Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Err..Sorry for the gnome he Invaded when I was out taking care of some errands

Again apologies for the gnome invasion, apparently he and some have rabid feral druid made some kind of arena team and he hijacked my story telling time, with stories of his supposed arena victories. Bah a gnome and a kitty cat goodness sounds like a bored animal and their play toy. The reasons for my absence and my revenge on the little feller I'll share at the end of catching everyone up on what has happened with Grai,Fanabb,and,the rest of the fellas.


First off Grai, changed after he and a bunch of fine friends took down Arthas. His aged seemed hit him all at once, he lost a foe that had daunted him since Lordaeron burned. He was a good man, even if he ran when Arthas slew his father the king. Named outlaw the same day he carried his private shame till he saw its fire finally snuffed out when Tirion slew Arthas.  Now he is content to sit in Stormwind tinkering with of all things gnomish engineering, and cutting and setting the jewels he collects for my infrequent mining forays. He says that he has found peace in his retirement, I says he got to old to hold his shield up anymore.

Fanabb well he heard the call from the nightelves and scurried of to help Malfurion and the others help hold back the advance of Ragnoros's minions from the firelands.


Now Carack he's been up to now good again, as usual I know. This time though I asked him for some help with the little gnome problem I had. So he sends into all manner of strange places to get him some odd things, finally he tells me its all set. So I ask him what I'm supposed to do, nothing special he tells me just invite the gnome over for a pint and a bit and he'll take care of the rest. He has some limited skill in magic and poisons and such no I figures I'm safe. Bah the brainless sneak thief done screwed up big this time, though I must admit the gnome does look rather fancy duel wielding his maracas.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Think I have accomplished my final goal in WoW

Its the Saturday after my personally most successful raid in a long time. We didn't kill any "new" bosses, I didn't get any loot, I just was able to accomplish a goal from way back in the days of vanilla WoW. The person who got me into this game was my oldest son, we had done the first two warcraft rts games together back before his mother and I split. He was visiting and he told me about warcraft on line game I figured that we should try it out. Well it was I think his and his brothers next visit down when he told me about these silly movies people make about warcraft. I thought he was pulling my leg to be honest, but a short you tube search later and we found our favorite movie Illegal-Danish. While we laughed at all the characters our loudest laugh was when the guild leader showed off the new tabard and the grief from his girlfriend. We laughed again and said how much fun it would be to have that god awful looking thing be a guild tabard even if only for a day.

Well fast forward about 6 years and many things are different, the boys now all live with me. The oldest is in art school and vanilla has been revamped to make it better. One other thing that changed is last night my guild Parallel went into Firelands with the star fish tabard displayed. So when I talk with my son this weekend I'm sure we will share a laugh about our favorite scene from our favorite WoW movie.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Continuing to give Book reasons to hate frost mages

Let me start this by saying that I am not a elite PvP  "a bad" would be much closer to the truth, but even a bad cab get lucky every once in awhile.  I had a couple of those star alignment moments in the last week or so of arenas and I figured that I bore you folks with the details.  Luckily these events all occurred when Book was busy playing with the cows. The first 2 happened partner with another friend of ours Wet, the third was with Gil earlier today.

The first one with Wet was against a lock,warrior team. We decide to open and burn the lock then come back for the warrior. Wet and the lock died about the same time, leaving me and the warrior. Frost mage at 35% hp and arms warrior at around 65%. Through the beauty of snares,blink,frost tombs and evocation I managed to survive with about 2% hp left and win the match. Wet said he felt bad for the warrior because he couldn't move.

The Second one I don't remember the warrior partner's class. But the warrior was at about 10% and Wet was down under 5% he disengaged and with the beauty of server latency two things seemed to occur simultaneously the warrior heroic leap and my tomb of frost. Ha landed just outsides of Wet's dead zone frozen and Wet finished him off.


Today's was my new personal favorite. Gil and I had time for one more match. We Que and get a team of Disc. Priest + DK.  We nuke the priest together, the whole while the Dk is trying to keep me off the priest. Priest dies Gil is hardly down any hp + a victory rush to restore what he needed. Me I was down under 5%, evo was already gone, and I was waiting for frost nova and blink to come off cd.  Well they did so I nova'd then blinked away, giving Gil the time to finish off the warrior and I ended the match with a grand total of 231 hp left.

