Sunday, July 27, 2008

Coming of age

Midnight's Children are knocking on the door...

Kara guild

Empty Arcatraz

We finally...


cleared...


everything...


we could find...


in Arcatraz...


thank...


the Dark...


Lady.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Mr T: Clear!

(Blackheathen's & his band of merry companions continue...)
After a late late show last Thursday where we got to the 3rd boss in Magisters Terrace, we ventured back in this time with Et, Spini, Irat and Pax CCing and pwning everything in sight. We had a couple of little hiccups where once again I managed to pull the whole room before Vexallus, and another silly wipe on the last big trash pull before Kael but apart from that it was a nice smooth run much to Spini’s disbelief. The infamous 3rd boss is kind of a 5v5 arena battle with no aggro and lots of CC needed. Et unfortunately went down but we managed to keep it together and win comfortably in the end.

On to Kael, one of the most entertaining encounters for sure, and once you know the tactics it really is quite simple. Unfortunately he decided to drop the epic hunter chest so Irational could have a spare in the bank lol.

Heroic Warp Splinter

Now it is time to bring on the Heroic version and epic drops of EVERY boss WOOOT.

A few nights later and Heroic Bot is on the cards once again. This time it is Et, Irat, Fugg and Lilyho (a ring in hunter and potential recruit). This was easily the Midnight's Children’s finest Heroic Instance run. We have done Bot a few times now and as with most instances, experience is what matters the most. Knowing what to CC, where the patrols go, etc, all takes time. We have put in the effort wiping our way through and are now reaping the rewards. This time we managed to get through the whole instance with only 2 wipes. Both of them silly mistakes with trash that can be avoided next time hopefully lol. All bosses were one shotted, and correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think we had any deaths at all on any of the boss encounters.

Kael'thas Sunstrider

5 badges in 2 hours isn’t all that bad and we can only improve from here. The future is looking brighter.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Heroic Nazan

(In which Blackheathen & co seek revenge)

Ramparts, our first instance in the expansion and our first failure all those levels ago. Skip forward a little while and here we are again but this time doing it Heroic mode. Our first Heroic run ended much the same as it did back in the early 60's. Despite a few silly incidents, the trash and first two bosses all went smoothly, but the dragon just kept pwning us over and over again.

At the first opportunity a couple of days later here we are again, back in the Ramparts. Slightly different group make up, this time it is Et healing, Irat up to the first boss then substituted with Spini, Chivdoc our new Warlock recruit and the mighty Fugg. As usual, a few silly mistakes on trash but otherwise all good and the first two bosses proved no hindrance.

Back at the bridge, dragon circling over head, this time. Nope, not the next time either or the one after that. Unlike the previous night's attempts, we had time on our side this time and a grim determination to finally see an end to it and hand in the daily quest lol.

Back again, kill the guards, pick up Vaz, run in and pick up Nazan when he lands. All going ok so far but the burst damage from the dragon is enough that I am never comfortable tanking him, especially when you know the healer is dodging fireballs and trying to keep everyone else up as well. For some reason I can never pick when Nazan is about to fire off his breath weapon and thus always seem to cop the 4k damage it deals. At one point in the fight I was getting low, popped potion, healthstone and thank god my Last Stand cooldown just came up and I was able to give Et some breathing space. That was all we needed and even though Fugg and I died, the great dragon Nazan died about a second later. Finally, Heroic Nazan was downed after much effort over 2 separate nights.

Time to die

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Raiding is for noobs: Real Toons Minstance

(A message from Guild Leader Paxmortis)

It's official. The week beginning August the 18th and ending August the 24th has been decreed The Perfect Ten Ragefire Chasm Challenge.

RFC, located in the centre of Ogrimmar, has a level minimum of 8 and a suggested level of 13-16. Can 5 x 10th level characters with only the gear and abilities available at that level, complete the instance? If not, how far can they get?

