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Raiding - More Antorus... and my thoughts on Illidan

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Sunday was normal Antorus day. For the first week I said only heroic raiders to go so we could get the hang of the fights.  Comments from around the community said it was undertuned. And I do admit that it did feel easier than the other tiers. I am sure it took us a few goes to get normal Archimonde down, or even normal Blackhand. But clearing normal in 2 days feels.. I dunno, wrong.

The good news is that I think now that we've got the hang of it we may be able to get it done in one night. However, this week was heroic raiders only, and next week we'll have extras. I will probably have a lot of people whinging at me, but I don't care, Sundays are for fun, and it is so easy, that it probably WILL be fun.



Now, for those who don't want spoilers, you may stop reading right here.

I am not sure I understand the purpose of the Eonar fight. It just seems like free loot to me. PLUS we get to fly around with wings, which was rather cool. Of course, people like me with difficulty in 3D orientation had some issues trying to land on things because I was going too fast. I may have made a few mis-steps...

I was grumpy that I had to DPS because Dil and Nerd were there and I really want them to raid, but it doesn't mean I want to be looking lame instead of practicing healing. After all, I need all the practice I can get since I've been super lame this whole tier.

We did 9 bosses on Sunday, leaving Aggramar and Argus for Monday. I think I spent more time watching the video than it did to actually do the fight. It was over just like that!

It was good for taking pretty pics though, of Argus and Azeroth.



So. At the end, we restore the Pantheon somewhat, only to have them lock themselves away (and Sargeras) for eternity. Also, we say farewell to Illidan, who stays behind in the Pantheon so he can turn into Maiev Shadowsong and become the hunter with his prey, Sargeras, the hunted. Now he's the jailer and Sargeras the prisoner.

I'm a bit sad that now I've finished the raid on normal, that Argus is no longer in the sky! Instead, you can see the Pantheon, which is a red star in the sky...


I have mixed feelings about this. When Illidan returned, and was some kind of anti-hero, it was cool and the story arc was believable. But in the end, he was alone, he has no friends, and he left some small notes for the people in the world he was closest to, Tyrande and Malfurion, both of whom still cannot believe that Illidan was actually trying to be good. The two of them though, being Lawful Good, probably find it a bit hard to trust Illidan again (what would he be.. Chaotic Good?) since he did such terrible things in the name of what he believed in. However, he seems to have shown himself to be truly working in the best interests of Azeroth, and sacrificing the rest of his life to watch over Sargeras. Perhaps he feels this is a fitting end for the pain he caused those that he loved, because for most of Legion, I can't remember seeing Illidan hanging out with Tyrande and Malfurion much.

So now, Illidan's gone, Sargeras plunged a big fat sword in the middle of Silithus (which I still haven't gone to go look at yet, but I hear you better not touch it coz it will kill you) and now Azerite is pouring out everywhere. OK. So now we're leading into the next expansion.

ANYWAY...

We did some heroic after finishing off Normal, and managed to get another two kills, yay!



Eonar was still just a free loot fight in Heroic. I'm not sure I understand it. It was cool us standing in the trees though! Hopefully nobody noticed that I was using my flying ability but was unable to stomp myself onto the branches, so I just gave up.

I did start the beginning of the raid stroppy because I spent ages running through the raid to get to the boss and I was swapblasted and I ran off the edge. I was SPEWING mad. I could not figure out who the culprit was but I will just have to keep my neural silencer up. When I figure out who it was, there will be some payback, I assure you!








Prestige 20 - Double Decade of Dominance

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I see they are adding more Prestige levels... well, it looks like I'll never get to the end! The rewards follow a pattern now: Artifact power, Marks of Honor, a Prestgious Courser colour variation and then a title.

At least they took out the stupid pennant. I don't know if anyone uses it, but it's not particularly special. It's helped a lot that everyone is starting to enjoy PvP, so lots of BGs with guildies means lots of Marks of Prey!

Raiding - Sorry we did that without ya Splatz!

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Splatz is now in Christmas work mode, so he was going to be half an hour late on Wednesdays an Thursdays for the next month. Now that Dil and Nerd are on board with heroic raiding, it means that Ram can tank for a little bit without worrying too much about heals. Wednesday had a good turnout (and all our healers got to heal, yay). We knocked over all the bosses we did last week (Splatz only missed Garothi Worldbreaker), and watched Krygore/Vorkrack get yet ANOTHER piece of tier. Aimei was moaning over the fact he had no tier, and it was fortunate for him that Ram and Vork both one of the Tier pieces already because he managed to pick up his first piece.

