How does my pack rat friend manage to make so much gold?
He doesn't play the auction house much... no... he actually tries to save every little item that he possibly can. He actually had to create a new guild just to get access to a guild bank to fill up with all of his "randomly could be useful at the right place or time" items.
Need some Strong Mojo? Yep, he has some.
Need reputation with Thorium Brothers? He has stacks of turn in items for them too.
Need fish hooks? Yep, at least 3 stacks of 20 of those...
So how does he make his gold? He has a ritual...
And I got him to show me the ritual path he takes...
((SUMMARY FOR THE SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FOLKS))
1) Dalaran --> Cooking Daily
2) K3 --> K3 Blow up stuff Daily
3) Brunhilda --> Challenge Sister/Exhausted worker Daily ==> Polar
4) Sons of Hodir --> Pick your favorites
5) Ice crown --> King of the Mountain daily
6) random other reputation dailies... Oracles, Frenzyheart, Kalu'ak etc.
Route: Start point---> Dalaran = Cooking Daily - almost all of them are quick and easy.
Second: Fly to K3 = K3 daily dropping mines to blow stuff up.. Again very quick and easy.
Third: Brunhilda daily = Most of these are very fast and easy. (challenge a sister) and the beating of the exhausted workers... yeah I hate doing this one emotionally, but I get over it pretty fast... lol.. PLUS the reward could contain the cute Polar bear mount.
Fourth: Dailie(s) for Sons of Hodir --> Yes I'm already exalted but.. it's still worth the gold to bang out a few of these. My pack rat friend selects the Lance daily where you lance one of the proto drakes and beat him to death with your fists while maintaining a grip on the angry flying dragon at the same time. I personally prefer to quickly gather a few of the viscous oils for the helm, and throw snowballs at the giant worms and watch them get eaten by the Hodir Giant ghosts.
Fifth: It's back to Ice crown, and my friend does the "King of the mountain" quest that is SO SO easy to do, it's insanity! (unless there are players of the opposite faction around to mess with you).
Hmm so that accumulates over 50 gold, and a chance for a Polar bear mount, and some Hodir rep if you haven't already gotten exalted with them. I also have been working on the Oracles reputation dailies. I keep picking up eggs, but all that comes out of them are those little tickbird hatchlings! Rumor has it, there are dragons in those eggs, but it's rather rare. One must be a patient little cricket!
Total time doing the quests is about 20-30 minutes. I'm a little slow about it, but if I was as religious about doing them, and as orderly and meticulous as my friend, I'd get a lot faster.
I just have "female hormone" syndrome.. or maybe it's the fact that I gave up coffee for the next several weeks, but I tend to function at a slower more laid back level than a lot of people.
It doesn't stop me from trying to be as competitive as the rest of my guild members!
I tend to waste a lot of time fishing but... I have finally caught the Giant Sewer Rat pet! :D
Monday, March 2, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Druid Stamina - How much can we truely afford??
As a tank for a very high end guild, I honestly cannot stack Stamina in the extreme manner that numerous other druid tanks tend to do. No, this won't work at all for me simply because the guild members I run with have such extreme dps, I would never get a chance to tank anything! Jingle (top mage dps) can break 7000 dps now on a regular Naxx 25 run. Rather than specialize on maximum hit points, I have put more points into hit and crit and expertise than other tanks and trust my healers to keep me alive with my 40k total health with full raid buffs. I off tank in my dps gear to get the immediate crit agro with my swipes, and hardly have time to enjoy the big numbers before the mobs are wiped out. I keep my emergency buttons at hand and always watch my health bar as any good tank should. As my guild continues to rip through the current game content, we have been maximizing our damage and skimping on hit points. Our healers are top notch and have pulled us through our second successful Immortal run, and about 5 Undying runs now. (Yes they amaze me sometimes). The amazing teamwork my guild exhibits also amazes me. Due to some previous connectivity issues, I was unable to join my guild on their first Immortal run, and also was unavailable for the second one until most of the way through. They still had no problem stepping out for me at the very last boss so that I would get the opportunity to earn the Immortal title... (warm fuzzy). (Thanks Phoenix!) (Okay so he already had the title and didn't need gear but... He did ALL of that hard work getting up to that point! OMG). (sheepishly greatful feeling!).
Success is driven by the sheer desire to play our own character to the best of our ability which includes being fully prepared for every run and sometimes helping others be prepared by bringing extra consumable to share. Constantly evaluating our own gear with the gem selection and enchantments to find what works best for us, and keeping well read with all of the gaming excellence resources.
Encouragement and fun and friendships through teaming ... that is why we play the game in the first place, isn't it? There's also the friendly competition to try to get the most achievement points, but it seems no one can catch up with Rulla's lead... He's one of the top achievment gatherers of the world! (bows reverently) (wonders what else he does in his Real life time... lol)
My next post will include the most current efficient ways of farming some daily gold...
First I have to make exact notes to the efficiency of the whole process and time it. :D
---- Glee and playfulness as always --- Your furry bear tank --- Tallyswift.
Oh btw.. try typing your character name into a google search and see what comes up! Interesting stuff.... sometimes that you were not yet aware of...
Success is driven by the sheer desire to play our own character to the best of our ability which includes being fully prepared for every run and sometimes helping others be prepared by bringing extra consumable to share. Constantly evaluating our own gear with the gem selection and enchantments to find what works best for us, and keeping well read with all of the gaming excellence resources.
Encouragement and fun and friendships through teaming ... that is why we play the game in the first place, isn't it? There's also the friendly competition to try to get the most achievement points, but it seems no one can catch up with Rulla's lead... He's one of the top achievment gatherers of the world! (bows reverently) (wonders what else he does in his Real life time... lol)
My next post will include the most current efficient ways of farming some daily gold...
First I have to make exact notes to the efficiency of the whole process and time it. :D
---- Glee and playfulness as always --- Your furry bear tank --- Tallyswift.
Oh btw.. try typing your character name into a google search and see what comes up! Interesting stuff.... sometimes that you were not yet aware of...
