More in ICC

Kel and Co. went back to Icecrown over the weekend. Friday night didn't go so well, as it was a 'learning night'. We wound up beating our heads against Putricide for several attempts before we gave up. We made progress each time, though, so we weren't too disapointed. By the end we were consistantly getting to phase 2, and even got to phase 3 a couple times. We just had trouble with getting the slimes down before the transitions.

Saturday night was better. We still took a few attempts, but we were getting to phase 3 almost right off the bat, and still improving each try. Finally:



We got him down quick enough, we had time to start working on another new boss. The officers decided that Dreamwalker would most likely be the easiest to learn, so we headed over. Again, it took us a few tries with killing adds fast enough, and in the end we had 5 healers (2 pallies and a druid on the dragon and 2 more druids on the raid), and it finally clicked:



Fun times. :D

Oh yea, we did VoA right before ICC on Saturday, and my sis's DK got his t10 gloves. /score

Can't wait for next week! /waves

Raiding again (finally)

It took a week after the GM's return, but we finally had people show up for last night's raid. I've missed raiding, so it was pretty dang fun. We took out Jarraxus for the weekly, with one practice wipe (>.>). Then it was back into ICC, where we discovered the pity buff was up to 30%. Geez.

It all went really well. We one-shot pretty much everything, except for one wipe on Festergut. Not even sure what happened, but we got him next try with almost a minute before the enrage timer. Then had the easiest Rotface fight ever. It was getting late by then, so we're gonna start at Proff P. Friday night.

The best part of the whole night?



Kel got a new toy. Lady Deathwhisper finally decided to be nice and drop her bow. Kel's next 3 kill shot crits after equipping it were all for 22k-26k. (Her previous best was somewhere around 21k or so.) Needless to say, I was very happy. Then after we were done for the night, she had enough frost badges to grab her T10 gloves. Happy happy hunter.

I'm still working on alts, but I'll save that for the next post. Oh, and a little bit of good news: stuff at my job has been a little better this week, so my depression is somewhat better. We'll have to see what next week will be like, but for now, I'm doing okay. Only problem is being scheduled for 5 days straight, but most of them were short shifts, so I didn't get as many hours as I would have preffered. And I'm tired and sore as heck. Only one day to go before I get a day off to rest, though.

And that's it for now. /Waves

On a happier note...

Yay, my first level 80 death knight. And another toon to grind heroics with. /Sigh.

And I was working on the Sons of Hodir quests when she dinged. I think every one of my toons have been on that chain when they hit 80, except one. I think it was Tadrith, iirc.

Now Rynia the warlock and Caderlly the priest get to compete for my short attention span. Two clothies, eek.

Nothing else interesting going on right now. /Waves

An Update and an Apology

Well, I have been working on alts a lot lately. My tauren druid Bearkat is 76 and tanking stuff like a pro (which I am not, har har). Talía the Belf rogue is slowly getting up there, sitting at 26 now. Rynia the warlock is almost 74 and going through the Wrathgate quest chain. My undead shadow priest Caderlly is 74 too, and doing Wrathgate from the horde side. And my death knight Riatha is finally up to 79, and working on getting her to 80 next. I have been doing a little bit on my neglected draenei shammy too. She is dual specced for elemental now, and I'm trying to collect some caster gear for her (with help from a friend). On hindsight, I probably should have just saved the gold and respecced her, rather than buying her dual spec. Oh well.

As far as my 80s go, Kelesaria is trying to start raiding again. My GL is no longer MIA, and the guild is trying to get going again. Only problem is, all our regulars from before are now MIA most of the time. /Sigh. Jahira has switched her resto spec for a tanking spec, and it's been pretty fun. Playing Bearkat made me realize how much I've missed bear tanking, and it's been good to have Jahira back at it, after being a guild tank for the end of BC. I still run into the random jerks in LFD, but hey, that's what /ignore is for, right? Windstar has been getting some play time, even if it is only to run around picking herbs for Rynia's alchemy. I've missed my lil kitty, and I may start playing her more after I get bored with my leveling binge. My tauren shaman Taarren has been getting somewhat geared up. Switching her back to elemental was definately a good idea. Enhancement was fun, but there's a lot of little details to keep track of in order to play well, and I was getting slightly frustrated with it. Elemental is quite a bit simpler, and tons of fun. Rajji and Tadrith have sadly been neglected. Not that I'm getting tired of huntering, it's just that, when I do want to play a hunter, I want to be on Kel. And honestly, it doesn't really bother me that much.

And then there's Kal. Argh. For reasons that I will get into in a minute, I haven't been able to do much on Kal lately. I have been doing her JC daily, and sometimes I'll do a heroic as well, but then I get bored, or something, and switch to another toon. I really want to play Kal, but when I'm on her... I don't know.

