Living For The Weekend

This weekend sees the return of the Heart of Valorous buff, so now is a good time to collect the weeks worth of valor as I am in no doubt those supplies of Timeless Coins are at an all time low. I have chewed my way through 400,000 timeless coins in the 3,000 coins for 100 valor bonanza.

I would normally be quite happy to see this buff, but my realm had this buff all last weekend  as well. Was last week a glitch? Have I exploited Blizzard? Was it a test for this week? Did they simply forget to tell anyone about it? These Time Sensitive Buffs become an integral part of your game plan, then they disappear unexpectedly or appear after you collect the weeks valor. I assumed last week was a 4th July Brucie Bonus, but I was still expecting it to be there on Monday.

Any chance Blizzard might share it's master plan with us and allow us to plan around their mood swings?

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On a separate topic completely, I have now claimed my 2nd Legendary cloak for my Shaman, but I am not sure I ordered the right one.

I am essentially Restoration, but it was so hard to keep 2 sets up-to-date in MoP. I am so very pleased that only Trinkets will be spec specific.

I chose the Elemental version because I am unlikely to do too much more raiding on this character, but I can enjoy another 10 levels of hurling lightning bolts in this cloak.

I really hope I did the right thing, and besides, it is quite awhile since I ran out mana, so Spirit would be wasted.
Finishing of the Legendary Quest line I opted for Healing against the Celestials and really enjoyed it. I just wish it was easier to add Wrathion to my Healbot bar rather than try to use the default UI.

Hint to Blizzard, if you are tweaking the UI, think about introducing a Healing interface, it might help on your Healer recruitment drive.

The Chain

 

 

Icy Veins calls it the "Breath of the Black Prince" Questline, everybody else knows it as the Legendary Cloak Quest. I am approaching the end of my journey some 6 or 7 months after everybody else, but it is better late than never.

 

Last night I was able to capture the last 2 Titan Runestones from the 2 locations that give guaranteed drops from Lei Shen and Sha of Pride (wish I had known earlier). I ignored the advice from BBB who was under the impression that you could not loot Lei Shen for a Runestone and then to go back for his heart, in the same week. Fortunately I got lucky and was mightily relieved to see the mouse pointer turn to the loot option.

 

An evening filled with 11 Celestial kills and 3 LFR's left me with the task of gaining 4 Blessings from the Celestials at a time when I really wanted to go to bed. One quick attempt to kill Wrathion did not go the right way, and I packed myself and the greasy smear off to bed.

 

Today, I have the job of researching how to defeat Wrathion, but also thinking that I am not the only Hunter frequenting this site, I thought it might be prudent to ask. Please bear in mind that my computer is on the aging side and the effects on the floor seemed to be ill defined. The main aim seems to be to take out the adds and avoid the bad. There is little or no time to heal so avoidance of damage seems to be the way to go.

 

Research seems to point to a cheat that was hotfixed, and the fact that I should have an extra 25 iLevel on when the Quest was first released. The You Tube I looked at practically ignored the blobs. I guess an AoE Tanking Pet will keep the addons occupied.

 

Wish me luck and any advice will be gratefully received.

Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?

Sorry, big apologies all round, the real life patch that dropped last year, caused a huge change in my mood, lifestyle and my willingness to read and write about the World of Warcraft. In the 5 months since I last wrote anything sensible on this blog, not a lot as happened in game. There is no new content and a lot of hot air. I even stopped reading other peoples blogs so in reality I have no idea what is going on, but I get the feeling I have not missed much. My only sources of information have been the Godmother, The Instance Podcast and occasionally WoW Insider.

The good news is that I am back in employment after suffering an enforced vacation over the month of December. This was not a good time for me and the people around me. I might have been rather unpleasant to live with for a period of 6 weeks and the effect of not being able to provide a good Christmas for my wife and children.

