Damn, well I might have to wait a while before my server reaches that stage. Maybe I can reroll warlock or something and get a quick invite.

Speaking of raiding, and I don't know how many of you guys are going to be hitting it up other than Sere, but Naxx is really amazing. Right now it's really buggy and clearly needs tweaking, but the encounters are dynamic and the atmosphere is absolutely amazing. It's dark and creepy and tough. Everything I'd hoped. So far we've taken down the first two bosses in the deathknight wing and have made passes at the first boss of spider and plague, though without full raids so it didn't mean much. I can't wait for them to get this fixed and released and I highly recommend getting on test and checking it out if you can.

We've just started poking our head into the instance and it does look like it will be really nice. However, dying and having our spirits pop up at The Barrens is more than a little frustrating when it happens to half of the raid on each boss attempt. We will probably try again after the next mini PTR patch.

Barrens...? Ow. Wipe recovery can be a little hard to set up in Naxx (or people might just not be paying much attention because the runback is (supposed to be) very short) but that stinks. Ah blizzard, I love you so. Let me count the ways.

My guild will down Nefarian in a month or so. We're currently on the drakes in BWL, so Chromaggus is the next big challenge. I have a question for the raiders ahead of my guild: we're seriously contemplating skipping AQ40 and going straight to Naxx. If we have BWL on farm status after 2 or 3 months, would it be advisable to go straight to Naxx? I've heard from multiple people that AQ40's gear isn't THAT much better than BWL's, it's simply different. I don't want to get into the rep grinds that AQ40 requires if the gear isn't much better than BWL. Any suggestions? We're already behind schedule because of 30-40 full tier 1 gquits and are just now making more progress in BWL.

Well, this is entirely up to you, and if you choose to go straight after Naxx, you will hardly be alone. There are a lot of guilds out there planning to do the same thing. Here's the problem, assuming Naxx continues the trend they start in AQ40, what you did in BWL will not prepare your guild for how the encounters work. AQ40, particuarly Emps-C'thun is all about personal responsibility. In order to defeat these encounters, the raid has to break down into several smaller groups that each take care of themselves and do entirely different things during the fight. C'thun, in particular, requires people to take care of themselves, because one person standing in the wrong place during C'thun can wipe the raid, no problem. From what I can tell, Naxx is going to require a similar division of the raid force into smaller groups.

Additionally, people who tell you that AQ gear isn't better than BWL gear are silly and aren't looking at the big picture. Upgrades at endgame aren't about enormous jumps in quality, it's about small increases on every piece that lead to a meaningful upgrade overall. This says nothing for the fact that even if you don't like the armor sets, the weapon, ring, cloak and trinket upgrades in AQ are pretty amazing for just about every class. Is there better stuff in Naxx, sure? But, frankly, getting to and killing Fankriss for an ancient qiraji ripper is going to be a lot easier and faster than getting to and killing Sapphiron for hungering cold.

Another option would be to work on them both. From what we can tell so far, the deathknight wing is meaningfully easier than the other wings we've tried. I don't know if it's going to get tweaked to be harder and the others easier or what, but you can get to the first bosses in each naxx wing pretty fast. You might start working through AQ40 and the first bosses of Naxx simultanouesly and see how that works for you.

I've started rambling at this point, but I think you get the idea. I think you should do AQ first, then go to Naxx when you're ready. New raiding guilds start in MC, even though BWL and AQ40 are out, after all. I don't see why just because the next instance is out everyone feels so pressured to go there. AQ is hard and unforgiving, and if you just hate it, stop going, because you have options now. But there is a lot of good loot there, and if you have the time and energy, I think it's worth getting.

Yep, we just hit Firemaw last night (oneshotted Broodlord on our first try there.. piece of cake). Definitely looking forward to getting into AQ40 (Huhuran's Stinger, Barb of the Sand Reaver? Oh yes please!) - and I don't think we're gonna try Naxx until we've made at least decent progress into AQ40.

EBONROC DOWN!!!

Which means that in about a half hour we should have a post with "FLAMEGOR DOWN!!!!!!!"

does anyone have a 10 day guest pass that hasnt been used?

Ha ha ha. We started a new instance today and my guild killed Razorgore the Untamed, Vaelastrasz the Corrupt, Broodlord Lashlayer, Firemaw, Ebonroc, and Flamegor in the same run!! Our record before tonight was only up to Broodlord. We're seriously starting to get the hang of BWL and it's becoming like MC now.

Any good strategies for Chromaggus? I hear he's a bitch. :)

I got 2 pieces of Wrath tonight BTW so now I'm at 5/8 tier 2. YEE HAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We fight Chrom exactly like firemaw and just LoS behind the wall for all the breath attacks. Your healing needs to be very good and your hunters need to stay on top of tranq'ing. He does a LOT of damage, especially if you get the DOT breaths, and I've seen tanks go from full to dead in under a second a few times, particularly after the 20% enrage.

That's by no means the only place to tank him, but it works for us. Time lapse is a little different, but basically have everyone except an OT and a few healers get hit by it. You'll see. He's not so bad.