I know all the wins were more a result of a unique class and a whole lot of luck, with a huge huge helping from my arena partners for doing most all of the work. Just wanted to share them.

Do

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

For Bookley

  Made me laugh I'm a cruel person, but I thought of you. Bookley's alter ego,

Still finding excitement in different ways

  The last few weeks have been a bit different around the character sheet. As I rambled about earlier I have been doing a lot of arena, not a real huge change for me as I always have a fondness for PvP.  Where the change has come is how I spend my solo time in the game.  In expansions past I would either be min/maxing like a fiend or looking for a new trick to push whatever toon was the current "golden boy" over the top.
  From Vanilla forward I have had a least 2 classes that were tank capable., at my craziest I had all four tank classes at end game. I would get excited about news of a new PTR had to copy over to get a look at the new mechanics, to be ready to into these new instances as soon as the went live. Wrath around the time they released Call of the Crusade the guild I was in was redefining what it wanted to do, so I ran pick up raids.  It became insanely fun, it was possible if one had enough alts to raid almost every night. One of my fondest memories of that time centered around my priest; he had just dinged 80 maybe a day prior when a raid pugmate of mine asked if I wanted to fill in a hole in their 25 man ToC.  I let them know that he was brand new but they said fine just don't make stupid mistakes, bad dps was better than dead dps.  So I got carried I knew it they knew it but the funny part was the guild comments when the achievement system spammed guild that I had cleared ToC 25, was generally dang it you just dinged and already are raiding in pugs on that toon.  When the format for Cat was announced with shared lockouts between 10 and 25 man raids a question on our guild forums openly wondered what I would do.
  Well Cata dropped and the first thing I found out was that I didn't wanna quest, the new content was fun the art was awesome just felt like ugg not again.  So I did a very Fal thing and made a new alt, dwarf shaman this time. Favorite race and a new to me class;non horde shaman.  He was fun during the reworked content of vanilla,but stumbled near outlands as I have no love for hellfire or zangamarsh. Stopped playing him with the idea that I would take my mage into arenas. Did so and love it fast paced matches that can be done around the crazy schedules that my arena partners and I share.  Then that part of me that draws me back into this game happened. I got stuck so I decide that I needed to level Graimerin wanted to play him in arena. I managed to get through all of the Mount Hyjal zone and again ran smack into quest burn out.  Around this time a arena partner was leveling a warrior annoyed at some minor druid changes. He said that Archeology with rested xp was a decent way to level. So I figured it would be a change to the questing burnout, why not give it a whirl.
  My WoW career is filled with seemingly small changes like this.  What I found was a new desire, the thrill of wondering what is "behind" the current solve.  I have yet to find anything  "real" or game changing items, as a guildie was joking last night that the amber fossil rare was not usable in combat. I don't care, for me the joy is in wondering whats next.  I sit here and have all the little plans, if I solve a troll item in Stranglethorn will I get the sword, do I need all the races to get my next epic. I get a rush when I near a solve in one of my desired races, and when the next one isn't the one I want well the next one certainly will.  I love reading the little blurbs about the items in the profession window. For me the useless items are the vehicles that move the story forward they do this by sometimes sad, sometimes funny little accounts.  I would be thrilled to get any of the "useful" items and if I don't there is always the next find. Well I've rambled way to much already and now must get back to the fragment fields happy hunting all.
 

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Pets,Arena,Streaks, Oh My!!

  Hello again folks, I'm back with the 100th edition of my version of internet flotsam and jetsam.  Today's meanderings will actually have somewhat of a focus.  The fine folks over @Stormwind Bait Co. awarded the darling little frost mage of doom himself Lil' KT to a fine wielder of the arcane arts who also specializes in frost Dodickley


  Now how I came to be the proud owner of such a fine companion as Lil K.T. was a silly little jab at my friend Barklay.  The contest was announced shortly after the still inexplicable druid changes  about being able to remove snares by shifting, so in the nature of our shared sense of humor I decide to tweek him a tad.  So what follows was what I came up with.

