http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/ en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:47:31 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/ http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/473-bear-gear-karazahn-level.html Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:42:58 GMT Okay so Im wearing fairly standard pre-kara gear, all blues with the odd purple.

My current gear is pre-karazahn blues and a couple of purples with a couple of slightly better items marked as starred which I cannot replace from 10-mans or heroics. I will replace these starred items much later and can basically forget about the slots. I currently have the healing ring for karazahn reputation so that isnt an option in this list but I would highly recommend that you pick it up if you can get it.

This is the gear, as of the time of writing that I currently own, fully gemmed and enchanted:
(Items with a * will not be replaced)

[item]Helm of the Claw[/item]
[item]Necklace of the Deep[/item]
[item]Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders[/item]*
[item]Bogstrok Scale Cloak[/item]
[item]Heavy Clefthoof Vest[/item]*
[item]Umberhowl's Collar[/item]
[item]Verdant Gloves[/item]
[item]Tree-Mender's Belt[/item]
[item]Heavy Clefthoof Leggings[/item]*
[item]Heavy Clefthoof Boots[/item]
[item]Ring of Unyielding Force[/item]*
[item]Mok'Nathal Clan Ring[/item]
[item]Runed Fungalcap[/item]
[item]Violet Badge[/item]
[item]Braxxis' Staff of Slumber[/item]
[item]Idol of the Wild[/item]

HP: 13344
Armor: 24488
Dodge: 27.29%
Defence/Resilience: 397/65
(This is completely unbuffed)

The gear below is my current shopping list, with a couple of options for each slot where I can see them available. These are items I can gain from heroics or 10 mans (kara basically, cause ZA dont drop crap, sorted by slot and only gear that is better than my current stuff.) Also cheap badge items only at the moment, maybe will add more of the more expensive items later but I hope that I can get to later content before they become an option, we shall see. A blank space means that there isnt a current upgrade from what Im wearing before 25 mans. PVP gear will also almost always be an upgrade and therefore hasnt been listed for the sake of list brevity. The item at the top of the list is the one I would prefer most and the list is then ordered by preference.

Head:
[item]Stag-Helm of Malorne[/item] - Karazahn (Prince)
[item]Stylin' Purple Hat[/item] - 6 Heavy Knothide Leather / 2 Cobra Scales / 8 Primal Shadow / 4 Purple Dye / 3 Rune Thread

Neck:
[item]Necklace of the Juggernaut[/item] - 25 Badges
[item]Barbed Choker of Discipline[/item] - Karazahn (Maiden of Virtue)
[item]Saberclaw Talisman[/item] - Karazahn (Shade of Aran)

Shoulders:

Back:
[item]Gilded Thorium Cloak[/item] - Karazahn (Terstian Illhoof)
[item]Thoriumweave Cloak[/item] - The Mechanar Normal/Heroic (Mechano-Lord Capcitus)
[item]Slikk's Cloak of Placation[/item] - 35 Badges

Chest:

No non-badge upgrade from [item]Heavy Clefthoof Vest[/item]

Wrists:
[item]Band of the Swift Paw[/item] - 35 Badges
[item]Swiftstrike Bracers[/item] - 4 Heavy Knothide Leather / 10 Primal Air / 4 Heart of Darkness
[item]Forestheart Bracers[/item] - Shattered Halls Heroic (Warchief Kargath Bladefist)

Hands:
[item]Gauntlets of Malorne[/item] - Karazahn (The Curator) - T4 Gloves

Waist:
[item]Belt of Natural Power[/item] - 2 Nether Vortex / 4 Heavy Knothide Leather / 10 Primal Life / 2 Rune Thread / 10 Primal Air

Legs:

No non-badge upgrade from [item]Heavy Clefthoof Leggings[/item]

Feet:
[item]Boots of Natural Grace[/item] - AH
[item]Zierhut's Lost Treads[/item] - Karazahn

Finger:
[item]Shermanar Great-Ring[/item] - Karazhan (Shade of Aran)
[item]Yor's Revenge[/item] - Mana-Tombs Heroic (Yor)
[item]Lieutenant's Signet of Lordaeron[/item] - Old Hillsbrad Foothills Heroic (Lieutenant Drake)
[item]Iron Band of the Unbreakable[/item] - Old [item]Hillsbrad Foothills Normal[/item] (Lieutenant Drake)
[item]Nexus-Prince's Ring of Balance[/item] - Mana-Tombs Heroic (Yor)

