/Faulsey

Level 40… Yep, done that five times. Hit it in Dustwallow Marsh? Yep, five times… Talk about déjà vu. Of course, it’s my first Horde character to hit 40, so it is something a little bit different!

The 30-40 stretch is, in my expert opinion from having done the bloody thing twice, the worst stretch in Enhancement Shaman levelling. Getting up to 30 isn’t any more exciting, but you can power through the levels pretty quickly. At 30, the speed of levelling starts to slow right down. You still don’t have any of your signature abilities, and as enemies health goes up, your ability to deplete that health doesn’t keep pace. Levelling really becomes glacial.

Fortunately, this time, with the random dungeon tool, it was easy to get parties as a healer and get easy EXP that way. Of course, with PUGs there’s always a bit of bother. For one thing, while I’m perfectly capable of watching the health bars of five people, tanks can’t even watch one Mana bar, so I was forever shouting “MB PLEASE DAMNIT.”

They clearly weren’t paying too much attention to me, because if they were, they’d have seen that I wasn’t the kind of healer who would take any crap.

Other problems included a Warlock rolling need on the mail helm dropped by Herod, which would have been quite nice for when I hit 40, and winning – I’ve instead got a pretty boring green, though a trip through Maraudon at 41 landed me a nice blue.

As usual, I also did a bit of PvP. There was a period this morning where we were usually starting about 6-12 in Horde’s favour in AB, so we had a run of 5 cap wins, before finally being beaten (all of the earlier teams had gone by this point) after we failed to capitalise on our starting advantage, falling prey to the “herp derp, let’s not defend the farm, or the blacksmith, or the lumber mill” disease – I can only be in one place at a time, and that place was the mine.

Now that I’m in my 40’s though, it’s bliss. Even with just dual wield and Stormstrike, battles are going that little bit faster, and come 47, when I’ll have greater accuracy, Lava Lash and two points in Improved Stormstrike, not only will battles go even faster, but I’ll be able to drop my use of Water Shield (to lessen downtime) in favour of Lightning Shield for that little bit of extra damage.

If I’m really lucky, I’ll hit 58 sometime soon and get to Outland for the first time as a Hordie (Death Knights don’t count,) exciting!

Done in a similar, tongue-in-cheek, check out my 1337 stickman skills as this post, though not quite as good, I’m afraid.

Whilst I made it through the 20-29 AB on Eisla quite happily, the 30-39 bracket of PvP on the Blackout battlegroup appears to be dominated by the Allies. So I now had fresh experiences with which to draw a daft battle plan. (You will most likely have to enlarge the pictures to see them properly.)

To begin with, the basic aim of the game:

Doin’ it rite: You want to hold more bases than the enemy, so that your points go up faster.

Doin’ it wrong: LOL WE CAPPED A BASE, NEXT ONE!

AB’s big no-no – the 5 bases obsession:

Doin’ it rite: Carefully balance your attack and defence teams (unless the enemy team is filled with absolute numpties OR short on members.)

Doin’ it wrong: OMG WE NEED FIVE BASES TO WIN!!!!!111oneeleventy!!11

(Excuse the rather poor “zomg I drew a line in the wrong place quickly copy and paste paper over it” cover up.)

General Winning/Losing strategies:

Doin’ it Rite: Assuming a full 15 vs 15 match, you can really only hold three bases consistently. Split the team evenly between defending the three bases, with another similar sized group “roaming” for lone ranging enemies, providing support to bases under attack, or if feeling cheeky, attack a weak enemy base.

Doin’ it wrong: Cap the base closest to your side and two others, leave these with no or marginal defence, whilst the bulk of your team presses on to cap the enemies closest base. This leaves all three of your other bases open to easy capture even from lone or small groups.

Now, you too can contribute to stunning victories and crippling defeats in Arathi Basin!

 FOR THE HORDE, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

(Please, folks, PvP with sense!)

I am not quite back. I am sort of quasi back. I was rather bored recently, and there was an offer of 7 free days due to having not played for months (and, apparently, the 5th Anniversary. I don’t know either), so I took it up.

I may be done University for the summer, but I don’t really have the inclination to play WoW for all of that summer. In addition, I am really, really strapped for cash. Ah, the joys of living on your own and not having found a job. But I digress. That is a topic for another blog.

