Houston - We've Got Liftoff!

Ding 68!

/teleport Moonglade

/Flightform

/Happy dance

High As a Kite... Or Atleast I'm Almost Flying

Morannon dinged 67 today, and I gamed on until half way through 67. A mere 300k xp is between my furry avatar and that coveted flight form. I. Want. It. So. Bad! 

I had my first tanking run in Sethekk Halls at 66, which turned out to be quite smooth - mostly thanks to a really nice healing paladin, who marked and guided very well. And some tough as nail dps crews :) Got my self a nice ring I'd wish I knew how to link to - that on the blogging-to-do-list.

Morannon just broke the magic 15,5k armor tonight after acquiring some rather nifty slippers in Blade's Edge Mountains. Speak a bit of bird and they seem to throw them after you - nice folks all around :)

This turned out to be another short entry, but I'm really tired after a whole day of leveling. It's almost three a clock and got a brisk appointment with the gym in morning. Last thing to note would be a talent spec I've been pondering for when I turn 70.

Amazing talent spec

It's almost half n' half restoration and balance, but does include swiftmend though not all the way down to Tree of Life. If anyone has anything to comment on it I'd be grateful. I haven't tried specced caster as a druid so far, so anything is most likely educational for me :)

Anyhoo - goodnight all!

Don't Hesitate, Lacerate!

Stealing a fellow druid bloggers name for this quick post. Morannon just turned 66 and I've been looking for a lacerate-on-mouse-over macro. Once I get a bit more spare-time I'll find one and tank the shizzle out of Outlands! :)

Kill the Skull, Sheep the Moon and Pop the Champagne!

Had my second, third and fourth Underbog run today -  and what a blast! I find that tanking an instance you’ve never been through before is a bit like stumbling to the toilet at night without glasses or lenses (or in pitch black for those of you less visually challenged). I dont know the bosses. I dont know the way and I dont know the pulls (and apparently I dont know where to find good guides to instances either...). After a run or two the bosses are generelly down, and most of the tricky pulls are learnt by trial and oftenmost error. This time I had a very nice rogue mark and brief me tactics for the bosses, which helped quite a bit,  but by the third run I was marking, pulling and tanking like I’d never done anything else (and I admit I have). Not a single wipe, not a single death and the mobs were dying on a conveyor belt. Clean, efficient and painless pulls are great, but when they’re executed swiftly and with minimal pauses that’s a really nifty feeling.

Big thanks to some excellent healers and a crafty dps-crew is of course long overdue by now. It’s great to be 100% comfortable with the healer and just knowing that no matter what, as long as I keep the mobs from chopping him up that pally will keep me on my feet. 

That sure muddied the clear view to a level 70 existence as healer – hmmm, more and more thinking. And the trusty MacBook managed to keep me above 10 fps for most of the run. So I’m looking at two investments at the moment. A fair bit of time and gold to level my leatherworking to Heavy Clefthoof standards, and a fair bit of time and gold to level my computer to smooth-tanking standards.

 

Or downloading Clique and Healbot...

 

Ohh, and Morannon dinged 65 – apparantly a level a day is still possible J

The Great Spec Knockout and Vodka Shooting Competition Is Coming To An End

It's been about a fortnight since my last post and I've managed to climb a whole level up the progression ladder. Impressive dedication and awesome skillz is what I'm made of... Still I've been awfully busy with repairing my kitchen after the Great Concrete Collapse of 2008. The project ended with a very nice and very pretty kitchen table in a nice grey hue that matched my other colors of choice. Or actually, make that two nice grayish kitchen matching tables. The bugger cracked right in the middle. A beautiful straight crack, but nonetheless a big ol' crack. 

I've managed to fit a few temporary solutions regarding water and stove, but things are not at ease in the Hundred Acre Wood...

In Azeroth Morannon dinged 64 yesterday. I've decided that levelling from 60-70 is a downright b1tch. The only sensible reaction to this is a decision only to play when I'm getting rested xp to maximize the benefits my time investment. Luckily Blegfed the Warlock and Tveskaeg the Hunter are in dire need of some quality time lovin', and rested xp last quite long when the level bar is 700k long :) 

After dinging 64 and visiting the nice folks at the Moonglade I hearted back to Blade's Edge. I logged of and watched Inter leave the Champions League with a bitter defeat to Liverpool (darned english teams...). Did a wee bit of studying and went to bet. And then it hit me! Braxxis is burning in my backpack like a five dollar bill on fire in a strippers thong. Out of bed and booting up the game. Logging on without my lenses in was harder than anticipated (I'm blind as mole without 'em) but somehow I managed, and the rewards was sweeeeet. 13.000 armor and 67% damage reduction. I just became 15% more healer friendly :) And I'm just two levels away from Lacerate. ZOMG I love this game! 

