September 29, 2009

Aion... and ohh yeah more achivements done.

I dont know if the title tells you anything. But it actually do between the lines. Im back from vacation, back into wow.... and well got some more achivements down. 5-6 in Ulduar 10 hardmodes and a few more. I have not tryed Onyxia yet, but what matters the most. I was raiding last night, and most of the time I was bored. I had my mind set somewhere else, a place where I had used most of the day already. A place where I logged out minutes before raid time, because I had signed for the nights raid. Not because I wanted.

Yeah, you problaly have guessed it already. That place was a game called, Aion. I found out when I was in France that the game had released. So when I got back home, I went online bought it and started to download it. First time I logged into the game, and selected a server. I was meet with a queue screen on 2 hours and 40 minutes. Long time since I have seen one of those. Despite seeing that a few times since as well, I am eager to get into the queue, to be able to join my characters in the world.

I was very sceptic in the start, another MMO, another one in the thrash after a week. But this dosent seem to be one of them, I have not had this feeling since I started on wow 5 years ago. I feel drawn to the game, I feel drawn to the story, the places. I feel drawn to the nice fighting system. I really enjoy playing the game. I have not played long, and ofc the endgame question is lurky somewhere in the future. But to be honest, I dont care atm. I just use all my energy to enjoy the trip I have become a part of. The journey into the unknown, into the well made world of Aion.

So far I have only explorer the class warrior, which you get to choose a path on, on level 10. I have choosen the Templar way. Or in wow terms the tank way. I have made it to level 11 so far.
Im planning to atleast try the Ranger class before moving on, to see which I will make the long journey with to start with. I have ofc been reading alot on the interweb about it, and it seems like at around level 15, the real fun begins. With grouping to kill elite's and bosses in open area's. Yeap you read right, no instance. Open world with great mobs you need a group to conquer, Im really looking forward to that. Seems very appealing to me, and a good change from the wow instances.

As you may can feel. Im very excited about Aion now. If I will in the future, time will tell. But I think I may have a game I will and want to play in the future.

If any wonder im playing Elyos on the Castor server. Impadin is my templars name... :) The ranger will problaly be named Neldon. (My first wow char ever was named Neldon, a dwarf hunter... hehe )

September 20, 2009

EuroDisney


Its time for me to get on a plane and head to paris, and hang out with mickey and his gang. Yeap, im going on a trip to disneyland with my family.
Will be gone in a weeks time, so when I get back I will have a damn hectic time getting the brewfest achivement done... hehe....
Ohh, well. Im really looking forward to some time off work and all. See you when I get back.

September 17, 2009

Retribution smashed Koloran

I was a trip into Vault of Archavon today. Just a pug visit, to see if I would be lucky to get a bit of loot. We dont have VoA on the raidplanner as a guild event. Sometimes we get a bunch togheter and fill the rest with randoms. But its different from week to week.
Back to the story, we buffed up and made us ready to face Koloran as the first competant. Here is how it went dps wise :



5448,8 dps, as the most done damage dealer.
I got fight to the end by the DeathKnight, but good use of cooldowns, I pulled ahead.

Im pretty pleased with that, considering my gear. Still wielding a good deal of Naxx items, Betrayer, 2xTier 7.5 and other items. But after some time being dps under the new rules of Retribution (Patch 3.2), im getting the hang of it. How to maintain my stacks up and so. Kologan is a pretty straight forward fight, I admit that. Only thing that should hold you away from full stacks from start to end, would be if you position yourself very badly and some fire comes. But if you do that, you know what to work on.
Only small advice I can give is, pop wings as soon as you get the 5 stacks on him. So you are able to use it again with a Heroism (If you get that in a pug) or when you get to use your hammer. (Sub 30%)
And than follow the priority system. CS > Seal > HS >conc > Exo.
And ofc have loads of fun when doing it, with a warface on.

September 15, 2009

Pandaren Monk

A new pet will see the light in 3.2.2. No one knows where it will drop yet, but its damn cool and cute.

Let me bring one of those to my collection.

