Pilgrims Bounty is for cooking

Quick note (because the serious distractions are outweighing the fun here in Typhoon’s world) to remember that Pilgrim’s Bounty often has a wonderful method to quickly level your cooking. It starts now, from 25 Nov to 2 Dec, and ends with the end of the Blizzard 9 year anniversary event.

I did this about three years back on an Alt I no longer play, and as I have a few more that are hopefully going to be played again – I’ll be trying again this year as well.

So hopefully see you during that holiday where I’ll cook up a storm (ref, ref), maybe.

Related articles

• WoW Insider’s Guide to Pilgrim’s Bounty 2013 achievements (wow.joystiq.com)
• Breakfast Topic: Are you prepared for Pilgrim’s Bounty? (wow.joystiq.com)

A weekend without WoW

I had the pleasure this past long weekend of going for a trip to the beach. There is a majestic holiday spot along the western coast of Victoria called Lorne, and a mate’s family has a house there. A modest five bedroom place that is hard to resist… So we packed up the 6 month old, a small mountain of her bags, and the odd package of civilized rations (wine, chocolate, bagels, salami, olives, etc), and drove out into the non-Internet.

Being offline in this manner was great and it was insane how much of a decompression you can fit into a few short days.

As those days passed I started to contemplate the impact that 4-5 days away from WoW might have on my lifestyle, and it was pleasing to think that the game will be waiting. Initially I felt the tug of the login screen. I did not want to miss out on my dailies, instances, and scenario runs. I have a drive to participate in LFR each lockout so to get the small drop chance of upgrades from some bosses – especially a weapon drop from Elegon.

Then as time passed I accepted that I could not get online. My gaming machine was a 2.5 hour drive away, and I didn’t really wish to stop relaxing to ramp up into a run. The friends and family were entertaining and except for the poor sleep a person gets when their child does not know the new place much, we had a great time. The break was excellent.

Upon returning late last night I could probably have logged in for some dailies or a quick scenario, but it seemed I would be somehow cheating on the holiday experience (or perhaps shortening it) by getting into a typical night of gaming.

Instead I read my book, and let the anticipation build. A side affect too was the positive reaction from my family in not spending a  night in front of the glow of the screen.

Tonight is a gaming night, and I’m really looking forward to it. I can almost taste the queue timer for LFR as I type, the sting of the wipe, the glory of gold in the loot-bag. 🙂

Got flasks and mats? LFR zerg, just DPS you tard (just kidding).

My thoughts on gear from the recent post proved true too, as the Insidious regular raiders have boomed ahead in gear levels, and are now consistently above 6666 score on WoW Heroes. I think this is fantastic as it means that they’re seeing the successful encounters to lead progression along. More gear means more capacity to win through the earlier bosses in good time, and also should allow the later/harder bosses to be attempted more successfully each lockout. It might not occur in one or two cycles, but it should happen.

With the new Heart of Fear open for investigation there may also be a new source for some early boss kills. At the very least that means Valor and chance of loot.

Great times ahead.

Hallow’s End – Free rings!

Update: The Petrified Band (str ring) is bloody rare for me. I’ve seen it drop twice in 22 runs. And watched as a Druid got the Plate Helm from the goodie bag. That is seriously stupid.

Hallow’s End should arrive soon (18 Oct), and that means we get the opportunity for a few “free” rings for our characters. If the same events and rewards hold there will be rings, plate helms, and agi swords up fro grabs again this year (see Wowhead’s old page and event page).

“It is over, your search is done! Let fate choose now, the righteous one!”

There is a chance I suppose that some items will not be updated, like one handed kegs from Brewfest were not updated. I’ll cry foul as that Plate Helm would be bloody wonderful for my Death Knight, even better if I can find a few of them for both tanking and dps roles.

It also might mean that given the switch in Scarlet Mon for the new instances that some other trash might be present, but probably not.

Boss Loot (please don’t be a total ass and roll on gear you’re not queued up for!).

The Str ring is good for DK dps, and might also be better for Tanking that what we have (especially after reforging), but in all seriousness it seems a dps item. I want that ring, a helm, and I’d take a Agi Sword so that I have a nice set for reforging.