After several months of attending terrible interviews, I was asked to go and have a chat with a local company, situated about 10 minutes walking distance from my house. I was late Friday afternoon and started work on the following Monday morning. Not only is work very close to home, but there is talk of Business trips to exotic European locations including Paris, Madrid and Milan, it sounds like a fashion show, but in reality the company makes rivets

In my absence I have mentally written hundreds of posts, but I have not had the time or the focus to give them the attention they require, but I am hoping that recent changes in circumstances will allow for resumption of usual service.

The low point in between expansions is a strange to start writing but that is exactly the point that I picked up my keyboard 2 years ago. There is still much to discuss and I wanted to pickup the baton laid down by the Godmother and her faffing campaign.

Faff means - "To spend time in ineffectual activity". It is an English word derived from the North of England and is commonly used only in the UK. There is a time when I would have described the bulk of my game time in Azeroth to be "faffing about". I would love to support the Godmother but I have made a discovery that on the surface our activities may appear to be ineffectual, but in reality the opposite is true.

With additional time on my hands in December I decided to organise my game time so as to make optimum usage of short periods of play between job applications. The result was a spreadsheet to monitor my key goals and routines, and I remembered in the process that the Godmother had already created The Ultimate Form of Faffing. The result is the antithesis of faffing and results in huge improvements in the attainment of objectives. The activities might be inconsequential to anyone else but this is anything but faffing.

In my own form I highlight the following key activities:

1. Darkmoon Faire - Monthly activity for 5 points of fishing skill.
2. Weekly Timeless Isle Quest - Collect 50 Epochs for 200 Valor
3. Celestial Bosses - Leg and Gloves (Now dropping 550 PvP gear)
4. LFR Siege of Orgrimmar - Just in case they drop secrets and titan runestones for the Legendary Quest.
5. Warforged Seals - Pickup 3 bonus Seals or 40+ Gold not a lot of effort (weekly)

The matrix was ultimately a tick box of which characters needed what activities in any given week. I can quickly logon to any alt if I find a Celestial Boss has been attacked without wasting any time. 90% of Celestial Boss kills occur on reset day and armed with this information it is possible to chain kill for between 5 and 11 characters in a two hour period. Prior to having a spreadsheet I would logon to the wrong character and miss the end of the fight on far too many occasions.

The idea that end game is all about Heroic Raiding, Maximising Honor Kills and the accumulation of gear is only partially right. Every player has their own agenda, and with a lack of new content we are left to do achievements, clear out our bags, and put our characters into stasis waiting for a date sometime between September and December when we can experience something new again.

The development time for Warlords of Draenor is not a surprise that is would take around 12 months from Blizzcon to a release date. The only surprise in the MoP expansion was the time of expansion dropping to the first major patch. Everything else is firmly in Blizzard timelines of 2 year expansions. The time from last patch to new expansion is bad for both player and Blizzard. Killing Deathwing for 12 months was not fun, and the same is going to be true of Garrosh. What makes matters worse is that he is going to escape (oops spoiler).

Recently I started to do Pet Battles, fundamentally because I could not face another night of waiting around for a LFR. LFR is set so damn low in terms of gear that the only reward possible is the dropping of bits for the Legendary Quest. The RNG for these items is sickening low, leaving me doing something I don't want to do, for a very slim chance of a 8% advancement in one quest. Fully flexible raiding cannot come round quick enough in my opinion. In case you think I am over doing my sob story, I have killed 60+ bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar in various Raid types for 5 Titan Runestones. I would prefer to know that I am required to do 4 Raids a week to achieve one Runestone than a random system that can churn out 4 rewards in a row and then nothing for 3 months. Random is useful for some aspects of the game, but for others we need to see definitive rewards for our toils.

For all the talk of a welfare Legendary, I respect anybody with one cloak, never mind multiple cloaks on alts (Kudos to Grumpy).

***Update***
Catching up my reading I found How to get a Legendary on a Boosted Alt. Apparently I have been doing it wrong for months.

Anyway back to Pet Battles, when does something stop being fun and turns into just another grind?