September 14, 2009

Meeting a God


My guild had a new addition today. We have that from time to time, as we are a casual guild, in that way that we allow IRL to have priority over ingame time. Also when you are of the rank raider. Ohh, well back on track.
A new member, but this one, was for me a little different. His name is Joesentme. That name is for me not just another character, problaly not the only one who feels that on my realm Trollbane.
Lets get a bit back in time, Vanilla wow. I had dinged 60, 1 month ago or so. And I started to figure out there was something beyond, 5 man instances. And the great UBRS.
There was places like Onyxia and Molten Core. Places where only the best of the best could enter. They needed to make an army to conquer big monsters, which in return gave em very good items. (Epic)
I started to notice people like those dwell in Ironforge, before they again would venture into the unknown. One of em was a priest named, Joesentme.
As time passed and I slowly started to raid, they was still in the top of the server. Killing even harder monsters, in even harder instances. My drive was to become like them once. They where like gods.
Time passed and the big event “Opening of the AQ gates” was upon us. I had read on the official forum, that the top guilds of the server was working togheter on an truly epic quest chain to open, the gates for the rest of the server. Ofcourse Joesentme, had a big role in it all. Offcourse he had, he was like god. He was also the person to collect the, one of each realm title, The scarab lord. And the permanent mount from AQ. Lets just say that didn’t make him less of a god to me.
Time have passed since then, I have become a lot closer to my former gods. (Thanks to myself and blizzards approach to endgame.) But they have still been ahead.

Today when I logged online, I saw a message in guild chat.

[Guild]Joesentme : How about the registration ? (I cant rmb the excact phrase, but that have nothing to do with the point… :) )

I had to look one more time, Joesentme. Writing in my guild chat. That had to be a mistake. I was like WTF !!??!!!!
It shows he have joined our guild yesterday, he would like to steam off some. And thought that our guild had the right approach to IRL and wow for him.
I have now figured out that his name is Chris, and he have kids and a wife. Just like me. He aint a god. Just a regular guy like me.

Welcome to the guild, Chris.

(Don’t tell him, but im not sure I can help not being a little fanboy. Even though he is in my guild now…. :) )

September 11, 2009

Return as tank, 3 bosses down in heroic

Last night I had my first serious look at ToC10, and my very first time in ToC as tank. Yeap, I got myself in a group as tank. Its not my main specc, but I problaly still have better tank gear than my retribution gear. (Working on it… )
But used the day to get me some knowledge of the fights as tank and feelt ready for the task. I was with a group where the majority had been in Heroic 10 man last week. And a good deal of em have been the core of one of our 10 man ulduar hardmode groups. So I knew that I had to bring my game, to not let em down.
We offcourse started the night with clearing 10 man normal mode, which was a good introduction for me. We didn’t have much hassle on those. So lets not use more time on that. Lets focus on the real fun part, 10 man heroic. As that was exactly what it was, it was damn fun.

Beast’s of Northrend
Starting the night with the Beast’s of Northrend. I must admit that I did not get a A+ on that one. I was to slow to tank switch in the start. Due to a few things. As all know communication between the tanks is important, and we didn’t have it in the start me and my fellow tank Acöma. But with the help of macro, Ventrilo and me getting into the tank role again we got it covered.

Lets look at the fight a bit more in deepth. I will try to point out the crucial tasks and what I did. On the first beast the switch after 3 stacks of impale, is crucial. Get it right and the fight is home as tank. We had a few unlucky combo’s on the healers, with a “snowbold” and fire at the same time. But tank switch, crucial. The impale is a lot stronger in heroic, so that have to work good.

Next up is the two Jormungars, take one each and tank your heart out. Its important to max your tps, I used wings in the start. As the timer is sharp, and you need to burn em down quickly.
Acöma died just before they went underground the first time, but I managed to pick em both up when they came back up. One of em died fast and then we just burnt the last one down.

The last beast…. Well, if you come to him with Jormungars death, you have a win. I cant see how you can fail here, if you just move out when he charges.

Jaxxr…..
Now the fun really began. This one needed max dps when portals and volcanos erupted. They have buffed the time between mistresses spawn out of the portals. So it needed full focus, from the dps to burn em down as quick as possible. Use all the dps you have when they spawn.
I was add tank, so I had to control the mistresses and pick up elementals when there came a volcano. Not an easy task, but damn challenging. I loved it.

