Tuesday is for Phat Lewts!

An upgrade for a hunter's ranged weapon slot is usually reason for great celebration. With a dwarf hunter, however, it is somewhat shameful when it comes time to trade in his gun for a "better dps" bow. This is what happened last night when HiredGun picked up Final Voyage during his trek through Naxx. Having only 1 skill point in Crossbows was something he was actually proud of. Let the fruity night elves use the bows, damnit! A dwarf needs the smell of gunpowder and a loud BANG BANG sound to make him feel as if he's doing his job. (The racial +1% crit when using guns doesn't hurt either) Unfortunately, in terms of dps, the only guns available as an upgrade were from KT (normal and heroic). So a quiver was made and arrows purchased. HiredGun flew down to Crystalsong Forest to shoot some wolves, trees, and dryads. In less than an hour his crowssbow skill had reached 400. *sigh*

But some more mad hunter loot dropped last night, some monster upgrades actually. Shoulderpads of Secret Arts and Torn Web Wrapping replaced blues on HiredGun. That was pretty awesome. At least now I don't have to contemplate spending 4000g on the belt! =) Hunter loot continued to fall... Arrowsong dropped, a Warrior won it with an uncontested greed roll. Grim Toll fell and was nabbed by some other dps, as was the more common Aged Winter Cloak.

Tonight should be lots of Vault and OS running. I didn't even know that there was a rare mount from the Vault. BigBearButt got one from 10-man, so run that thing.. even if the T7 stuff is kinda junky lookin after a while.

The one that got away

It's been a week since the 25-Naxx SUPERPUG and I was hoping to have a repeat performance. I caught an invite, my guildie did not (they had too many DKs). And here we go again on another 6 hour tour.

Everyone know what to do?

Nothing needed to be explained this time. Everyone in the group had a good understanding of all the fights. We systematically tore down Naxx, wing by wing. The only thing that gave us any trouble at all was the horrendus lag we encountered for the first hour or so of the raid. Several people including myself took turns at disconnecting, typically in the middle of a boss fight.

Delicious and nutricious!

The fish feast was a great hit! Everyone seemed to love it. I used all that I had cooked during the raid, so I have to set aside some time for fishing in the future. If my DPS doesn't get me invited back, my cooking might.

Things to do in KT's crib when you're dead.

After the lag died down it was smooth sailing. A few wipes overall but nothing that slowed us down much. By Midnight server time we were battling KT again (I feel close enough to call him that now). I was watching half of this battle from above my corpse since an Ice Tomb did me in. KT fell.. and this time I took a screenshot. (Told you it was not impressive)

That's how *I* roll!

I did end up getting a few upgrades. Shoulderpads of Secret Arts, Torn Web Wrapping, and Boots of the great Construct. I only won 1 contested roll. T7.5 eludes me yet. It was fun, I'll hopefully get another chance next week!

25-Naxx SUPERPUG!

Full clear of 25-man Naxx sounded really good. I actually did not believe we'd do it. What are the odds you can get 25 mostly-random people to pound the thing out for 5+ hours, especially on a Thursday Night?

Loot Rolling Strategy?
The loot rules were interesting. 1 "Need" roll for the whole thing. As many "greed" rolls as you want, however the "greed" rolls were for main-spec only. Because of this setup, it was curious to see people not using their "need" roll on items, even on moderate upgrades. Of course items like the Grim Toll would not get past this need stage. There was a bit of strategy involved for me, with only *1* other hunter in the raid. I was anxious for an upgrade of some kind, but what to shoot for?

The first boss dropped Crippled Treads, a decent upgrade to Hornlove's Dragon Slayer's Sabatons. The raid warning popped up, it was decision time. The other hunter rolled need, and I passed, thinking with this only being the first boss, there would be many more chances for drops and I'd still have my Need roll. I didn't have to wait long. The second boss dropped a Aged Winter Cloak, which by my calculations was the 2nd best cloak in the game for Horn. I rolled a 63 to beat two others and the cloak was mine! *claps hands together, rubbing them greedily* Much loot was to be had for everyone in this run. I missed winning T7.5 Shoulders, Legs, and Chest that dropped, but was able to out-roll the other hunter on the Cult's Chestguard and Pauldrons of the Abandoned! It was a great night for loot.

