Category Archives: Diary
200 Words – It's Hard to Rely on my Cruel Intentions
I was planning on getting my Warlock to sixty-eight and get him started in Borean Tundra. However, when you play as many alts as I do, things don’t always go as planned. Just as I started in Terokkar Forest, a friend of mine came online and was itching to play his level sixty Death Knight. My Death Knight is sixty-one, so I offered to come help him with some quests. We started off with the Ravager Egg Roundup and made quick work of the ravagers. I hadn’t played my Death Knight (specialized in Unholy) in quite some time, so I had forgotten about what rotation to use. I found a Death Knight site that listed a cast sequence macro for Unholy, and setup the buttons on my action bars to match. After that, I was quickly reminded of how much Death Knights are overpowered.
After slicing through ravagers like two hot knives through butter, we thought we could handle the group quest “Cruel’s Intentions” by ourselves. We got Arazzius down to under ten percent on our first attempt, and wiped quickly on the second try. After finishing our humble pie, I asked a nearby Paladin and Priest to help us.
200 Words – Naxxramas Night Two
We ventured into Naxxramas for the second time, attempting to clear the Arachnid Quarter and explore the Plague Quarter. We had some troubles with Maexxna the night before, but we were able to one-shot her. I was concerned with rounding up her spiderlings and trying to tank them before they reached our ranged players. I posted a question on the Maintankadin forums and received some solid feedback. Users replied with their experiences of ignoring the spiderlings. I took this approach and focused on helping with the Web Wrap and healing.
The Plague Quarter was a nice change of pace after battling spiders for a night. I was tasked with handling the adds during the Noth the Plaguebringer encounter. I controlled them fairly easily, and our healers did an outstanding job of keeping me alive during phase two. It was another one-shot and on to Heigan the Unclean. After great progression on each attempt, we took him down. I assisted with cleansing and healing during the fight, and had fun running through the eruptions to the safe zones.
We’re going to try it all again next week in hopes that we’ll get through these two quarters even faster next time around.
200 Words – Enter Naxxramas
I ran Naxxramas with my protection Paladin for the first time. We started with the Arachnid Quarter, like most new raid groups do. I wasn’t sure how far we’d get, especially since my gear is not quite optimal for tanking Naxx. I studied a video created by Tankspot that showed how to tank the first boss, Anub’Rekhan. As it turns out, I was made the off-tank for the boss fight. After a few wipes, I finally had control of the Crypt Guards and avoided the Locust Swarm’s silence. He ended up dropping the Chivalric Chestguard and Gloves of Dark Gestures. I took the Chestguard since our Holy Paladin had something better.
Next was Grand Widow Faerlina. This fight was pretty easy for our group with me tanking the adds (in this case, the Worshipers). It was a bit difficult to round them up (as casters), but my Arcane Torrent ability helped keep them grouped together. We nearly wiped when I forgot to change my target icon when it was time to kill the third Worshiper. We recovered nicely and were rewarded with the Avenging Combat Leggings for our Restoration Shaman, and the Bracers of Lost Sentiments for our Fury Warrior.
200 Words – Dusting Off My Plate in The Oculus
Last night, I returned to my tanking role in World of Warcraft. I had been playing alts to take advantage of the recruit-a-friend program’s experience bonus for the last couple of months so I was a bit rusty, to say the least. We ran the regular five-man dungeon The Oculus and it was like no other dungeon I had run before. Sure, there were plenty of AoE, tank-and-spank moments, but the boss fights were a nice change of pace. From the beginning, you’re given flying mounts to use inside the instance. The mounts are used for navigating through the dungeon, but also for clearing trash mobs and for fighting the last boss. We cleared the place pretty easily, and I picked up a new tanking helm: The Helm of the Ley-Guardian.
One of the many new game features introduced in Wrath of the Lich King is the ability to wear a faction tabard in level eighty instances. I wore my Kirin Tor tabard and hit honored while clearing The Oculus. This is a great change from Burning Crusade, where dungeons are faction-specific. Now, I can choose the groups I want to get friendly with, if you know what I mean.
