Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Cata Beta: Hyjal Screenies

I didn’t post it on here yet, but I got into the Cataclysm beta about a week ago on one of my accounts. I decided to spend time first with the Worgen. In addition, I wanted to play around with the new Hunter changes including the beginner experience.

So, I created a Worgen Hunter named Frikkin (why not?). It fits with my naming convention (all F’s) and goes well with the name I wanted to give my pet (and eventually did, you’ll notice if you see the screenshot), Frak. So, anyway.. I have now gotten through almost all of the initial Worgen starting experience, I believe, and I have to say that, any bugs aside, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have ever had starting a new character. I think this even trumps the Death Knight starting zone and set of quests. I have heard that the Goblin one is even better, but I am thinking I might save that one until Cata goes live (we’ll see).

The feel of the zone is really great. The new landscape phasing is put to good use here too pretty early on. They did an amazing job with the storytelling and I hear that all throughout Cata you will want to start reading the quest text and paying attention to what NPCs have to say (maybe turn on chat bubbles? ). I did have issues with the last (I think) “main” quest bugging out on me, but I’m sure that will be fixed. I especially liked the guy with the checkerboard-cube hat (yeah, I know that is pretty common in the beta.. I was in WotLK beta too).

So, what about the Hunter changes? I’m not all that positive so far about the change to use Focus. I DO like not having mana anymore but I think the regen is just not right yet on the focus side. Of course, I am playing low level so that feeling might change as I progress/login to a high level hunter. The part where you get a pet early on is great, although you can’t control him/her. It basically just attacks whatever you are attacking. The only thing I find odd is that it doesn’t seem to explain what all the abilities are that you get at level 10 once you can control your pet, etc. They are the normal Hunter pet skills, but there is really no tutorial (unless I missed it) to teach you how to use them all (like feed pet, etc).

So far, I have not visited any old zones or new zones to check them out. I have been sequestered in the Worgen area. Additionally, addons are not enabled yet, so I have been playing with the stock UI (HORROR!). Amazingly enough, I can actually play with this thing.. Odd..   Ok. That’s all I have so far. Nothing really exciting on the LIVE wow front, although I did join a group on Fimlys that killed Algalon which was cool. Of course, we were all decked out in our ICC shinies, so it kinda felt like cheating.. Too Bad!  

Have a good one!

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Frikkin Frak do Beta

This is a follow-up from yesterday’s Ruby Sanctum post, of course. The run I had to bail on two nights ago didn’t get Halion down, so last night we got the band back together and tried again. And again.. And again.. And again (a few more times).. And.. KILLED HIM/HER/IT!!!!!

There was lots of gnashing of teeth and changes to some of the strategies and so on and so forth during our 5 or so wipes. But, in the end, we did it! It was not very difficult (although we lost a bunch of ppl in the Twilight realm to the beams when we were at about 2%) but it takes a LOT of coordination. Watching the % Twilight/Physical during Phase 3 is essential as is avoiding the beams in the Twilight realm during Phase 2 and 3. Handling the decursing and where you move (out of the raid!) when you get the curse is important too.

While I said it wasn’t difficult, realize that we are a 25man raid where most, if not all, of the people have been doing ICC over and over and over since it’s been out. We’ve got pretty good gear at this point. I’m not sure where RS is supposed to be on the difficulty scale compared to ICC. I think the coordination part was important and I actually enjoyed the mechanics of the fight there and if this is a taste of what we will see on the boss fights in Cataclysm, I’m excited!

Ok, just wanted to update you all on our success. I didn’t get any loot, but what I saw looked nice. A trinket dropped that had ArP and +AP on proc that my Hunter was crying over.. (Yes, I brought the Druid) I wonder if we are going to go do this in 10man tonight? If so, I’m gonna try to bring the hunter.. Just watch, boomkin loot will drop.. ;P

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

The Twilight Destroyer is…

I logged in for a bit last night prior to recording TNB and got invited to our 25man Raid. The Ruby Sanctum had opened and we wanted to head right in and kick some Dragonkin butt. So… We headed on in and promptly wiped to the first Trash Pack. No, it wasn’t because we weren’t doing CC (although that might have helped). Well, I guess off tanking them could be considered CC, eh? It was because we took that same nonchalant attitude we have been taking in ICC for a while. Just Kill Em All! Well, not single targeting doesn’t really work.

