Omg we finally did Molten Core!

Time was rapidly running out before the ramped up MC would be leaving us. The 5th was coming nearer but the group of players who hadn't completed it already was getting smaller. Throw Christmas into the mix and you get a queue time of over an hour.

Chizal had put up an event for Monday to have a last ditched attempt at getting people through MC. In the end there was four of us. Not a huge turn out but it was enough to get onto ts and have a good giggle.

We did our Apexis daily while we waited. WoW decided that it didn't like a particular rare I was trying to kill and kept crashing when I tried to shoot it.
After being kicked off the server while trying to leave a 25 man lfr I was not holding out much hope for a 40 man.

Chizal visited my Garrison and I caught sight of his gear. commenting about how his shiny stuff he had from the last patch was much more easy on the eye he went off to mog everything just for the raid. He then called me the fashion police...
"Don't take tips from me, you'll end up half naked!"
"Hahaha true!" Danue said.

Eventually the queue did pop. Right while Jolly was dead. Nervous excitement after waiting an hour transcribed itself to us telling him to hurry up and finds his corpse with "run Jolly! Run!"
The loading screen did also procure more nerd squeaks as we prepared to go in.

The tanks decided to go wall hugging rather than run through the middle. Unfortunately we managed to pull a huge group and died. Some questioned the route asking wouldn't it make more sense going the normal way? Either way, I didn't have a clue where I was going and now that the mobs were capable of one shotting you, I just wanted to follow the tanks!





We got through and eventually made our way through to the core hounds. This boss was slightly concerning as the packs needed to die in one go. With the instructions of 'AoE only!' The first pack was engaged. Until this happened...

We did kill them all and were instructed to wait until we were all out of combat before we engaged the next group. This one went down just fine.

The problem occurred when we went straight for the next pack without waiting and ended up ressing the last lot as they hadn't despawned.

We did recover and the actual boss seemed to be easier than the packs themselves.
Leaving the boss room a rogue stealthed as many as they could to sneak past the imps. Unfortunately, Jolly had an announcement to make over ts...
"That may have been my fault..."
The raids grid started to flicker as people were being attacked and the imps themselves charged out. There was a witty response to the situation which trivialise the huge amount of adds we had just gathered.


I couldnt for the life of me work out where we were heading. We seemed to just trip over bosses without being particularly prepared for them.


The big finale was what we were here for. With Jolly keeping an eye on a Warrior that had seemed to go off track and 'might know something we don't know' we ran to the inner sanctum, Raggy's lair.

On the way we somehow managed to pull a heap of adds. My name plate was red, despite not actually pulling anything I seemed to have been caught in the cross fire. I could see Jolly was slightly behind me so asked if he just had some mobs run past him as they tried to catch up with me. "Don't worry, they pulled a lot". Calming words right there!
I got punched in the back of my head and asked for a res as I was so done with running half a mile back to the group. We were super close and I couldn't quite remember the way back.

This was where all the fun began...





Blue was the tank spot. So as much as i would have loved a screen shot of Raggy's face, I didn't want to get smited either.


After being flung back a couple of times it was all over. It wasn't quite the mad scramble I thought it would be. Like the kind of raid where your screaming at your screen for the last few dps and sole healer to KILL IT!!!!
This great fire boss had singed a few of our hairs but not inflicted and grave damage (apart form that one guy who always stands in the cleave at the start)
Upon returning to our Garrisons, we picked up our mail to collect or shiny new mounts.

Danue was also had won a new pet. She had gotten Hatespark the Tiny. Which is the cutest thing ever!
While I didn't get a screenshot of it, I did look it up to see how adorable it was. The answer was 'very'


I also had a look at my shiny new helm. Trying it on in the 'dressing room' a thought occurred to me.
"You know, it kinda like like I'm in the Sims. When they get really angry and their plum-bob goes red..."
I clearly wasn't alone in the sim playing front as many "YES!" went out over ts and we had a good laugh at it.

I have to say it's not a raid I would repeat and I can understand why others who had already completed it were not enthusiastic about going back. With the queue and the raid combined it was three hours long. But to be able to say I've done it and experienced a raid of that scale it was worth every minute.

Tectus!

Last mote, nearly dead, but enrage timer, four dps alive.
It wasn't going to end well but it was a bloody good go and we all were feeling the hype for what could have been our first Tectus kill. Even though we didn't get it down we still have a lot of laughs during our escapade.



The run in was eventful, there was a whole army of Horde waiting outside the entrance to bludgeon any poor Alliance trying to get in. I was hit on the first set of steps going up and went to find my corpse. Running back I found it with two Hordies stood around it, waiting for me. I wandered up the second set of stairs closer to the entrance waiting for the 'resurrect now?' button to disappear, signalling I had gone too far away. I slunk up through the Horde, the button still there, was I going to be this lucky? I was up at the entrance, the button still in the middle of my screen. I clicked it, looking forward to just taking one step and being out of their way. "You are too far away" what? the button is still there! I backed up slowly and kept spam clicking it. My character announcing to me everytime that I was not in range... My last click ressed me right in front of a Hordie who was looking down the stairs. Mounting up and bolting for it I got in with only a scrape.