Monday, February 9, 2009
Back to Biology... The Herpes virus family... best friends forever?
Just a note to my World of Warcraft readers: This isn not at a game blog-post by any means, so just ignore it if you were looking for tales of furry bear clawings and glamorous loot rewards... But continue to read on if you are interested in the biological manifestation of viruses and the way our body handles them...
My personal background is in biology. I'm a Medical Laboratory Technologist. I recently read some articles on Wikipedia regarding the Herpes type viruses and found them to be very fascinating.
First, I'd like to state: In our current world the incidence of illness and disease has been on the rise... Ever since this observation, scientists have been continually seeking the reasons for our high incidence of healthcare problems. I suspected that the foods we have slowly accepted into our typical daily diets have played a large part in supressing our immune systems making us more susceptibe to develop illnesses. Foods that are highly processed. Foods that contain high carbohydrates, sugars and preservatives as well as artificial sweeteners. What is the result of this? We gain weight, and we get sick more often. It has been shown that even a few teaspoons of sugar is enough to weaken our immune system for a whole day, and aspartame (neutrasweet) is actually 180 times sweeter than sugar! Our intake of sugar and sweeteners has increased significantly over the past 10 years. What happens when our immune systems are weakened? We get sick. Colds, flu, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heart problems, thyroid disorders, bleeding disorders, infertility and the list goes on and on...
What does this have to do with viruses though? I'll attempt to explain:
Viruses are all over and people are constantly passing them around. For example the common Coronavirus. This one is believed to be responsible for a large percentage of the colds that we catch, and is transmitted through droplets in the air. Colds that are caused by viruses are not curable through medicines. You can only alleviate symptoms of the cold and wait the 3-7 days for your body to develop its own defenses against the specific strain that the body is infected with.
The Herpes virus is also not curable. Once exposed, herpes strains stay with you for life. I'm not just talking about the commonly known sexually transmitted genital herpes disease, but the whole Herpes type virus family.
Here is a list of all 8 (known) Herpes simplex virus (HSV) strains:
HSV 1 = Cold sores, fever blisters (HWJ-1)
HSV 2 = Genital Herpes virus (HWJ-2)
HSV 3 = Varicella Zoster (Chicken Pox) (HHV-3)
HSV 4 = Epstein-Barr Virus (HHV-4)
HSV 5 = Cytomegalovirus (HHV-5)
HSV 6 = Sixth disease (HHV-6)
HSV 7 = Roseola virus (HHV-7)
HSV 8 = Kaposi's Sarcoma (KSHV)
If you take a look at these viruses, you may notice that we have been exposed to many of them in our society routinely. Haven't nearly all of us been exposed to Chicken Pox at some point in our childhood? Also, millions of people have cold sores or fever blisters and think nothing of them, but once infected with HSV-1, it stays with us forever... Our immune system has to fight off outbreaks and put the virus into latency. Later on, if something stresses us and lowers our immunity, we could end up with another cold sore outbreak. Further reading shows that these innocent cold sores could be associated with Alzheimer's disease!
"In the presence of a certain gene variation ... HSV-1 appears to be particularly damaging to the nervous system and increases one's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The virus interacts with the components and receptors of lipoproteins, which may lead to the development of Alzheimer's disease." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsv_1
So this virus harbors itself in our own DNA and then can be re-activated to do it's harmful things again when our immune system is down. Each of these viruses harbors itself within specific tissue types. Here is a list of the target tissues:
HSV 1, HSV 2= Human nervous system - persists notably in neural ganglia (neurotropic and neuroinvasive) (latent in the cell bodies of nerves in the infected area) Shed through saliva (type 1) and genital secretions (type 2).
HSV 3 = Human nervous system (dormant in trigeminal and dorsal root ganglia)
HSV 4 = Human B-lymphocyte (bone marrow?) (persists within the cell as an episome)
HSV 5 = Human body fluids: (urine, saliva, blood, tears, semen and breast milk)
HSV 6, HSV 7 = Integrated into chromosomes - can pass on to fetus during development
HSV 8= Lymphocytes: exists as a naked circular piece of DNA (episome) Shed in saliva?
So once infected, it stays with us for life, and some viruses (like the Roseola viruses HSV-6, HSV-7) can even be passed onto our offspring through our infected chromosomes! The HSV-8 virus is not as well known because it only presented itself in individuals with extremely compromized immune systems such as AIDS patients. It seems we can fight off that virus easier than some of the others higher up on the list.
What happens to us if our immune system can no longer keep these viruses in check? Here is another list showing the possible effects that each virus can cause:
(Possible effects with compromised immune system)
HSV-1 = cold sores --> Linked to increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.
HSV-2 = Genital Herpes STD --> future genital sore outbreaks, low (~1%) risk of developing aseptic meningitis.
HSV-3 = Chicken Pox (Varicella zoster)--> Rare occasions: encephalitis or pneumonia --> Later in life: Shingles (Herpes zoster) with possible complications: postherpetic neuralgia, zoster mltiplex, myelitis, herpes ophthalmicus, or zoster sine herpete.
HSV-4 = Epstein-Barr --> Infectious mononucleosis, Burkitt's Lymphoma.
HSV-5 = Cytomegalovirus --> pneumonia, gastrointestinal, retinal and neurological disease.
HSV-6, HSV-7 = Roseolavirus --> Exanthem subitum (sudden rash), three day fever, (typically appearing between 6 months and 3 years of age). Rare: Liver dysfunction. Adult: signs of mononucleosis.
HSV-8 = Kaposi's Sarcoma --> (This is the disease from compromised immunity) --> Pigmented sarcoma of the skin.
Some compromises of the immune system can include things as simple as: "cold, influenza, eczema, emotional and physical stress, exposure to bright sunlight, gastric upset, fatigue or injury, menstruation" (as listed under HSV-1), or as extreme as: HIV or AIDS infection, leukemia, organ donation treatment, chemotherapy, radiation treatment or any other method that severely affects immunity.
