Monday, August 12, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- This weekend was an achievement weekend for me.

- Kind of hard to have one of those weekends when you get a ton of new achievements when you are already pushing closer to 17000 but I did.

- Not all of them got me achievement points however.

- There is one less "problem" achievement for me now.

- I've Got 9999 Problems but a Bone-White Primal Raptor Ain't One.

- Doesn't award any points, but I am glad it is done.

- Mostly solo too.  Had some groups early on where I shared the loot.

- But I decided, I'm a hunter, I can do these solo.

- Someone in guild asked, when I said I was farming them, can you do them solo?

- I said, I'm a hunter, that is what we do.

- An hour here and there and it is done.

- I like grinds like that to just take a break from the norm sometimes.

- That is the type of grind I think the game needs more of.

- No achievement points, no in game help, completely optional.

- So I took the option to do it over the course of time.

- I got another achievement this weekend that gave no points.

- Ahead of the Curve: Lei Shen.

- I knew it would be coming soon and it did.

- The fight was not that hard, even more so with the advent of the LFR which was basically how the fight actually was.

- We needed a few pulls for the tanks to get used to the switch and run thing and for people to remember their places but once we got it down, we got it down.

- We had to hold back on DPS too, that was one of the minor adjustments we needed to make.

- Two attempts ended in upsetting wipes because we pushed the phase too soon.

- We basically sat there for about 20 seconds or so twice doing nothing.

- And still had 3 people rank on the fight.

- I guess lots of guilds were sitting and waiting.

- After the nightmare of horridon and the RNG hating tortos fight I would have expected the last boss to put up some sort of fight but he didn't.

- I would guess in part because we grossly over gear it now.

- I think the lowest was 517 and the highest was 534.

- If it wasn't easy with that gear, it would have been a sad thing for us.

- Based on numbers we are in that fiftieth percent of guilds that downed the first boss on normal who went on to down the last boss.

- So it is basically what I always like to say, my guild is just the average guild.

- I've often said that and now I have a little math, as anecdotal as it is, to back it up.

- I just know we could be so much better.

- We are not going to rush to heroics, we are going to try to do another clear for some people that were not there and deserve the kills.

- I still need tier pieces and a weapon too.

- Heck, I would like to get a full clear on one of my characters.

- Any one of my characters.

- My tank has not killed some bosses, my hunter has not killed some bosses.

- I switch around so often just to get runs going that I do not have one character that has a full clear of anything this expansion.

- Maybe my hunter has one of MV, but that is it.

- Everything else it is pieces of kills here and there.

- But back to achievements.

- Got a couple in ToT, not counting the no point ahead of the curve.

- Got the one for starting on all four corner despite this being my first kill.

- Bug much?

- Went back to some old content and got the last achievement I needed for ICC 25.

- Can't believe I still had one left, but was worth knocking out.

- Got a mount out of the deal too.

- Funny how fast LK goes down on 25 heroic now.

- We only had 13 or 14 people, 3 were healers and 1 was a tank.

- We killed him in the first phase.

- No kidding.

- He started to do the transition thing nearly instantly as we pulled.

- He was dead before he could even spawn one of the orbs that knock people back off the platform.

- Yeah, gear inflation is really that insane.

- I know it is two expansions ago but it should not have been that much of a push over.

- Maybe I am just upset because I remember all the wipes back then and am pissed it is so easy now.

- Oddly enough, it doesn't bother me that other old bosses are easy now.

- Just him for some reason, I hate that he is so easy.

- Not sure why.

- Did an ulduar 25 run as well for some people that have never been there.

- I love showing new players the raid for the first time.

- Hearing the oh's and ah's on vent is worth the price of admission.

- If even people that have never seen it and knew nothing about it and only do it when it is push over easy say "this is the best raid blizzard ever made" after it is done, shouldn't that tell blizzard something?

- Sharing ulduar with new players makes it feel new all over again.

- I think I actually snagged an achievement or two I did not previous have in there.

- Two people got "Its Over 9000" in there during that run.

- I laughed when they got it and said, when I got its over 9000 years ago it was in here also.

- I wonder how many people got that achievement in ulduar.

- After all, there are almost 9000 achievement points to be had in ulduar alone.

- At least it feels that way sometimes.

- How many times have I run it and I still do not have them all?

- Now that is how achievement should be, lots of different ones for doing things in lots of different ways.

- For example, the lei shen fight where I got the achievement for starting at all four corners.

- In uldaurs time there would have been an achievement for starting on each one and then one for all four.

- They just added all achievements in steps.

- Don't know about you, but I think it was fun, others call it over kill.

- But a toast popping up on the screen never hurt anyone, so I like it.

- Well, unless you are a clicker and it pops over what you need to click on, then it might kill you.

- Sorry.

- Keybinding saves lives from unfortunate achievement spam deaths.

- That should be a loading screen tip.

- So with the new raptor and new ICC 25 mount I finally finished I was getting ever closer to that 200 mount achievement.

