HK: Leader

281454Z JUN 09

Situation
1. Enemy
Prophet Velen is protected by an unknown but large number of Exodar Peacekeepers. Velen is located deep inside enemy territory, specifically in the Vault of Lights portion of the Exodar.
Tyrande Whisperwind is protected by an unknown but large number of Darnassus Sentinels. Tyrande is located deep inside enemy territory, specifically in the Temple of the Moon portion of Darnassus.

2. Friendly
Skewl of Nerd has assigned Grandnaguz, Mynir, Nomnomurface, Mahealani, Willord, and Starlíght. There will be no friendly forces in the area should you require assistance, extraction or medevac.

3. Environment
a. Weather
The weather will be warm, and humid.
b. Terrain
The terrain in Ashenvale and Azuremyst Isle is coastal temperate. Forested areas will cover your approach to the target zones.
c. Civil consideration
Darnassus and the Exodar are free fire zones for civilians; inflict heavy civilian causalities.
d. Attachments and detachments
Mootoo is on temporary assignment from Golden Dragon Clan.
Uwillbowdown is on temporary assignment from Golden Dragon Clan.

Mission
Execution
Your mission is to kill Prophet Velen and Tyrande Whisperwind.
1. Concept of the operation
Your section will proceed through enemy territory to assassinate Prophet Velen and Tyrande Whisperwind.

2. Maneuver
You will proceed to the Zoram Strand to form up with the other members of this assault. Once ready, your section will proceed North through Ashenvale, following the coastline while staying under the cover of the heavy forest. Your section will commandeer the ferry to Azuremyst Isle and proceed by sea to towards the Exodar. On arrival, you will conduct a combat patrol through the back entrance into the Exodar. After positively identifying Prophet Velen you will kill him, his staff and his security. On completion you will exit the Exodar, take the ferry to Ashenvale and commandeer the ferry to Teldrassil. Your section will proceed through the portal on the coast of Teldrassil which will take you directly into the center of Darnassus. Once your section has arrived inside Darnassus you will conduct a combat patrol south into the Temple of the Moon. After positively identifying Tyrande Whisperwind you will kill her, her staff and her security.

Command and Signal
1. Command
Starlíght will have overall OPCOM - Operational Command.
Willord will have OPCON - Operational Control.


281551Z JUN 09

Mission: Accomplished

A Flaming Good Time?

For all the meta-achievement whores out there, it's that time of the year again. The Midsummer Fire Festival revellers will find everything strangely familiar his time around. Complete with all the same long range flight point searches and fire dousing from both worlds over. Without spoiling any one's "fun", here is a guide to completing yet another thing-to-do involving a lot of driving.

Fire Guide

Kool Kids In Skewl

As stated in my previous entry, I've moved Willord over to Cho'Gall for the purposes of getting time accumulated in Ulduar. I'm happy to say that so far it's been pretty damn good. I've been sunk into the roll of Boomkin while I learn the raid bosses and perhaps snatch up a few feral pieces if no one else needs them.

On my first run, Unraveling Reach dropped off of Freya. Happily, I was the only one rolling. Of course it helped that I was the first to roll and it just happened to be 100... how often does that that happen. For Willy: once in a blue moon. The next evening it was chanted from guild bank mats and with a quick respec, I set off to check out a target dummy.

I couldn't believe it. My DPS had doubled to 4K. 'Calm down', I said to myself. This is only a dummy. Things are different in real life... so to speak. I'll have to wait for another raid to test everything out properly.

The coming of Monday confirmed what I had hoped. I am now capable to dishing out anywhere between 3.5K and 4K on a single target (If I don't have to move around too much of course). I don't mean to brag and I know that there are many people out there doing way more that this, but I've gotten so used to doing 2K to 2.5K on average. So this is a big deal to me.

Unfortunately most of the gear that has dropped off of bosses has been Pally plate. Come on. Please. Realistically, I'm sure that drop rates are pretty much the same across the board but every one dropped plate gear with geigh caster stats on it. Hopefully next week offers up better lootz.

