Warrior Quests

I haven't run many instances since my last post.  Mainly because I didn't had much time for BigF but also because I wanted to work on the warrior specific quests, specifically Essences of Exile.  I was also at 225 for my First Aid, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone in the Arathi Highlands.

Wrong.

First, it seems you need to be 35 to get the quest Triage for first aid.  I was 34 when I looked - a fresh 34.

Second, the elemental exiles I had to kill?  They were either a very deep orange 38 or a bright red 39.  No problem, says I, I've been killing red mobs on a regular basis.  I'M PROT!

Y'ever notice that there's a difference between mobs that are the same level?  I mean, I understand that they should and do have different abilities and attacks and such, but some you can kill easily while others just eat your lunch?  That's the case here on several levels.  I have killed mobs in the upper 30s with relative ease before, even as a 33 myself.  These guys, especially the 39s were very different.  Still, I managed to cull enough 38s and barely survive enough 39s to get the necessary 8 cresting charms with just a few deaths.  The drop rate for the charms isn't that great, but I figured it was good XP so I didn't mind.  Then I moved on to the thundering charms.  And hit a wall.  Well, not a wall exactly, more like a gale force wind.  These air elementals have ranged attacks that make it very difficult to pull them away from their compatriots.  Plus the drop rate still sucks.  I find my self eating/bandaging/lifeblooming during or after every pull which makes for some VERY slow going.  And I haven't even touched the burning guys yet.

As I was writing this post, I did notice that the charms can be bought on the AH, or farmed by a higher level toon.  I may check out their prices and see how much they cost.  But I won't spend too much, though.  I did finally ding 35 so hopefully the mobs will be just that much easier to kill now.

Then I'm going back to the dungeon.

Good Times in Scarlet Monastery

I had some fun last night in SM.  Fun because firstly, it's not Gnomer.  Second, I had two guildies with me.  The first was our GM Winnie who is leveling a mage.  She levels her toons very very fast.  When I last saw her mage, she was in the early 20s when I logged on last night, she was 30.  I wanted to run a few with her before she blew past my warrior a left him eating dust.  So we queued up and got the Graveyard.  I don't mind GY, necessarily, it's a quick, easy run but it's almost too quick, if you know what I mean.  Sure, we get more loot sacks here, but I don't need another set of gloves or another damn caster neckpiece (seriouisly, SP and Int on 3 straight bags, nary a +crit or +str to be seen).  I want XP and GY tends to just whet my appetite.

Anyway, halfway through our first run, Bullwark our main tank wants to join us on his rogue.  Great, I say, welcome aboard and be prepared to have your brain picked.  So he switches over and since he's 34, and Winnie's mage is 30, we can't do a random together.  So I sign us up for SM Library which is on all of our screens.  While we're waiting I bombard poor Bull with question after question, do tanks use slam (no, use heroic strike instead) what about rend (no) when do we become not rage starved (when we get hit more) so then what is my priority of rage use (thunderclap first, then cleave spam and refreshing TC if AOE threat is needed) what about sunder (use it if you're losing threat, but 1-2 stacks should be sufficient).  And on and on.  I think I made his ears bleed.

We made two runs through SM Library that came off without a hitch and each of us dinging (well Winnie dinged when she turned in a quest after the second run). 

But..the one drawback to SM?  At least so far in my 5-6 GY and 2 Library runs?  Lots of caster gear, not so much for tanking/melee folks :(

Let the Lepors Have It!

Yes, I'm talking about Gnomeregan.  Man is that place horrid!  I ran it twice this weekend and on a third, I...
I ....
I bailed.  
I pulled an Occulus.
I saw those damn steam pipes in the loading screen and when I zoned in, I left and took the debuff.  
I wish I could say I'm sorry or that I feel guilty.  But the truth is, I'm not.  I want to have fun with the game and Gnomer is definitely NOT fun.  Plus, I'm hopeful that the rest of the party, after losing the tank dissipated and the toons found a nice happy RFD run instead.  

So what's my beef with the Gnome city?  Let me regale you with my tale:

On my first run through, I was actually happy to see it come up.  It was, after all, a new dungeon for me and I had just read a simple strategy - somewhere (wow.com, maybe?) in passing - keep moving left and don't jump.  