The Final Wing
A few replacements were needed after the 3rd wing went down, one being a guidie druid who respec'd to help us heal. The abomination wing was the last one left. I had never succeeded in getting past Patchwerk in a 25-man, much less clear the whole wing. We had 6 healers and very good DPS and it showed. The abomination fell easily. More people ended up dying to frogger! The remaining bosses were all new to me. We ended up wiping a few times before clearing the wing. Everyone was a bit tired at this point as the raid had been going on for over 5 hours.

1-shotting Sapphiron?
Many in the group had not got this far and the fight was explained well over vent. Everything seemed to be going good until some crankiness erupted over vent. "So-in-so is standing in the blizzard! Get out of it!" ... "I have the resist gear to be standing in the blizzard!! Worry about yourself!" It was not that polite, but you get the idea. Then later (still during the fight) the healers were arguing loudly, telling each other how to play their class. The raid leader did a good job of trying to "CLEAR VENT!!". Oh, the boss? One-shot. It was very close, just as the dragon had tore thru the main tank and started doing the same to the rest of the raid, it fell. Not the most difficult boss in the game but I thought 1-shotting this guy with a PUG was very impressive.

We Meet Again, KT!
Was this group capable of downing the head honcho? After the last week's battle with him I knew what we were in for at least. About 8 people in the raid did not know the fight so it was explained in detail. We wiped after a couple good efforts (one of which we had him down to 4%). The raid was waning a bit. "Last try for me guys..." "Me too I need to get to sleep." Argh! We've come all this way, and sleep is an issue? It's only 2AM server time. Suck it up! At this point I didn't really think we were going to finish the job, despite the good raid makeup, leadership, and abundance of DPS. After 6 hours people were losing focus. I even msg'd my guildie "Oh well at least it was a good learning expierience and we both got some nice loot" And then we did it...just like that Kel Thu'Zad was down!! YES!!! His crumpled corpse was so weak looking I didn't bother to take a screenshot, although I should have anyways.

In summary...
This was a really fun time. It took me back to the days of raiding MC in that a complete clear of a high-level instance can be a nice achievement, especially doing it in one sitting. Despite the raid consisting of 1/2 PUG, the guild "Chaotic" was running the thing and did a fantastic job. The MT and Raid Leader "Ambitions" kept cool throughout and steered us successfully to the end. I hope to be lucky enough to join them when they run this again next week.

For the Naru! For the Light!

I'm not into PVP, I think it's a very boring aspect of WoW. Without a real sense of loss or gain from the battles, it remains pointless. I much more enjoy advancing in the game somehow instead of repeatedly running back to my corpse/making someone else do the same thing.

Today, however, Hornlove found her way into a 25-man which had just finished OS and was wanting to do vault. One problem, the horde owned Wintergrasp and the battle was about to begin. I tried it out, and could see why a lot of non-pvpers could get into it. The battle of Wintergrasp involves more strategy, the use of siege weapons, and other things besides just numbers/gear.

But in the end, it was still just numbers. The avalanche of Alliance came down on the Keep with a commanding thud. The battle couldn't have lasted much more than 10 minutes. A few achievements earned, good enuf for me.

And of course I got nothing from either raid except the Emblems of Valor. I did end up with enough saved emblems to get this:

I'm Invincible Now!!!

An elusive trinket

Just wanted to say, I've been trying to get this trinket for quite some time. It finally dropped off the oversized dinosaur for Hornlove...

Horray for DPS! =D

A busy New Years Eve!

No parties this New Years Eve for me. Instead some WoW. At least I got some stuff done. Well, in the way you get stuff done in the game, and not in real-life ;)


For Hornlove, the grind of dalies is over with Sons of Hodir, arguably one of the most important reputations in Wrath of the Lich King. Being exalted with them gives her the option to use use The Greater Inscription of the Axe on shoulders. (Still trying to figure out how to show those cool WowHead desciptions by just hovering the mouse over the link).

Earlier in the day I jumped into an Azjol-Nerub Heroic PUG but Hornlove's Crossbow skill was only 330 or so. I had just replaced my bullets with arrows the night before to start using the Drake Mounted Crossbow. I was worried that my misses would be often and obvious, but it didn't take too long for me to get the Weapon skill maxxed, somewhere around the 2nd boss.

Ninja-weapon training in Heroic PUGs 4tw =)

Later in the day our guild ran a bunch of Heroics, Nexus being the last one. The Final boss was nice enough to drop this for Hornlove:


Whew! Quite a lot for one day, and one post! *stares at bed*