The Forward Progression

To raid 10 man instances, you need,... well, 10 players. Course, you need the right combination, mainly 2 tanks, 2 or 3 healers then the rest a collection of melee or ranged dps. But the two most important things, in my opinion, you need for a successful 10 man run is gear and experience. If you don't have those, no matter how many healers, tanks or dps you have, you will fail epically.

So, how do you get these two must have items? Obtaining decent epic gear is pretty easy, if not time consuming. First, on your way to 80, you can pick up good gear by doing normal instances, completing quest for reward gear or grinding up rep with several factions in Northrend. Crafted gear as well as gear purchased off the auction are also great ideas. There really isn't any limitation to getting decent starter epic gear if your persistent.

Here is how I got all my tanking gear for my Paladin. First, when I hit 80, I did a lot of battlegrounds and tons of Wintersgrasp events. Through the gathering of honor, I was able to purchase some decent dps gear. Even though it was designed for PvP, it still doesn't do a bad job of getting you through a few instances as long as you make sure to enchant and gem it properly for max damage output. After obtaining a good number of pieces, I would jump into as many normal PuG instances as I could, just to learn how the dungeons worked and to pick up any trinkets or rings I was still missing. Then, I moved forward to doing Heroic dungeons. This provided me with Emblems of Heroism, with which I was able to purchase more tanking gear. If, while running the heroic, the main tank didn't need an item, I would get a chance to roll on it, sometimes I was successful, others, not so much, especially when I tended to get into all plate wearing groups. Believe it or not, it actually happens. After getting enough tanking gear through emblems and crafting a few pieces with my blacksmith, I decided to do a few tanking runs myself. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but as the tank, I got my choice of any tanking gear that dropped.

That is basically how I was able to build up my tanking set and a decent dps set for my off-spec. Not a very hard endeavor. Through my determination to run instances where I could get the best gear, I was able to pick up a few pointers from more experienced people and was able to gain the experience needed to be a successful tank. You can't run just a few successful instances and claim to have experience, especially those that don't run any instances till they get to 80. Experience also comes from being in bad PuGs and learning what works and what doesn't. I know for instance, that if my health is failing on trash mobs that the healer is ill prepared to get us through to the end boss. If the portal mobs aren't getting dps-ed fast enough in Heroic Violet Hold, then we are lacking in the proper dps and others will have to step up to get it done. All of this comes from not just doing one or two heroic dungeons but doing all of them over and over in the hope of understanding what combinations provide a winning outcome and which will end in utter failure.

I believe that since WoTLK came out, PuGs have been much more successful. True, you still get the occasional know it all pain in the ass and the idiot that has no clue, both of which will cause expensive gear repairs by the end of the run, but more often than not this is the exception not the rule.

My suggestion, before your guild starts running 10 man raids, make sure everyone is geared up, run a ton of heroic dungeons and maybe even an old 10 man raid pre-WoTLK. Go over strats and always remember, it's just a game, that you play for fun, relaxation and enjoyment.

The Return

OK, so I'm back from the west coast.

Truth be told, I've been back for 2 weeks, but apparently I've been too busy playing World of Warcraft to actually do any blogging.

So lets dive right in.

I've been extremely busy with WoW of late. One of the first things I managed to do was complete the [For The Alliance] achievement the reward for that was a nice Black War Bear to ride around on, as pictured above. Now, I'm stylin' and profilin'. Course, props go out to my fellow guild member, Silenced, who helped get me into the raid to kill all the heads of the horde cities. Funny thing is I was just there to help and have fun, I had no idea about the achievement or the reward. I was going to leave after the 3rd boss, but he convinced me to stay, which I am very grateful for.

After that little triumph, I managed to get my blacksmith over the 440 mark so I could craft my Titansteel Destroyer. An exceptional mace I must say and it makes a wonderful sound when killing horde or at least that is what I envision every time I kill one of those pesky vermin. Also got in a few arena rounds, got my points up and was able to buy a few pieces of nice PvP gear at a greatly improved discount.

So far I'm really enjoying life at 80. Sure there are a few times when I get bored and just hang out farming honor in a battleground or mine ore to sell. But for the most part I'm staying pretty busy, doing heroic dungeons, working on getting my jewelcrafting up and helping guildmembers reach 80.

