How Is Surv Working Out?

The spec: 5/14/52 Survival

The (Major) Glyphs: Viper, Steady, Serpent

The Pet Spec: Pure DPS, baby.

The Gear: Mostly purple.

Thoughts: Alvar counts as ~400 dps. Must not let kitty die, even as Surv! With Alvar still up I'm constantly seeing above 2k dps, otherwise I drop to about 1700. Lag is still killing my DPS - I'm sure if I wasn't seeing 2k ms and tiny random lag spikes during a boss battle, I'd managed 2k DPS on my own, with Alvar being pure gravy. Ah well, not much I can do on that front.

I have cleared Naxx to the Four Horsemen, and seen Sarth die on both 25 and 10-man, no drakes. Next goal: Malygos! His fight looks awesome, with the mages on flying circles you can hijack, and the platform exploding just so you can be picked up by red drakes to shoot fireballs into Maly's face... Aah, I so want to try it, even if I fail miserably. Oh yeah, and I want the rest of my Naxx achievements!

I have GOT to finish upgrading my gear to the dungeon purples I can get... My rings and trinkets are fine, but that helm and those boots have GOT to go! (Not to mention the helm is fugly as hell.)

Bring It On Home

Well, it's been a while. I simply wasn't having fun playing on Xanth, as Suramar is a plain PvE server, I can't seriously raid in anything progression, and I remember days of Huntering around Azeroth with no lag.

So what changed? Well, Tuesday night my best RL friend called me up.

"Hey E, you up to doing a 10 man Naxx with the guild? We got a lot of people interested with alts, but we need more DPS."

"I don't know, M..."

"Come on, we haven't raided together in too long. And I'll be on my priest! I'll heal Alvar for ya."

".... Fine, I'll go sign up on the forums."

So I do so, and the raid gets underway. Full guild alt/second string raid, nothing much to be proud of, but hey, it's been a while and maybe I'll get some achievements I haven't managed to snag yet. We start clearing the Spider wing, and lo and behold, Maexxna drops her Wraith Spear - and I'm the only one who wants it. /cheer! Nice upgrade, even if I'm losing some hit with it.

Move along a bit, and we're killing Gluth. I dislike Gluth because, even as a Hunter, all I can really contribute to chew toy kiting is my trap. Seriously, my lag is bad enough I can't kite shit around a frost trap and keep aggro off the pocket healer! Sad times... So we had the holy pally kite them around, I unleashed all the Survival DPS I could, and we got the kill. What drops? The token for my tier chest! Did I mention we had no Shamans, and the Warrior had it already?

"I think the GMs are trying to tell me to come play Xanth again, M."

"You should."

Last night we finished everything up to the Four Horsemen (had a few troubles with our Spriest tanks in the back eating it, thus making the raid explode - is it bad I found the latter part hilarious?) and I picked up the tokens for both the legs and the shoulders.

I am now 3/3 in tier from Naxx 10. Plus an awesome polearm. In a matter of two nights.

Wakey wakey Xanth, we have baddies to shoot in the face!

Rep: It's The Original Achievement System

I have been AFB due to the fact that 1) I need rep and 2) I need gear. First Strike is a raiding guild, first and foremost. And it's ok to be a non-raider in a raiding guild (no, really, it is); but if you want a decent shot at the raid lewts when you go in, you have to make Raider status.

So I've been grinding reps and trying to get geared for 25s. We do 10s, but it's informal. Anyone can sign up, first come first serve, and loot goes to whoever needs it most. But once we get the 25s going, things will go back to the old rules.

I'm ok with this. Heck, I signed up for this! But with working two jobs, juggling finances - I'm glaring at you, Sallie Mae - and every day life stuff, WoW has become a treat.

So I did some math on the three reps I'm actively grinding right now: The Kalu'ak, Sons of Hodir, and Frenzyheart. Two are 'for fun', but I can get away with that - I wear an Argent Crusade tabard exclusively these days.

With the Kalu'ak, I have only 8 more days of quests before I can snag that penguin minipet and epic fishing rod, and then it's on to another rep. For the Frenzyheart, it will take longer... I decided immediately I wanted the Mercenary achievement, but I went Oracle at first without realizing the Frenzyheart have no concept of Phat Lewts. So I switched... about three days ago. Time until I can go back to my minipet-and-mount-giving Bigtongues: 4 days in Honored and 12 in Revered. Ugh.

And finally, the Sons of Hodir. These guys stink, seriously. Two of the three dailies that give rep have limited spawns that are heavily camped, and the other requires a decent-ish droprate item from mobs being farmed, not just for the daily, but for Crystalized Waters. I'm only about half way through Friendly, so I figure it will take 5 days to get Honored, another 8 days to get to Revered, and finally 12-ish days until Exalted. Total time: 25 days.

Sigh. It'll be a while before I get to work on my Dungeonmaster achievement... or coin fishing... or Loremaster... Sometimes it stinks being obsessive about completion. :)

The Death of Karazhan

I realize they nerfed the health of bosses a short while ago. I even realize why.

I also realize that the players in my guild are Tier 6 and, even if the gear doesn't quite match that level of play, the playing still does.

But this is just... is just... AAAAAAHH!


Netherspite has always been my favorite boss fight in the game. Kael in TK is more epic. The Council in BT is longer. And Illidan is probably more technical (we never did make it past Council, thanks to time issues).

But there was nothing like learning Netherspite with my old guild, Round Table Raiders.

That fight is nothing but Do X Or Die technicalities. And I LOVED it. RTR had to stay in on all the banish phases because we were still gearing and learning and didn't have the DPS to kill him if we ran out. We had to be very, very careful on heals with the Blue Beam or we'd have no one to take it come round 3. And we had our share of "AMG You stepped in the red beam! OUT! OUT!" moments.

There is nothing like seeing everyone wipe, switching to Monkey, popping Deterrence, and tanking that dragon in the red beam while the PVP Shaman heals your blue tail until a black hole spawns to gank you.

And now... Netherspite is nothing. His HP is gone. His difficulty level is nil. My favorite boss is dead for the last time before Wrath.

RIP Netherspite. RIP.

Holy Flying Ziggernauts, Batman!

First Strike went 5/9 in Black Temple this past Friday, with two of those being new bosses (Teron and Bloodboil). We're going back in to hopefully see the rest of 'em die tonight, but it's pure progression now, so it'll be fun. Even if we see no phat lootz.

But phat lootz we saw! Legionkiller is now ours, with a shiny crit scope slapped on top. This has to be the best looking crossbow in the game, and now it's mine. Bwahaha!

But now, I have Scourge to kill for Argent Dawn rep. I want that tabard and it's acheivement. And besides, it's fun.

Can't Touch This

First Strike has downed Kael'Thas in The Eye and finished all of Teir 5 content as of about 10 PM PST, 9/20/08!

Aside from the fact I noobed it up and accidentally abandoned the quest to kill Kael and Vashj (and then didn't pick it back up before raid time ><), I was there! I saw him die! The little bugger got me with a fireball crit right after I landed and bandaged up to full health, so I sat out the last 15%. But it was still awesome. And I can't wait to go back in there - I wants a chest from him! (T5 2 peice bonus is so sweet looking.)

As it was, no Hunter loot dropped. But again, that picture alone is worth it. Congrats to all of First Strike! :D

(Also, this is late in getting posted because I am in the last week of school right now for this quarter. So, real life before WoW, and all that. Now, on to Brewfest token gathering!)