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Was a ton of fun getting this down. Overall a pretty enjoyable fight.

We are now 2/8 in 25 man Heroic DS and will definitely get to 3/8 or 4/8 this week.

We are still looking for a couple of DPS, Healers, and a Tank/DPS…. probably looking for 3-5 more players to make sure we can keep progression rolling and avoid a night where 1-2 missing raiders pushes us back… again…

Anyone interested in joining a strong, fun 25 man raiding guild APPLY

Fortunately (or unfortunately) there has not really been anything worth posting about. Currently I am 1/8 in DS Heroics with my/our success limited by difficulty getting 25 people consistently on to raid.

Currently the guild I am raiding with, Requiem is the only 25 man Horde guild on Drenden, and I believe only 1 of 2 25 man raiding guilds on Drenden when you include Alliance.

We are looking for good-exceptional raiders, all classes but could really use some good healers. Wanting folks that enjoy playing multiple specs, heals and dps preferred. We have a solid tanking core so really no opportunity there.

We raid 10pm-1am EST Tue/Thur and 9pm-1am EST Sun. If anyone is interested please check out the WEBSITE and submit an application.

The guild is full of mature players, really good people, and we have a lot of fun.

Although I have yet to do an LFR I am looking forward to taking my Alt Hunter through at some point.

A lot of people sound happy about the new found ability to down and see endgame content they previously didn’t have the time or ability to see.
A few people sound upset about making what is supposed to be a very Powerful Dragon easy to defeat essentially killing the soul and RP portion of the game.

Personally I like the job Blizzard has done here.

My guild was able to go in and kill the boss on normal in the first week. It was surprising but I know a lot of other guilds that couldn’t do it so yes it was easier than I expected but not super easy. We had seen a lot of the content in the PTR and that is what contributed to such a fast and early clear. Now we look forward to spending time clearing everything on heroic and working on the achievements for our mounts. (We killed the first boss on Heroic Tue night).

What is nice is you now have 3 levels of difficulty to please 3 different cross sections of players.

LFR – Super Easy mode for the less skilled or players without the time to commit to full time raiding.
Normal – Medium mode for those with the time and decent skill. This rewards achievements so other people in the game will know the type of player you are skill and time wise.
Heroic – Very difficult mode. This takes a large time commitment and a lot of skill. These rewards and achievements also let others in the game know your level of involvement playing.

All in all, raiding now offers something for everyone. It honestly does not bother me that the LFR offers a faceroll option to see more content in the game. It also might be a gateway for players that would never even get to participate in a raid interested in trying it on some of the harder levels. I don’t know if people wanting to move on to harder versions would have the skill needed but at the very least they would have some understanding of the fight mechanics so they could at least give it a shot if the opportunity presented itself.

Anyway, there is a pretty long thread going over at the forums about the whole thing HERE

Feel free to chime in with your opinion, I think it is good for Blizzard to get feedback of how this is effecting their player base, or at least the cross-section of it that goes and posts on the forums.

As easy as that makes this final raid of an expansion sound our guild is pretty darn good, however I will say the normal content in this raid is easier than I would have expected. I am going to assume Heroic is going to be extremely tough.

It seems to me more than ever that Heroics are the new normals, normals are the new easy, and LFR is just a loot pinata or as another guildy put it, a fancy target dummy. I have yet to do a LFR but it sounds like they are pretty successful so I hope to get my Alt Hunter in one soon.

Right now I am working on my Alt Hunters transmorg set. She is a blood elf so I can have some fun there. It is not much fun doing a Transmorg on a druid cow… but I can fire kitty so whatever.

The new Darkmoon Faire is… well… disappointing. Maybe I am missing something but it seems to me that was a complete waste of dev time. Sorry Dev’s, sometimes you lay an egg and well I call it as I see it. The local is neat as well it’s design but the games and the whole concept seems lame to me.

As a side note for those kitties that have not done the last fight in Dragon Soul, everything can be shred from the front. Don’t know why it was so easy to do this for this fight but not for some of the previous but whatever… probably needed time to work on the faire

A lot of gamers I know are going to be playing SWTOR. Not sure if I am going to have time for that while raiding Heroic DS and farming my hunters last fer transmorg items but I will prob get into it before the MoP expansion.