Izzet however wasn't so lucky. He got killed and found his corpse but couldn't res at all. No matter where he stood he couldn't get the button to show up. After lamenting over ts about it Blunnerz decided to kill himself and then go find him to res him manually. Blunnerz got out and when he released his spirit, he found himself quite some way from where he should have been.
"I'm back at my Garrison. What the shit?... I'm now flying back to Nagrand..."
Xerath decided to go find him instead although Blunnerz did reassure Izzet that he was on his way to res him.

When Fenrir logged on, he was aware of our running in woes and out discussion about going in the back entrance to avoid the Horde.
"Maybe they will grow some balls and go in and actually do some raiding?" I said, getting fed up with them just hanging around and being annoying.
"You could run in like a boss" Fenrir said as he landed from his flight path and started running towards Highmaul. "Oh there is a lot of Horde... And I'm in! Like a baawwwwsssss!"

 



While waiting for Ant to get in, I had a gallop around to see what there was in the arena. I found a throne. Announcing it over ts I was soon joined by Gio and Fenrir. I moved up a bit so Gio, in Kitty form, could squeeze in next to me and Fenrir stood on the arm of the throne. In the mean time, Ant had got in and a ready check went up, which resulted in us all running out of the hut and hurtling to our positions like naughty children who were somewhere they shouldn't have been and trying to scramble back before their parents notice.

 

From my Alchemy Lab and my worker, I had acquired some Transmorphic Tincture potions. We had joked about Rawls being in his new mog and that he was wearing a dress again. "It's not a dress... It's a robe..." Many people disagreed. "how can you be a big strong tank when youre wearing a dress?" Fenrir asked. "I look more like a Monk in this, before people kept thinking I was a rogue!" Rawls declared.
We wondered what he would look like as a female, especially in his dress robe. He took the potion and the results were quite magical.


"You look like a princess!" Ant cooed. There were several 'awww' noises floating over ts. A ready check went up, and everyone was good to go.
"When you're ready, Princess..." Fenrir joked
*Pull in 10* - The Princess was ready to kick ass!

 

Every pull we did, we got closer and closer to a kill. People were still getting confused about left and right so we settled for going Green or going Blue.
A Crystalline Barrage had me somewhat trapped up against a wall but before I could negotiate my way around it I was pulled forwards and then found myself flying through the air backwards and landing into the shit left on the floor.
"Oh..." Blunnerz said
"What the fuck is going on?" I laughed, totally confused by what just happened. "Did you just pull me into a piller?"
"Erm, yeah!"

We were running back after another attempt and all of these mobs appeared.


"Where did these all come from? Did we pull all of these?"
"Yes we did"
We kind of got the mobs under control when something else crashed the party.
"Where did this Void Walker come from?!? Showing up late to the party!"
The tanks got destroyed and it was left to Jesse to tank it, which he was mighty proud of, and It did eventually die. Then something magical happened.
"WE GOT A CLOAK!" Blunnerz announced to cheering over ts.
"Heres to our first cloak!" I said to more cheering.
While waiting for everyone to eat and flask up after this Blunnerz had a little brain fart moment.
"Which way is everyone looking? Oh never mind" He said, secretly answering his own question.
"Are we having issues with left and right again?" I asked.
"...Yes."

 

Blunnerz also found yet another hole to jump in and somehow managed to find himself trapped between two walls. All you could see was his marker bouncing around as he tried to get out again.

We all ran around on the wall to find him. You could just make him out through the crack. Who knows how he managed to get in there but he did. I suddenly backed away.
"Aww. You're not in my line of sight" he lamented.
"I knew that was coming so I started to back off!"


Somehow, he did manage to escape but curiosity had gotten the better off him as he was sure that he could get somewhere between the walls. So after our final try he went back while we all stood on our mounts to see where he ended up.
"Has anyone got a two person mount so I can get back out?" He asked.
"I do" I said wondering how this was all going to work.
"Mount up"
Xérath put up a portal right in front of me.
"Damn you Xérath and your portals! Now I can't click Ella!"
Luckily for us, the portal went to Stormshield... And not Theramore!

So not ready for raiding...

We killed Brakenspore! Yay!
Jolly managed to sleep through it due to being knocked out by some hideous bug that's going around, so we decided to give the 'Fake Tank' a try.

