Archive for August, 2006

Who thinks we’re ready to hit Scholomance? Based on the levels needed to acquire the quests, some of the upper-mid 50′s may be ready, but to prepare, should probably check out the following list. In fact, 60′s might want to check the list of quests too, to see if they’ve missed anything.

• At level 52, get [60] Barov Family Fortune from Alexi Barov at the Bulwark, Tirisfal Glades. There may well be pre-requisites for this quest, but they are not officially linked…
• At level 55, get [58] Plagued Hatchlings from Betina Bigglezink at Light’s Hope Chapel, Eastern Plaguelands.
• At level 55, get [60] Doctor Theolen Krastinov, the Butcher from Eva Sarkhoff at Caer Darrow, Western Plaguelands. This short quest chain will take you into Scholomance 3 times in a row unless you turn-in during the instance. The last two parts are [60] Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors and ultimately [60] Kirtonos the Herald. For Warriors, the last of these quests give relatively easy access to the [Boots of Valor].
• At level 56, get [58] Healthy Dragon Scale from Betina Bigglezink at Light’s Hope Chapel, Eastern Plaguelands. This quest is repeatable, however, you will need to have finished Plagued Hatchlings in order for the scales to drop.
• At level 57, get [60] The Human, Ras Frostwhisper from Magistrate Marduke at Caer Darrow, Western Plaguelands. This is a 6-step chain, taking you to Stromgarde, Arathi Highlands, then to Light’s Hope Chapel, Eastern Plaguelands, into Stratholme, back to Caer Darrow, and ultimately into Scholomance for [60] The Lich, Ras Frostwhisper.
• At level 58, get [60] Leonid Barthalomew from Tinkee Steamboil at Flame Crest, Burning Steppes. This short chain has you speak to a couple people at Light’s Hope Chapel before getting [60] Dawn’s Gambit.
• And lastly, once level 60, when you’re well on the way to upgrading your Dungeon 1 Armor Set to Dungeon 2, you may acquire [60] The Left Piece of Lord Valthalak’s Amulet from Bodley within Blackrock Mountain during the final step of the upgrade process (Head & Shoulders). Unfortunately, the upgrade quests’ chains splinter, so you never know where you’ll end up.

We could hit Scholomance on Friday, if there is enough interest. It is a 5-man area, and will probably be rough depending on how many 50-ish characters we have. An alternative is participating in the Melraids by The Afflicted, who are doing partial-PUG runs into Molten Core on Fridays. Signup for those is at 6:15pm PST (early!), and I believe you need to talk to Melod if you are interested. I’ll see if I can dig up more information on that if any of you are interested…

Well, it was Tuesday Patch Day, and all the cool kids hopped on WoW to see their Rogues with empty talent trees, cross-realm battlegrouds filled with so many issues they were shut down after 12 hours, and world PvP so mismatched that the Horde may never return to the Eastern Plaguelands. Oh yeah, and half of their addons were broken too.

On a positive note, after updating the addons and making a minor surgical alteration to one, the game now runs faster, smoother, and with significantly less client-lag than before. You know, Orgrimmar, Alterac Valley, fighting Nef… things that are seriously taxing on the RAM. Anyway… here’s a list of addons I use:

• Atlas v1.8.1
  Maps with bosses and objectives for all instances.
• CT Mod
  Set of powerful raid-assisting mods.
• Decursive v1.9.8
  Automatically displays targets with curses, poisons, diseases, etc. for fast cleansing.
• EquipCompare v2.9.7
  Side-by-side comparison of that drop vs. what you already have equip’ed.

The following addons have not been updated to support v1.12, but seem to work anyway:

• Ace v1.3.1
  A transparent addon function library and assistant. (I only use it for GuildAds’ dependency.)
• Auctioneer v3.6.1
  Keeps track of auction-house pricing (the Economy) and displays in item tooltips.
• Gatherer v2.2.3
  Records and displays locations of ore and herbs on your minimap for future gathering.
• GuildAds v2.00b (rev 123)
  Displays items people have or want, as well as all crafted items and enchantments anyone in the guild (with the addon) can make.
  Note: Requires Ace.
• Titan v2.19.1
  UI bars containing customizable information: XP, honor, gold, inventory, ammo management, system performance, damagemeters, map coordinates, etc.
  Note: Titan seems to be no longer supported, with its last update on 6/22/06, though that may be too soon to say. Titan contains a nasty memory leak, and making the modifications mentioned in the thread at the bottom of that page helped significantly.

I use a select few other addons, on a character-by-character basis, such as DamageMeters, CritLine, UBotD, and GathererShare. I have not included these, and the few others as they tend to be minor mods that rarely have issues with updates. I’ll try to create a real Addons guide for the guild, including everyone else’s contributions.

Lastly, and slightly off-topic, I have tiled and stacked chat windows, and the little speech-balloon button attached to the primary General window is getting drawn in strange places upon login, but only with characters that use Gatherer/GathererShare…

Last night, Blackrock Depths experienced a little invasion. Gorysh, Skykomish, Dixi, Necromage, and Unezrest arrived with only two goals: Downing Bael’gar, and helping Gorysh get attuned to the Core.

Clearing the Dark Iron Highway went very smooth, and even Bael’gar and his little pests went down without too much concern. Gorysh won the first shard for stealing agg and getting the lowest on HP.

Then, on to the bar, with a quick little stop off to kill the General, and then Golem Lord Argelmach. Lag was against us several times during this trek, but amazingly nobody died until we doused the firemage in gasoline and threw her into a pack of rabid gnomes…

On our way to the Core, we put away the Ambassador and the seven dwarves, where Gorysh picked up Ghostshroud as a potential replacement for his recently acquired Ebon Mask. You be the judge; which should he keep?

Although the entire run took a bit longer than expected, there was only one wipe (fire elementals, who’d have guessed), and only a couple of other casualties. A very sucessful half farming, half questing invasion of BRD.

The Wednesday night Scholo run fell through due to a shortage of participants. Necromage and Unezerest showed, but three squishies would not get far. So, we called off the run and went our own separate ways for the rest of the night.

I received a whisper wanting to know if I was interested in a UBRS run. I have never been there and well, why not. I was summoned to the portal entrance and off we went.

It was a quick run, only a little over two hours, so I will keep this short. We killed 4 Boss's, Pyroguard Emberseer, Rend Blackhand, The Beast, and General Drakkisath. I was the lucky recepient of a [Dreadmist Robe], which will work well with my [Dreadmist Belt]. I can really use the +200 Armor set bonus for wearing two pieces.

Now, if only the Devout armor would start to drop, I would actually be able to wear some Priest gear… Sigh

Cheers

So yeah… I happened to be, you know, quest/grinding in the Barrens and happened to bite off more than I could chew. It happens…

And, while running all the way back to my body, I decide to num-lock run while I grab a drink. I come back to find myself dead. As a ghost. I was already a ghost, and yet, I died. Again. So much for saving time while getting a beverage…

Now, you may be wondering, how did you do that? Let me tell you: When I died, I was in the little pirate camp south of Ratchet, and from Crossroads‘ graveyard, that’s a healthy run. However, when I returned, I was a mile out in the ocean, dead from fatigue.

Luckily, this second death didn’t really count, did not cost me any durability, and when I did run back to my body, it wasn’t the body in the middle of the ocean, it was the body in the pirate camp. Yay.