To sum up the current guild progress, 'Group One' is still stuck on Mimiron. V0-L7-R0-N itself has not specifically been seen yet - as to the fact that stage three has been the killer. But how can I complain? I'm in Ulduar downing like ten bosses a week. Two drops per boss = 20 drops. Noice.

This weekend will be a guild test of 25-Ulduar or 25-Naxx on Friday night. Hopefully I'll have something good to say about this run. /crossfingers

So far I've got no complaints about the boys and girls of the Skewl of Nerd.

The Breakup

Quite a bit has happened during the past week. People were unhappy for a good number of reasons and about half of the members of Corpse have moved on to another guild, essentially splitting everything in two.

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At the risk of speaking for anyone or everyone else, people were unhappy about not being able to raid. The guild was in a position stagnant growth. Either a combination of not finding new toons to join or new toons were not allowed to join. With regards to permissions, they were stripped away from most people to solidify these new rules.

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Out of the course of the raid week we were only able to accomplish a few things. Unfortunately they were the same three things. 10-Naxx, Sarth-No Drakes, and VoA minus Emalon. That leaves us with a constant flow of level 200 gear. If you've dreamed of anything more, you had to go out of your way and get into a pugged heroic group. There are a few down sides to that...

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Firstly, if it wasn't a full clear then there's a slim chance that you'll be able to get back into the raid whenever the next night it was running. Secondly, a lot of these heroic raids are guild runs and if you're lucky enough to get into one, they can make up rules to ensure you don't get any good drops. Lastly, the old 'Link Achievement' requirement for most heroic raids. Essentially saying that, if you've never been dragged through by your guild, we don't want you.

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Now don't get me wrong. I'm not bitter or caustic about this turn of events. Not at all. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes it's required. But was the coup-d'états absolutely required? I don't know. But when it all comes down to it everyone pays a monthly fee to play this game (and it is still just a game), so really anyone should be able to do whatever they want... as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

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With regards to hurting anyone else. I was very displeased to see that so many people raped the Corpse guild bank prior to leaving. I think that that is pretty much the most rude thing that someone could have done before they grabbed that last suitcase and ran. It's insulting to both the Corpse Guildmaster and everyone else that chose to stay. I've seen the bank logs myself. It wasn't pretty.

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Now I can understand some simple retorts that people would have to my previous paragraph. "I'm just taking back what I put in". Bullshit. There was people taking a lot more than what they put in. And besides, even if you have put shit in the bank over the past few years or however long you've been playing, I would have just left everything in there. It's not required to add insult to injury.

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So out of the four 80s that I had leved on US-Mannoroth, I took three and moved them to Shadow Walkers and moved the fourth to the server Cho'Gall. Cho'Gall is home to a buddy of mine from work. The guild is called Skewl Of Nerd. A raiding guild that continually has downed bosses in 10-Ulduar and is currently working on Mimiron.

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Am I saying 'Goodbye' to Mannoroth? Absolutely not. I don't feel as though I'm abondoning anything on that server. I simply want to see the rest of the game. I do not want to go back to heroics and the like. I want to raid. If you would also like to raid. Feel free to drop me a line.

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Discuss.

Slash Played

On the bus ride that is my commute to work this morning, I wasn't fortunate enough to get a seat. I was forced to stand for the entire duration and stare forward like Puddy.


During this twenty-five minutes of my life that I'll never get back, my mind began to wander. I wondered what the final number would be if I logged each one of my toons and added up their /played. What would that number be. I almost gagged as I conducted some napkin math on a newspaper that was stuffed in a niche behind some Plexiglas.


Gross. But I spose it's not all that accurate. There's a lot of AFKing in there on all the toons. But that just may just be an excuse on my part. You gotta to harness in this good energy, block out the bad. Harness - Energy - Block - Bad.


For the duration of the past week I haven't really been on very much. I've done quite a bit IRL. Movies, drinking, yard work, drinking. With others taking a hiatus, perhaps I should take one as well. Only time will tell. On that note, I found a pretty good video that just happens to fit into this entry that everyone should see.


Check it.

