Making too many plans makes me forget!

Rushing around trying to get a new Hockey stick for the tournament this weekend led me to forget about things I had signed up for in WAR.
Lets start over though, I eventually managed to get a new Hockey Stick and got home quite late.  I immediately jumped onto WoW and went on an Obsidian Sanctum 25 raid.

I must admit my DPS WAS lacking, I really think ill respec now.  Didn’t win anything but the fight….. god how easy, kinda disappointed with it really.

 

I then got reminded that I needed to go tank Lairs for our alliance.. whoops!

 

I got on in enough time to go to Tomb of the Sun.  We managed to down him (interesting mechanic, if your no good at jumping then don’t apply!) he didn’t drop a weapon anyone could use but the pocket item was kinda OP.  15 Secs where your opponent cant Block or Parry….. ouch!  Thank god I only PvE on my tank now!

 

Tonight im debating what ill be doing, Part of me wants to crack out some WoW but I need to go meet the Hockey team around 8.  Maybe I can play for an hour or two then head out.

 

We shall see.

Ding 80… again…

Well not so much again in WoW but again in the fact that im at level cap again.  Yay…….

Still once hitting 80 I worked on my hit gear (which actually involved dumping on a load of my level 70 raid epics again haha) and then went to heroic Utgard Pinnacle… what a way to learn a zone! Heroic!

Well I was top DPS, and second on overall damage (I was dead for the whole 3^rd boss) but won a nice staff.

My main aims are to level my tailoring so that I can make my own gear then just work on getting badges for other pieces.  As soon as my hit is capped ill look at trying to get a raid spot somewhere.

Im considering swapping out of Demonology too into maybe a destro spec again, ill do some number crunching to see how it stacks up.

 

Might not be a Lost Vale run tomorrow now as I have a hockey tournament all weekend.

Final Stretch

Here I am again then, one level away from cap.  Again its in WoW.  After the debacle of our internet dying I dedicated my time to levelling some more in WoW.

I am in Zul’Drak at the moment and managed to hit level 79, ive only got just over 700k exp to go to cap yet again.

I did get that final level feeling that I usually get, the one where you know every little bit of exp is a little bit closer.

 

I should get it tomorrow as tonight will be trying to hit wing 3 of LV in WAR.  Ive been told that the timer goes poof tonight so im hoping there is enough time to go in, I don’t want to lose out on the whole wing due to my net being crap.

 

Ive starting saving hit gear for my lock too, my aim is to get as close to cap come 80 as possible with the gear ive got, then move on to upgrading around it.  Ive seen a couple of tailoring things that look good so ill most likely level that next.  Then we shall see where we go from there.

 

Im actually looking forward to LV as I got my DP shoulders on the last run and haven’t tested them yet, bah get me in there!!!

 

Rock on

A Plethora of Levels…. and Lewt!!

I don’t know if Blizzard has made the levelling game significantly easier in wrath or whether my new questhelper mod is making it quicker, but im averaging 4-5hours a level.

 

Now I remember levelling my Lock in Vanilla WoW and the exp from 59-60 took me 6 hours, although that was pure grind.

 

Anyway im now level 78!  I cant believe how good levelling is with your flying mount again!  So much easier, im still happy with the quests in Northrend too, ive only just started in the Sholozar Basin (2 levels to go and still got like 4 zones to do hahaha) and will hopefully get the exp needed for 80 in the next day or so however that all depends on the next thing:

 

LOST VALE!!!  Last night I made a few leadership fuckups which meant that I had to bench Mrs B from the team, which she wasn’t happy about at all…..  The reason being I was attuning two other alliance members and wanted to bring them into the second wing, yet I had also promised a spot for wing two to our usual Choppa.  Mrs B sat out on the proviso that I didn’t think we could get past Gorak with our Dps (Group setup was:  Chosen, DoK, Shaman, Magus, Magus (3GW), Choppa.  Well Butcher died on 2^nd pull after I asked for AOE to stop as the Gnoblar was dying WAAAAAY too fast.

Then we hit the wall that was Gorak.  Without me being able to Co-ordinate mine and Mrs B’s Morales (she blows on 2^nd tank phase a dmg reduction for me) I was eating the floor, that and the healing was lacking any big punch that our Zealot normally provides.

However through co-ordinating with the DoK (Hitting his 30 second block/parry/dodge increaser) and using our main Magus with his pets Taunting, we managed to down him, I have a funny screenshot with my party chat ill dig out lol.

 

Then onto the Tree who has the good graces to drop CHOSEN SHOULDERS!!!!!!!  I cheered out loud!  That was the ward I was concerned wasn’t working, but now ive got it covered, im now 2 pieces DP! (3 with belt).

 

We are hitting wing 3 tonight and if I can find a replacement for the DoK then the husband/wife team of the DoK and Magus will sit for hun.  It may end up that we have our usual team for this instead of the team we were rocking.  Im pretty sure that whatever team we take that we will down everything up to Nkari, but wont kill her.  That’s the way the cookie crumbles but I really do think I need an OT to start with on this one.