(If none succeed, stay tuned for next year's Prime Minister's Eleven RFCC... Or maybe the following year's Baker's Dozen RFCC.... Or even the next year's Lucky Thirteen RFCC. Or if we somehow do it, next year's event may be called the Back Nine RFCC...

Rules:
  • Any group of five. All must be level 10. Guildies may enter as many times as they want.
  • No twinking, but any item available for 10th level and below may be purchased or crafted. Enchants available to a 10th level enchanter may be used. Items and help may come from higher level mains, but must be limited to what is available for a 10th level character.***
  • There is no entry fee and the prize is the currently idle 'Deathbringer' title for all surviving party members and a post in the website letting all know of your immense leet skillz.
  • The instance may be run any time during the week of the Challenge, but party composition must be emailed to the guild prior to the attempt.
Perfect Ten... It's mate versus mate, Elder versus Brood, and every combination of frenzied competition this guild can provide.

Do you have the skills to be a Deathbringer?

Ragefire Chasm Challenge - "Forget the purples, this is skill."

*** Clarification: If your level 10 can get/craft/use an item, then a main can provide it. It's a measure to save some money. No fun if every level 10 has to skill up professions to get stuff. If it would be POSSIBLE for a 10 to get an item, then a main with that item/skill can provide it to save costs - for example, level 10 means Journeyman only in professions - so anything craftable up to 150 skill is ok to come from a main.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I Pity the Fool

After Neit managed to melt her modem cable, leaving Arcatraz still unfinished, the Elder tagged in Eternalize and headed off to Magister's Terrace late Thursday night. Mr T is a nice change after the faux sci-fi of Netherstorm, though not quite up to Kara standards.

Due to the Arc warm up earlier, we were a well oiled machine and drove our way to the the first boss with relative ease. Selin is pretty much tank'n'spank, and he went down with barely a gurgle, and gave up a nice cleaver for Fugg.

Selin Fireheart

Next up came Vexallus, an altogether tougher proposition. Guarded by roughly 1000 mana wyrms (pretty much all of which we pulled in one hilarious attempt), he managed to chain lightning us all to death a few times, not helped by the Pure Energy spawns taking down ET. But we eventually calmed down, took it slowly, and made him go away for good. Alas he didn't drop Stroeb's matching sword, but Pax did pick up some, ahem, healing Bracers.

Vexallus

From this point on things got pretty tough. As the clocked ticked past 01:30, we were faced with our first 6 pull mobs. After some botched mind control attempts, we reverted to 'simple' tank pulls, with Blacky desperately trying to hold everything's attention, whilst ET desperately tried to keep him alive. The melee DPS meanwhile pounded everything in sight.

At about 2AM, we were faced with this:

Princess Delrissa & friends

And at about 02:05, we called it a night. Next time!

Scarlet Fever

Last night saw the Scarlet Crusade's incursion toward Undercity take a major setback, as the Brood proceeded to wreak havoc in Scarlet Monastery. This was the first outing with the group for initiate Haxrot, who powered his way to Brood level in record time. He was sitting in for Xantir, who was absent on a what we assumed was a monastic study trip in Silvermoon...

We were all sitting at 28, which is the lowest level for entry into the Monastery, being populated by 30's above, many of them elites. And for the first time in a while it felt like a good challenge - we were tested instead of dominating. Dawnsinger took the lead this time, with Denmother marking up mobs.

The incursion started with the Graveyard, the first wing of four. We made short work of the first corridor, Haxrot learning the ropes as he went, ably coached by Dawn & Den. Attack from behind, skull-cross-diamond, leave the moon/sheep, etc.

Theoretically we were then due to clear the next room of mobs before taking on Interrogator Vishas, but in keeping with the Brood's chaotic starts, Judelder stepped slightly too far into the room and managed to pull the boss and his guard. The funny thing was we didn't really realise it was the boss, taking down the bodyguard first before turning our attention to, oh, the boss! He went down smooth though, in a flurry of focussed fire and holy smiting.