Lessons Learned

Over the past week I've been dabbling with my new 80 Hunter and I've realized how difficult it can be to get into a proper group. The hardcore groups are asking for stats/achievements and the ones that are not are complete fail groups. So last night I wanted to try something completely different.

I jumped on the Shammy and decided to heal something. I didn't really care what. So I jumped into the looking for group channel and said 'Resto Shammy looking to heal a raid'. I received so many tells that I couldn't decipher which one I should have been replying to. I picked one at random and said, 'Invite'.

The group was a motley crew of rag tag pugs that were under geared for the raid for the most part. I really wasn't any different for the matter, but who cares. I was there for the lawls... maybe even a tier drop. When I entered Naxx, everyone was spread out in a long line in the Construct Quarter after a wipe. They were trying to get back into position to make another attempt at Patchwerk.

Several people were DCed, people were hearthing out to repair, toons were missing their reagents, and Grobulus' slimes were respawning and another wipe was ensuing. It was really fun to listen to someone else's vent server that was running into problems, instead of our own. Kind of like slowing down to see the carnage of a train wreck.

In the end we walked through Construct and Plague but only because the tanks were WAY over geared or 10-Naxx. It was really easy to Earth Shield/Riptide/Chain Heal.

Mitigation and raid healz FTW.

Holy Fire FTW

Last Thursday, what started as just another trip to the 'giant necropolis floating over Wintergarde Keep' turned into an excellent opportunity for Starlight to save the day.

Willord, had just been invited into a 25 Man Naxxramas hosted by the guild 'The Forsaken' and I somehow managed to get them to let my Discipline Priest tag along for the ride. The raid leader was a little picky as he wanted the group to be well geared & designed for a speed run, so sadly we could not take along our favorite hunter and warlock.

Willord, Viridovix and I were among the first on the scene, and as soon as the raid was full we quickly helped the local warlock summon the raid. Within a couple minutes the entire raid was roaring to go and all we needed was our pre-raid brief from the leader. The Raid Leader had each person register what spec they will be rolling on during the raid, I of course said "Healer" so any discipline or holy drops would be up for grabs.

The first quarter on the agenda was "Military". As we went into the first pull, over ventrilo I distinctly remember the Raid Leader telling us "This is going to be a fast run, so you all better keep up". I thought to myself, "Thank God!"

I was really impressed with the raid and its tanking, dps and healing as we speed ran towards Instructor Razuvious. I
basically spent the whole time over healing the Main Tank to keep up his Inspiration, Diving Aegis, Grace and Renewed Hope. If I said I spent the whole time keeping the Main Tank up, someone reading this would undoubtedly say "that's what she said".) Despite our good friend Viridovix dying a couple of times (I blame the healers), it was a fast no-wipe run to the first boss.

With great haste, assignments were handed out, then the other priest and I intitiated the boss fight by Mind Controlling two of the four Death Knight Understudies. The first half of the fight went fairly well, my only issue being the proximity of the fight to where the mind controllers were standing. Regrettably, a few mistakes along the way resulted in the deaths of some of our dps, including the much needed Boomkin.

The last part of the fight is what I found the most interesting. As Instructor Razuvious was running out of health we began to approach a wipe. The moment my mind controlled Deathknight Understudy died I knew we were in trouble. In quick succession and in order of the threat table we started to lose our raid members. By the time the boss was down to less than one percent we had three healers and one dps remaining. I clearly recall Instructor Razuvious killing the fourth remaining person while having only eight thousand or so hit points remaining. As I watched the third person died and the boss set his sights on me, I frantically opened up my spell book (as a healer I have no offensive spells on my bars /facepalm). With only three thousand health left, the boss ran right past the plate wearing paladin healer and I began to cast the first offensive spell I could find 'Holy Fire'. I nervously watched the cast bar fill as Instructor Razuvious got closer, and I swear just as the boss was about to hit me with his Unbalancing Strike a pillar of fire came down from the sky. Instructor Razuvious burned to death at Starlight's feet, and all around them were 23 dead raid members, four dead adds, one dead boss, and a huge smile on Starlight's face.

"Hold on guys let me drink a little before I rez you".