A note on Transmorg, it can be fun and addicting. Download the WOW Model Viewer and start making sets. It is interesting to see how easy and hard making a nice matching set can be. The one I am working on now had only one option in the pant slot from a quest back in Northrend. Lucky for me I had not done it before. I recommend starting with a favorite weapon or weapons and moving on to a set that compliments it/them.

Lets take a look at the new talents available, and let me start by saying it’s weird to have a bunch of talents to choose from that don’t necessarily give any kind of advantage to my main role as a damage dealer. Here is a LINK to the full descriptions of every talent.

The first choice is between Feline Swiftness, Displace Beast, and Tireless Pursuit. I think the constant 20% increase to speed while in cat form is a no brainer here, the others look more useful for PvP. Granted there might be particular PvE boss encounters that might favor one of the others but in general I think FS is the way to go.

The next level we choose between Nature’s Swiftness, Renewal, and Cenarion Ward. Let me say that I like the last option the best as it gives us the ability of an instant cast HoT while in Cat form. This screams raid utility to me and from a kitty that prides himself on helping the raid beyond just dealing damage I like the difference this could make in a PvE encounter.

Next we choose between Faerie Swarm, Mass Entaglement, and Typhoon. I think here Typhoon will be what I choose, an in Cat form knockback… SWEET! Faerie Swarm is replacing FF and depending on raid comp might be needed instead but I raid 25 man I am going to wager the debuff can be applied by someone else. The ME talent might be useful in certain encounters but is not castable in Cat form so I kinda don’t like it.

The next level we have Wild Charge, Incarnation, and Force of Nature. From a shear DPS vantage point I kinda like Force of Nature if the trees do high damage. It’s castable in Cat form and easy DPS. The other 2 talents sound similar with one having a charge component and the other one not. Wild Charge seems pretty dumb actually, It puts me behind the boss and lets me ravage without a positioning requirement… ah… yeah, ok. Incarnation looks the best, which allows ravages from behind without the need of being in stealth. It looks like with this talent we would open with berserking and ravaging our butts off with the 50% increase to crit with ravage at boss health above 80%…. interesting.

The next level is my first disappointment. 2 of the 3 choices are basically for bear as using them puts us into bear form automatically. So we choose from Demo Roar, Bear Hug, and Ursol’s Vortex. I am so picking UV here, not that as a kitty we have much choice. It’s an AoE grip usable in Cat form. That is just sick OP if you think about it. In PvE we get to suck mobs to us and swipe… I freaking love it. It makes us an adds magnet (or lets us pick a spot for the magnet) for 15 seconds. Honestly this is probably an awesome raid utility on fights with a pesky add phase.

Our last selection at level 90 is a complete disappointment. Heart of the Wild, Master Shapeshifter, Distanglement. HotW is most likely the given as it takes Hit to 100% and gives us an INT boost from agility which will improve our utility heals. The other 2 look very PvP centric.

The last cool thing to note, and I don’t know how the heck they are going to actually get this to work in game is Symbiosis. Basically we get to target another player and grab an ability belonging to that targets class within the limits of our specialization. This has buggy written all over it imho. Our target gets one of our abilities, also based on our spec. It sounds pretty cool as we get the special for an hour and it lasts through death so basically we will be doing this before a fight starts but I might see where a mid fight application might prove useful. If we get to use this attack in kitty form I say cool, Kitty Pyro? Kitty Chain Lightning? Ok, probably not since we would have to be in boom spec for that I would guess. So Kitty FoK / Swipe AoE craziness? Lots of possibilities here and I am sure some leet guild will figure out some way to exploit this running a party of half druids to down some heroic boss.

All in all, I guess these changes have the ability to drastically change the way we play our kitty. The question is do we use this stuff? Does it matter in terms of DPS? Will it make playing more fun? My guess is at first playing might be more entertaining but in the end if my damage sucks I won’t be happy.

1. For a game releasing in Dec. it should be less buggy. – Elevators. I mean come on.
2. WOW with Lightsabers. WOW with my own ship. WOW where everyone is a hunter with a pet (Everyone gets a companion… or 4… they hang out on your ship and you get to pick which one to take on away missions… fun.
3. Cut scene quest dialog is cool… at first… then it wears on you, especially in Flashpoints (4 man dungeons) where you have to wait for each person to pick a response (They get like 2 minutes per response). Honestly Flashpoints will take longer than WOW 5 mans, worse if you are pugging.
4. Crafting is sweet as you can send you companion to do it, even if you are logged out!
5. Companions are sweet as they can tank for you and go sell your vendor trash while you do something else.
6. Questing is meh for the exception of your class questing which can be a pretty interesting story line. The rest are similar to any other MMO but with voice acting.