I did manage to be part of a 10 man Naxxramas raid a week back. Now to set the stage, it was a bunch of guild members who joined up with another guild that a friend of ours was in. We used their guild ventrilo and they ran the raid. One thing I discovered, I don't like letting other people run raids other than our guild members. People take raiding way to serious and in our guild, we don't take anything serious. That's our nature. We are there to have fun, not bitch at who isn't holding agro or who is pulling agro or who doesn't have a high enough damage per second, etc. We take things light and have fun. Gaming is about fun, not about work. Well the raid didn't go as well as expected. The guild running it was a bit bossy and took things a bit too seriously for our tastes. In the end, we, Noobs, have decided that we just can't play well with the Anubis guild on Darkspear. It has actually spilled over into a few heroic runs where a member of Anubis would be rude or bossy to the point were we would have to leave. There just isn't any cause for that kind of behavior. Its a freakin game, get over yourselves.

I have more to cover, but I want to show pictures of my new in game toy, but apparently, Blogspot tends to get all wonky if I add more than one picture in a post, so I'll post about it tomorrow.

I've been commenting over on Copra's site, another World of Warcraft player, trying to convince him that Northrend is the place to be. World of Warcraft has gotten much easier to play, I'm convinced of that, even at end game. Previously, it would take me forever to acquire a set of PvP gear, but now, I'm averaging about 2 pieces a week and at this rate, I'll be fully decked out in about 2 weeks. I don't have problems getting into any heroic groups nor do I have problems acquiring gold at this level.

Normally, I'd be bitching about how the easy mode of WoW once again ruined the game. I commented on it when I was leveling my paladin up, people just would be unable to play cohesively as a group because they didn't learn the fundamentals while leveling up . I'm here to say that isn't a problem. A large portion of the new instances, even the heroics are so freaking easy to do, that the player would have to be a complete moron, and in some cases that's even ok, as long as your healer and tank aren't. Getting what you need as far as gear can be easily accomplished with the minimal amount of involvement from another human being. Because of the ease at which things can be done, people don't take issue with doing PuGs.

Sure, you get your occassional tard, but thats more of a rare thing now when forming a pick up group. I've done dozens of instances, some heroic and I think I've run across maybe 2 people that just didn't know what they were doing. Nine out of ten times, I get a fantastic group and I have to say, its all Blizzard's fault for making the game easier.

Now if they would just fix the lag and the over poplated instance servers, I'd be in heaven.

The AFK

I apologize for my absences of late. Really, I have no excuse, except to say that I didn't have much to say. Course, I have been trolling other people's blogs and posting, but nothing worth creating my own topic about.

So, what have I been doing? Other than trolling?

Well, I've managed to get my Paladin past 70 and into a sizable amount of Lich King content. Now, I had traversed a bit of Northrend previously with my warrior and gnome mage, but I wasn't really feeling it. I think a lot of it had to do with with how cluttered the Borean Tundra and Howling Fjords feel. The zone is pretty packed with animals, diverse terrain and other obstacles that tend to just annoy me. But, I decided with my paladin, the goal was to quickly level through those areas and head on, which I did, and I'm really enjoying the game much more.

There are areas of the new expansion that are just a visual delight. The art design for Lich King is very different than those of the core and BC. It seems to take on almost a graphic novel type of look with the shadowing and shading of the ground, trees and buildings. I'm just saying that I'm really digging the art work this time around.

The questing isn't much different than before. Lots of collection and kill quests. They have created a few themed quests that go along with certain areas you are questing in, like the D.E.H.T.A line of quests, which I won't go into here. They are fun to do maybe once, but after that they get annoying. Course, getting to ride a woolly mammoth is lots of fun. I just wish that Blizzard would stop making us look through animal crap for part of a quest. Bat quano and wolf droppings have no business being in a quest chain.

Getting a 5-man group as a retribution paladin seemed like it might be an issue. I figured most people would prefer a mage, warlock or Death Knight to a dps paladin, but I'm here to say, I've not had one problem. I've been inside the Nexus, Utgard Keep, Azjol- Nerub, Ahn'jahet and Drak'Tharon Keep. Everyone was pretty much a Pug, with a few guild members through in at times. We didn't have any problem getting along or getting the instance handled in a reasonable way and I had a blast doing each and every one. A lot of this new found ease is attributed to the way Blizzard created the instances in Lich King. They aren't very complicated and they are very very fast. Each instance took maybe 30 min to 40 min from start to finish, sometimes even less depending on your particular group make up.

Now here is the real problem, for me and my paladin anyway. There are 3 types of plate armor that drops in the game. Straight up paladin, mana regeneration, intellect and stamina heavy armor, protection warrior or paladin, stamina and strength heavy with defense thrown in for good measure. Then lastly they have some dps centric plate armor that's mostly designed for fury or arms warriors, but looks pretty good for a dps paladin at times, especially if nothing else is better.

