Doing what they said couldn't be done :-)

Either my guildies suck or I rock. At this point, I'm leaning toward me rocking. :-)

My lock turned 64 a couple days ago and I've been on a non-stop XP grind to hit 65. As I looked to see what my guildies were up to tonight, I noticed a bunch of 62's in Hellfire. I asked if any of them still had to do "Colassal Menace" since it is listed as a 2-man quest and was still showing as yellow in my quest log. They responded that they had all done that quest and were busy with other stuff, so I told them I'd try to solo it. Their response was, "it took 5 of us, no way are you gonna be able to solo it."

The gauntlet had been thrown and I was up to the challenge. How tough could it be to kill five 63 elites at level 64? :-) I soulstoned, made sure my fel armor was up and my blueberry was at 100% before heading out for the quest. Since it was right next to the temple in Hellfire, I took the shortcut to the right just as you leave the temple and found my first colossus.

My plan of attack was simple: send in my blueberry, curse of weakness, corruption, immolate, siphone life, rinse, repeat. I noticed my blueberry was taking quite a beating, so I decided to fear. Good call. I had to apply my DoT's 3-4 times and chain-fear, but he dropped. Lifetap FTW. :-)

After the first colossus, the rest were pretty easy. The biggest problem I ran into was having the stupid giants evade after being feared too far from their point of origin. That really sucked because I had at least two of them down to 20% when they evaded and reset.

I died once in the 30 minutes it took me to complete the quest, and that was on my 4th attempt. I had a hell of a time getting a fear off because the stupid giant kept stunning me. Once I got the pattern down for DoT's and fears, my health only dropped because of life tap and my blueberry only lost a couple thousand health during my initial DoTs. I used one pot the whole time and that was between fights to regen my health faster than bandaging.

here's my armory. I'm spec'd affliction with a few points in demonology. Yea, some of my gear sucks, but I have yet to be in a BC-instance on this toon, so the gear is either quest rewards or AH.

New laptop == playing WoW

I've had my new laptop for a few weeks. It's a nice system (Sony Vaio FZ340E) that has allowed me to start playing WoW again. I get between 50-60 frames per second with all graphics settings within WoW maxed out. :-)

Right before I started playing again, I found out about some major guild drama. Ugh. I've mentioned many times how much I hate drama. Turns out it was the same old stuff...the hardcore players were telling the less-than-hardcore players that they needed to be more hardcore. :-\ Whatever.

Since I've been back, all I've really done is farm for gold for my flying epic. I managed to finish some quests in Shadowmoon Valley which have been hanging out in my quest log for a looooong time. I finally got rid of my last piece of green gear when I scored a new helm from one of those quests.

I started playing my horde on Dalaran. Playing a lowbie is fun, especially when all the quests are new. I could pretty much run all the human quests with my eyes closed, so playing a troll (and also an undead) has been fun. Since Dalaran is a PVE server, it's going to be interesting once I get out of the beginner areas. I might "flag" myself just for the hell of it. ;-)

No laptop == no WoW

A little over a month ago my laptop died. My laptop was my primary WoW machine and blew my desktop out of the water in terms of FPS and overall gameplay experience. The laptop is under warranty, but unfortunately they can't seem to find a freakin' replacement logic board.

I'm actually pretty pissed off about it because the laptop is only 18 months old.

At this point, the warranty company is offering a replacement, but so far, they haven't been able to offer anything I want. :-\ The first system they offered I would have gladly taken because it met all my requirements:

- dedicated video
- webcam (not really used all that much, but nice to have)
- capable of running Vista

The first system, as I was saying, would have been fine...it was a Sony Vaio. The day after I "accepted" the replacement they said they could no longer get the model they offered so they tried to replace the replacement with another Vaio, but this time it met NONE of my requirements. Idiots.

I'm hoping they just cut me a freakin' check so I can move on and get something that will fit my needs.

I *could* play WoW on my desktop...but ugh....20 FPS makes for a brutal experience. All i really need is a new video card in my desktop and I'd be fine. Unfortunately, I can't really justify the expense *just* to play WoW. :-\

Update

Wow...it's been over a month since my last post.

Well, the last time I posted, my warlock was at level 30. Today (about 5 minutes ago actually) he hit 58 and is headed for the Outlands. :-) Of course, I'll have to hit Dire Maul at level 60 to get my Dreadsteed.