Another example of a virus that has become more prominent over the years is the Papillomavirus (HPV). This virus is rather wide spread and has been known to cause abnormal papsmears and genital warts in women, and some strains can even cause cervical cancer. The negative affects of this virus also have become more prevalent... Why have our immune systems become so negatively affected?
What is the best way to fight or prevent these viruses? The most effective way is with antibodies that have been developed specifically to target these viruses. Exactly the way your own body will fight them off given time and a functioning immunity. Immunoglobulin developed into the form of vaccines help fight and prevent the diseases caused by many viruses. There have also been some anti-viral agents developed that may be effective for certain viruses.
One might conclude from all of this information so kindly accumulated by my favorite "let's find out" source --> Wikipedia, that our best way to stay healthy and disease free is to 1) avoid contact with any or all viruses and bacteria (which is basically impossible) 2) be sure to get vaccinated with the available current vaccines, and 3) avoid foods or other substances that can compromise the immune system. The food topic is another huge discussion all in it's own, but from reading articles about anti-oxidants from berries, health advantages of fresh vegetables, and whole grains, and visiting http://hacres.com/, there is definitely truth to "You are what you eat". The numerous healing stories from people who changed their diets is likely directly related to a recovering immune system that is less supressed by bad foods.
These are my own observations based on accumulated information over the years.
Here are some more links to informative medical information sites:
American Academy of Family Physicians
MedConsult.com
Wikipedia
My personal background is in biology. I'm a Medical Laboratory Technologist. I recently read some articles on Wikipedia regarding the Herpes type viruses and found them to be very fascinating.
First, I'd like to state: In our current world the incidence of illness and disease has been on the rise... Ever since this observation, scientists have been continually seeking the reasons for our high incidence of healthcare problems. I suspected that the foods we have slowly accepted into our typical daily diets have played a large part in supressing our immune systems making us more susceptibe to develop illnesses. Foods that are highly processed. Foods that contain high carbohydrates, sugars and preservatives as well as artificial sweeteners. What is the result of this? We gain weight, and we get sick more often. It has been shown that even a few teaspoons of sugar is enough to weaken our immune system for a whole day, and aspartame (neutrasweet) is actually 180 times sweeter than sugar! Our intake of sugar and sweeteners has increased significantly over the past 10 years. What happens when our immune systems are weakened? We get sick. Colds, flu, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heart problems, thyroid disorders, bleeding disorders, infertility and the list goes on and on...
What does this have to do with viruses though? I'll attempt to explain:
Viruses are all over and people are constantly passing them around. For example the common Coronavirus. This one is believed to be responsible for a large percentage of the colds that we catch, and is transmitted through droplets in the air. Colds that are caused by viruses are not curable through medicines. You can only alleviate symptoms of the cold and wait the 3-7 days for your body to develop its own defenses against the specific strain that the body is infected with.
The Herpes virus is also not curable. Once exposed, herpes strains stay with you for life. I'm not just talking about the commonly known sexually transmitted genital herpes disease, but the whole Herpes type virus family.
Here is a list of all 8 (known) Herpes simplex virus (HSV) strains:
HSV 1 = Cold sores, fever blisters (HWJ-1)
HSV 2 = Genital Herpes virus (HWJ-2)
HSV 3 = Varicella Zoster (Chicken Pox) (HHV-3)
HSV 4 = Epstein-Barr Virus (HHV-4)
HSV 5 = Cytomegalovirus (HHV-5)
HSV 6 = Sixth disease (HHV-6)
HSV 7 = Roseola virus (HHV-7)
HSV 8 = Kaposi's Sarcoma (KSHV)
If you take a look at these viruses, you may notice that we have been exposed to many of them in our society routinely. Haven't nearly all of us been exposed to Chicken Pox at some point in our childhood? Also, millions of people have cold sores or fever blisters and think nothing of them, but once infected with HSV-1, it stays with us forever... Our immune system has to fight off outbreaks and put the virus into latency. Later on, if something stresses us and lowers our immunity, we could end up with another cold sore outbreak. Further reading shows that these innocent cold sores could be associated with Alzheimer's disease!
"In the presence of a certain gene variation ... HSV-1 appears to be particularly damaging to the nervous system and increases one's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The virus interacts with the components and receptors of lipoproteins, which may lead to the development of Alzheimer's disease." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsv_1
So this virus harbors itself in our own DNA and then can be re-activated to do it's harmful things again when our immune system is down. Each of these viruses harbors itself within specific tissue types. Here is a list of the target tissues:
HSV 1, HSV 2= Human nervous system - persists notably in neural ganglia (neurotropic and neuroinvasive) (latent in the cell bodies of nerves in the infected area) Shed through saliva (type 1) and genital secretions (type 2).
HSV 3 = Human nervous system (dormant in trigeminal and dorsal root ganglia)
HSV 4 = Human B-lymphocyte (bone marrow?) (persists within the cell as an episome)
HSV 5 = Human body fluids: (urine, saliva, blood, tears, semen and breast milk)
HSV 6, HSV 7 = Integrated into chromosomes - can pass on to fetus during development
HSV 8= Lymphocytes: exists as a naked circular piece of DNA (episome) Shed in saliva?
So once infected, it stays with us for life, and some viruses (like the Roseola viruses HSV-6, HSV-7) can even be passed onto our offspring through our infected chromosomes! The HSV-8 virus is not as well known because it only presented itself in individuals with extremely compromized immune systems such as AIDS patients. It seems we can fight off that virus easier than some of the others higher up on the list.
What happens to us if our immune system can no longer keep these viruses in check? Here is another list showing the possible effects that each virus can cause:
(Possible effects with compromised immune system)
HSV-1 = cold sores --> Linked to increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.
HSV-2 = Genital Herpes STD --> future genital sore outbreaks, low (~1%) risk of developing aseptic meningitis.
HSV-3 = Chicken Pox (Varicella zoster)--> Rare occasions: encephalitis or pneumonia --> Later in life: Shingles (Herpes zoster) with possible complications: postherpetic neuralgia, zoster mltiplex, myelitis, herpes ophthalmicus, or zoster sine herpete.