Trinket:
[item]Argussian Compass[/item] - The Underbog Heroic (The Black Stalker)
[item]Badge of Tenacity[/item] - AH / Blade's Edge Mountains
[item]Darkmoon Card: Vengeance[/item] - AH / Darkmoon Faire
[item]Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch[/item] - Karazahn (Moroes)

Two Handed Weapon:
[item]Earthwarden[/item] - Cenarion Expedition rep (Exalted) - Underbog Heroic / Slave Pens Heroic / Steamvaults Heroic

Idol:
[item]Idol of Terror[/item] - 20 Badges ]]> Skips http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/473-bear-gear-karazahn-level.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/299-karazahn-could-have-been.html Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:51:11 GMT So Sunday I had signed up for the raid early, I was ready, I have spent all week working on my DPS gear and have spent close to 1000g improving it. The guild have already cleared the entrance half so for my first run in kara I will be going in by the side entrance.

There are two other druids with us, one is tanking and doesn't need any gear so I look at the other and he looks like he will be rolling against me, oh well.

Nightbane, man it is an absolute blast. Im DPSing, CRing the mage, innervating the healers, playing with my [item]Drums of Battle[/item] (I love these things so much) doing the druid thing had an absolute ball and I even come 2nd on the Damage meter. Nightbane down. (I actually end up with a healing chest piece that I was pretty much forced to roll on, not that I ever heal).

Clear some trash. Using Maim so they dont explode, Im useful its fun, its sort of what I've been working towards for two weeks. Longer really, since I started the character if Im honest. I get to tank a little.

Shade of Aran. I die early due to concentrated damage during a flame wreath. We wipe, a couple of stupid things. Saddle back up and try again, everything is great everyone is up, he is down to 20% and suddenly nothing is happening, I shout lag and then hear ventrillo close in the background.

No way.

No f***ing way.

Ive DCed, game over man. No can do. Check connection, check connection, connection down, check again, check again. No way man you're not coming back. Check connection, give up and have something to eat. Check connection and I'm back, I'm running, I'm flying and they've downed Aran and thats cool.

The druid lead pushes for me to get back in the raid, they need the DPS for Illhoof. I need the cloak, Im more than happy with this agreement.

He's going, he's going, I'm gone.

No way, wipeout, your nets dead and it ain't coming back dude.

I phone my ISP, cause they are going to get a big piece of my mind. They don't, no ones there apparently and all I get is a pre-record saying "No way man, our lines our up, systems 100% operational, can't be us man."

Try, try, try again...

Illhoofs down, Im in Shattrath (wtf?) two seconds after login the other druid in the raid, the one with no enchants, useless gear links me [item]Gilded Thorium Cloak[/item], rubbing it in my face like. I kinda shut down a little, I wouldn't have minded so much if I'd even have had a chance to roll, a fair chance but I have nothing and I watch as this guy, who apparently finished the raid with less DPS than I ever put out get the cloak I wanted.

He's picked up 3 more DPS items uncontested, but Im out of the raid long ago due to "unreliability" his gear is still probably worse than mine even with the upgrades according to the druid lead.

I just pray they give me a second chance next week.

At least I have my [item]Violet Signet[/item] and also picked up [item]Tree-mender's Belt[/item] when the raid finished and a couple came to help me do Heroic Ramps.

I DCed one last time last night. I had just jumped off the Aldor lift.

Aldor Lift (with ISP assist): 1 - Treebiter: 0 ]]> Skips http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/299-karazahn-could-have-been.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/265-all-bears-naked-so-should-you.html Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:03:16 GMT General just tick the box, and this shows you who is talking, what your vent ping is and a few other things, its pretty great to be honest and works a lot better than the third party one I was using for Teamspeak. Secondly, unless you want a whole load of spam dont try to join GuildEventManager channels manually, there is a tab where you do that, you will need to add your guilds GEM Channel before you can delete the default one you must add a new one though. There are about 50 odd people on my server using the GEM default channel though which is quite amusing. I died to the Aldor elevator again...about 10 of us druids were having a base jumping competition to see who could pop bird form latest, I blame lag. Aldor Elevator 1 - Bird Form 1]]> So I left my old guild Legions of the Underworld who I've been with for about 8 months in various games. I had been becoming increasingly disatisfied with them since they all started playing WoW about 3 months ago, just little things that build up.

