Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

I only ended up playing during my sons Nap today.  I managed to just do my cooking/fishing dailies then head out for the heroic daily.  I got in a group with a very geared Pally tank, and DPS warrior.  The Tank had 42k HP and was very good.  The DPS warrior was doing on average 5200 DPS though there were fights where he did over 7k!  To think I used to laugh at DPS warriors at the beginning of WOTLK.

We did Azjol-Nerub so fast that we went and did ToC afterwards.   The DPS warrior brought his Elemental Shaman though and said he would swap back in his warrior for the last boss.  I told him it didn’t matter but he kept insisting we would need his amazing DPS lol  Eventually I convinced him I managed to drag people with worse dps than his shaman through the instance before.   We won and defeated the BK, but the Enhancement shaman, the worse DPS in our group complained because he died standing in the middle of all the exploding ghouls.  There wasn’t a lot I could have done about it, I can’t heal stupid as they say.  They were all in one place and he had to stand on them when they exploded lol

Just another adventure in the day of a Dwarf Priest

I had a nice relaxing day in WoW today, aside from the nagging headache I had all day.  I started of the day with making my cloth.  I hadn’t been keeping up with this and I do still need to make one more bank bag   I had to buy some more supplies on the AH and I was surprised to find NO eternal life on the AH.  Thankfully I still had 2 left but that is all.  Going to have to go get my own with Lanier I guess.

I ended up doing some Argent Tournament stuff while waiting in the queue for the heroic daily.  I ended up getting a group pretty quick for the Nexus.  It was a pro group and we tore through the instance in 30 minutes flat.  The tank was relieved apparently had a 800dps Ret pally in his last group.

After that I went back to finishing my argent tournament quests.  I was doing all the new ones but ran into one that didn’t work.  You were suppose to summon this guy at a spot on the island and that spot didn’t work for me.  Then I abandoned it to get it again and it wasn’t there anymore so I dunno if they took it out or what.

Little bit later in the day I ended up doing an OS10.  I was trying to get some quick badges with the fast raids.  The OS runs are fast and easy.  This one was even nicer because I got a raid achievement out of it   After I finished this I put myself back into some raid runs and ended up in a 25 man Vault.  That went super fast and I went on back to my questing.

I got back to doing my questing in storm peaks and there was some really good ones.  I didn’t know I was missing out on a bunch of Bran related stuff.  I love Dwarf quests and lore   I still think Dwarves are the best race!

The quests I did yesterday were very exciting and I still have some to do.  I even found out in the process there was a faction I hadn’t seen yet, the Frostborn.  This is another crazy faction you can only raise with a single daily.  This daily is even more time consuming than the explorers league one.  Why is Blizzard so evil for us faction collectors?

Anyways I got a fair amount of questing done.  Still have plenty to do in Storm Peaks though.

I got on this evening with the explicit intention to do all my dailies and finally finish out the exodar.  But like many intentions they didn’t turn out exactly as planed   In the middle of my second or third daily I got a tell from one of the Texas Mercenaries, a guild I raid with everyone once in a while wondering if I wanted to do Trial of the Crusader.  I missed the guild attempt on this and decided absolutely!

The first boss is crazy, you have to fight a whole bunch of big northrend beasts in a row with no break each with their own strategy.

The final guy was one of those big yeti like from the Northrend preview video   He was easy compared to the big Worms.  We managed to get it down in 5 or 6 wipes I think.  Since you have to do it all at once it is a little crazy to start over, but good practice

The second boss was a lot easier but we still wiped a couple of times getting down how to control the misstresses that pop out.  They kept eating the casters, cause they melee for 10k+.  After we figured out that it was cake and he went down.  The best part about this one was what he dropped, some pants perfect for me!  The Leggings of the Demonic Messenger which scream Disc Priest   I was surprised no one rolled against me but they all raid 25 man stuff it was probably not useful.  It made me even more glad I put off my plans

The last boss we tried was the 3rd and most annoying boss.  It was sort of like the Priestess fight in Magisters Terrace.  I always hated that fight and now it is bigger and badder than ever!  We had one good attempt where we got one of the healers down but then it fell apart after that.  I think everyone was just tired.

I did go just before bed and complete one more daily to finish out my exodar rep though, yay!  Now all that stands between my upgraded squire is some badges   I had a good time though and was very glad for the opportunity to have tried out that raid.

I worked super late again today but really wanted to play so I got on anyways and did my Tournament Dailies.  I still haven’t done all the new ones I got access to yet when I got exalted, just the easy rescue one.  I should be able to finish out the Exodar tomorrow, yay!  Then I can concentrate on just getting Champion badges for my squire and pets   Oh speaking of pets I was so silly, I bought that Shimmering Wyrmling thinking it was one of the horde pets when it turns out it isn’t!  I never noticed that other vendor, I guess I didn’t have access to it till I got exalted.  It was my intention to not spend gold on those because I could get them myself.  Oh well you live and learn   I just don’t have enough time to stay up on the game in the detail I used to!

