Black Temple Cleared!

Well I never got round to saying we downed the Illidari Council (the day after we killed Mother Shahraz) and then then Wednesday/Thursday re-cleared up to Illidan again. Sunday we spent pretty much all day wiping on him learning the fight our best attempt was 8%, Monday one of our fire resistance tanks didn't show but Tuesday we had another geared up and after a few more hours of wipes we killed him! Black temple cleared! Only 6 bosses left in the game that I've never killed! Were not geared for Sunwell yet but in a few weeks we'll be going and giving it a go. I'm well pleased with our progress took the guild about 2 months to clear MH and BT!

Side note: during our Illidan kill attempt around 32% my keyboard batteries died, when Maiev showed up I ran to get another to plug in. Thankfully while I was away I didn't wipe the raid, also had someone banging on the door while all this was going on... didn't answer it still no idea who it was! Even with all that I still managed to come second on the healing meters! Go me!

Illidari Council Down 12/08/08

Illidan slain 19/08/08

Drops:
Black Bow of the Betrayer
Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
Chestguard of the Forgotten Conqueror
Chestguard of the Forgotten Protector
Chestguard of the Forgotten Conqueror

Your mother!

Well it's been a good week for Antihero! Tonight we killed Mother Shahraz! We only killed RoS yesterday so I'm pretty surprised that we made it so quick. We didn't have masses of Hearts of Darkness so could only spare enough to get everyone 3 parts of there shadow resist gear which meant we were slightly gimped. I had around 254 buffed and there were some people who were a lot less. We wiped a fair bit because of the lack of resist and people failing on getting Fatal Attraction. Illidari Council here we come!

Mother Shahraz deaded 11/08/08

Loots:
3x Pauldrons of the Forgotten Protector
Leggings of Devastation

RoS down! Plus a nice upgrade

Today I finally got me an upgrade for my Red Riding Hood's Cloak from Karazahn. Gurtogg Bloodboil finally dropped some healing loot! Shroud of Forgiveness is way better looking that my old cape so that's one thing but it also gave me 36 more healing, 120 health and like 1.2 more mana regen! I guess those are the kind of upgrades you get when you go from tier 4 or 6! Best priest cloak until the twins in Sunwell.

My new cloak

Oh and while writing this post we had 2 tries on RoS and downed him/it(?) on the second try of the day! That's 6/9 BT! Time to go farm for Hearts of Darkness! Then it's Mother Shahraz!

Reliquary of Souls defeated 10/08/08

Magtheridon Rocks!

It's been almost 2 months since my last blog post I've just not been able to find time for it! I've got loads of news though on what I've been up to since I move to Magtheridon. Moving server was by far the best decision I've made in my WoW career, Magtheridon is such an awesome server. You can guarantee pug Kara's will be running any time you need, day or night! They don't fail, out of the 5 or so I did none had any problems with doing a full clear in about 4 hours. Pug Guurl's are just as frequent as Kara again with no problems clearing the whole instance, Maggy raids also run fairly regular and SSC/TK pugs do happen but the ones I went with didn't do so well! Pug 70 content aside one of my favorite things about the server is the weekly level 60 content pugs. Were not talking MC runs here (though they do happen) were talking full Naxx clears, AQ40 clears and BWL, there are a group of people that clear all the 40 man level 60 content every week. I have my Teir 3 ring of Kel'Thuzard to prove it thats something, when the expansion hits, will not be obtainable ever again! So I'll be holding onto that! Naxx is by far the best looking instance in the game, check out the screenies!

I spent my first few weeks trying out several guilds none of which I liked, I applied everywhere I could and eventually found somewhere I liked. The guilds name is Antihero, when I joined they were 4/5 MH and 3/9 BT. Since joining we have killed Archimonde 4 times now (and I got my T6 head - my first part!), we killed Teron Gorefiend without too much bother with constructs in the raid and have killed Gutrogg Bloodboil 2 times and had some decent attempts on RoS (best being about 30% on phase 3). So now we are 5/5 MH and 5/9 BT, MH clears now only take us about 3 and a half hours and that's usually with about an hour of wipes on Archimonde because we still seem to have some problems there and will continue to for a while I expect. This week they decided to make me an officer also which is cool all I really do is assign healing targets but it's nice to be more involved.