When questioned about his understanding about tactics, 'Fake Tank' Fenrir had them spot on.
"Swap when you have stacks...? To be honest I've never tanked this before so I just wing it"

Before placing our lives and repair bills in Fenrir's hands we were waiting to see if Jolly was logging on. The appointed people had picked up Flamethrowers and were testing them out on the team. I had itchy feet and went exploring.
I had already unsuccessfully tried jumping on some mushrooms behind the group so I went off to the other side.
There were some rocks in the water that I would be able to land on and then a mushroom at just the right height next to it. The temptation was too much and I went for it. I landed on the rock, I wasn't in the water but I was still dying... I almost got to the mushroom when I shuffled off the mortal coil. Dropping my Flamethrower out to sea.

I laughed. People questioned why I was dead. Narlos and Blunnerz ran over to have a look at where I was. Explaining what happened I clicked release much to the displeasure of Narlos. "I was ressing you!"
There was then questioning by others who did not know what was going on as to why a Flamethrower was in the sea.
"I died!" I announced as I ran up to get it. It was just out of reach, I'd have to go in to get it. Although this meant I'd died again! Nevertheless, I ran back and this time got it.

Finding that the sea was bad. I turned my attention to some rocks near the entrance to the beach. They looked so jump worthy, I spent a coupe of minutes trying before Blunnerz charged in and took it at a slightly different angle and was on them.
"God damn it Blunnerz!" I said as I changed my approach angle and jumped up.
Blunnerz was busy trying to get onto a higher rock when he fell in a hole.
"Oh! I can't get out!" Blunnerz said as the troops started to make their way over to see what was going on.
"Haha that's what you get for showing off"






Blunnerz wasn't going to let this rest and I found myself in the hole as well.
During the commotion of people laughing and gloating Blunnerz manage to get Fenrir in and as a bonus, got him stuck under a rock. Fenrir couldn't move and we were thinking about writing tickets to say we were stuck.






I tried to use my sacrificial dagger that I still had on me. Apparently though I was now too intelligent to stab myself with it. I stopped for a moment to think about what to do.
At this point Blunnerz somehow managed to get out and shouted "I'm free!" Over ts and then laughed as he scampered over the rocks and ran away down the beach. It was at this point that someone had the brainwave of getting Treehouse to summon us a full 20 get up the beach in order to get us out.

Finally we got around to killing things. There were several wipes as we worked out the best way to burn things and trying out different people to get the dps balance right. Eventually he did fall and we stood around for a few seconds as the realisation that he was dead sank in.



We moved on to Tectus.
Coming across three different coloured adds we took one of them out and just as it was asked which one we should switch to now, Rawls was hit in the face and dropped like a stone.
"The one that just killed Rawls!" I yelled. "Yeah! Take that you bastard!" Rawls added.
We had managed to congregate in the middle of the arena while killing the adds and all of a sudden Tectus appeared. Several cries of fear went out over ts and a mass scramble to the edge of the arena. Here we were faced with... His arse.


"He looks like a monkey..."
"Is that his bum?"
"Errr... Does this mean we should have come in a different door?"

While Tectus was busy glaring at an empty staircase, we formulated a plan.
"Barrage go left and the other one go right" Blunnerz said, clicking through the journal.
"The other one?"
"I can't remember the name..."
Eventually working it out, the tanks punched Tectus in the butt cheek and away we went. It was going well. Until everyone got their left and right confused and we cut the arena into two...
"wrong way"
"I got confused!"
"Stop running in a circle!"
"I couldn't remember which way to go!"
I however had decided to go with written confirmation on what way was for what ability...

We did some HC dungeons and this happened

We didn't have enough people to raid so we got a group of five together and went for HC dungeons to snag the last bits of gear we needed.
Fenrir offered to tank.
"You're going to tank?"
"Have some faith!"
"That's great! You can tank Bladefist!"
"Hold on. I said have faith. Don't expect a miracle"

This meant that Rawls could go dps. This 'life choice' was ultimately his undoing as we went through the dungeons.



I'd accidentally managed to queue us on normals to begin with and it was only made apparent when we pulled to groups and a bunch of flowers and no one died.
"Ella you've put it on Normal!"
"I was wondering why they weren't hitting for much"
"We have to wait 10 minutes until we can queue again..."
With nothing to do but carry on we got to the point where you can scramble up the cliff face if you jump in the right spot. A millimeter out either side and you're just left jumping at the rocks. Blunnerz made it up seemingly on the first try.
"Blunnerz can't you leap of faith us up?"
"It's a two minute cooldown!"
As I have failed at every attempt to get up this cliff I reminded them off the hill just a few feet down that you can just walk up.
"Guys! If we just kill this one mob you can just run up the hill"
Fenrir was off and pulled everything around him.
We strolled up the hill and went behind the first boss.
"Did we do all of that to miss two mobs? "
"Yes"
"Ok then"
I was on a mission to kill all the flowers we could so I could 'skin' them for herbs. Every time I was lagging behind the group people knew what I was up to. I'd sneakily multi shoot them near other mobs so that they had to be killed.
As we made our way around there was an abundance of flowers.
"Can we kill these?" I asked. Standing there looking at them.
"No." Blunnerz said.
I still stood there.
"Aw I can't pull you..." he said as Fenrir charged out and ran over them all.
"Yay!"