So now I have to shift through what I have, whats dropped and who is in the party to decide if the item I'm looking at is worth rolling need for. I want you to know, it's getting pretty hard. I rolled need on two weapons over three days. Both looked to be better than the other, but upon closer examination and some attack dummy practicing, they are in fact, the same. No real problem because I didn't have any competition rolling on either item in the group I was in, but still. I don't want to hose someone out of a nice upgrade, especially if I'm not sure if the item is a true upgrade for me. I do have a mod that compares stats, but even that isn't 100% correct at times and I don't have the luxury of having the group hold up a roll just to make sure I'm doing the right thing for me.

Oh well, enough of that little bit of internal conflict.

Besides WoW, I've picked up two new DS games, Big Bang Mini and Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure. Both very different and very good games. I've enjoyed both of them immensely, especially when away from my computer due to work. I still need to finish Final Fantasy 3 and Chrono Trigger, but I needed something light to play while I was working out of town. I don't want to be caught playing my DS the next time we have someone important on the stage.

I've also become addicted to Starbuck's coffee. I'm not going to link them in my blog because they are extremely evil and if you've not already heard of them, which would be a miracle, I'm not going to go out of my way to help them aquire fresh blood for their army of caffinated zombies. Needless to say, every day I have at the very least one large cup of their highly addictive coffee, if not two. Yes, it does tend to be a bit expensive, but I don't smoke nor do I go out and drink beer much, so I don't see a problem with a coffee addiction.

On a good health note, I've joined Weight Watchers with my wife. I've been on it a week and I've already lost a little over 8 lbs. Hopefully the progress with continue. Being a diabetic it's important to me as I get older to get better control over my blood sugars and with my weight being a little out of control these days I'm hopeful that Weight Watchers can help. The trick is to attend the meetings and write down everything you eat during the day. Make sure you excercise and eat foods that will fill you up but aren't fattening. Ok, no more Weight Watchers commercial.

That is about it.

I would like to recommend a new podcast. I've been a fan of The Player One podcast for over a year now and recently they recommended The Fanboys. I've listened to three episodes so far and it's very entertaining. They converse mostly about movies and games, but they do tend to go off topic a great deal and some of it can be disturbing, but so far it's always been funny stuff. It won't be for everyone, but if your into entertaining podcasts, then give this one a try.

I'm too lazy to edit this or check my grammar so if I screw up something, please forgive.

The Addiction is back!

Well, I've spent the last couple of days diving back into the addiction often referred to as WoW. As noted previously, I've been away from keyboard for a few weeks and I was finally able to make it to group night. Group night is a standing invitation with some old home town friends to get together, do some questing, gank some horde, hang out and relax.

Well, I was able to make it this past Wednesday, but sadly my poor Paladin, Oakley was a little under leveled. So we spent most of the evening trying to level him from 56 to 58 so I would be able to join the other group members in Outland's, where the xp and gear are vast improvements over what I've been working with. We managed to get me to 57 and a little bit into the level before everyone got tired, except for me. lol

I decided to keep on questing and managed to ding 58 before 1am. So now all I had to do was wait till next Wednesday, and I would be able to travel with the rest of the group to Outlands. Well, that wasn't enough, so Friday when I was back online, I managed to get my Pally leveled to 59 without ever making it to the Outlands. lol

I then made my way to the Blasted Lands then through the Portal and into the first expansion. The gear you get for questing is pretty outrageous stuff, and lucky for me, most of the plate armor is geared for Paladin's. I know this because when leveling up my warrior I had to turn away a lot of good gear because it was pally specific. I mean, what warrior would be caught with intellect gear. lol

The questing can be a bit hazardous especially on a PvP server, but I managed to get a lot done before a Death Knight decided I was too tasty to leave alone and kept trying to kill me. One thing I can say about Retribution Paladins, we can dish out some good damage and on a good day, we can hold our own against just about any class out there, except, sadly, the over powered Death Knights. So, I decided to pack it in for the night, that was Friday. I had made a good bit of progress, made the trek to Honor Hold and was happy.

Course, since I mention that my addiction is rearing its ugly head, I decided to put in a full night of questing Saturday. Course this was after exchanging Valentine's cards and seeing that wonderful Coraline movie with the sweetie. Long story short, I got my Pally to 60. WOOT Course some of that was due to help from my friend's who happen to be on trying to level up their Death knights. lol Anyway, Saturday's fun extended to an all day session on Sunday where I managed to get another level in, and started working on my own Death Knight, Paynel, which I leveled up to 58. I have to say the Death Knight's are very over powered. I'm taking ass and kicking names, or some semblance of that. I've managed to move him to the Outland's and I'm ready to start leveling him on up. Course, I'll be one of millions, but hey, he will be mine, oh yes, he will be. lol

Anyway, I'm back. I have really missed WoW. The game is a lot of fun. It's good to be back and questing with friends again.