A wonderful pug

Hello again everyone. To continue the pug theme had one today that proves the exception to the rule. When I logged in Ishvi shot me a whisper wondering if I wanted to do heroic UK as it was the daily. Still slowly gathering badges towards my necklace I said sure. So we have tank and heals just need the easy stuff dps should be a easy one, well it took us about 20 minutes to gather the 3 needed slots but thew wait was well worth it. We had 2 titans grip warriors and a boomkin so we run in buff up and away we go.

So we a pushing threw at a decent pace not stressing the healer and mobs are dieing in order and placement. No real issues no deaths and the only hiccup was when my stepsons grandparents arriving mid instance. We were not on a voice channel but any needed communication happened, where I was gonna position when I was gonna engage bosses etc. . So we complete the run in about 45 to 50 minutes everyone is happy no loot but definitely emblems and shards for all.

Now I believe I have some skill at tanking but am not the best or the worst, after we had completed the instance I thank everyone for coming and complement the dps and heals; without whom no tank ever has success.

Then a nice thing happened that to me is a rarity. The warriors and the boomkin druid gear far out surpasses anything I have. They all had some gear from the 25 man versions of the current raid content, and they complemented me. Saying that I held aggro as well if not better than most. I was humbled because I was as, I normally am somewhat nervous that I would cause huge repair bills and not have a good run.

So I had a very good pug and hope that in the future I may group with some if not all of the players again. I'm sure that having success in this pug I owe the karma controlling rng a offering but I will happily pay my due.

Bork my Links somehow

the links are not working to lazy to redo it all to make em work sorry

Stuff I gots stuff I wants

Today is maintenance day again until 2 pm eastern for me so I figured I'd share a little of my research on what I want for Grai. These will be items that are obtainable pre-Naxx. I'm not trying to imply that these are needed items to run Naxx just what I want before the guild I'm in starts raiding Naxx. He is currently at the defense cap to remove critical hits in heroic instances with what I believe to be decent hp and armor value.
Here is my armory link Graimerin, so everyone can see. I'll use that as the over view as I go threw piece by piece what I have and what I think is realistic to get as an upgrade at my current content level.

Head Slot: Currently equipped The Crusaders Resolution.
Best currently available upgrade: Arcane-Shielded Helm drop from heroic Nexus.
Best craft able after 3.0.8: Tempered Titansteel Helm easier to acquire
With the changes to the craft able one and diminishing returns of avoidance stats after 3.0.8 Titansteel easily out paces Arcane for the following reasons. Stamina a tanks primary stat and scalability, also if you have access to a blacksmith your not chasing love from the rng (which hates me).

Neck: Currently equipped: Blood-Infused Pendant quest reward from Sholazar Basin
Emblem of Heroism one: Chained Military Gorget
Time is the only factor in obtaining this necklace currently have 14 emblems past half way

Shoulder: Crusader's Square Pauldrons BoE drop from CoT Stratholme
Upgrade: Pauldrons of the Colossus heroic Gundark drop
The BoE ones are easier to obtain non heroic run or a lucky AH purchase. The heroic drop are a much better fit for a prot paladin I love block rating.

Chest: Tempered Saronite Breastplate blacksmith crafted item
Rep. Reward: Breastplate of the Solem Council
Drop:Ziggurat Imprinted Chestgaurd heroic Drak'Tharon Keep

Wrist: Tempered Saronite bracers blacksmith crafted item
Drop: Bindings of Dark Will heroic CoT stratholme

Weapon: Infantry Assault Blade heroic UK drop
Upgrade: Red Sword of Courage heroic UP drop

Shield: Titan Shield Wall crafted blacksmith item
Emblem of Heroism one: Crygil's Discarded Plate Panel on the list but not a great need

These are the ones that I would like to get as I progress threw. Some are minor upgrades like the shield but I'm a vain Paladin and I think that one just looks bad ass. Other pieces are out there to upgrade other slots but I try to not overwhelm myself with a wish list. Some of these are based on the evil rng and having to mush of a list would make me turn my game into a endless stream of either lfging or annoying guildies constantly to run this or that instance because I need this drop.

So I have some goals to peruse, not mindless; or chaotically but hopefully with some great guildies and or friends I have in game.

To Pug or Not to Pug

A question we all face from time to time, and the reason for the question are as varied as the groups we get. Wanting to get a quest done,hoping for a drop,farming emblems(badges) etc... So last night I get a whisper from a warlock that I had pugged Old Kingdom with he was wondering if I would tank for a heroic Nexus run. So as I start to type my standard no reply that most non-guild whispers get “Sorry I don't have time”; I remembered that I have ran with this person before in a solid group so lets see how he builds them. I get my invite notice that I was 3^rd person in the group and continued with my dailies. Having a few minutes of flight over to Coldarra I tabbed out to check Wow Head and got a most pleasant surprise, the best protection paladin pre-raid helmet drops here off Grand Magus Telestra that and the prospect of 5 emblems of heroism seemed like a solid choice. While we cleared all 4 of the bosses in about 1 and a half hours little over average time I didn't get them helm but I did get me badges.

Now I have a set policy that I don't like to pug. Not that I won't just that all things being equal I'd rather not. The reasons are pretty basic I dislike the abuse that sometimes happens in pugs when something goes bad. Now as the tank most often I assume blame for wipes most often be they guild runs, runs with friends or even pugs, simply because my job is to annoy the mobs and keep them in a general area to allow the dps a chance to burn them down; and to have enough mitigation, avoidance and hp to live threw the encounter. The group I was in last night didn't have any of the bad components of a pug, yeah we had some frustration over wipes but that happens no matter who your grouped with.

One of the nicer aspects about this pug was that before we even started pulling trash we set loot rules, kill orders, and asked that if something took you away from the computer please say so in party chat so we were aware. Seeing as we didn't have a enchanter to DE anything loot rules were very simple, greed greens all the time; and greed boss drops for vendor unless you wanted the item then need. We had no aspects of loot whoredom everyone agreed and kept to the policy. We had one or two times that someone needed to step away from the keyboard and they informed the group so no damage done there either.

Was this the normal pug of this new expansion I don't know. What I do know is that it was a nicely balanced group or decent people and players. We joined for a common goal and saw that goal accomplished. Will this make me feel all warm and fuzzy when I see in trade or general chat looking for tank for “X” probably not, but it did open up a small group of people who I'll most likely group with again.

