permanoob

Of Karazhan and the Evil Latency from Hell

permanoob — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:24:14 +0000

So I ran Karazhan last Friday as expected. Jotun went in as an off-tank, which was a good thing to start learning the pulls and remembering the boss fights and whatnot. The run was extremely smooth, one of the best I had in all times, an indicator that I chose a nice guild for my current experience and goals in the game. We had no wipes whatsoever up until the Prince, where a very unlucky string of evil infernal drops almost ruined the evening. Since an off-tank isn’t necessary in that fight, I decided to bring my warlock to help on DPS, and we eventually brought him down.

Loot-wise, I had a good evening. Attumen was kind enough to drop the Vambraces of Courage right off the bat, and since the main tank had better gear, he passed it over. Later on, The Curator answered my prayers and gave me the Wrynn Dynasty Greaves. Finally, we had the King’s Defender to “drop” on the chess event, but since the main tank was desperate for that weapon and I had already gotten 2 pieces of gear while he got none, I decided to pass for everybody’s benefit.

Karazhan was great, and I was invited to run it again this Friday, but… I can’t.

I’m not afraid of the bosses or of failing as a tank; I’m afraid of the killer latency from hell that assaulted my connection on the past few days. Due to an ISP problem, I’m getting very rough latency fluctuations on WoW, peaking at 10k+. That’s just unplayable. I’m hoping to get a solution until this weekend, but that explains my lack of updates. Bummer.

Preparing for Karazhan

permanoob — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:51:46 +0000

After a good deal of time collecting gear and experience, I decided that Jotun, my tank, was ready to apply for a Karazhan run. I have ran Karazhan some times before on my warlock, but it’s been a while since I last went in there. So the raid leader looked at my profile at the armory and asked me to tank a heroic just to see how things went. Not really a test or a challenge, just a run so we could know each other.

He picked Slave Pens, which is the easiest heroic out there (I think), and we breezed through the place in little more than half an hour. It was very, very easy – having a mage, a hunter and a rogue for crowd control almost eliminated multi-target tanking, which is the only tanking topic that I feel I still need to get better at.

Apart from the obvious 3 Badges of Justice, I also won the roll for the Primal Nether at the end, and I ended up getting the Girdle of the Immovable, a belt which will probably not replace my Sha’tari Vindicator’s Waistguard in 5-men runs (I like that brutal Block Value for threat generation) but that could probably be used on my early days in Karazhan as a mitigation piece (I socketed two Solid Stars of Elune in it, and now it has 57 stamina – not too bad for a belt).

Most importantly, the entire group had a good time in that run, and I’m happy I didn’t screw everything up!

My first Karazhan run as a tank will likely take place this Friday. Woot!

Of Moonkins and Deadly Spell Reflects

permanoob — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:34:43 +0000

This weekend I decided to give my druid some love – actually, quite a bit of love. I took her from level 43 to 47 in one day. Yeah, that’s right – four levels in a single saturday afternoon. Playing a balance druid has been a very different experience for me, and a fun one for sure. It’s almost too easy! I can’t wait to get my Treants on level 50 – that’ll be awesome… Hope to get there sometime during this week.

On another note… after reading this post at Out of Mana, I suddenly felt like PVP’ing on my protection warrior again. And, as the linked post mentions, Spell Reflect can be pretty deadly. It’s really a strangely pleasant feeling to watch that 5k-crit-Shadowbolt going right back to the annoying warlock that shot it and turning him to dust. I also managed to kill a shadow priest repeatedly using this method – without question, I made a new enemy in the Alliance. In addition to Spell Reflects, he also suffered from my favorite PVP weapon: Shield Slam crits. Even though I’m not even close to the records documented out there (there are many screenshots showing Shield Slam critting for over 5k damage), I can still cause some trouble by dispelling buffs and being annoying.

It’s nice to see that even a spec that is meant to be purely defensive in nature can have some fun and utility in battlegrounds. Sometimes all you need is to hold that cap for a few more seconds – and that’s where a protection warrior gets his glory from in this kind of battle. In Arathi Basin, for instance, I was the last man standing on some Alliance attempts at capping something – eventually, I died, but I held them long enough so my team could resurrect and control the invasion. Sometimes you have to take one for the team, as they say…

For starters…

permanoob — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:48:13 +0000

… let me explain why I chose this name.

If you glanced at the column to your right, you’ll notice I currently have five level 70 characters and a bunch of lowbies that slowly, but surely, will get there too. I’ve been playing for about two years and a half now. Those two facts hardly describe a “noob”. However, I always feel there’s more to learn; and some blog entries, forum posts or articles I read make me feel plain stupid about this game. So, sometimes, I feel the same way I felt when I first hit level 10 and (you know it!) spent my first talent point on a completely useless thing.

So, why write this up?

I just get a kick out of sharing my experiences in World of Warcraft – the things that happen to my characters, the insightful things I read, the tips and tricks that show up in guild chat, and so on. I usually do talk about these things with my real life friends that play World of Warcraft, and I’d like to extend the reach of those conversations to the “general public” (always wanted to say that)!

Hopefully, the readers that accidentally find their way to my blog will learn something or teach something, and have some fun in the process. Enjoy the blog – and long live the permanoob!