HSV-4 = Epstein-Barr --> Infectious mononucleosis, Burkitt's Lymphoma.
HSV-5 = Cytomegalovirus --> pneumonia, gastrointestinal, retinal and neurological disease.
HSV-6, HSV-7 = Roseolavirus --> Exanthem subitum (sudden rash), three day fever, (typically appearing between 6 months and 3 years of age). Rare: Liver dysfunction. Adult: signs of mononucleosis.
HSV-8 = Kaposi's Sarcoma --> (This is the disease from compromised immunity) --> Pigmented sarcoma of the skin.
Some compromises of the immune system can include things as simple as: "cold, influenza, eczema, emotional and physical stress, exposure to bright sunlight, gastric upset, fatigue or injury, menstruation" (as listed under HSV-1), or as extreme as: HIV or AIDS infection, leukemia, organ donation treatment, chemotherapy, radiation treatment or any other method that severely affects immunity.
Another example of a virus that has become more prominent over the years is the Papillomavirus (HPV). This virus is rather wide spread and has been known to cause abnormal papsmears and genital warts in women, and some strains can even cause cervical cancer. The negative affects of this virus also have become more prevalent... Why have our immune systems become so negatively affected?
What is the best way to fight or prevent these viruses? The most effective way is with antibodies that have been developed specifically to target these viruses. Exactly the way your own body will fight them off given time and a functioning immunity. Immunoglobulin developed into the form of vaccines help fight and prevent the diseases caused by many viruses. There have also been some anti-viral agents developed that may be effective for certain viruses.
One might conclude from all of this information so kindly accumulated by my favorite "let's find out" source --> Wikipedia, that our best way to stay healthy and disease free is to 1) avoid contact with any or all viruses and bacteria (which is basically impossible) 2) be sure to get vaccinated with the available current vaccines, and 3) avoid foods or other substances that can compromise the immune system. The food topic is another huge discussion all in it's own, but from reading articles about anti-oxidants from berries, health advantages of fresh vegetables, and whole grains, and visiting http://hacres.com/, there is definitely truth to "You are what you eat". The numerous healing stories from people who changed their diets is likely directly related to a recovering immune system that is less supressed by bad foods.
These are my own observations based on accumulated information over the years.
Here are some more links to informative medical information sites:
American Academy of Family Physicians
MedConsult.com
Wikipedia
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Lag Beast
Such a mysterious creature, this lag beast is. A creature with no actual corporeal form, yet can produce area effects that transcend epic proportions... The Lag Beast is actually so mysterious, that it is often hard to determine if it is truely present...
Detection methods usually go something like this:
Insta-damage spamming Ret-Pally: "Are you guys getting some lag?"
Leetz resto druid healer: "OMG I can't remove that curse before another one is applied!"
Feralie cute druid tank: "Hmm my swipes just aren't connecting very fast.. watch your agro okay?"
Loud Caps-lock using Enh-Shaman: "WTF! LAG SPIKE! I HATE THIS LAG!"
At this point we can usually confirm that the Lag beast is indeed present and that is has initiated it's surprise attack by now. All of the party members then begin to brace themselves... The tank may pop some emergency buttons, a few Tauren might try to warstomp to slow some of the beastly damage.. Clothies might begin to flee and cower in corners....
Many of us also brace for the unfortunate "You have been disconnected" message and get kicked out to the character loading screen to spam the connect button and grumble as the "server is unavailable" message for the next X number of minutes... Eeek
What can we do to fight back?
Well one thing certainly does help.. The use of a voice communication program to communicate within the party can rule out if the lag is due to Blizzard server issues, or if it is a possible internet hub that is lagging. Also the detection of this mysterious beast is confirmed much more rapidly when verbally communicating rather than typing in party chat. The Lag beast hates us and wants to make our lives miserable. Taking away our ability to work together is his favorite evil deed! I mean, don't you get more frustrated if you experience an issue but then can't even tell anyone about it? If your power fails due to a lightening storm, but you can't call the raid leader to let them know you won't be back for an unknown amount of time.. and you pace in your pitch-black home fretting, knowing they will let that ..other guy.. have your raid spot because you can't tell anyone anything?
lol Okay well maybe that hasn't happened to you but..
Everyone has been a victim of the Lag Beast at some point in time.
Probably the worse lag beast attack I have had was when tanking the adds that come into the Muru chamber in Sunwell. Of course missing even one of the 3 adds means that likely someone is going to die.. and usually it's that resto shaman that was keeping you up by throwing insanely awesome heals on you creating healing agro through the roof...
Lag Beast --> 12849375
Random guild of High Occupancy server ---> 0
There some trends though.. that one can be aware of and be prepared for. For example... Naxx resets on Tuesdays.. so what is almost every guild doing on Tuesday? Running their Naxx runs most likely. So our guild has bumped our Naxx run to Wednesdays. We have been able to complete a full Naxx 25, plus 25-man Malygos, and throw in a 25-man Wintergrasp at the same time. ... leaving us with just Sartharion + 3 drakes for our Sunday raid day.
The Lab Beast has tried to thwart our raid progress!! But it has failed... Perhaps I'd like to blame it for our guild not achieving the Immortal achievement yet, but I think it's player attention span that we have to blame...
Possible precautionary measures:
I guess I'm limited to the first two options. I have only been able to do some minor upgrades like like .. extra memory added, newer video card, newer monitor, upgrade version of windows...
But nothing will stop the Blizzard generated Lag Beast..
Detection methods usually go something like this:
Insta-damage spamming Ret-Pally: "Are you guys getting some lag?"
Leetz resto druid healer: "OMG I can't remove that curse before another one is applied!"
Feralie cute druid tank: "Hmm my swipes just aren't connecting very fast.. watch your agro okay?"
Loud Caps-lock using Enh-Shaman: "WTF! LAG SPIKE! I HATE THIS LAG!"
At this point we can usually confirm that the Lag beast is indeed present and that is has initiated it's surprise attack by now. All of the party members then begin to brace themselves... The tank may pop some emergency buttons, a few Tauren might try to warstomp to slow some of the beastly damage.. Clothies might begin to flee and cower in corners....