The tagging has reached rock bottom

So as I read threw my blogs this morning I notice that Phinn @ One Among Many has started a question about who was your first blogger poster. I read it and the enclosed link thinking how cool it will be to see. Later in the day I notice Ratter's has a new post up and he in turn tags BBB. Well about 30 minutes ago I notice that BBB has a new post go over to read it and get knocked out of my chair. The reason for this is that somehow I got included on a list that has some heavy weight blogs on it, I mean these are people that get read because they are if not the best they are definitely in the top tier. I most certainly do not think I belong in such esteemed company but will do my best to at least share my first post that had a blogger comment. Why wipes are my fault got a comment from BBB himself which included many kind words.

Now whom to tag i shall take from my reader.

Alts Ahoy

Two and a half Orcs

Rambling of a learner

These are the blogger's along with BBB that said some wonderfully nice things about me after a Kara pug run and my way of showing appreciation to them I created this outlet for the drivel that passes for my thoughts.

Well it's the day before Our 1st WotLK Patch

For most of us it has been 30 days since we opened Northrend on live servers. Some of us are again level capped; raids have been done, professions are moving along if not capped again. So i thought i would take a minute to look back at the last 30 days comparing these to TBC first 30 days as a contrast and compare.

We will look first at what didn't change between the different expansions. Over priced items on the AH the first week or two until more people had access to them. General chat being full of where is "x" at. Griefer's and ninja's doing there best to ruin our/your time in game. The race to the level cap either because you wanted to be first or you wanted to beat your buddy. Do these always exist in game to some extent? Yeah, x-pacs seem to just highlight them again.

Now the fun the stuff the new. Easy ones another continent to enjoy, 10 more levels of yeah the blue/purple xp bar is back. New factions,recipes,instances and what not. To me the greatest change from this x-pac from TBC is the flow of the story line. Lore makes a come back and its important and not just cursory. We redid a few old Azeroth groups both good and bad. Our zealous oft times confused friends from the Scarlet Crusade renamed themselves and continue to carry their war against the scourge and everyone else now are the Scarlet Onslaught. Mr. Fording has been welcome back into the heroes of light and now leads the old Knights of the Silver Hand and The Argent Dawn under the banner of the Argent Crusade. Plus innumerable old friends that time and space does not allow me to list. One that stood out for me was the return of Ol' Blanchy that tired old horse from westfall quest for the alliance. As you move threw the different zones you will encounter important NPC's from old Azeroth. To avoid spoiling things for those that have yet to reach these zones I will stay as vague as I can. Stormpeaks has incredible dwarven lore. Icecrown will catch you up on your Argent Crusade and Ebon Hold lore. The over the top winner has to be Dragonblight.

Now Dragonblight has brought back a Blizzard feature that I've missed since the days of Diablo II. The in game cinematic, the one you can "unlock" via a quest chain is the best simple hands down. I know that cga has vast improved since the old D II days but this was breath taking.

So to close I must offer to Blizzard a huge thank you. While TBC grew on me and opened raiding up to me more, I just never felt it fit into my "idea" of the wowverse. WotLK is the everything I hoped for and then some. 30 days does not make a x-pac or a game but I have hopes based on my shallow tour of the new areas.

WoW Decency

Just before I go to bed some nights i take a quick tour of the Basin. Not true dedicated farming runs, more of a look see as to how many people are mining. Well last I needed a single saronite bar to craft a healy mace for a friend so off I went. I was just coming through the wolf people zone and noticed a titanium node on my mini map. Now to set this up properly my miner/blacksmith is Falromord level 73 maxed mining and 443 blacksmithing; but as a level 73 can't yet fly in Northrend. So i zoom over to the node on my ram and appear to arrive at the same time as this Draenei level 80 on their epic flyer. I thought they arrived first so I back away from the node and am getting ready to leave when they make a statement in /say chat that I can take the node. As anyone can tell you mining in the basin is generally a grief fest so this was a shocking development on its own. I go up and strike the node and then gather my ore and a few crystallized items, step away from the node and in the process of telling the decent person that they can now have a shot at getting some ore also. I didn't even finish getting the sentenced typed when someone swoops in and ninja's the node. So in a whisper I explain to this person that I'm sorry they lost at least a chance for the ore that they so graciously allowed me to get. their reply was to thank me for being a awesome person because I wanted to share.

So Zarixia I would like to take this opportunity and forum to thank you again for being a decent kind person. I'm a fan of a news show called Countdown with Keith Olderman and he has a bit called best persons. So I would like to nominate Zarixia for today's best WoW person of the day. You sir or madam showed me that while our game gets more attention for the asshats and winy brats random decency is not lost. Your action to a stranger and your kindness even after losing out on any of it was to thank me for trying to be decent. I may never encounter you again but I wanted to let everyone I can know of your actions.

Thank you for reaffirming my belief in kindness a random act to someone you know nothing of made my day. So to you Zarixia I hope you have a wonderful time in this game we play and I will try to show the decency to someone the way you did to me.

440 blacksmithing Woot

Falromord has attained the main goal I set for him before Grai reached 80. I'm sure that pushing Fal's smithing as hard as I have, cost me a couple levels on Grai. To me its more than worth it, knowing that when i make the xp bar disappear again that the titansteel pieces are waiting. It will make the push to the major numbers easier, 540 defense doesn't seem as daunting. I'm already running around 20k armor and with a food buff get well over 18k hp. When the level 80 normal and then heroic dungeons open to me I wont be gimping the group at least from a gear stand point now I must make sure that I have the skill.

Short post very excited about hitting one of my wrath goals in under a month. Hope every ones game play is giving them excitement and happiness.

A look at Graimerin

Hey everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying Wrath and getting used to the new skills, talents and all around goodness that I see in Wrath. Figured that now that I have reached level 76, and will not be getting any new skills either through talents or spells. I'd take a look at what I think protection pally's will be doing and how we are gonna be doing it.

The biggest single change to the paladin tank class in my opinion is the fact that now we have a single target threat attack Shield of Righteousness. While we have been the best AoE trash tanks in the game now we can go 1 0n 1 with bosses and push our tps ahead of our dps. Another bonus to this spell is its ability to scale and also crit so we wont be lagging behind as we improve our gear. If spec with redoubt we get 130% of our block value + 300. Now this damage is holy which is effected threat wise by Righteous Fury. The other aspect of this spell that works with our gear is the changes to how block value is computed 1 strength = .5 block value and that strength is now on our tanking gear as well; we can now use warrior tank gear or generic plate tank gear may be a better way of phrasing it.

Now that we gained a huge single target attack, how is our AoE gonna be affected. Again personally I think we have improved over all. In BC paladin crowd control was very simple we had our own "cc" continuous Consecration. The pre patch for Wrath included this awesome spell Hammer of the Righteous. What I do is use Seal of Vengeance after pulling a group with Avenger's Shield; then bang on the hammer. This applies the DoT aspect onto each of the mobs, up to 3 locking them down a little more than just the consecration. Why I like the added bonus is with the changes to our judgements is that as we move down the kill order I have a seal active on each of the mobs without needing to tab threw the kill targets. Another bonus to our AoE threat and a minor help to our healers is our Judgements epically Judgement of Light. This adds healing aggro to our tps and with a second pally in the group we can have both this and Judgement of Wisdom up. I love this combo on bosses and am lucky enough that I normally have a Holy or Ret in my groups. So we are building aggro offering some minor splash healing to our group and doing our jobs with much added group utility.