Well my first group had a couple folks who wanted to jump.  So we did.  And we got lost.  And wiped.  And on the run back in, realized that when you jump, it's basically as if you have to start over.  So we jumped again, only this time landed on a pile of mobs who killed our half-healthed selves.  We start again and actually make progress (I think, we're still lost in my mind, and just killing random mobs).  The jumpers say we're close to the end when we lose two people.  The two new folks don't know where we are at and don't know about jumping, so they die.   And that's when I left the group.  I had just had it and didn't see us finishing up.  

My second try was better only in that we finished.  And that was thanks to a remarkable group of folks (whom I've forgotten, I need to write down names/servers for this stuff).  We zone in and the mage immediately says "uhg, I hate this place."  We all laugh, but start moving.  We have a warrior, though, who keeps charging ahead and pulling, regardless of healer mana or even a rez.  I finally tell him that I'd do the pulling and he responds that he wants to.  I say then he should equip his shield and I'll dps.  The lock in our group chimes in saying that he has no shield.  I say that I'll pull then.  The warrior keeps saying he can pull and why can't he pull and someone, gratefully, initiates a kick vote which succeeds.  The lock leaves with his buddy and we quickly get two more folks and continue on and make good progress.  One of the new folks leaves the group for no reason that I could see and so we get a new DPS.  He's making his way to us, but dies in the 'safe zone.'  (Is that zone safe just for allies?  If so, then that's just not fair.  If there's a quest or something we need to do, then, that still sucks.)  Anyway, we go back and rez him and we still continue on. 


Somewhere near the end, the healer dies.  Not sure how, I think a pat came wandering out from a hallway intersection.  The mage also dies, but 2 locks survive and I.  The healer tells the mage not to release, he'll run back and rez.  See, that's why we stuck this run out, we were all in this together.  If I took a wrong turn, they corrected me and I didn't get huffy.  They also didn't correct me like an asshat either, which helps.  The mage, who hated this place, didn't let it affect him - he just kept plugging and doing well.  


Well, the healer released and ran back...and found mobs.  Vanilla Dungeons respawn?  Really?  How was that ever a good idea?  So the mage releases and joins the healer and they realize the entire place respawned, not just a few pats.  Ugh.  The three of us start making our way back to the priest/mage and they start (slowly) coming back to us.  Forutnately it was a nice mixture - the mage could survive and kill things, if slowly and the locks and I were able to make decent progress back, thanks to healthstones!  


Finally, my group rounded a corner and ran into a pat.  Unfortunately, we hadn't fully healed from our last fight, so things were grim.  Then we saw  "There they are!" in party chat and at the other end of the corridor were the other two.  I started making a beeline towards them and everyone typing "HEAL THE TANK."  I was down to, well, I couldn't see my health bar anymore when our healer got in a big heal that saved us all.  After that ordeal, the mage reiterated that he hated this instance.  We all agreed.  


We finished up with no other problems, but it was still 90 minutes in there.  I haven't been back since. 

Pimp Mah Build!

I like WoW.com's returning feature Pimp My Profile.  It gives some expert advice to folks in need and while doing so, also provides great information to a wide readership that they can incorporate on their own.

I'd been meaning to talk about my build for awhile now, but, well, honestly, at lvl23, I don't have much of a build to talk about yet!  Actually, I think that's all the more reason to talk about what I have.  There is plenty of discussion on full blown 80 builds - dps, pvp, raiding, etc.  But I'm hard pressed to find any talk about creating your build from the ground up.  And not just for warriors, but for all classes.  So periodically, I'll take some time to discuss where my build is at, why I put points where they are, and where I plan on going with my next several points.

Here's my lvl23 build.  I wanted to do three things right off the bat:

1. Improve my rage input/output - Shield Specialization and Improved TC do this.  I use TC a lot so, the cheaper the better.  It also strikes me that getting 5 rage every time I block or dodge should give me a decent rage income.  Note - I'm still constantly rage starved, but I guess it's not as bad as it could be.  
2. Lay a solid tanking foundation - damage mitigation is essential to any tank and Anticipation helps with that.  As a druid tank, I know the value of dodge!  Plus, it boosts my chances of getting another 5 rage!
3. Get Last Stand - Most tank classes have something similar (stoopid pallies make my absolute conditional).  Anyway, it's a nice 'oh crap' button and I really like that I get it so early in my build. 