The spider cave was a necessary evil apparently.  We got the spider to come down quickly enough but there was so much crap everywhere that it was hard finding the Orc before it found the spider.
"I'm being punched by an Orc!" I yelled.
"I'm so glad I have tidy plates" Fenrir mused "I can't see anything in here so you'd be surrounded in Orcs if it wasn't on"

On the last boss I took forever loading in.
"Run over the flowers!" Was yelled over ts.
"I've only just got in hang on!"
"We're here trying to save Stormwind and you've only just arrived?!" Fenrir said as the flowers we missed took aim at him.

 

Skyreach was next.
"I hate this place! In fact I hate this whole zone!" I said with venom as there was much groaning about the dungeon we had been given.
It was this dungeon where we spectacularly started to fall apart.
"Do you like the bird boss?" Rawls asked.
"Err which one?" Both Fenrir and Blunnerz asked.
"The one with quills. Do you know what your doing on that?"
"To be honest I just wing it..." Fenrir laughed at his own joke "wing it!"
"And there's the wind boss..." Blunnerz added.
"The wind boss. Much like the lift boss in ICC" I added, remembering a fateful time in there.
"And there was a lift boss in Siege" Blunnerz reminded us. This 'boss' Had claimed many lives...
We made our way around. On the boss with the wind spirals I somehow managed to block myself in as I cut the podium completely in half while kiting the pools of yellow goo around the outside. The boss was down before I panicked and I was left laughing hysterically over ts.

The wind boss was very aggravating. More so for Rawls who had manage to roll quickly to the top and then found himself half way round again after being pulled back by Blunnerz. I also managed to die at the top of the stairs due to being stood in shit I couldn't see. With that and Fenrir falling off the platform with the quills bird, it was going well.

On the last boss the random pally we had with us had the laser thing following him and he managed to make a circle of crap around me. Blunnerz decided that it was the perfect time to leap of faith the pally into the circle so he was trapped.

After the last boss was down, Fenrir said to jump down. I questioned it as it was quite high up.
"You have a buff, jump" He said.
"Are you sure?" I questioned, there didn't seem to be a buff. I teetered off the edge and dropped. I landed in a messy and very dead heap at their feet.
"OH" Fenrir said as everyone started laughing.
"Yeah, Now I have the buff!"

 

Shadowmoon Burial Grounds was our last one. We ended up with a rogue who announced his woes of the last group he was in to us.
"The tank left after a wipe. The healer sucked so he left and then the dps left too. Please don't be like the last group!"
"Cant promise soz" Blunnerz replied. It did seem to subdue any fears that the rogue may have had as we went onwards to the bosses.

The first boss with the crystal things that get dropped on the floor was 'intense'. instead of one crystal coming down to do the aoe stuff we had two at a time, which meant that we were rapidly running out of room. There were at least 12 of them by the time the thing died. A constant stream of 'move the boss' was going out over ts as we tried to negotiate the crystals and not run over the runes at the edge. The rogue died due to not standing on the white runes during the eclipse phase but didn't seem to mind, I guess he was just happy to be in a group that wasn't going to leave.

It was time to announce that my bow was yellow, to which I got the stream of replies stating that my weapon is always broken. I also ran over a crate on the way into the cavern we were heading to.
"I ran over something! Add!"
"You know your winning at the game when you can pull and add out of thin air" Fenrir joked.

After the second boss I got a little kamikaze and opened up with Barrage as I was wanting to get on.
"What the... Where did all of these come from?"
"Barrage! I wanted to get a move on! Suck it up and lets go!"
I died almost instantly, luckily you spawn right inside the room when you release so the run back is, well, not a run at all. As we got through I'd taken enough of a beating for my bow to go red.
"My bow is broken!"
" Oh my god... Ella!"
"It's ok! I've got my loom!"
Equipping that we carried on. It's at this point that I informed everyone of why I had my loom taking up valuable bag space.
"You know that dungeon in ICC where you have to run away from the Lich King?"
"Oh yeah"
"Well I was doing that and my bow broke, so all I could do was send my pet in and hit the mobs with my stave. After that I was so worried about being seen as an idiot, I carried seven bows with me so I always had something else to equip..."
"Seven!?"
"Oh dear..." Rawls said, as the others were laughing."

 

Ding!