- I figured, later I will spam some of my favorite never drop mounts for me dungeons and maybe I will get lucky and get my last three.

- But first, lets knock out some more achievements.

- Off to do some normal mode scenarios and watched toast after toast pop up as I went after achievements.

- I did not have many scenario achievements done as I did not really do many of them before they added heroic scenarios.

- So far nearly 300 achievements points this weekend alone.

- Not a bad weekends work if you ask me.

- I head to do some of my dungeons, set it to heroic and go into utgarde pinnacle to meet with my old friend skadi once more.

- I've been there what seems like 12 million times before.

- I stealth past everything.

- Thank you camouflage.

- As normal I engage skadi while arthas and syala are still talking, which I always find humorous.

- I beat him down and click to loot and low and behold the mount is finally there.

- Years of trying and the excitement could not match the feeling of relief that I felt.

- Over 1000 kills and finally it dropped.

- I earned that baby, that's for sure.

- Two more mounts needed.

- I switch to one of my horde characters seeing if maybe I could buy a few faction mounts as I am sure I do not have them all on that side yet.

- I look and it says I have 170 mounts horde side.

- What?  I have 198 alliance side.

- I guess horde only mounts do not count for alliance and alliance only mounts do not count for horde.

- Oh well, I would need to find two more for the alliance side.

- I never made the JC cats so perhaps it was about time to loosen those purse strings and spend some cash.

- I go and buy eight orbs of mystery at 18K each.

- Hey, if I am going to make them might as well make them all.

- Prospect a ton of ore and then transmute a ton more to get the ones I need.

- I craft the four mounts and combine them to one then craft another four so I will now have all five.

- I learn them and ding, mount parade pops.

- Another achievement and another mount that it gives you for getting it and my mount total is now 204.

- Does not mean I will not stop killing those other mobs that drop mounts, they might have the rest of the week off, but they will die again, soon.

- Over all not a bad weekend for the grumpy one.

- Finished the current tier while it was still current even if it was a lot slower than I would have liked.

- Got a mess of achievements to add to my toast collection.

- Got a few new mounts including one that was hard fought for over many years.

- Not a lot to be grumpy about right now.

- But trust me, I'll find something to complain about later

- Hey, it's what I do best.

- Have a great day all.

24 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Thanks, and yes, there is always something to complain about.

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  2. Gratz for your kills/mount.

    And thanks for not expanding on the clicker theme:p (clicker here, and one that came BACK from keybinding :D)

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    1. Thanks.

      I am not one of those "keybind or die" people. I believe at least in PvE content that people can do just fine clicking. I'd even be willing to bet I would do the same clicking as I would binding. It is extremely rare clicking would slow you down. The people that make a huge deal about it are just trying to make themselves feel better.

      Click away, as long as you get the job done and are not dying in the process, I see nothing wrong with it.

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  3. Gratz on Lei Shen and the achievs.

    Another break week for me. Posted auctions and logged in for Frostheim's retirement party.

    The Warcraft Hunters Union (WHU) met in Kharanos with Frostheim, Alisaunder, Michele Morrow, and a bunch of other hunters (had about 40 hunters) and all walked together to what's left of the dam in Loch Modan. Then we all hung out and chatted during the Hunting Party Podcast. After the show, we all jumped off the dam and splatted at the bottom (since all the water's gone)...

    Not as epic as the previous WHU events but it was still fun.

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    1. Thanks.

      I need to get to selling some stuff. Have about 160K I need to make up that I spent this weekend. But I rarely ever spend anything so it is no big deal.

      Sad to see those events are gone. It would have been nice if he could keep those running even if he stopped blogging for everything otherwise. Going to miss him.

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    2. The WHU isn't going anywhere. Frost just won't be blogging or podcasting anymore.

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    3. But that is what made them... them.

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  4. The av from lei shen was bugged some time ago.

    You could get credit gor it in LFR version.

    So mostly you got 3 of the av part from lfr and the last one on your first time normal kill.


    It was patched some patches ago.

    I also got 3 of the criteria. The first time i killed lei shen in lfr i was looking at the raud avs because i forgot what the lei shen av was about. Was surprised to see i fullfiled one criteria. So i asked a tank in our guild to tank it. And he is a av whore. So he gladly did it.

    Well it was 3am back then. So only did 1run. He finished the rest the next day. stopped with wow altogether short time after that :P

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    1. Would have been nice to take advantage of that one back then. I would have ended up with it sooner or later anyway being I like achievements and most likely would go back to finish it but still nice to get it sooner than later.

      Some bugs are fun I guess.

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    2. I got that achiev just doing LFR way back when it was still bugged. Everyone freaked out in guild chat: "How did you get to Lei Shen on normal already?"

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    3. That is great. I saw a few guild members had got it back then too. Figured they would have erased progress on it when they fixed it but it seems not.