At 64 Lifebloom arrived in my spellbook. The lure of resto never sleeps it seems. I was sorely tempted to respec using Phae's balance/resto leveling spec, but the huge armor boost of Braxxis has steadied my hand. For a while atleast. So 2-3 to feral but the resto/balance is pushing hard to even out the score.

This week has been hectic both off- and online for me. The concrete kitchen table is starting too shape up as we're putting the finishing touches to the mold and will be pouring concrete into it tomorrow evening - fingers crossed for a tad more success than last time, which shouldn't prove that difficult. On top of this I've had a one friend become a parent for the first time, and another getting pregnant - also a first-timer as far as I know. The first was planned to the last detail and a big wave of joy. /cheers and /hugs! The latter was a bit more improvised and I'm not sure how much happiness it's brought so far, but who knows, things can change. And hopefully for the better. 

Online I've been browsing blogs at my usual frenzied pace and had the pleasure to see my blog getting mentioned in Phaelia's awesome blog. Woohoo, what a rush :) Again thanks a whole lot for your blog - and hope you're having a pleasant cruise!

Second big kick of the week was to find hard evidence that someone apart from myself had been reading my blog. After less than a week on-air Fernmuzzle popped by and gave some much appriciated advice on handling the tiny bit of guilddrama I'd been exposed to. /Target Fernmuzzle /cheer.

In-game Morannon's been advancing just short of level 62 and has been gathering quite a few new toys. I've set about to learn how to do them nifty wowhead links I keep seeing in all the cool blogs around, but still no luck. I've been running Ramparts and Blood Furnace a couple of times (even healed a Ramp run!), and I really enjoy the Outland intances - loads of fun. My stopmotion tanking style is generally a good source of mobmolesting fun, but after healing the Rampart run I got the itches for turning resto. So far my healinggear is way under par but I'm thinking of starting to choose healing/balance quest rewards from now on. This way I expect a decent set of gear once I turn 64 and get to play Lifebloomer. Still, wise men keep telling me to hold of on the respeccing until the big 70 as solo-levelling will become much slower.

Resto/Balance vs. Feral: 2-1. 

Anyways, this week will most likely end in a lot of rested xp waiting to be harvested on my toons as my playtime drops like... well, dang had a good analogy here and I completely forgot it. Bugger. What I meant to say was I'm looking forward to next week and hopefully getting to 64 at some point in March. 

DING!

This weekend real life decided to intervene and ensured I got minimal playtime on Morannon. I managed to do a few quests saturday afternoon and turn 61. This means Omen of Clarity will be boosting my progress through the levels from now on. I'm excited to see how much effect this will have on my grinding speed, but energy-free mobslappin' can't be bad! Also, I understand that there's new skills to be learnt (and gold to be spend) at each level from 60 to 70, which mean another stop at the nice people of the Moonglade. 

Next weeks headlines will be grinding, questing and the making of a concrete kitchen table - actionpacked peewee! Hopefully I'll get to see Morannon doing some laceration before the weekend and might even get my second Blood Furnace run done.

And in the Resto vs. Feral vs. BigBrownBirdie knockout tournament it seems the resto-side is gaining momentum. Despite getting my paws on Braxxis' Rod of Pre-Earthwarden Tanking Malarkey I'm sorely missing the healing game. I'll keep you posted if we see any development.

Guild Etiquette

After doing some AV'ing yesterday I decided to quit being a lowly lvl 60 and get on with the journey to endgame content and fabulous prices. So I flew back to Honor Hold and had the nice gem vendor fix me up after a few hours of Hordeslappin'. Fired Thottbot up, so I knew where to go and get my quests done (I'm a complete moron when it comes to reading the quest descriptions), and summoned my trusty Mistsaber.

Just when I hit 60 I was a bit disheartened by the huge jump in xp requirements to further levelling (from sub 200k to almost 500k) and had lost my motivation for a bit. After an hour I recalled how easy Hellfire Peninsulla quests are and was gaining experience like a schoolboy in a pornshop. Everything was going like cake and suddenly I got a whisper from a guildmember asking me to tank Ramparts for him. The guild is a fusion of several smaller danish guilds on the server and I wasn't sure who this guy was, but he was a fellow guildmember and I could do with some more Outland tanking practice. I had tanked BRD for him once before, but he had suddenly skipped the party mid-instance back then, which I found a bit strange, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. The man probobly had his reasons.
So HS to Honor Hold to repair and shop water and talbuk meat, and then on my way to the summoning stone.

