It's time to come clean...

The first step is admitting you have a problem. I...was addicted to arcane specialization. I called myself an Arcanist and was proud of it, even if I was met with derision for not being frost. However, my tenure as an Arcanist has now come to end.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was afraid of fire specialization. Back in the day, if you were raiding Molten Core, it was either frost or GTFO. I rebelled against frost almost entirely for that reason, and fire didn't look exactly appealing either. Arcane was a pretty easy choice for me to make. However, yesterday I unlearned all my talents on a whim and tried out fire.

I discovered I had a higher calling as a Fire Mage. For some reason, didn't think I'd be able to control it. Specialization for a mage doesn't exactly turn the class mechanics upside down. Looking back on it, it seems silly of me to have been fearful of the power a fire mage wields. I've fully embraced the specialization now, maybe I'll even work up enough courage to play with fire.

The Level Seventy Arms Race

So now my mage has reached the level cap. I even respecced to frost (arcane is still my true passion) just to play around. Now everyone in our guild's main group has a seventy alt, the race is over.

...

So now what?

Well as any seasoned World of Warcraft player knows, the game doesn't end at level seventy. In fact one could say that it actually begins there. Alot of content opens up for a level seventy player; like dailies, heroics, and raids. Dailies bring an extra spice to the game and allow you to complete quests even if you done just about ever quest imaginable in Outland. On top of that, they can be completed again every day. Heroics are Outland dungeons that have been scaled up in difficulty. Monsters inside will hit harder, dish out more damage, and bosses might even have a new trick.

Raids, however, is a different story. Our guild is rather small and insular. I can see eight players being online at the same time, but even then the stars have to align. The problem is that the starting raid instance, Karazhan, requires ten people. Not only that, but some people just aren't cut out for the challenge raids provide. Raids are long, difficult, and tend to make people cranky after dieing for the umpteenth time. I'm looking forward to the day my guild throws their hat into the ring, but I guess for now we'll be running heroics and getting some nice purples.

But all work and no play make Jack a dull kid. WoW isn't the only game I want to play. I deserve a little "me" time now right?

A Most Epic Encounter

So the Midsummer Fire Festival began yesterday. I was up early that day so I was able to take advantage of being one of the first people to take down the new summer boss, Lord Ahune, the imposing frost elemental pictured above.

We entered Slave Pens with a party consisting of my hunter, a mage, a druid, a paladin, and a rogue. Our first crack at him went horrifically wrong. We only barely made it to the second wave. The basic idea of the fight is to have the tank hold aggro on a big ice elemental while the DPS attack the smaller ones that attempt to kill the healer. Meanwhile Ahune is laughing in the background and causing icicles to jut out of the ground that pop you up into the air.

Getting back to that encounter, now we're on our fourth try. We've been getting progressively better at fighting him. Every time the big ice elemental minion is down for awhile, his core is exposed. It happens a few times during the fight and you have to burn him down as much as possible. Because Lord Ahune can't be tanked, it's okay to blow everything you have on him. Unfortunately we weren't able to kill him. We were close to leaving when we found out we still had one more chance. The healer was able to summon him once more so everyone prepared for the fight. A few people needed repairs and some enterprising players brought potions and I brought food consumables and Mana Oils.

We were ready.

My job this time was to kill all the little elementals while everyone attacked the bigger one. Once the core was exposed we burned him down about 35%! On the second wave of elementals, we knew that I couldn't handle them alone so now the mage assists me in protecting the druid. At this point we understood our roles and it was just a matter of doing it. The core is exposed again and chip off another solid block of his health. The third wave has the same results but he has a little too much health left to kill at this wave. We leverage our full might but at 10% we can see that Lord Ahune will surface once again. 3%...2%...1%...0! Lord Ahune is destroyed and Azeroth is safe once again.

Well not quite because it seems we were so close to the fourth wave that Lord Ahune actually summoned another big ice elemental to kill us. One of my party members remarked that it was "One for the road" and we all took that to heart and killed him together. While I may not have gotten anything other than a new tabard, I had alot of fun. It was a great feeling being able to be the one who explain the fight to someone who's like "WTF just happened?!" and experiencing new content before anyone else.

P.S. Crypt is doing fine. He even joined in on the festivities.

All For One And One For All

My guildmates and I tried out some 3v3 arena. I've been curious about it for awhile now. We lost just about every game we played, not that we thought we could win anyway. The biggest problem our team is facing is gear discrepancy.