Many of us also brace for the unfortunate "You have been disconnected" message and get kicked out to the character loading screen to spam the connect button and grumble as the "server is unavailable" message for the next X number of minutes... Eeek
What can we do to fight back?
Well one thing certainly does help.. The use of a voice communication program to communicate within the party can rule out if the lag is due to Blizzard server issues, or if it is a possible internet hub that is lagging. Also the detection of this mysterious beast is confirmed much more rapidly when verbally communicating rather than typing in party chat. The Lag beast hates us and wants to make our lives miserable. Taking away our ability to work together is his favorite evil deed! I mean, don't you get more frustrated if you experience an issue but then can't even tell anyone about it? If your power fails due to a lightening storm, but you can't call the raid leader to let them know you won't be back for an unknown amount of time.. and you pace in your pitch-black home fretting, knowing they will let that ..other guy.. have your raid spot because you can't tell anyone anything?
lol Okay well maybe that hasn't happened to you but..
Everyone has been a victim of the Lag Beast at some point in time.
Probably the worse lag beast attack I have had was when tanking the adds that come into the Muru chamber in Sunwell. Of course missing even one of the 3 adds means that likely someone is going to die.. and usually it's that resto shaman that was keeping you up by throwing insanely awesome heals on you creating healing agro through the roof...
Lag Beast --> 12849375
Random guild of High Occupancy server ---> 0
There some trends though.. that one can be aware of and be prepared for. For example... Naxx resets on Tuesdays.. so what is almost every guild doing on Tuesday? Running their Naxx runs most likely. So our guild has bumped our Naxx run to Wednesdays. We have been able to complete a full Naxx 25, plus 25-man Malygos, and throw in a 25-man Wintergrasp at the same time. ... leaving us with just Sartharion + 3 drakes for our Sunday raid day.
The Lab Beast has tried to thwart our raid progress!! But it has failed... Perhaps I'd like to blame it for our guild not achieving the Immortal achievement yet, but I think it's player attention span that we have to blame...
Possible precautionary measures:
- Evaluate UI and remove all that isn't necessary
- Examine game video settings and use minimal detail settings
- Upgrade your internet service to higher speed
- Buy a new top of the line computer system!!!
I guess I'm limited to the first two options. I have only been able to do some minor upgrades like like .. extra memory added, newer video card, newer monitor, upgrade version of windows...
But nothing will stop the Blizzard generated Lag Beast..
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
January: New Outlook for the Future
I never used to feel like I had to try to make a New Year's Resolution in previous years, but this year seems different. Maybe I'm just getting older and time seems to be speeding up for me.. so each year is a bit more precious.. Time is a gift. I'd like to make the most of it.
So I ponder... What can I do that I might actually stick with so that it's not another wasted good intention? I'm not going to blow 250 bucks on a gym membership... Instead I acquired a barbell that I ignore in my bedroom instead of ignore the gym as I drive past.. It's free.
But I already have been through that phase....
This year it's more about my children.
This year I hope to spend more time with them making their childhood really count.
I hope to convert their bad soda drinking habit to drinking healthy beverages like water with lemon squeezed into it (helps speed up metabolism), and fruit juices like cranberry juice and limeade.. oh and lots of tea with honey. *warm fuzzy*
We also happen to own a Wii.
This is a novel game console in the sole fact that it (mostly) forces one to get off of their couch potatoe hind quarters and get some increase in heart rate in for the day! Wooo!!! (and actually have fun challenging yourself and others in the process)...
I got addicted to Elobits for a few days... but that's not one of the really high body movement types of games. Just a point and click thing... obsessively.. so if you have carpal tonal, avoid this game..
So now here it is a week into January, and we've had a case of water and all of our lemons are gone already... (several of them were used to make some great cranberry new year's day punch.. mmm)... and I don't feel like I can do enough to get ready for this up coming year....
I know that things will be easier for me in my virtual world... WOW - the druid tanking.. because a good friend of mine is going to play a feral druid and we will be taking turns raiding rather than both of us being required to have almost 100 percent raid attendance. He was our top DPS shaman, and I was the only feral druid. Now we have new recruits, and many of the classes are rather interchangeable depending on what spec they are at the time. Death knights have some pretty amazing abilities, and with paladins on the horde roster, our raids are much stronger than they ever were before both of these classes were available.. So stress levels are decreased in the area of raid responsibilities for both of us. (Thanks Olati for embracing my idea to share the feralie goodness wealth!).
I wonder what else I can do... to make more of my life... and I don't really know. I have many good intentions that I never quite managed to manifest into reality... They end up being lost into that special future good intentions vault in my mind.. saved for the right time and place, but the motivation to make them happen just isn't arriving...
I again have to ask myself how much do I want something in order to get my little legs into action. I wonder if I could get angry about it to generate some kind of extra energy, but I'm not the angry type. I wonder if I think really hard about how it will affect others, is that going to help spark me into action? Maybe some of these things just aren't rewarding enough for me to pursue. I have numerous artistic ideas that I haven't ever taken the time to create.. but who would benefit from it in the end? The wall will have another portion that is no longer bare? Who else but me will benefit from my artwork? People gaze upon it and smile for a moment.. why can't art be more lingering? *shrug*
I guess it's not the result of the product but the enjoyment of the creation itself? I guess the thought of the mess to clean up inhibits my initiation of products...
But luckily there are outlets of artistic abilities that don't cause all of the materialistic mess...
I guess that's why I still log into Spore and check out my Spore friends creations and make the occasional interesting critter or space ship or building myself... it's the perfect art outlet for someone who already has enough on their daily plate to not want to clean up after play time..
Best wishes to all who are working on their New Year's ideas...
Good health to all out there. .. When in doubt... remember to be.. mostly harmless, and stay happy-go-lucky.
So I ponder... What can I do that I might actually stick with so that it's not another wasted good intention? I'm not going to blow 250 bucks on a gym membership... Instead I acquired a barbell that I ignore in my bedroom instead of ignore the gym as I drive past.. It's free.