So all in all I'm very happy with the move I'm getting to see and beat content that previously I'd only seen in Videos and if we can clear BT before the expansion is released I'll be one happy priest! There are still people back on Bladefist that I miss but actually a lot of people I knew from there were already here, came with us or have moved recently to join us. It's a great server and anyone looking to find a new place to call home I highly recommend checking it out!

What happened next?
Archimonde Down 07/07/08

So long and thanks for all the fish

As I mentioned in my last post I've been thinking about a realm transfer and it's now official. I'm planning on migrating my Priest to Magtheridon. This decision was not one that was made lightly, over the last two years I've developed a strong attachment to my current server Bladefist. I made a lot of good friends here but unfortunately they have now mostly all gone, migrating away to different servers over the last 3-4 months. My decision to move to to Magtheridon was quite an easy one to make, not only is it one of the best pve realms in Europe (mostly thanks to Nihilum) but also due to one of best WOW mates Krakemake has just started his own raiding guild there. They had there first raids this week, the first instance they went to was Mount Hyjal, completely skipping SSC and TK! This seems crazy to me as that kind of thing could never be done on Bladefist!

This post is really gonna be about me saying goodbye to Bladefist I've grown very attached to the place and it's actually surprisingly difficult for me to leave, even though now it's an awful realm to play on. I first arrived on Bladefist when my guild British Beef transferred from Agamaggan in early 2006. We merged with two guilds to form United Legions soon after the move and started progressing through ZG and eventually started raiding 40 MC and BWL. By the time TBC was released we had renamed the guild again to Final Formation cleared ZG, AQ20, MC and were 7/8 BWL. Many of the core members of the guild leveled to 70 when the expansion hit faster than others causing problems with early TBC progression, after struggling to get Karazhan on farm the guild disbanded a few months after the release of TBC. After spending a few months in other guilds I went back to leading British Beef and we got Karazhan on farm but struggled with 25 man progression despite having several guilds join with us. We merged with a guild around Christmas 2007 to from Mental Warfare. In this guild we saw fast progression through 25 man tier 5 instances getting 6/6 in SSC and 3/4 in TK in about after about 4 months of raiding. The guild however was victim of several corrupt officers who stole everything in the guild bank and migrated away, this combined with my 2 month break from WOW to focus on University resulted in the death of the guild.

The rest of my WOW history on Bladefist (the last month) has been told in previous posts on this blog which brings me back full circle. I'm now back in British Beef and preparing to transfer selling as much as possible before the jump. I'll certainly miss this place but I'm hoping that I'll come to enjoy playing on Magtheridon as much as I enjoyed playing on Bladefist. I want to take some time to say thanks to all the people that made my time on Bladefist such fun and share some screenshots from my time here.

In no particular order:

Mattmpg, Pearshaped, Mortiis, Rembo, Deadrood, Demonfly, Czakky/Ticktick, Garaina, Toots/Toofly, Grimpy, Nilmos, Krakemake, Sunstorm, Althulurs, Oomootwo, Eb, Skaythn, Undeadmage/Starcraft, Boogyman, Darkstorn, Flos, Brumdar, Heidegger, Psyaxe, Miquel, Elderpowah, Gael, Amagaad, Azu, Banamano, Blagdor/Hubie, Cryss, Didz, Hexor, Padington, Schism, Smoken, Marn, Icyone, Ironlung, Sharpeye, Thetroll, Narshe, Smeg, Skemtar, Rozal, Mooncalf, Arem, Aten, Dion, Thugcoolio, Rimos, Mogard, Morogh, Nekronis, Nadir, Spiritto, Bloodash, Galvatron, Corann, Yourepwned, Bloodyfist, Zeloth, Ukar, Vandrake, Sizer, Orit, Jerpa, Walish, Shadowknife, Solfk, Tseng, Hanzi, Darel, Darknessorc, Vitriol, Pog, Doggydogg, Comunero, Urthaz, Fashia, Purepwnage, Loobooja, Exu and my apologies to anyone I missed!