The graveyard itself proved trickier - multiple mobs all over the shop, who seemed to love adding themselves to the controlled pulls we were trying. We seemed to be constantly fighting about 8 mobs across the courtyard, which called for some great ad-libbing and concentration.

SM Graveyard

One particularly memorable encounter saw the adds eventually overwhelm Dawnsinger, which meant that Haxrot had to change roles mid battle from melee DPS to chief healer, a switch he handled like a pro. As the battle progressed, a mana emergency started developing and it began to look like Hax might have to start tanking so Den could start healing! Thankfully that didn't eventuate, but three healers is definitely ftw (and makes Neit and ET's solo Elder efforts all the more impressive).

Despite some accidental pulls and close combat step fighting - Haelo was using her staff a bit too often for comfort - we battled through the rest of the 'yard, before downing Bloodmage Thalnos with barely a scratch. Which left... the Library.

Full of bravado and gung ho, we plunged in. We were fully prepared for not being able to handle this one - 33 and 34 elites, and we were all 28. But you'll never never know if you never never go.

So go we did. And it was brilliant! For an amazing half hour we fought our way methodically down the first corridor in the Library. Red elites went down, one by one, with all sorts of struggles and resists. Denmother had a huge job just drawing their agro, due to taunt resists and parries. Dawn kept attracting attention due to her healing prowess, and did an amazing job keeping both Den and herself alive. Haxrot, by this stage wishing he'd never heard of this 'Brood' no doubt, pounded relentlessly, and even took on some healing and offtanking along the way. Haelo was forced to abandon everything but bog standard auto shots, due to the agro sinks anything else created, and Judelder did an incredible job sheeping mobs who were simply not interested in being woolly.

Alas, just as we'd finally cleared the first corridor, the respawns started! Our DPS was so hampered by Haelo's reduced firepower, and Jud's need to sheep and resheep and resheep and resheep that we just couldn't take them down fast enough. So an honourable retreat ensued, fighting our way back out - with no wipes for the night.

So a brilliant night, definitely the highlight of the Brood's adventures so far. So - to 30, and we'll be back in amongst it!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Chivdoc the 'lock

A big welcome to Chivdoc, newly joined Blood Elf Warlock, who brings some Destruction lovin' to Midnight's Children. And, thankfully, another Tailor for the sweatshop...

Well met, and may the Dark Lady watch over you!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

My Soulstone brings all the boys to the yard

(The continuing adventures of Haxrot)

I think my soulstone is a magnet for level 70 Alliance players - if there is an level 70 Alliance player in the same region we are destined to meet. I met one level 70 Human Warrior in Azshara on the top of The Forlorn Ridge in a cave! He was just sitting there waiting.. Probably for me... I was wandering around looking for safe way to get to Valormok. At first I thought he was part of some nightmare quest or dungeon I had stumbled into... But oh nooo...... I know the region is way above my current level but the only other living and unliving things in Azshara were vile monsters. Not another living soul throughout the region or on the road. And this guy is sitting in a cave!!! He jumps up and kills me with one hit. My new philosophy when encountering 70 Alliance players... "There is no point running - you'll just die tired"

Strangely I have had more strange deaths caused by level 70 players than monsters lately. I had just arrived in Ratchet to go to Booty Bay to pick up a crate of axes for the warsong supplies quest. Unfortunately about ten Alliance players raided. They looked like they had been there for a while. Not much was moving except me. And I started to move fast. I learnt a few days ago that red things moving in any Horde town means trouble. I made a mad dash to the Flightmaster and almost made it. The flight path screen popped up just as I died. They camped on my body for a long while.

They were also camped at the top of the hill at the shrine. I rezzed a few times and tried to click the fp but they were always too quick. By this time most of my kit was useless as I had died so many times.

