Whirly: good to go

Our latest visit to Zul’Farrak was a bit sloppy at first. Mark lagged out about 4 groups in and, when he got back, he couldn’t see our group icons. We tried to reform the group with no luck, and had to start the instance over. We weren’t playing that well, but at 48 it wasn’t that hard anyway. We had no particular plan for the evening other than gaining experience. Once we reached the courtyard, it was clear we had to try the Sergeant Bly experience at the top of the stairs.

This would be our fourth attempt at this particular encounter, our first with these three toons, we’ve never succeeded before. We cleared the courtyard then the guy at the top of the steps, “Let the executions begin,” he yells. He drops a key that allows you to release Sergeant Bly and his buddies. A mass of folks show up at the bottom of the stairs beginning a huge fight. We didn’t have any plan on how to handle them as we’ve always failed. “Stick together,” was all we had. Odd we survived the first wave, second, the fight down the stairs and in the courtyard. Now, Bly turns on us and we have to kill him, though most of his friends ran off. Actually it didn’t seem that hard. Were we lower levels when we tried before? We are probably better equipped these days. Who knows why we succeeded, we were just pleased with our selves.

The gate is now open and we march up to visit Ruuzul and Chief Ukorz Sandscalp, this is all new to us. Two walkers on the ramp going up, Two alligator things at the top, plus another two walkers, who knows where from. Four big snake guys, we tried to pull two, but the other two came as well. Then Ruuzul and Ukorz. These were all hard fights each one a miracle we survived, but we did. Unfortunately, Ukorz didn’t drop the two hand sword Mark was looking for, he dropping a two hand axe instead.

We’d done so well we felt the need to try Antu’sul, the guy in the cave. We’ve never succeeded with Antu’sul either. He calls wave after wave of alligators and we’ve never gotten through them all, including this time. That punk.

We’ll probably move on to Maraudon instance next. It’s never been one of our favorites.

I was checking the auction house this morning when I got a /whisper from a stranger. “Want to do ZF?” Naa, already been done.

I got into trouble yesterday while soloing. I was playing my 42 druid in Tanaris, killing turtles. Along comes a 58 Hunter who starts to kill turtles as well. Truthfully, I thought it was a little rude. It was clear I was working these particular turtles for experience, but whatever, there are plenty of things to kill in Tanaris, I moved on.

I got a /whisper from the 58 hunter asking why I wasn’t looting my dead turtles. I explained I have plenty of cash and there was nothing a 42 turtle could drop that I need. His response was that, “others want their loot and skins.” I couldn’t think of any way to respond to that. How could I possibly let “others” have the loot? The only thing I could think of was to stop playing and let others play in my place. I told him I was camping so he, the 58 hunter, could have all the 42 turtles.

It’s been almost 24 hours since it happened and I still can’t think of any way to respond. Whatever, I came back later and played my Druid to 43, although I didn’t kill any damned turtles.

We returned to Zul’Farrak and gave Gahz’rilla a couple of tries. We were successful the second attempt. We died just before the swimming pool area when we tried to sneak past a group of 5 mobs, three of which were Shamans. Multiple healers are just a pain for our little group. After Mike and I went down, Mark tried to make it to zone, but didn’t. Luckily he moved two of the 5-group out of position so we could take them as singles on our return. There were only three of the original group of 5 when we got back to their spot. We can take three, but decided to practice our mind control system. Frankly, it’s a crappy system, but it occasionally gets us past large groups we can’t manage otherwise. I mind controlled one of the shamans and let the other two mobs kill him, leaving us just the remaining two.

Gahz’rila seemed harder than we remembered. His knock back is terrible. The view, while flying through the air, is great, but you are worrying if you’ll survive the fall. If the Priest or Mage is at less than 3/4 health, we won’t survive the knock back. That’s what caused us to die the first try. On the second attempt, I managed to keep us alive till the end when I went down. The boys were able to kill Gahz’rilla without me and we were all able to loot the scale needed for the carrot on a stick. As much as I enjoy playing healer, there is no doubt in my mind Mark is better at it. Gahz’rilla made that clear to me tonight.

With the carrot on a stick, and the spurs Mark made us, we are traveling at high speed. I think the spurs are 5% and the carrot is a 3% boost to mount speed.

It’s incredible the effort we are willing to put out for a 3% increase in mount speed. We are working on getting the carrot on a stick from Wizzie Brassbolts in Shimmering Flats, Thousand Needles. We hit the road to Hinterlands for the two quest-parts acquired there. First we killed Qiaga at the Altar of Zul to get a Sacred Mallet, not much of a fight. Then off to climb Jintha’Alor to the amphitheatre at the top to change our Mallets into the Mallet of Zul’Farrak. While we were there, we figured we’d give the Priestess a try though it wasn’t required. We figured wrong. She’s a hard 51 elite and wiped us easily. On our return, we finished our business leaving her alone this time.

We collected 10 pots, around the temple, so Mike could finish a quest for a new wand. It’s a nice one and would have been an upgrade for me as well, but there aren’t all that many pots and the wand has plus fire damage which Mike’s Mage needs more than my Priest. Back to Zul’Farrak and Gahz’rilla next time to collect his Electrified Scale. He’s much easier than the Priestess and we should be able to take him down easy enough, assuming we can get to him and clear the area. That’s what we figure.

I’ve been working with the alternative WoW user interface (UI) “LunarSphere.” It’s a programmable circle of buttons you can place anywhere on screen. You can assign any of your spells, skills, items, or macros to the buttons, or they can open a horizontal bar of buttons, also programmable. So for a Priest, I can have one button open a bar of healing spells, one for nukes and dots, and one for buffs. I place the button-circle under the target, next to the group icons, where I can watch health bars and find spells easily. I prefer to target, heal, dot, and attack with the keyboard. Working with a group of only three, it’s quick to select group members with F keys. Buffs, debuffs, fade, nukes and other skills not used constantly are nice to have available on an easily found button circle.