Now I'm sure none of this is new to most of the pally community and the theory crafters are working out great tps spell rotations that I will try to incorporate into my play style. I just wanted to add my 2 cents to the discussion. There are some awesome gear guides already out and the debate about being block capped has already started. I'm not going to worry about wadding into that discussion until I'm doing heroics and or raids where those things will become important.

In closing I just want to re state the obvious an expansion built around a Paladin gone bad has given protection paladins some interesting new toys and ways to play with them.

I am the Walrus

Ok i apologize to Mr. Lennon and the rest of The Beatles, but after drinking a potion I found in the sewers and having this happen; it was literally the first thing to pop into my mind.

So while doing last nights cooking daily needing to get mushrooms from the sewers i found this potion stating only usable in Dalaran, collect drink and Poof!! Other than the obvious effect it also includes a 10 minute +50 fishing buff for you coin collectors.

What I've been doing in Wrath so far

Not gonna be a long post just a quick update on where everyone is at. Grai is currently at 73 building some rest for the next push. Have tanked both Uk and nexus and even healed nexus once. Working on his trade skills maxed his skinning and slowly pushing his lwing up. Fal is @ 71 maxed mining and bsing is around 410'ish range need more levels so I can survive the basin really want the belt buckle recipe. Pad and Carack haven't quested Pad did some very limited gathering via his extractor but nothing notable.

One thing i must say though is Dalaran may be the best Blizz has ever given us. Yeah it kills my fps but its beautiful. So in closing I'm really enjoying the first few weeks of the xpac. Now must go back to leveling.

Hey anybody seen the Band?

First off I aint part of this "gang" thingy Grai talks about. Me I still confuddled as to who or what I am supposed to be doing. I was going to Strathome gonna hang with the band and just kinda have a lost weekend. Somebody was running around saying don't eat the bread its gonna do bad things man. So I was just staying by myself waiting for the event to kick off, then someone screams something about the kings son is killing everyone. Then stuff gets hazy for awhile.

When I do gets my memory fully back. I somehow snagged a follower, he takes off and changes his name a lot so me I call him Johhny Rotten. So I just get back to IF, and get this mail from Grai, he talked about the passage of time and hows he got some weird thing peoples come read and he calls it "Grais Gang". I figure its for him and his septuagenarian crowd, were they talk about scars and such. "No I don't wanna see yours!" So as not to be rude I scroll through some of his ramblings and I see my name mentioned; could be creepy, could be nice dunno. So as I read threw it I got alarmed then laughed. I was no cheerleader that extra spirit was a mistake honestly. Then about randomly running off, bah it wasn't about pretty flowers it was about science, he wouldn't get that being a human and a pally. Why would you wanna get hit for a living really. Then as I read what people had wrote back to him expecting them to be really mean to him, I saw something about DD.

So long way to ask a question but "hey has anybody seen DD or the rest of the band?

Feathers, Fur and Leaves?

Is it a punchline? No its a new store. Nah its the 3b brk love child. No, no, no easy everyone its simply the proof that the end of the world as we know it has come. The Burning Crusade is kaput. How did I come to this fact let me tell you about last night.

So I noticed a last chance for epics notice on the guild portal( aka Kara run) and figured I'd take brat boy again. So i arrive at the appointed time early and wanted to watch our raid form up. Well it started we got druids 4 of em and 3 hunters and then I can only assume grab what was willing to fill out the raid. A pally, a mage, and my rogue. What the rest of the night unfolded explained to me why BC has to go away all the questions got answered, not the truly burning ones what was Kael' really up to but the good ones, are pallys op, why can't hunters tame druids and does leather only drop when im playing plate.

Burning question #1 : Why cant hunters tame druids their exotic,no?
Answer: Druids can not behave as badly as hunter pets. I think ever hunter ask at least once , "Whats my pet doing?"

Somehow they just kept chasing after a random pack of trash and apparently have a taste for elite flesh. Guess that food bill in WotLk is gonna be expensive.

Burning question #2 : Are pallies OP?
Answer: Yes of course we are.
Question #2a: How did the devs find out?
Answer: Naked healing in kara really just your mace and your shield.

I seem to remember getting yelled at long ago for just taking my pants off. Times they are a changing.

Burning question #3: Does leather only drop when I'm playing a plate toon?
Answer: Kinda 1 rogue leather piece entire run these. Also got this little thing from Prince.

Had a wonderful time as always doing a devil's Kara run. For a real rundown of this raid I would suggest either The Big Bear Butt himself or Shrinn's ramblings. As of this post the winner and still world champion feather tank hasnt posted yet.

I was over takin by madness!!!

Last night I can only claim i must have been in a fever dream, why else would I have ran 31/2 dungeons in one day. The day started normally enough just couldn't get desire to play. So I log off wrote a blog post annoyed Shrinn, you know normal stuff. Well I decide to log back in mid-afternoon server time play around on my spriest for awhile when I see this in gchat. "Fal wanna help get achivement for Strat?"; Strathome ooh goodie, "yeah let me get the palladin.". The group was being formed by a rogue we had a druid/mage so I thought we were gonna 3 man it. Nope we decide to fill out a grp of 5. Our mage was having movement issuses and he dropped but we soliderd on with a group of 4 2prot pallies, 1 hunter, and a rogue. Grai went with his spell dmg/healing set, more resilince in place of pve healing items. Well its starts bye Ishvi Jenkins himself, didnt even wait for me to follow him. He had the whole main hallway from front enterance, from then on it was which pallies pile could be bigger; we caused the most damage strathome (dead side) has seen that fast since Arethas went threw there. I couldn't complete live side as Shrinn had dinner ready i did say i was annoying her earlier i wasn't gonna delay dinner. So I left with half an achivement such the slacker am I.

So a couple hours later I log back in. Again that Mr. Jenkins is trying to cause mayhem and destruction to another place, by calmly asking again in gchat" anybody wanna heal or tank for slave pens?"; I wait and see its non heroic and it appears we have a healer. So i offer to have PrimalGrai tank it, Pad's pet gorilla. So at this point we had a mid 60's rogue, a ubber priest healer at 70 and Pad with his gorilla also at 70. So Mr.Jenkins decides we need more dps so we get 2 more hunters. Group set off we go, apparently even PrimalGrai was overcome by madness because he took okk and just started grabbing as many as he could trying to make piles. Shadewynn's(sp) healing was awesome it was get a group, chain shoot volley on to next group. Vroom! Vroom! wow we are at the finall boss, again I hear "hey wanna do UB so I can complete quest line?", sure and the vroom!vroom! machine was off again. Same kinda scenario and vroom! vroom! definetly seemed to be the pace we set. Boom again wow final boss dead Mr. Ninja Jenkins yes you can have all the loot still, loot the boss and we are done.

