pattern and now we were up against oppositions that we couldn't plan a set tactic for. We queued again, slightly deflated but ready to get that win.

We ended up in Twin Peaks, another flag one. These are rapidly becoming my most hated battlegrounds. This time Vinz said that we were going for whatever the organisers tactics were. He picked Monkness and Marvv to go and get the flag and then the rest of us to scuffle in the middle. Monknessa asked if it was possible that Tauli could go for the flag as he was firmer than her in the whole squishy-not squishy stakes. So it was agreed that Marvv and Tauli would go for the flag and Monkness would join us in the middle. Roly stayed back as instructed from Vinz and the gates went up and we went for it. After Marv and Tauli went off for their flag we all stood on the opposite side of the river to our Horde counterparts and watched them put up a portal across the river. Roly tried to shoot it but to no avail which then lead to some more humorous grouching. It was like no-mans land in the middle and we were waiting to see if was actually safe to have our heads above the trench. We stood there for what seemed like ages but was only about 30 seconds. We then went to work, followed what we were being told by the organiser. Vinz was only interjecting to ask us to use more crowd-controls when after the first flag went we hit a snag. The organiser started to curse about our play performance, Vinz tried to keep everything calm. The rest of the team were used to it and just got on with things. The second flag went in the confusion and then the shit really hit the 'flag'. The organiser said something incomprehensible and rage quit. We were down to nine men in a ten man battleground and were just waiting to loose.  We got out of the battleground, a little disbelieving about what had just happened. Vinz then took charge and we got a replacement and went for it again. It was to be my last battleground of the night but luckily it was my favourite one. Silvershard Mines.

We got in and most of us worked out we were Horde with out needing clarification. "What? We're Horde?" Roly said, you could hear the confusion and slight twang of disgust. "yeah, there are two Alliance teams so were Horde" Marvv explained. "Someone had to play the scum" I added, a titter of agreement went around. I guess its worse when you're playing people from the same side. These should be your 'brothers in arms' not 'brothers ripping off your arms'...

We went out; two teams, to two sides. Lava was first and we got it almost all the way to the dock before it turned Alliance. As it was a lost cause everyone went up and we took another one back to the middle dock. every cart we got, they seemed to get another one that got them that little bit further ahead. We got control of a cart and it went from blue to red. "It's gone red!? Oh wait, thats us" Roly voiced over TS, it did take some getting used to! After we had started out so well, the same thing that always seems to happen started. Crowd Control. This team wasn't as good as previous teams we had played. The last team we dealt with in here would CC someone and everyone else would ignore them until the CC wore off and then someone else would put another one on. This team were putting them on but more often than not someone else would inflict damage and it would then be taken off. However, they were using it more than we were and it showed. Roly was getting grouchy about his CC taking longer to reset than another classes. I was being mercilessly picked on by another hunter. It was turning into a sorrowful performance. We kept loosing our carts to them resulting in us having to go and get another one. Eventually, by the skin of our teeth we were ahead of them to then be 500 points behind them. The whole bg seemed to revolve around us catching up and then falling away again. We seemed to be dying more but also seemed to be in the right place at the right time more. In the end, it fell down to CC and we came away with another loss.

At this point, I needed to go. So while I was loading, Vinz asked if he could kick me.

"omg, rejection" I joked.

"yes it's I'm going to kick you.. but said in the nicest possible way..." Roly laughed

"It's geettt ouuuuttt" I added

"Boot!" Said Monknessa laughing

"yeah, thats fine, I've only just finished loading anyway" My time in the group was over due to needing to get some sleep for work the next day.

I was listening to them on TS and Vinz was getting them to duel each other so they could practice CC'ing each other. So they could get a feel of the abilities and how long they would last, what the cooldown period was etc... After a few minutes of watching them I really did think that PvP was probably something I wouldn't ever be any good at. As Roly said, PvP is really hard and I prefer having some sort of structure and order to what I'm doing. I like to know exactly what my team mates are doing, why and how as well. Which is only something you are really going to find in raid encounters.

After logging off, they went into another RBG and by God, they did it! The first guild RBG win!

[caption id="attachment_205" align="alignnone" width="300"] Thankyou to Monknessa for providing this for our Royal Jesters forum![/caption]

Mount macro

Do you have unloved mounts?
Would you like to see them more often?
Like to enter a battleground riding a goat?

Look no further than Verdies 'Mount Up!' Macro!

Copy and paste this into your macro screen (accessed by /macro)

/run if not IsMounted() then local m,t,f="mount",{{},{}} for i=2,GetNumCompanions(m) do tinsert(t[bit.band(2,select(6,GetCompanionInfo(m,i)))==0 and 1 or 2],i) end f=IsFlyableArea() and 2 or 1 CallCompanion(m,t[f][random(#t[f])]) else Dismount() end

Essentially this macro will select a flying mount at random if you are in an area where you can fly and a ground mount if you are in an area you cant.
Can sometimes try and select the Abyssal Seahorse and also can try and select Cloud Serpents even if you are not able to ride them but neverless an amazing little macro from the genius that is Verdie!

Mounts

So we were messing about in the shrine after we had all done our bits and were waiting for the RGB group to take shape. I was on my Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent (Thanks RT1!) When Monknessa arrived on her Serpent. We were there looking pretty when another guildie mounted up on theirs. We were looking super cool parading outside the main door.





Someone has to go and steal our thunder and turn up in a Sky Golem!



Monknessa squealed a little over teamspeak and our clutch of cloud serpents all turned to look. It was pretty impressive.  Having a look on the ah there is one for sale for a cool 150000g and a couple of guildies were talking about making and then selling it.
The mats needed are horrendous! However, it begs the question when are tailors going to be able to make an amazing mount that's along this line? How about a hot air balloon adorned with flags made out of tons of imperial silk? Flying carpets are so last season...