In line with not being quite back, I’m playing an alt. I have popped onto all my characters to pick up the penguin pet I assume was sent due to registering a battlenet account. I did get a rather excited greeting from Yimi (OMG ELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!) when I logged onto Ellaria, but the guild was raiding, so no real banter. Will need to pop on pre or post raid at some point for a catch up. Anyway, my character of choice for these 7 (now 5ish) days is Eisla, my troll Shaman.

I’d last played her at 20, with a cheeky little Turquoise Raptor mount, but without her Water Totem, so that was the first port of call. For said quest, you get sent all over the bloody world, which is kinda stressful when you are on a PvP server – though I’ve yet to be ganked.

20-26 was a rather uneventful experience. There’s not much you can say about grinding your way through quests in the Barrens and Ashenvale. At 26, though, I felt confident about joining BGs without (at least, in theory) being a ridiculously easy target for anyone. Unfortunately, low level Enhancement is pretty dire when it comes to actually dealing damage to other players. We’re great at hindering them, and can speed away from any battles by shifting instantly to Ghost Wolf form, but killing them? Not likely. Slow two handed weapon, only one real instant ability, which is on a 6 second cooldown – not a lot of potential for going toe-to-toe with anyone.

Still, we make quite respectable defenders in Warsong Gulch, since we can easily hinder the target who will mostly be aiming for flight, not fight. In Arathi Basin, I took the role of professional hinderer – being generally annoying to anyone I couldn’t kill who was trying to capture a point. I also had a nice little sideline going in scouting, thanks to Far Sight. When I say scouting, I really mean trying to take pretty pictures of the battle field.

Arathi Basin quickly became my favourite, in spite of the fact I remember having a preference for WSG before. Perhaps it’s the fact it’s totally outdoors – I absolutely hate not being able to ride or shift into Ghost Wolf in the forts in WSG. Plus, WSG isn’t as fun outside of the 10-19 bracket, where Shammies and Druids are totally broken, with our 40% speed boost forms. The fact it seemed to give much better Experience (perhaps due to the fact it was the Call to Arms BG?) helped, too. First time I finished it I got 13k experience! That was a surprise level up, let me tell you.

With the high EXP from battle grounds combined with a tidy cluster of quests in Thousand Needles (Involving some Grimtotem with a distinct resistance to Nature damage. So frustrating to try and interrupt a cast and have your Wind Shear resisted), it didn’t take me very long at all to get to level 30. I dinged mid skirmish, actually, which was an unpleasant surprise to the folk trying to kill me. Oh, they still managed to do so, but I lasted long enough for reinforcements to arrive thanks to the level.

Much to my annoyance, though, I didn’t get my 7k exp at the end of that match, probably because I was no longer within the bracket. Given I only  had 2k EXP to go to level, I’d have been better just grinding a few mobs instead of doing a 20 minute battle, to be honest.

I was considering doing a guide to AB in the vein of a previous post, but my AB experiences were entirely positive. Not a single loss, and the occasional pleasant BG chit-chat, compared to the losses and constant whinging of WSG. Oh, I’ve had plenty of bad experiences before, but it just doesn’t feel right to bitch and whine about a BG that was totally successful this time round!

Not sure if I could make 41 – and the delicious, fully fledged Enhancement Shaman that magical number represents – before my time runs out, but it’s worth a shot. Either that, or I’ll give Ilthiran a dusting off, see if I can try a few dungeons in Northrend, just to keep my hand in. Though part of the appeal of playing Eisla is that the furthest I’ve ever got as Horde is 32 (my Hunter on the same server), so the quests are going to new to me very soon.

Given it’s been over a month since the last update, I’m pretty sure you figured that one out for yourself.

I just feel I should make it explicit – I no longer play WoW, and have no intention of picking the game back up in the near future. I may or may not start playing again at some point in the further future, but frankly, not only is there too much going on in my life right now, but I’m also just bored, bored, bored with the game anyway.

Also, while I’d toyed with the idea of just making this a “gaming” blog, budgetary constraints mean I’ve not been playing any other games either, because I can’t afford any new ones, so this blog is officially in hibernation.