But I already have been through that phase....
This year it's more about my children.
This year I hope to spend more time with them making their childhood really count.
I hope to convert their bad soda drinking habit to drinking healthy beverages like water with lemon squeezed into it (helps speed up metabolism), and fruit juices like cranberry juice and limeade.. oh and lots of tea with honey. *warm fuzzy*
We also happen to own a Wii.
This is a novel game console in the sole fact that it (mostly) forces one to get off of their couch potatoe hind quarters and get some increase in heart rate in for the day! Wooo!!! (and actually have fun challenging yourself and others in the process)...
I got addicted to Elobits for a few days... but that's not one of the really high body movement types of games. Just a point and click thing... obsessively.. so if you have carpal tonal, avoid this game..
So now here it is a week into January, and we've had a case of water and all of our lemons are gone already... (several of them were used to make some great cranberry new year's day punch.. mmm)... and I don't feel like I can do enough to get ready for this up coming year....
I know that things will be easier for me in my virtual world... WOW - the druid tanking.. because a good friend of mine is going to play a feral druid and we will be taking turns raiding rather than both of us being required to have almost 100 percent raid attendance. He was our top DPS shaman, and I was the only feral druid. Now we have new recruits, and many of the classes are rather interchangeable depending on what spec they are at the time. Death knights have some pretty amazing abilities, and with paladins on the horde roster, our raids are much stronger than they ever were before both of these classes were available.. So stress levels are decreased in the area of raid responsibilities for both of us. (Thanks Olati for embracing my idea to share the feralie goodness wealth!).
I wonder what else I can do... to make more of my life... and I don't really know. I have many good intentions that I never quite managed to manifest into reality... They end up being lost into that special future good intentions vault in my mind.. saved for the right time and place, but the motivation to make them happen just isn't arriving...
I again have to ask myself how much do I want something in order to get my little legs into action. I wonder if I could get angry about it to generate some kind of extra energy, but I'm not the angry type. I wonder if I think really hard about how it will affect others, is that going to help spark me into action? Maybe some of these things just aren't rewarding enough for me to pursue. I have numerous artistic ideas that I haven't ever taken the time to create.. but who would benefit from it in the end? The wall will have another portion that is no longer bare? Who else but me will benefit from my artwork? People gaze upon it and smile for a moment.. why can't art be more lingering? *shrug*
I guess it's not the result of the product but the enjoyment of the creation itself? I guess the thought of the mess to clean up inhibits my initiation of products...
But luckily there are outlets of artistic abilities that don't cause all of the materialistic mess...
I guess that's why I still log into Spore and check out my Spore friends creations and make the occasional interesting critter or space ship or building myself... it's the perfect art outlet for someone who already has enough on their daily plate to not want to clean up after play time..
Best wishes to all who are working on their New Year's ideas...
Good health to all out there. .. When in doubt... remember to be.. mostly harmless, and stay happy-go-lucky.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Obsidian Sanctum
Welcome to a wonderfully compact and highly rewarding instance!
The amazing thing about this instance is that the harder you work, the greater the reward!
The Obsidian Sanctum, also called the Chamber of Aspects, is located beneath Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. It contains a large raid dragon "Sartharion the Onyx Guardian" and his three lieutenant drakes... plus some small groups of trash mobs.
Each mini-drake boss has specific debuffs and added mechanics such as continually spawning adds etc. The details are well documented in multiple locations like: Wrath's Obsidian Sanctum... and all of your favorite WOW informative webpages.
My guild has easily blown through the individual drake fights dragging along all of our raiders to familiarize them all with the different drake fights and to gear up with some minor loot. We then decided to tackle the "Sartharion plus TWO drakes fight". (Our raid leader has ultimate confidence in our abilities, and so we skipped the more simple Sarth plus One drake fight). Sure enough, we got it down in just 3-4 attempts.. Our raid day was cut short that week. The Following week, of course, we started some intense work on the final and most difficult encounter that the Obsidian Sanctum offers.. Sartharion plus ALL THREE drake lieutenants. (I'm sure we could pull the whole instance to make it even more difficult, but that would just be an instant wipe and insanity if we didn't clear out all of the roaming trash in the chamber).
After much difficult work, and practice dodging waves of fire-lava, and keeping agro on all of the spawning whelps and lava elementals, we learned that our most difficult challenge would be a crunch time where our Death Knight main tank would take extremely large hits that could potentially one shot him... After numerous hours of attempts and several repair bills later for all 25 members... we got over that hump, and it was mostly downhill from there... though I died while tanking Sartharion as the second round tank... I was then raised... I thought I was ressurected normally, but noticed I couldn't move and only had access to that crazy Zombie pet bar.... so I Exploded offering my small bit of dps on Sartharion and was then ressurected normally.. Unfortunately, I got disoriented from the rez, and ran the far way when a fire wave came and died again... :P BUT I got off my all important and life saving Innervate on one of our top priest healers, and the raid pulled off the final kill...
Yeah yeah.. I'm sure you've read a dozen "We did it!" stories on wow blogs... but this particular kill was important for us because it was a server first kill, and the 25 of us were the only ones who could sport our brand new titles.... till Limbo feels like killing it in the near future.
Until this time, Limbo has been always just a small step ahead of us getting all of the server first kills. Their dedication is commendable and has been a small nudge for our raiders to always do their best. Perhaps because our guild has always been riding on their furry little tail, they have been more dedicated and motivated than they might have been if we didn't exist on the server.. Either way, Limbo is an excellent companion guild to have, and we have worked with them on multiple occasions regarding swaping useful classes or gear or crafting items... and the friendly competition just adds some excitement...
If your guild is working on multiple drake + Sartharion pulls, Keep working at it! It's really an exciting accomplishment! Eventhough I wasn't thrilled about my personal job of swiping every single add and trying to keep agro on them all with all of the horrible lag and fps that my sadly out-of-date computer compromises me with.. I kept my focus to do my best as all good raiders do, and trusted my excellent raid leader to guide us through as he always does.. We all love and admire Sirloin!! I'm sure he ranks well up in the top 10 best raid leaders in all of the World!..of warcraft. *smile*
The amazing thing about this instance is that the harder you work, the greater the reward!
