Just a quick note, dashing out right now. I got an invite for the guilds Sunday night run in to Gruul’s Lair, my first time in there and we managed to take him down! I almost missed the invite though as our washing machine decided to cover the floor in water! Nothing too serious thankfully.
It was great to see so many of the guild on-line 30th December too, obviously I wasn’t in line for any loot yet but I’m looking forward to my first proper run at Karazhan with them.
Until next time, Happy New Year folks.
Published on December 23, 2007
in General.
Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Busy time of year work wise and other stuff I’m afraid. Not a lot of exciting news of recent. I managed to get the remaining mats together this evening for my [Frozen Shadoweave Boots] and make them. My tailoring is now at 366 but a long way to go before I can make the [Frozen Shadoweave Robe] at level 375 tailoring, /gulp.
Published on December 14, 2007
in General.
I decided to have a change this evening and move from the affliction talents to destruction. Since I started Dirky all those months ago I played him demonology spec up to about level 62. I enjoyed sending in my felguard , applying a few damage over time spells and then going to put the kettle on to brew up!
After much pestering and persuasion from my Son, I respecced to affliction which took a little time to get used to. I had to think more about my spell rotation and be careful not to go out of mana too quickly.
So just when I’m getting used to that I go and spend 10 gold and remove all my talent points and make a fresh start. I’ve not played too much since I ‘moved over’ but my dps does seem to have risen and I’m getting some much higher damage from my shadow bolts. I’ll report back when I have had more chance to evaluate this change.
Published on December 13, 2007
in Karazhan.
Damn, I was down for a my first guild run in to Karazhan last night, however the early scheduled start made it just impossible to attend. We were running late with dinner and other chores here so sadly I had to give it a miss.
Ironically my Son was able to attend his first attempt at Karazhan with his guild, I was able to keep tabs on how he was doing. They managed to down Attumen the Huntsmen without too much bother and then came unstuck on Moroes, I think they wiped about 5 times before they gave up for the night.
I think the garrote’s that Moroes starts to put on the players and the strain it put on the healers got out of hand.
Hopefully I’ll get my next chance at Karazhan soon.
Published on December 9, 2007
in General.
I’d listened a little on the guild Teamspeak server last night for a while between doing other things, I had an old quest to turn in at Zangarmarsh. I then picked up another for Coilfang Armaments, these drop in Steamvaults so I checked if there was any groups looking for members and got an invite to a full group in about 2 minutes.
As I was not far, I flew there and helped with the summon. We had a good run until the last boss where we wiped, we didn’t do enough dps to the tank things quick enough! We ran back in and completed the boss kill. Nothing exciting dropped, mostly I ended up dis-enchanting it and we rolled for the shards.
I’m about 1500 reputation off being revered with the Cenarion Expedition now, so 1 more run or about 21 Coilfang Armaments should do it.
Wife safely out for a few hours, kids (x2) playing on their own characters, pots washed, it seemed an ideal oppertunity to travel back in time, meet Medivh and get my Karazhan key finally repaired!
Fortunately I had been offered help by some of the members of the superb guild, <And His Imaginary Friend>. I’m in the “sister” guild, <And His Imaginary Pet>, although I was hoping to move over to AHIF assuming I got attuned to Karazhan 
The previous evening I got in a pick up group and it all went horribly wrong in there. Several portals open up, an elite dragon type mob comes out and then a steady stream of non elite level 70 mobs follow. They all head for Medivh and try to rip him to bits. The idea seems to tank and dps the elite whilst a mage (or similar) controls the non-elites.
This whole process does not happen once but about 16 times! It’s pretty frantic once it all kicks off, go to the loo before it starts is my tip.
Anyway the previous night in the PUG we ended up with about 4 portals open and 20 or so mobs all wanting their piece of Medivh, it was way out of control.
So this evening I was glad to be invited in to a group with some of the <And His Imaginary Friend> guild:
- Chixor - Mage
- Hawtbelf - Paladin
- Macher - Rogue
- Gargrim - Warrior
We started at 7:5o pm by clearing some of the spiders and crocodiles that roam about the swamp area, next you speak to Medivh and then it was non stop action until 8:30 pm when we downed the final boss.
There are two bosses previous to this one and somewhere along the run I got [Star-Heart Lamp] very nice! Everybody did a great job and I was delighted to be part of it, thanks guys. I even got my Karazhan key enabled by Medivh, so I’m all set now, I think?
On the way out of the instance I handed in another quest and got a nice ring and a stack of Keepers of Time reputation to take me up to revered status. I went to the nice vendor man and bought [Continuum Blade], which goes really nice with my new lamp.
