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Sunday 15 March 2015

Warlords of Draenor - Month 4

 
Garrisons:
Level 3 Garrisons - Paladin, Warrior, Hunter, Shaman, Priest
Level 2 Garrisons - Mage, Druid, Death Knight
Level 1 Garrisons - Rogue, Alliance Warlock
(Monk is still level 80 for Herald of the Titans)

Patch 6.1 added the new heirloom system, making it easy to level up my Priest and Shaman. Also used a castsequence macros on both of them along with a X-Box controller so I can sit back and relax.

Slowly replacing my followers with Treasure Hunter trait. Half way to unlocking Harrison Jones.

Gear:
McTacky - Item Level 666/660 (Ret/Holy)

Lots of new good gear from Blackrock Foundry.

Dungeons/Raids/Proving Grounds:
I did all the 5 mans heroically. Blackrock Foundry is scary but I am making progress inside with guild group. Haven't done any LFR. Haven't touched proving grounds in months.

Pets/Mounts/Toys:
Working on the new pets in the Raiding with Leashes III: Drinkin' From the Sunwell achievement. Heaps of music sheets for the garrison. Lost of things to collect. Of special note is the S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera MkII!

Trade Skills/Fishing/Archaeology:
All trade skills maxxed out done now. No fishing this month. Finished all the normal category archaeology finds, only Pristines left to collect.

Thoughts
I've had lots of fun with patch 6.1.

Friday 13 March 2015

Liebster Award 2 - Liebster Harder


Navimie has chain lettered me with the Liebster Awards Q&A, AGAIN! I did one a year ago. The full rule-set is over on Wording Well. Basically she gave me 11 questions to answer.


1. Who is your favourite villain and why?
I really prefer Smart Villains over Sympathetic Villains. Sympathetic Villains can either be non-monstrous with just different goals, or monstrous with an excuse motive.

Warcraft has rarely had smart villains. The Burning Legion who see spreading evil as their life purpose and their method is just temping people with power. Grom in WC3 drank the Demon Blood to get power to defeat an enemy. Kael'Thas joined up with the Legion to feed his people's Magic Addiction.

But I think there is one exception. Ner'zhul as the Lich King. He manipulated the Burning Legion, Arthas, and Ilidan in a big plan to be freed (only to be killed off at the end of a novel so the Lich King would only be Arthas in the WoW expansion, bleh). I find a smart villain is far more compelling than a simple sympathetic villain.

2. What sport do you wish you were really good at?
Blitzball. You get to play Blitzball in FFX and manage a Blitzball team in FFX-2.

It is a 6 v 6 sport where you have to get a ball into a sport. The positions are two Forwards, a Midfielder, two defenders and a Goalkeeper. It is two halves of 5 minutes. Inside an underwater Sphere.





3. Tell me who is your favourite Disney character and why.

Mickey Mouse, he has been my favourite from childhood. I have a Mickey Mouse Phone and had a Mickey Mouse Watch.

I can't explain why. He isn't a complex character or that interesting. I think it is from growing up watching the old Mickey Mouse shorts. I had hours of them taped on VHS which I would just watch over and over.




4. If you were granted one wish of anything you wanted, what would you wish for?
I would compose a highly specific wish with no loop holes that would afford me some super-natural abilities.


5. What is the dumbest thing you have done in regards to your computer?

Knocked over my glass of water and had water pour into the inside of my machine! It was terrible!

A close second would be the time I installed one of those 'computer optimiser' things from the internet, not realising it was malicious software. Download only from safe websites people!

6. If you had the ability to go back in time, who would you want to meet and what would be the one burning question you would ask them?

I'd ask Geoffrey Chaucer how The Canterbury Tales was going to end (beyond the group actually getting to Canterbury).






7. You have won a Nobel Prize!  What do you wish you won the prize for?

For successfully eliminating all the land mines on the planet. I know people can argue they have a use in various DMZ around the planet, but I would like them all gone anyways.

8. Which would be more devastating - loss of hearing, loss of vision or loss of both hands?

For this answer I will be ignoring biotic technologies that exist or being developed to cope with these things.

Loss of Hands would be the worst of the three. Loss of hearing would make be lose music, unable to use telephones/voice chat and have to watch everything with subtitles. Loss of vision would be devastating and destroy my quality of life, but loss of hands would mean I couldn't interact with the world at all.

9. In World of Warcraft, who would you like to see as a boss encounter one day, and how would you design that fight?

Magatha Grimtotem, leader of the Grimtotem Clan. She is a powerful Shaman but also insidious and manipulative. So in her boss encounter, it wouldn't be a stand-up fight. You will have to out-smart her to win.

Mechanically out-smarting her won't work if you can just look up the fight online, so lets pretend you can't for this one. The alternative is an adaptive AI that I think is beyond the game-engine. So basically this is a gimmick fight.

Pre-Fight Evil - Your Raid Group is across the room from her, drinking potions, listening to strategies, buffing up. Then ka-blam, a group of Grimtotem Rogues backstab from stealth the whole raid dead if you don't start the fight after 5 minutes. Her eyesight may be bad, but she can see a group of hostile people from across a room!