The Obsidian Sanctum, also called the Chamber of Aspects, is located beneath Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. It contains a large raid dragon "Sartharion the Onyx Guardian" and his three lieutenant drakes... plus some small groups of trash mobs.
Each mini-drake boss has specific debuffs and added mechanics such as continually spawning adds etc. The details are well documented in multiple locations like: Wrath's Obsidian Sanctum... and all of your favorite WOW informative webpages.
My guild has easily blown through the individual drake fights dragging along all of our raiders to familiarize them all with the different drake fights and to gear up with some minor loot. We then decided to tackle the "Sartharion plus TWO drakes fight". (Our raid leader has ultimate confidence in our abilities, and so we skipped the more simple Sarth plus One drake fight). Sure enough, we got it down in just 3-4 attempts.. Our raid day was cut short that week. The Following week, of course, we started some intense work on the final and most difficult encounter that the Obsidian Sanctum offers.. Sartharion plus ALL THREE drake lieutenants. (I'm sure we could pull the whole instance to make it even more difficult, but that would just be an instant wipe and insanity if we didn't clear out all of the roaming trash in the chamber).
After much difficult work, and practice dodging waves of fire-lava, and keeping agro on all of the spawning whelps and lava elementals, we learned that our most difficult challenge would be a crunch time where our Death Knight main tank would take extremely large hits that could potentially one shot him... After numerous hours of attempts and several repair bills later for all 25 members... we got over that hump, and it was mostly downhill from there... though I died while tanking Sartharion as the second round tank... I was then raised... I thought I was ressurected normally, but noticed I couldn't move and only had access to that crazy Zombie pet bar.... so I Exploded offering my small bit of dps on Sartharion and was then ressurected normally.. Unfortunately, I got disoriented from the rez, and ran the far way when a fire wave came and died again... :P BUT I got off my all important and life saving Innervate on one of our top priest healers, and the raid pulled off the final kill...
Yeah yeah.. I'm sure you've read a dozen "We did it!" stories on wow blogs... but this particular kill was important for us because it was a server first kill, and the 25 of us were the only ones who could sport our brand new titles.... till Limbo feels like killing it in the near future.
Until this time, Limbo has been always just a small step ahead of us getting all of the server first kills. Their dedication is commendable and has been a small nudge for our raiders to always do their best. Perhaps because our guild has always been riding on their furry little tail, they have been more dedicated and motivated than they might have been if we didn't exist on the server.. Either way, Limbo is an excellent companion guild to have, and we have worked with them on multiple occasions regarding swaping useful classes or gear or crafting items... and the friendly competition just adds some excitement...
If your guild is working on multiple drake + Sartharion pulls, Keep working at it! It's really an exciting accomplishment! Eventhough I wasn't thrilled about my personal job of swiping every single add and trying to keep agro on them all with all of the horrible lag and fps that my sadly out-of-date computer compromises me with.. I kept my focus to do my best as all good raiders do, and trusted my excellent raid leader to guide us through as he always does.. We all love and admire Sirloin!! I'm sure he ranks well up in the top 10 best raid leaders in all of the World!..of warcraft. *smile*
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Reflections on WOTLK Raiding
After immersing myself into the new content, I now have a fairly encompassing perception of how the raiding and heroics seem from the view of a feral druid tank.
First, as a tank, (especially a druid), it is extremely easy to find groups for tanking heroics. Feral druids seem to be very reliable tanks. Thinktank has mentioned in detail the mechanics of druid tanking have now been "built in" and are not very gear dependant anymore, and with the advent of swipe affecting all targets, it's much easier to pick up groups of mobs. So it's always nice to hop online and get asked to tank multiple heroics or hard hitting mobs.
Second, regarding raiding, on a scale of one to ten, the ease of the top dungeon seems to be really nerfed to me. My guild was able to work its way through all of the sunwell content before the huge changes were put into place making everything easier. So if Sunwell pre-nerf was a 10 on the scale, I would only give the Naxx 25 man instance a 5. It is a lot like Karazhan was before getting all geared out. Each week we do Naxx, it just gets easier. We only took 1-3 tries on each boss when we were learning the whole thing, and most of our actual wipes were due to server issues. We have had to challenge the lag monster almost every night in surprise locations of our raid dungeons.
The worse lag monster tends to rear his ugly head when we attempt the 25 man Malygos.
The lag was SO Bad when we were jumping from protective purple dome to purple dome that our time limit before Malygos enrages was shortened to near failure each time. If we lost more than 2-3 people in the final drake challenge, it would end up being a wasted attempt.
Regarding our strategy for Malygos.. Originally we had people stacking either north or south of the dragon, and simply move "away" from the sparks that would appear.
This seemed a very chaotic approach and I suggested that we have some organized method of moving away from sparks so that healing drakes and dps drakes would never split up. We ended up with a huge single stack to the south with all of us together... always getting healed, and able to keep continue to keep our dot stacks on Malygos. If a spark appeared, the whole group would then move counter-clock-wise around Malygos and remain in a single large cluster.
After learning each of the interesting new raid bosses and fights, it seems I am at the point of... "Is that it?"... we have completed every challenge so far except for doing the Obsidion Sanctum with the central dragon PLUS 3 drakes up for an epic fight. We were able to do the Dragon plus two drakes up fairly easily... and likely this final challenge won't take us long to complete either. I rather miss the times when we would be stuck on Kalecgos for 3 weeks each week filled with uncountable attempts tweaking individual rolls and accountability to perfect a method that works for our guild..
Final perspective:
The story content...
Regarding levelling to 80, I felt pressured to reach 80 as rapidly as possible in order to be able to begin raiding and hopefully get some server first achievements. I was about the 28th level 80 player, and it took me about 10 days. I was delayed because my daughter was levelling a deathknight on my account at the same time, and my son also plays his hunter on my account.