I think mostly, it's just that I have been really depressed lately. Depression is a problem I have had for the last couple of years, but usually I'm able to distract myself from it, with friends and WoW. This time around, however, nothing is really working. Trying not to go into details, but I have just been feeling frustrated, ignored, and alone lately. My brother (when he is not at his base in another state) and one of my WoW friends have been helping, but really, there's only so much they can help me with right now. My schedule and other issues at work, and a ton of financial problems, have only been making it all worse. My job makes me tired all the time, I have health issues that I don't have the money to fix, and I have been having trouble sleeping, even when I'm worn out from work.

So, the point to all this is, I want to say I'm sorry to my Warcraft friends. I don't know if anyone has even noticed my absence from RP time, or when I'm hiding on different servers/factions. But right now, even as lonely as I feel most of the time, I'm just not much fun to be around. I'm trying to get myself over this, it's just taking a while. Hopefully I can be back hanging around with everyone soon, without the bouts of self-pity and grumpiness.

And getting back to my problems with playing Kal... All I can say is, it's just too hard to play a character that is suposed to be happy, as well as being in an awesome relationship with someone she adores, when I am so miserable and lonely. Not to mention the fact that Kal hasn't even seen 'her girl' in-game in weeks. Again, I am sorry. I just can't keep this going on my own, so I'm resorting to avoiding it. The worst part is, all my other RL problems are making it hard to care (much).

This has been one of the hardest posts I have ever written, and I'm probably going to be second-guessing posting it at all for a while. But I wanted the (most likely) few people who know me, who actually read this blog, to know what's been going on.

My 2 cents on RealID forums.

So, this thing Blizzard wants to do with the forums, with putting people's real names on their posts, is ALL OVER the blogosphere right now, and I've been reading a lot of it, and this is just my simple opinion.

Bad, bad idea.

Seriously, what are these guys thinking? ARE they even thinking?? First of all, as BBB pointed out, this won't stop all the trolls, because some people won't care. Heck, some people might even be encouraged by this, I don't know.

Second, this is a frickin' game, NOT Facebook. I have a Facebook (and I am proud to say that everyone on my small list of friends are all people that I know). As one person stated, in a epically awesome post, most people come to Warcraft to escape the real world. We don't want to add RL social garbage to it.

And thirdly, as others have also pointed out, this is a HUGE breach in personal security. Just because some people don't care, or have common names, that doesn't mean everyone does. I haven't been stalked or harassed personally, but hearing about others that have scares the crap outa me. The fact that I have discovered, through a website someone linked, that there are exactly 2 people with my name in the U.S. just makes it worse. Only the fact that I am one of the most boring people on the planet makes me feel any better. Anyone trying to stalk me/steal my identity/what have you will be very disappointed. And thank goodness my ex was never the stalker/vengeful type.

I have never posted anything on the forums, and now I never will. (Not that I would ever have anything worth posting anyways, since I don't do theorycrafting and I'm too shy about my RP stories to put any in such a highly-trafficked place.) I don't plan on quitting, because the game itself is still fun, and it is still my main form of escape, and stress relief. If Blizz keeps up with this garbage, though, I'm not sure how long it will truly be an 'escape'.

I have been playing this game since vanilla release. Thinking of this makes me very sad.

"Chosen"

(This may be a couple days late, but work/gametime has kept me very busy lately.)
So, after many many weeks of saving every copper I could, and getting lucky with finding a battered hilt cheaper than the usual buyout price, Kal has a Quel'Delar. It was totally worth it. Besides it being the best weapon you can get outside of raids, the questline was epic, in every sense of the word. I don't want to give any spoilers to anyone that wants to go through the chain themselves, but here is a bunch of screenies I took while going through it all. Possible spoiler stuff at the end. And I did miss taking screenshots of a few steps (because I was geeking out so much I forgot).
























































My favorite part? When Kal was purifying the sword, and Lor'themar tried to take it and got tossed across the room, and Auric told him, "Quel'Delar is not chosen, it chooses it's master." Kal actually felt very humbled that such a powerful weapon chose her for it's wielder. Almost every step of this chain gave me goosebumps, but that part of it was just amazing. I think it was even better than seeing her name yelled across Dalaran.

In other news, Rynia the warlock is now level 70, destruction is still the most fun spec EVER, and Kal and Channi are Flame Wardens. Yes, they did most of it together. The fact that the two of them have had almost no in-game time together lately just makes the achievement even better (even if RL depression problems made me a grouch for a lot of the bonfire collecting/desecrating, sorry Channi :( ).

And now I've stayed up way too late again. Danged insomnia. :(
/Waves