So I rezzed back at the shrine again and fortunately the two humans were not there so I ran for the bay and dived in and swam down as far as I could. I found the crate bobbing in the water directly above the wreck and a crate of weapons. I found this the first time I swam down to the bottom of the bay the last time I went swimming around the cove. I tried to come up with a couple of plans to escape which didn't involve a long swim back or a long walk. One plan I had involved watching for the ship whilst standing on the crate and then making a swim under the docks and up onto the shore and onto the boat.

Haxrot Island (notice he's wearing Xantir's shorts!)

Unfortunately a few of the Alliance were waiting on the docks to slaughter the passengers as they arrived. My other plan was to swim across the merchant coast, try to fight the sand shark and then continue around to the troll village but that was a long way to the next flight path. Anyway I decided to sneak around to the shore and see if I could hide in the houses and get to the Flightmaster another way.

Then a funny thing happened. I ran down the hill and went into the blacksmith next to the bank and went upstairs to hide out for a while and work out how to make it out of there. I watched for a while and thought maybe I could jump to the bank below and sit and hide behind the window and boxes. Waiting upstairs I found a bed. Since some chairs let you sit I was wondering if beds worked the same way because in the crossroads I saw a player lying in a hammock. Clicking did nothing so I tried emotes and found sleep.

Looking at my body it looked similar to when I had died. So I went to the menu and hid my name (not sure if this helps) and waited for them to run past again and then jumped out the window and typed in /sleep. I was now out in the open. Now I am sure I must show up as alive but they kept running past and when they moved off to attack some things I jumped up and crept closer to the flightmaster again and then hit /sleep again. After 20 minutes of patiently watching them run back and forth past me and creeping forward I was surprised that they didn't notice my body was magically moving down the street... I was at the very foot of the flight master when they finally saw me but too late I flew away. Of course I typed in /dance when I was back safely at the capital because we blood elves are known musical talents and amazing sense of rhythmic dancing.. Ummm... not to mention our discretionary tactics... :-)

Anyway...

Changed to herbalist - Dropped mining. I have found herbalism easy to increase. I like cooking and am at 225. For some reason mining wasn't my thing. Now skinning... I am Jack-the-ripper baby...

I have been doing a few weird things to see what happens. The design mechanics are truly amazing. So much detail. I have started reading the novels and the kids have been collecting the cards not that there is anything worth getting from the cards except the red ogre totem. The atlas has come in handy...

Apart from some recent grinding, I have been exploring.

The only flight paths I don't have now are mostly due to the fact that even my amazing talents at avoiding being eaten by prehistoric creatures throughout the lands I am finding difficult.

I am going after Brokenwall village and Gadgetzan next although my chances are slim.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Arena FtW!

(Blackheathen with an Arena update!)
Drawn Out, the 3v3 arena burst damage Machine of Irat, ET and Blacky, got their first win last night. Thus we ended the week 9 loses 1 win but hey, we got there and actually were (relatively) close on a couple of other occasions so the future is looking bright lol.

Ramparts Romp

(Blackheathen reports on a 4/5th's MC Heroic Ramparts run...)

An almost full guild run in Heroic Ramps last night. Neit, Irat, Hellblaze and Blacky all set off to face the infamous Nazan once again. This time aided by a friendly Warlock - Chivdoc - we found in LFG. Apologies to Fugg who logged in about 2 minutes after we started.

Apart from a few hiccups when Neit realised someone who will remain nameless had remapped her action bars and maybe the odd moment of starry eyed gazing at purple items on the character screen instead of healing, FTL, we were moving along pretty well. Irat was leading us through with precision hence we managed to avoid the usual dozen or so trash wipes before the first boss.

This was the site of Blacky's infamous group+pat+boss pull a few weeks back and this time all went smooth. The first boss was a piece of cake, especially with 5 of us. Blacky picked up the at first sight completely useless Blood Knight Defender, but, remembering that Vexalus in MrT does ONLY Arcane damage, thought it would be a handy addition to a resist set.

