More Numbers and an Ex-God

You’d think the flu would end a lot more quickly, but nooooo.  Which isn’t to say I still have the flu, because I’m no longer contagious, but I’m still coughing.  Needless to say, I’m getting rather tired of the whole thing.  (cough)

Raiding with Mingle has progressed, and above me is exhibit A.  Meet the ex-old god, Yogg-Saron.  Of course, that’s the good news.  Now we’re going to be doing hard-modes in an attempt to reach Algalon.  (Sadly, I wasn’t blessed with any loot to commemorate the event, so I had to make do with a fleeting feeling of relief – it’ll be interesting to see how we do next week)  We followed that up with a 6-minute Malygos kill which was quite satisfying.

I’ve spent a bit of time on Dingle as well, running Naxx10 and some Ulduar10.  Naxx was as much of a pushover as you’d expect, but Ulduar was a tad more punishing.  (Just a tip:  The trash before the cat lady Auriaya can’t be 9-manned by alts – we had someone go afk to go to the dairy and buy some cigarettes who didn’t come back for over an hour, and we had to do something with our time.)

Also, PvP.  Yes, Dingle actually did a little, and even picked up a couple of the simpler achievements from it.  (She picked up the end of a fail AV, an AB, a couple of EotS, and the tail end of Wintergrasp)

The Midsummer Fire Festival has been and gone (yes it was very funny, celebrating summer in the middle of the southern hemisphere winter while I was sitting in front of a heater, wrapped up in multiple layers of clothing, sipping a hot cider vinegar and honey drink while recovering from the flu), and I mostly ignored it.  I did a little exploration while honouring/extinguishing fires to get Tingle some flightpoints and a little more xp (she’s currently in Southshore, sitting on level 35), but I didn’t spend much time on it with any other characters.  (My money is on the next in-game event being Northrend Children’s Week, which is apparently being introduced some time after the 3.2 patch goes live.)

Glyphs are continuing to treat me well, not to mention profitably.  I’ve switched from manually price-checking and listing them over to batch-posting, and the time it takes to post them all has more than halved (plus I can be afk while they go up).

Anyway, here’s the (100% batch-posted) numbers for last week:

For the seven days from 29th June – 5th July:
Total glyphs sold: 721
Average price per glyph: 8.88g
Average sales per day: 914.89g
Total income from the AH: 6404.22g

Remember those extra books of glyph master that I assumed I’d be able to resell for a profit?  Well, do you remember the saying about assumptions?  Needless to say, I suspect if I want to sell these anytime soon, I’ll have to eat a small loss on the deal.  On a more profitable note, I’ve sold about half of the decks I made for the Faire; I still have a handful to go, but I expect to have them sold before the faire moves on.

I’ve spent quite a bit of the proceeds already, on Runed Orbs to make a pair of Spiked Deathdealers for Dingle (which was a little cheaper than it would otherwise have been, thanks to Mingle being able to buy four orbs with Emblems of Conquest) and a Scroll of Blood Draining to put on Stoneguard, which dropped from Kologarn.  The crafted plate tanking belt from Ulduar is the next upgrade I have planned, but I’ll have to check if we have a blacksmith in guild who has the recipe.

After the mixed results from my minimal time spent tanking in Ulduar, my respect for Ulduar main-tanks who also lead their raids is substantial.  I had enough trouble keeping track of the things currently pummeling me, without keeping track of everyone else at the same time.  But on the positive side, I’ve managed to get an achievement on Dingle that my ‘official’ raiding character hasn’t managed yet:

Meet Flame Leviathan+2.

/wave

(cough)

Meet The New Staff

Following yet more nerfs to Ulduar, last night our 25-man raid managed to down Flame Leviathan, Ignis, Razorscale, XT-002 and Kologarn, and had time left over for a couple of attempts on Assembly of Iron.  And Mingle has (for the first time) added a staff (Intensity, which was most generously dropped by Ignis) to her raiding gear.

It’s such an odd look, seeing her with staff in hand (or strapped to her back).  I mean, she’s only ever equipped one in order to train her weapon skill up, and that wasn’t even an afternoon’s work.  Admittedly the shadowform effect does tend to limit the effect of any new gear she gets (even new shoulder armour, which are usually one of the most noticeable pieces of gear from an aesthetic perspective), but a staff…  It’s just a whole new look for her.

