Venoym – You Yank It, You Tank it: Blog of a Tanking Death Knight Lady

A New Perspective on LFR

Over the holidays the hubby and I have been letting our son play WoW with us. We have a third account and he’s got a mage on it and a hunter I just finished leveling today [and they both have cele two piece]. He’s only five years old but he’s remarkably astute about some things. But he’s also given me a little clue into some of the stereotypes I see in LFR.

1. Time Warp popping mage. My son’s “main” would be his mage I expect. He tools around on some of the lowbies on the account, and the hunter but most of his small amount of game time is spent on the mage. He loves the mage because he can make everyone in the group BIG.

2. Summoning of things – He loves dropping the table to feed everyone. Just about every pull. He also loves summoning his friends [mirror image] so he can have help.

3. Needing on everything – He’s pretty good about greeding stuff but occasionally he just NEEDS to “get a present” from the boss and will forget and need everything. That’s not a big deal in Ulduar or ICC. We just have him trade something if someone else wants it. And frankly, it’s irrelevant in LFR now but more for LFD.

4. Incessant bouncing. Doesn’t matter what toon he’s on he’s bouncing everywhere.

5. Randomly following a pet around during a fight/not dpsing the boss – there are more interesting things than boss fights!

6. AoE on single target fights – because arcane explosion [number 9] is fun!

7. Pulling for the tank – because starting the fight is important and fun! Besides, he has to drop a flare under the boss and “set them on fire”

8. “GOGOGOGOGO” – because he’s five… and can’t sit still.

9. Trolling the tanks – “I’m sorry daddy, I didn’t mean to press the button and start the fight” [Mimiron]. Next week: “I’m gonna push the button again!”

So… just pretend everyone in LFR is five years old and is just learning to read. Whole new perspective. Now he just needs to discover how to turn growl on and Aspect of the Pack on his hunter…

Wonderful Monday!

We had such a fantastic time tonight! Monday night is when we run our retro stuff and tonight we were in Firelands. We finished Glory of the Firelands Raider for 8 people in the raid… just needing to finish “Do a Barrel Roll”.

We cleared the rest of the heroic modes for the other two who needed them and ended up calling it early to take screen shots of us on our new mounts at Shrine. Apparently created a little stir too… had a couple people standing on top of us and asking about the guild 😛 so all in all, not too bad

After that, I got a note from Endyme of Unholy Randomness [whom I happen to know in Real Life] and got invited on her guild’s alt run of Mogushun. We cleared the first three bosses on heroic mode and ended up doing a few attempts at Spirit Kings. Ven and I both ended up getting heroic Jasper Clawfeet for our offsets but the look at the four heroic modes was fantastic… can’t wait to bring that back to our raid. Endyme’s guildies are completely psychotic… but in a fun kind of way.

Apparently I'm not the only one who likes the in game toys! — Apparently I’m not the only one who likes the in game toys!

Of Achievements and Things… [Graphic heavy]

The last few days have been achievement filled for Venoym and I!

Well last week I finished the first part of the Wrathion questline and got my quest for 6k valor [understandable but ugh].

Continue reading “Of Achievements and Things… [Graphic heavy]”

RNG Treats Me Right

It’s been a good few days… I seem to have the luck this weekend!

Friday night we did a bunch of Molten Core runs to try and get me the Harbinger of Flame pet from the Sulfuron Harbinger. Venoym’s alt went in and got it, after about 10 of my toons had gone through with no luck.

Saturday morning, before leaving for the day, I finished the apprentice questline and got “I am the Master Now”. Saturday night we did LFR and I got the item I’ve been wanting for weeks… the sword off Elegon. I still need to get the Sha Touched Weapon, but that’ll come eventually [I hope].

Because I got the weapon, I got Mystically Epic

Now there are only a couple things I need in LFR.

On a whim, I got into the bidding war for the Blood Soaked Invitations and to my shock, won one. It’s going to put off getting my first JC mount for about a month [based on personal gold totals I want to maintain] but I felt like it was worth it and I joined BigBearButt in fighting and cheering on the competitiors. I made Rank 4 in the Brawler’s guild today :D. Rank 7 is going to take a LOT of work… and figuring out how to dps as a frost death knight.