Heroic Gargolmar

Moving right along, up to the hardest trash pull of the instance, a ripper and about 5 of his clothie mates lay in wait on the way up to the upper platform. Lesson one, never let a mage dictate strategy lol. First up, Hellblaze decided to sheep pull then frost nova so as to get the cc mobs out of way. KK, ready, casting sheep, bam sheeped, 1 sec later Hellblaze gets nuked. Chaos ensues leading to the inevitable wipe. Next time, LOS pull, the 3 CC mobs all out of the way allowing me to stomp at my leisure in an attempt to hold aggro. Spell reflect FTW. Nothing like holding (well a little bit anyway) a bunch of mobs without even having to target them. Neit did a fantastic job of keeping us all up and we got through with everyone standing tall.

On the the upper platform and we get the patrol np but the next pull goes horribly wrong and we make our way back in good time. Ok skip that group, pull the group on the right, all good. Next group, damn, one mob was hiding up the back and in the chaos i think I may just have taunted the mob of Irat that was heading straight for the trap, ltp noob, and we proceeded to wipe once more.

Only a couple more easy pulls and we are in front of the mighty Omar, the soon to be very Scarred. Ignore adds and just nuke was the strategy from Irat. I got a little nervous when Neit called out she was having a little trouble with adds but Hellblaze quickly pointed out that by that stage the boss was almost dead. In the end, very easy kill, however, all the adds we had left ended up chewing through everyones mana and we eventually wipe after the boss lol. I am thinking that would be a good opportunity to use fear on the adds in future as there is no chance of aggroing anything else. One more primal nether in the guild bank and a very handy little off hand for Neit.

Now, the time had come to face Nazan, our nemesis from all those levels ago. Not a lvl 62 eite this time but a fully fledged 72 elite Heroic monster.

First go we got him to 30% before I got nuked, closely followed by the remaining party members. Unfortunately that was our best attempt. Heroic Nazan will fall eventually but perhaps not when the tank has ZERO fire resistance. Time to gather some mats and get Fugg to craft me some of the fire resist set. 4k nukes combined with 1.5k melee is just too much when the healer is out trying to dodge fireballs. Especially hard when the dragon first lands and the Orc is pounding on me as well.

So, after more than 2 hours in one of the shortest outland instances we decided to call it.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Shipping News

(Haxrot delivers a nice slice of Azeroth aqua exploration)

I went swimming tonight to see what would happen if I went out too far. First I got fatigued as I tried to reach the bottom or went out to far. The other thing I did was swim around the coast near the island chains from Durotar to the Barrens.

Turning the corner just past the fisherman's hut with the huge shark hanging from it. Not long around the mountains where the river bay that divides the two regions is a massive identical sand shark.

Further around the corner in what is known as a the Merchants Coast I saw a big blue sailing ship which disappeared around the bend. A bit more swimming and I notice a wreck in the bottom of the bay deep down. I swim out to it and then down. It is the same ship only a wreck of it.

When I saw the ship originally it looked odd. Anyway I parked there for a while killed slimeshell crabs and waited. I didn't realise I was in Rachet and ships existed - eventually one came and docked there :-)

Heroic Bot

Some nice pictures from Irational of a Heroic Botanica run - 'rat looking especially good in her new tabard!

Guild at work...


...and at play

Monday, July 7, 2008

Wow, New York Kara, just like I pictured it...

Karazhan. Even the word has power. And Saturday night saw the first tiny exploration of the meaning behind that power, with Blackheathen, Fugg, Eternalize, Irational and Stroeb forming one half of a raid on Kara's delights.

The forbidding entrance to Kara

The load screen we've all been waiting for

We had been very generously invited along by some of Blackheathen, Fugg & Neitzsche's workmates, who run Horde on their off-nights and were keen to see what we could (or couldn't!) do. Many thanks to Shadruid and his crew for the brilliant lead.

We were slow to get started, thanks to Telstra deciding that on this night of all nights that all WoW players should be DC'd approximately every 3 minutes. And every DC was someone timed just as Blacky pulled a mob, leading to immense frustration early on. On our last attempt before chucking it in, the problem mysteriously cleared up and we were gtg for the rest of the night.