It surprised me that no-one else in the raid rolled on it.  I mean, it has the most +hit for any weapon I’ve come across so far, and having so much on one item means you have a lot more flexibility when you’re readjusting your gear to get the hit you need without nerfing your other stats too much.

(As an aside, quite a lot of items have been going off-spec, so I guess that really puts the normal 25-man Ulduar gear into the correct perspective, especially when so many raiders had best-in-slot items pre-Ulduar.  If we can get our act together enough to start doing hard-mode bosses, then the loot circus will probably kick into gear.)

Mingle is currently just a little bit over the hit cap: the cap for a non-Draenei with 3 points in Misery and 3 points in Shadow Focus is 290, and Mingle has 305 without any buffs.  This is after re-gemming and fiddling with gear as best I could, so she’s stuck with those extra points for the foreseeable future.  But she did pick up almost 100 extra spellpower from it all, so the WWS for tonight could be interesting.

In other news, there’s not really any other news.  Nothing exciting from the fishing dailies, nor from the Tournament dailies, nor from…  well, you get the idea.

And speaking of dailies…

/wave

Yawn. No, Really.

I couldn’t get back to sleep (woke up at about 6am, after going to bed at 2am), so I figured I might as well get some dailies out of the way.  And guess what?  The fourth day of Blood Is Thicker in a row.

Ah well, you get that sometimes.  (But it would be nice to get something else for a change – I’ve done the dailies every day since 3.1 went live, and I’ve still only seen two of them)  I’ve started leveling fishing on Fingle as well, which gives me four characters to fish with.  Fortunately you’re able to do the fishing daily in Shattrath in addition to the Dalaran one, so I can keep myself in Sharpened Fish Hooks.

Ulduar-25 went better last night; after defeating the loot piñata that is Flame Leviathan (well, we downed him despite all the raiders who still don’t know how to do that fight – apparently we’re going to be organised when we do it next week), we then downed Razorscale (eventually – it took a few attempts), and I sat out for XT-002 Deconstructor.  We finished with Ignis (barely downing him before we over-ran our scheduled raid times).  Razorscale was generous, and gave me the Collar of the Wyrmhunter, which has allowed me to drop Haunting Call in favour of The Impossible Dream – the new +hit pieces are making it a lot easier to juggle that particular stat.  (The stats on it are nice, but some of these helms make me really glad I can set them to not display on my characters)

I’m hoping to get Dingle into the second guild 10-man group for Ulduar this week, but her comparative lack of gear may put her out of the running – Ulduar is really quite demanding of raiders, in that they need to be pretty solidly geared before it’s worth taking them in.  While she’s geared enough for Naxx25, Ulduar10 may be beyond her – or at least, her lack of gear may make her impossible to keep up.  I’ll have to see what happens come Friday.

For now, though, I’m going to finish the fishing dailies and see if I can get another couple of hours sleep – raiding and sleep deprivation aren’t a very successful combination.

/wave

A Sword, A Sword, My Kingdom For A Sword

For all the hiccups and stresses, no-notice bails, and AFKs without warning, sometimes a pug will deliver.  Such as, a sword!

And now, the Wrath version of The Sun Eater, namely the Red Sword of Courage, dropped in heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.  And it was most definitely a pug, complete with a shaman who bailed after we killed Skadi the Ruthless (possibly leaving because the drake didn’t drop), and a death knight who went afk while we were waiting for a replacement mage.  (The DK got back just in time to help kill King Ymiron, and was able to pick up his emblem with the rest of us)

But with my shiny new sword, I’m that one step closer to being fully epic-geared (and Ulduar-viable).  And all this is thanks to some useful guides to prot warrior gear (and another guide to consumables, which has proven invaluable)

First of all, TankSpot is a very useful site, and was one of the first to be bookmarked when I rolled my warrior.  TankingTips was not far behind, also very useful.  Anyway, these guides have been indispensible gearing Dingle up:

• Wrath Tanking Gear List (also has gems and enchants – very comprehensive)
• Best In Slot! Warrior Tanking Gear “At a Glance”
• The Badge er… Emblem of Heroism Pick Order
• The Emblem of Valor Pick Order (mostly theoretical for me, as my 25-man experience is limited)

I’ve also found the Tank Consumables post from Tank Like A Girl to be very helpful, while I get a grasp on what’s effective and what isn’t.  Now I just need to get some more raid experience – 3.1 is getting closer, as is 10-man Ulduar.