As add tank, make sure when there is about to pop a portal. To have all your abilities off cooldown. As you really need to threat to the max. As the melee dps’ing the portals have to go all out. So there agro towards the mistress is high. Believe I had our dear warrior, Caird, die to that account a few times. Sorry, Caird.
I ran to the portal, and waited for the mistress to spawn. (Have health bars shown over the mobs heads, V on the keyboard. As you see the healthbar before the mob itself.) Target it and do a full rotation twice, but start with a taunt. She then jumps a player, use that time to run to the boss. (As you then max out the dps which hits multiple targets, mistress and boss at the same time.) Fire off a shield when she is at range. As there is still players building agro on her. When she came close I fired of another taunt, and used my rotation till she was down.
Next up was the volcanos. Your dps should be able to burn down the volcano, before more than 3 adds spawn. They come one at a time, you can follow the ball in the air before it lands. Be at the spot when it lands, and fire off a few abilities. Then the next one come, rinse repeat. Do that with all 3. Now try to move out of the way of your raid members. They will one by one charge one of your members. Just let it do it. It will charge em, stand and do some aoe. And then return to you. (If your initial agro was high enough.) If you see it run in another direction, use taunt. After some tries, you will see how they work. And nail em down.
You have your part covered, rest is up to the dps to burn the different things down and healers to keep you alive. But its key you keep mistress from melee and elementals from ranged. Or you will pretty sure have some death dps. Don’t blame em for too high dps, as that is needed on this fight. Blame yourself for to low threat and get back on the horse.

Faction Champions
Well, I think this is highly dependant on which setup you get. We got one where, we started with the resto druid, and then worked onto the enchanment shaman. I will not go into this, more than use all your cc. And nuke your heart out. And ofc all in dps specc and gear.
All I can say here is, it seems like this fights difficulty is very random… ;)
Last week the group got both a resto druid and a resto shaman. They did more than 1,5 million dps on one of em, but he was healed for 1,8 million. Go, go pew pew.

We got these 3, 10 man heroic bosses down last night. And have 25 try’s left. That could have been better, but we got one more boss down than last week. And after our last try of the night, 1 single Twin try. Im sure that will go down as well. Question is how many attempts we will have left for Anub. I guess around 15, but lets see.
But I liked it, the coloseum is a walkover on normal, but I really think it shines on heroic. And the number of attempts, is a cool twist to it all. Good work blizzard.

September 10, 2009

Two Jormungars and Orbit-uary

Trial of the Crusader 25 man normal
Last night was a new reset and a new night for some raiding with me and epiphany. We started out with ToTC 25 normal, The beast are a walkover so not much to come for there.
Then the two Jormungars entered, we started on dps'ing the grownded one as we always do. And then after the first switch dps the other down, when that is grownded. Last night we had a lucky punch, without going for it. We killed em very close to each other, which nettet us another achivement.


Pretty nice. Considering we wasent even aiming for it.

Next up was Jaxx, I dont know why but it always seems like people are not keeping an eye of there surroundings. There is always a good deal of people dying here. But we got it down, even though we was hardly any melee left. Think we was 3 melee up when the fight was over.

Next up Faction Champions, 1 wipe. We took the wrong one to start with, next go they where down. Not much to say to em, its an all out nuke fest. Where everyone cc a bit randomly through out the fight.

Twins was up next, we also took those down 1st try. Not hardly a challenge, if people just pick the right colors... :)

Then it was time for the last boss in the instance, I had not seen that fight before. So was thrilled with the entrance of LichKing, and his devastation of the Arena. Actually a pretty nice fight, good positioning and awareness + target switchning. Even though I failed to reach the ice in time, when the spikes was after me... :(
We was 2 guys down, me and Tittertot, at the end. But down he was, another 1st try. So I got myself another achivement there.

Was pretty nice to see us already run through this instance so fast.We used around 1 hour time to clear it on, in 25 man normal. Not to bad. As we had good time left on the timer, it was decided that we should head to Ulduar to see at some more hardmodes there.

Ulduar
Last week, we got Levi down with 2 towers. This week the aim was to go all the way, 4 towers.
I was once again passenger in a Demolisher, so my main task was to pile Pyrite for my driver. Shoot down more Pyrite and be ready with a speed boost, if we was targetted. Fun task, where you need to time your refill of pyrite, and be aware if there is any in close range or you need to seek more in the sky. And ofcourse also see if he is targeting you next. (I also used the rockets on Levi as much as I could, when I had the other things under control.)
My driver was once again Neamek, a paladin from my guild. And I must say our teamwork, went very well. We was stacking pyrite like there was no tomorrow, and we had a good grip of being in range of more pyrite when needed.
We had many try's on this bastard, getting closer and closer. In the end he had to see himself conquered. So another blink on the screen came up, for all of us.

