Recent News

Apologies for the lack of posting. I've been focusing a little more on finding work, and I may have a job soon, which is good in that I will have income again! It will however cut into wow and blogging time. Meh, it will be like it was when I was in Boston, but better because I won't have the 3 hours of commute each day. Woohoo!

Khristin is level 65 now, and going strong. Elionene is decked to the nines in epics and preparing for Ulduar raiding. Salthier specced Resto to help out our second Naxx team on Fridays, so I'm getting the hang of being a healer. Good practice for when Khristin is 80, although the healing styles are very different. So far, I think I like it.

Lal has been leveling her Paladin, Yelyena, with a friend in the guild. They're somewhere in their 30s now and having a good time.

Veritas clears Naxx on two teams weekly now. We run Obsidian Sanctum-25 on Wednesdays, and Maygos on Sunday. We still haven't gotten Malygos on farm. We seem to go week on, week off, in being able to finish him. I hope we can down him a few more times before Ulduar comes out.

Speaking of Ulduar, we're trying to figure out how to fit that into our raiding schedule. I plan to drop one Naxx run and start Ulduar the first week it's out, but for progression's sake, we'll probably need to do several nights. I'll probably cancel all 25 runs for now, and may even cancel organized Malygos runs. I'll leave it up to the guild to organize other runs if they want, but with the gear and and emblems of valor dropping in Ulduar, there won't be too much cause to run lower level content unless we need to gear people.

On the character side of things, I still need to develop a background for Khristin. And Lal has recently told me that she'd like for her characters to have more personality. She's not huge into role playing, and writing out long histories. But she would like for people to be able to differentiate the personalities of her toons. And I agree. I need to give Salthier some more background, and maybe include more of Lal's in it as well. We'll see where that goes, and I'll try and write up some stories for it. I know I keep saying I'll do that, and I really hope I can.

I need to finish up the lore on the bosses of Naxxramas, which sadly hasn't been all that interesting since most of the bosses don't have much to them. After this I plan on researching more of the lore of the Storm Peaks and Ulduar. The guild is planning a history your of the Storm Peaks to coincide with the release of Ulduar. Heh, role players. :D

Lessons in Lore - The Construct Quarter

So we've seen the bosses of the Military Quarter. Let's take a look one of the other quarters. The one with all the bosses you just want to grab a hold of and hug and squeeze....until all the pus and bodily fluids come flying out. Yes, that's right, the Abomination Quarter. Also known as the Construct quarter because all of the bosses are basically constructions.

Contruct Quarter

Patchwerk

Commander Eligor Dawnbringer wrote:

"Behold, Patchwerk. When word of his existence first reached the ears of the Brotherhood, none believed the tales of an abomination with such immense speed and strength. Fewer still believed it when he fell the first time..."

I'm not sure if I understand our friend Eligor in this quote. Maybe a reference to Patchwerk taking out some good guys as he fell? Regadless, Patchwerk simply boils down to a highly gifted abomination. Abominations are created from piles of plague ridden corpses, stitched together and given animation by a necromancer of some sort. Patchwerk is Kel'thuzad's Avatar of War, which although it sounds really cool, appears to be an Everquest reference in which there was a monster called "The Avatar of War" that had similar abilities. His quotes lead us to believe that Patchwerk, while the toughest of the tough when it comes to abominations, is fairly simple minded, exclaiming that he just wants to play.

He can also be found in the Death Knight starting area, and actually has some humorous quotes as well about being on loan from Naxxramas.

Grobbulus

Commander Eligor Dawnbringer wrote:

"Grobbulus, the first of what was to be an army of flesh giants. It carried the plague slime of Naxxramas within its body, injecting the living ooze into the bodies of its foe. The recipient of this foul injection would usually flee to his allies, bringing them down with him."

This guy is ugly. And gross. He's got a freaking tube coming out of his FACE!? He's basically a plague spreading machine made of flesh. He contains the plague within him and has a giant needle arm so he can just inject whoever he likes with it. Eligor's quotes also lend themselves to how the fights with these monsters work. During the fight, Grobby will inject people with poison that they have to run "away" from the group to get rid of, otherwise, everybody dies. Pretty clever.

Gluth

Commander Eligor Dawnbringer wrote:

"Gluth, the foul plague-dog of Naxxramas, was said to have an appetite so voracious that even the living were not enough to satisfy his hunger. Feugen was said to feed him an army of zombies daily, recycling the remains of undead too weak to use in combat."