Thanks to all those other bloggers who commented on and linked to this blog and it’s predecessors, to all those who were subscribed to or otherwise read the blog and to Soul Haven, my first and final “real” raiding guild, for making blogging such an enjoyable experience.

I’ll still be hanging around in BA Chat and on Twitter (though I pay less attention to both of those than I used to), so I’m not completely gone! That’s right, you can’t get rid of me that easily. I make it my business to torment you.

It was a relatively easy fight. I one shot it. I had a brief omgomg moment with whelps, but that’s what Earth Elemental Totem is for. The flight phase took absolutely ages, as I had to try and regen mana with Water Shield (I had a flame resist totem up, so no mana spring) and the occasional hit on Onyxia when I wasn’t healing/smacking a whelp.

Also, it’s not fun that she’s fire immune. Lava Lash was useless, but as you can see… I still used it. I couldn’t not use it. I’m wired to use Lava Lash!

So hey! Solo’d Onyxia just before she gets buffed. Took me long enough to get round to doing!

It never ceases to bug me how little people know about Scotland. Of course, I totally understand that people can’t know everything about every country in the world, but admit it – you’d get a bit bothered if people constantly got your history so very, very wrong, right?

So, for what little good it will do, I’m gonna clear up some common misconceptions about Scotland and the United Kingdom here.

The United Kingdom

Sometimes, people, particularly in the US, are a bit confused as to exactly what the UK consists of. The UK is Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The rest of Ireland (the lighter green part of the island) is it’s own, independent country. Sometimes people think it’s part of the UK – it’s not, so be careful with that!

Basically, each country in the UK is like an American State (well, except England… it’s complex.) – The UK as a whole is governed by the British Parliament in Westminster, London. However, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have their own “devolved parliaments”, with certain powers over their countries – somewhat like the Federal and State division in the US. However, England does not have it’s own government, and is represented solely by Westminster.

While I say the situation is somewhat akin to American states, I think it’s worth pointing out that, unlike American states, as they exist today, with the states beyond the original 13 all having been settled by Americans with the intention of the new lands joining America, the Countries that make up the United Kingdom all have long histories as independent states –thus, each have distinct national cultures that are probably far greater than the differences between, say, an inhabitant of California and an inhabitant of Maine, despite the greater physical distance in the latter case. In fact, Scotland, Ireland and Wales all have native, Celtic languages, totally unrelated to the Germanic English language, though, in Scotland, Gaelic is spoken by a small minority.

To make matters even more complicated, there are substantial, though not in the majority, groups in Scotland, Wales, and particularly Northern Ireland (which has suffered greatly over the years over the issue of being in the Union) who advocate seceding from the UK. Thus, while “British” is a catch all term for people living in the UK, you may find that people prefer to be called by their “proper” nationality.

For example, and here’s where I may stir things up politically with any British readers, I support Scottish independence. I bear no ill will to any of the other countries in the UK, I just feel we should be independent, and as such, I object to being called “British” instead of “Scottish.” It doesn’t offend me, I just don’t consider myself to be British, as such. However, calling me “English” does offend me – because I feel that shows a great deal of ignorance about how the UK works.

Scotland

Firstly, and most importantly – Braveheart is not an entirely accurate portrayal of Scottish history. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe – but there’s a lot wrong with it, historically. It’s a fantastic film, however – don’t let inaccuracy spoil it for you.

The most standout one, in a way, is also the least important. You know how they are all wearing blue face paint (woad) and kilts? Well, those are both anachronisms. Woad was utilised by the Picts, who were the original, inhabitants of Scotland. It was most certainly not used in the 13th-14th centuries. And in the other direction, kilts, especially not of the style in the film, were not actually worn by Scots until much later!

Also, perhaps influenced by Braveheart, there are misconceptions about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, and how Scotland came to join with England.

William Wallace

William Wallace was “Guardian of Scotland” – he was not, at any point, in the running for King of Scotland. Basically, he was a general.

Robert the Bruce

The Scottish Monarchy did not end with The Bruce. While the Bruce dynasty was short lived, Scotland continued to have it’s own Kings and Queens from the mid 1300’s, when the wars of Independence finally came to a close, until the 17th Century, when the Scottish Monarch also became the English Monarch.