So that's how I got to where I am at.  Looking forward, the expected way to go is through Toughness, but I'm not so sure.  I think I'm going to improve my damage output for the next few talents.  Incite will take me down to the next tier.  From there, I'm not sure yet.  I'm torn on Improved Revenge, though.  On the one hand, 20% damage boost for two points is very, very attractive.  On the other hand, the stun proc smacks of PvP and confuses me.  It mitigates incoming damage, obviously, but I think it would also slow my rage generation and the little hiccup the stun would cause might interrupt the flow of battle.  So I'm not sure and only time will tell.  I've got three levels to decide!

Movin' On Up

I hit lvl23 last night and I'm making solid progress.  Not as fast as others I know, but I'm not sure how much time they're putting in either.  The most pleasant surprise so far has been the variety of dungeons I'm running.  I was dreading the prospect of being sent to the same place over and over again.  That, happily, has not been the case.  After running RFC five times in a row (not as bad as it sounds, most were quick final boss-only runs), I've been sent to WC three times, Deadmines twice and last night I hit Blackfathom Depths for the first time.

My theory for this is that I've been leveling so quickly (at least one ding per dungeon), that I'm quickly moving through my available dungeons and 'opening' new ones.  I really, really, hope this is true.  For one thing, I like the pace I've been going - a dungeon 2-3 times is sufficient before it starts to get redundant.  For another, I hope this system lasts up through Sunken Temple.  I hate that place.

The loot bags (Satchel of Helpful Goods) dropped two more cloaks for me, one was for casters (stoopid pallys) and the was dps-y, but not OMG-so.  As the link details, the satchels are broken down into levels, depending on your level.  Each level has loot that fills two slots (i.e. waist and back) and the item has random stats.  So at level 30, I'll be seeing lots of neck pieces and gloves.  The 40's will be sparse tho since they give shoulder pieces and rings.  I highly doubt they'll have anything better than my heirlooms.  Though on the other hand, maybe a pure tanking shoulder may have an edge... we'll see.

Finding the Groove

Wow, low level dungeons are not quick! I realize now how spoiled I was with 20 minute heroics, lol. But I have found a nice groove for getting them done, though. I can usually do two in a session which gets me around two levels worth which is great.

This weekend I went into WC and, well, ugh. My first run broke up after looking waaaayyy too long for a missed boss. How long? We had 3 people join and quit the group, WITHOUT KILLING ANYTHING. Second time through was better, but I still couldn't tell ya where all the bosses are.

I also ran Deadmines which is still a blast. That is one great instance. Unless you wipe. Then you (ok, I) get lost on the way back. Not cool.

I'm learning to really like the loot bags the dungeons give out though. I'm noticing a developing trend - the first three bags I received all had different cloaks for me, all mail, but one was +8 stam, one was more DPS and the third one was a great tanking cloak that I'm still wearing. I think I got another cloak or two as well that I vendored (should have taken chanting). Now I've gotten 3 belts in a row, again a great tanking one and a nice dps one and one meh.

So with my heirlooms, the loot bag drops and boss drops, I'm confident that I'll be rocking very good gear all the way up! Great job Bliz!

What did I get myself into?

No, this is not yet another tale of a good LFG PUG gone bad.  Or even a bad LFG PUG gone worse.  I have, thankfully, had only a few of those.  The vast majority of my dungeons are silent and quick.  Usually after the 'Hi' at the start, the next thing I see in blue text is 'nice group, thanks.'  I have had a few asshats in my runs, and I've had a few runs where we all get along great and chat and make jokes, but those are on the periphery.  And they're not what this post is about. 

No, it's starting to sink in that in order to make this deal of mine work - to level almost exclusively in dungeons through the LFG, I'm committing myself to running instances that I abhor.  It's also refreshing my memory all the Vanilla WoW dungeons got wrong.  Thankfully, Blizzard learned from their mistakes in BC and learned from those mistakes in Wrath.  So without further ado, here's my list of things I hate about Vanilla WoW dungeons -

1. Finding the damn place - Can you honestly say you can find the entrance to the Razorfen Downs - or Kraul, whichever one is on the east side of the road?  I can't.  Admittedly, I never ran it all that often - maybe once as a level appropriate place and 2-3 times at 80 to get the achievement on various toons.  But man, it should be an achievement just to get TO the place!
   
