New characters, new blog!

After taking several months off...and disposing of our old accounts (yeah yeah...we took the low road, I know), Zenos and I are back for the expansion! We bought new accounts, rerolled on Frostwolf as blood elves, and we're looking forward to starting a new adventure! We're retiring this blog, but check out our new blog:

Mana Addicts

Our new characters are Serenia and Severan...a hunter and mage combo! Come join us in our adventures in WoW!

Tag, eh?

Ok, so I see that I've been "tagged" by Sinker. 5 things you don't know about me...here goes.

1. I have a mini-dachshund named Coal. He just turned 6 months old on Christmas. We got him in early November. Ok...some of you did know that since I have mentioned the new dog in this blog once or twice...but oh well!

2. I graduated from Washington State University in 2006, with a BA in Political Science and History. Yet I'm working for a tiny little IT place in Seattle. Go figure. EVENTUALLY I want to do something with History, I just don't know what yet. Maybe go back to school and get a masters and who knows what else.

3. I LOVE Stephen King books. I'm a huge fan. Zenos and I actually went to a Stephen King lecture in Seattle this past November. He was hilarious! I wasn't expecting someone who writes books like that to be so funny!

4. Bon Jovi is a god!!! I get made fun of soooo much for loving Bon Jovi, but I really don't care because I know that the band is awesome and everyone else can just go screw themselves :P Zenos and I had a Bon Jovi song for our "first dance" at our wedding! :)

5. We're planning on moving sometime in the near future. Hoping to put our apartment days behind us and buy a condo. I'm really looking forward to that! We want at least a 2 bedroom place, as we're tired of having our desks in our living room. I can't wait to buy some nice furniture for the place too!

Ok...so that's a little bit about me. I'm going to refrain from the tagging:P I've got some WoW to go play!

Quitting

"This message is being sent to confirm that all credit card information has been removed from the World of Warcraft account, effectively cancelling its recurring subscription as of November 28, 2006 4:12 AM UTC. The account will not bill or renew any further unless new payment information (credit card or game card) is manually entered in.

The account will remain playable for the remaining time it has already paid for. This account's current prepaid time will expire on January 15, 2007 12:03 PM UTC."

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So...we're quitting till expansion. At that time, we'll be rolling brand new characters. Blood Elves here we come!

Update

So, Zenos and I have pretty much stopped playing WoW. We just got a new puppy, and he's taking up a lot of our time. I have to say that I really don't miss the game all that much. We've been playing it for two years now...a break is a wonderful thing imo. We've already preordered expansion, so I know we will be gaming in some form for BC. We're probably going to reroll completely with the expansion, although that isn't for sure yet. Just what we're currently thinking.

I'm thinking a blood elf warlock, and he was thinking a blood elf mage. We'll see what happens:P

Not much new

So, not much new going on. I haven't been playing as much as I have in the past...not raiding makes me just not want to log in, lol. I have managed to get my hunter to lvl 53. She's still fun to play:P

Been busy doing IRL stuff right now...we're probably going to get a dog in the next couple of weeks, we're researching buying a cool new TV, and we are gonna be in the market for a condo in the near future. OMG...REAL LIFE! I have to say I've been enjoying it lately...

BTW, I love the holidays...and I have to admit that I like what Blizzard does in-game for the holdiays...the trick o' treating was awesome, I like the Christmas stuff...makes the game have another fun aspect and adds to the festiveness:P

Asshole Power

You're all probably wondering about the title of this post. Well...the short version is that lots of drama has occurred in the guild, and it stems from people being complete assholes. Here's a quick rundown of the current situation:

1. Prot Warrior leaves guild A to join bigger better guild B
2. Guild B breaks apart
3. Prot Warrior comes back, and an officer reinvites him to the guild
4. GM of guild A comes on, sees Prot Warrior is back and tells him to leave, and kicks him
5. Lots of people freak out, think it was a bad decision, and /gquit
6. Guild A is now split into two separate groups, and each side can now really only do 20 mans

So yeah...OMG has somewhat fallen apart. The people who gquit over this whole issue are all of the ones that I really couldn't stand and thought were assholes and immature, so in the end I really am not too sad over it all. It's unclear what will happen in the future...whether we all just kinda sit around and wait for the expansion or whether we try to build our ranks again. Zenos and I aren't sure what we're going to do...it's been wonderful having our evenings again, and not having to raid. I can't even describe how refreshing it has been.