Oh, as Bear says in his post, Venoym and I have joined his guild, along with a few friends of ours.

brawlers1 — I retrieve my invitation, in total shock. The Orc there cheered at me when I got the achievement!

brawlers2 — Bear cheers me on while I fight a bad guy!

This afternoon, while Ven, LittleVen and a friend were grilling burgers and hot dogs, I saw an advertisement for a Darkmoon Rabbit raid, which I almost passed on as it was almost lunch time. I’m sure glad I didn’t.

8th Anniversary: I Hoped for More but Glad for What I Got.

I know, a blog post about this can come to no good. Either I’m not going to be coming down on Blizzard hard enough and am a lolblizzardfangirl or I should be ingratiatingly thankful that they deign to allow me to play this game… Oh I’ve read some of the entries on the forums and I’ve seen both extremes. There now, that’s out of the way.

I AM thankful for the tabard. It’s a great thing for someone like me. I’ve ground everything to exalted on my main and am finally able to really look at some serious alt leveling. I would wish for it to be an 8% increase for questing as I am a quester but it’s probably too soon for that sort of boost so all good.

I think it’s fantastic that World of Warcraft is on it’s 8th year… that’s pretty amazing and I’ve been a part of it for most of those 8 years. I started playing because Endyme gave it to me for a Christmas present and shortly after my then boyfriend, now husband got an account and subscribed. We play together – we’re a team and a pretty fabulous one if I do say so. He’s stayed on his paladin and I’ve moved from my warlock to my death knight. We co-tank and that is probably the most fun part of the game for me – two tanks moving as one unit. We’re usually decently in sync but on occasion we achieve that level of perfect synergy and that is a bit of a high. A paladin and a death knight – who’d have thunk it?

Anyway, I confess, I find it a bit silly that Blizzard wouldn’t work for some perfection themselves with anniversaries… Oh, yeah I’d love a pet but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about sending us the same mail as they did last year.

Yeah, probably a glitch. Maybe someone didn’t think about it. It’s the thought that counts…

But wait…

Sending me the same letter indicates no thought was given. That’s my real problem here. I mean I could sit here right now and write out a new thank you note in about what, three minutes?

Unless Deathwing really is coming back…Then we’re all in trouble! 😛

I don’t expect perfection from Blizzard nor do I really believe I’m a valued subscriber. I haven’t thought that since my Cataclysm beta experience which really soured me. But enjoying the game as I do means I don’t think about that all that much.

Except they sent me the same note… so I had no choice but to think about it.

Mists of Pandaria

Askevar is 90… hit it Friday in fact [with Venoym]. This was the fastest and hardest we’ve ever pushed to level. I know a lot of people like to savor initially, but we both prefer to just get our main to 90 and worry about savoring later with alts. That’s why they exist after all? Anyway, Askevar’s main set is going along well. I do a couple scenarios a day as well as a heroic or two in the evening. All my pieces, save a 442 blue ring, are 450 or better, with several 463 items. I’m doing my daily rep grinds and I’ve maxed all my professions both primary [Inscription/Jewelcrafting] and Secondary [Archaeology, First Aid, Cooking, Fishing] and I got access to the end food for the Way of the Oven [aka the tank tree]. I also have all my on server alts parked at Halfhill to farm various veggies to max the other ways or to create the max Oven food. By the way, if you do this, the Outpost Zhu flightpoint in Krasanger is the one that connects the Jade Forest initial town to Halfhill.

For that matter, I’ve now maxed out every profession on my account except Blacksmithing and Skinning. Suffice to say, our guild has the heirloom legs already, and not just through my efforts either. Sadly they are only good through 85, which I think is a little silly, but I was able to buy a pair for my level 20 monk. Oh, we also have the guild shirts because a group running scenarios last night saw we were only two away and decided to finish. They’re kinda cute but you can’t see it with my armor on [as it should be for a tank].