/wave

Sometimes Your Best Just Isn’t Good Enough

Dingle has had another venture into the depths of Naxx-10, along with experiences with the Vault of Archavon in both 10- and 25-man flavours and the Obsidian Sanctum in 10-man.  While both VoA and OS turned out fairly well, the Naxx run clearly demonstrated that when your group is undergeared it can be a rather unforgiving.

The first part of the Naxx run, on Saturday night, wasn’t too bad – at least, not until we got stopped cold trying to down Grobbulus.  After 6 attempts where we had multiple problems with poison clouds being dropped in the middle of the raid, and some bad timing a couple of attempts with Dingle getting the injection debuff while attempting to pick up and tank the slime adds, we called it a night.  (We did manage to clear the Spider and Plague wings, and downed Patchwerk, so it wasn’t too bad.  Plus I managed to get the 50 Emblems achievement)

Last night we went back with a few less pug members and a few more guildmate alts, and apart from managing to get Razuvious down, failed miserably on the only two other bosses we could attempt after him.  We didn’t have anywhere near enough dps for Gothik (I was tanking the live side, and on our best attempt we only just managed to get down the last adds right before he spawned – the dead side didn’t do as well) or Grobbulus (I switched from tanking the slimes to tanking the boss, and it was an… interesting learning experience). Still, 60G in repairs isn’t that bad for a single emblem, is it?  Right?

However, Dingle needs many more emblems (and yet more loot) to finish gearing up before Ulduar, so I suspect I’ll have to brave the world of pugs again, regardless of whether I’m looking forward to it or not.

Perhaps I’ll get lucky, and get in with some groups who’re capable, competent, and well-geared.  Failing that, I guess I’ll find out if there’s any truth to the saying that suffering builds character - if I have a really well-built character by the time 3.1 goes live, this will be why.

/wave

Continuing In The Deep End

After our latest attempt to complete The Immortal in this week’s 25-man Naxx run was defeated by server lag and player disconnections, I was given the chance to sub Dingle in to off-tank for the rest of the night, and it proved to be even more effective in gearing her up than the 10-man run I participated in last week.

Nine bosses later, I’ve not only picked up one each of the best tanking rings and tanking cloaks in game, but also three additional gear upgrades.  And I’ve also been reminded (again) just how good our healers are.

• Pauldrons of Unnatural Death replaced Abomination  Shoulderblades
• Breastplate of Tormented Rage replaced Tempered Saronite Breastplate
• Cloak of the Shadowed Sun replaced Tattered Castle Drape
• Callous-Hearted Gauntlets replaced Daunting Handguards
• And in the biggest upgrade, Sand-Worn Band replaced Stoneguard Band

I’ve also spent a couple of days farming Kurenai rep with Dingle, and the end result was the addition of several Talbuk for my favourite tank to ride around on.  Admittedly, they look better when someone else is riding them – from behind they look like skinny Ironforge rams wearing stilts, but it’s more mounts for her collection (although she only has 16 so far), and one more exalted faction.

In not-related-to-WoW news, I’ve finally been watching the last season of Battlestar Galactica over the last couple of days.  3 more episodes to go, then I can join the masses in complaining about the end of the story.

Starting In The Deep End

I did indeed end up tanking something with Dingle.  We did a guild run of 10-man Naxx.  An achievement run, to do The Dedicated Few, where you have to defeat most of the bosses (apart from the Four Horsemen) with only 8 people.  Talk about trying to fly before you can walk.

All I can say is that our healers are awesome.  And I only occasionally failed (such as a death to a soft-enraged Patchwerk), thanks to an equally awesome main tank (who kept me from looking foolish, especially on the AoE trash pulls).  Of all the bosses, we only have Four Horsemen, Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad left to clear; we called it after a single attempt at the Horsemen, as we need another couple of people (at least one more healer) for that (and it was ridiculously late, especially by NZ time).

