Tempers flaring..

I'm mean. No I don't mean like periodically. For the most part I am mean all the time. I usually tend to be in control and not blast off with my temper also. Last night was different..

Ok my longstanding buddy Atikam was running my lowbie druid around helping him pound out some high level quests.. I had ran to moonglade (druid haven) to train up (dinged 30). Well he's doing whatever ati does when he's waiting on me.. and a blood elf mage starts attacking guards.. So ati opens up on him. He gets close, but the mage pwns him. Then CAMPS him..

Ok.. I'm level headed.. I'm very calm. Then he tells me the mage's name. Its the guy who was farming my lvl 29 druid (at the time) a week ago.
Boom

Ok so I immediately logon as mcgoo and burn all I can to get to southshore to kill this guy. In the mean time he's just WAITING for ati to rez so he can kill him again.. I land and immediately sac my succubus and pull my felhunter (known as the "I win" button for fighting mages). I run up on the scene, he sees me and blinks away.. I mount, and then chase him. He tries to get away on his mount and I go "full tilt boogie" on his booty. I put curse of exhaustion, corruption, siphon life, and cast searing pain at him.. (all while felpup is running him down). Then, he unflagged. How? I don't know. I thought you had to be OUT of combat to unflag.. but whatever. He got away but in a short burst was down to 70% life.

Ati, and myself decided that we should go to Tarren Mill and level the place. So we're in Tarren Mill killing guards all over the place.. I apparently out of luck, pulled a lvl 60 melee mob. He's nothing special but I can't get him off me and all that jazz so he's interrupting my casts. Ati was busy nailing down mobs too (he managed to get like 5-6 guards on him at once. Ok so we died. Now I ran back to my body cause I hadn't had sufficient blood for the evening. Since I saw no casters, the felpup was a waste.. so I summoned my succy. SHE can put out some pain on folks, and is more than a handfull for the guards. So ati and I are getting ready.. well to get ready.. and my 3's team-mate signed on. Wulven. So I tell him to come kill some horde with us and he's all about it. When we were finally doing well 2 70 pvp folks showed up. A enhancement shaman, and a rogue. They sucked. Rogue got ati, but I got him.. and almost killed the shaman even with 3 guards on me. Wulven I believe polished them off.. only to die before we could get back cause they both had a 20" run from the GY to their corpses. When we were 3 again, we took out the flightmaster and his bats and we toyed with the noobish defense group that showed up. As an arena team we covered each other well.. I dotted everything, ati's pet whipped booty, and wulven used his pet to keep guards busy while we dps'd the PvP guys. Well they eventually got tired of us stomping them and started resing and running into town (with full respawns) to hide. I thought that maybe a shaman looked bad without dots on him so I put 3 on him and drained him out of range of his totems and his defenders. I got him to 20% FAST, so his gear was more lame than mine. I don't meet many folks with gear as poopy as mine for PvP but when I do, they notice it RIGHT away. Anyway we got bored with them no longer rushing us.. and I didn't want to be TOO much of an jerk.. So we rode/hearthed back and were satisfied in the killing spree that resulted.

** To the 49 Belf pally who tried to heal the shaman, I'm sorry I had to kill you with a shadowbolt crit.. Not really cause I hate blood elves.. but better luck next time. Maybe leave the PvP to the grown ups (70's). Much respect for trying to help your buddy tho..

Holy Shnikies!

Well I logged on last night, thinking.. me and some buddies are going to kill everything in hammerfall.. Well mostly for fun, but also to help us work on our arena tactics right? Well I signed on.. nobody there. Then I get insta-invited to SSC for my guild. I like SSC, but since I paid my gold to go back to sl/sl I was kinda hoping that I'd be able to use it for what its intended to be used for.. So I grumbled about missing arena points and went to SSC.