Edit: Also, this fight is cleanse or die. If anyone gets all five brood afflictions, he turns into a drakonid minion of chromaggus and goes around killing people. Each one is a different type of debuff, so keep track and get them off people. We usually assign cleansers to groups to make sure no one gets missed in a free-for-all.

I think I still do somewhere, PM me if you still want one. :)

Well I finally broke down and got a new 256Mb vid card, and it's so much better to play WoW. 64Mb was just painful in IF and crowded spaces.

I've been playing alot with the wife and getting myself some new gear.

Clegg and Aloysius led Servant of Sevine into Stormwind last night on Garithos. This is what it looked like:
http://www.gamesandbkbcards.com/WoW/...Untitled-2.jpg

You can see my skills going up. Well, that was the point of everyone attacking him, obviously. This went on for four hours. This next pic shows my skill bars after a good few hours of beating on him, but after four hours, I got everything but two skills to at least 175, and those other two were about 150 and 160 respectively.

http://www.gamesandbkbcards.com/WoW/...Untitled-3.jpg

Crazy times.

Edit: You can also see the rumor going around that "he has to die in the throne." Not true, people. Thottbot it.

Hi WoWers. I'm new to the game, just hit level 20 with my undead priest on Doomhammer. Curious how I should build him? Prolly to fight for levelling, then later I can rebuild to heal? Any suggestions? Also, is it worth it to learn daggers? Right now I just use staff and wands.

As a priest, spec shadow to level. It doesn't matter what weapons you use, all that matters is the stat bonuses on the weapons. You'll be doing most of your damage with spells and wands.

You'll be able to re-spec later to a healing config.

So my guild, Drama, transferred from Shattered Hand last night. Wow was that a weird experience. I feel bad leaving all the people I know on SH behind, but one must follow the guild, I suppose. SH is going to be a weird place. Both Drama and Death and Taxes, by far the best-known guilds on the server, decided to transfer to Korgath, so I'll be interested to see what happens in the SH community. Naturally, I'm making an alt so I can still chill with all my friends there. I hope we didn't blow it and transfer to worse queues and lag on Korgath than we had on SH, but it seems unlikely that anything could be worse that than. Here's to keeping our fingers crossed.

The only for sure downside is that someone ninja'd my name. I can't believe I'm notorious enough to have someone bother, which makes me think it was a friend. Hopefully the GMs can restore it for me, since Kguy (which is what all my guildmates call me) doesn't quite look as nice as Kaesth (try pronouncing it, now you know why they call me k-guy).

Thanks for the advice Hal. Time for more levelling fun!

This happened to people when my server transfered. You can just tell the GMs that someone did it with malicious intent and you should be able to get the name back.

And indeed I was able to, yay for that.

/Confused.

Who's the Servant and why did he not die after hours of attacking him?

I checked thottbot, and apparently Lady Sevine (is she from W3?) is somewhere in the Blasted Lands, and she summons the servants to help her. I was told elsewhere that there's some crystal you have to destroy before you can kill the servants.

Here is my little guy, Haeze, on Doomhammer.
http://users.adelphia.net/~szap/WoW/Haeze.gif

I almost felt sorry for this poor mage I killed.
http://users.adelphia.net/~szap/WoW/2654Ambush.gif

HA HA NICE!! That mage got F'ed up.

We killed Chromaggus last Sunday on our third attempt ever! 1st attempt = 90%. Second attempt = 85%. Third attempt = dead. :) He wasn't bad at all. This week we have time lapse so this Sunday's BWL is gonna suck. We did get to Nefarian phase 2 last Sunday though (after many, many wipes trying to figure out phase 1).

Here's the current look of my warrior in 6/8 Wrath:

http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/wrath1.jpg


http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/wrath2.jpg

I think the AB boots match better than Wrath so I wear them with run speed on them. :)

http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/wrath3.jpg

Yeah, for PvP/dps purposes, Wrath is pretty lame. The premier DPS gear for warriors at the moment is a nasty combination of crap from BWL, MC and AQ40, though, so Wrath is much more accessible to most people. Congrats on the kill though. Good luck on Nef. He's an asshat.

I hate how most classes have set gear that can be used for PVP but warriors simply can't PVP in Might or Wrath. My PVP gear makes me look like a clown. :thumbsup:

I spent at least 10 levels not being able to find leggings better than "Dreamsinger Legguards". You talk about looking like a clown; I looked like Richard Simmons' bitch running around azeroth. Didn't find anything better until I hit up SM for the first time and Scarlet Leggings dropped. I also got my sweet Aegis there on the same trip. :)

Of course all you level 60's are laughing at me talking about this stuff. :p

Heh, he didn't JUST get f-ed up. he got bent over and spanked. The ambush made his health bar look like a tiny red sliver already. I would estimate he had about 150 health left... so I dropped the 1700 backstab on in hopes that if I do enough damage, maybe his ressurection timer will double as a way of the game telling him how badly he got wrecked.