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  5. Hey Grumpy, our guild is working on Lei Shen right now done one full night to no avail. Just curious how you are handling the transitions and which pillar you are destroying first/second.

    I am tanking and soloing one section to allow 3/3/3 in the others and people are constantly dieing to the combination of static shock and running to the circles. We overload the diffusion chain first, and going to overload static shock second.

    Every time we have gotten into phase 2 it has been easy and made it to the second transition but never cleanly enough to really progress on it.

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    1. Not sure this will work for you but this is how we did it. The key is to have everyone in their areas before the transition starts, so good timing helps.

      We overload east, diffusion, same as most everyone. Have 2 tanks on one, 1 healer and one DPS that can solo static on another, and 1 healer 2 DPS on the others.

      Second time around we get two poles close, but not leveled and sit on overcharge until we transition. It leveled once for us, but no big deal if handled like I will describe.

      The 2 tanks join the team that was 2, so you have 4, 3, and 3. When it comes close to the next transition phase stop at about 35%. I mean completely stop. Wait for the balls to spawn, stack, AoE them down, then run to your assigned corners leaving the 2 tanks the healer and one melee DPS on the boss. The boss should be at about 32-31 percent after the AoEing and that gives more than enough time for everyone to get to their spots.

      Everyone should stand DEAD CENTER on the circle on top of one another. This is key, do not do this and you can wipe.

      The first thing out will be over charge, even if 2 hit the same zone, you are all stacked, so you are all in the center of it. No one gets hit, no one gets stunned. Center to center can not reach each other so everyone is perfectly fine. Overcharge means nothing here.

      Second will be swirls, run out, step in them, get back ASAP to stacking. Stay stacked for static, big heals through it. Run out for next circles, get them and get back in ASAP again to stack. Overcharge come again, no biggie as you are stacked.

      Run out, avoid crap, hit time warp, collect loot.

      When done that way the second transition was easier than the first. Letting the overcharged, which does 0 damage, be the one that levels, you really do not have any damage spikes to worry about.

      Good luck and kick some butt. Hope that helps.

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    2. What about that ability that summons an add for every person it hits? Don't you need to spread out for that?

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    3. Yeah, during the AoE phase everyone is spread, then stack to kill, spread back out after the shockwave thing. Rinse and repeat. Should have mentioned that in there but forgot about it.

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  6. Thanks for the write up, hopefully we'll be successful tonight. Sounds at least fairly close to what we are trying, just need to tighten it up a bit.

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    1. I am on it with a second team, as I type this as a matter of fact. They are in that same position. Just need to tighten it up.

      Best of luck.

      I hope to hear some good news tomorrow.

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  7. Nice read, as always.

    My list, however, is pretty short:

    I quit WoW.

    I still like arenas, but I don't like the rest of the game. Leveling - meh, raids - meh, professions - meh. Achievements - double meh, etc. A big part of the problem was the lore that just went full retard in the last two addons. Another big part is that I don't see anything good on the horizon. LFR is going to stay LFR, there will be new achievements to dig X artifacts of this and this, and Metzen and the chardev team are going to continue to joyously jump all over the remains of the former lore turning it into illogical, pompous, uninteresting mess. It isn't worth to endure this just to play arenas.

    There are other games which offer interesting PVP similar to arenas without the idiocies of WoW (MOBAs come to mind).

    I will check up news on Blizzcon, but overall I don't think I am going to come back.

    That said, I am glad that you are still having fun. And thanks a lot for the blog!

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    1. Thanks for reading and commenting all. Sucks to see someone I have been talking to for a while quit the game but I can understand your feelings of frustration and desire to move on to something else.

      Sooner or later everyone will come to that point, my too I am sure. Whatever you end up finding to pass your time and have some fun I hope you enjoy.

      Maybe something announced at blizzcon will catch your interest and you might come back to give it a try.

      As the saying goes, no one ever quits, they just take breaks. If you really want to stay away I'd suggest not even following the news any more. No matter how we try we will always dwell on remembering the good moments when we see stuff like that. It is what drags the people back in.

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  8. Reading about you getting the Utgard pinnacle mount brought a big smile to my face. Well earned and well deserved.
    Fact that i still dont have over 9000 fos even after playing non stop for 3years says a lot about how much I care about achievements. but after reading your post I am think of bumping that number over 9000, sitting at 8650 atm. Might just do lore master on the new druid I am leveling.
    Straws-kazzak-eu
    formerly Straws-outland-eu

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    1. Thanks, it felt great finally getting it. I am not so sure I was excited more about getting it or excited more about not having to go there to do it each day any longer.

      Well, if you never did ulduar and do all the hard modes they will probably get you to 9K, there really are that many achievements there. And you too can join the crew of people that hit over 9K in there.

      I became an achievement hunter because I was always looking for things I could do and that worked sort of like a check list more than an achievement list. I try to get all the ones I can get solo. I find it a fun way to pass the time and to break up the gear grind from time to time.

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