It seems to me, after now being in three fairly stable guilds that have fallen apart, that drama and guild implosions are just what will happen to every guild, eventually. You can't keep everyone happy, people are always gonna take issue with something, and you're always gonna get those one or two assholes in the guild who just like to cause shit to hit the fan.

One thought that Zenos and I are just sorta kicking around is to maybe start over completely when the expansion hits. Find a new server, roll Blood Elves, and level them 1 to 70. It's just a thought, and one thing that makes this a sad decision is that we'd be leaving two awesome characters behind. Zenos and Zarina are fun to play, they're geared out, and there's still a lot of good friends on Cho'gall. I can't imagine saying goodbye to some of them...although a large amount of our friends are now spread between three servers (Draenor, Cho'gall, and The Forgotten Coast).

We're kinda just wandering around now, not really knowing what is going to happen, and in some ways not even caring. I personally have to wonder if I shouldn't completely shelve the game until expansion. I do still enjoy playing it though...but just not raiding every night. Maybe not raiding at all. I really can't decide what sort of player I am. When I'm in a casual guild I'm convinced that I'm a hardcore raider and that the guild just doesn't understand. When I'm in a hardcore raiding guild, I break under the pressure and time constraints and want out. There seems to be no happy medium for me. Half the time I don't even know what it is I want in the game. One thing that I do know that I enjoy is the social aspect. I like to make friends, I like to get involved with them on a personal level (not just a congrats that they got loot, but getting to know what they do outside of the game and who they really are as a person, not just a character), and I like to play with those people.

When all is said and done, I have to wonder if I'm not just one of those people who should play a character 1-60 and then start all over, again and again. I think it's the process I really enjoy...raiding has been fun and an eye-opening experience, but in the end it's so tedious.

Anyways...this post has wandered all over the place, hope you were all able to follow it! As you can tell I'm quite confused, and not sure what the future holds for us.

Introducing....

I thought it was about time to introduce you, our faithful readers, to my first character ever in WoW. Her name is Arsinoe, and I played this character from release till about October 2005. She is on the Draenor realm.


She is now "retired," but I had a lot of good times on her. I eventually realized that I did not enjoy playing a druid, and right around that time Zenos and I rerolled anyways. She doesn't have the greatest gear, but at the time I thought she was great. She's in 7/8 cenarion (missing that damn belt!), with an aurastone hammer and a fire-runed grimoire. I spent a lot of time just exploring and socializing with this character, and I have fond memories of the first guild I was in with her, and of the great people I met (shout-out to Roxy/Sedai!).

Next up, I'd like you all to meet my current alt: Ismenia, and her trusty side-kick Orpheus!


Many of you will recognize my pet as being Humar, the only black lion in the game. I got him as soon as I hit level 23, and he's been with me ever since. I just dinged 52 tonight, and I'm having a blast just grinding with this char. I did AV just the other night for the first time, and got my icy barb spear. I also bought a Hurricane bow for her, and it's so fun! I blow through arrows so fast, but it's worth it. This character keeps me sane, as I only grind with her...no instances, no dealing with other people (for the most part), and just doing things at my own pace. I have to say that hunters are right up there with priests for me...they're both equally enjoyable. I think I enjoy hunter a tad more right now, just because it's somewhat new still, and I love having a pet!

Item Sets

Well, I finally finished the tier 0.5 quest line and received my heroism chestpiece and helm. So, just for fun I put together some pictures of the item sets I have put together. I am still missing a piece or two of might and wrath, but it does not really affect the pictures.

Heroism....lawl



Might



Wrath

Okay Okay....here's a post for Sinker:P

Alright, Sinker I'm dedicating this post to you lol:P The reason we don't post very often is we just don't have time! Between work and WoW and all the other little stuff, I have very little free time anymore :(

Ok, so yeah lots has been happening in the "new" guild. I think we've been part of our guild now for about two months or so. Things are going alright, no guild is ever perfect and almost all are full of constant drama. There's lots of priest drama, mainly because one is a lootwhore and decided that he needed 2 robes before some of us even got 1, and the other is just a complete jackass who is incredibly rude and reminds me a lot of a certain mage in the old guild...