Well simple math means either or more run or I cant add. Check memory nope one more run wasn't sure about the math. Now the healer who did those 2 runs was trying to get a heroic Shadow Labs run in. So we had a druid tank,(sux), 2 mages, 1 sp, and a recently respec pally healer. Vroom! were off and kept a good solid pace all the way thru. Mistimed a couple of things but no huge worries, except when it was loot time and everyone was passing. A fun run threw a dungeon that early in bc was a beast.

It in retrospect it might have been my last 5 man style runs before wrath launches and seems fitting now that is happened to be those 5. Strathome pallies first came alive in that instance pre bc we could do all three things in there tanks check, ret dps check(all that undead), heals check but thats all we could do pre bc. Slave Pens and Underbog I ran those more instances as ealry heroics that I could and did run them sometimes half asleep. Shadow Labs the part of the kara key chain quest that in my opion let ya know if your gear was ready way back when. So if it was a farewell wave to instancing in 5 mans pre- launch my madeness was well served.

Also I'm horrid trying to remember names. If i didnt mention you its i didnt want to butcher your name. Thanks to all of you for making that such a fun day.

Sheenah is a Death Knight

With all apologies to the Ramones for spelling and stealing if finally settled on the name race and gender for my Death Knight that I will have on my main server. I've been bouncing around trying to come up with something either silly or lore good. Off server was the easy one Horde PvP-RP sever Orc; seeing how the original DK was a Orc shaman. Yesterday morning Shrinn was talking with some friends over their vent channel and I was being a wise guy in the background. So what follows is a short version of what lead to my alliance DK toons name.

Shrinn: " Grai wants me to tell you, you could have picked a better band for your priest name"
Unseen: " bite me "
Shrinn: "He's laughing"
Unseen: " bite me "
Shrinn: "Grai says LA can't do punk"
Unseen: "Tell him to get out of the 70's"

conversation devolves into picking on each other over silly mistakes made in the mid 20 levels.

But a seed was planted and what a seed its turned out to be. My DK is not gonna be a main toon just something to have fun with somewhere between getting the played toons to 80. So I wanted something that would have a funny story attached to the name if not the actual character. I'm sure I've mentioned before I used to do the pen and paper versions of this style game so even when I'm not playing on a rp server I like to think each character has a story associated with them. So the bloom of that silly seed so to speak. While i kinda had the name I had no silly story best one I had up until then was somehow she would have been Fal's wife a a female dwarf; why he never went home kinda thing, just seemed like it would become trite quick and destined for deletion. But know ahh know the giggles will always be there for now i shall unveil my new dk.

Race: Gnomish
Gender: Female

Ok i know everyone and is twin cousin are doing these but me, I gots a story.

Before being raised as a DK Sheenah was a spy for the alliance. She used her abilities to sneak in most times. She would be easily distracted by flowers though sometimes stopping running off in a strange direction yelling "HERB" at the top of her tiny lungs. When in combat for the longest time she just stabbed away after her ambush, eviscerate would have been to messy.
But know we will tremble in her heroic awesomeness she will most likely not chase flowers know but I'm sure she will stop and cheer everyone who can whale on the axe that the few, the lucky get to carry. Yes the Arcanite Ripper.

So I have my funny story I do hope the rogue she is modeled after shares the giggle

Trolling but in a good way

As the period of the game known as Burning Crusade comes to its end, Sidhe Devils went trolling last night. What kind of trolling you ask? Where we massively qqing about nerfs, buffs and or world events; did we all go to the twin cities to fish with our red butted leader 3B himself. Sadly those answers are no Virginia, so let me tell you what we did do.

So as we enjoy doing we went on our weekend raid last night. Seeing how Kara is more of a friendly romp for us now; and we had ventured into ZA a couple times as a guild that was our choice. We have almost had the 1st time chest pre-patch a couple of times, so our raid leader said last night we were gonna get at least the 1st and whatever we could stack on after that. This we all knew in advance and had been asked to do some research so explanations would be at a minimum. So we assembled our band of stalwart adventurers and set off in search of victory. Adding to the exotic feel of ZA a couple of our down under guildies were able to make the run making vent spiced a little with accents.

So in we go and quickly dash threw the gauntlet, we had made sure to bring massive amounts of AoE in the form of 2 mages and 2 hunters. Our tanks also had been informed to AoE as much as you can. So quick dash up the hill, small pause at the top as the first wave of birds descended then over to the stairs pull again and boom gauntlet complete in like 3 minutes. The eagle boss was plucked cleaned so we dash back down the hill and across to the bear boss. His minions we dispatched as quickly and he gave his best but was simply over matched. We were running great on the timer so we advanced to the dragonhawk boss. 95% of the raid had never attempted this one and post 3.0.2 we had to much dps and lost our time run because we didn't allow enough eggs to hatch. So we reconfigure our strategy attempted again and allowed that ancient spirit to find his final rest also. Then in was time for the Lynx boss and his annoying scout patrols that wished to send waves of birds after us, but apparently in game as in life wishing wont get you much and we cleared to the boss with out any additional waves of birds. Now we were at a boss that maybe 1 or 2 of the raid had ever seen so it took us a couple of attempts, without trying to blame I believe it was poor positioning on the part of the Pally tank (me) that cost us one attempt; but my guildies are to kind to tell me L2position noob, but after a few minor adjustments he went down faster than a narc at a biker rally. We then proceed to the hex lord and after our raid leader explained this fight in detail because of the adds we had in we went. We had a unlucky break of cc that aggrod unto a healer so we tried again. Being a older person when he fell I kept hearing a boxing announcer yell "Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier". Here we paused so people could attend to real life issues of children's bedtimes, restroom breaks, etc. We all assembled again opened the final door Monty, and dealt with a wave of unimpressive trash and stood before Zul'Jin. Once again the high points of his abilities are covered including proper pet postioning and we engaged. 1st attempt we had him below 5% but lost our 2 healers and we wiped. I offerd to port to get my healing gear; I know a well prepaired pally would have had it with him, got my port and was nicely summoned back for attempt #2. With what little extra healing I could add we easily overcame him as well. A Sidhe devils first a full ZA clear, yes its been nerfed, yes it was still incredabily fun because we worked as a team and adapted and learned and succeded.