On Thursday we were having our first go at Imonar thinking we'll get the hang of it by the time Splatz gets here, and the boss was a lot easier than we thought and we killed it first go. Hmm.


Kin'garoth was at least a little more challenging.  Melee walked over the tanks a lot, making them mad, and people were being hit by balls accidentally. I did laugh when I watched the tanks trying to purposely hit a ball and miss it, then try to chase it then give up (hehe) and there was a lot to heal which made it more exciting for me. Spoon joined as at the end and reminded us that killing the adds takes health off the boss, so on our actual kill it was a bit clutch with barely anyone up to kill it.


On Monday we're going to hit up Varimathras. Is it a bit sad that I can't really remember how the fight goes even though I've done it on normal (because it was THAT memorable?).

Legion Dungeon Achievments - I made a Food (the last one I needed for Glory of the Legion Hero)

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Ram told me that Festerface was up this week in Violet Hold, so Aimei, Crooked and I set off for the dungeon. We invited Ram, attempted to invite Gen, but she logged and he joined party (I think it was an autoaccept) and then didn't say a word for 10 minutes. Eventually we figured he was AFK and so we got Gal and Pancake in.

Festerface's achievement I Made a Food, meant that all you had to do was tank him till he reached 100% energy and he spawns a Black Bile. Kill the Black Bile then kill Festerface and we're done! The hardest part of this achievement is holding back your DPS LOL. Walking over the blobs reduces his energy I hear, but we weren't sure so we just tanked him where he was.


Yay me! So getting Glory of the Legion hero also gives me a Leyfeather Hippogryph AND another colour for my artifact.



Well, that leaves me free to help others do their achievements, so if anyone needs help when we're not raiding (or PvPing, or doing M+) then it means I have some time to help with a couple of things!

Though, I highly recommend that everytime you Blackrook Hold, go look for those pages for You Used to Scrawl me in your Fel Tome. Those are a pain in the butt!

Minipost - Resto druid Legendary (I've lost count) - Chameleon Song

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Yay! This was out of an Emissary Cache. And I really have lost count of which legendary it is - it's the last resto one though (if you don't count Amanthul's Vision).

This one is pretty cool, and I think it would be good for raids. I gave it a whirl last night in Mythic + but I don't think that I really like it as much as I like Soul of the Archdruid.

So that puts me at... 27 legendaries. And I still have 8 more to go! I wonder if I can get them all by the end of the expansion?

Behemoth Headdress
Elize's Everlasting Encasement
Ailuro Pouncers
The Wildshaper's Clutch
Skysec's Hold
Dual Determination
Archimonde's hatred Reborn
Aman'Thul's Vision

Raiding - Never trust a dreadlord

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So, that's where Varithramas ended up.

If you are horde and you have a good memory you might remember that Varithramas used to hang out in Sylvanas' throne room. I always wondered why a Dread Lord hung out there...

Check out this picture of Varimathras from 2005!


And here a more updated model from a few years ago...


That treacherous worm eventually turned on Sylvanas (what did you expect, she is no Warlock!) and we fought him back in the Battle for Undercity. And now here he is again (because demons never die whilst they have Argus...)

All I can say it's like real estate. This fight is all about tank position! After a few false starts where one or both tanks ended up with Misery (or we ended up with Misery) they eventually found their sweet spot and all we had to do was run left and right and heal and DPS and move some knockback thing out and that was the fight. Yay!


I will say again that it seems weird that the raid is so much easier than previous raids. Is this the way it's always going to be? What happened to the days of us wiping 80 times to get a boss down (in normal/heroic raid, not heroic/mythic raid). But, I guess the faster we get through this, the faster we can drop Monday raids, right?

Good work everyone! And what was it that Xethi said?

"Well, that wasn't Vari hard..."

LOL.

Guildleader chores - Frostwolves Health check - Pass!

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I was pleased when Nok returned to the guild. He had been playing on Barthilas when a bunch of guildies left back in mid 2016 and now he's back and raiding casually. He told  me that that Frostwolves just felt like home and he was glad to be back. Last night, Nok was playing and he heard Vork talking and he realised that Vork/Krygore was Kelthal (when Vork used to play his hunter) and said ohhh that explains a lot (LOL clearly a reference to lots of dying), but unfortunately Vork could not remember who Nok was! So, I found this old picture from a boss kill and you can see them standing next to one another in the bottom corner!


