I’m starting off with an achievement that’s been a long time coming. “Burning Crusader” is the achievement for getting all 5 BC Dungeon reps to exalted. Honor Hold (Thrallmar if you’re horde), Cenarion Expedition, Keepers of Time, Lower City, and The Sha’tar… All of them finally exalted, after stalling and procrastinating and doing other things. Go me.

This achievement: “Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance”, is coupled with “Ambassador of the Alliance”.. I know they’re pretty common achievements these days, but the reason i’m advertising them is that it’s my first time for either one. It’s a long, boring grind, and I don’t plan on doing it again for any of my toons anytime soon.

This, you might recognize as Ulduar. I was actually substituting for my guild’s Ulduar achievement run… Their usual offtank couldn’t make it for one reason or another. As far as I can tell, the guild just wanted me to help blitz through most of the bosses to get to Mimiron where the normal group could work on whatever drake achievements they could get from him, as well as bypassing the Iron Council, Ignis, and Razorscale for a couple remaining achieves on them. The achievements in the screenshot above are “I’ll Take You All On” and “Lose Your Illusion”… Unintentional hardmode achievements, from what I was told… As you can tell, I was killed just before Thorim went down. I’m not entirely sure what happened to be honest… I just know that Thorim hits *hard*, and I kinda felt good getting these achievements wihtout even meaning to.

Con-speed-atory. I’ve heard people consistently bemoan this achievement… with damn good reason. There is a LOT of trash in Freya’s room, and some of them hit rather hard. Now, 20 minutes is kind of a broad window, especially with a group of people who are ICC geared… but also keep in mind. I had to be explained *EVERYTHING* at this point. I’d never seen the Freya or Thorim fights before, let alone the trash leading up to them. It made me feel pretty good to know that I didn’t hold the group back too badly on this one.

Now, this achievement isn’t really a big deal… but out of the numerous times i’ve gone through the Flame Leviathan fight, “Unbroken” has never really crossed my mind for one reason or another. Someone mentioned, as we were blasting our way through the trash, that we should just not repair… It sounded like a good idea at the time, so we went with it, and proceeded to eat FL for breakfast.

I think that’s all for my achievement whoring today. I’m not a huge achievement earner… mainly because I have the WORST case of alt-itis ever (As it is, i’m working on another DK, who is now 72), so it seems like a waste of time farming all those nerd points for one toon… But this was a lot of fun for a substitution and a little over 2 hours time before work

So, first thing’s first. I continue to manage to not piss off the owner of hordereview.com… in fact he thinks i’m making some killer posts there for beginning hunters. If you feel like checking it out, go to hordereview.com, lol. Secondly, if you ever listen to the All Things Azeroth podcast, and you managed to listen to the newest episode (Which was recorded yesterday, so I dont think it’s live yet) then you may have heard a rare treat… I recorded an intro for a contest they’re running, and it was played live yesterday. The contest is, in essence, for a guest hosting spot on their 200th episode (which is in 3 more weeks). SO.. There’s a possibility that yours truly will be a guest host with Medros and Shade on ATA’s illustrious 200th episode.

Alright, now that i’m done tooting my own horn, let me tell you a bit about my week in WoW.. I’ve kind of set my pally on the shelf for a bit. I think she’s 45 right now, but i’ve been playing my druid who is now level 78. I recently respecced my druid’s off-spec to feral, and used a metric S— TON of leather to make him the Eviscerator’s set (Which, incidently, is great for tanking because it’s a lot of stam, and a lot of attack power…) I’ve picked up a couple rings and a necklace that are good for tanking, but tanking on him is a little more tough than you might think. Why is that? Because i’m still adjusting to the rage mechanic. Battling rage starvation is kind of a pain in the ass, but i’m working on it. My first random tanking gig took place in Halls of Stone, and I think I did a pretty good job. No one died, and everyone said I did alright, so yay for that. I was battling for aggro with the ret pally a few times, but he was really good dps for a pre-80…. and he also didn’t seem to want to wait long for me to build threat.. No problem, he was well geared and any beating he took didn’t hurt him too much. I was thrilled at this group having gone so well for me never having tanked on a druid before. Woo!