Kara is a refreshing change after the often bizarre Outland mix of sci-fi and fantasy. This is old skool, an ancient tower in Deadwind Pass, home to undead minions and their very nasty bosses. We started in the stables, cleaning up horse and stable trash, all of who hit harder than anything thus far encountered. Huge pressure on Blackheathen immediately, as he was the tank for the entire raid, but he stepped up to the plate with barely a hiccup. And the experience of being in amongst 10 players focusing their attacks was exhilarating.

Midnight

The first boss is Attumen the Hunter, and his steed Midnight. We reached him before really realising it, but heeded Shadruid's instructions - take Midnight first, and when Attumen mounts up, blow everything you've got. Which we did - and he fell in a single fight - our first Kara boss one-shotted!

Attumen the ex-Hunter

Stroeb, as per tradition, died during the fight but had the unique first-time experience of a combat rez, which is definitely ftw. And Attumen was kind enough to drop the beautiful Worgen Claw Necklace, which Irational was in turn lucky enough to win the /roll for. As he said immediately afterwards - "it's already totally worth it!".

Our blood was up now, and Moroes was to be our next victim.

On our way to the ball

On the way we had to pass by a fully fledged undead ball - we let them dance on, killing only those we needed. Mind you one epic pull by Blacky of approximately 30 dancers led to our quick demise, much to the amusement of the more experienced Karites.

Our fearless tank

We entered the banquet hall and methodically cleared our way toward Moroes. A scary moment for Fugg arrived when the command went out for him to "Get your tanking gear on, and take care of the X". What? Offtanking?! The melee DPS Elder being more used to simple spanking, this was a whole new ball game.

Stroeb had a similar experience moments later, when the two Rogues were ordered to "Stunlock the X and blast her down super quick". Help! Where are the stun moves?! Remap, remap! As Fugg pointed out in the post mortem, "that moment really brought home the need to be on top of all of your abilities - not just know they are there but also be used to using them and/or have a strategy to fall back on." Never a truer word.

Eternalize had a big night too, healing for the group, rezzing, and having to shackle mobs who didn't take kindly to the idea. So too Irational, who had to maintain trapped bad guys at the same time as controlling Ravager and outputting MQoSRDPS - which he did admirably, topping the damage tables with ease.

Moroes awaits - check the larger screenshot for the beautifully precise instructions from Shadruid

On the night we weren't able to take Moroes down, mainly due to our DPS and crowd control skills not quite being up to containing his four helpers whilst Blackheathen and Fugg tanked him. We got d*mn close, and hopefully sometime this week he will Midnight's Children will feed on his corpse, instead of the other way around...

With apologies to Stevie Wonder for the Title :-)

Saturday, July 5, 2008

The one...

To finish off the night successfully begun below, Eternalize tagged in for Neitzsche and we headed off to Ahune again. Eternalize was sporting his Shroud of Winter's Chill, so we figured this time for sure. He picked the cloak up running Ahune with a 'hopeless' PuG, other than a nicely geared tank. They summoned him 5 times, didn't wipe once, and picked up the cloaks to order. So the well oiled Elder machine would dominate, right?

Pwned. Not even close.

Looks like Ahune is the Elder's version of the one you never win.

(Footnote: We did actually down him once, but that was due to a handy bug that meant he just sat there and let us whack him into ice crystals. Took about 20 minutes of pounding due to his 75% damage reduction, and thanks to it being a bug, we ended up with no loot!)

The Murmuring stops

Up...


...and down.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Slip slidin' away

(Blackheathen reports in...)

Another interesting run in Slave Pens last night. The kind of instance where if you get it right can be very quick as you can skip so many mobs. If you get it wrong on the other hand, it is a long run back and inevitably one of the skipped pats gets pulled and it is GG. Blacky is way too much of a pro to ever do anything like that lol.