Firstly, my guild is amazing. They must be 1 of 3 things:

1. Crazy to invite a sl/sl lock to ssc for dps.. I mean how much could I REALLY be helping?
2. love me (probably not.. but its possible)
3. totally stretched when it comes to dps'ers

Now personally, I don't care. I like raiding. I don't have the time they all put into it, but thats why they roll with super-uber-mega gear, on all 8 alts.. And I still have a green ring. I think I add a lot to the raid such as:

1. my dots (I have good dmg, and I do pretty well there)
2. I'm durable (if nothing else, sl/sl gives a lot of utility to just staying alive)
3. I take orders well (I usually haven't been there, or don't know wth I'm doing.. So if someone says.. 'stand there and do this' I STFU and do it)
4. I'm a gnome, and you all know gnomes rule
5. If for some reason you don't believe #4, I am also a warlock.. so I rule^2

I tend to be really meek in raids. I don't want to say OMG OMG OMG, if I get that I'll faint!. And I don't want to be a jerk either.. Last night though, Fang of the Leviathon dropped from Leo. Yes I know its awesome. Yes I know it lends a lot of utility by adding crit in case I go back to destruction.. Yes I know it offers me the chance to have another equipped item for more dmg/stam/int/crit/hit.. I KNOW. So when we rolled, and by we, I mean every caster.. since there really isn't that much better than this that we have seen yet. I have been to a few raids and not gotten anything (literally) so me and another person were at the top of the list to get this. Then the guild leader called it to me. I poo'd. Not literally, but close. So I got the sword of destiny.. (as I will call it till it bothers me to do so). I was in afterglow. Totally shocked that I had something that others wanted. Seriously, I don't really have anything on me at any time that someone else hasn't passed on cause theirs is so much better. So getting this gave me a bit of a boost, especially with mcgoo.

We roll in and take out another boss. Nothing there that I could even equip.. except the wand I have (it gives mana, shut up! I know its a healing wand). Then we go to Nagafest in SSC.. Fathom Lord Karathress event. I call it an event cause he's the last one to kill... you gotta kill all his buddies first. AND he gets their abilities.. So in the end he's really a tough cookie. Well we downed all those jokers without too much stress. Then nailed his snake-butt to the wall. Guess what he dropped? 3 tokens for warlock T5 pants. Guess how many ppl wanted them.. 3 (including me). So I got wicked new britches and a new sword.

I'm freaking out now. So I dash out to IF to get a gem and some mats for runic spellthread. Which, btw.. Nethers are now BOE. I didn't know and looked like a moron in front of a superior player.. I blushed for not knowing anything.. sigh. So now I have T5 pants, grabbed a offhandI had in the bank for 'just in case you get a good 1h'. Tonight I am going to look into soulfrost mats (if my buddy isn't on for alt-leveling-palooza) so that I don't have to buy all that crap for the enchant. I'm torn on whether or not I want orb of the soul eater or not. Its awesome, no doubt. I really wanted to tank Leotheras one day though.. Well with my current badge collection rate (about 2 badges every raid night I get to go on, which is about once a week) I won't ever hit 100 badges before the expansion anyway. It looks like a fun fight though.. I really do wish I had the time to raid kara weekly so I could get the badges to tank him.. oh well. Its not like the orb would eliminate my WHOLE stock of badges.. but it will dent it. Possibly though you could get the badges for a kara run and regain all those used.. well almost. So its not terrible.

I do know I'm getting the pvp offhand. Need that resilience! Need that stamina! It has crap damage though.. Oh well. This is a OMG update, but a good update none the less.. eh? I'll let you all know what I do with my badges, especially if end up tanking Leo!

Destruciton spec

I had a "crackhead" spec part demo/part destro for a little bit with mcgoo.

It was oddball, but I did really well with it. I hated it for grinding. It was awful. Period. I lacked all the survivability of my SL/SL spec, and my affy spec. I did a LOT of damage though. My average hit non crit with a shadowbolt was >3k. For me thats outstanding. Crits were kinda rare for me though ( not enough +crit gear). I don't know that I've seen shadowfury in a raid, but I thought it was an AWESOME ability. Near instant, AoE shadow ability. I'm still mostly +shadow dmg so hellfire doesn't hit like it should and seed takes a while to cast and spam. Most of my trials were on the new Isle of Quel.. whatever.. But it gave me an excuse to kill blood elves, and I jumped all over it.