Now I did have a bunch of screen shots of the start of the expansion. My computer didn't think I'd want these happy wow memories and ate them. Some can be recreated, but on the whole, everything was a once in a lifetime moment. Sad times. The only thing to have survived are a few photos I took on my phone to share with my WhatsApp group :(

The launch itself was hype overload. People were waiting at 8:30pm GMT and as the hours ticked by mine and more people were turning up. Everyone was waiting to accept the quest from Kadgar and then get to the first quests on the other side. It was largely the longest wait I've ever had even if I was only a few hours.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1920" caption="8:30 and people waiting"][/caption]


There was a rather large amount of guild banners that had been put down around Kadgar as the time got closer, forcing people to contemplate making a target and accept quest macro as they couldn't see anything. Someone then complained about the banners and there was a moment of amusement that a lot of them were Jester banners.

There was the lag. Oh my god the lag... nipping back to shrine for something fifteen minutes before release and then coming back to nothing. The constant asking on ts of 'am I still online?' As we weren't ever quite sure if it was us or the servers that were giving up. The ten seconds it took for everything to load... I'm pretty sure you get the idea.

Once we were through though. On the whole it was 'wow'.


The first bit by the portal I wasn't totally enamored by. The whole 'kill loads of mobs until you find something' really doesn't float my boat. I also don't read quest text if I don't have to so I had no real idea of what was going on.
It did open up into more exciting things and areas as we went through though.
The whole Bladefist 100 arena was slightly terrifying to begin with but once the initial 'wait, what?!' As the mobs started to enter you realised it wasn't so bad. Picking them off as they were beating each other over the head meant that it was plain sailing.

The luster of the initial starting point soon began to tarnish. We all knew that a few quests in our Garrisons were waiting for us. Having what seemed like the whole of the realm in one spot was a little taxing though. The whole targeting issue cropped up again and the trees needed didn't respawn quick enough for everyone to be able to get them in good time.

I was in a group and one of our number had wandered off like a naughty toddler. The excited chirps over ts of 'I found an elite!' Had us dropping our tasks and run over to see what this new deadly enemy was capable of.
It was a tree.
The health pool was something to be admired as we were now the tiny lvl 90's and not the big lvl 90's we once were. Things like this needed to be poked to see what they would do to us but only poked from a distance and with a very long stick.

Then the almighty server crash of 2014 started. Everyone being booted off, not being able to get into your Garrison and if you did, it was full of random people!

To cut a very long story short. It resulted in the online server size being halved so that we had to queue to get online in the next few days after the launch.



To get to the above point I have never wanted to punch my screen so much.
Everyone has those zones that they really don't like for whatever reason, mine are purely based on how much I hated the leveling experience there.
So for me my list of places would be on a 1=HATE - 5=LOVE go something like this:
Shadowmoon Valley: Shiny! But no real nostalgia about being there 4
Gorgrond: The next zone so things were different. PvP made a comeback, found some nice hordies 3
Talador: Witnessed my first npc die. Got ganked. Took an age to get out of here 2
Spires of Arak: So promising from the start, outcast bird men etc. Then you ran around in the dark. So many mobs in burrows. Only redeeming feature was the hordies seemed to be confused as I was and we had to emote help to each other. Took a god damn age to get out of this shit pit. No wonder it was blown off the Outland map 1
Nagrand: Retro! Lots of open space inhabited by neutral mobs so you didn't have to stick to paths. Got ganked a bit but so much space you didn't need to run into the Horde too much. Bad bit was the quests were a million miles away from each other. 5

I don't think I can every express how much I hate Spires. The worst but was spending an hour on a bonus objective and not being able to find the last mob I needed to kill. I ended up roaming around with a Troll Druid using emotes to try and figure out where we should be going. Having them jump up and down beside a burrow as I tried to keep up with them and then running in to find this shitty mob we must have gone past 20 times as we lapped the compound.
Then there were the goblins. Pinchwhistle Point (or whatever the hell it was called) where a Horde was killing the mobs EVERYONE needed, Alliance and Horde, just because they were lvl 100 and 'could' was totally frustrating.

Once I dinged in Nagrand though, I was out of there. Apart from witnessing one major npc die while a Space Goat and Orc worked together to kill another Orc. I have no idea what the hell is happening. All I know is that I'm lvl 100 and I have a Garrison. (Which by now I can get into whenever I like)