Thanks to all the members who were ever in any of my guilds British Beef, United Beef, United Legions, Final Formation and Mental Warfare.

Thanks to Bad News for leading those Naxx raids because of you I can say I've cleared 13/15 in old school Naxx and Cleared AQ40, good luck to you guys. Also thanks to everyone in Khaos Dragons, Megiddo for the raids this past month.

ZG Cleared 16/8/06

Onyxia Down 30/9/06

AQ20 Cleared 1/10/06

MC Cleared (20/10/06)

Good luck to everyone that I'm leaving behind and to all those that have moved to different servers, it's been emotional, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Mattous (level 375 fishing, among other things)

Whats been keeping me busy

Well my first two weeks of being back on WOW have been fairly eventful! I haven't had much time to blog however as I've also started a new job as a web developer for a company in Stockton called TeesWeb!

So here's a bit of an update of my recent goings on in WOW:

Loot:
My Badge Loot Comparison post came in handy as I've managed to save up 100 badges and brought my Adorned Supernal Legwraps. When fully buffed this pushes my healing to over 2000 which is a pretty big margin! The best bit of loot I got though was my new Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat from the fishing daily quest! I really do love this thing! The next day I got an Eye of the Sea which sold for a very respectable 350g!

Guild:
The guild I applied for a few weeks ago Khaos Dragons was a bit of a disappointment. During my 2 weeks of belonging to the guild I only got to see one 25 man progression raid which really wasn't what I was expecting. So I've left and joined the guild Megiddo who are at about the same level of progression (if not a bit further) and raiding 4 nights a week without any attendance troubles.

Downings:
There was a new first for me this week dowing Rage Winterchill for my first time! The fight was fairly easy once we managed to get the waves of trash under control. Manged to reach friendly with The Scale of the Sands not a lot of use to me until I get my, now optional, attunement quest done though. The one progression raid I was in with Khaos Dragons was actually very successful getting two first kills for the guild in one night on. We killed The Lurker Below and Morogrim Tidewalker without too many problems. Shame after that there were no more 25 man progression raids, and still haven't been any.

Exploration:
I decided to get back into a bit of Azeroth exploration this week as dailies were getting boring. I managed to beat the fatigue debuff for long enough to reach the edge of the world and stay there for a bit until I went out of mana (OOM). Also took a look at whats behind the mountain range south of Tanaris, Ungoro and Silithus. Checked out Ironforge airport and the farm that sits in the mountains in southern Wetlands. I'm thinking up some posts for my WOW exploration discoveries even if there not really breaking news exploring is still one of my most favorite things to do in WOW.

Reputation:
I finally made it to exalted with Thrallmar and Lower City after doing a string of heroics! Not much useful loot there for me but it's another few exalted's to add to my collection! My Shattered Sun Offensive reputation is about half way through revered at the moment but has slowed down a bit these past few days due to daily boredom and exploring fun!

Others:
I finally reached 375 fishing, what can I say the new daily quests really gave me more of a reason to get into fishing again and it's a new way to relax after a hard nights wiping. I also got my first PvE title Mattous, Champion of the Naaru and completed my Black Temple attunement (not that it's needed anymore) getting my Medallion of Karabor.

On another note a lot of my long term friends on my current server Bladefist have been moving to different servers due to a lack of hardcore raiding opportunities. When I say a lot I really mean it, practically all of them have left now and they were pretty much the only reason for me sticking with this realm. I'm strongly considering moving server, but there will be a full post about that sometime soon!

So that's all I've been up to (quite a lot really in two weeks) and a bit of a taste of things to come!

Screenshots in order of appearance:
Me in my new fishing hat, Rage Winterchill down, The edge of the World, The farm in the Wetlands Mountains, In the mountains south of Silithus.

Badge Loot Comparison

This post will look at the new healing badge gear that's available for me to buy. As I've been away since before patch 2.4 hit I never really thought about what badges to get. So when I logged yesterday the vendor was already unlocked and I had 165 badges burning a hole in my Traveler's Backpack. So here's the list of what gear I currently have compared to the badge loot.