Very well done all. Many was not thinking to highly of this fight. But I actually liked it, much more than a normal clear of him. It was fun, had alot to control and a good challenge. I actually think Blizzard have made a nice hardmode here, which also is very different than normal mode.

We continued to XT to see if we could get him down once again in hardmode. Getting into hardmode was no biggy. But we failed him anyway. It seemed like there was alot of people not paying enough attention, when they had gravity or lightbomb. Which lead to us not taking him down once more, but ended the night with no more kills. A bit disapointing.

But I guess looking back at the night, it overall was a good night. Im looking forward to tonight, where the scene, is coloseum 10 man normal/heroic. Im set to be going in as off-tank/dps, so gonna be my first time tanking in there. But I have watched all the tankspot video's and read up on it, so im confident it will turn out positive. Gonna be good fun.

Whats up with all the axe's ?

Why is there so many Axe's in this game, when we look at the BiS from the different tiers. It may be super nice for the greenskins, but I am not one of those. Im a noble human, born to wield swords and huge ass maces. Im not the only one going with thoughts like this, Rexkicker is as well. Am I all wrong in this, or have I something valid ? Lets try to break em down a bit.

Tier 7
10 man - Death's Bite - Axe
25 man -Betrayer of humanity - Axe

Tier 8

25 man - Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion - Sword

Tier 9
10 man - Reckoning - Sword
25 man - Justicebringer - Axe


Tier 10
We havent got much info on this yet, but one thing we know is there is coming a new legendary. And guess what that is ?

So to round it all up, thats a 4/7 to axe's BiS in there tier. Bit of a shame, as there is only 1 race that racely benefit from it. 2 races benefit from maces and 1 from swords. But im not making the game, but would be nice to tip em in another way than the axe way.....

September 9, 2009

My latest creation...

Gotta love that phrase, made well known by Mimiron in Ulduar. But this time it aint him who is speaking out, its me Impadin. And my latest creation, Jeeves. (Well, also made a Wormhole device, but Jeeves just is an awesome sight.)

Here is a small video I made, just for him. (Ok, and a few other tinker items.) Gotta love Enginering. And you can look how cool I look, with my new hair. Im sure Jong would be proud of me.



And btw the last post I wrote was post count = 100. Yah, me. I will do my best to keep em coming.

Edit - Not quiet sure whats happening with this post, cant get the comment part to be active.

September 7, 2009

Ulduar Heroic Hardmodes, take 1

Ulduar heroic hardmodes
Last night we finally ventured into ulduar 25, with the purpose of doing hardmodes. It was meant to have been done last wednesday, but we used that instead to do ToTC25 normal and get some try's on 25 Heroic. But last night was the night to get into hardmodes in ulduar 25. We started soft with doing Flame Levitant with 2 towers up. Hodir and Freya's towers was the ones to keep up. I was riding as side kick on a demolisher, but not as one to be thrown. Only if one of the 4 assigned died, I was ready as backup. First try we got it to around 30% or so. Alot had never seen this besides on normal mode, including myself, so that was a bit of a "get a feel for the fight" try.
Next try we got into the vehicels and got ready for another try, same setup as last run. I keept loading my driver with Pyronite, so he could keep his fire'ing going. After the first breakdown one of the melee guys died. So I prepared to be launched as the 4th man, worked like a charm. One more lockdown and he was already at around 25% or so. The kill was in the bag, down with two towers on second try. I now wish we had taken one or 2 more. I guess thats next time around.
Giving me my first 25 man hardmode achivement in Ulduar.


Next target XT hardmode
Next one we had in mind for the night was XT hardmode. Its a pretty simple hardmode actually. When you get the first heart phase, you forget about adds, and just full nuke the heart down. When the heart is down, he enters hardmode. He gains full health again, he will not spawn more adds, so finish off the ones you should have up. The gravity bombs, now leaves a void zone where it blow up. Not much more hassle. Lightbombs, do more damage and when detonated, they leave a spark. That spark need to be nuked down by ranged dps. Thats more or less it, there is more damage takend from tantrums and boss as well.
As a melee dps, its not much different, just nuke and move out when getting lightbomb or gravity bomb. Simple. Atleast for us.. :)
I think we had 3 or 4 try's and we had that in the bag as well. I ended as 5th on the damage meter, think it was around 5,5K dps. I have some way to get really fire deadly again. But Impadin, the ret havok machine is back. Nicely execution.