The aim then changed from getting my sorry ass to 100 to gearing up. This meant dungeons *yay*
I've been in five. The first one took nearly an hour to get into. I've had the mine one, the train one, the bird one, the ghost one and the garden one. The majority of the names escape me as by the time the queue had popped I'd forgotten I was even queued.
It is in a strange way nice to be wiping again. It's not nice however to find that there's a freshly dinged tank giving out the instructions after they have announced that they have never been in the dungeon before.
On the train one we wiped because I'd managed to pull the room (oopsy) Luckily I was so far back everyone assumed that the tank had taunted everything, not that I'd lost my mind and used Barrage due to a brain fart moment with my keybinds. We picked ourselves up and started again. I used the right buttons and we were on the cannon boss. Hiding behind a pillar while targeted I survived and then went running off to the front of the train. I hid behind another pillar, turned around and realised I was all alone apart from the very angry mobs who wanted me dead. The tank had some gentle persuasion to go to the front and died in a hail of bullets. The healer left. Ok... Self proclaimed noob healer joined. We tried again and died again. This time the tank left and then the dps who was 'instructing us' decided that none of us were worth the effort and then left. We got replacements, this time a fresh tank. The tank asked what the tactics were and there was silence. I looked at the party grid, who the hell was the leader? Oh bugger, it was me. Four people were all waiting for me to tell them what to do as they incorrectly assumed that I knew what I was doing.
"Stand behind things so you don't get hit by bullets"
"Use the ammo from mobs when they are killed to hit the boss in the cannon"
"Get to the front pillar asap"
This is all I knew but they seemed happy with it. And bizarrely enough, we made it. All the way through. I had zero clue what I was doing on the last boss much like everyone else and we manage to work it out. Although it was all over very quickly, the train crash at the end was a bit of an anti-climax but I guess they had to stop the dungeon some how or else we would still be on that god damn train!

The bird one I was told to deal with the adds. 'ok' I said. I'd never been in here before and I hadn't a clue what adds they were going on about. it soon became apparent though and it didn't take a million brain cells to work out I needed to kill the shiny birds before they got to me/anyone else.

the ghost one, the end boss was interesting! Actually had to discuss what ghost/skeleton we were going to be killing. Tank did fail a bit with allowing the cleave to hit right on top of where we were trying to squeeze through the gap. one dps helpfully suggested that we kill the middle 'skeleton'... there were six of them... "Define 'middle one'!?"

On a side note: The sad thing has been in the HC dungeons. After doing the proving grounds again to silver so I could 'prove' I was capable of killing things in there (which was totally underwhelming, not least for the fact you were still at the Temple of the White Tiger in Pandaland and not facing a more apt enemy) you get the same old obnoxious people in there that you didn't really encounter in the normals. HC apparently means for some people 'huge cock' and that's how they feel they should behave. Doesn't matter if you were just with that person in a normal and then by a bizarre twist of fate you're with them again in a HC. All that 'we can do this guys!' niceness has gone and suddenly they have transformed into this Ogre who will berate you at every oppertunity and believe they are the King/Queen of tactics etc... a HUGE COCK.



I did get distracted by things, which may explain why it took me so long to level (compared to a guild mate who did it in 8 hours) and I was spend a fair amount of time at my Garrison making sure my dailies and work orders were completed on time. I explored places I shouldn't have been at that time like the lvl 100 crystal quest areas. Most of it was to find the flight points to make it easier, a bit of it was to have a crack at the elites and see if I could kill them. Pro tip: don't use Barrage.

I found treasure galore. Most of it was found using a good old fashioned print out marked with highlighters. One of them was a bit unexpected but I wanted the pet (which is so cute but then I'd forgotten to get it out after a day off having it)


The lasers hurt. You get slowed down. Nightmare if you just hurtle in (which I did) the pet is adorable though.


Anyway. After getting to Nagrand via five or six of the potions to boost your xp there was a quest right near the Alliance stronghold which I could not find for the life of me. I say I couldn't find it, I could find the npc who gave the quest but the little yellow exclamation mark on my map did not translate to one above this space goats head. I'd done every quest possible and I still was two bars away from 100. I'd found treasure that I couldn't reach. So dungeons it was. I ran a bunch hoping that the group would stick together so I wouldn't be faced with another 45 minute queue. Eventually after doing Grimrail about four times over I did ding.


Yaaaay. More grinding! This time for gear... boooooo

Dragonmaw has queues!

This caught us all by surprise...



































And then there was this...






RELEASE DAY! YEEEEEAH!

Well. This happened...

So we did a raid with a bunch of people. Utilising a lock on Thok we went for another loom run.

Unfortunately we may have all had WoD-itus and were not concentrating to our fullest.

We managed a first pull on Thok that interrupted my eating by 1 second before I got my food buff. Scrambling into position we took up our 'Jester formation'
"Ranged with me, stack on the green triangle. Healers with Blunnerz on blue..." I started to list off the basic formation.
"And all the cool kids with me" Fenrir added. Taking up his position of the King of melee.

With the first set of fixates, Blunnerz was throwing feathers around for people. I, for one, have this amazing ability to miss them when I need them and get them when I don't. How on earth however, he thought anyone was going to get this one, I don't know!