It reminds me of Galestion/Helldivider when he returned to the guild. I asked him what he did after we left Dath'remar and he said he just floated from guild to guild, until they would fall apart and then he found us again and since then hasn't gone anywhere. And it's been a year. In fact, it's kinda funny that I was looking at Gale's guild note and it said "Helldivider" and I thought, well nobody knows who or what THAT means anymore, because he's just become Gale. Interestingly he has been chatty on Discord so we get to hear a bit of kiwi accent. The funny thing is that nobody actually can remember his paladin at all! I do have proof of his existence in guild, so that's all good - and this time around he is way more involved with the guild than he was before.

Hwired logged in yesterday having just bought Legion to try out. It was good to see him but I bet he'll be gone in a few weeks again!

A few weeks ago I promoted Ram to officer. Ram has become such an integral part of the raid and guild that when he's not here, the raid does not run as smoothly as it does when he's calling out stuff. I remember in his early times how he wasn't feeling included and now, we have grown so used to him. It's always funny hearing Gen screaming in the backgroundwhen he hits push to talk...

Ram and Gen's friend, Fin, has been on a lot and seems to have settled in guild as well, even speaking on occasion. Where once we had too many shamans, now we are sitting just nice at 3.

We also have a new recruit! I got a whisper when I logged on from a monk who was looking for a guild. Oh dear, I thought to myself, don't tell me he wants to raid? Because we already have 4 monks. And that is in the Protector Tier token too! Of which we already have 3 warriors (4 if Falln came back), 4 shamans and a hunter. That's half the raid! So I told Mesa this, but he was happy to join the guild as a social anyway, and I even invited him along to get to know us a bit since we were one short. I told the others to be nice to him and Galestion decided to lay it on a bit thick with "Oh so YOU'RE the amazing monk we've heard so much about!" /facepalm. Despite that (and that fact that Coffee logged on so we kicked him out of the group to make way for Coffee, poor bugger), he still joined andd is so far still in the guild, levelling a mage to bring to raid. He's been immersing himself in guild activities like M+ and old raids, and even talking on Discord, which is a good sign of being a keeper in the long term.

Sev and Eurie (did I mention that they are now a THING?) are off in Japan on holidays so we have been a bit light on DPS of late, with the raid sitting at about 20-22 raiders. It would be nice if all the healers get to heal, so more raiders makes it ideal.

Missing in action are Kjerstin (LOOK I SPELLED IT CORRECTLY) and Triarchi, though he is playing his boomkin in another guild at present. Moisty is also not around, and neither is Falln. Who knows when they'll be back!

I had worried about Spanky and Coffee because we only get to play with them in PvP time (and Spanky has short evening hours because he goes to work really early), which resulted in me dragging Coffee around to things like dungeon achievements (which she likes to do anyway). Spanky has since reassured me that he is happy playing as he is now with Coffee and with us whenever, and that I don't NEED to attend to him or keep him happy as he is perfectly happy. Coffee seems to be happy too - even if I'm falling further and further behind her in Prestige (she just hit 21 and I'm still at 20 and 29 honour).

Overall, the guild is looking on track. Christmas is coming up so we aren't raiding heavily for one raid week, but things will be back to normal on the 3rd of January.






Raiding - Look what happened when Ram isn't here

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Ram is away in Brisbane spending time with family so we had to crack on with raid with Ultra telling us what to do. Fortunately, Ultra was in a good mood and we were trying to fix our Coven strats.

I'm not sure if telling people to be careful and live instead of trying to do damage helped at all, but we managed to get Coven down.  On the kill attempt Splatz D/C'd and I didn't notice, but HK did say "Uhh, you OK Splatz?" and somehow his D'C'd toon kept agro on one of the bosses whilst we killed it. And, come photo time, I STILL didn't notice that he wasn't there for the picture. When he logged back in he apologised if he'd caused a wipe but we'd actually killed the boss and poor Splatz didn't get any credit or any loot!


Then we had a look at Aggramar. To be honest, it felt a lot like normal Aggramar, just hit a little harder. Maybe it was because of cc'ing the fiery adds, which made the fight so easy. It took us a few goes, and then we got it. It was actually easier than Coven. One of the times lots of monks was useful.


Then we had a couple of bashes at Argus. We probably won't get it down in the next raid week (as it's a shortened raid week coz of Winter Veil) and the week after that is a bit light, so we may get it down in the new year. Good work Frostwolves!