Iron council, in a diverse order
Now it got more exciting, as this fight changes a good deal when you start to shuffle the takedown order. Our goal was to take steelbreaker down as the last, thats the real hardmode for this encounter. When you do it like this, steelbreaker kills your tank every 25 seconds with a deadly blow. So you have to tank rotate and res tanks to get him down. We took Molgeim down as the first boss, by doing that Brundir gets a little ekstra trick up his sleave. He randomly gives a raid member a debuff, which deals damage to you and the ones around you. So you have to move out, heal it through and get back into the fight. It seemed like quiet a few of our members had a problem here. And I think I know why, DBM marked the person with the debuff, but your screen didnt flash or anything. So you had to watch closely if you got the debuff or not. I simply think that as long as people dont hear the sound and there screen flash red, they think all is ok. (I didnt see it fast at the first debuff I got either, but with a bit of attention it was easy to spot and move out. And we also got through that phase a few times. But the last phase smashed our tanks big time. We had a bit of bad luck with a tank switch and "Big smash ability from Steelbreaker", so two tanks died almost instantly.
Unfortnaly we didnt got more than 3-4 try's before the O-Team decided to do it semi hardmode. Thats where you kill Molgeim as the last instead. So the order was Steelbreaker - Brundir - Molgeim. Change is that Molgeim in his last and 3rd phase, now also open a portal from time to time. Out of the portal spawns little elementals, which sets a target. If they reach there target they explode and deals, AOE damage. Lets just say we did chrash and burn on the first try. Second try we used a frost mage to slow down the mobs spawning from portals, and it was a take down.
By doing it this way, we dont get any hardmode loot. We just get the disc which start the quest chain for Algalon. But another kill was in the bag.



Last hour of the night
We then cleared Kologarn and the cat lady, and moved on to Hodir for more hardmode time. And we have a long way to get that down. Most of the people in the raid, did not make the dps needed to fry this bastard in hardmode. So after some try's we called it a night. But it was a nice taste of what we have in the future to conquer. Im excited and hopefully alot of the other epiphany members is as well.
Im atleast looking forward to more runs in ulduar in the coming weeks.

September 4, 2009

Whats cooking ?!?

Yeah, whats cooking in here ? Way to much work and way to little wow to be honest. But fear not I have off course played some since I have been writing in here last. So what have I been up to.

Mage and AV
Thats the 1 thing I have been splitting my time on lately. I have a mage which was 74, halfway to 75. When I decided to try a bit of Pvp. He is ofc frost for leveling purpose, but damn I love it in PvP as well. Kiting the melee mindless around 2+ levels higher than me, just chewing there health down is so much fun.
But damn the xp gain in Alterac Valley is good. You get 20K XP, from Galv and Drek kills. You get 20K XP for each tower you burn down. And you get some from just kills and I think you get some bonus as well along the way. Not quiet sure where they come from. Yeap, a quick calculations, bring it to 100K XP, for a win with all towers down in AV. And that happens alot in my Battlegroup for alliance. So it more or less 100K XP in like 10 minutes time or less. Now thats not a bad leveling curve. Did I mention im halfway to 77 now... ;)

Paladin comeback
Next competitor for my time has been my paladin. Yeap, you heard it right my paladin. I missed him, so have been playing some daily heroics on him. Done VoA with the new boss, got t8.5 legs for my Retribution gear and close to getting the head piece as well. And I like it... :)
I have had loads of fun on him once again, maybe the DK break have worked ? I have been both dps'ing and tanking with him. And have been loads of fun both of em.
Maybe I will make Jong happy and make a retribution comeback ? Time will tell.

Faction change
I have long been wanting to play some horde again. I like the horde side, even though I have played alliance for the last years. But I havent had the time or energy to make a new horde char and play. Faction change have made that possible. Im cooking on some plans to faction change my leveling mage to the undead side. Undead mages are cool. We are actually discussing which server we could transfer a char to in the guild forum. Just for kicks, but to have the change to play on horde side for the fun of it with friends.
Any of you thinking the same ? You have a good idea for a server ?

Damn, that got a bit longer than expected. Need to get back to work... :S But lets see if I can bring some more wow to my machine in the weekend to come.