But I managed to get not only two straight upgrades (new shoulders and leggings), but also a couple of items (another pair of shoulders and leggings) towards a DPS set that may possibly get some use when dual-specs go live.  I crafted a set of frost-resist gear as well, for when we go back to Sapphiron, so I’m pretty much set for the rest of the run.

I think I need to start running heroics, though, if I want to get Dingle geared up any further; there’s only so many more Naxx runs left before we get Ulduar to explore, and there’s a few toys I can still pick up from heroics before then.

For now, though?  Time for dailies.

Making It Onto The Sons of Hodir Christmas Card List

I’ve spent the last couple of days getting healer Fingle and rogue Ringle honoured with the Sons of Hodir for the rare shoulder enchants (namely this and this), and warrior Dingle will be next on the list today, provided there are enough Relics of Ulduar in the auction house to get her up to honoured (and provided they’re cheap enough).

It’s actually not that hard to get to honoured – perhaps only three or four days worth of questing and dailies, when you’re starting from scratch in the Storm Peaks. The first stage is completing the quests from K3, the neutral goblin camp at the south of the zone. Then comes the quests that unlock Brunnhildar Village up the mountain to the north. Then (after the truely awesome quest, The Drakkensryd) you get to run a number of quests for Thorim which lead you to the Sons of Hodir, and several more unlockable dailies. All told, Dingle alone made something over 800G from quest rewards and vendoring trash.

Sadly the gold didn’t last very long, as a large proportion of it has been spent gearing people up, with epic crafted belt and shoulders for Ringle, and a shiny new gun for Dingle to replace the old TBC equivalent. Enchants and gems were also applied where necessary (although I still need to make some leg armour for Dingle).

I think next up will be trying to get some heroics happening to continue the process (albeit easy heroics in Dingle’s case – her gear and my inexperience rules out running anything really challenging at this point). And while I’m waiting for that to come together? Well, there’s always the cooking dailies to finish…

Juggling hit for fun and profit.

Another raid night completed (and all the 25-man content finished for the week), and for a change I’ve picked up an upgrade for Mingle.  Now, getting new gear is the easy part; juggling stats to best effect is the tricky bit.

Now Mingle is already very well geared, so upgrades are very far between at this stage; basically 10- and 20-man Malygos drop an item each, and 25-man Kel’Thuzad drops a couple more items.  But winning Leggings of the Wanton Spellcaster gave me enough extra hit that I’ve been able to drop two pieces of +Hit gear and replace them with more effective items.

Old gear: Total 156 Int, 101 Spirit, 73 Crit, 766 Spellpower, 77 Hit, 41 Haste

• Valorous Pants of Faith with Brilliant Spellthread, a Runed Scarlet Ruby and a Potent Monarch Topaz
• Haunting Call with +63 Spellpower
• Surplus Limb

New gear: Total 177 Int, 83 Spirit, 85 Crit, 758 Spellpower, 82 Hit, 66 Haste

• Leggings of the Wanton Spellcaster with Brilliant Spellthread
• The Impossible Dream with +50 Spellpower
• Accursed Spine

Aggregate change: +21 Int, –18 Spirit, +12 Crit, –8 Spellpower, +5 Hit, +25 Haste (And once I get the upgraded weapon enchant, that will turn the Spellpower deficit into a bonus)

But the fun thing was juggling gear to get the best overall bonus.  For Shadow Priests, the best resource for gear comparisons I’ve come across would have to be the “Best Raiding Gear Available” list on shadowpriest.com.  Admittedly it does take some practice to work out how best to interpret the list for you and your gear options, but once you’ve got a grasp of it, it makes things a little easier to work out if gear item A is much better than gear item B.

As far as future upgrades go, that leaves a helm to replace Faerlina’s Madness (which really is pretty average, compared to the items which just haven’t been dropping for me), the trinket from Sarth, the cloak from Sarth with 2 Drakes, the ring from Kel’Thuzad, the healer mace also from Kel’Thuzad, and the chest from 10-man Malygos for its +Hit.

But it’ll be another week until I get to pray to the god of RNG, and hope that items I want will drop, and that I’ll be able to win them.  Oh well, back to my alts until the raids reset…