After finishing my dailies I had about 30 minutes before bed and decided to join a guildie in Heroic Culling of Stratholme.  I had both the regular and heroic dalies for it, plus I really enjoy it, especially speed runs

It wasn’t much of a challenge though because everyone was so well geared.  This can be fun to do when coming in a PUG with some new 80s or bad people It took longer than it should have to get started though and by the time we got going I knew we were going to go over and I was already tired.  So halfway through the instance I was starting to nod off LOL

We made it to the drake boss, killed him and got my extra badge.  We had about 4 minutes when we got to him.  Someone actually needed the Drake too! Seems just about everyone has one now.

I hope this weekend to try and get in a Trial of the Crusader raid.  The guild setup one this week but unfortunately I’ve been working so late I didn’t get to go.  I finally got around to listening to Blizzcast 10 and I really would like to try it now.  I would also like to get in there and work on my Stormpeak questing too.  The sooner I finish that the sooner I can start working the older quests to finish my seeker

I’ve seen some good posts buy Ghostcrawler recently and I wanted to share a couple that I hope people really take to heart.  I really like Ghostcrawler, and I love how Blizzard doesn’t take any crap, they have a vision for the game and they are going with it.  They don’t have 11.5 million players because they don’t know what they are doing The first one in response to someone talking about Priest nerfs.

It is interesting too me how many of these “My class has no niche,” “My class has nothing special about it,” “My class needs to be overhauled” discussions come out after a nerf. I think a lot of players mentally substitute power for fun, and when they’re brought into line, the class stops being as fun for them.

I understand that a lot of players want to be the hero. They want to get invited to a raid or Arena team because they’re so awesome. You want people to cheer when you get invited. It’s a rush – I get that.. But except for the very high end of play, your skill and gear have a lot more effect on your contribution than the class design.

IMO, the players asking their peers “How can I better handle this situation?” or “Which would be a better gear choice for me?” are generally going to see their performance go up more than the guys asking “Hey, how ’bout you buff me?”

This particular statement means a lot to me, and especially to those whining about Discipline spec.  I really enjoy this spec, it is not a big numbers, meter blasting spec, but it is really fun.  It is fast and furious, and it is different from the way I had played most of my WoW life.  People constantly complain it is not viable, or you can’t do this or you can’t do that.  I say it is all about how you handle the situation.  A good Disc Priest can get the Job done, we just have to do it differently.

The other post I found very interesting was over some complaints on the stat changes that haven’t even happened yet People were pulling the usual “Oh you’re dumbing down WoW ” crap and whining about catering to casuals.  Ghostcrawler responded as to why it was necessary and someone replied this:

I’m sorry, but I fail to see your logic. If players are itemized poorly, it’s because they don’t care to do enough research to learn how to properly itemize or how to successfully itemize to fit their play-style.

Then in typical awesome Ghostcrawler fashion he came back with a resounding:

I find many of these arguments to be elitist. This is not a “catering to the casuals” issue. This is an issue that even some of our most educated and math-savy players could not make gear decisions without the help of external tools. We’re much less concerned about more casual players because the specific choice of upgrade will mean less for them (skill outweighs the contribution of stats for all but the absolute best players) and they often choose pieces based on things like art over stats.

I’m talking about very hardcore raiders who no longer could eyeball a piece of gear with any degree of authority. I might believe that some very few of you are so proficient with the math as to be able to eyeball the stats, but I think you are vastly overestimating the number of players who can or do. Remember, the formula to convert armor penetration into damage was so complicated that we had to take the unusual step of actually spelling out how it was calculated.

With this change will you still have to make hard choices about upgrading? Absolutely. Will there still be quasi-religious debates about which neck is best in slot for a given spec? Of course. Will you still need to understand the mechanics to make the best choice for your character? We think so. One of our overall design philosophies for WoW (and Blizzard) is to be simple but have a lot of depth. Some people mistake needless complexity for depth.

Meanwhile, we think there is a lot of benefit of getting rid of problematic stats like defense and accomplishing things like letting casters improve by focusing on throughput over mana pool.

I completely agree with him and think some people need to get off their high horse and be realistic.  I hope a lot of people will read this post and realize the error of their ways but I’m kind of doubting it.  The people who say things like this really do have a false sense of entitlement.  I’m a caster and I don’t PvP so I think I had a good handle on all of the stats I use, but there is plenty to know and it is difficult to make a decision about something, especially something very close to what you have.  I think what the plan is should be fine.  People act like with this change you won’t need to know anything anymore when it simple isn’t true.  You will still have to balance your stats, your mana pool/regen how much crit and hit you want.  Plus we are getting a new stat for Mastery which adds a new interesting element to the game.  Not to mention the new ability to reforge an item and alter its stats in addition to gemming and enchanting.  There is plenty of depth as GC put it for the more hardcore, while still being simple enough for people to make good decisions.

Anyways I thought I’d share my thoughts on these two posts and why I liked them.

Got on late today, and was totally beat, but thought I could do a few quick Tournament quests before I went and crashed.  I didn’t get on yesterday as it was my Anniversary, 8 years with my lovely wife.   I just did a few of the kill quests and the easy jousting one   I’m getting close to finishing off the exodar, just two full days of quests I think would do it!  I love this daily you see here in my screenshot.  I just blow up tons of mobs with holy nova and I get tons of cloth, which leads me to my next piece of news.