As for Chromaggus, Bronze was actually one of the eaiser breaths for my guild. If we ever got blue and bronze we would basically all take alternating naps while we fought him, since having anyone who wasn't tanking get hit by a breath wasn't getting hurt anyway. It's the Incinerate combined with any of the DoT breaths that wrecked us due to the insane heals needed for the tank.

For Bronze it was easy enough for us just to dual-tank him, and just before the bronze breath, the tank who doesn't have aggro runs out of LoS with everyone else. MT takes the breath, and Chromaggus runs for the second tank, who is already running back to the tanking spot. Chrommy never even got around the corner to see the rest of the raid, more or less put anyone in danger.

So whats the point of him being in SW? I saw people talking about getting there weapon skill up but never bothered to check it out.

Since these guys can't die, and they do very little damage (by comparisson to most mobs their level) people love kiting them from the Blasted Lands up to Stormwind. Once there, they let guards, or someone like Highlord Bolvar Fordragon attack the mob till the NPC gains aggro, then they leave. Given several hours, one of those little things can even kill Bolvar. Thing is, since they cannot die, and are a higher level mob, they are great for levelling your weapons on. Just set yourself on auto-attack and go have dinner, then come back and switch to another weapon you want to train up.

I have heard rumors that you can get them to despawn if a priest mind-controls it (Dropping all of the guards and such on it, and making all players no longer able to attack it) then the priest logs out while it is mind controlled, it will despawn. Since I am not a priest I have not had the chance to test this theory.

A post I recently made on my guild's forum that I thought I'd share here:

My second character, Circuit, hit 60 today.

Of how fast a person can level to 60, I've realized that getting the xp is really only half the battle. I look back and can conclude that learning and fine-tuning a class is probably the most taxing, time-consuming, and rewarding part of getting involved in a new class. I really give props to Blizzard for creating classes that may seem kind of shallow on the surface in their roles but are truely unique when it comes to options in playstyle, especially when dealing with such horrid fanboys.

I wanted to thank everyone who helped me with my own learning and fine-tuning, especially Charity and his many knowledgeable forms.

So enough fluffy heart bubbles and more rocking out. I went out with a bang today and it was quite the unexpected climax. I hit 60, looted painweaver and they ony key, and got two aq20 purples with a friend's guild's run which was my first time there of course. /dance

Thanks again for the help and effort. I'm truely proud to see it stand, especially during the recent drama-filled times.

For your viewing pleasure:

Circuit, undead rogue
http://timcannady.brinkster.net/60a.jpg
Whorpe, tauren shaman
http://timcannady.brinkster.net/60b.jpg
Dollie, my gf's alt ;)
http://timcannady.brinkster.net/60c.jpg

That mace your rogue has is so damned cool. :)

NEFARIAN DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!

Wrath BP dropped and I would have got it if I didn't get the Chromatic Boots in the same run off of Chromaggus. Oh wellz. I'm #1 in DKP now so I should get the next one that drops!!

Congrats on Nef man. Now that you can kill him, I'd recommend getting 10 of your best-geared friends together and running UBRS through the Rend event and spend the whole time mocking him while he's standing on the balcony. One of my friends has his death yell macro'd and spams it. Then later that night when you clear BWL you can make fun of him more while he dies.

And then you'll have a feral druid pull hate and almost wipe you at the zerg. Because that definitely didn't happen to us yesterday. Nope. Not a chance.

Hit Field Marshal with my gnome mage this tuesday and he looks fucking gloriously radiant. :p

Castilion on Whisperwind server :)

Gonna probably try for grand marshal, and if the grind doesn't kill me i should hopefully be updating this in a month or two.. or three.. god i hope not three.

It looks like the vast majority of you guys are Alliance, but I just wanted to mention this in case some of you are Hordelings: I run a shared Horde site known as the "Horde Consortium" to try to assist servers' Horde and the faction as a whole in progressing in PvE raiding and eventually world-PvP. It's open to any Horde guild but would be most useful to a Nef-slaying guild. If you're interested you can drop me a PM here as I don't really want to spam my little speech here. :p

Spam your speech sere! I want to see how the other side thinks. I can only imagine how different the game is horde side. I've never gotten a horde above level 20, mostly because I'm really terrible about making alts. And, uh, I'd never been inside orgrimmar until the night before Drama transferred servers and we went and raided it to say good bye to all the horde people we'd PvP'd with for so long.

Bizarre.

I just started playing the game a few days ago, and I really like it.

I am currently a level 7 Tauren Hunter. Anybody care to offer some tips as to how to go about building up my character? I'm really not sure what professional skills would best complement my character, or what type of things I should look for. My apartment roomie is a level 10 Shaman, and once I catch up to him, we plan on going around together.

My roomie actually works for Blizzard, so I was able to get a "guest pass" that doesn't expire for some obscene amount like 20 or 30 years. :):):)
Well, someday I hope to be able to understand most of the terminology and reach a high level...hopefully.

Leatherworking and Skinning is good for a low level hunter.