What's Old Is New

The recent Echoes of Doom patch & events have created a lot of excitement for my little band of friends in our little alt-guild. Before the patch, most of us were off on our merry little dailies, on various "main raiders" in various raiding guilds or leveling alts. At first the patch seemed to drive us further apart with folks running to the far corners of the old world seeking achievements. Then we started to come back together to farm old-world instances and re-do heroics. The Headless Horseman boss, the plague & the invasion all helped to drive us back into instances and re-equip long-forgotten Argent Dawn trinkets.

This excitement (and some serious dps increases) made us hungry for more. So, 7 of us ran over to Kara on a rag-tag group of Alts & mains to see if we could down Attumen and get at the event boss for the quest.

I know what you're thinking. Why not grab 3 more? This, again, is our little group of friends who've known each other for years. Our group time is for getting away from PUGs and guild politics. It's "us" time.

Our group consisted of:

Kara-Level Geared Feral Tank
Crafted-epics DPS Warrior/OT <---New Raider. He's Cherry!
Mint green Ret Pally/OT
T4 Enhancement Shaman/backup healer
T5 Frost Mage
New Epics Hunter Alt
T5 Geared Resto Druid

Attumen went down easy-sauce. It was so easy for my feral druid, that I hardly noticed that I was tanking both of them. We moved up into the servants quarters and after a "learning pull" we regrouped and downed the event boss easily. Well, since we're right across the hall, let's go kill Moroes. We should be able to get him, right? Why, in fact, we pwned him. I tanked him and all the adds, while a fury warrior picked off a mob one at a time for the group to kill. I built a high enough threat on Moroes that I put my back to him and fought the adds, thus avoiding blinding until I had to hit him one last time. Only lost one player when he blinded me and we ripped him a new one. So, hi on this achievement (but so late for a Thursday night) we called it and scheduled to return 10AM Saturday morning to see what else we could kill. And what happened Saturday? Fear the BEAR!!! RAWR! We mowed our way through Maiden & the Oz fights. We took a short break to lounge on the terrace and swat this gnat named Nightbane. What a wuss! We took a 5 min bio to make the rest of the instance think it was harder, thus preserving Nightbane's last shred of dignity.

We found Curator lacking and pwnd him accordingly. Illhoof slew one of our numbers and we just kept coming. It was cake. We moved on.

Our first real challenge came at Shade. And even with the "mistake" we nearly won. Rinse-repeat...one dead badge dispenser. On to Chess...

Amazingly, the with only 7 players, Chess event proved difficult. We lost the first attempt. We had to move more pawns into position and make some adjustments. It's still "free" loot! Running out of time, we rushed up the stairs, ganked Prince Malchezaar and called it "lunch."

Wait, what about Netherspite? Pah! His loot table sucks. Let's go try some bosses in ZA instead.

And so, after a break for afternoon chores and meals, we regrouped and killed 3 ZA bosses.

It was truly an experience. As someone who loves raiding, but grew tired of the drama of raiding, this was fun. We're grearing up and getting to know our abilities under the new system. We're seeing stuff "alone" without getting friends and guildies to slum with us on our alts. It was just great.

Go Phillies - Kill All Zombies

My gaming group are all converted to Phillies Phans because the sooner they win, the sooner I'll be online on my Bear tanking for them. I've been glued to the TV or radio every game of the playoffs.

When I am on, we've been enjoying the patch. The changes to the Bear Swipe mechanics make Rhus a genuine AoE tank. The changes to Hunter shot mechanics mean that I can enjoy dps with-out freaking out about clipping shots. If not for the stupid lag issues, I would give the patch 10/10 for excitement, game improvements & all around crunchy goodness.

So, how do I feel about the zombie plague? It's "exciting" and I'm not sure that's a good thing. I've completely given up playing my lowbie shadow priest. I'm avoiding cities. The whole thing is screwing with the tranquility of our little PvE server. Still I approve, even if I don't like it. It feels right and adds to the anticipation of the expansion. I just wish that it wasn't so disruptive.

Farewell & Hello

It's been months since I've posted in the blog. No point in going through the wherefores and the whys. Basically, some changes happened after returning from my raiding absence to make me rethink the whole raiding thing. I've been spending 80-90% of my WoW time leveling & gearing my feral druid, Rhus. It's been great. I reclaimed that missing something about the game that I lost when I became burned out from raiding. So in June, it was a quiet farewell that I made to raiding with QSS. Beroth is still a "friend" in the guild and I still keep tabs on their progress.

So, what am I doing? Playing Rhus with a small group of friends. We are unfortunately too small of a group to do Kara runs and some of the group is still raiding with various guilds, so there's been no pressure to find the extra people to do it.

