Marathon of Miserry

Posted by Traellus on February 25, 2013
Posted in: General. Tagged: , .

Did I mention that I tried quitting the game? No? Well, I did, for about a month or so. And… now I’m playing again. The one thing I did quit was my former guild and my role as Raid Team Lead.

The reason I decided to try and quit the game was I wanted time to work on some creative stuff. I wanted to work on my art and to have the time to be bored. I don’t really enjoy my job and I don’t think I am very good at it either. I am not the world’s best programmer and I am definitely not very good at testing software. I have trouble looking and thinking beyond what is directly listed in the story. I want to go back and do something artsy and change my career. So quitting the game was an attempt to give myself the time to get bored and start working on some stuff.

The second reason I left is that I am tired of raiding without a defined team. I have a lot of trouble with letting anyone raid. There was one guildie that simple can’t tank, but the guild rules state that he is guaranteed a spot on the team and there was nothing I could do about it. For me, this is what Raid Finder is for. A person that can’t perform at some minimum level should not be allowed to raid. It is a question of making it frustrating for the other 9 people just so you don’t hurt one person’s feelings.

As a result, I have moved many of my toons and joined a new guild. I have yet to raid, but hopefully that will come with some time.

Now that your up to date, let’s talk about what I did this weekend.

For the fun of it, I decided to level a new Warlock as Destruction–Miserry. She is level 50 and completely maxed out in both Tailoring and Enchanting (meaning that she has level 300 in both). I have definitely had a lot of fun leveling her up and Destruction is a pretty good leveling spec with very little downtime due to the insane mana regen.

I spent the first few levels–up to level 20–questing with my Imp and then changed to my Voidwalker once I couldn’t kill mobs before they reached me. With the Voidwalker, I macro’d petattack to my Immolate spell so my pet reached the mob before my spell did. So far, I is working incredibly well. I rarely take any damage and I never have to stop.

I also did a fair amount of leveling through dungeons with varying results. The biggest problem was tanks that felt they could pull and entire room and Monk healers that felt all they needed to do was Spinning Crane Kick in order to heal. Hint, it doesn’t work, especially when the tank pulls too much.

My goal is to level my new baby lock and start raiding on her. It will probably take a few more weeks to get to max level, but hopefully, I will have a fully geared, talented, and professioned toon by the end of the journey.

Playing with TradeSkillMaster

Posted by Traellus on January 1, 2013
Posted in: General. Tagged: , .

I decided to pick up a new addon, TradeSkillMaster, after seeing an article about it on Wow Insider. First impressions, I have no idea what I’m doing with it. It is definitely going to take some time to figure out how to use it. It is one of those addons that you need to go and read a tutorial.

In addition, I have started to sell a fair bit more on the AH. I am starting with Darkmoon cards and some enchants. So far, I’ve made about 8000 gold. No idea if I can sustain this. I’m hoping that being a little more disciplined in what I am selling will help. Instead of just selling whatever is in my bag, I want to try selling the same things over and over and trying to learn a few markets. My motivation for this is that I want to buy some Darkmoon Trinkets for my toons, so I need a fair bit more gold.

Can’t beat mechanics

Posted by Traellus on December 12, 2012
Posted in: General. Tagged: .

Once a week, a bunch of us go into Firelands and try to get a few or my guildies a little closer to their legendary staffs. Lately, we have been finishing up all the achievements. This includes heroics. For the most part, we are able to down the boss. And then we get to Ragnaros; 6-7% and we’re all dead. Right now, it is Empower Sulfuras that is killing us. We just can’t get him into the roots on time to stun him.

Granted, we have only had a few attempts (4 or 5 max), but we’re all level 90 and should be able to just zerg it, right?!?

I have a love/hate relationship with mechanics based fights like this where winning comes down to control and not straight out dps. I find them to be the most rewarding fights to beat, but I also find them the most frustrating as I patiently wait for everyone to learn the dance.

We also got our first taste of Elegon this week; another mechanics based fight. Although there is a component of DPS to it due to the strict enrage timer, but you need to get each phase and each transition down before you can win. This past week, that meant getting through phase 1 with on 2 Protectors and phase 2 with 3 waves of sparks killed. We were able to accomplish our goal for phase 1, but not phase 2.

I just hope the frustration is worth the reward for both of these fights. At least Ragnaros we only need to kill a few times on heroic. Elegon we will need to kill every week. Hopefully practice does make perfect.

Finally picked a raiding toon

Posted by Traellus on November 2, 2012
Posted in: General. Tagged: , .

The last month has been a bit of a roller coaster when it comes to WoW. I have now levelled three toons to ninety, not because I necessarily wanted to, but because I couldn’t decide what to do.

I initially wanted to level my druid, Raineshadow, as a Guardian bear tank and try tanking for T14 raids. Except, at the time, it seemed that we had enough tanks and we had enough tanks that didn’t have DPS specs. We were also short healers. As a result, I respecced as Resto and healed a few dungeons. I hated it.

It has taken me a long time to realize something I already know, I don’t actually like healing. I did it in the last expansion because it guaranteed me a raid spot and because Discipline Priest was a fairly easy class to heal with, plus, you got to DPS. So, I had a decision to make, continue playing a role I didn’t enjoy or switch.