Attendees
Tanks: Aimei, Splatzor
Healers: Navimie, Cosima, Nerdoflight, Dilandach
DPS: Azadelta, Duggra, Krygore, Lushen, Finadama, Spoonable, Constiani, Galestion, Pancakestab, Amelior, Xethi, Ultrapwnd, Pippistix

And, I need to but darned names back on the pictures. I don't know who anybody is!

PvP - Exalted with Talon's Vengeance (you wouldn't even know!)

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Now, it's a shame that this isn't an achievement, because it is a lot of work. Especially if you're not a very good killer, like myself.

I slowly worked my way through battlegrounds getting my kills once I hit honoured (I used to trade kills with Kyxyn at the end of last year) and then did the rest through battlegrounds. It made DPSing in battlegrounds so much more fun trying to get the killing blow.

Crooked started getting into it as well, and I was on the home stretch when he hit honoured. He always has amazing runs in BGs getting the marks, I usually get one or two, and as a healer, try to snipe a few with moonfire spam.

But here I am with my mount, Ivory Hawkstrider (which costs 10000g to buy) once I hit exalted. There is no more need to get Marks of Prey after this, so I guess I'll do battlegrounds and go back to getting my bloody coins achievements done instead.


Best tips for farming up to Honoured:

  • Go with your friends to PvP zones to do WQ and then kill them. LEAVE PARTY FIRST. You won't get a mark if you are still in a party with them
  • Bareback Brawl, Blackrook Rumble, Darkbrul Arena, and Murloc zone are the best places to snipe kills. Fly and wait for people to engage in a brawl and start dotting them up. But, you will likely get killed too!
  • Killing people in the Falcosaur zones is a nasty way to get them. I didn't do it, but other recommend it as most people doing it are not PvPers and will just get angry at you.
  • Sometimes you can whisper people to ask them if you can kill them for a mark, and they will say ok, especially if you say you are going to trade a kill back. I did this a few times.
  • Read the tooltip - DOES NOT WORK IN SEWERS AS IT IS NOT A PVP WQ ZONE.
Good luck for those of you trying for this mount!

Prestige 21 - Twenty-One Arms Salute

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Another Prestige level, another recoloured courser :) Well, at least the mounts are still coming along...


I hear they are only having 30 Prestige Levels, which is good to know. I think I can achieve THAT by the end of this expansion! I have slowed a bit this Prestige - this time it took me 20 days to get a level of Prestige!

Friday BGs have been good and fun. The best thing about them is that we are able to farm our Marks of Prey or Bloody coins there, which is the disadvantage of doing RBGs. Man I have ages to go!

Fisherfriends of the Broken Isles

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If you're not much of a fisherman, then you wouldn't have been particularly interested in the Fisherfriends. This is another grinding achievement for a different appearance on your fishing artifact, Underlight Angler.

Basically, they are all Margoss type fishing things, where you have to fish up a special item, and hand it in to the Fisherfriend. The item is unique in stacks of 100 so I hand in when I hit 100. Be careful as you approach best friend though - they take them all even if you only needed 20 fish to reach Best friend!

There are also some toys (mostly bobbers) and one shirt and one pet to buy as well.

I have to admit, that doing these fishing things can be quite social! Group finder has a group going every time I've done it, which makes it go so much faster.

Akule Riverhorn just below Thunder Totem in Highmountain has bubbles or something streaming out of totems on either end of the boat as the "special" catch time. The other interesting thing about him is that you have to fish from the boat (or you can raft it). Look at a group of 20 squished into this boat!


Corbyn in Stormheim is a bird who likes shiny things! Here we are lining up on the shore to fish.


Ilyssia of the Waters in Azsuna is a ghostly one near a pretty pond.


Impus is on the Broken Shore.


Keeper Raynae in Val'sharah has the best bobber toy (treant head)! She is right at Lorlathil, and easy to find.


Sha'leth in Suramar is one of the best ones to fish, especially for levelling your artifact. Firstly, you will have a 100% drop rate from the pool. Also, the dude that spawns from the special item drops 25 of the items for hand in, so it goes very quickly. And, if you just hang around, you can buy the sleeping murloc and get heaps of AP for your weapon.


All that work (each one takes about 2 hours) for a measly 5 achievement points!


Oh, and some different looks for my fishing rod as well... I actually quite like the green one.

Original

Green

Blue (handle)
One thing down! Now, onto the next project... bloody coins, and farming intact demon eyes!

Merry Winter Veil 2017!