We got the second cage open when someone avoided the fixate and this caused Thok to eat Blunnerz.
"Hey!" He blurted. One down, and the rest of us soon followed.
"Well I just got punched in the head by the add" I mused as it was decided that it was Rawls who we needed to blame due to his 8 second pull timer.
"This isn't lfr..." he said.
"If it was you would blame the healers" Blunnerz added.
"Actually" I started to say as we all grouped up again and started eating and refreshing flasks "if it was lfr you would be blaming anyone apart from yourself"

Setting up to go again, Rawls put a ten second timer. We went into the first blood frenzy just before it started to hurt and scrambled up and down the corridor and main room as we played piggy in the middle with Thok. Once he had gobbled up the released add we stacked on his foot.
At nineteen stacks we moved together to force him into blood frenzy. Nothing happened. 23 stacks...
"Why isn't it doing it!" Blunnerz demanded. People started to die. 28 stacks...
"There's enough people...?" Rawls was starting to get concerned with what was going on. 32 stacks and four people were dead.





"We will just have to keep going..." Blunnerz decided. The rest of us either spammed buttons to try and kill it or sat there glued to the screen saying out loud each stack as it appeared. It was like listening to kids calling out numbers as a teacher pointed to them on a whiteboard.
39
40
41
42
43...

"This is crazy!"
"His energy bar is just constantly full"
"Go melee!"
"I'll taunt in three" Rawls said. Aribiter died just as Rawls taunted of him.
"Any externals?!?"

This kept on going.
"All I can do is holy nova" Blunnerz said as the stacks still crept up.

Then. This happened....





92 stacks! After bugging out he finally died. I'd already killed him once so my only hope lay on a bonus roll for my longed for neck aaannnd... Nothing. God damn it!

Every pull was messy. We sort of just blundered into them, mishap after mishap. It was also the funniest raid in a long time. We had started off badly and never seemed to recover.

Seigecrafter wasn't as bad as it could have been. The trash almost went down in one go. As I was on my Hunter I was standard belt 'fodder' taking up my position to go in by the pipe.
Fenrir was on the even belt numbers. Last time hadn't gone to well for my belt partners and I was like a 'bad luck' curse as my first partner died and then when Fenrir took up the charge, he died on there as well.
This time however, we were going like clockwork. Belt after belt was brought to its knees. On my last belt I actually managed to disengage into the pipe that takes me down and landed right in front of a whole swathe of laser burn on the floor.
"I'm off" I said so that Fenrir knew that he needed to get ready "Err. Am I trapped?"
A second later I was snatched from where I stood and watched my health momentarily plummet as Blunnerz used leap of faith on me and dragged my through the laser burn. I did notice that I wasn't quite trapped but what's a long run around the shit on the floor compared to someone being able to pull a dps into fire?
Electromagnet was next and started up in earnest. With everyone being swooshed around I activated my buff. "Fox!" I yelled over the chattering. And then I died just about at the same tune as the buff wore off.
We did kill it, not long after in fact. And we carried on to Paragons.

Now I was on Lilouann to preserve my lock out on Garrosh. After the patch I've become less inclined to heal with her as I don't find it as enjoyable any more and have been dabbling in the dps side of things. But here we were ready to kill this thing/many things.

On the way in to Paragons we had pulled every single pack of mobs in one go. There was swirly shit everywhere people were dying constantly.
It was able to be compared to a stampede of excited kids on the last day off school, at the final bell. Rushing through, forgetting things, going back, pushing through again past the school bullies who inevitably knocked you back against the lockers... a crazy mess.
Finally in the room, once it was clear we started in earnest.
"I don't know the order" Aribiter said as he was being pummeled from all angles.
"I'll take Ri'Kal you take everything else" Rawls added.

I don't know what was going on with my screen but the caustic amber would land, I'd move out of it and as I stood on the edge of the puddle it would appear and disappear. I had no idea if I moved to the right slightly, the amber works be there or not. When the Kunchong appeared next to me I had no choice but to risk it.
Bugger.
It was in fact there, I had to literally be in the middle of it for it to be visible. I got right to the opposite edge and flopped face down into it.
"Tits" was all I could mutter. My Anhk was available so I hesitated. Getting my fingers into position to make a run for it over the last few pixels of the puddle. Ressing I then flopped over right out side the puddle.
"Oh for Christ's sake"
"Did you res and die?" Blunnerz asked.
"Yes."
I resigned myself to watching them battle through.
It was over a lot quicker than I thought. Being a healer I was only really looking at the raid grid and my immediate vicinity. I hadn't realised how many bugs we had gone through by the time I'd keeled over. There was only two left and they were going down fast.
"There's an unprotected Kunchong next to me...?" I may have not been seeing it right and there was actually a shell over it but the sight of it being so close was making me jittery.
Once they were dead and we recovered it was on to the next room. This one I was not looking forward to...