Welfare Mothers

Welfare Epics 

"Epic quality items in the video game World of Warcraft that are obtained through grinding PVP. These items are generally on par with the highest quality items in the game and can be easily had by anyone with only a minimal investment of time. No skill is required to obtain a Welfare Epic."

Urban Dictionary

As WoW gamers we have all encountered the concept of Welfare Epics and the original source is believed to be from the Blizzard Developers during a Blizzcon 6 or 7 years ago. It is the source of much angst over the years, but oddly the debate has not even fizzled, during the expansion with the most Welfare Epics the game as ever seen. Not only that we have a so called Welfare Legendary.

The idea was that the Legendary item would be available to everybody who put the effort in and would stretch across the entire expansion. To this effect it has achieved what it intended, weapons available to a class or type of class used to throw the game balance out completely. If you can't remember think back to spell casters during Firelands and Rogues during Dragon Soul.

The argument against the MoP implementation was that everybody would have a Legendary, which would make the Legendary, not very Legendary. Did the end of the world happen when 5.4 dropped? no of course not. Does everybody now have a Legendary? I think the answer is quite resounding no. In an attempt to judge the progress of my own guild, I was able to find 11 Legendary cloaks on the top 100 Roster. My guess is that this corresponds exactly with the 10 man raid team plus 1 extra which I think is an alt, meaning 1 person could be bothered to drag an alt through the LFR week after and maintain the Raiding on a main. Hats of to that man.

What about me? I can safely say that I am behind the curve and moving in steadily in the slow lane. I am however pursuing the dream just at my own pace. My progress so far in summary:

1. Exalted with Wrathion (I mean Honored) how can you play the game and be
2. 10 Sigils of Power and Wisdom - this was a stumbling block but I completed months ago. It was a pain doing the older LFR's when the world and his wife were in Throne of Thunder. Doing Sigil runs when all the gear drops are vendor trash.
3. Sha of Fear - this took longer than expected, because every LFG in the second half of Mogushan Vaults was already at least one boss down. When you queue for an hour to be thrown into an ongoing raid the immediate response is not to queue up again for the same thing to happen. Not sure the Gems in the virtual weapons worked too well as an expansion feature.
4. Revered with the Black Prince -  yes next
5. 3000 Valor - This proved to arduous because of the timing was a few weeks before patch 5.4 dropped and I was focused on Levelling alts.
6. Warlord Bloodhilt and PvP- This leads my current status.

The choice was Horde commander or PvP? Lets do Horde commander and then get some new PvP gear and knock out a couple of wins.

On my previous visits the Kor'kron cannons could not hit a cows arse with a banjo. Now they require dismounting ASAP and moving from the land site. Storm your way to the fortress and kill Bloodhilt, yeah no problem.

Action stations, pet runs in dies very quickly and Bloodhilt strangles me one handed with both feet off the ground. That is not quite right, lets visit Wowhead.

"If you attempt to kill this guy and your group is wiping DO NOT run away. He will haunt you for life."

Group what the hell are they talking about?

"Since his health has been significantly nurfed I was able to solo this on my 510 Survival hunter."

Phew, that sounds better, he can be soloed. Instructions that followed are a page long. Ok this might be a bit harder than expected.

"Send your pet to the boss and stack up really close.
If you stand far away the boss does an ability called Chock em' Out which will kill you."

Ok, stand in melee range, thank god minimum range is not an issue any more.

"Had a 351k turtle with me (ilvl 514 BM), Glyph of Mending, Animal Bond (not really needed) and Spirit Bond kept him alive for the whole fight, so there's no need for Exhilaration or Merc Contracts. :P."

Pet seems to need a bit more protection than Tenacity Pet alone was providing. I decided that it was time to make a BM pet Tanking spec with my old PvP second spec.

Out went Aspect of the Iron Hawk and in came Spirit Bond. Dps loss for pet and hunter survivability.

"While your pet is active, you and your pet will regenerate 3% of total health every 2 sec."

Nice 3% not to be sniffed at. What about Glyphs? Animal Bond and Mending. Ok good to go.