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Such a busy holiday period! Who has time to blog and work and raid and everything else!

Winter Veil is upon us again, and there are a few new things. You can even pick up OLD things from the package when you kill the Greench like previous year's toys! Guildies (like Tyefoods) have been lucky and picked up Illusion: Flames of Ragnaros from their Stolen presents!

This year's new pet can be caught in Orgrimmar (if you're Horde) or Ironforge for those OTHER peeps. The Globe Yeti spawns every half hour (not on the dot on the half hour, a bit past it) and is not cageable, so you don't have to worry about farmers taking every single one, you'll get one!


Quick! Catch the Yeti! I have my carrot out because he's only a level 1 - don't want to kill it!
This year there were Finely Tailored hats to get - which look nice - and this year we can transmog ourselves to use the cosmetic Winter Veil outfits, but only during Winter Veil! So I have turned up to give Galestion a run for his money on the most hideous transmog outfit...


Vari drops the green hat and I was sooking because I didn't have the hat but now I need not sook any longer!




I logged on Boxing day at 3am to see if there were presents and there weren't any yet. I felt like a petulant child sulking over no presents.


This year's presents were a toy armour set (horde and alliance have different ones) and a hearthstation (though I can't see the difference between the alliance and horde versions)

Hearthstations EVERYWHERE


I hope everyone has had a fantastic holiday break. Don't forget your toys! And have a happy new year!

Minipost - Guardian Legendary #4 - Skysec's Hold

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Well, I picked this up in raid on Wednesday (thanks Eonar!). More stuff that will just go into the bank! Looks like it could be useful in guardian... but my bags are full. I can't keep any more of that crap in my bags!

7 more to go!

Raiding - Well that's a nice finish for the year!

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I actually said this week that we'd have a week off for raids over the Christmas/New Year period. But, there were an astounding number of people turning up to raid and I said Normal or Heroic depending on numbers, and so we did heroic.

HK was still not at home and trying to play on his laptop, so raid wasn't perfect. The good thing was that Splatz was on holidays so we didn't have to start late. So on Wednesday we knocked over everything except Aggramar, and so on Thursday we just had Aggramar and Argus to do.

Some pretty sloppy kills due to lag and what not, but we managed to do them. It just shows you how forgiving these fights are. I think we still have a ways to go before we get up to Mythic standard.

Exray wasn't on Thursday because of family stuff, and Nok wasn't on because of family stuff, and the Argus attempts went really well. In fact, SO well that...


I can't believe that it only took us 4 goes to kill it. That is just outrageous! Thinking back to how many goes we had on Archimonde, or Blackhand, or even Garrosh! I'm sure we had like 70 goes on those!

We were missing Pippistix and Xethi, but Gen and Gravy were there (as our most casual heroic players), so it was pretty cool to get that fight down!


And yay, mount! This Violet Spellwing is the reward for the AoTC. I forced everyone to take a pic... except Fin who was fast to leave raid and slow to get back into it.


What a great finish for the year! Grats Frostwolves! So, what do we do now? It's pretty early in the tier still, so we might as well have a few goes at some easy Mythic bosses if people are interested, but usually the guild takes this as an opportunity to go play other games... we'll see!

2017 - Farewell to a terrible year

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It's Saturday. I'm sitting here at work, my day full of broken bones needing to be fixed and cut tendons that need repairing - all these unfortunate Christmas accidents that need attending to urgently before the end of the year.

I really didn't want to work today, but there was nobody else to do this shift. We tried for 10 days to get this shift covered today because there are political things with hospital waitlists deadlines and key performance indicators that need to be met for this year, and now that I am running the show, I needed to get this shift covered or administration will be down on my head. But, how can you force people to do this shift when given short notice and it's the middle of the holiday period?

Substitute school with "working Saturdays"
Technically, I am still around the area and not interstate or overseas, so I thought what the hell, I'll do it. People were surprised, saying "You know, as head of department, you can just tell someone they have to do the shift, and make them do it." I COULD do that. But, in reality, I myself have never done one of these urgent Saturday waitlists, so how can I force someone else to do them? But NOW, since I am doing this one, I have way more leverage to be able to force someone to do it, by saying that even I had to do one on New Year's Eve weekend!

Besides, it's not all terrible. I can sit here and blog, play WoW, and get paid. During the long cases, of course!

So whilst I was sitting here contemplating this rubbishy end of 2017, I thought over the whole year in general, which was a pretty rubbishy year in parts.