2. Getting to the entrance - A slight variant to #1.  Everyone knows where the Sunken Temple is, right?  It's well, it's the big sunken temple in the middle of the lake.  But knowing where it is is one thing - getting to the entrance is another.  The Sunken Temple is probably my most hated instance in this game for many many reasons, but having to fight through I don't know how many packs of trash and missed turns etc. just to reach the entrance of the instance heads the list.  Uldamann is another example along with Blackfathom Deeps and Mauradon and Wailing Caverns.  In the old days, getting a group together was hard enough.  Getting everyone summoned was also a chore.  Now we had to fight our way in?  No thanks.  Thankfully with LFG this shouldn't be a problem.  We should get 'ported right inside.
3. Pick an entrance, any entrance.  Which one has the colored entries?  And lord help you if you choose the wrong one during a corpse run?  I'm guessing its either Mauradon or Uldaman.  But man is that freaking irritating.  And it always splits the group.  Every freaking time.  I'm to blame most of the time because, again, I'm not 100% confident which way to go on these so I'm just looking for a swirly thing to run through.  And don't try to run out either because remember, we got ported in - all that lovely trash is still there!
4. Levels - You're minimap is basically useless in Sunken Temple.  No, check that - it's entirely useless in Sunken Temple.  You might be able to see the '?' you've been hunting for on your map.  Hell, you might even have your cursor floating right over that '?', but there's no one to turn that quest into.  Why?  Because they're a flight up or a flight down.  And take my word for it - if you go down a flight, they're now up two.  And if you go up a flight?  They're in the basement.  This is the main reason I hate ST, I just never know where I'm going.  They have so many directions and stairs and necessary order to kill or click on things, it was just never worth my time.  I always loved the quest chain leading up to it, but after banging my head against the group finding wall and then having folks leave the group because we'd be lost for hours on end, I just decline it now. 

Now, to be fair, there are a few things I do like about Vanilla dungeons -

1. Trash mobs.  Yup, I said it - I like trash.  Why?  Well, first and foremost, the XP.  Dungeons are the single best source of XP because you're killing mobs all the time.  They kept it up in OL but sadly the trash has diminished in Wrath.  And I understand why.  We all want teh lewtz without working so much for it.  But I'll take a nice tash of trash anyday. 
2. Needing on greens - sadly this won't apply as much to me this time 'round since I have my heirlooms and I expect to run in mostly dungeon blues for the rest.  But I miss the days of looking over every drop, I mean every single one, and checking to see if it had some stats that were an upgrade and if those were worth the downgrade in other stats.  Greens meant something back then man!  Uphill!  Both ways!  IN SNOW!
3. Size - Vanilla dungeons take time.  Not because of a boss mechanic or we have to wait out some intermidible dialog - yes Svala, the sensation is beyond your imaginings.  Copyright that phrase before Dr. Pepper steals it for their next Canadian ad campaign.  No, they took time because they're HUGE.  I acknowledge that this can be a blessing or a bane, depending on your group, but if you have a good party going, it's nice to settle in for awhile and get the job done instead of knocking out 20 minute runs and then entering the dungeon lottery again. 

So anyway, those are my initial thoughts, or preconceived prejudices, or what-have-you on Vanilla dungeons.  They're probably not 100% right, I know they're not 100% wrong, but they are 100% mine!

Feel free to add your own.

It's Level 15!

OK, so that's settled, LFG kicks in at 15. My guess is that while RFC is level 13 for horde toons, Blizzard is keeping the bar at 15 so all toons have the same starting point (allied folks can't access RFC - located in the middle of Orgrimmar - until they reach or near 80).

Anyway, I joined LFG (tank/DPS) and spent about 20 minutes running around Mulgore picking flowers, breaking rocks, and killing harpies. I finally did get into an RFC group and it went very well, the folks were friendly and shared their quests. Most also had some heirloom gear as well, so they had experience.  Best of all, the healer we had (shaman) was from my server!  He also said he was planning on LFG'ing extensively, so hopefully we can run together.  Plus, I won the bracers! This was a huge jump for me because, well, honestly, I was still wearing white bracers, maybe even grey.  Oh yea, I also ding'ed 16 when I turned in the shared quests. 