The loot was daggers,mail and cloth pieces mostly. One of our healers a shaman has been trying to get the dang mace from Maiden for what seems like forever and that rng dislikes her, but she gained a nice matching leg and chest piece fashion was probally secondary but one does like to match.

In closing I would just like to say thank you to the devils that made that all saints day run a roaring success, and sometimes trolling can be a fun way to spend the evening.

Carack goes to Kara, and what I learned about me

Hello all ! Some news to share about the gang or at least brat boy in particular. He's by far my least geared 70 but he was able to get a Kara run done last night; woot for the 3.0 nerf , that allowed me to be carried threw the raid as a sub rogue. One of, if not the most pleasant part of the raid was that as we assembled the group last night we were short a ranged dps slot. Shrinn said she had a mage friend that was willing to come, but we had already started on the trash before attunemen, so we waited until he was down before the person joined us. Now to the pleasant part it was a old guildie/friend whom I had not grouped with since my departure from Essence of Grandeur. A very good frost mage with whom I had ran countless heroics and Kara runs with. I shall not name her out of respect for her privacy but I do want to say thank you again, while I wasn't tanking this time it brought back many found memories of those frostbolts flying in to help Grai muddle threw all the noob mistakes one makes on the learning curve that this game throw at us.

So as an old man is allowed to do it got me to reminiscing some last night about decision made both good and bad that have brought me to where I am today game wise. It also brought back parts of my personality that are less than flattering, and made me look at how I approach this obsession/ game that I play.

The good is memories of how in EoG when we were a pre-kara guild we banded together to tackle heroics and the bonds that developed in those countless heroics. The blog title here could have been as easily applied to the "core" heroic group of which my friend the mage was one. We had our pet instances that we could and did destroy 3 to 4 times a week. Our group normally consisted of myself on Grai, a shammy healer, 2 warlocks, and a frost mage. We knew what everyone was gonna do and where everyone was gonna be and it was freeing never having to wonder if this happens what is person "x" gonna do.

During this time EoG was growing, and for reason I still will never understand I was guild leader. I had hopes of leading us into Kara and beyond Gruul's, Mag's and that new one Zul'aman. While we did finally take out Prince while I was still in EoG I left shortly thereafter.
The reasons for my leaving were based on those bad personality traits I spoke of earlier.

I'm moody,cranky and can be a major ass at times. I get what I describe as restless irritable and discontent, none of these being good things singularly when they combine it can become toxic especially if I allow the bile to spew forth. I basically comes down to me acting like a petulant 3 year old who cant be king of the sandbox.

So if any of my old guildies from EoG manage to find their way over here to read these words I would like to say to all of you that some of my best memories from this game came with you wonderful ladies and gentlemen. As I always said when we were doing dungeons,raids, etc. you made me better than I am. I truly mean that in more than just an in game e-peen stroke threw your kindness and friendship you helped me be a better person. To all of my current guildies you continue to help me grow as a person by your kindness and time shared.

Maybe I finally figured out why Carack is called bratboy, the sulky sometimes mean spirited part of me can reside in him. I hope I wasn't to much of an asshat last night.

Meet the Gang

Having spoke of the gang many times and I believe refereed to all of them by name at least once, I have decided to show off what they look like. Seeing as how the others got annoyed that grumpy got his picture posted long ago. So here's the gang in whatever glory they have.



The sometimes Prot sometimes not leader of this band of Crazies.



The meat grinder extraordinaire my favorite Titan's Grip Warrior



The wondering Dwarf and his faithful companion.



He's always been know as Bratboy can't remember why now



Named after my favorite Jesuit

Happy Happy Dwarves

Hello good and gentle people. Today we recount the success of the gang on a more individual level. I will happily show my prejudice towards my favorite wow race; and shamelessly link to the new toys, which brought happiness and joy to the the gang's lair.

First off as I linked yesterday Padrad was able to get his season three axe, Vengeful Gladiator Waraxe. Elysse and I managed to lose most but win some of our 2v2 matches and presto. She also was able to acquire a insane pair of gloves for some season 3 druid love . So i knew that he was getting a new axe something exciting for me when I set a goal like this one then being able to see it to completion.

Secondly and maybe the biggest surprise was that Falromord was able to get some crafting in. I/he have been slowly acquiring primal nethers in a hope to upgrade out of his old 2 handed mace. Wasn't planning on Fal getting to much of a run yesterday but plans changed and I had a couple free hours. So off i plod to the Ironforge auction house hoping to maybe pick up a nether or two, and found i had enough gold to pick up the remaining four i needed. Now this alone would have made Fall'y a happy dwarf. While not my neediest/greediest character; see Grai, he does get feeling left out on occasion. So in a flash of buying frenzy I start counting how many badge of justice's I have in the gang. Pooling every ones i was able the magic number of 75, which allowed me to purchase five of these splendiforious things nerther vortex .

So having everything I needed I made a stop at the mailbox then hopped on the ran and rushed to the great anvil. After almost 50 gold to learn the recipe and what seemed an eternity listening to the sound of hammer ringing on anvil Fall'y was the proud crafter/owner of this beat stick Stormherald.

So now my dwarves are happy and excited to assault Northrend. Falromord will be able to have all his meat grinder glory and Padrad will be cutting a swath thru the tundra with his trusty companion's Siam and/or PrimalGrai. Each equipped with the best weapons I could provide for them

Things I'm chasing Pre X-pac

Hello all I figured I needed to post today for 2 reasons, one give me brain something to do during maintenance today; and Ishvi posted a new piece. Well more the first than the second just like to give Ish the business.

So Grai has finally decide the push the rest of the way for his netherdrake. Why know easy the deadline of 11/13/08 changed my oh ill get to it attitude most likely depending on how many dailies I knock off he should have it by weeks end.


Padrad my version of the wandering dwarf gets his pre-patch special today new shiny axe, Elysee and I have been helping many teams raise their rating so I can get that bad boy. Thanks dear it was a grind.


Falromord is getting more playtime than he has in a long time, absolutely love titan's grip even with the higher to hit penalty. Plus during last week loot extravaganza umm I mean kara run he got incredibly luck getting Gorehowl, so now i trying to get a couple crafting upgrades done for him.

Carack and Fanabb have gone back out of the current play cycle until Grai can have his drake and a little more money built up for x-pac. Would like Carack to get the dagger from the sso dailies if possible but we are working on a deadline.

Tonight we stumble into ZA in hopes of phat loots and funny stories so I may even post 2 days in a row.

For this Gang Update we go to Dwarven reporter Padrad...