Isn't he cute? Sort of, in a weird, pieced together way. Like all of the bosses in the Construct wing, Gluth is also a pile of corpses stitched together and reanimated, but this time in the form of a giant zombie-eating dog. Not so cute anymore, is he? And guess what? If you happen to be a sorry undead who can't keep himself in the real fight for the Lich King out on the front lines, you get fed to the dog. I guess that's incentive to stay in tip top fighting shape.

Thaddius

Commander Eligor Dawnbringer wrote:

"Thaddius, built from the flesh of women and children, it is said that their souls are fused together - eternally bound within that foul prison of flesh."

I'm surprised Eligor doesn't have more to say about Thaddius. Again, he's a construct like all the other bosses in the wing, but he's a special construct, made with specifically the flesh of women and children. Perhaps the idea is that the souls of women and children create a bigger menace than regular old men flesh? Or maybe they conduct a current better since Thaddius is electrically charged. He's like a giant battery actually, and killing off his two henchmen, Feugen and Stalagg, turns him on and makes him mad.

For all of these guys, there's really no history. They were made out of corpses and flesh from various things and placed in Naxxramas to guard the citadel of Kel'thuzad. They are the elite of the Lich King's army.

Next week we'll take a look at the Plague wing. Put on your dancing shoes.

Meet Khristin

It's a little late, but I wanted to get a character post up.

Here is my Shaman alt who I've been leveling using the ultra cool WoW-Pro leveling guide by Jame. Her name is Khristin, and I'm still working on her back story, but the story of how she came to be is sort of interesting. To me at least. See, originally, Lal and I were going to roll Draenei characters and level them together. This was when Salthier and Lal were at level 70 and that was as high as you could go, so we wanted to try and get some alts up. I wanted a healer, so I created Bogdan, a male Draenei Shaman. Lal made Nadyezhda, a female Draenei Mage.

Well we got them to level 13 or so and Lal sort of lost interest. Part of that was because we were raiding Kara at the time and so Lal (the character) needed some attention, and part of that was because I'm not sure if she really took to being a mage or not. Since I didn't want to level without her, Bogdan got shelved for the time being. I was a little disappointed because I was enjoying the Shaman and had even come up with a background for Bogdan which I posted in this blog. But I didn't want to force Lal to play a character she didn't like, so we started playing Lal and Sal some more, and I raided with Elionene quite a bit.

So a little while later, I'm getting the itch to level a healer again, but Bogdan is stuck on Bloodmyst Isle indefinitely. I don't want to level him alone, but I could create a new alt and level him or her alone since she wouldn't be connected to a toon Lal was playing. But I didn't want two Draenei Shaman. And I didn't want to level another healing class. And I've yet to come up with a human concept that I really like. So I came up with a great plan.

I rerolled Bogdan as a male Paladin and leveled him to the same point that I had done on the previous Bogdan. Then left him on Bloodmyst. Then I rolled Khristin, a female Shaman, to be a healer. Why a female? Because for some reason, I can't bring myself to have two characters with the same race and sex. I have two Night Elves, one female, one male, so I wanted to have two Draenei, one female, one male. And doing it this way, I had that.

I got Khristin level to 20 before Wrath started and she got put aside while Elionene and Salthier took the spot light. Now with them both at 80, and raiding becoming less exciting and more "the usual," I decided it was high time I leveled my Shaman Healer. She is currently Level 51 and questing in the Searing Gorge. I'm leveling Elemental for the time being, but I will probably respec to a hybrid Elemental/Restoration build at level 70 for dungeons and questing in Northrend, and then full Restoration when I hit 80.

I'm really enjoying the class and the mechanics. And the guide makes leveling fun since it's effortless to decided what to do next. Now all I have to do is come up with a history for her. I don't want her to be too old, but not young either. Since Draenei are either extremely long lived, or immortal, I'm thinking of placing her birth after they left Argus, but before they landed on the Orc home world, Draenor. And if you're not sure where all this lands in the time line, you can read this post. Conceptually, I imagine her as a young 30 something. Excited by the world of Azeroth, but experienced enough to know a thing or two about the battles and hardships that she is fighting against. Since I don't have any characters that are really into pets or mounts, I figure she would be a good candidate, collecting and cataloging everything she comes across because it's all so interesting for her.

She's currently an Inscriptionist/Herbalist, but since Salthier is now a max leveled herbalist, I'm probably going to drop that from Khristin and pick up something else. Not sure what yet, I have to think about it some more.

Meanwhile, in just the past couple days, Lal decided to try out a Paladin alt that had been serving as a bank alt for her. Turns out she really likes it, so maybe we'll see her getting another character up to higher levels before long.

