Hallow's End

it's that time of year again; hallow's end. the time where hordes of 70s make a mad dash for the Scarlet Monastery and lay waste to a certain special someone in the graveyard wing... the Headless Horseman. we kinda feel bad for him, but that didn't stop us from beating him down like the loot pinata he is!

it was like christmas for us... our first run we picked up [The Horseman's Blade] (had to leave it in the bank for a while because we were only lvl 67 at the time) and our second run we nabbed the [Hallowed Helm] and the [Ring of Ghoulish Delight]. around about our fifth run we lucked out and won the roll for [The Horseman's Reins] as well as a [Magic Broom]. on our last run, we picked up [The Horseman's Helm] (thanks again, Bell). the ol' Horseman was generous indeed, this year. the only thing we didn't get from him that we wanted was the [Sinister Squashling] pet, but we lucked out and got one in one of our trick or treat bags.

we hit every single candy bucket in azeroth and outlands, did all the hallow's end quests and have completed all the hallow's end achievements available with the exception of The Mask Task, which we've heard is going to be removed (acquire 20 items based on blind luck? ouch...). now if only there were a t-shirt or something...

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over achiever

patch 3.0.2 introduced the concept of achievements. when we first heard about them we didn't think much of it, but now that they're actually here we find that they're rather addicting. we started small at first (yes, we got this one by accident...), but soon we had to have more and more. after a while we got to the point where we'd do anything for a fix. the gods only know where it will all end...

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Ding!

Daelan hit 70 monday. he marks our 6th entry in the level 70 club. total played was about 9 days, 6 hours. we mentioned previously that we weren't going to follow our usual power-leveling plan and that we'd be taking time out for other things (crafting, in-game holidays, etc.). despite that, it still felt like we leveled pretty fast. the 60-70 part especially so. makes us wonder if blizz quietly tweaked the xp required per level so more people will be 70 when wrath rolls out...

when we first rolled a warrior, we had a protection spec in mind. swords, shields, heavy armor... that's what a warrior was all about, we thought. everything we read said to level as anything but prot, however. leveling prot was like leveling as a healer: slow and painful. so we went arms for a while (2-handed goodness!) and then fury after that (dual wield betterness!), thinking that we'd let prot wait until we were 70 or nearly so. all that changed with the new talents in patch 3.0.2.

we are happy to report that as of the patch, leveling as prot is no longer painful in any way. it's actually a lot of fun! we changed to a full protection build at 60, when the patch came out, and we have been extremely happy with it. our dps actually went *up* by almost 20% when we changed from our old fury build to our new prot build! now, we're sure our dps isn't anywhere near what a true dps build can churn out with the new talents, but we still mow down mobs nice and fast so we're happy. with our stuns, silences, abilities to break roots (the new human racial is a huge bonus here) and overall durability we do fairly well in pvp (rogues especially hate us) even with so-so gear. questing is cake; even soloing 2-man quests is easy now. tanking, of course, is much smoother. it wasn't too bad for us with just a few points in prot, but with a true prot build our threat ceiling is much, much higher; at level 69 we were holding agro on mobs easily even with another 70 warrior pumping out 1200+ dps. and can we just say how much being able to charge, in any stance, in or out of combat, breaking roots, 5 yards further and 20% more often rocks? it does!

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world first!

we were in IF training up (66, woohoo!) and doing some shopping when an urgent call went out in /1 for everyone to come to the military ward. "horde?", we thought? we mounted up and rode over to check it out. the scene we arrived upon was epic. a raid and a half worth of valiant heroes banded together to battle the greatest foe IronForge has ever faced. naturally, we charged right in to do our part. it was a long and hard fight, but in the end the might of the Alliance prevailed and the dreaded Heroic Training Dummy was beaten down. obligatory kill shot below.



world first! you saw it here...

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saved!

a few hours after we submitted our ticket, we were contacted by a GM:



she got us fixed up (plunked Daelan down outside the gates of IF) and then left us with this:



gotta love GMs that role play /grin

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teething woes

we're in the software biz, so naturally we expect a few rough edges on patch day. what we are experiencing now is a bit beyond our expectations, though...







so, here's what happened... we hearthed form IF to Shatt and noticed that no one was around. as in, no players, no NPCs, no critters... nothing. Shatt was a ghost town. there was no general chat channel (though we could still whisper people), we couldn't mount... we could run around and use abilities, though. so, we ran out of shatt thinking that maybe a zone change would reset things. got into terrokar forest and things were still borked. so we logged out and logged back in... and here we are.

we tried taking a step, full expecting to fall endlessly to our death, and instead ended up just running in place... without a way to stop. our next thought was to try the auto-unstuck feature (since our hearth is in cooldown), but that didn't seem to do anything. we are so hosed...

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/facepalm

things not to do while instancing:

- do not show up drunk.

- do not proclaim to the group, loudly and repeatedly, how drunk you are. also, see above.

- do not get out-dps'd by a tank who's 3 levels lower than you (yes mr. 65 warrior, we're looking at you).

- do not turn party chat into a cyber session. if you must cyber, confine it to whispers. bonus points for amusing mis-tells. btw, that "hot" female drae priest is most likely played by a guy...

- do not whirlwind next to the sapped/repentanced mob.

- if the tank tells you not to stand in the green shit, do not stand in the green shit.

- if the tank tells you he's going to corner pull, do not stand in the doorway and swing at every mob that passes you.

- if the pull goes bad, take it like a man and DI the healer. do not bubble and run like the sissy we all know you are.

- if you see a land mine, do not feel compelled to step on it.

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