Early in the summer I challenged myself with a question. Could I get myself geared enough to tank all the heroics without ever setting foot in a raid instance? The answer, with some help, is still undecided. I've had to farm a lot of material and/or rep for "charity epics." I've spent lots of coin on buying patterns for BoP gear like the Boots of Natural Grace. I got my Cenarion rep for Earthwarden & my SSO+Scryer rep to make the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve one hell of a nice piece of gear. The other part has been a big PvP grind. I've already collected 3 pieces of the Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide set and am working on a 4th. It's an excellent Kara-level bear alternative and can be worked on at your own pace.

I've also spent hours reading through the blogs of two friends and excellent Feral Druids: Karthis' Of Teeth and Claws & Flyv's Warcraft Blog. Both blogs have been invaluable in teaching me about attack rotations, gear itemization & for giving me ideas about what to go after. Rhus (my druid) may never be as geared as them or see the bosses they see, but I like to think that I'm making the most of things. Damn has it been fun trying to get non-raid Alts through heroics, learning to PvP on a completely different toon & trying to get my 2x2 team up and running.

I'm working on some questions for Karthis & Flyv about specific gear and for heroic strategies. Since I only get 4-6 badges per week & can only grind so much honor and/or reputation, I've got to be selective about my wishlist.

More to come? Perhaps...

Another Successful Operation Alt Squad Run

I keep forgetting to take the damn screen shots!

Saturday's operation took us deep into the heart of Uldaman. We were a bit over-level since everyone quested during the week. The new leveling rules just make it so easy that I dinged 2 times while writing this sentence.

Once again, we AE cleared the place and did it in near record fashion. It was just plain sick how powerful we are. We discussed hitting Maraudon next week to "stretch" ourselves, but I don't think it will help. Everyone will probably be over level 45 by then and Maraudon looks like it's been nerf'ed a bit. Our first real tests may not happen until we start hitting Black Rock or Dire Maul. The trouble is quests. I want everyone to have the quests, but everyone has different amounts of time. If we all prep for Maraudon, but are over-level again then we should go straight to BRD for the challenge. But if we prep for BRD and someone isn't up to it, then we have to go to Maraudon. The answer may be to get started early enough to check everyone's level and do the pre-quests together.

Next time, I promise some zany screen shots of our mages bouncing through the fight casting Arcane Blast or something.

Grin and Bear It

As previously mentioned, my collection of WoW-playing RL friends rolled up some Alts recently. We're hitting old instances together and it's been a complete blast. On Saturday, we did Scarlet Monastery twice to accommodate everyone. Both pulls were done AE and both were complete clears in about 2 hours each. It was, to say the least, a blast. One of the best parts was being able to group with our friend living over-seas. (Thus the reason for the second "late night" run.)

Each of us is trying something new. Each of us is "stretching" a little in our new roles. My wife -- a full-time raid healer -- is playing a frost mage. I'm bear tanking.

For a long time, we've had tank issues. Various members of our group have been "stuck" doing it. Heck, I remember in PBC, I would often pet-tank several instances. It was never pretty, but we often got the job done.

Since, Scarlet Monastery is my first real tanking experience, I thought I would talk about the trip. First off, as a beastmaster hunter I know a little more about tanking than the average ranged player. Which is to say, I don't know much. BUT, I do farm leather by letting my pet collect 2-4 mobs at once and then taking them down one-by-one.

Here's what I've learned from my experience.

1) Swipe is your best friend. It seems like whole pulls can be done with just using swipe. During AoE pulls, I discovered that shifting my position and tabbing through the targets, allows me to put swipes on more than 3 mobs. It's not full-proof, but it helps.

2) Using Growl too soon or on the wrong mob doesn't do shit. Target of target is a lifeline. In a group, it's good to have party target frames to help find the mob that pulled off.

3) You can't keep all the mobs in a 4-6 mob AoE pull. The trick seems to be to keep as many as you can, and do your best to grab back 1 or 2 when they start beating on the mages. Eventually, a mage or warlock will die. Oh well! As long as it wasn't the healer and the party didn't wipe, it was probably still a good pull.

4) Thanks to Karthis, I've learned when/how to use charge. I was charging to open pulls when I first started. Reading his post recently, I saved it to grab the stray spellcasters OR save my healer.

Anyway, I'm interested to see what future levels hold. Deep down, I'm still a hunter. Still, it's a great change of pace. I can't imagine ever switching to druid, but who knows.

Managing the Guild Within the Guild

How did you get into World of Warcraft? Did you do it by yourself? Did you do it to meet people?