Funniest part of the run?  The hunter ran out of arrows.  Seriously.  I couldn't make that up if I tried.  Well, I could, but it would be too cliche.  We all laughed and told him to melee away.  Then he said his DPS would be low and we pointed out that it would still be higher than shooting an empty bow.  All good natured and all fun.  I realized I miss low level instances where mages need on green staves with strength because everyone else passed and the +stam is still an upgrade over whatever they had, and different folks at different levels can lead to very interesting results.  I think I'm gonna enjoy this expirment. 

The only drawback?  No officers from my guild were on when I hit 15 to add me up :(  We have an policy of alts being 15 before they're added.

A Slight Hiccup

I didn't have much time to play last night - I worked late and had to get up early - but I did log on long enough to ding 13 and join LFG for RFC.  And I couldn't?  If I tried to open up the LFG window, nothing would happen, just as I was leveling up.  I checked the patch notes and they don't list a level requirement below which LFG doesn't work, indeed, they seem to go out of their promoting it for all levels

Level-appropriate rewards will be offered to players who choose the Random Dungeon option for pre-Wrath of the Lich King dungeons.

The only thing I can think of is that I clicked on LFG too quickly after hitting 13 (it was before the gong sound and the light whoosh faded).  I didn't actually intend to run the instance, just verify I could, in fact, queue up.  Ah well, I'll check again tonight and hope for better results.

Why I'm Here

Hello everyone and welcome to Hooves & Horns.  I'm starting this blog mostly to track my efforts to level my new warrior, Bigfncow entirely through WoW's LFG system.  He's not my only toon, though, so I may write on other topics from time to time.  

While Bigfncow is new, I'm not starting from scratch.  He does have the heirloom chest and shoulder pieces, a full set of netherweave bags, and 10g to get rolling.  I may kit him out with the heirloom trinket as well, but I don't think I'll get him a weapon.  I want him to learn and level as many different types of weapons as possible because, well, because he can!  


So, what's the inspiration for all this?  Well, the LFG system, released with patch 3.3 is obviously a huge motivator.  It makes running instances so much easier and quicker.  Well, at least the Northrend instances.  I don't have any experience with running dungeons from BC or Vanilla WoW (yet).  And instances are my favorite part of the game.  I've done the quests over and over and over and over again.  So I know the quests.  I'm not a big BG'er (in no small part that whatever faction/server combo I join seems to be the whipping boy of the battlegroup).  

Now, why a warrior?  Well the key with the LFG, though, is to be able to heal or tank.  If you're a pure DPS, the waits are dramatically reduced, but they're still there.  Healers and tanks, though?  ZOOOM! right into the instance.    As you can see from above, I have two druids - both can heal and one can tank.  I love druids (obviously) but I wanted something different.  I've tried DKs several times and I'm just ...meh... about them.  I'm not sure why, they just never took ahold of me.  Oddly enough, I think it may be because I skipped 55 levels and didn't have a chance to 'grow' with my toon, learning new skills every two levels and such.  In any event, DKs were out.  I thought about palladins as well, and while they do hold a good degree of appeal to me, I wanted a warrior.  I wanted to be the basic, prototypical tank.  I wanted to wear plate and use a shield and look badass.  So, a warrior it was.  


What race though?  I was tempted to go gnome.  I've always wanted a gnome - they look funny and I like those starting quests.  But in the end, I went through the other extreme and chose Tauren.  Why?  Because I want to tank and being a tank means needing lots of health points and Tauren get a 5% base health boost.  Plus, that whole badass part from above?  Tauren pull that off with ease.  We're big, we're broad, and we glower.  Plus, I enjoy their starting zones too. 


So I created Bigfncow and ran him up to level 12 last night.  When he dings 13, I can queue up for Ragefire Chasm and from there, no more quests.  Well, I'll take quests for the dungeons if folks can share them, of course.  But if/while I wait for groups to form, I'll be picking my flowers and mining my ore and killing random mobs for lewt/cloth/rep whichever I need at the moment.  


So wish me luck, and check back often!