I decided to switch.

During all this, I was levelling my hunter, Traellus, to 90 as well and getting him geared for raiding. Problem is that I am in a guild where everyone seems to have a hunter. We went into MSV last night with 3 hunters in the raid. The last thing we need is another hunter.

The decision now was, “do I want to raid on my hunter and share loot or do I level yet another toon to 90 and raid on it?” I now have a level 90 warlock, Miiranda, that I will be raiding on (I am getting exceptionally good at power levelling). I still have a little bit of work to do to get her raid ready–her iLevel is a little low and she needs some enchants–but hopefully our guild will have another raiding lock next week.

And hopefully it will have a little happier raid lead as I go back to the role I enjoy the most, blowing things up.

Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog

Posted by Traellus on September 19, 2012
Posted in: General. Tagged: .

Why start anything? Okay, bad start, let’s try this again. To write. Yeah, I like that answer, let’s go with that.

I wanted to practice writing and needed something interesting to write about. I had another blog since 2002 where I wrote about tech stuff, but I really don’t have anything else to say over there and until I figure out what to do with it, this blog will help with the writing skills.

The nice thing about doing a World of Warcraft blog is that I am not restricted to a single style of writing. I can add some personality and try different types of writing. With a tech blog, that I was using mostly for professional reasons, I needed to stick to, well, professional writing. I couldn’t write a post from the point of view of my keyboard or mouse. With this blog, my toons get their own voices and personalities.

I also needed a topic that I was passionate about enough to keep me writing. Hopefully, with a subject as rich as WoW, that won’t be a problem.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself

Posted by Traellus on September 13, 2012
Posted in: General. Tagged: .

In an attempt at getting this blog up and running, and along with the other kinds of writing I plan to do, I wanted to do the 20 Days of… WoW Blogging challenge. The first challenge is to introduce one’s self, so here goes.

I am me, nice to meet you. I like WoW.

In fact, I probably play far too much of it. I also like reading about WoW and watching videos of it. Hmm…, I gotta get a life ;-) . I also want to see if I like writing about it. I also want to see if I like writing about it, and, by extension, see if I like writing. So here goes…

Other interests? Let’s see. Science fiction, action movies, creative things, ideas and information, and… Well, currently, that is one of the problems. I am not sure what else I am interested in. A life goal is to answer that question. But that is probably more than you wanted to know.

As for WoW, I have played every class up to level 85.

I set myself a challenge to level all 10 classes during Wrath of the Lich King, but there was just too much to do. With Cataclysm, and a lot less to do, I was able to complete my quest; ten classes to level 85. However, I will not be doing this in Mists, it is too much work and far too expensive.

Instead, I have decided to concentrate (in order) on just five characters: Traellus, my hunter; Nyea, my priest; Raineshadow, my druid; Kirune, my paladin; and Traedeth, my death knight. So expect posts for each class and posts from each toon as they make their way through Pandaria.

To close, let the journey begin. I am as eager as you to see how it goes. This is the first step.

The war is over

Posted by Traellus on September 9, 2012
Posted in: Uncategorized.

I can hardly believe the words.

I have only the slimmest memory of Deathwing being destroyed and the aspects talking. I remember Thrall telling us that we had done it, we had saved the world. We were heroes.

I remember counting the dead and helping to patch up the wounded. This victory was not without its cost. Everyone lost friends and comrades, both old and new.

But we did it!!!

And now, I need a vacation.

Playing with 5.0.4

Posted by Traellus on September 9, 2012
Posted in: General.

I have been spending the last far-too-many days investigating patch 5.0.4 on my small army of alts. There have been some very pleasant surprises. The biggest one is how much fun Shadow Priests are to play now. Depending on what talents you pick, there can be a lot of procs to use, breaking up what was a fairly boring and static rotation. You still need to manage your dots, but you get to weave on Mind Spike and Mind Blast now.

The second big surprise was how much fun Arms Warriors are now to play. The amount of Overpower procs is just incredible and the rage generation is excellent. There is almost no downtime and I spend most of the fight Heroic Strike spamming.

As for hunters, I am playing Beast Master right now and there are a lot of buttons to press. I am enjoying running around with Stormy, my spirit beast. But I spend 4 GCDs during heroism just setting off all my cooldowns–Beastial Wrath, Murder of Crows, Call Beast, Rapid Fire, phew.

The big question right now is what to play and level when Mists of Pandaria is released. I will probably start with my hunter and follow that with my Priest. Someone has to heal our raids :-) .

First Post

Posted by Traellus on January 1, 2012
Posted in: General.

Since this is my first post to my new site, let me introduce myself. My name is Traellus and I am a gamer. Right now, that means World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic, specifically, along with a little Skyrim. The point behind this blog is to let me record some of my thoughts, findings, and adventures through these various worlds.

I tend to play a lot of different characters, instead of having just one main, so look for breadth of information and not necessarily depth, although I do like to be able to play my characters to the best of my ability and that means understanding each one.

Currently I am a casual player, although I have been in a semi-hardcore raiding guild in WoW where I raided on my Hunter. Currently I am raiding on my Death Knight and am 4/8 in Dragon Soul 10man normal modes.

This is enough for now I think, look for more to come.