Most of the people are cool, but there are blatant lootwhores in the guild, others who just talk too much in vent, and others who are completely full of themselves. /Ignore and mute in vent work wonders for my sanity though. Not much I can do about the lootwhores, wish the system was regulated better (that 2 robe issue would NEVER have happened in Cont...EVER). There is some inflation in our DKP system too, but supposedly they are planning to revamp the system with the expansion.

Overall I do like the guild, I think we raid too much (7 days a week....too much). We're not forced to come every night though, even though Zenos and I pretty much do. I think the guild could be a lot better if people would just try harder and not screw off (which frequently happens), but this guild still does pretty well. We clear BWL with ease, are making attempts at the Twin Emps in AQ40, and have downed Ras and Anub in Naxx.

And don't get me wrong, there are some really cool people in the guild. Most are complete perverts, so I feel right at home:P I really miss the old guildies (well some of them...) but I just couldn't bring myself to lvl another character on a new server. Zarina is my reroll character, and plus I've already done the alliance char thing:P Maybe one day when I have some more free time I'll get around to lvling over there....

Personally I think the expansion is going to change a ton of things with this game...so I'm not sure what I'll be doing in two months. I hope they change this game enough so it's fresh again...lvling to 70 should be fun though:) Looking forward to that.

Hope this is a long enough post for you, Sinker:P

Loots!

So, it's finally my turn for some loots again!

After months of wearing my ZG Flowing Ritual Robes, I finally got a new chestpiece!

Tonight in AQ40 I received Robes of the Guardian Saint!!! Some people think they're ugly, but I like them! I just wear my Argent Dawn Tabard and I think it looks sexy!

I also recently got a new wand out of Naxxramus, Wand of the Whispering Dead

Both are extremely nice items, and I'm quite excited:) Best of all, I'm not in an ugly red robe anymore! Woot!

Burning Crusade Talents and Spells

Well, anyone who keeps up with World of Warcraft news probably knows about all the information that they have released concerning the upcoming expansion.

New Races, Exploring Outland, 25 Man Raiding...and so on.

So far, everything that I have heard regarding the expansion sounds great. I feel like Blizzard is listening to their customers and trying to improve the game. Though, you never know how things will turn out until they are actually experienced (a.k.a. looks good on paper).

I believe the 25 man raid cap will have the most significant impact out of anything else they release. This change will probably cause turmoil in the majority of end game raiding guilds. I personally think it is a great idea because managing 40 people is hell. It is just too bad Blizzard did not make this decision when they initially released the game.

Anyways, on to the topic of this post. As you probably know, I play a protection warrior and have been tanking practically since I hit level 60. So, the new abilities and protection talents are of great interest to me.

BC Protection Talents

BC Warrior Abilities

Let's start with the new protection talents:

Improved Defensive Stance: Reduces damage taken by up to 6%
-Cannot complain about this talent. Taking less damage is one of the most important aspects of being a tank.

Focused Rage: Reduces the cost of all offensive abilities by up to 3.
-Interesting talent. In most end game raiding scenarios, a tank will practically infinite rage against bosses. This would certainly be useful in any other situation. Another interesting thought is combining this with improved sunder...a 9 rage sunder would certainly sound good to any tank.

Shield Mastery: Increases the amount absorbed by your shield by up to 30%.
-I would have to play with numbers to really see the effect of this talent, but it sounds good. Currently, Zenos blocks around 150, so adding another 50 to this value certainly couldn't hurt; especially considering I block over 25% of the time.

Vitality: Increases you stamina by up to 5%.
-The talent that tanks have been asking for, but it is not as good as I had hoped. I personally would have expected a bit more for a tier 8 talent. The problem is that 5% is not very significant. In fact, the tauren racial ability is better simply because it is 5% of your total health points, not just stamina. With all that said, any stamina increase is a good one for a tank.

Devastate: Instant one-hand weapon attack
-Wow...that is all I have to say. No more spamming sunders beyond 5! No cooldown! Possibly an actual DPS ability for tanks! Granted it is only 50% damage of your MH weapon...but imagine fighting a boss with all your rage. It is basically the ultimate way to hold aggro on anything.

New Warrior Abilities:

To be continued...