So, we came back in and starting single target taking down the groups and had much better luck that way. There are a few packs that have a mob called Charscale Commander. For these, they had one of the druids (me actually) Hibernate this guy while we killed the rest of the pack. Reason? He does a buff to the other mobs and that makes the fight much harder. So, you keep him on ice (or well, asleep) until done with the rest.

The 3 mini-bosses actually weren’t so bad. I have to say that Saviana Ragefire was probably what I would consider the most difficult. She does an AOE “curse” type thing that puts a bunch of the raid on fire and you have to be away from everyone else while this is going on or other will get hit by it. We still ended up one-shotting her with more than 1/2 the raid dead… Baltharus the Warborn and General Zarithrian aren’t too bad but require off-tanking to be on the ball.

For Baltharus, he splits off some copies of himself that need to be tanked and all the DPS need to make sure they stay on HIM and ignore the adds. Zarithrian also spawns adds, but he spawns Dragonkin. They all seemed to be spellcasters so just have an offtank try to tank them as best you can or have a few of the peeps in the raid try to CC them and get back to killing the boss. In general DPS should concentrate on Zarithrian and there shouldn’t be much of a problem even with a ton of adds milling about (Healers really have to be on the ball, though).

What about Halion… Well, we didn’t get it down, well, at least while I was on. I had to bug out after a couple tries. There are 3 phases here and all I know is the key to Phase 2 is staying away from the Freaking Balls with Freaking Laser Beams… All in all, if your raid is well geared for ICC ad maybe you are doing a few Heroic modes in 10man even then I think you will not have all that much of a problem with this Raid.

Don’t forget to VOTE on the sidebar about what you are doing about Blizzcon 2010!

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Ruby Sanctum : Fire Fire Fire…

Look!! It’s the front of the Anaheim Convention Center.. Home of BLIZZCON!

Yeah, I’m just fooling around with the beta of Windows Live Writer.. But .. I think That’s pretty cool anyway.

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

View from Above

First off, I want to say that I KNOW that the ICC buff is up to 25%. Secondly, I also want to say that I am proud of our 25man group. Why? Because we are 11/12 as of last night! Yes, we are only doing regular modes, but this is an achievement for us. We even got Sindragosa down on the second try (again, I know… 25%).. That fight is not all about DPS, it’s also about where you stand when you get the ice block so as to not ice block the WHOLE RAID… Anyway. I was excited. I didn’t get anything for the run at all (booo) and all the tokens that dropped were the pally, priest, warlock variety. I did have fun though. It’s nice to kill stuff! Woot!

So anyway, tonight is 10man again. We’ve been doing the hard modes in 10man which is nice, but I’m still not needing most of the stuff that drops there. Really, I don’t need much at all for the hunter and druid except for a good trinket.. That would be nice.

I spent the time before the raid getting my addons working correctly with 3.3.5 and playing a little with the RealID system. One cool feature that I don’t remember being mentioned is the ability to have a multi-way conversation with your realid friends. And.. You can include friends that the people you are chatting with don’t have as friends.. You could use this to introduce someone to someone else so they can see if they want to friend them and also to just have as a communication device. I had a few issues with getting WIM to work right with RealID. Even the newer version told me there was no such person when I tried to talk with RealID friends. I’m going to try out Cellular which is supposedly a lighter-weight version of WIM. I like the functionality of WIM, so I hope I can get it to work..

Had some other issues with Prat. One of the features of prat (at least I thought it was) used to be moving the chat edit box to the TOP of the chatbox.. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to do that again.  Either it was removed, I am just blind, or it was never there to begin with.

Another BIG problem I had with 3.3.5 and addons was with Fubar. It was, for lack of a better term, completely “fubared”.. (yeah yeah). So, I picked up Fortress which is a Broker container and got that all setup with both my fubar plugins (via fubar2broker) and just other broker addons. If anyone knows of a Broker container they like better than Fortress, let me know. I don’t MIND fortress, but i’d like something that maybe could auto setup all of the addons in a fubar-like way at the top.. Anyway, I might move back to fubar if/when they get it all working right. I haven’t tried logging into another char, so I don’t know how they are doing with regards to addons.