Hello all!!!! The obsessive leveler has taken a few moments for us to chat how nice. First we will go over a re cap of pre patch news so we all know where the gang was at mainly spec wise pre-patch. In my last post I spoke of how I had gotten Fanabb, officially thru the Dark Portal and he was 58; well he now is 6o and having immense fun killing bog lords in Zanger. He still shadow and most likely stay that way didn't take Dispersion as I see it as a great PvP skill but not much for me at current content.
Ahh the rogue my sneak attack machine is now 70 still very much deep subtlety(0/10/51)*, flame, laugh and/or tell me how other specs outperform him and I'll likely agree. The only thing i over by way of explanation is that i find this to be a fun spec for me to play and don't ever want to think of playing without shadow step. Their is no desire to raid with brat boy as i call him his end game joy will be arenas and or bg's.
Now onto the ones that are raiding. Graimerin, Falromord, Padrad Ill take a little about what I like about the patch and how 3.0.2 changes everything and made the game fun again instead of a math problem.
Fal has gone back to what weaponry he used on his way to outlands two-handed axes and two-handed maces. Now he just uses both at once, having to choose between the two apparently was to much thinking for him. So he just grabbed both and now refuses to put them down, sure that whatever the great a powerful blizz gave it will take away.Even suffering under the -15% to hit penalty currently on live its not a huge problem. Not having 30% or greater crit is annoying me because BT crits open up insta slams but one needs a goal.
Paddy me boy is still unsure as how he wishes to spec. Currently using a 51/10/0 BM spec for the exotic goodness, but is longing for his old old spec of survival. He may be taking a journey out to silithius to speak with Brann Bronzebeard his hero, about spec and pets. Seeing how much Brann loves Glibb, Paddy may go back survial with a pet gorilla.
Now onto Grai. He didn't get respecced in the frenzy that was late eastern time Tuesday night, Wednesday morning; because I wasn't sure what I wanted him to be. So I log in last night on one of the gang and see a post in G chat that a healer or a dps was needed for Heroic MgT. I offered to spec Grai holy and see what would happen. I went deep into the holy tree because i wanted to try this new talented goodness out Bacon of Light (ty GC). Had a good guess as to grp make up Mr. and Mrs. Big Bear , Doozie the warlock dot machine and Elyistia a killer mage. The linked write ups are better than anything i could do. Just let me add a least one of the wipes was do to not having a routine/rhythm down for my new healing spec. Love bacon put it on Cassie and when ever i healed the big guy she got heals if she needed them works like a charm. 2nd'ly the in game focus feature is pure win. 90% of my addons aren't re-loaded so no unit frame adds having a built in on that gives it own unit frame very nice. 1000+ bonus healing was what the character sheet showed which seemed higher than what it used to be apparently it isn't 2:1 ratio I had heard it was.

So a long rambly disjointed wall of text, I will try to do better next time must make sure jointed next time. Overall I think 3.0.2 will be as game changing as 2.0... don't remember the pre BC #. But i must go now and lose myself in wondering whos turn it is in the gang to go first today. To Azeroth and all the fun it holds these waining days of BC.

Almost have everyone where i want them

Hello all I been bad about posting again, always, continously. But I have been busy leveling everyone in preperation of the big day (11/13). The last couple days have been spent on my most ignored character of the ones that play, Fanabb. He reached 58 today after a quick, well kinda quick romp threw the silithius desert. Went out to Silithius at the begging of 57 approximentaley 3% into it and after completing 5 quest voila 58. How is this possabile you may ask well the five quest I did where the securing the supply lines both groups of 20; along with the ones where the goblin is posined and you need to get 8 items x2 from the northen scorpids and spiders plus the southern one where you are required to get 3 items x3 from two different scorpid's and the spiders. Finishing with the follow up quest again for the goblin where he needs his satchel fetched back from where he lost it near the elite level 59 scorpid. That was it about 4 hrs of running back and forth I did kill some non needed mobs one rare spawn nothing overly great dropped but its one of the few if not the only time i have ever been happy about blizz's horrid drop rate on some of the gathering quest.

But i did have a chuckle every once in awhile as Basutia's voice from illegal danish kept looping threw my head.

So yeah 5 toons in outlands now 3 70's a 66 and a brand new minted 58. The perfect scenario would be for everyone to be at or near 68 pre wrath but ill have to see if i can push hard enough on the last 2.

So if anyone was wondering thats what going on currently with the gang.

Numbers I like Numbers

Okay hoping with no basis for hope i went off to the ptr late last night early this am. What I found out made me happy. Ill maintain crit immunity and have loads yes loads more spell damage.


Ok here are the important stats.


LIVE: PTR:
STR: 142 STR: 302
AGI: 89 AGI: 89
STAM: 1075 STAM: 1036
INT: 135 INT: 135
DEF. RAT: 515 DEF. RAT.: 491
ARMOR: 16353 W/DEVO AURA ARMOR: 16783W/DEVO AURA
DODGE: 17.73% DODGE: 22.86%
PARRY: 16.60% PARRY: 15.24%
BLOCK: 27.45% BLOCK: 24.72%

Some gains some losses nothing earth shattering above the crit cap so happy tank. Now for the numbers that made me double check that I did take the free re-spec to Prot.

SPELL DAMAGE

Kings Defender +93 Kings Defender +368
Crystalforge sword +254 Cyrstalforge sword +529
Shard of Virtouis +236 Shard of Virtious + 594

So I wanted a quickie test of some of the new talents/spell changes so went out to Nagrand. Must say love the BoSac changes with healing myself thrown in and judging wise/light depeneding on what I need more I solo'd Banthor and Durnn. Self healing and self mana regen had to sit after each attempt but overall i like the direction of the prot tree thats heading or way.


*Sorry for poor formating wont accept my tabs for some reason*

Since we last caught up

Hello again everyone, anyone? Apparently the part of the brain that likes to write has been away for a bit, but fear not occasional reader the mouse is back on the wheel. Actually been kind of sensory over load around the old place; school functions have begun again and of course all the things that go with that homework(John's not mine), dinner and just trying to sneak in everything. Add into that a healthy douse of Brewfest and an ol' pally forgets hes supposed to be writing.

Summary of games news, have been made a class leader for Sidhe Devils goodness watch out people may try and take me serious now, but that started the old mouse wheel going full speed. As I jokingly say that had I known now what I didn't know then i would have done many things different with Grai. For starters I was prot pre-bc; (pause for laugh track), figured if i lived longer that sounded good. Had no idea about leveling guides,gear lists, any of the stuff alot if not all of us use today. So i played him my way and made tons of mistakes along the way but wouldn't honestly change it a bit. I learned what worked( no corpse run), and what didn't(corpse run) had a spell cycle down before i knew thats what i was supposed to do.