Love watching people slip over on the ice too, after all, it's funny when friends get hurt.

I found out I am a little squishier than i would like to think when I got absolutely pwned by the double Defender pulls. Kiting definitely FTW there. At least I redeemed myself when we showed that healers really are optional in Heroics when we downed the first boss after poor Eternalize got smoked when he was still over 60% i think.

On to the 2nd boss and it was all moving ok despite a few hiccups. We downed him after a superb healing frenzy from ET. As usual, I died from the DOT after we killed him, getting used to that now lol.

We then dispatched the first big 5 pull no problems... well, there were problems but we came through it all ok. You would be happy to know, Irat, that I think I actually managed to hold aggro on more than one mob lol. Fugg expertly swinging his big bl@#dy axe through the instance helped.

Then came another nasty double Defender pull. Kiting was the eventual solution which worked perfectly as I am a little too squishy to tank 2 of those at once.

Then, despite some concerns, we decided to skip the next group of 5 knowing full well that if we get feared it is GG. Naturally we got feared, pulled 2nd group and wiped. PUG Rogue went AFK, hallway pat got pulled unexpectedly and even though we had a willing replacement in Stroeb we decided to call it after yet another long event filled run.

We did get a couple of badges at least and as is the case at the moment, we learnt a lot on the way. First 2 bosses we got first shot, last boss was only another 3 pulls away but it was just too far at that time of night.

Look forward to many more adventures, hopefully we can start getting some full guild runs happening a little more often soon.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Midnight's Breeding

Eagle-eyed guildsters will have noticed some new accomplices have joined the Children. First up is Hellblaze, an Undead Mage of some renown, and another Tailor for Midnight Clothing :-) He brings his compatriots Eternalize, a Blood Elf Priest with a Jewel fetish (and some tailoring expertise, so as not to be left out!), and young Tauren Druid Sharpest.

Our first proponent of MQoSRDPS also joins us - Blood Elf Hunter Irational, joining Stroeb on the Leatherworking roster.

And filling out the roster is Xantir's long lost cousin Xanoth, a junior Blood Elf Warlock finding his accursed way through Azeroth.

Welcome to Midnight's Children one and all, and may the Dark Lady watch over you...

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Botanists

Following our lesson from Ahune (see below), the Elder sulkily headed to Tempest Keep's Botanica in order to re-establish our credentials.

Because of the earlier setback, it was a scratchy run, though we did down everyone in site, including a few tricky bosses.

Sarannis slain

Neit picked up a nice pair of tough-guy Mittens off Sarannis, while Fugg upgraded to some twinkle-toed Obsidian Clodstompers when High Botanist Freywinn fell. The actual felling took a while, as his tree-form kept sprouting at exactly the wrong moment. But fall he did, after our second try.

Thorngrin trounced

Thorngrin the Tender was next to go, though again it took several attempts. His nasty Sacrifice left someone helpless on his alter, and the Hellfire AoE kept catching our melee DPS unawares. He eventually succumbed while both Blackheathen and Neitzsche were down for the count, which is a rarity. And Fugg scored again, picking up the Ring of Umbral Doom.

Laj lashed

Next on the hitlist was Laj, who we tank and spanked with ease, allowing Paxmortis to score an anti-Alliance Mithril-Bark Cloak. Must have taken some skilful tailoring to mix those two mats...

Warp Splinter being gutted by Paxmortis

And finally, after a little multi-mob pulling that we scraped through thanks to an "ER" healing effort from Neit, we relieved the honey-toned Warp Splinter from his misery. Some more manly drops for Neit as a reward, this time a nice Bangle, and Stroeb picked up a pretty but bound to be sharded Thorn. Combat Swords ftl for once!

Ahune...ahem

This screenshot is for reference purposes only. The Elder attempted Ahune for our purple cloak goodness, only to be thumped comprehensively time and again. So here he is alive. For now...

Ahune alive