Outside of WoW, but still related, i’ve been playing Warcraft 3 a lot lately. Man, i’d forgotten how FUN that game is, and also how damn FRUSTRATING it can be. Right now i’m in the undead campaign (not in The Frozen Throne, just original WC3). One of the (unanimously decided) most DIFFICULT missions in the game… I’m going to quote how I worded it on twitter last night. “Protect Kel’thuzad for 30 minutes while we throw a whole fucking map at you, so he can summon Archimonde to go hump the World Tree”. If you don’t get the reference about Archi and the world tree then you NEED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO.

Alright, that’s enough babbling for me today. Thanks for bearing with me through my lack of posting.

See, I have a pattern I follow while levelling an alliance toon, and that pattern always leads to a wall from 42/43-45ish. Once you hit 45, Gadgetzan is doable, Feralas is doable, Searing Gorge is doable… it’s all good for a while there. Does anyone else have this problem? Where do you find is the “hard areas” to get past when levelling your alts? By comparison, where do you find the easiest levels to get past are? (Aside from the Outlands, cause you can pretty much hit 10 levels in two zones almost with any BOA gear).

What do you do when you hit these “walls when levelling”? Do you suck it up and hit the dungeon queue? And how about that, are there any dungeons you run across while levelling that you just can’t be arsed to be any part of? Personally, I loathe Maraudon. Purple or orange, don’t matter. Pristine Waters doesn’t bother me as much because it’s rather scenic and pretty to look at, but I just don’t like the dungeon as a whole. I am, however, glad that the LFD tool seperates it into those 3 areas, cause that place is retarded long.

I also have serious problems doing Dire Maul or BFD, because it seems like nobody knows their way through those places, and they all end up getting lost and failing miserably… and when the group inevitably wipes, NO one knows how to get back to the dungeon enterence.

Wow, okay, I went off a lot longer than I meant to, but please, leave me a comment and tell me about your levelling experiences. I really want to read them.

Levelling my paladin goes well. I have him up to 35 now I think. I dunno, levelling isn’t really all that bad for me, I don’t guess. At least, ffs, it shouldn’t be with as many toons as i’ve leveled. (6 80s, 3 70+s, a 60.. yeah. it’s crazy) The paladin really is one of the easiest classes to level. Yeah, it can get a bit tedious at times because the consensus is that you basically auto-attack until level 50 when you can get crusader strike. There really is a lot more to it than that. One thing that people tend to overlook is that paladins have a damaging taunt. Hand of reckoning is immensely overpowered at low levels, and really makes killing things quick and rather painless. And you get it at level 16 I mean come on. I’ve had Hand of Reckoning taunts that crit and instantly take out more than half of a mob’s health… Mobs the same level as, or higher than me. Here’s the cool part. Anytime a mob “Runs away in fear” they’re no longer targeting you… nuke them with your taunt before moving on to the next mob. Also, if a mob is healing himself, he’s not targeting you, so bam.. nuke him with the taunt. Dead useful when you’re fighting things like those bloody redridge shamans/mystics or something of that nature. And hell, once you get your pally to level 20, you get consecrate. That’s the be-all end-all of aoe levelling. Don’t like aoe levelling? Well, you also get exorcism. Does just as much damage as Hand of Reckoning does, give or take. Cool thing? Your taunt isn’t on the GCD. You can wind up an exorcism and throw HoR at the tail end of it, and they’ll both damage the mob. Instantly half dead = win.

Wow… I rambled on a lot more about pallies than I thought I would. Heh. I’m sure no one minds. Or maybe you do, idk. I don’t care either really. You’ll either read the blog or you won’t. With that, though, I am going to close this out.

Oh, one last thought.. Who in the hell taught Lady Gaga the secret to music taking up permanent residence in your brain. A friend of mine was listening to “Bad Romance” and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.. This was fracking almost TWO DAYS AGO. Someone help me.

“Why?”, you ask? Well, I was hoping you would.

In condensed form, the changes are this:

10 man raids are sharing a lockout period with 25 man raids.

The bosses will be roughly the same difficulty (both offering heroic modes, of course)

10 man and 25 man raids will be dropping the same item levels of loot. (IMO, this is why the major fuss over the death of 25 mans, but my next point swings the pendelum the other way)

25 man raids will drop more loot, more hero points (the new version of the badge system in place currently), and possibly even more gold.