Boots of the Incorrupt vs Slippers of Dutiful Mending
+4 Stamina
+1 Intellect
+11 Spirit
+1 red socket
+2 Spirit socket bonus
+29 Healing
-8 mana per 5 seconds (mp5)
Cost: 65 Badges

Trousers of the Incarnate vs Adorned Supernal Legwraps
-12 stam
+3 Intellet
+6 Spirit
+1 Blue socket
+1 Red scoket
+4 Stamina socket bonus
+26 Healing
Cost: 100 Badges

Robes of Heavenly Purpose vs Gown of Spiritual Wonder
+15 Stamina
+12 Intellect
-5 Spirit
+1 Red Socket
+2 Spirit Socket Bonus
-1 Yellow Socket
-2 Blue Sockets
-9 Healing Socket Bonus
+17 Healing
Cost: 100 Badges

Vindicator's Band of Salvation vs Anveena's Touch
-7 Stamina
-1 Intellect
-22 Resilience
+15 Healing
+5 mp5
Cost: 60 Badges

Ethereum Life-Staff vs Gavel of Naaru Blessings (and Talisman of the Sun King)
+ 17 Stamina
+ 10 Intellect
- 62 Spirit
+ 108 Healing
+ 6 mp5
Cost: 150 Badges

I decided to go with buying the boots first, which are possiably the biggest upgrade that I can afford (the legs are better but I have limited funds for an enchant and gems). I also brought the ring because it gives me a nice boost to my mp5 which I lost on the boots and a bit more healing. I'll be working my way through getting all of these except maybe the Gavel of Naaru Blessings because of the huge spirit nurf that I would take. I have 20 badges left so it'll be a while before I can afford the next item!

My return to WOW last night went well I've got lots of screenshots that I'll share with you in a later post. Here's one to wet the appitite!

My return to WOW first takes me to an old enemy

My First Guild Application

I've been running guilds for so long in WOW now that I can't remember the last time I applied to join a guild simply because I haven't needed too. I did join a guild after my level 60 guild Final Formation fell apart a few months after TBC was released, but I didn't have to apply to join them they just took me on my word. This got me thinking I've read literally hundreds of applications over the years but never had to have to fill one out myself. So I took careful time writing it making sure everything was answered and made sense. I know Skathyn GM of Khaos Dragons in real life but to keep his other officers happy I applied because they don't know me, even if he does. Their recruitment is closed so I'm really hoping that I get in I've bigged myself up as much as possible! You can see the application here.

I've decided to move my return to playing WOW again forward a bit, I'm hoping to start up again on Friday the 16th which is less than a week away now and I'm excited! I've applied early so hopefully (assuming I get accepted) I'll be raid with them on Sunday also it gives them a chance to ask me any questions, they haven't done yet but I've had a couple of there members give me the thumbs up so that's a good thing! If I don't get in it's not the end of the world I'll just have to look elsewhere or will more likely just lay low until Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK) comes out. The guild isn't as far progressed as my previous guild but given another month or so I think they'll be caught up. They are currently 2/4 TK and trying to add a third night of 25 man raiding to there schedule so hopefully I'll get some good raids out of them!

I've started looking at the new badge loot that's available properly now comparing it to my current gear, trying to decide which gear is worth getting and it looks like a lot of the gear is well worth it. I currently have about 150 badges so I'll probably end up getting 1 or 2 items at a push. In my next post I'll talk about the comparison and work out which items would be the biggest upgrade so I can decide which to buy first.

Blackrock Mountain - March 10th 2008 (3 days before my last login on WOW)

Coming Soon

This is just a placeholder for my upcoming World of Warcraft (WOW) blog expected to start June 1st. Expect to see layout and style changes as and when I get time. Stay Tuned.

Hyjal July 2006

About Me:

I'm a longterm WOW player my account has been active since the release date in Europe. Since then I've had many characters my main for two years now being a Holy Priest on the Bladefist European server. My time in WOW has been spent leading guilds, participating in and leading end game raids. Currently taking a break from the game to focus on my final term of University. I'm looking forward to playing again and sharing my experiences as a priest, guild leader and raider.