As I was at about that stage I joined a kara guild, which after I joined also seems to be running ZA and there is talk about a raiding alliance to do Gruul, so my future progression is looking up. Best yet I've been told that I will get to tank which is important to me.

So I've still not gotten any improvement on my gloves over [item]Caustic Feelers[/item] having had no luck getting [item]Wastewalker Gloves[/item] in Shattered Halls or a party together to do the quests for [item]Verdant Gloves[/item]. Getting the correct names for this blog I've just discovered though that Verdant Gloves are a lot closer than I thought and I did a couple of quests on the quest chain without realising I now only require two more quests, hmm maybe I can even get them tonight if I can get a party together. To be honest I only really want them so I look better whilst I'm tanking.

I was on vent last night and listened to the guild doing their kara run (I didn't join due to lack of attunement, oops) and they all seem to work well together as a team which was great. Two of the guild officers have said they will help me with the last part of my attunement quest, which is kinda great.

A few technical observations I've made over the last couple of days have been, ventrillo has a built in applet for the Logitech G15 on Setup > General just tick the box, and this shows you who is talking, what your vent ping is and a few other things, its pretty great to be honest and works a lot better than the third party one I was using for Teamspeak. Secondly, unless you want a whole load of spam dont try to join GuildEventManager channels manually, there is a tab where you do that, you will need to add your guilds GEM Channel before you can delete the default one you must add a new one though. There are about 50 odd people on my server using the GEM default channel though which is quite amusing.

I died to the Aldor elevator again...about 10 of us druids were having a base jumping competition to see who could pop bird form latest, I blame lag.

Aldor Elevator 1 - Bird Form 1 ]]> Skips http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/265-all-bears-naked-so-should-you.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/205-today-first-day-rest-your-life.html Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:20:26 GMT So I hit level 70 on Saturday, no one on my guild or friends list was online..to be honest I didnt even notice for about 10 minutes, I was in a party with someone and went to get a drink, he killed something and I levelled up and the text and all that had scrolled off before I got back. My UI has the exp bar turned off, just cause I dont like the amount left to level always staring back at me...not that it does anymore :) So yeah...bit anti-climatic to be honest

Anyway I was doing SL last night for the first part of the key for the kara prequest when after the run was finished one of the hunters (we had two, both of them the best chain trappers Ive met so far) said, "Well, everyone still seems to be here lets head on over to Heroic SP" I'd hit 70 on Saturday and was tanking my first heroic on Monday, what a rush and it was fantastic, we finished that (no loot for me and I got outrolled on the leather DPS piece by one of the hunters, but not to worry) and then headed into UB...after the first boss was down the healer had to go (explained beforehand) and we got another one in.

Finished UB, again nothing for the bear, with only a couple of wipes, the first being directly after the new healer arrived, I think everyone just lost their rhythm a bit. The second when the healer fell off the pipes and into the water. But after that it all went well.

So yeah, 2 day old level 70, 2 Heroics, 7 Badges of Justice.

To quote Merriam-Webster:

1. w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay" ]]> Skips http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/205-today-first-day-rest-your-life.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/163-so-s-your-first-time-baby.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:51:10 GMT I am not level 68 and the aldor elevator will never get me in its steely clutches of sinking doom ever again, mwuahahahahaha.

My favouritest bear in the whole world had a suprise for me last night as well, my regular pocket healer has switched mains to his rogue and when I logged on she sent me whisper to come meet her and after flying halfway across Terrokar (What? I'm hardly going to use one of those stupid land bound cat mounts) to the Auchenai area I found her stood by the summoning stone in all her tree-like glory! Woot, new pocket healer.

Anyway one thing led to another and I ended up in Sethekk Halls, now I've never been here before and this always throws me off a bit. My reactions are slower as it takes me a little longer to figure out what’s going on, I don’t know any of the mob abilities and I always pay less attention to my rotation and seem to screw it up, basically I just don’t grok it in the same way that I would a dungeon I’ve done 15 times already...like say Hellfire Ramparts.

This causes all sorts of problems obviously and having a new healer, someone not used to how tree healing works I had my work cut out for me and the best method really is to just take it slow.

This may seem obvious but I didn’t, made the stupid mistake of pulling with 0 rage when there was no need to with 5/5 furor and Enrage for the entire fight after that I was fighting to regain agro due to being low on agro at the start healer was over stretched and a couple of the party went down. So the rest of that instance I pulled a little slower, went over my rotation in my head before every pull whilst enrage was ticking up. Faerie Fire, Mangle, lacerate, lacerate, demo roar, Mangle, lacerate, lacerate, lacerate. It’s a great calming mantra, hehe.