I'll forever remember 2017 as the year that two of my dear friends in WoW died, tragic early deaths. 

Image from The Faily Frostwolf - Kyjenn the Tank
Kxyyn died just before Australia day, early this year. What a bloody shitty start to the year that was. People have found it weird because I sometimes talk about both of them in the present tense. For example, I'd say that "Xyn really doesn't like XXX" when people say I should be saying "Xyn really didn't like XXX". The reason I say that is because if I said "didn't" then it also could imply that he used to not like it, but since then he changed his mind. But, had he been alive, he still wouldn't like XXX. I still talk to Xyn sometimes, mostly just a one way conversation to him up in the afterlife, rather than making up a conversation of him talking back to me in my head. Just things about the guild, and what so and so is doing, and guess who came back. I told his wife that I still had one sided conversations with him and she said to me that she does too. The crushing grief of him being gone has long gone, and the guild has moved on, and there are many now who don't know who he was, compared to those who knew him well. Our long late night conversations have since been replaced with me PvPing and chatting to Crooked, or doing late night M+.

At the time, I thought oh my god, how am I going to run the guild without him to help me. Who is going to understand my goals for the guild and help me enforce them? But the guild is such a great place that people don't really need to be kept in line and the new ones are subject to strict selection criteria that it's made my job so easy. Over the year, promoting Ram and Splatz up to officer has also helped, though it did take me ages to make that decision as I didn't want people to feel like they were Xyn's replacement, but I think it was timed well such that nobody felt like that was the case.

Me, Luxy, Voros and Kyxyn out farming Warbringers
Luxy died a few months after that. Knowing the end was coming did not make it any easier, and Luxy having been out of the game for a lot longer due to her illness meant less people knew who she was or remembered her. And this was a totally different thing. Where Xyn helped me with the guild administrative stuff as well us both being sounding boards for various whinges, Luxy represented the more fun stuff in game. Mounts. Achievements. Pet battles. She loved to give and I loved to receive, she was so generous with everything! Fortunately she was always gracious and liked to receive things too! Crooked was Luxy's closest friend - I don't know anyone who could listen to Crooked's complaining as patiently as she did. Hanging out with him helps me remember Luxy, and though I am no substitute for her as a friend, I'm just a DIFFERENT friend. Besides, he is the only one with whom I can talk about Luxy freely without worrying about people thinking I'm weird or about to have some kind of weeping meltdown.

Her family have recently immortalised her with tattoos, which I thought were amazing memorials.


Xyn and Luxy both loved their cats. I wanted to think of some way in game to remember them and I didn't want to do dorky 1 minute silences or a "remember when" day because people might feel weird about it. And for those who didn't know them, they might feel excluded. So, I thought the best way to do it is something to do with cats. So, I will use International Cat Day as the day to remember my missing friends. 


I need a catchy name for it - Frostwolves cat day sounds lame. Any suggestions? I'll ask if people can bring out a cat pet (be that a non combat pet or a hunter pet) in game as part of the special day. I think both Xyn and Luxy would like that!


Guildies also had their share of bad times. Blood and Guns lost family members, Ram and Gen had ill parents. Tri was frequently unwell.

But the year was not TOTALLY miserable. There were heaps of great things in the year as well as the bad.

People welcomed new family members IRL. Nok had a kid, and so did Tye. Amazing how fast these young'uns grow up!

We had former Frostwolves return to the guild (Nok, Dil, Nerd, Hwired) after being away or not playing. We had new members (Fin, Plebspal, Triarchi, Spankyhunter, Coffeehunter, Mesa) join the mix and hang around and becoming part of the pack. Our family has gotten bigger and yet I still feel happy that it's not so overwhelmingly large that people are lost and isolated.

We finished every heroic tier so far, with the most recent tier being rather memorable in that we got the Ahead of the Curve just before the end of the year. We did our first proper Rated BGs in guild! We even now have a solid mix of people turning up for PvP night, that we have a proper group going!

In terms of personal achievements, I'm very pleased to get my archaeology grind out of the way! That was my best achievement this year, I think!



My favourite mount this year was the Lucid Nightmare. I really wanted a black unicorn and now I have one! And not to mention, the way to get it was a doozy, but so worth it.


Oh, how could I forget a little romance in the guild... good ol' Sev and Eurie. Could see that a mile away though, when Sev admonished me ages ago in officer for making fun of his eating habits in front of Eurie. He was embarrassed when I told the truth about his eating habits. Fortunately, Eurie has accepted his terrible eating habits and even made him try some Sashimi on their recent trip to Japan. I am very proud. She even has him taking DRIVING lessons. Amazing what changes a relationship can bring!