That aside, we don't have enough experience working as a team yet. We don't have any strategies like that sacrificial warlock that ran in dotting everyone. Healers are hard to shut down and end up enabling others to crush our team.

It was defintely a learning experience for me and I can't wait to try it again.

What is this i don't even...

Why so mad?

Some people take this game way too seriously. Sure we were down 700 points in Eye of the Storm, but you didn't have to lash out at everyone playing the damn game. If we lost it's because you didn't bother contributing because the Alliance built up a sizable lead on us. I don't understand the mentality of people demanding that we just bend over and lose the game. I've never seen that happen and I highly doubt it will ever happen anyway. Players are way more likely to rally than to just give up.

Of course we lost, but that didn't stop the guy from mouthing off about how he is right and how everyone else was a loser. Man, fuck that guy.

Polymorph: Turtle!

So yesterday we tried to kill a boss in Zul'Gurub in order to get the Polymorph: Turtle book for my mage. While we failed to actually kill the boss, we did get first hand experience with what the boss does and what we need to actually kill him. After it resets, I hope to try again with the priest who egged me on for level 70 and the usual Kung Fu Scientists crew.

Not Again!

It's the bane of my existence. Because I have a sub-par connection, I am no stranger to this screen. It's a real pain when you have people who're waiting on you to log back on so we can continue what we were doing. One day it was down for an extended period and I felt bad because my guild mate waited for about fifteen minutes for me to try to log back on. I hate it and wish it would go away.

The Curtain Falls

So there I was, a level 69 grinding in Shadowmoon Valley about to log off for the night when a priest I was talking to told be I could grind ten bars in half an hour. I called bullshit and bet him fifty gold that he was wrong. He changed the terms of the bet, that I was to level in netherstorm and the time be extended to one hour and in return I told him if I was staying up, he was too.

Easily the best fifty gold I ever made. It actually took about two hours and a half. In fact, I barely made it before the server had to shut down! I only had time to hearth and buy my flying mount. It was an experience I won't soon forget.

How did you ding 70?

Toward the Climax

So my hunter just reached level 69 which means he's one level away from maxing out. I think it's okay now to go into detail about the origin of this blog's name. I've already introduced my Mage and my Hunter.

I doubt I was holding you in any kind of suspense, but yes, I do in fact have another Hunter. His name was Verdant.

The long and short of it is that I quit before Burning Crusade. During that interim, I was hacked and someone leveled my hunter from 60 to 70. After having retrieved my account back from the hacker, I couldn't play my hunter anymore. Everything my hunter wore? Gone. All of the friends on my list? Gone. All of my pets? Gone. Even my god damn name was changed.

So I packed up and moved out of Laughing Skull and settled in on Ysera. There I roll with the Kung Fu Scientists, and I haven't looked back since.

P.S. I tamed a Dire Raven the other day. So far he's proving to be an ample replacement for Romulus and a valuable ally.

An Open Letter to a Lost Friend

Dear Romulus,

What can I say? We had some good times together. We laughed while collecting the heads of our enemies, we cried when we discovered your bat-wife was pregnant, but now it's time to say goodbye. I only have three stable slots and you don't fulfill my needs anymore.

The people I've met don't like you. You've grown too big and they don't like trying to click on the enemy and then end up clicking on you. The screeching sound you make grates on their nerves; I'd teach you a different move but the only other thing you can learn is Bite (rank 9)...you can't even learn Claw (Rank 9)! You're a very picky eater as well. None of my other pets eat fruit or fungus, which I have to go out of my way to purchase and keep around for when I needed you. Most of all, the bat family is of the damage dealing type, but there are other pets who do that job much better.

Regretfully, I have to end our relationship. I'm sorry you couldn't see me grow to level 70 like we promised, but hey, we hit 60 together...that's a milestone isn't it? I know I wasn't the best partner either. I left you behind as you got killed and then resurrected you after I was in a safe spot. Sure you were still alive, but it was usually my fault we were in that situation. I do my best to keep you alive but when you're killing scores of enemies, sometimes it's hard to keep track of your health bar. I'm not much for long goodbyes, but hell, I'll miss you old friend.

Hoping to visit your bat-wife and bat-children,
Raikage

This is goodbye

We Did It

Hello World.

The Running Game

"Aw man. That was the first time I died in awhile."

A warlock friend, who was playing in a different zone asked me what happened. "I had two monsters on me, so I sat there and watched them kill me. My Feign Death was on cooldown and I didn't have any health potions left," I told him. "You didn't try to run?" he asked. "Well I barely had a thousand health , I'm dazed, and these guys are hitting me for two-hundred. Where was I gonna go?"