In Zul’Farrak, Mark’s Warrior is spending less time as a frog because my dispel magic button is right there, easily found. Being frogged is one of the joys of Warriorhood. I’ve felt it, all raiding warriors do. It’s Mark’s turn. He doesn’t seem to feel the joy though.

I don’t use LunarSphere when soloing. Soloing is usually a repetitive grind handled with just a few buttons. I arrange my spells/skills on the normal action bar to accomplish that grind easily and have little need for a circle of buttons.

I’m playing my EQ2 Test Server Monk. He was level 11 when I reactivated my account Monday. I’m only playing a little, gaining a level a day which, so far, takes 15 - 20 minutes. I’ve never “got” EQ2. It’s never felt right. I never know what I’m supposed to do next. I keep hearing good things about how much better it is now, so I thought I’d give it month, or level 20, whichever comes first.

I died for the first time tonight. The mob I was fighting was a couple levels lower than my toon. I wasn’t expected any trouble. That’s why I wasn’t watching very closely. It was a surprise when I died. I’m not sure there is any death penalty or if I need to find my corpse. I’m not going to worry about it.

Four Jobs I’ve Had
Beer Bottler
Cash Register Repair
Radio Engineer
Truck Driver

Four Movies I can watch over and over
Groundhog Day
Defending Your Life
The Godfather II
The Shawshank Redemption

Four places I’ve lived
San Diego, California
Kodiak, Alaska
Dallas, Texas
Portsmouth, Virginia

Four TV shows I love
The Simpsons
CSI: Las Vegas
American Chopper
The Daily Show

Four places I’ve Vacationed
Paris
London
Sydney
Xi’an

Four favorite dishes
Cheese Cake
Tiramisu
Peking Chicken
Shrimp Pad Thai

Four sites I visit daily
digg.com
slashdot.org
www.gizmodo.com
www.monkly-business.net

Four places I’d rather be right now
Villa Borghese, Rome
The Opera - any one will do
Rodin Museo, Paris
London

Our return to Zul’Farrak was a complete success. We were still level 45, but the difference from last time was incredible. I guess we’ve gotten back in the grove. I respected a little more holy and was healing differently, trying to gain less aggro. I threw less shields on Mark’s Warrior, never before a fight, and more big heals. It seemed to work. I did the math on my heals, and it certainly is more mana efficient to use big heals, it’s harder to control aggro though. I also tried something new called pre-fading. The theory is that if you fade before your big heal you won’t have aggro when your fade fades. I wasn’t all that impressed, but I’ll keep practicing, maybe it will help.

The only boss we took was Witch Doctor Zum’Rah, Mike’s Mage needed the Gloves she drops. It took us a while to clean up the grave yard first. I’m not sure it’s required anymore, but we did it with one hand tied behind our back. I expect we’ll be working in Zul for a while. Mark likes the big Shadow Priest Sezz’ziz fight on the stairs. It’s a little too chaotic for my taste. We all dinged 46, new spells for everybody.

I spent some time looking at Priest UI mods. I avoid using UI mods for the most part. I don’t want a mod-breaking patch to reduce my skills. I would like my group members health bars to be larger though. Maybe I’ll reduce my screen resolution.

Mike had a couple of quests in Uldaman so that became our goal Friday. I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, but it turned into a walk back from the graveyard.

We started with a quest just outside the front door of Uldaman, easy enough. We then entered via the back door and took the Obsidian Sentinel which was the guy Mike needed. We are all level 45 and things went smoothly enough till we reached the Hall of the Crafters. The bane of our three person group is large groups of mobs. Here we ran into groups of five or more. Things must go perfectly for us to win in those situations. Things weren’t anywhere near perfect and we started dieing. It became frustrating and we even started bitching at each other about how to play, something we never-ever do.

Mark put it all in perspective though when he said that, even with the frustration, he was having more fun than we ever had in Vanguard or LotRO. True, true. We always have frustrating deaths here, and where ever we run into large groups. In a level or two they will be easy. It’s these impossible fights, when successful, that makes it all worth while. We are fighting extremely difficult foe with only our incredible skills. How could that not be fun? Now all we need do is find our incredible skills. We’ve been loafing for six months and our skills have sort of pooped out.

We had to stop off in the Scarlet Monastery library to pick up a book for Mike’s Mage. None of the mobs gave us, at 44, any experience, we killed as few of them as we could to get in. We felt so uber as they melted out of our way.

We headed to Zul Farrak for the rest of the evening. They slapped the uber right off our face. I died three times. The mobs in there are more our size and we had to work a bit harder. Groups of three level 44-45 elite mobs are a little harder for three 44s to kill. It wouldn’t be so bad, but for the Shamans. I’d forgotten how much I hated Shaman. We eventually tightened up and worked closer to our potential. We only had time to reach the T and a few after. We always loved the experience in Zul. Mike and I were only three or so bubbles from 45 at the end, Mark is a bit behind. I soloed to 45 later in the evening. It’s so easy to solo as a Priest at these levels, even configured as holy.

I made a little less than 100 gold in the auction house Saturday and Sunday. I’m getting slowly back into business, no rush. I’ve still 3000 gold or so, and the best gear available for a 44 Priest. My enchanting skill is only 300, I’m not sure I’ll move it forward. I spent thousands of gold getting 300 and all the, at the time, high end enchants. I don’t think it’s worth it. I don’t advertise my enchanting skills and have never made a cent off of it.