The Fight of Evil - Magatha is a powerful shaman but you saw what Thrall can do when he cheats at a duel in Nagrand, well Magatha is an expert cheat:

-Your DPS and Tanks rush in to attack her, but you find that all your attacks are healing her! Ooops, she cast a shaman spell on your weapons that make them heal not hurt her.
- Is that a healing circle on the ground? No it is a Poison circle Magatha placed that looks exactly like a player's healing circle!
- Some blocks of stone at the back of the room have been marked by a IconSmall RaidSkull Skull, so that means they have to be attacked, right, must be a source of Shaman powers? Nope, they are just rocks that Magatha just tricked you into attacking by marking them with a IconSmall RaidSkull Skull!
- The group of people standing around Magatha just ran away, they must know something you don't know about this fight, better run away too? Nope, you just got played for being a sheep, it was just illusions.

Why all this deception? She is stalling for time, because once 5 minutes is up, those Grimtotem Rogues will still backstab from stealth the whole raid dead.

How do you win? Negate all her tricks and then fight down the powerful shaman? No! You win by playing her game better than her! Have the raid wait outside her room. Have a Rogue stealth, walk into the room, walk up behind her and do a backstab. It will one shot her.

10. What is the most embarrassing thing you've said to someone you wanted to impress?

This was hard to answer. While I occasionally do say some truly idiotic things, I haven't been trying to impress the person at the time. So to compensate, I'll just list some stupid things I have said:
- Asked an Islamic Person if they get Gautama Buddha's Birthday as a holiday.
- Asked a teacher if they could 'enhance' a photo (make it less pixelated) to make it look better for the yearbook.
- Asked a girl if she was a boy because she had short hair, but in a girl's school uniform.
(I repeat for all of these, I wasn't being mean, I honestly was just that oblivious),

11. You've been chosen to go onto a game show!  Which game show would you go on?

A*mazing! One part Mario Kart, one part maze, one part typing something on a giant qwerty keyboard. 100% what I would want out of a gameshow!

Now to provide 11 random facts about yourself. I'll give you 11 different facts from last time.

1 - I keep forgetting what my bloodtype is. (It is A+)
2 - I was a guest on the Twisted Nether Blogcast Episode 234.
3 - I never beat Warcraft 3 legitimately, I used cheat codes.
4 - I have obtained all the Disney Infinity figures and levelled them all to the level cap.
5 - Star Trek series in order I like them (most to least):  DS9, TNG, VGR, TOS, ENT
6 - Babylon 5 seasons in order I like them (most to least): 3, 4, 2, 1, 5
7 - I love to read books, but I haven't read one in a year (last book I read was Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett)
8 - Favourite Pokémon: Pikachu (sorry for cliché answer, but it is true!)
9 - I came out of The Last Airbender (film) actually liking it, to the warranted disgust of my brother.
10 - I have used winzip since 1999 and have never purchased the full edition. Sorry Corel Corporation.
11 - I have recently been playing World of Warcraft with an X-Box controller. I can't heal with a controller, but I can DPS effectively if I have some castsequence macros set up.

Questions for others:
1: What tradeskill would you like added to WoW?
2: Is Pie or Cake the best?
3: What building type would you like added to the garrison? What would it do at each level?
4: Someone is rude in a LFR, what do you do?
5: What is the best in-game class specific faction (Silver Hand, Burning Blade, Elven Rangers ect)?
6: Why do you like your favourite class?
7: Hammock or Water Bed?
8: If you had to voice act for a NPC in the game, which one would it be?
9: Voice chat or Typing? What is easier for you?
10: What ride would you add to darkmoon faire? Would there be quests for it?
11:  What is more important in a WoW quest, the story or the game mechanics?

Stealing Arelion's idea, I'm not nominating anyone. You can just answer these questions in the comments.

Wednesday 11 March 2015

Outstanding Pre-WoD Tasks

While I am still enjoying Warlords of Draenor, there are still a few things from before Draenor that I still must do:

Argent Tournament
2 more Argent Tournament Mounts (300 Tokens)
The Argent Tournament Music Sheet and the Argent Tournament Flags becoming Toys hindered this task which I have put very little time into.

Archaeology

Tol'vir Archaeology - Need the Pet & Mount.
As usual I have been doing archaeology in Draenor and using the completed artefacts to purchase Tol'vir Archaeology Fragments. But in 6.1 you can buy missions using 5 completed artefacts each. So it is affecting my progress in WoD.

Jewelcrafting
5 Jewelcrafting Recipes remain missing:
● 1 Rep (Aldor), 3 Raid (Sunwell), 1 Dungeon (Old Hillsbrad).

All of these recipes require an extensive grind which I haven't put any time into since WoD was released.

Reputations
Shado-Pan Assault is still only Revered. I have made some more progress into the rep during this expansion during achievement runs (gone from 8399 pre 6.0.2 to 16889 atm). Just over one more full clear will get me this reputation finished. (3960 per run just short of the 4111 rep I need!)

Celestial Tournament
While I have defeated the Celestial Tournament a few times, I have only purchased 2 of the pets yet. I have to keep doing the Celestial Tournament for a few more week to get the other 2 missing pets.

Pandaria Raid Achievements
Glory of the Pandaria Raider (14/31)
Glory of the Thundering Raider (19/23)
Glory of the Orgrimmar Raider (12/14)

I am very close with Thundering Raider & Orgrimmar Raider. Under half way with Pandaria Raider. Not much to say here, when there are guild groups going to these places, I always try to get an invite.

Herald of the Titans
I have my Monk stilling at level 80 in Dalaran at 210 item level. You want 226 Item Level for gear plus 232 weapon. Once the group is ready we can enter Uldum and nab this Feat of Strength.