It was about that time that the next shock of the evening came when I was invited to the guild AHIF !
So all in all a great evening! Oops, the kids are quiet?
Published on December 3, 2007
in General.
Finally I got in a pick up group tonight for Arcatraz, I’d tried a few times to get a group together over the weekend but this was the first time I managed to get in a full group.
If you recall I needed the third part of the key fragment as the final part of the quest The Second and Third Fragment , this would then get me nearer to getting the key to Karazhan. Well we downed the first boss in about 20 minutes without any problems, then cleared the next room in order to get to the key fragment in the corner. Just as you open the container an elite mob spawns which you need to kill in order to loot the key. Great I thought, lets push on and see what other fun we could have. Unfortunately one of the party members got disconnected and then it all went down hill, about 10 minutes later the group fell apart.
Oh well, my main reason for going in to Arcatraz was done!
I returned to Shattrath and turned in the quest, next in line is The Master’s Touch and a trip in to the Black Morass, /shiver !
For some reason I never really thought about taking up tailoring as a profession, I ended up spending most of my money on enchanting, my Son concentrated on tailoring and I foolishly thought that he could make me some decent gear when I needed it.What I omitted to notice was that the decent ‘epic‘ gear available at the high end of tailoring is bind on pickup, which means you cannot make if for somebody else - oops!When applying for the AHIF guild it was suggested as a good improvement to my gear to use tailoring to get the [Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders], [Frozen Shadoweave Boots] and [Frozen Shadoweave Robe] and other high end tailoring products!So on the evening of Friday 31st I ‘threw’ away 45 skill in engineering and started to learn tailoring. I used the guide which is available from Valcor’s website once you purchase the gold making guide. It was pretty quick work getting to skill level 250, maybe 2 hours or so but now Runecloth was needed, lots of it, about 900 or 45 stacks!. This was selling for a silly price, like 3 gold on the auction house. We had a bash at farming some and also had some generous donations - “Thanks” So a short while later I reached skill level 300, to progress further needed Netherweave, about 2500 to get you to the top skill level - 375!Fortunately my son has a level 70 mage and I was able to bribe persuade him to farm me some Netherweave, in fact he did this for several hours and managed to fill a few bags and also make a decent amount of gold towards his flying mount. Here is a short video he made of the technique.With all the Netherweave from this and a few more generous donations, I was able to get my tailoring up to 350 by the following evening, I began with about 350g and was down to a measly 30g by that time!So my advice to all the cloth wearers out there is - start tailoring early!
Published on December 1, 2007
in General.
Well there I was, minding my own business trying my best to farm a few motes of water, I’d left myself in the Looking for Group channel a while ago and forgotten about it when I got a whisper out of the blue asking if I wanted to come to Bottanica, “last spot!” Of course I jumped at the chance, I needed one of the two key halves to get in to Arcatraz from this instance.
The other being in Mechanar and if you read my post below, the last attempt in there was less than succesful!
I was soon summoned to the summoning stone below the Tempest Keep, and just a few feet from the fantastically named Cosmowrench ! 
A quick repair at Cosmowrench and I jumped on my flying mount and up we went. It was then I noticed the other group members were all from the Chinese playing guild <PRC>. We had a Warrior, Rogue, Shaman, Hunter (no pet) and myself Warlock.
I made a note of the time it was 8:20pm when we got in. The run was very quick and no wipes or deaths at all. It was one of the slickest groups I had ever been in. By 9:35 pm we had the last boss down, my key fragment and all done! I also picked up a nice tailoring patern, [Pattern: Battlecast Pants] and a trinket, [Bangle of Endless Blessings].
I asked the group if they would mind helping me in Mechanar and explained I needed the remaining key half from there. They agreed and at 9:45pm we started. Once again it was a frantic run through and by 10:35pm we had the last boss down. I lost a need roll for [Mana Wrath] to the Shaman! I was not very pleased as you can imagine. Anyway I got my final key part to Arcatraz, returned the two parts to Shattrath and now have the key. I also picked up a nice belt which replaced my only remaning ‘green’ item
Novastrong, Coli, Rogerz, Novazxin PRC members with Dirky just after completing the Botanica and Mechanar runs. (Click for larger image)
Just a quick note, dashing out right now. I got an invite for the guilds Sunday night run in to Gruul’s Lair, my first time in there and we managed to take him down! I almost missed the invite though as our washing machine decided to cover the floor in water! Nothing too serious thankfully.
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