So, that’s about it so far from 3.3.5. No Ruby Sanctum yet, so I can’t comment/put up tips for that yet. But I plan to when it’s up. Thanks for listening (well reading) to me blabber on..

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

This One Goes to 25

I recently also started leveling my Warlock again recently. Haven’t gained any levels (she’s still sitting at 72), but I’ve been trying to get through a bunch of quests in Dragonblight.

That’s it. See, not much! (I don’t even have a screenshot)

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Slowtime

Ok.. I played the “I want a Blizzcon ticket” game last night.. And lost.

BUT! I win the “Having the most awesome friends in the whole world” game! And who is this awesome friend that just happened to pick up some extra tickets!?!?! If you couldn’t tell from the title of this post.. Hydra from Almost Evil!

OMGOMGOMG.. I was seriously upset at not getting a ticket because I really can’t try again on Saturday.. My son has his Championship baseball game that starts EXACTLY when tickets go on sale.. Bah!

I was bummed.. Figured I was going to have to beg and plead and plead and beg and even maybe plead some more and also beg some more for someone to pick up an extra ticket for my on Saturday. But then.. I get an email from Hydra.. “Hey, you need a ticket?”. Can you say relieved?

So, anyway.. This whole post is just so I can, again, say THANK YOU! to Hydra….

*Happy Dance*

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Not Quite So Evil

Well, it is actually kinda dark in the convention center. Actually, aside from the catchy title, I really don’t have much to post (yeah right). I’m excitedly awaiting the process of getting my Blizzcon 2010 tickets. I think, at this point, I’m picking up 3 of the 5 you are allowed “per household”. Last year I only picked up one, but I had no issues getting in line both days of the ticket sale. This year they changed it up a bit and have the first sale at night (at least for us) on a Wednesday (tonight!). The second day is Saturday morning/afternoon (again, for the U.S.). So, if I hop on the fail whale tonight, I can always try on Saturday too.

If you can’t tell, I’m really looking forward to Blizzcon 2010. It’s all the way in October, but these things have a way of creeping up on you. I’ve already got my hotel booked (and even got the price lowered already!) and have ideas about flights, etc. Once I have confirmation that I “won” the ability to buy a ticket, (Well, it’s like a “fastest fingers” comeptition.. ) I’ll start pricing out the flights and see if I can use some Freq. Flier miles to get em.

I’m excited to see the people I met last year and also all the people I’m connected with since the last one that have said they are attending. I think this year will be even more “awesomer” (or somesuch).

Ok.. I’m done spewing.. I’ll let you know if I get my tickets tonight! I’ll wave from the queue if you are in there too.. Save me a spot!

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

So Dark the Con of Blizz

Wow. It’s been a crazy week. Not only did we do our first of many live TNB recordings on our new night (Tuesdays), but I was also on a podcast the Friday before… And the Friday after!

The Friday prior, I was on Women of Warcraft. Yes, yes. I know.. I am not a woman. But, Molly asked me to be her first guest host, and I was honored to accept. Go ahead and listen to Episode 10. This is her new Audio podcast. She’’s been doing the vidcast thing for much longer and is on Episode 57, I think. There were some issues with the recording because we had to use a technology with a lot of lag.. But I think, in the end, it was great anyway. It was definitely lots of fun hanging with Molly for the evening.. Even if I was about 30 seconds behind..

And then? Well, there’s this new show at WowTitans.Net .. Curiously enough.. It’s called the Wow Titans Cast. Or something like that.. Anyway, I was invited by Ravonbrand to be their second guest (what!? Not the first.. [jk]). I was happy to oblige and they even stayed up till the wee hours in the morning to accommodate my schedule (thanks guys!). So, you should go take a listen to THAT episode too..

So, if you just can’t get enough of “yours truly” (*cough* *cough).. Well, there are 2 more places you can hear me babble on endlessly (although a little less endlessly than TNB and Polygamerous.. well, maybe)..

Post from: Asleep at the WoW

Lag and Bees