So, I enjoyed checking the game out but I am uncertain if people after the newness wears off will want to keep leveling to an uncertain endgame content if they have shiny max level characters in WOW with a newly released patch and expansion looming (Yes, even an expansion with Panda’s)

So that was my short SWTOR take, if anyone has any specific questions just ask away.

Skyrim on the other hand, even with it’s bugs, has sucked me in pretty good. The graphics, sound, and voice acting are all amazing and the story and interaction with the NPC’s, objects, and the world is very cool. I am purposefully not reading about the game online because I started looking for information and started running into hacks and what not. I am finding walking through the game in kinda a constantly learning mode refreshing. I hear of people grinding crafting, exploiting ways to level skills, etc and I have decided to ignore all that and just follow the various quests and story lines. So far I am surprised by how quickly the time can pass as I am playing. I would definitely say it’s worth buying as it is a very different experience from what is out there. It’s funny after years of just playing WOW playing a game like Skyrim with a save feature just feels like cheating.

In WOW I am still working on Heroic Rags in 25 man waiting for the patch to hit. We have made some progress as we are getting to sub 40% tries pretty cleanly now but we are having a hard time stringing together really good attempts and days with full attendance. I think everyone is really looking forward to the patch and DragonSoul.

I am going to assume everyone has heard about Pandaville. I am excited about the Monk class. I am not excited about leveling another toon from level 1, however my 5 year old will get a kick (no pun intended) on sitting on my lap and helping me level a Panda Monk (If it is still available Po). I think the baby pets game could be fun while not doing anything else in game or waiting for a raid to start. Blizzard probably added this so everyone could feel like a hunter without having to play SWTOR. If it slows down 5 man pugged instances any slower than they already are I am going to puke. I like the speed rated 5 mans, something fun I think. I like the idea of gear with no stats as rewards for transmorg use.

I have no plans on Race changing to a Panda, of course with that awesome racial I might be reconsidering when progression raiding starts… if they allow Druid Panda’s…. which is unlikely and I assume already not in the plans because it would mean new artwork for Panda Druid forms… well, maybe not bear form… duh.

I am not totally sold on the 4T12 bonus of extending Berserk and I honestly wonder if 2T12 with offset and more shreds < 25% would be better. I do agree that capping Expertise and Hit is worth doing, maybe even with just 2T12. I dunno, I might start playing with my setups some.

I ditched herbalism for leatherworking. So now I am enchanting and leatherworking… fun.

I might do a little raiding tomorrow night in the PTR. Will report back if this actually happens.

Hopefully we find some time for Heroic Throne of the Four Winds, which sounds possible as the RL and Co GM makes it sound like the last thing we want to do is spend too much time on Heroic Rags.

I have been fortunate with gear and all I have left outside of Heroic Rag drops…

• Widow’s Kiss
• Obsidian Arborweave Grips
• Choker of the Vanquished Lord
• Flickering Wristbands
• Upgrading Idol and Belt to Heroic.

Basically right now I am running a 4T12 set with non Heroic gloves and using Heroic Helm offset item. Because of running 4T12 I am reforging into Hit/Expertise to the cap and Haste above all else. Technically this is the way to go running 4T12, if you are not in 4T12 it’s best to maximize Mastery in reforge wherever possible and ignore Hit/Expertise caps just like the old days.

So Blizzard has announced that they will be selling (For Real Monies) a pet that is not Bound. You will be able to sell it on the AH. So people will be able to buy the pet for real money and then turn around in game and sell it for gold if they like.

Interesting.

Obviously this is not a perfect or guaranteed $ to Gold conversion as no one knows what the value of the pet will be in Gold or what the demand for it will be. I am guessing though it won’t take long to find out and the conversion will begin.

I really don’t know how I feel about this, but in a sense it feels a little dirty.

I wish I could say my first computer was an Apple… but I am too old for that. But my first usable computer was an Apple IIc that my Mom bought me in high school that went with me to college. You know, a computer that did more than just play games and run basic scripts in a loop on a cassette tape.

R.I.P Steve, I am sure you were a large part of why I have a career in IT.