The new Tanking Spec worked a treat. Not really a scratch. Which considering the 3 previous attempts had been abysmal failures. Some times this game is about planning and less about skill. The fight can go on for 10 or 15 minutes, at the end if I am still alive then I have won.

Now I need to test my Pet tanking spec on the extra boss in the Jade Temple, it is a tough to solo that guy as well. Some of these Blizzard tricks require you to complete on the first few days of the release, otherwise you are left to solo group content.

Welfare Legendary, is not something I hear being mentioned these days. I think most people have had to work hard or endure some rough nights to get them.

Killing The Dragon

Legendary weapons are not something that have ever fallen into my possession. Neither have I ever really coveted them either. Legendaries have changed in scope over the years. The first time I became aware of their existence was during the Burning Crusade, [Warglaive of Azzinoth] was a unique design but was not something that I wanted due to being on two of my least favourite classes - Warrior and Rogue.

There was one item that I would have loved to own was, [Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury] the big attraction for this bow apart from it being Orange, was the following bonus:

"Equip: Thori'dal generates magical arrows when the bow string is drawn. Does not use ammo"

Wow, a ranged weapon that does not use ammo. Ammo was a pain in the bag space, and it was not until Cataclysm that the concept was removed. TBC was the last time that Hunters had the honour of Legendary bestowed on them.

Legendaries have the impact of making a class over powered for the duration of the patch in which they drop, with the exception of [Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest] which gave a weapon available to all Spellcasters that was just too awesome and in really unbalanced the game for those who did not have it.

The last Lengendary items was a pair of daggers [Fangs of the Father] which came with it's own questline. In many ways without the Fangs of the Father the Rogue class might have disappeared into obscurity, the numbers playing Rogues was around 6-7% at a time when there was only 10 classes. Most of the Rogues are only found in PvP anyway due to being the kings of the Battleground.

Due to the problems of Dragonwrath and the issue of boosting some classes and others being left in the dark (Hunters), Blizzard implemented a change in design, Legendaries for everyone, and everybody cheered and there was much rejoicing. What we didn't know at the time was how much a pain in the butt a Legendary questline would be.

Oddly enough I have seen very little about the Wrathion questline, with the possible exception of Tree Heals Go Whoosh. There are of course guides on the complete quest chain as we know it, and Icy Veins again comes up trumps.

In summary the major activities in the questline are:

1. Collect 10 Sigils of Power and Wisdom from the first 3 raids
2. Obtain Honored with the Black Prince faction by killing Mogu, Mantid and the opposite faction.
3. Loot the Chimera of Fear from the last boss in Terrace of Endless Springs
4. Obtain Revered with the Black Prince faction
5. Gather 3000 Valor after accepting the quest
6. Defeat a powerful NPC of the opposing Faction
7. Collect 20 Secrets of the Empire from bosses in the Throne of Thunder raid
8. Turn in 40 Trillium bars, Obtain Exalted with the Black Prince faction
9. The Thunder Forge quest is a single player scenario, which requires the completion of To The Skies
10. After completing The Fall of Shan Bu, you are offered Spirit of the Storm Lord
11. Collect 12 Titan Runestones which drop from the last 6 bosses of Throne of Thunder
12. Kill Lei Shen and collect the Heart of the Thunder King
13. Collect 4 blessing and defeat an NPC applicable to your role

So far the storyline has been expanded by each patch which as resulted in people like me doing everything in the wrong order, like obtaining Exalted status with the Black Prince faction before collecting all my Sigils due to the poor drop rate and being over geared for the content. I have completed become exalted with Operation:Shieldwall and the Kirin Tor Assault, so have completed all the necessary scenarios.

With Patch 5.3 Blizzard made Sigils drop from every boss in the first 3 Raids so that I have quickly caught up with several sections, and now need to collect 3000 Valor, but now in summary form I have got months left to do in Throne of Thunder at a time when everybody will be moving on to the Siege of Ogrimmar. The cloaks however do look nice, not that I am tempted at all by the iLevel 600.