 

I forgot to say that Friday was uneventful wing 1 down no problems at all, no decent loot at all.

Warlock Ding 75, and Hello to an Old Friend

I had so much fun in WoW yesterday, sure all I was doing was grinding quests but the thing that made it an outstanding evening?  My friend Avoghaia came online since he finally got my email and we chatted for a good two hours.

 

He also followed me round on his flying mount (damn you Mel!) whilst I piled through quests and even rezzed me when I decided to BASE jump off of a cliff and forgot to SS myself.

 

No real stand out quests for me last night, just happy to get 75.

 

There most likely wont be a lot of WoW played tonight as its Lost Vale night, im taking a couple of new guys in so im hoping we can update their quests sufficiently.

My main aim is to down the first wing for them. If time allows ill take a look at the 2^nd wing but im not optimistic,  one of the ranged DPS only has 2 wards which means her DPS will be lacking, and imho Butcher and Gorak are dps races from the 2^nd wing.

 

Well lets see how far we get anyway

Wow…. Just wow

Bit of a double meaning to that title but here we go.

 

Last night was spent in WoW, like I thought it would be, I don’t feel the need right now to be in WAR, WoW is holding my attention.  Im still looking forward to the new LV run tomorrow but for now im in WoW.

 

I managed to hit level 74 on my Warlock and must admit the levels come fairly easily, im steadily saving the gold needed for my cold weather flying when I get there, and this is a guy who struggled to have 100g in his pocket in TBC HAHA.

 

The other wow of this title is for the Wrathgate quest.  I sat there in awe as the cinematic played out, shocked to the core.  Then meeting Varian and assaulting undercity… classic.

 

I also made the trip to Dalaran and made it my new inn, its about time really, I was still bound in Shattrath, it’s a shame to see how desolate it is now, but that’s how things change I imagine.

 

Not much else to report, will see about 75 tonight, wish me luck.

LV Almost Clear

Doh so close!

 

Monday night saw the team try to continue with the 3^rd wing of LV.  Except there was only 5 of us online.  Our Choppa couldn’t make it, which isn’t as bad as say, a healer.

A quick yell in the alliance turns up no replacements, we decided to run 5 man instead.

Now not the best choice I could have made as the group leader but it actually went well.  We managed to kill off every boss up to Nkari.  Sechar gave us one wipe where I didn’t realise he was going to spawn when he did and so hadn’t explained the fight yet.

We did actually manage to get the Zealot helm, so grats to Bob for that.

 

Nkari was a different kettle of fish. Im not sure how I can solo tank this at all.  After a couple of wipes with the circles and being thrown, we all learnt that but those damn orbs!

The first orb spawn I had no trouble grabbing the pruple orb, boosting my HP to 16.5k, but the second and subsequent spawns it just would not let me pick it up.

Apparantly I was having a blue orb spawn on me and I kept getting that, but I honestly didn’t see the buff on me.

I managed to live through the Dev phase once without the orb when I popped some morales but no chance in me living.

 

I think ill need to research the orbs more as if I AM grabbing a blue on the spawn then its my fault.  I think it might be as on the first orb spawn im instantly getting the purp one without having to move, we shall see.

 

New run scheduled for Friday. Lets see how we do

 
Ive also been playing more of WoW and managed to get my Warlock to level 73.  This is actually pretty good for me, ive been trying to find a UI I like and may finally have found a good one.  But overall Wrath has been pretty good.

Blizzard have learnt from the years of WoW and made quests that are a lot better than kill X and harvest Y.  So far the assault on the Dragon Tower thing (yes it’s a daily but I like it) was great, as was rescuing villager by pulling them onto my griffon! Very cool Blizz.

 

Ill probably play WoW tonight, get some more questing done, im really kinda itching to get myself 80 and start to gear up as I have my eye on a guild already.

 

Oh quick apology, I noticed the custom UI ive been using had blocked out all chat channels.. and I mean ALL! /say /yell /tell /1 /2 /3 all unable to be used… I thought it had been quiet… I hope no instance groups whispered me, im not rude honest it was my UI!!

Lost Vale Round 2

The same group from Thursday hit Lost vale for the remaining bosses in wing 2.  Little did we know what a problem Gorak was going to be.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind bosses which take some thinking to down, but this is really not a well thought out boss.

 

For those who don’t know, Gorak is a giant Dragon Ogre and as such, hits like a truck.  He also has an UNDEFENDABLE frontal cleave, as well as casting lightning bolts on party members in phase 2.

The problem herein lies with that cleave.  On the initial pull both his normal swing timer and his cleave timer are off of cooldown, which pretty much means he will blow both at once. Im 5/5 Greater Wards but would still die from this burst.  My defensive stats aren’t shabby, im at 30% block and 16% parry (before Suppression and Mixed Defences) and over 10k hits but I would still go down.

The only way anyone has figured out to get passed him is to use your rank 2 morale, Shield Wall (100% block for 10 seconds) on the pull!!!  Now even this is problematic, if there are no mobs around to “charge up” on.

But why should it have to be done this way?  Surely this isn’t good game mechanics.