What has this to do with anything well earlier today Ishvi was gonna do a protection pally leveling guide, my response was why waste the effort. In 2 to 3 weeks when we get the pre-patch for wrath of the litch king everything will be moot. I'm not to concerned I'll adapt might grumble for awhile but in 10 levels ill most likely complain about the conditions pre-wrath. Why? You might ask its because I'm can be fickle with talents,spells etc.. the game changes and some are great some stink. But i will also go back to Grai as the main he was 70 before anyone else and unless he gets ran over by roaming motorcyclist in wrath he'll be 80 first.

As some of you know I had a chance to play the first couple beta builds. I have had all 3 dk specs to outlands,blood is definitely the speed program, unholy made me feel warlockish, and frost oh goodie duel wielding tank nah for me at least. Also at this time seal where broke in the beta so playing as a pally was tough,but again played around with the "new" at the time talent builds. Discovered I could play Ret (Ok yes I have hated on Ret but even this old dog can learn a new trick), kinda nice to kill one mob fast when your used to killing 6 slow. Holy I can have heals that work on more than one person woot. The finally prot yes the one I'll be because I do like to tank. But in the short time i spent on the beta there where 2 builds at least so the every changing flux+lag+ a big dose of need to level alts i stopped playing it.

So yes Paladin got some love for all 3 trees this time, so old stand-byes will not be used as much; not running with BoK always up will be odd. Not running with BoSac always up is silly. So i have lots of excitement looking forward to wrath. Having 3 at 70 and possibly a 4th will give me distraction and tons of fun as Grai blazes the trail they will follow, Ill have better notes this time about what and where so leveling the alts will be faster. Padrad and Carack may be bound for PvP at 80 while Fal and Grai are mashing/getting smashed in Naxx.

Been Busy Busy Busy

Well since last we meet I have a couple of things to share. First of Grai finally got his t4 helm and gloves from kara, between lousy rolls and being on thew wrong toon just never ever got lucky so woot got em just in time for re itemization. Secondly and a much more fun thing Pad hit 70 late Sunday night and had a few presents waiting for him. He has his season 2 shoulders and gloves and a nice old pally made him the netherdrake breastplate, so he turned 70 with decent gear. Still many holes that need to be filled in on him but that's part of the fun. So Auchidon instances here I come. Well short post must grind dailies dang 70 again and its still expensive.

My take on Paladin tanking changes

Looking at the latest beta build currently available at all the usuall places we see some interesting changes coming to Paladin tanking. I know alot of tanks are worried about the defense cap and being able to maintain crit immunity currently 490 defense rating. While I think we all understand that while leveling we dont need to be capped defense rating wise what about the time between 3.0.2 coming to live servers and the release of wotlk.

Blizz has reworked the stat allocation on tier gear(4-6) and some badge gear adding strength and lowering defense rating numbers. One of the things that I believe that is being overlooked by the players is how the mechanics of tanking are gonna change. With BoSac every dodge,parry,block with return mana to us; strength is now going to give us 1 block for every 2 strength, greatly increasing our block holy shield has 8 charges for ten seconds once talented. How I see this affecting the defense cap is that we may have to regem redo some of our enchants/enhancements on our gear. We have access to vindicators armor kits +8 defense rating to hands,legs or feet; steelweave for our cloaks +15 defense rating. An enchant where we can get +12 defense rating to our bracers and/or +15 defense rating to chest piece. Plus the new Isle epic gems which can be cut for + 10 defense rating.

Also as we quested to 70 we had access to trinkets for increased defense rating Dabiri's Enigma a quest reward from netherstorm which has +30 defense rating. Also the adamantine figurine which also has + 30 defense rating and is a drop from Black Heart the inciter.

Yeah if we have to change armor kits regem our gear and or change back to old trinkets we are gonna loose some stamina how much depends on personal gear level, gems, enchants etc.

But now for what I see as the good side of all of this. If we are blocking way more we are reducing incoming damage greatly, with the BoSac changes I already mentioned we will still see a decent amount of mana regen and dont need to take a hit to get it, so we should still have decent mana regen and lets hope less healer stress.

Earlier in the beta, we removed the Defiance talent. It was a mandatory talent since encounters were designed around the very safe assumption that all Prot warriors had it. So Defensive Stance ended up generating more threat.

More recently in the beta, we did a similar thing with Salv. We pulled Salv as a blessing some time ago, so we baked even more threat into Defensive Stance (and equivalents for other tanks).

If this makes it easier to understand, imagine that everyone except the tank always has Perma Salv up and every tank has Defiance as a core ability.

This makes me very happy because some of the tooltips were saying no longer greatly increase threat.

* Shield of Righteousness now deals holy damage equal to 240% of your block value. (Up from 200%)

Yeah a solid single target aggro maching that is gonna scale with the changes to our block

* Righteous Defense is now a 10 sec cooldown and cost no mana

just in case we do lose threat somehow.

So over all I dont see us being gimped between 3.0.2 and the release of wotlk we may have to re learn a couple ways we do things and adjust to a new rotation but we will survive this I'm sure.
We have had a insanely great run through TBC and now we have to relearn somethings but we had to when TBC pre release patch came out anyways

Hmm didnt know these were possabile

Gotta love transporter malfunctions

Random thoughts about 2 of my favorite writers

I have always been a huge fan of two writers; non fantasy writers but great story tellers, Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. Both of the men wrote of a life lived in society but on the fringes they lived. I was raised by my grandparents they were born in 1901 and 1905 respectfully and didn't think that my choice of authors good for me but they encouraged me to read anything and everything just read was their standpoint. On the Road Jack Kerouac tales from his travels across the country with his friends was inspiring to 13 year old teenage boy in a small upstate new york town. Here he was writing about life a life lived without increasing the heroic or downplaying the tragic just life. Often funny always riveting just the travels of a group of young post college aged men. I wanted this for myself the freedom the adventure the opportunity learn about me and the places I wanted to see by seeing them.

Then I found Hunter S. Thompson, long before Johnny Deep ever made a movie about him. Reading him you can see a influence of Kerouac but as with everything Thompson touched he had to star in. He is credited or discredited depending upon your viewpoint for Gonzo Journalism, did he inflate his importance to the story I'm sure he did but he was rebelling against the system which appealed to that same kid who was stuck in that small town. He choose to in my opinion show some of the fallacy of some of the intuitions he choose to attack.

They both had life long alcohol problems and Hunter S. Thompson also used illegal drugs and choose to write about those experiences as well. Hindsight being what it is maybe this is why I shouldn't have read them according to my grandparents.