Old stats:

• Agi with Hit/Crit – Band of Ghoulish Glee
• Str with Crit/Haste – Seal of the Petrified Pumpkin
• Int with Hit – The Horseman’s Signet
• Int with Spirit – Wicked Witch’s Ring

Loot-Filled Pumpkin Loot

• Sword: The Horseman’s Sinister Saber
• Helm: The Horseman’s Horrific Helmet

The strategy for the fight is very simple two phase fight, which repeats between the phases until either you are dead or he is.

• Phase One: Kill the Horseman. The tank tanks, the healers heal, and dps nuke him back into the smoldering corrupted earth. You might need to avoid the fire on the ground, and even splash damage / AoE the adds so they don’t kill the tank, but generally it is an easy phase.
• Phase Two: Kill the Head. The head detaches from the body, and the body becomes immune. It is in this phase that heavy damage is done to the head as your team chase it around the graveyard, and you’ll need to get through a few of the P2 sessions to get the job done.

Happy Killing, running, looting, and sharing.

Hallow’s eve arriving soon

The wonderfully macabre Halloween holiday event of Hallow’s End is set to start on the 18 October. Like previous years it will probably contain a set of quests based around the Headless Horseman attack, putting out fires, and vanquishing him in the graveyard of Scarlet Monastery. I suspecty Wowhead’s guide will be updated shortly.

For people who are chasing gear the event typically offers some role based upgrades at current Raid level. I’d bet we will not see patch 4.3 before the 18th of October, so that means the rewards are probably going to be around ilevel 365 items, as per the Brewfest and Molten Front level items.

Enough to get you into a Firelands normal run, but not de-value the current raid rewards (does it really de-value?…another time for that discussion).

What can you expect?

Some great Rings for most raid roles (melee dps, caster dps, and healing last year) which you can get a lot faster than the Daily quests in the Molten Front, a one-handed Sword (Agi based), and a Plate Dps Helm. Good stuff for almost all classes, although some specs don’t get love there at all.

Quick Tips for Brewfest Boss

As Brewfest Holiday event is half way through, I thought I’d put up some simple guidelines (far too late) for how to get through the very short fight that is Corbin Direbrew.

That black hearted sod Direbrew is just an ale swilling mongrel. Kill him.

For everyone:

• If the Tank or Healer is undergeared, then the Dps should burn down the spawning dwarves as too many can the healer’s job difficult or the tank die.
• If the Dps are all undergeared, then you’ll need to kill the Brewfest maiden who spawns, as she stuns people.
• Roll Greed if the loot is not your primary role.

For Tanks:

• If you are undergeared/newbie, say so at the start. Better to let folks know that have a Mage try to Tank 6 monsters.
• Start with an AoE attack opener, to gather up the boss and three adds. This is really important to do well.
• Then get a good threat lead on the Boss (duh).
• Throw in an AoE affect every now and then, or taunt the extra monsters that spawn around the place. That makes the group happy. If the Dps are idiots or rude, let the monsters hit them.
• Roll Need on the +Dodge and +Stam trinkets. They’re not too bad at all, the dodge one especially.

For Dps:

• Wait for 2-3 seconds for the Tank to get some threat.
• Use Single target/dots on the Boss as openers.
• Stand in the AoE affect if the Tank uses it. They’ll get aggro that way.
• If the Tank or Healer is undergeared, then burn down the additional monsters quickly with either AoE or single target, but keep damaging the boss too. A good misdirect is wonderful for too.
• You might need your battlerez ability if something odd happens. Please be prepared to use it.
• The +Stamina trinkets are useless for you, don’t roll Need please.

For healers:

• I have no real idea, but the healers don’t seem stressed by this fight at all. Some have been doing Dps as well – one Shaman did almost 6k. YMMV.
• Keep yourself alive, then Tank, then the best to worst of the dps (duh).
• If the Tank or Damage crew is using any type of AoE then stand in it. It’ll keep the nasties away from you.

My level 84 Warrior has successfully Tanked the fight against dps who far out-scaled her; to the point where the dps were doing very nice damage, but i was still able to hold threat. One fight saw a Mage doing 22-23k dps while I still held aggro on the nasties.