Well Gorak kicked our ass all over the shop, eventually downing 2 hours after starting.  ZERO loot for our group though….. fucking system.

 

We then moved onto the final boss, the big tree thing.  This was a lot easier, we simply ironed out some teething problems with positioning and on the 4^th pull he was dead.  No loot once again, I believe it was Black Orc and Squig Herder shoulders.

So we all got our update and are now ready for the 3^rd and final wing.  Ive done some reading up and there are a couple of interesting fights, im sure our group will get them done its just a case of working out the kinks of them as usual.

 

Fingers crossed for tonight.

 

 

I also did something I didn’t think id do, I resubbed to Warcraft!  I know, I know why did I go and do that?  Well to be honest I know the reason, WoW isn’t an inherent bad game, just the old raid system didn’t fit my playstyle so I got fed up.  But ive owned WotLK since release and barely played it, now I can get my PvE on again to level.

I transferred my Warlock from Twisting Nether to Wildhammer (reasons may get revealed in a later post) which is a PvE server and I managed to make level 71.

Who knows whats in store for me there.

Day 40 Update: My Gaming Future?!

(TMG in Afghan post to follow later on!)

 

Having been forced away from gaming due to my Op Tour it gives me a lot of time to surf the internet and make decisions on my gaming future so I figured it would be a good time to write down where I think im going in the next year with gaming.

 

World of Warcraft

With Wrath being out maybe a week before I came out I had a small time to play and even did the Nexus once.  Im still semi interested in WoW and will most likely take my Warrior to 80 and perhaps my DK but recently its not been the game which is really keeping my interest.  At least by the time I go home the expansion will have been out for a while and things will have settled in regards talents, raiding and instances.  I do not know if I will be playing WoW as much as I was though.

 

Everquest 2

Im yet to try TSO but ill take a peek at it when I come home for some R&R in January but at the moment it seems that this will be my “raiding” game.  I can only really focus on raiding in one game at a time anyway so might as well make it EQ2.  Ill have to step back and take a look at what I want to do with myself in EQ2 regards raiding but a decision will be made in March.

 

LOTRO

Moria has come out and although LOTRO does have a special place in my heart, I really cant see myself spending much time in Middle Earth, the game isn’t bad, it just doesn’t hold my attention as much as it should.  It doesn’t matter that everytime I actually do play LOTRO I say how great it is, I still end up stopping.

 

Warhammer Online

I left this one to last as its my current game that im getting into.  Yes I played it way too much during beta including powering two characters to level cap in order to test T4, come release I was burnt out, big time, I couldn’t find the drive to play the game due to it being the same as before.

However I think this break will do good for me, once I get back I think that WAR will be my “Main Game”  This means the majority of my time will be spent here with raiding done in EQ2.  My goals are to try out the Blackguard and if they suit my style of play then get one to 40.  My Chosen is my next choice.

 

Well there we have it, a fast MMO roundup, decisions made are to play WAR and EQ2.  Ill have to see if I can rope Mrs B into dropping EQ2 a bit for WAR, I doubt it

Halp! I have no internetz!!

Been a massive delay in posts from me but its due to a couple of reasons.  One being that as I reported a while back, im being sent to Afghanistan soon and ive been busy busy sorting all the courses and training.
Also! we are moving house!!  With Mrs Borgio having kid number two on the way the good old military is letting us have a 3 bedroom house.  So whilst ive been away on a course Mrs Borgio, supported by many friends and family, has moved us in.  Apparently its a nice place, Ill be home today to look at it (writing this from where my course is)

Only bad thing about moving is that the british telephone and internet companies are CRAP!  Its going to take around a week to connect the phone and another week for the broadband……. FUCKING TWO WEEKS WITHOUT INTERNET!  Im going to die…..

So anyway what have I been doing with my time?  Well mostly WoW.  Raided Black Temple on my Warlock for some experience but as usual with WoW, once ive had a break away from it I cannot be bothered to come back.  Im back to full time GMing the guild again and it really does suck the fun out sometimes.  I play games to enjoy myself, but sometimes its just not fun.  Levelling doing little instances is fun.  Organising a months worth of raids, dealing with problems with forum access and dkp problems… not fun!

So where will I go from here?  I will probably not step down, ill keep doing the GM thing, but I think I might cut back my raiding.  Only hit a couple of times a week.  This way it gives me time to do other things.  Such as hit cap in LOTRO (got 45 yay) play some more EQ2, play Conan when its released..

There is so much id like to do, but its that small leash tying me to WoW that is stopping me. But trying to cut that leash is like trying to pull off your own arm.  It doesnt matter how hard you try because in the end you stop cause it hurts.  Nothing against wow but the game in intself is shallow in what you can do once you get to the “dizzy heights” of a raider.  Im at the stage where I can only progress myself by raiding.  Alts are a bore (I have 3 level 70’s and a 66) so what can I do? Rediscover the fun.

Who knows where I will go.  If I had the willpower and the wanting to quit then it would be a delete to all my characters.  But with WotLK around the corner, I am at least a little compelled to see it.

Ill end with a quote: 

I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

A choice I leave to myself………..