The Union of Scotland and England

I rarely see this, but I do see it often enough for it to make me /facepalm. The Union of Scotland and England was entirely peaceful. There was no war involved. Some people seem to think we were put to the sword and made to join – not quite. As stated above, the two countries started sharing a monarch in the 17th century. In the early 18th Century – 1707 to be exact – the two countries joined together to form Great Britain. While the Union was peaceful, it was also incredibly unpopular in Scotland at the time.

Silly things

As much as we like to tease foreigners about it, and Scottish readers will be so cross with me for unveiling our great lie – Haggis is not a real animal. We do not chase it round mountains. It’s just meat in a sheep gut. No, I have never tried it, and I do not intend to.

Similarly, The Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist. Well, to the best of my knowledge. Who can really say? I mean, it’s a pretty murky Loch, and very deep… If there’s something there though, it’s damn well not a plesiosaur. Seriously people.

We do not wear kilts all the time. I have worn a kilt once in my life, for my high school leavers Ceilidh and the only time I anticipate wearing one again is if I get married.

We most certainly do not all sound like Groundskeeper Willie! See here for an example of how I speak. Nothing alike!

-

There we go! The more you know!

Sometimes, some really, really silly stuff is said in BA chat. I occasionally capture them, to look back on and giggle at later. But hey, I have this blog, so… I think I’ll share them here!

Warning – wall of Text crit time!

TJ Blogs Azeroth

Temerity Jane: I acually write about 95% of the wow blogs on the internet now
Temerity Jane: I keep the real bloggers in the basement
Aertimus: ha ha
Nibuca: TJ is the new Fararro.. only hotter and less attainable.
Llanion: She really does, it’s true (send help)Temerity Jane: Care to join them?
Temerity Jane: Punch and pie.
Llanion: *cough*don’tdrinkthepunch*hack cough*

Sleeve Lettuce (Following from last piece):

Nibuca: .. Is it sad.. that I got a salad for lunch.. and only at half.. and am now picking the candied nuts and apple bits out of said salad as dessert?
Temerity Jane: WHO LET YOU GET A SALAD IN THE BASEMENT?
Ratshag: does it have sleeve lettuce in it?
Ratshag: (TJ really hates sleeve lettuce)
Temerity Jane: Dont even act like sleeve lettuce has never happened to you
Nibuca: um.. unfamiliar with sleeve lettuce.. does it "hang down like sleeve of wizard"?
Nibuca: (veiled Borat reference FTW)
Temerity Jane: I don’t veil my borat reference in this house, I am always threatening to smack Phil with my wizard sleeve
Temerity Jane: anyway, no
Temerity Jane: sleeve lettuce is when you’re eating a sandwich
Temerity Jane: and wearing long sleeves
Nibuca: L. O. L.
Temerity Jane: and some lettuce falls out and falls in your sleeve
Llanion: I’ve… never heard of such a thing, honestly.
Temerity Jane: and gets way up there by the elbow
Temerity Jane: IT HAPPENS
Ratshag: AC gchat never was the same after you left TJ
Aertimus: you must eat a lot of lettuce 
Nibuca: .. then .. No.. this would rightly be termed "bosom lettuce"… the only lettuce dropped perched on bosom until retrieved
Faulsey: I’m not sure any chat would be the same after TJ leaves it o.O
Aertimus: now THAT I can believe
Temerity Jane: No, see, Nib, that’s tooooo common of an occurrance, so it has an over arching title
Temerity Jane: Boob Food
Temerity Jane: As in "When I stood up after dinner, all my boob food fell onto the floor"
Nibuca: or on men.. "moob Food"

Matron Hydra:

Faulsey: I sigh a little every time I see a Patron/Matron Warlock.
Ratshag: lol
Faulsey: You guys are meant to steal souls and eat babies! Not lead children around and give them candy and be all heroic!
Ratshag: "Home Alone" isn’t very heroic
TheStoppableForce: Nope
Faulsey: This is true.
Faulsey: But it’s hardly evil.
Ratshag: depends on where you hearth from
Faulsey: -ponders-
Faulsey: Heigan’s room? :3
TheStoppableForce: Possibly!
TheStoppableForce: I left mine hanging out with the Frost trainer in Acherus
TheStoppableForce: He’s a lich, maybe he liked kids in his former life, I dunno.
Hydra entered the room.
Ratshag: hey Hydra
Hydra: *wave* Hello
Faulsey: WhyhellotharrHydra
TheStoppableForce: hi Hy
Hydra: D-less. I am Matron Hydra. and it makes me giggle. I feel like handing out candy to lure children and push them into a furnace.
Hydra: like the one in UK
Ratshag: rofl
TheStoppableForce: … I like you, Hydra.
Faulsey: Well, that’s a devilish use of the Matron title… so I suppose these locks are actually very clever then
TheStoppableForce: <3