So it goes.

In World of Warcraft, a fair amount of time is spent running away from fights you can't win, and that's if you can run away at all. If you are running away from a monster, they have a chance to cause you to be "Dazed" which effectively halves your movement speed. If you happen to be mounted, not only are you dismounted, but now for the next four seconds you have to either fight the monster or run out of it's combat range so you can mount again.

Hunters are easily one of the best classes for this. We can send our pets as a distraction while we run away, set a freezing trap to stop pursuers in their tracks, and basically dump combat mode every thirty seconds. In contrast, Warriors probably have it the worst; other classes like Mages can Frost Nova, Rogues can Sprint away and Vanish from sight entirely, Warlocks can makes enemies run in Fear and the rest can heal themselves. Warriors have none of these benefits. So when a fight is going bad for them, they'll usually have no other recourse other than to die fighting.

Now I'm in Hellfire Peninsula, a zone I'm a little high for and ...wait, what's that flying buzz saw heading towards me?

So it goes.

Warsong Gulch

Yesterday I entered Warsong Gulch (commonly truncated to WSG) for the first time in years. It's not a popular Battleground by any means and personally not my favorite. I would have gone to Alterac Valley had it been the Daily Quest that day. If you aren't familiar with WSG, basically each team has flag at either side of the map. The goal of the game is to retrieve the enemies flag and return to your base three times before the opposing team. In this particular round, the Alliance were already up two flag returns and then something within me changed.

Suddenly I was determined not to lose, and when I saw their flag carrier barreling toward the Alliance tunnel...well I couldn't help myself! With our flag safely back in our base, I set my sights on the enemy flag and boy was it guarded. Now I had begun to understand the malaise that had fallen on my team. Not only that, but the only player (Me) even attempting to take their flag was a Mage, probably the least ideal class for the job, and I'm not even Frost spec!

Understandably, I died several times in the process of taking their flag. Most of the time I had not even escaped the room where the flag was kept. Then a miracle happened. Apparently someone took the fight to the flag room because all hell broke loose. In the confusion I was able to snatch the flag with nary a arrow or magic spell traced on my back. On the way out, I even met a hunter who was kind enough to use Aspect of the Pack to increase my running speed.

Now we were two-to-one.

Even though the score was changed, i hadn't noticed any extra effort coming from my team. The tactic of "take the flag and get the hell out of town" wasn't working anymore. Another failed attempt and I grumbled while I waited to resurrected so I could try again. Amazingly though, a Horde Hunter (the one who helped me earlier) happened to be nearby (who I didn't even see before) managed to pickup the flag I dropped (which happens automatically when you die, it's at this point a flag can be returned to your base) and run it out of their base. While this was going on, one of the Alliance had grabbed our flag. Now we had to retrieve our flag, while simultaneously keeping our flag carrier safe.

I told our team I would track down and assassinate the Alliance flag carrier, and suddenly players who had been deriding me for trying to win a "lost" WSG suddenly rallied to my cause. Not only were we able to kill the flag carrier, but we also escorted our Hunter safely to our Flag room.

Now we were tied!

Retrieving a flag causes both teams' flags to reset to their original position. Because I had just run to the opposite side of the base, I wasn't around to see what happened, but a Druid managed to take the flag. While I consider Mages to be the worst flag carriers, I consider Druids to be the best. At any time they can increase their armor, run 40% than other players, and heal themselves. Though that Druid had little support (most our team was on our side of the battleground) he had managed to both take the flag and escape the flag room on his own, which isn't to say he had no resistance. Riding up to our the druid I saw several Alliance members attacking him. My comrades and I dismounted and began assisting him by slowing down the attack squad and healing the Druid.

That wasn't all though, as the alliance quickly called for reinforcements, while we had done the same. It seemed like our flag carrier was constantly under attack through the full run back to our base. Then, of course, an Alliance member took our flag again! Luckily our team managed to retrieve just when we started making our final run towards the tunnel. When we reached the tunnel, I was keep them frozen in place by using Frost Nova. A player broke through my frozen blockade (as they inevitably do) however I had a polymorph spell with his name on it. With the druid in tow, I ran with him in order to make sure we didn't run into anymore trouble. He capped the flag, winning the game I fought so hard for.

And all because Warsong Gulch happened to be that day's Daily Quest.

The victory screenshot