You would have been forgiven to think that after all the mistakes and this being the last boss we would have got ourselves together.
But no. We were going to finish as we started it seemed.
We ninja pulled, again. This lead to much screaming and people running for the exits. The gates went up and there was nothing to be done apart from suck it up and make the most of it.
We stacked up, but not before a weapon had landed in the worst place.
Gio was going to hesitantly do the Engineer. He was on his lowly Hunter to get a bow from it and didn't have much optimism about it all.
His fears were right as when the weapon landed, it killed him instantly.
"Gio, engineer..." Blunnerz said as we battled the adds.
"I'm dead"
"He's dead"
Cue a scramble of people going across to kill it before it released the fiery wheel of doom.
We ressed him and he took care of the next couple that came along. We hadn't sorted out the groups however so 'everyone LEFT' was the default order for the transition phase.
We landed in Temple of the Jade Serpent. They were half way to Garrosh before I loaded in and I mentioned I was not in possession of the damage reduction buff.
"There's a bubble here" Blunnerz said. As I was making my way over to it he decided to use leap of faith to pull me though it. Just as the cleave came down killing us both instantly.

It was a wipe.

Our second attempt was a lot more organised. No ninja pulling and pretty much everyone was left alive. Hairy moment when both Blunnerz and I were mind controlled but it was quickly dealt with.
We got through rather easily. Possibly due to having Mack on his warlock! Nevertheless, we were there to get looms and looms we got.
Along with many laughs.

Outposts are out there!

Out and about levelling in Draenor means a lot of time out in the different zones. Outposts are a way of maximising your time while out in the field be it through getting handy extra Garrison Resources, gaining new followers or vanity items or zone perks.

One thing to consider and its worthwhile pointing out at the very start. Once your Outpost it built the only way to change it is when you hit level 100 and have 10,000 gold to spare. If you get your level 92 Outpost wrong then that 8 levels you are going to have to live with it! Pick carefully! 

The choice you make may be dictated by your levelling choice. If you choose to level via questing or through dungeons. The choice may also be affected by what you decide to have in your Garrison as well.

Outposts are introduced in the zone with a quest chain, this almost 'finds' the outpost plot and then you select a quest chain to then 'create' your chosen outpost.

---

 

The first zone you get an outpost in is Gorgrond. Unlike the many options you get with plots in your Garrison you have only two choices. On of those is a Lumber Yard and the other is Sparring Arena.
Both provide a boost to your attacks by being able to summon a 'thing' to help you while you're there but what are the actual benefits to you while you're in the zone itself?


The Sparring Arena gives you a buff for five minutes after you summon a random champion to fight with you for one minute. This buff is an enhancement that improves your combat skills and the more enemy's you and your gladiator kill, the bigger it will be. Great if you're choosing to level through Gorgrond via the questlines.


The Lumber Yard allows you to cut down vines for Garrison Resources. So you could have a mini Lumber Mill without having to have one on your Garrison.

Both of these reward followers at the end of it.

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In Talador you have the choice of an Arcane Sanctum or an Arsenal.

Again, both provide followers and they both provide and extra attack.
Neither of the attacks are more spectacular than the other. More value may be held by the follower you gain upon competing the quest chain and how it will affect you in that way.

---

Spires of Arak gives you the choice of Brewery or a Smuggling run. Your choice here may be again dictated by your levelling method and also the amount of gold you have spare.


The Smuggling Run immediately caught my attention. Shiny things for sale! However the cost of the bag at 2,200 gold made me think about how much these other things would be to buy. Yes the treasure finder and the Garrison Resources would be good but if they're a lot of gold to buy how worthwhile would they be? The Treasure finder only works in the zone and is only therefore useful if you plan spending time out there. The Garrison Resources can be found easier than summoning a trader every ten minutes in the hopes he has them on him to sell. You do get the chance to buy a lvl 99 follower from him which may be a convincer for players.


The Brewery on the other hand does give a 20% bonus xp while in Spires and a teleport to your 'Inn'. If you're leveling through dungeons then the boosted xp is a bonus that possibly can't be sniffed at while you're battling through Skyreach.
________________________________________

Nagrand is your final outpost location. Upon the creation of this outpost you are awarded with the ability to purchase the blueprints for the level 2 large buildings on you Garrison

You again have two options for this outpost. Essentially you get 'fight' or 'flight' (not actual flight!) and again this might be influenced by what you already have/are planning to have in your Garrison.


There is a Tankworks for those who want added attacks while in the zone.


And for those who want to run away from trouble there is a Corral which allows you to ride a particular Corral mount even in combat.

For those who decided to include a Stable in their Garrison for the level 2 perk of being able to interact with things in the outside without being dismounted this might be perfect. If you're out and about doing your stuff you can essentially run away from trouble. If you're farming and someone decides to gank you you can run away from them. Obviously it doesn't work in other zones while you are farming but it's a handy option in the last zone to just give a bit more of a quality of life enhancement to those on a PvP realm!