Now if you managed to stay with me through all of that I'll finally get this around to wow and blogging now. Are my Journeys thru Azeroth and Outlands worthy of comparison to On the Road? No, nor is my writing even in the same category . I guess the only and a poor comparison is that the are just what they are stuff that has happened. Will Grai or any of the gang ever be banned from a site because we wrote unkind things about them, (Oakland Raiders circa late 60's H.S. Thompson) I hope not. Do I have a few gonzo moments one comes to mind from last year. This was during arena season 1 yeah that long ago. The team i was on had just gone 8-2 for the evening and we were very happy, so we decided to have some fun in Ironforge. What was intended to be us being silly turned into alot more. The guild I was in at the time had a myspace page, our guild leader was at the time in Australia on Marine Corpse reserve maneuvers. So we got drunk and decided to have a dance party with the totems from SMV. He a day or so after this got a chance to log in and look at our myspace page, where we had a few photo's posted and to say the least he wasn't a happy GL.

Interesting stuff for me thats in the news today

Couple things jumped out at me as I was going thru the wowinsider post today. Major changes to prot tree for Pally's hopefully unbloating and giving us a few new toys to play with. Macro's and UI's to be stored server side, and the leveling curve will be lessened post 3.0.2.

Without any hard data to go on I have a few assumptions and or wishes for the Prot Pally tree, ghostcrawler has said they are gonna remove unused(useless) talents and possabily rework some others for mitigation and fun. Going on the basis that death knights are to be the magic tank of choice I think/hope that spell warding will be gone and maybe we can get another more beneficial talent to AoE tanking. Will reckoning go away? Its a useful leveling talent but hardly used when raiding. Combining one-hand weapon special with combat expertise seems kinda natural. Boom 10 to 12 talent points saved and available for a new ones. Who knows but it is a hope.

The changes to macro's and ui's sounds good for those that play on multiple machines and have either custom ui's or cant live with out macro's. For me it will be nice because I can write shrinn's macro's on my machine and she will have them and or design a ui for her and be able to be on my machine where i know where i have stashed everything. The big official news for me is the lessing of the xp required to level thru outlands. I have 2 70's currently and Padrad is 20% of the way thru 68 currently and will be the next 70. Now I can hopefully have Carack and Fanabb a little closer to be wrath level ready all thanks to 3.0.2. Yes I'll be trying out new talents and spell rotations attack sequences etc. come 3.0.2 but thats gets old quick so being able to have all my toons at least half way thru to 70 pre wrath has me excited.

No breaking news and some might be destined to change but the closer wrath approaches it appears Blizz is taking some of the BC lessons to heart and also giving as many people a chance to get to the new content as possible. While cynically I could say that they want whatever they increase in subscriptions fee's for wrath are I hope the changes were made to help those of us that are altaholics out.

Pally's Please dont be trolls

Yesterday as i was reading wow insider I came across the shifting perspectives column and it was about doing Kara in a all druid raid. Now i have a real baby druid level 22 so I thought sweet what an accomplishment, but apparently i read the article wrong because all the comments were about how leet pally's are and how easy a pally raid could wipe out kara. I have one question for all the commenter's; here after called trolls, did you ever play a Pally pre bc. Hell pre 2.0 patch that changed pallies and made us capable tanks; or did u just ebay your toon because of a you tube video.

Graimerin my pally went 1-60 pre bc as prot, I tell ya all a secret it sucked out loud. AoE grinding sure find plate gear that had stam and int in decent quantities in the old world, not now that gear got re itemized around 2.2 but back then it was dam hard to find. We were wanted in groups if you were Holy then half your dam gear was cloth. We were cross dressing holy men (thank you illegal danish). Blessing of Kings was a ret talent we had 5 minute buffs for lesser and 15 minute buffs for greater. A prot specced pally was wanted in raids about as much as a narc at a biker rally. Pulls sure let me get close enough to judge someone oops pull whole group shit another wipe.

So we went to the forums and we whined and we cried and the finally Blizz gave us something, maybe they gave us to much. Most outland dungeons and almost all of the level 70 instances and first raids where designed to be AoE tanked and finally we were wanted. Warriors couldn't easily AoE tank the good ones could and still do but not the majority. Then the first outland raid many of us experience is Kara honestly a Pally playground on par with if not better than strathhome and we have the balls to tell a different class that we are leet because we can shine in a raid designed around undead.

Are dps'ers the ret crowd finally got some love in the beta but oops that got nerfed now also with judgement of wisdom not returning as much mana our holy brethren HoT got nerfed also so please trolls stfu. We finally got a niche can we continue to enjoy it without all this l2p and we leet your a scrub nonsense going on.

I love my Prot pally hell I love him as holy when i spec that way. I remember the bad old days and fear the giant blizz nerf bat . The squeaky wheel may get the grease as the old saying goes but the braggart gets the nerf bat. So why cant we all get along, feel happy for the druid raids that whoop kara, and share the joy knowing that other classes and players may share ours. SO share the love some hell we waited long enough for ours.

So in closing grats if any class and raid comp is successful because as one progress we all do.

Hunter love and Pet emotes

Lately have been playing Padrad alot and now I have even more reason to play him, and scamper around with my kitty Siam. He's Shy-Rotams mate from winterspring and for me one of the two best kitty skins in the game; I had Humar but stupidly sent him away when i went owls for awhile. The new reason is simply that I found out about a new to me addon called Pet Emote, yes I'm late to the party on it but gives life and personality to my pet.
While I don't play on a RP server I seem to structure my play along the old role playing game style( i.e. Dungeons & Dragons) where Padrad is more than just a jumble of pixels to me he is a very special dwarf, possabile overly influenced by the gnomes who came to Ironforge after the disaster in Gnomeregan and the stories of the explorers league, he went searching for adventure and crazy new plans to build with his engineering training.
So with that kinda of being the "backstory" finding Pet Emote made it come full circle. The first time siam nuzzled up to my leg i was hooked. Know my kitty could always roar and stretch if i was quick i would see the animations but know he has his own way of communicating with me. Running around nagrand and having Siam do his own emotes just cant be beat. I haven't played very much with it but have a few that I plan on adding soonish depending on fast he gets to doing certain things. Warning to all the Sidhe Devils if Pad ever makes it into Kara expect Siam to see dead people, ok its lame but ill get a giggle out of it, and I probably make one about tasty Blood Elves for when i make it out to netherstorm.
They way i see hunters or at least try to play mine is that my companion is wholly part of me. Blame it on the Fact that the first movie I ever saw was Grizzy Adams my grandad took me when i was a wee lad back in the 70's. I never have had a bear named Ben and probably never will but the idea kinda stayed. So I will set it up so that when someone pats Siam he'll purr and maybe stretch, I'm keeping the nuzzles for my self.
So in closing I just wanna add to any hunter who thinks of the pet more than something to feed and occasionally sacrifice to get away from the mob that will get you I heartily recommend Pet Emote to add a little life to our companions who after all have to do most of the dirty work.