Now then… If 25 mans are going to drop more loot for the same boss kill, but will share a lockout with 10 man raids, wouldn’t you think people would try to spend that extra 20 minutes or so finding 15 more people? Perhaps, perhaps not. Here’s the rub though. Blizzard has set this up in an attempt to equalize the progression field between guilds who raid 10 man content (almost) exclusively, and guilds who raid 25 man content (almost) exclusively. Some guilds are only large enough to have a solid 10 man group, and they shouldn’t be held back from progression simply because they’re a smaller guild.

That is a point I whole heartedly agree with. Not every progression guild has to have 300 members on at any given point in time to be able to.. well.. progress. The backdraft of this, however, falls in the fact that 25 mans, while dropping the same -level- of gear will still drop more gear. “Why exactly is this a problem,” you ask? “Surely it would make sense to have 25 mans drop more gear, as there’s more players and likely a broader set of classes within the raid.”.. Well of course, that’s absolutely true, on both points. But again, if they’re trying to equalize how quickly a guild groups up, then there’s more likelihood that a 25 man group will gear up faster simply because.. well.. more loot drops, and more valor points. More points per kill means you can buy your tiered items faster, letting you get to the next progression path quicker… Right?

So, while I am still reserving final judgement, I am waiting to see what it is that Blizzard does to equalize this problem a bit more. Already, they have stated that there will be a cap on the number of points you can earn from raiding/heroics/whatever in a week. If the cap isn’t obscenely high, then this problem might not be as bad as I was expecting… However, if it’s too low then people will complain (you KNOW they will) that they can’t get their gear fast enough, and can’t progress fast enough.

But then… I suppose, for some people, nothing will ever stop the … Thanks for reading.

I definitely want to get my beta key, but nothing has been officially stated yet.

Let me say that again…

NOTHING HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY STATED YET

If you get an email or in-game message about an invite to the beta it is a scam. I hope any of you who are reading this know this already, but it can never be repeated enough.

If anything’s officially announced regarding the Cataclysm beta test, i’ll be sure to let everyone know.

My kneejerk response is to say that their decision makes sense to some extent. 10 and 25 man raids dropping the same loot? Sounds great to me! WotLK has far too many different sets of gear. “Current” tiers are basically ToC 10, ToC 10 heroic, ToC 25, ToC 25 heroic, ToC 10 Tribute, ToC 25 Tribute, ICC 10, ICC 25, ICC 10 heroic, ICC 25 heroic (and I think that’s all of them). Now, here the tricky part. ToC 10 heroic is better than ToC 25, and ToC 25 tribute i better than ICC 10. I’m not entirely sure how this makes much sense, but maybe that’s just me.

Blizzard’s attempt with Cataclysm, as far as I can tell, is to cut down on the different “sets” of gear you have to pick up from raiding. Does having 10 and 25 mans drop the same loot accomplish this? Of course. Does this also allow smaller guilds to progress in the same way that larger guild can? Absolutely. Will this work out exactly the way Blizzard thinks it will? I don’t think so, and here’s why. ” 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you’re able to gather the people.”… If 25 mans are going to drop more badges than 10 mans, then people are going to feel it’s necessary to put together 25 man groups for that reason. Especially as each new set of content comes out.

To apply this to a current situation.. Imagine if Toc 10 and 25 each dropped the same gear (say Ilvl 245), but you got 3 badges per boss in 25 man but only 2 badge per boss in 10 man. That’s 10 badges for a full clear in 10 man, but 15 badges for a full clear in 25 man. Now, granted, 5 badges may not seem to be a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but why settle for 10 badges when you could get 15 with basically the same effort? I realize this is not finalized by any means, but the way things are now, Blizz still needs to tweak some things with Cataclysm’s raiding structure.

I would also like to thank Anea for writing a great Advice to new bloggers post which gave me some great ideas for my blog. Expect to see more tweaks and changes coming up to the blog over the next few days. I hope to make this blog look a lot cooler and inviting to new readers, as well as something continually enticing for any readers I might already have. Don’t be shy! Feel free to drop a comment if you have any opinions on the matter.