If you're like me, you did it with a group of friends. Two or three of us started, but then the rest of us joined in. We live hours apart. WoW brings us back together. I've nearly quit the game dozens of times, but my friends keep me playing.

Even now after joining an end-game raiding guild, my friends figure prominently on my game-play decisions. Which raids will I sign up for? Which days will I reserve for them? When will I go do RL stuff and when will I log on simply to hang out and chat with them? The good news is that most of them are in the same guild with me. For the most part, the guild schedule is "our" schedule.

The drive to progress in end-game raiding can be all-consuming. When I'm not raiding, I'm often doing quests or farming materials with one goal in mind: Prepare for Raiding! I need to pay for potions, repair, new gear, and contribute to the guild bank. There are weeks when all my game-play is consumed by the raid or the raid-prep. Where do my friends fit in when this happens? Do I play to raid or do I play to do stuff with my friends?

If you're like me and the answer is a resounding BOTH, you've got your work cut out for you! Here's some of the stuff we do to maintain the balance. Some of it might seem *Duh* obvious. Sometimes it's the no-brainer stuff that's easiest to overlook, but makes all the difference

The Guild Within the Guild
aka The Alt-Guild

The Friends Channel
Everyone has these channels. It's the conversation within the conversation. In our case, it's a lifeline. Even when all of us happen to be in the same guild or party channel, we inevitably hold our group conversations here. Now that we've spread to more than one guild, we still maintain our channel. It's essential. It keeps us all in contact. When one of us needs something, we come to this channel first before going to the guild.

The Alt-Guild
Even while our mains bounce from raiding guild to raiding guild, our Alt Guild remains constant. All our bank toons & non-raiding characters are members of our Alt Guild. It provides us a haven from the "responsibilities" of being in a larger guild.

Alt Night
Along with the Alt Guild is Alt Night. For a long while it was "Horde Night," but we finally abandoned that to remain on the same server and in the same channels. Right now, alt night is just getting fired back up for the new year for a group of toons we have in the 30's. This year's "project" is called OPERATION ALT-SQUAD!

Alt-Guild Issues

Numbers
Our biggest issue is numbers. Our guild w/in the guild is about 8 people. Guilds & groups in WoW work best in multiples of 5. If I had a dollar for every time we had 6 of us logged in and someone had to be excluded, I'd be rich. The best way to deal with this is to find ways of being inclusive. Here are some things we've tried with mixed results:

• Instead of running an instance, split into groups of 3 and quest.
• Split into the groups and then ask members of our various raiding guilds to join us. Just don't ask me to LFG! I hate pugs (even when 1/2 of it is friends.)
• Never let the same person sit out two nights in a row.

Schedules
The second is schedules. Two of us are in different guilds with very different schedules. Frankly, it's not gone well, but it has solved our first issue. Right now, schedules have created a situation where about 5 of us are online together regularly. That's been fun for us, but unfortunate for our other friends.

Staying Focused
Because we have two different foci,* it's really easy for us to drop one for the other. I do our Alt Night scheduling. There are weeks when I really need to farm something up for Beroth OR the raiding guild needs Beroth for a run that I didn't sign up for. It's so easy to go do those raid-related things and forget Alt Night. The same thing happens for the rest of our group.

Moving Forward w/ Operation Alt Squad
Over the weeks ahead, I plan to share stuff about Alt-Night and our progression. Our first hurdle is adjusting to the new "old" game. With the last patch, Blizzard changed a lot of level requirements. We're re-learning the levels of instances, mobs & general progressions.

Our goal this time around is to enjoy stuff we might have missed the other times we leveled toons. We're hoping to eventually hit some "old" end-game instances that we never really got to enjoy for various reasons.

The first hurdle is that our group is not as level-tight as we'd like. Our Tank, a feral druid named Rhus (me) is level 36, but our Priest is only 31. This was fine when we hit the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard on Monday, but I'm not sure how far we should go without shrinking that gap.

*RANT! Foci is the plural of Focus. Stupid blogger doesn't know that. It wants me to use focuses. I acknowledge that somewhere along the line general stupidity won over and made it focuses acceptable. I don't have to like it, but I accept it. Still, for the spell check to not recognize foci...Arrrgghhh!!

Now, I can go back and point out the numerous grammatical corners I regularly cut in this and other blogs. I think it's part of the nature of blogging. Sometimes, I purposefully cheat to maintain a conversational tone. I admit to an insufficient level of editing. I often catch really ugly mistakes days or weeks later. That's all part of blogging.

All that said, it still bothers me that the English language is becoming such a wasteland of inarticulate, dumb-speak.