Hey You come over here for a second I have something I need to tell ya just can't be real loud about this.  I think I just discovered why all the druids are in this crazy uproar over abilities they have had for centuries going away.  Here let me show you this ragged bit of scroll that has that ancient night elf language on it.

  The first part of the scroll is hard to make out but it looks like some rambling about how he stole my girl and then locked me up for 10,000 years having better ideas.  Kinda gives the idea on who wrote this stuff if ya follow along with it huh.

  Now this next part this is where the answer lie I think.  Apparently if I'm reading this right he cast some kind of bizarre time warped massive spell steal on all druids.  Now this is ingenious I tell you oh my the style the out of nowhere massive hit why this, this is beauty.  Oh I'm sorry I got caught up in the pure beauty of that spell.

  Well let me explain what this wonderful spell does.  5 years after my death all druids will no longer be able to escape any snare. So they can't steal people loves. But because we are taking away that from them I'll let them make everyone run faster so its a fair race.  Ha Ha bird boy take that.

  Of course because I am the master of Arcane when this happens mages will dominant even more in Warsong Gulch because those girl stealing druids can be snared.

  They had thought they were prepared  HA HA HA..


  Now I just wanted to let you guys in on this, of course as a mage I firmly agree with everything Illidan did.




  Dodickley

  The rest of the title refers to a achievement that Barklay and I received last night with a huge help from Wetfoot.  Bark,Wet and I had spent a very long and bad weekend in SoA grinding honor to fill in / upgrade a few pieces each and Bark and I were excitedly waiting for Tues for the arena reset. Our 2's team got stars aligned lucky and went 5-0. We were capped and liked the look of the week's stats so we stopped on those two for that team .  Last night we grabbed Wet when he logged in and planned on getting in our 3's, well whatever orbital alignment was still in our favor as we tore off another streak of 7 in a row. Getting Bark and I the hot streak achievement, but sadly leaving us 3 short of Wetfoot also having his.  He being the good friend and great all round person was happy for us and said "He would get his next time".

   Am having a tremendous amount of fun in the game again, with the same folks that I have raided and generally ran around in Azeroth with for awhile now.  Proving yet again to me that it is partially the great game Blizzard has made for us, but more importantly to me are the wonderful people who I play this game with.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Yes I heal in BGs and Arenas

 Hello my name is Graimerin and I'm addicted to, three things. One the quick nice flow to a arena match, the other the controlled chaos of a battleground, and a endless progression of Alts.  Arena's they most scorned portion of the game for the majority of the PvE players because of the changes made to balance PvP to PvE, I have had my tow stuck in the water back when Season 1 first launched. Hunter,Rogue,Holy Paladin we didn't dominate we didn't get rolled but the team never made it out of season 1. Later BC ran with a druid,hunter combo up to getting enough ranking for current seasons weapons. I have currently 3 active arena toons. Team size and comp is every changing as more people from my guild are drawn in.
  Battlegrounds or more specifically WSG way back in Vanilla introduced me to world or warcraft's pvp model. I did a lot of the dueling/mad cow levels in D2 and hung out a little in the battle.net ques back then.  So here I go into WSG around level 33 or so. The day that my love hate relationship started with rogues; or more to the point my fear that if I didn't kill them I was doomed.
        Dedicated healer of the light is waiting for the FC to emerge from the secret tunnel underneath the enemies fortress. Flag Carrier health stalwartly maintaining its level the big heal lights up just as he comes into range. He's mid cast this is the heal that will carry his team to a smashing route of the opposing team when, BAM!! swirly nonsense over his head and the cast bar disappeared, shortly there after to be replace with a release button.
  That was my introduction to WSG when there we're no terms like resilience, arena teams/points  just this slowly declining honor system that if you had the rank you could get the piece.  2 things grew out of that weekend, me getting hooked good with the idea of battlegrounds and altism.  The altism, easy that was the weekend that Carack appeared on my character sheet; maybe the real reason I've always called him brat boy.
  So know its 6 years later and I'm still PvPing my arse off. Have currently 2 dedicated healers for BG. A newly minted one time main Grai has hit 85, late last night. A crafted set off the AH and a very understanding guildmate last night managed to get my 5 wins, almost felt like stealing a week;but it will help arenas gear ramp up. My priest who I had intended to melt faces, has gone back to disc. damage mitigation anyone. Also currently in the rotation is my frost mage but that will be another day.
  So as my friend over @ TheBait Company said of me :
         lI place the blame solely on my guildmate and friend Graimerin. He’s a bit of PvP junkie, and another one of Parallel‘s habitual alt-oholics. He’s incurable.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Some drinkin' Music