 

BRK’s Brain

Faulsey: BRK’s brain brings all the visitors to the blog -sings poorly-
Saresa: ‘damn right, it’s smarter than yours’?
Faulsey: Ooh, genius
LadyJess: LMAO
Saresa: ‘I will teach you, if you’re a huntard’?
Faulsey: Win.
Saresa: thus clearly proving MY brain only functions within 30min of getting out of bed any other time my response would be ‘uuuurrrrgh….’

Soufflé

Nibuca: you know.. a good souffle wiggles like the breast of a woman…
Faulsey: -jiggles-
Nibuca: (random things heard on airplanes)
Faulsey: Actually, I’m far to skinny to jiggly at all. :\
*I was jiggling with excitement before. I am a man, honest. Not testing breast jiggle.
Ratshag: which woman?
Ratshag: ’cause, there’s variation
Nibuca: mighty fine woman with eyecatching rack wearing low cut blouse.. picking a pencil up off the floor
Ratshag: and I’d hate to ruin the souffle
Ratshag: thankee
Nibuca: .. straight legged.. in high heels
Nibuca: and.. a mini skirt…
Nibuca: dang slippery pencil
Ratshag: what color skirt?
Nibuca: duh, red
Faulsey: So.
Nibuca: you know.. I really hope this mental image pokes you in the mental eye the next time you hear the word "souffle"
Ratshag: hee hee
Faulsey: A good souffle jiggles like the eyecatching rack displayed via a low cut blouse of a woman who is picking a pencil up off the floor in a straight legged position, wearing high heels and a red miniskirt?
Nibuca: indeed

Night Elf Eyebrows

trizophenie: you sure there’s no barber in darnassus?
Faulsey: There isn’t.
Faulsey: SW and IF are where they are.
Faulsey: Though given the length of Night Elf eyebrows, I’m not surprised there isn’t one there. 
Ratshag: elf eyebrows cannot be cut
Faulsey: Why? Are they the source of their power?  
Ratshag: they are made of the hardest material in the universe 
Ratshag: punch right through epic plate helmets
Faulsey: Those would make some epic rogue daggers…
TheStoppableForce: The difficulty comes in severing them from the elf’s face.
Boize: Or just lope off the head, and use it as a spiked mace?
Faulsey: easy.
Faulsey: Cut the entire eyebrow off – flesh included.
Ratshag: ooh, elf head on a stick!
Faulsey: The attatched flesh would serve as a comfortable grip!
Boize: True. You wouldn’t want to cut your hand while wielding the razor-sharp eyebrows of doom.

Joining a party – Get invited as a healer, despite your preference for DPS. Proceed to stare extremely hard at the screen until the Rogue and competing Enhancement Shaman who are both after your mace leave the party.

First Boss – Scream at your thick tank to “PICK UP THE DAMN [Insert race of ranged opponent here]”, because you can’t heal them when you are dead. Twice now that has happened, twice being the sum and total of the times I have healed this instance. Pick.Up.The.Damn.Troll.

Second Boss – Gnash your teeth at your DPS because you don’t give a damn if you can heal through the flashy light, it’s the principle of the thing. Don’t look at the blinding exploding guy is on the same tier as don’t stand in the frickin’ fire.

Third Boss – Cry to [deity/enlightened being of your choice] because why the hell does the final form of the last boss have to be so much of a bitch to heal and OMG DEATH LASERS I just died again rage.

After you win – Mutter to yourself because despite the numerous upgrades that you could have got for your main spec, none of them dropped, indeed, no upgrades for anyone else dropped, and all you got was some flashy healer belt, further putting your off spec gear ahead of your main spec gear in terms of quality.