The new year is coming, and my New Year's Resolution is to cuss less. Crooked has been telling me for ages, but everyone else has recently pointed out to me that I swear a lot in raid. It came to a head when we did a random Tuesday raid earlier this week starting at 7pm and my kids were sitting near me and every time I swore, my son would say "MUM! YOU SAID A BAD WORD! WHY are you saying so many bad words?"  I honestly thought I didn't swear that  much. Now, the s word for faces is being replaced with sugar and the f word for copulation is replaced with a different f word for copulation (frigging). And I got teased for saying ning-nong in raid. LOL. Well, it's only for raid. There is no way I will be able to hold back during PvP.

I look forward to the new year. Here's to a new year of wonderful things, happier times and more frequent blogging! And I'll end with this very appropriate quote!



Raiding - The first raid of the year!

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I totally get not raiding on New Year's Eve - I want to watch the fireworks on TV with my family and bum around watching Netflix - but there is no reason why we can't raid New Year's Day. Everyone is off, people are recovering from their night out and have now gotten up and ready to raid!

Our first scheduled raid of the year was a normal Antorus. Decent turnout! I forgot to mention that it was a slightly earlier start (like all normal runs) so people wandered in at 9 when we had started pulls at 830pm, meaning we had cleared already.

Surprisingly, there were very few healers. I was there, Cosima/Koda wanted to take her alt for a spin, so I asked Morz to heal. Soon Nerd turned up and there was no need for any more heals. Gen and Owl offered but I'd rather they DPS'd so that I could have some fun healing. We let alts come for this raid and left it on personal loot but once alts are allowed into raid, we go to master loot. I'll make that effective next raid week.

Sev was back, and up to his old mischief again. Poor Gen, logs in and gets dragged into raid and immediately is swapblasted by Sev into who knows what crappy position. Poor thing. No wonder she doesn't want to raid very much!

Fin was on his rogue and nearly killed himself from not running out on the first boss. I was horrified to think we might actually LOSE someone to the first boss that I paid extra attention to him, and so did Koda. We also had a few extra people! Coffee came to raid, and Hwired attended his first raid back, now that he's playing a warlock (much to Aza's disappointment - I think warlock is the new monk or shaman it's that popular). The new guy, Delanoben, has been attending normal raids religiously and seems very earnest - making donations into the guild bank and asking Crooked what other things he needs to donate to be allowed to stay. Apparently that's what he had to do in his old guild. Well, the bank is quite well off lately so nobody has to do donate much of anything anymore.

I did quite well on my New Year's Resolution of not swearing. Lots of sugar sprinkled on the raid yesterday!

Overall a nice clean raid done in 2 hours. Makes me wonder if I should go back to starting at 9pm for Normal raids, but it is kinda nice finising a bit early at 1030pm so we can knock over a dungeon or two before going to bed.

The Loot of All evil

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I have struggled for years with the looting thing. And I STILL can't get it right nor find a solution that people are happy with.

I had come to the conclusion long ago that people will never be happy with how we loot. Personal loot did help a little bit - but then when it comes to tier it is so random! Look at the monks - they are kitted out with lots of heroic tier (well, Krygore has 4 piece, Lushen 3, Ram 3 and HK 2). Different to the shamans - because when the protector Tier token dropped all 3 of them rolled on it, whereas none of the monks. Weird how RNG is!

There was an issue a while back when a raider who hadn't raided for a month turned up, and when a titanforged relic came up for rolls, they won it. There was an outcry, as it was a high value item, and the person gave up the trinket to avoid drama. The second on the list of rolls wanted the original person to have the trinket, so that was that.

So after that, the officers discussed it and thought perhaps it would be better use to give those high value items to regular raid members. We decided to take attendance to see if we could sort it into groups.

But of course, people didn't like it. Criticisms included "we're a casual guild, and having this will make people LESS likely to want to turn up to raid" and "I can't make all raids, this isn't fair". It's difficult to be fair.

I didn't want to leave it on personal. There's a lot of loot passing under the table which I don't like but I can't control. Putting it on Master Loot I can control. And make it more transparent.

Half of our raiding guildies don't care about loot. They're happy to pass for others. One quarter of our raiding guildies say they don't care about loot but they actually do and get cranky. The other quarter are openly antsy about loot. So there are no solutions, really.