Game Mehcanics - Altoholic

I don't have a lot of alts compared to some people. I have Elionene who was my first high level character, and then I made Salthier to level with Lal and we got them to level 80 first. I started a character of every class to try them out, but left most of them dwindling on odd servers around level 10. I do have my future Shaman healer up to 50 now, and my bank alt, Frelon, languishes at level 15 while doing the economic bidding of my other characters. That's a total of four toons I log on regularly.

Compare that to other people in my guild with dozens of toons above level 50 and 60 spread across multiple servers, accounts and factions.

However, even with a limited number of alts, they have different professions, banks, gear, etc. that I sometimes need access to and need to mail around or "alt hop" to find what I need at any given time. Often I get asked if I can make a LW pattern while on Salthier, of if I can do a flask on Elionene. Having to alt hop just to check these can get tiresome.

Enter Altoholic from Thaoky.

Altoholic keeps a record of each of your toon's professions, the contents of their bags, their banks, their guild banks, their gear, their quests, and a few other things. I can't tell you how incredibly useful this is. By opening up Altoholic you can browse basically any information on any of your characters while on any of your characters. You can also search your inventory or recipes to see if you have a certain one, and link them to chat from the Altoholic window.



In addition, if any of your guild mates have altoholic or show you their professions through linking it in chat, Althoholic will store that information so you can look up other people and what they can make. There's also a section for looking at achievements, and tracking how much time you spend on each of your characters.



It's a lot of information. I find it most useful for looking up quests, recipes, or items that I might have on other characters but that I need on my current characters. Or just to check my current guild bank without actually having to go to the guild bank. I do this on my Shaman alt who is in my vanity guild to see if there's anything in there useful for her leveling.



So I highly reccomend this addon for anyone with a ton of characters, or even just a few. It's a great tool that can prevent having to hop around from alt to alt too much.

Lessons in Lore - The Military Quarter

So the Four horsemen took up a lot of space. Not every boss in Naxxramas has that much to talk about, so I'll tackle these next bosses by where you find them. Since we already looked at the four horsemen, let's look at the other bosses in the Military/Death Knight quarter.

Military Quarter

Instructor Razuvious

Commander Eligor Dawnbringer:

Pay attention. This is Instructor Razuvious, Kel'Thuzad's appointed trainer of all death knights. It is said that his own technique is so potent, only a disciple of his could possibly withstand his might.

It is nice that they've brought Eligor to Northrend to give us some small tidbits of in game lore. We should go up to Wintergarde sometime and follow him as he tells us about Naxxramas. Sadly, this is about as much as I can find on the guy. So we know he is the trainer of all Death Knights. This is significant in that Razuvious is in Archeron: The Ebon Hold and hands out some quests to people starting Death Knights involving their first Runeblade. Eligor also gives us a hint as to how we have to fight Razuvious by mind controlling his cronies, since they are the only ones that can withstand his attacks. And this is true, Raz basically one shots any regular tank who tries to take him on.

Raz also has a side job cleaning up the streets by fighting against contenders from around the world in a know holds barred street brawl. He goes by the name Guile. He's also my personal nemesis. I've killed him going on a dozen times now and he has yet to yield the [Accursed Bow of the Elite]. Jerk.

Gothik the Harvester

Commander Eligor Dawnbringer:

Gothik, the Harvester. A master of necromancy and conjuration, Gothik is said to be able to beckon forth legions of the undead at a moment's notice. It is with his guidance that even the weakest of Death Knights can raise the dead.

Again, not much too him. He's a necromancer of some renown. Enough to get him a favored position in Naxxramas. He's also a quest giver in the Death Knight starting area and has a few funny lines referring to his quotes from the fight in Naxx. Reading into the text a little bit explains that Gothik is somewhat responsible for training Death Knights to raise the dead.

It's kind of cool that they use these guys in the Death Knight starter area. It gives them a little bit more of a personality, even if it doesn't explain at all where they came from. Most likely they were people who joined the Cult of the Damned started by Kel'thuzad to spread the plague and were able to rise among the ranks of the Lich King.

Veritas and the Nexus War

Just a little bit ago we successfully completed 10 person Malygos! I'm really excited about this being the raid leader for the group, and really proud of everyone that contributed, both in this fight and in the fights leading up to it. We all snapped a shot with Alexstraza after the battle on our red drakes. Of course, you can't see who is who, but we beat him all the same. It was a hectic fight and I wasn't sure we'd get it this time. Malygos actually enraged at the very end but we had enough stacks of damage on him to take him down to zero.



For our trouble he dropped the Baricade of Eternity which went to our main tank, and the Gown of the Spell-Weaver which our Warlock won the roll on. Grats to everyone!