I don’t like Trial of the Champion. It’s an evil place. Whilst Kazura waltzes around in her nice new gear earned from there, I get my face blown up by the ridiculously difficult to heal final phase of the Black Knight and mourn my lack of shiny maces.

Disclaimer: Screaming and crying not advised. Gnashing and Muttering certainly advised.

We spent most of last night wiping on those damn Jormungar in the new 10 man raid. Gormok was ridiculously easy after a few shots – chasing Snobolds down quickly became routine. We just couldn’t get the Jormungar down. That fight has got to be a prime example of where 10 mans are more difficult than 25 mans – if someone dies, which is very likely to happen, then your entire attempt is pretty much doomed. Guh.

I’ve kind of lost steam on Ilthiran – not really that interested in playing him right now. In fact, I’d say after that brief period of revival, I’m kind of bored of WoW again. –shrug- Anyway, I did manage to get to level 71, and thus, Swift Flight Form;

I also managed to finish the Nexus – we had absolutely zero problems this time, so, ha, suck it, Kyp, it was totally the healers fault last time!

Faulsey received a brief revival as well. He had 26 Emblems of Heroism, which were just sitting there, annoying me, so I ran a few HCs to get up to 40 EoH and 200 SKS, to spend on an heirloom chest and shoulders for my Paladin – he’d previously been using some mail shoulders.

Logging onto said Paladin, I had a case of “hey, I should have read the patch notes” when I noticed that A. My Judgements were returning a flat 8% of my Base Mana when cast, despite there being nothing in the tooltip to suggest they would do so, and B. Hand of Reckoning now does ridiculous damage if used to pull a target. Geez, as if leveling Ret Paladin’s had to be even more powerful! –grin-

And random cool screenshots:

(So Algalon is kind of old news by now – I’d never seen this, and didn’t expect any of the scrubs on my server to have been able to take him out!)

Play this. (No need to watch, just a static image.)

If you try to deny that that is one of the most fantastic pieces of Boss music in gaming history, I… well… there’s just no helping you, ok?

And speaking of Razorscale..!

Popped onto Ellaria tonight, just to check and see of the Razormaw Matriarch was up – I want a raptor for her, too! – and I asked my guild how raiding was going, since I haven’t really been keeping up with their progress (sorry guys!)

Kyp: Actually, we’re one DPS short for Ulduar tonight…
Me: Orly? –whistles nonchalantly-
Kyp invites you to join a group.

Bwahah. Since it was the last night before the reset, they’d already done a number of Bosses in the place. First we did Razorscale, as you can see above, and then moved onto Auriaya, who I’d never fought before. We wiped the first time, but beat her with ease the second time. Unfortunately, the crazy lady didn’t drop the shoulders I’d have liked. Bah!

Now all I’m missing from the Antechamber is the Iron Council… maybe one day. We attempted Freya after that, but, I dunno, Freya is just one massive drug trip. QUICK, HIDE UNDER THE MUSHROOMS, NO, NOT THE SMALL ONES, THE BIG ONES, AND OMG THERE’S A HEALING TREE, KILL IT, NOW A GIANT PLANT AND SOME ELEMENTALS HAVE SPAWNED WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON OH WE’RE DEAD. I believe they’ve downed her before, but a couple of the DPS were having latency issues, plus me and another person had never done the fight, so we were destroyed.

And for Stop – Look! It’s a genuine, honest to Eonar, Female Dwarf!

After that, I gave the new 5 man instance a try for the first time – me and Kazura had actually joined a party for it a few nights ago, but it didn’t go anywhere at all. We tried again tonight, and I was healing… Man, that place is rather hard to heal. The last boss is insane. He ate our faces first attempt, and second attempt it was very close. I kind of just hit chain heal over and over, hoping people wouldn’t die. For a 5 man, that is absolutely ridiculous. (Still not as bad as HC Old Kingdom. HATEHATEHATE.)

Mostly thanks to the free emblems on the mini-bosses before Freya, I had enough to get a delicious set of leg armour. Mmm, finally “naturally” at the spell hit cap. Course, I don’t raid much, but damnit, it’s the principle of the thing.

And why yes, yes I am totally on a WoW kick again now that I’ve got plenty of free time and nothing to do with it. What’s your point?