Overall though, I have been very impressed with the extremely long chain quests that the new content sports. You see how the stories evolve and become an integral part of them. I especially enjoy the Heroic Culling of Stratholme. I have a small group that runs that each day accumulating the bronze drake mounts. Once we have gotten everyone in the group a drake, hopefully we can sell the drake mounts in a similar fashion to the Armani bear mounts from ZA.
Affects on friends and guild relations:
I feel I actually have a lot more time on my hands to be able to do small instances or quest lines with my friends in this new world, or just work on questing solo and exploring. The raids take little time to prepare for since the "floor ham" appeared in our first full raid. (I was sitting in horde kitty form next to a floor ham in a raid, and a few players tried to click on me to eat me thinking I was the Feast!!). All we need to acquire are some flasks, and it seems even the flasks are becoming less necessary for a tank, as our healers spell power and mana efficiency keeps going up and overall survivability isn't even an issue. My guild has done lots of recruiting and there are many new faces in the guild with fresh excitement for our extremely fast raiding progression that we try to maintain. Occasional old guild members who have left over little things have migrated back, and players whose Real-life situations took away their time to play have come back to enjoy the new perks of the exciting new content...
It's well into the holiday season now, and many of my other gaming RL friends have been dipping into other new games that have come out, but I still enjoy my WOW virtual life and guild relations and gear/achievement endeavors... I'm not the "shoot-em-up" type, and I'm not a loot hog requiring new things constantly. The only other game I have been toying with is Spore. (My name is Swiftpaws) It is not a multi-user interface. It is single play only but you can incorporate other people's content and creations into your own game. I have an artistic nature and creating fuzzy animals and beautiful architectured building and vehicles appeals to me... but nothing is quite like my real virtual home in wow...
First, as a tank, (especially a druid), it is extremely easy to find groups for tanking heroics. Feral druids seem to be very reliable tanks. Thinktank has mentioned in detail the mechanics of druid tanking have now been "built in" and are not very gear dependant anymore, and with the advent of swipe affecting all targets, it's much easier to pick up groups of mobs. So it's always nice to hop online and get asked to tank multiple heroics or hard hitting mobs.
Second, regarding raiding, on a scale of one to ten, the ease of the top dungeon seems to be really nerfed to me. My guild was able to work its way through all of the sunwell content before the huge changes were put into place making everything easier. So if Sunwell pre-nerf was a 10 on the scale, I would only give the Naxx 25 man instance a 5. It is a lot like Karazhan was before getting all geared out. Each week we do Naxx, it just gets easier. We only took 1-3 tries on each boss when we were learning the whole thing, and most of our actual wipes were due to server issues. We have had to challenge the lag monster almost every night in surprise locations of our raid dungeons.
The worse lag monster tends to rear his ugly head when we attempt the 25 man Malygos.
The lag was SO Bad when we were jumping from protective purple dome to purple dome that our time limit before Malygos enrages was shortened to near failure each time. If we lost more than 2-3 people in the final drake challenge, it would end up being a wasted attempt.
Regarding our strategy for Malygos.. Originally we had people stacking either north or south of the dragon, and simply move "away" from the sparks that would appear.
This seemed a very chaotic approach and I suggested that we have some organized method of moving away from sparks so that healing drakes and dps drakes would never split up. We ended up with a huge single stack to the south with all of us together... always getting healed, and able to keep continue to keep our dot stacks on Malygos. If a spark appeared, the whole group would then move counter-clock-wise around Malygos and remain in a single large cluster.
After learning each of the interesting new raid bosses and fights, it seems I am at the point of... "Is that it?"... we have completed every challenge so far except for doing the Obsidion Sanctum with the central dragon PLUS 3 drakes up for an epic fight. We were able to do the Dragon plus two drakes up fairly easily... and likely this final challenge won't take us long to complete either. I rather miss the times when we would be stuck on Kalecgos for 3 weeks each week filled with uncountable attempts tweaking individual rolls and accountability to perfect a method that works for our guild..
Final perspective:
The story content...
Regarding levelling to 80, I felt pressured to reach 80 as rapidly as possible in order to be able to begin raiding and hopefully get some server first achievements. I was about the 28th level 80 player, and it took me about 10 days. I was delayed because my daughter was levelling a deathknight on my account at the same time, and my son also plays his hunter on my account.
Overall though, I have been very impressed with the extremely long chain quests that the new content sports. You see how the stories evolve and become an integral part of them. I especially enjoy the Heroic Culling of Stratholme. I have a small group that runs that each day accumulating the bronze drake mounts. Once we have gotten everyone in the group a drake, hopefully we can sell the drake mounts in a similar fashion to the Armani bear mounts from ZA.
Affects on friends and guild relations:
I feel I actually have a lot more time on my hands to be able to do small instances or quest lines with my friends in this new world, or just work on questing solo and exploring. The raids take little time to prepare for since the "floor ham" appeared in our first full raid. (I was sitting in horde kitty form next to a floor ham in a raid, and a few players tried to click on me to eat me thinking I was the Feast!!). All we need to acquire are some flasks, and it seems even the flasks are becoming less necessary for a tank, as our healers spell power and mana efficiency keeps going up and overall survivability isn't even an issue. My guild has done lots of recruiting and there are many new faces in the guild with fresh excitement for our extremely fast raiding progression that we try to maintain. Occasional old guild members who have left over little things have migrated back, and players whose Real-life situations took away their time to play have come back to enjoy the new perks of the exciting new content...
It's well into the holiday season now, and many of my other gaming RL friends have been dipping into other new games that have come out, but I still enjoy my WOW virtual life and guild relations and gear/achievement endeavors... I'm not the "shoot-em-up" type, and I'm not a loot hog requiring new things constantly. The only other game I have been toying with is Spore. (My name is Swiftpaws) It is not a multi-user interface. It is single play only but you can incorporate other people's content and creations into your own game. I have an artistic nature and creating fuzzy animals and beautiful architectured building and vehicles appeals to me... but nothing is quite like my real virtual home in wow...
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