My Turn:)

Not only has Zenos been getting cool new loot, but I have managed to pick up some nice items as well. The guild that we joined (OmegaMuGamma) is quite far in endgame progression, which has been awesome for us since we hadn't experienced anything past MC with our characters. They have BWL completely on farm status, and we've been making headway in AQ40 (downed Huhuran) and Naxx (downed Razuvious). OMG also seems to have Transcendence loot drop like water, so even though I don't have very much dkp I've somehow managed to get 6/8 trans already (I came into the guild with 2 pieces of it).

In our last BWL run, which was on Friday, I picked up 3 pieces of trans: boots, bracers, and shoulders. I've already gotten them enchanted as well.


I now have the 5/8 set bonus, which you can see in the shoulders pic. It's pretty sweet stuff:)

Here's what I'm looking like nowadays:

Insane Week

Just thought I would post a few more comments about my week...

It has been insane. Zarina and I bought new computers, I finished my Thunderfury, and received three new tanking items!

Some links to all my new items:

Thunderfury

Breastplate of Wrath

Legplates of Wrath

Styleen's Impeding Scarab

As for our computers, talk about a serious upgrade. I knew our computers were outdated, but was far worse than I thought. Our old computers had not been upgraded for 3-4 years. Zarina was playing on an old AMD 1.4Ghz with a GeForce 3 and I had an Intel P4 2.4Ghz with a GeForce FX...

Simply put, playing on the new hardware is like experiencing the game all over again. Seeing your opponents half way across the BG is just crazy. In Orgrimmar I would get 20 FPS if I turned down most of the settings to low and there were not too many people around. Now, we both get 60 FPS all the time and let me tell you...it is nice.

We bought the exact same hardware for each computer so neither of us would be jealous of the other. So, the new specs:

ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT
2 GB Corsair DDR2 800
2x 320GB Segate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3Gb/s

I configured the hard drives using the onboard Intel matrix raid controller. So, we have a 100GB RAID 1 partition and a 400GB RAID 0 partition.

I also bought Oblivion, mainly just to see how our hardware would handle it and what all the hype was about...damn that game has amazing graphics...and our computers perform flawlessly.

Thunderfury!

Well, now that everything has settled down a bit after the disband, I finally managed to complete my Thunderfury quest with the help of my old friends and the new guild I joined.

The quest line is quite trivial, but the materials you have to collect are a serious pain. I have probably had the two bindings for 2-3 months now and have been held up by two things. First, Continuum was not running BWL at the time, so no elementium ore. Second, 100 freaking arcanite! It takes a long long time to buy, farm, and transmute that many arcane crystals.

Overall, Zarina and I probably spent around 2000 gold in mats and I also had many many crystals donated from friends. With each arcane crystal costing 30g, it adds up fast.

Arcane crystals: 30g x 100 = 3000g
Elemental Flux: 12g x 30 = 360g

So, the out of pocket expense to make one of these weapons is probably around 3.5k!

As for the weapon itself...GODLY for a tank. The debuff is amazing, the aggro generated is unparalled to any weapon I have ever used. For example, just today I was three manning live Stratholme for orbs and kept aggro on the large undead packs with just the proc on everything except my target. In raiding situations, the 20% attack speed reduction should be quite an asset, I have not had much of chance to test this out yet.

So, a big thanks to anyone that helped me obtain this weapon. It was a lot of work and I could not have done it without lots of people.

Here are a bunch of screenshots from the Thunderaan event. He is a joke to kill btw.

The downfall of Continuum

So, last Monday we log into the game, for a scheduled BWL raid. Once again, there weren't enough people online to do it, so people got pissy and a large amount logged off. Zenos and I decided to just go farm rep in Silithus instead, and suddenly a new GM gets promoted and starts kicking people. Come to find out, this group decided to "leave in style"...and as soon as they got gkicked (really they gquit), they were in another guild...a so-called "Better" one.

This came as a total surprise to me, as I knew that some people were unhappy that we weren't progressing in endgame as fast as some wanted to, and that we weren't raiding as much as a lot of people desired. I found it really depressing to see what we had taken a year to make to just be destroyed in about five minutes. It hurts, and it's just such a shame.

To make a long story short, Zenos and I gquit after all this, and apped to another guild. We got accepted, and are looking forward to experiencing new content with a new group of people.