Happy St. Paddy's all

PS- Not a work or Kid friendly song for those who would like to know in advance

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Annnnd in this Pasture.......

  They other night hanging out in Stormwind and in guild chat I got being randomly funny with my oldest son, Olli (character name).  Who was actually resting his leg, he needs to do this because today we found out he blew out his ACL* 2 weeks ago when he slipped on ice.  Anyways, back to the funny story.  I forgot why now but we where being silly with what names you could come up with based on my character sheet.  I thought that a Tauren Paladin named Ribramord would have been funny, heck still do.  He thought for a minute or two and did honestly come up with the undisputed winner though.  So now good citizens of the internets I present to you the terror of School lunches and currently the Mulgore region, in all his heirloom glory Graibeef and his faithful companion Gristle.   Right now a one shot machine at level 10 with all the heirloom toys.  The ones of mine that have funny stories or some that make me laugh generally will get played so I imagine he will level up some. Looking forward to doing battlegrounds and re-leveling a paladin amidst all the newness. Haven't tried one since vanilla that wasn't named Grai to level on a live server.  So watch out comming to a battle ground near you...Graibeef.

*PS - While sore he's doing okay. We go 9-March to schedule his operation. Yeah the joys of a 18 yr old not being able to hang out in early spring. 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Name changes and other such nonsense

  If you made your way here by design,thank you.  Or conversely if this is a wrong turn on your browsing just pull up a stool for a few.  Lots of changes have been going on here at the blog and on the character sheet. First of all Fal is now the undisputed PvE main.  I say PvE main as this xpac has found my love of PvP stronger than it has been since the inception of arena back in early BC.
  Way back in those days of god awful paladin arena gear with awesome stats Grai healed. Had some success with a Hunter,Rouge.Holy Paladin team.  BC ended with me playing Padrad my BM hunter at the time and Elysse, Shrinn's resto druid, we were good enough for each of us at that time to get current seasons equipment.  Wrath came and with it many changes, one for some reason I didn't PvP as much and hardly did any arenaing at all.  Shrinn didn't play and with PuG raiding being okay with differing lockouts for 10 and 25 man groups most night found me anywhere from Nax to the Ruby Santctum.  PvP interst withered away.
  Cat arrived and I had a varied array from decently geared to ICC has nothing for me geared toons lined up and waiting to go.  Fal the toon who had all ways been second to reach cap albeit generally within a week or two of Grai just always second.  Well this time he went first. Fury dps is as good if not better than anytime in its history, we still don't have any form of CC but we do offer utility and a hell of alot of dps.  The second and third toons are the ones that have surprised me and re ignited the pvp bug. Dodickely my frost mage you offers insane amounts of CC and can be very difficult to kill, while peeling baddies of ones healer very well. He is 85 and gathering gear for arena and rated bgs.  Fanabb shadow priest of doom, my bestest dps toon by far at the end of wrath, is capable of absolutely silly damage in battlegrounds.  So the bug is firmly back in me and apparently it was a tad contagious because Shrinn who is playing again and Olli my oldest son and I have a plan to form a 3's team and compete together in arena.  Sure that either yelling through the house or over vent we will have a lot of laughs.
  Grai for those that are wondering is enjoying semi-retirement in Stormwind doing his JC dailys and slowly leveling engineering. I'm sure he will resurface at some point,either getting beat on as the meat shield out front or standing in the back healing away.
  Just figure I say hi after the long silience and see if anyone is left to say Hi back