I'm also cruising along on his enchanting and tailoring, but I kinda stalled at 263 for enchanting. I'm just not getting the drops to DE for mats like I was.

As for my rogue...well, Kara group 2 hasn't been doing well. We're either short 2-3 people for our runs or we end up burning 3+ hours taking down Attumen and wiping on Morose. This past Monday though was a different story. Instead of rehashing it here, here's a link to a post I made in our guild forums:

http://www.clanbbf.com/viewtopic.php?t=53605

If you read that entire thread, it looks like I'll be running with Group 1 starting next week. ;-) Woohoo!

Playing a warlock

Due to level 70 boredom and no kara last week, I've been spending quite a bit of time playing my warlock. In the past week, I've taken him from level 22 up to 30.

Warlocks are cool and I'm trying to figure out which is more fun: a hunter or the lock. Playing ranged is a nice break from the in-your-face DPS or a rogue. Send in blueberry, dot, dot, dot, shadow bolt, rinse and repeat. Oh, and it's nice to be on the giving end of "fear". ;-)

And, OMG, I love soulstoning myself. ;-) I've been in some tough situations where I'm a long way from the graveyard and I've already sacrificed my blueberry...having that soulstone is a beautiful thing.

My lock is also a tailor and enchanter. I've really focused on progressing these skills so I start making some $$$. I'm finding enchanting a bit tougher to level than the tailoring, but both are still right where they need to be.

So...to sum up: ranged + fear + pet + dots + soulstone = AWESOME. ;-)

Kara

For the last couple of weeks, my guild has been able to get a second group into Kara. Unfortunately, we've always been 2-3 players short and have had to rely on pick-ups.

Our first outing actually started on a Saturday after our Friday run got cancelled because the raid leader had ISP issues. The Saturday run was ok even though we couldn't down Attumen. Our pally off-tank doesn't have the gear and kept dying. On one attempt, after Attumen mounted Midnight, I screwed up by hitting him before the tank got agro. He turned around and pretty much one-shotted me. ;-) Lesson learned.

I scored Grips of Deftness, but haven't worn them because my Fel Leather Gloves with gems are better. The group learned a lot on this first run and it helped on our second run the following week.

Last Friday we ended up pickin' up a fill-in warrior off-tank since our was unavailable. This really helped. We downed Attumen pretty easily, although I ended up dead for most of the fight. :-( I'm not even sure what hit me...

We moved on to Moroes and tried him 5 or 6 times. On our 5th attempt, the group got him down to 1% before wiping. The 6th ended up as a wipe. Again, we learned a lot from this run.

Our Saturday night run started out looking for a damn healer again. We found a pick-up healer, but he bailed on us after the 3rd Moroes attempt. Asshole. :-\ Jesus...it's not like every single group that goes into Kara kicks ass from the start. Grrr...

Anyway, after a futile attempt to find a replacement, we decided to help a guildie (holy pally) run BM so she could join us this week. :-) During the BM run, I scored the Hourglass of the Unraveler. :-) :-) :-) hell yea! That thing freakin' rocks.

Hopefully this week goes better and we actually down Moroes and move on.

Kara, here I come!

After helping a guildie run Old Hillsbrad tonight (totally kicking ass along the way), we hit Black Morass with me, a pally tank, a pally healer, a shadow priest and a lock.

On our first attempt (yes, meaning it took more than once) I ended up pulling agro on the fourth portal that came up. I didn't realize how large the agro range was on the Rift Lords, but I learned pretty quickly. Even after vanishing and pulling out all the stops, the stinkin' dragon would NOT leave me alone and eventually killed me. The group managed to take care of that particular portal, but the 1st boss was already out and no one had time to rez me, so the group ended up taking the wipe.

Second attempt was better. We actually got to the final boss, but for some reason, the healer ended up pulling agro and was almost killed right off the bat. While he was busy healing himself, the tank got killed and we ended up wiping.

Attempts 3 and 4 were pretty much the same kind of thing. Always close, but never quite close enough.

Attempt 5 - the group changed slightly -- we lost one priest and the pally healer, but gained a mage and a holy priest. It was smooooothhh. Not a single death the entire run. :-)

Good stuff! I ran to Kara to finish the quest line and now I'm ready baby and I can't wait!