Anyway, the decision is being evaluated. The main thing is that everyone knows what we're doing. All I can be is open about my decision, evaluate the results and alter it if it turns out it's not the best thing.

Mage tower - Moonkin challenge complete

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It's amazing what gear can do.

To tell you the truth, I didn't know how to do this tower.  I had tried it a few times previously and kept dying to the big add or the big hand or getting hit by something.

Anyway, Galestion encouraged me to do it. He told me that he had just finished all the towers on his druid to get the appearance. He said it was easy.


Well, it would have been easier had I known what I was supposed to be doing. I had attempted a couple of times before, but not really trying because I didn't know what I was supposed to do (and I didn't want to waste food or flasks or drums)

So. The first few times I died because I didn't interrupt the big hand doing the waving thing. That was bad. So ok, I figured out I'm supposed to interrupt it. Cool, solar beam can do that.

And then the next few times I died to this big add spawning that follows me around. I was like, ok I haven't quite go the hang of this kiting and DPSing down business yet, I'll get it next time. So I set it aside for a few months.

Then I went back to it and I was still not able to kill the big thing. I wondered, was there a secret to it that I was missing (like on healer mage tower when I didn't realise I had to DISPEL that add running around).

Ohhh riiiight. I'm supposed to interrupt that cast of that rune thing. I didn't read more than that one linee, and then I tried to interrupt the cast of it. That didn't work. Suddenly it dawned on me. I might have to stand IN that rune that I kept running out of.

Ok, now I'm cooking with gas! Now all I had to do was kill the guy. Yep, I can do that!

It's nice when I overgear it. Now I wonder if I will be able to do it for the other 2 specs I never play....


PvP - Why I haven't minded not doing RBGs

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When Sev and Eurie went away it was that Christmas period where every Friday was a party, or work or some other reason why I couldn't PvP. I missed out on PvP a few Fridays, but the Fridays I was on, I was not keen to do rateds.

Why?

Well, because I can't earn Bloody Coins or Marks of Prey in rated battlegrounds. And it's definitely fun to DPS in random BGs. In rateds I feel like the pressure puts me off and I start playing really badlly.

I have even been neglecting arena so I could farm my Bloody coins. I still have a fair ways to go! I'm not even at 1000 yet, and there is also a 2000 coins achievement.

However, I did notice that I am able to buy the mount. When I hit 1000 coins acheivement, I'll reward myself with that.

OMG I can kill things!
Because of PvP weekly last week we had a number of people interested in BGs. Spanky, Coffee, Vork, myself, Crooked, Sev, Galestion and Gravy all turned up at various times to get our things done. I think we managed to get everyone their games. And then Crooked and I went around trying to farm kills. He has been pretty amazing at staying alive in BGs (because of the Mark of Prey buff) and I he's been encouraging me to run away whenever we see romper stompers coming (ie 3 melee incoming!)

Other good news - Prestige is being capped at 30! Yes, I heard Crooked and Sev groan about it (ONLY 30? Geez!) But with me and Coffee in the low 20s of prestige at least it gives an endpoint to work towards.

There was something else - Crooked told me that solar beam silences a school of magic once you step out of it. I hadn't noticed that, because I have run out of solar beams and not noticed I am silenced for nature school of magic (when I'm resto). I wonder if there is some special talent I don't know about? I shall go read my class notes more carefully!


Wasting Gold - Mad merchant is a gold sink!

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Jazeel is friends with me again. This was a long spell - I think he didn't speak to me for more than 6 months! It was an unfortunate misunderstanding - he was angry at me for being lazy about levelling my pets, saying I was too busy, but he saw me fishing and thought I was being unappreciative of his efforts to help me level.


He was encouraging me to get the Celestial Calf, but I baulked at the idea. 1 million gold! Seriously? The Spider mount that Crooked has is pretty awesome (not that I have the gold for it) but Jaz gave me a cash boost to encourage me to buy the Celestial Calf so I did.

First I had to find that Mad Merchant, who hangs around in the Toy Shoppe.


Whilst I was there, I started eyeing that ridiculously expensive bag. The 34 slot bag. Was I crazy?? Yep, I decided I was. I bought it for a ridiculous half a million gold.

The cool thing is that now I can fit all my gear in one bag! I feel like that extra slot made a huge difference.

What do you think? Waste of gold? Should I have just waited for the bag upgrade coming soon with authenticator? Well, how many other crazy people out there throwing their money away for a lousy 4 slots? :D


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