We get the party summoned and I look forward to working with the guy. He's a resto druid so we'd be a fairly good couple if we'd level together and do instances along the way. We go in and do the first few pulls with no real trouble. The Pug seem to work together ok: Everyone follows marking, let me grab aggro and a few even sport Omen - not my guildmember though, but no biggie. Suddenly he announces he has got to go and without further ado he leaves the party. The others are a bit miffed and so am I but he probobly had something urgent come up. After five minutes of waiting for a replacement I notice he's still online and whispers to him to ask what the trouble was. He tells me he'd gotten an offer to heal an Underbug run - and who would say no to that? "Ehhh, most people, I hope" I respond. I know I would, and tell him I think it's plainly rude to the rest of the party. He whisper me a respons along the lines of "yeah whatever", and I get a bit pissed. I remind him of the BRD run and tell him I find it rather disconcerning to do so in a Pug, but very much so when you'd called in a guildmember. His response? "Then just don't trust me in the future, mate...". Ehh, wtf?

So, we get together a new group and blast through the instance twice with good loot to boot, but I can't really let go of the feeling he left me with. I whisper a mate of mine who'd been in the old guild considerably longer than me and describes the situation for him. He tells me to take it up with an officer, but, sheesh, it sure feels like running to a grown up and ratting when we were kids. Still, if we we're kids he'd been on the recieving end of good dose of whopass by now, but alas the internet has no /punchfist to face function.

So what do I do? Rat on the rat, or just leave him to rest on my ignore list? It feels a bit low, but a combination of a lust for revenge and urge to protect my fellow guildmembers from his apparant apathy drags me to it (ok, mostly the lust for revenge bit).
What's the normal thing to do here?

Best. Blogpost. Ever.

... and my first, so welcome to my new and shiny blog! Nice to have you drop by.

I think it's only proper to introduce myself before I go on with the content of the blog. My name is Morannon. I'm a level 60 Feral Tank on the Darksorrow server (known to some as Lagsorrow). My guild has just fusioned with a few other danish guilds to create the Danish Legacy guild. As I haven't really been in the game that long, or tried other guilds and guilddrama for that matter, I might be biased here, but it seems like a solid unit already. Friendly folks mostly and with a desire to see some of the more interesting endgame content before the Wrath of the Lich King is upon us. I look forward to doing some guildruns in the future instead of pretty much just PUG'ing - though the quality of these have improved in Outland. Sometimes someone even uses Omen...

As for myself. I'm 27 years old and studies political science in Aarhus, Denmark. I've been playing WoW for about a year now, but had a long break during the fall. I've played almost all classes apart from paladins before I found my niche as a druid. I really enjoy the diversity of the class as I levelled through Azeroth. Need a tank? Sure. The healer just left? I'll strap on my healing gear. Got a spare dps-slot? Ok, kittyform incoming.
I enjoyed my other toons as well, but I've found that I really prefer to either heal or tank an instance - and I can't really tell which one i enjoy the most. The answer to my problem - shapeshifting! As I get closer to the endgame healing as feral specced proved increasingly harder at first and then as I moved into Outlands almost impossible (atleast for me). So after 60 levels of versitality I'm facing ten more levels of tanking or dps. Still the Outlands instances seem sooo much more fun. More intesting trashpulls and the bosses are starting to use some nifty little tricks. Great fun and even greater loot!

So, what's the point of this blog? I'm actually not sure. At first I'll try and give it a shot and see if it's any fun, and while doing so sharing my thoughts on pre-70 tanking (Oh, how I long for lacerate!) and on settling on a spec for my life as a level 70. The first part will most likely be composed of equal parts of how not to pull, tank or move learned the hard way and childish joy of learning the right (or atleast functional) way of marking, pulling and tanking. Spiced up with the agonies of PUGs, quests and real life interventions. The latter part will consist of me trying to make up my mind whether to go Tank, Resto or Boomkin as I turn the big 70. I'm quite fond of both PvP'ing and instances, and really like both to tank and heal, but the BigBrownBird is just a lure of its own. More on all of that later.

I'll finish with a short explanation of the blogs title. I'm playing the game from a MacBook and enjoyed fps between 20 and 30 in Azeroth. Once I hit Outland these plummeted to a measely 10-15 with dives to 5-6 in certain instances and Shattrath. In close quarterfighting and with a less than stellar pull (read two or more groups of mobs) my game turn into stopmotion. Makes marking on the fly a pest and clicking on mobs to target them a gazillion times harder. It might be the reason why I like to have everything planned before the pull (and end up loving it when the plan goes through the window and everything but kitchen sink is flying in all directions).

Stop. Motion. Tanking.
Best. Thing. Ever.
Need. New. Computer.

This ended a bit in a blur, but I hope I'll manage to keep some sort of structure in the posts. I'll return to work now, and carry on wondering if I should buy a gaming pc or turn resto. Hmmm, decisions, decisions, decisions...

Best of luck to all who've stuck with me this far :)