Happy Brewfest. Hic!

Silence is Golden and Restive

It has been quiet of late in the Eye of the Storm.

My primary reason for this is because I’ve been very busy in real life will all sorts of distractions, and both blog time and game time have been greatly reduced. But that is not the full story.

The deeper truth is that nothing in the recent month or so has been worth commenting on in detail. Frankly it’s been better to play far more casually when I can easily fit it in and just wait for stability and consistency in the game, than get in and try to adapt to or work around all the changes and updates. A recent patch tweaks some of the classes, but the pre-level 81 wait is entertaining but not critical.

All the balance issues, strange affects, bugs, and outright rip-off prices of items will change in time, so there is no real point stressing about it now. Stepping back for a time now was a darn good call, and I am looking forward to the new game.

In a few days we’ll have rounds of patches, mod updates, and all sorts of malarky (my new favourite word), so I plan to relax and laugh through it.

So in brief:

Cata planning

• Choice of main: I’ve all but deciuded that my Death Knight will go forward first as into the Cataclysm expansion. It was a hard choice, but the class is still the most entertaining of my current 5 level 80 characters.
• The system requirements for Cata are not altogether restrictive, and I’m darn pleased that my current system will run the game. I suspect that if you’re playing v4.0 now then Cata will run the same. Huzzah!
• I’m doing a bank clean-up now, keeping the odd stuff and quest items that might be handy later, but otherwise.
• The dragon trailer is excellent, good stuff. I liked it, glad it was created, and look forward to the game even more because of it.

Blizzcon

• Not being there I can only reflect on the information that has been posted since; and it was underwhelming. Now I’m not surprised that it was a very dull Blizzcon in terms of revelations and changes, because frankly we’ve had a huge amount of information released already, and it is so close to the release of Cataclysm.
• I think it is also OK that the event was not a Warcraft event, and that it has a focus across all the Blizzard games, rather than just their golden goose.

Patch 4.0, 4.0.3a, then patch 4.0.0.0.0.b…etc

• The Cog Wheel of Death, which freezes the pc is just plainly unacceptable. I don’t like it, and it makes the game harder to play. A bad bug which was made far worse by the Headless Horseman which was released at basically the same time. Glad they fixed it, but that was trash.
• Gear reset, was good in the end and a blip in terms of the classes I play regularly. Reforging is an excellent addition to the game, and something that I think will be copied into almost every other MMO in the future. Its game changing in a balanced and good way.
• Class reset, I guess Paladins got a good work over, and that always happens in each expansion, and Hunters have been majorly adjusted to be less like casters which feel right to me. Stay tuned for more class tuning.

Guild planning

• My guild is asking all the tough questions about what we do for Cata raiding and teams. An expansion is the perfect time to throw all the previous structures and plans to the wind and re-build. Even when the process is painful, I like that it is happening.
• If your guild is not doing this, then you might want to either ask if it needs to, or consider another guild – I say this because I think the overall affect on guilds is huge in Cataclysm.
• We’re also seeing some drama through this, but nothing that won’t be resolved soon, and a storm in a teacup in a month or so.

I’ll be posting and raving at a normal pace soon, when we have all sorts of new leveling junk to ponder.

Happy killing, have a great silly season, and I hope Deathwing kills you in glorious fire.

Holiday Break, yippee

Once again I’m slowing WoW, and also slowing my online presence during the holiday season. Although the more perceptive amongst you will know that slowing from playing computer games from one night a week to almost none does not really change the speed by much. Its all relative I guess.

I plan to return to the Internet early in Jan, and take up the frozen gauntlet of Warcraft once again.

That, and also preparing a large can of anti-troll, to deal with the newb comments that I’ll encounter. I have a small hope that when the irate scrub talks down to me about being in pug-gear and a casual-newb, that I won’t mention a social life or family; as the poor idiot has no point of reference for either family or social life. I get the impression that some of the oxygen-thieves online true fantasy is a loving family and friends. And yes, it was a bad pug, but nothing I have not encountered before.

Every year we see folks going offline, and I’ve noticed that each year I write a small post about it, and then invariably I’m back playing like a mad man in the months following. So instead its a short post, and happy holidays to all.

Have a great break.