All this is the reason that I always ask to be the one to mark and pull though. It lets me run the instance at a speed that is comfortable for me and forces me to think ahead of time how the fight is going to turn out. I made the mistake of asking the mage to sheep pull for a single fight and they then did it for the next three. I was completely thrown for the next two as both fights started before I was properly ready. I know in the future to ask “could you please do a sheep pull for just this fight, please?” assuming a general level of intelligence in the party, keeping your instructions clear should hopefully have good results.

I also went into Auchenai Crypts after that, first time again, and took the lessons I had learnt from SH with me, and it went smooth as silk (except for at the very start where I got Mind Controlled and proceeded to rip a hole in my party, oh and not realising the rogue was stood next to me and was the focus of attention)

Most importantly though don’t forget to have fun, and I did, the runs were fantastic (bet you don’t here that very often) and I got to see lots of new things which was great and my new healer did a fantastic job.

Aldor Elevator 0 – Flight Form 1 ]]> Skips http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/163-so-s-your-first-time-baby.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/141-being-original.html Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:50:57 GMT **First Blog Take Two I finished writing one up and then my computer crashed so I’m re-writing.**

I'm going to be truly original ...and do what everyone else is doing. I'm starting a blog.

Now, the history of myself and my WoW gaming is that I played quite a while ago on an RPPVP server as horde and never managed to get past level 48 on any characters, although I got a few into the 40-48 range. I now have a level 67 Night Elf Druid called Treebiter on the Shadowsong EU server and you get to listen about him...or switch screens and do something interesting, you know, whatever.

Oh also I happen to have the rank of Guild Master in a 80 strong guild (including alts) but don’t actually get to lead it as the real leader of the guild doesn’t want to be leader cause he works as a manager and it would be too much of the same when he got home or something…anyway.

My UI, this is a good place to start as I get to show it off and you get to see what I see when I’m playing the game. (Other than the huge piles of CDs, notes, crisp packets strewn around and threatening to actually engulf my sweet, sweet 22” widescreen) I changed and revamped my UI completely after seeing Baceramus' which inspired me cause it is just damned beautiful.

I’ve posted a picture on the plog with a list of the mods I use below it. Personally I like Ace2 purely because of the ease with which I can update them with wowace updater with a single click of a button and add addons and all the files that those rely on with a quick “Install Marked AddOns with Externals”, if I wanted a mod that wasn’t available with an Ace2 equivalent then yeah, I probably would download it but with a little research I have always seemed to be able.


http://www.theoryspot.com/photoplog/index.php?n=533

What you cant really see from that (mainly cause they aint there) is that I have all of my party boxes right at the very top and there are a few (heavy) modifications made to the Pitbull frames that allow me to have what I think is a very clean interface. If you guys know of a mod however that would allow me to move the info box at the top for towers captured or points gained in AV then I would be grateful as my raid frames currently cover that up.

Don't do what I did originally if you are going to move your party way away from your target and character boxes and forget to disable interaction lines, tanking in a laser show is a little distracting.

Quick tip for any druids out there using Quartz, and a thank you for Norrath for telling me cause I’d been having problems, if you set your GCD module up with lacerate and claw it works perfectly.

Anyway I’ve rambled on quite enough except to tell you a few highlights of my weekend, I got my [item]Braxxis' Staff of Slumber[/item] enchanted with +35 agility because I will be using it till I can get [item]Earthwarden[/item] so its definitely worth it. I also got [item]Bogstrok Scale Cloak[/item]. Both of them huge tanking upgrades and I’ve seen a difference in my survivability.

Funny snippet to end: A guy joined our guild the other day and started talking, now apparently he is trained in axe combat and is a true Viking …by this point I’m sorta thinking ookaaay anyway he shuts up for a bit and I get on with what I’m doing when suddenly guild chat comes up with OMG! BRB! I just dropped my Battleaxe out of my third story window! Apparently he had, had it leaning against the window, anyone with a battleaxe if you want to keep it safe, lesson learnt here, don’t lean it against a window in such a way that if the window is opened it can fall out.

Aldor Elevator 8 – Treebiter 0 (Just one more level till flight form) ]]> Skips http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/skips/141-being-original.html