My offset gear is crap [its unholy now, gave up frost] and a quarter to half the pieces are still level 85 stuff that I need to replace, but, on the flipside, I’m quite a hardy tank right now.

Honestly, I don’t see any of my alts getting to 90 very quickly. I’ve got 2 at 86 – my bank alt/gatherer and my horde pally [the horde pally would net me 2 account achievements]. With our guild not even discussing raiding for another two weeks, I might get one leveled but who knows? My main priority, as always, is going to be getting Askevar’s tank set raid ready – everything else is bonus.

Sundays have become achievement night and due to lack of interest from our guild [a lot of people are still busy leveling and that’s alright], we’ve been pulling from cross realm friends. We’ve gotten a lot done though and we’ve had a blast doing it. We even managed to 9 man Heroic Chimaeron just before MoP hit – with 3 healers, 2 tanks and the rest dps – and that’s what we managed to get… we had intended to 2 heal, but with everyone wanting to try out their mainspec, extra heals never hurt :D.

I will admit, at times the dailies feel almost endless, but once I get the reputations to max, I’ll be gold. I’m already revered with Order of the Cloud Serpent and well into honored with most of the rest so it’ll get there 🙂 And I’m not finding these dailies near as painful as some have been in the past either.

Goldwise – I’ve already spent a ton between buying the Grand Expedition Yak and speed leveling some professions. Despite that, I’ve actually managed to make money on Askevar and I’ll make back the rest and then some when I level the alts, so it’ll all work out. Hey, don’t look at me that way… I saved and ground for that Yak for several months before MoP dropped and I’m darn proud of it! There is nothing like achieving a goal you set out to complete.

Speaking of achievements, for the first time since I was maining a warlock, I have finally passed my husband in total achievement points. Now, so it’s said, that won’t last as he’ll do all those achievements and catch right back up… but for once it’s nice to be ahead!

It was a GREAT night :)

So, Heroic Yor’sahj died. Took us about 10 pulls last night I think?

I’ll grant that the buff was up another five percent, but we would have done it anyway. We are the 20th guild on the server to down Heroic Yorsahj and the 18th to down him on 10 man. I don’t usually get hung up on server rankings… as a casual guild you can’t really do that, but that’s freaking awesome!

We tried to follow a couple different strategies, but we ended up having to craft our own, pulling from several different guides on what oozes to hit. Our hunter was having issues being up under the boss and dpsing… it kept telling him that his target wasn’t in front of him [silly glitches]; so we moved him to managing the mana voids and we were able to keep the rest of the dps off of it except when we needed to pop one.

Our healers were beastly. Our pally healer micromanaged healing on purple phases to exquisite detail. Our druid healer had everyone topped back off once the debuff was gone. [Our priesty healer went shadow and was doing a great job with the rest of the deeps :)]

What Ven and I really loved was the fact that everyone had some input about one of the first couple of wipes… about problems they were having or foreseeing. Ven took all that in, made a decision and everyone went with it. It turned our 50% wipes immediately into 20% wipes :). As raid leaders we can’t see every problem people or having, or how the healing is, so input is fantastic. But when it comes time, Ven makes a decision and we do it 🙂 I’ve told him he’s crazy for ideas more than once. However, I went with his decision only to find it worked.

The funniest thing about the kill? Our guild vent died. But the raid took that as a challenge rather than a detriment! Venoym had gone dps, so he just marked himself and they followed him to the ooze he’d selected. Everyone did their job to perfection!

To say we were jazzed after that would be an understatement. We had already gotten H-Morchok, had a silly wipe on regular Zonozz and one shot Hagara, H-Ultraxion and boat. The raid chatter got a little silly but hey… killing a new boss does that.

I actually need to do a post about my Heroic Ultraxion strategy as a death knight tank because I do a couple things that are completely counter-intuitive to being a tank [at least in my estimation] but I may do that later today.

I’m so proud of you guys! FAN-TAS-TIC job!

Yay for Multishot 🙂