Whoooosh!!! Yes I’m stocking up!   Well then usually selling them to a vendor.  I never even had fist aid up until I was classic raiding and we were strongly encourage to use that to save mana   I just thought I’d do the achievements so even though I didn’t use them I kept making them.  I gave a lot of them to alts too, put a lot in the guild bank as well   Also if you look at my stats you will see I’ve not used a bandage since 3.0 so I need to use one to get the other First Aid achievement now hehe

Been working tons on a big project so I hope I can get home at a decent hour and get in some play time.  Oh the other big news, I won the Shimmering Wyrmling today too.  No it is not the coolest of the horde ones but I also don’t see this one up very often so I put a bid in on it.  I am slowly but surely getting a hold of all the Horde Tournament pets.  I won’t bore you with the details about how much money I spent on it   I’ve probably spent over 10,000 gold on Pets already LOL I’ll be working on getting the rest of the Alliance pets after I upgrade my squire   My pet collection continues to grow!

Finally got around to signing up for the Premium account over at wowhead.com this morning.  I did so not because I care about the extra’s but just to support the site.  Being in IT I know what it takes to do things right, and wowhead does so many things right.  The dedication of that team deserves some acknowledgment I think.  If you use wowhead I encourage you, please upgrade to their premium site and support them!

My endorsement of wowhead is completely of my own opinion.  I would never ask a reader to do something I didn’t do myself so check out my wowhead profile and you can see I indeed am supporting wowhead!

I got on late and didn’t have a lot of time but felt I wanted to do something.  So I ran out to the tournament grounds and grabbed the dailies.  Today’s weapon daily for me was the frog kissing one.  The daily so fun I have a macro for it I will usually do this daily in conjunction with my Explorers League daily.  Since I have a Dalaran ring I keep my hearth set out in Howling Fjord so I don’t have to fly all the way out that way

I stuck with the faster of the dailies, or in the case of the frog the best reward   The jousting is a nice change of pace from the usual WoW stuff anyways

I managed to receive my 33rd exalted faction today!  I’m getting closer to my goal of an upgraded squire   I just need to finish out the Exodar which I might be able to do this week depending on how much time I have, and then get the rest of my Champion Seals.  I need to finish this out because there are still pets I need!   Speaking of which I bid on another horde one before I logged.  There haven’t been any for buyout recently that I will pay for.  This one was the bloodelf one that everyone is disappointed with.  I did read the differences between the one you can buy in outlands is it has a neat summoning animation, it flys higher and has a unique idle animation.  My goal is to have all the pets I can have anyways so I was going to get it regardless

Speaking of pets they showed the 5th anniversary pet, the baby Onyxia whelpling at Blizzcon and it is nothing like the Dark Whelpling like everyone has been complaining about.  It was totally awesome actually!  It tries to deep breath too during its idle animation   My pet collection is getting pretty big now, I wonder when they are going to add another achievement   The next patch should be very interesting being able to go back and do Onyxia again.  Inien and I had gone and had fun with her but it will be neat to do it with a little more meaning .

Ok I’m probably a bit late on this one but I finally got around to watching The Guild music video.  I love The Guild and really enjoyed the interview during the Blizzcon stream with Felcia Day.  She is hilarious and her interview totally rocked.  I wouldn’t have probably seen that had I not watched the Blizzcon stream   Anyways I’m linking the video here just because!  Sure you probably have more free time than me and already seen it but it’s my blog! The song is great and so is the video. I noticed they said they have it on iTunes I will have to buy

I’ve not been playing much lately as you  know but the game continues and now I’m a bit behind.  I got some time today to really enjoy myself. As you may have seen on my twitter, I am now revered with the Explorers League.  I wonder if Blizzard is ever going to give another way to earn this faction   I managed to agro like ever spawned gargoyle in this shot

I quickly ended up in a group in a regular ToC guild run,  a few people had never done it before.  It went a little rough, but then we got the groove and heroic ToC which was actually the daily went much smoother   I picked up some new shoes for my Surge set on that run, though I still need to enchant/gem it I never got around to it.

Shortly after that I ended up doing Heroic Violet Hold with the guild as well.  I am after badges for some new pants.  There is a nice upgrade for me on the conquest vendor.  None of the tier gear was exciting me much.

To finish off the evening I went over to Storm Peaks to finish my needed questing there.  I finally ran into the mine thing I heard so much about but had not seen   While I was there I spent the time to get the achievement.

You got to love the goblins, asking me to blow up a Mammoth LOL

Finished all the quests over at K3 then hopped on the rocket to the next questing hub and started there.  I did a few quests before my wife got home and I went ahead and retired for the evening.

My plan is to finish out the Northrend quests then go back to Eastern Kingdoms and start questing.  I am the closest to finishing that achievement and I figure I should start now and not wait to the last second since everything is going to change in the expansion    Plus I know a really great place to start, STV.  I spent the first 4 years of my life on a PvP server (Deathwing) and that place was NOT fun.  So most of those quests are not done.