Raiding: Raiding with this was the-shiz-nit. There was so much less that I did. This alone meant a lot of damage pounding on the boss. My guild usually runs with at least 2 locks. They are typically uber. Both are affy though. Basically all I did is drop agony on the boss and then spam shadowbolt (other affy lock with malediction put shadows on the boss, so I didn't need to). Thats 1 instant cast and then spam my big gun. I was hitting for 4k regularly in all that. Plus by what I was told I was way closer to the top of the DPS guys. Something that hasn't happened since I changed from affy to SL/SL due to lack of raiding.. So I was much happier. Did I top dps? no. My guild has too many ridiculously awesome people in it for my partial epic gnomey butt to be able to compete with. I did well though. Out of 25 total people with what 4 healers and 3 tanks.. ( I include off tanks as dps, cause.. well thats how I see it) Out of those numbers I ranked 9th in dmg. So I actually beat some of the bad asses in my guild. I loved that, but they probably had an off night, I'm not cocky enough to think I could really beat some of them as they are just too good.

But shortly after I ran SSC the second time for a few bosses I dropped onto my SL/SL spec again. This means my spelldmg went up pretty good, and so did my survivability. Did just a little bit of PvP as the bg/arenas were all screwy. I won an EOTS with my buddies.. Tuaren shammy was wailin on my buddy (hunter) and I was being ignored. I HATE being ignored so I started a shadowbolt after I dotted him. I hit him for 3400. He stopped.. turned slowly to me.. and then ran at me to stomp me. Now get this sports fan.. he LEFT the tight range he was with the hunter.. who has better gear and is now pissed at him. Needless to say my buddy finished him. I just thought it was funny.. ignore the gnome lock.. until holy crap... where'd my life go.. lets kill the warlock!! Moron..

Winning in EOTS is something to savor. I won't play it for probably another 2 weeks just to make sure I savor it enough. But that win.. was sweet. Pretty decisive although they TRIED to loose it about 2/3 of the way in. Even though me/my buddies were on D in the mage tower, we still had #9, in damage.. (me). Which means as bad as our team sucked.. Horde sucked more. Which is always nice.. :)

I'll try to get some more mileage before too long though so stay tuned.. and sorry for the long lapse of no posting!

Rawr.. Bear makes it to 30.. almost

Well with the never faltering assistance of Atikam, my druid has RAN from 18 to 28. Pretty much stopped there too. I want this guy to ding 70 pretty quickly, but I am in doubt that this will happen at the speed I want. I think realistically to get to 70 fastest I would have to be "ushered" through the red quests I have through every zone I get to. That is what we've done so far. It works wonders, by the way if you can have a lvl 70 hunter usher you around, it helps. No other class will help as much (aspect of the pack for speed boost). Although after 40 I think a pally would be best. Since they can heal me and at the same time have crusader aura to again, help with speed.

He's been sick off/on for a while now. So basically my druid has a bunch of quests he can't possibly do. So I have been running around and herbing to skillup and at the same time skillup my skinning. Last night I swam from westfall to booty bay. Thinking, that every board I have read about herbing says barrens is "THE" place for it. So, I thought swim down there.. go to barrens do a few laps and skillup fast/hard. What NO boards told me was.. there's like 30 stranglekelp spawns in the water you can herb on the way down to booty. I got on the boat at booty with about 50 stranglekelp. I fared really well. So now I'm in my 100's for herbing, so I can herb most everything but the Wild Steelbloom. If you remember I don't really need all that much in herbs for alchemy.. I just want to be able to herb.. why? does it make money? Not that I noticed. I just thought it'd be good to have a herb person. I have a mining person, although Mcgoo made a fortune off of mithril, and it worked out well. There are some things that are hard to get in herb, and I imagine my druid will camp them out eventually to make some gold. After I have my portion that is..

Wednesday is our arena night so tonight I'll be pushing more herb/skinning to make sure that when ati runs me to higher content than I should be able to do that I can loot the appropriate things (herb nodes/skins). That's for tonight anyway..

Mcgoo has had some fun along the way also.. but more on that later.

Running with the Bear..

Ok just because my character name is Bigscrybear doesn't mean I'm ALWAYS in bear from...

Well anyway.. my buddy and I are now parallel leveling some alts to try to hit 70 asap. You know.. doing all red/orange quests.. doing the better chains and popping it off quick. I played my druid for just a bit short of 1.5 hours.. and I got 27k XP. This was enough to level me and almost get me to 50% of the next level.

The goal for me and him is that we will perpetually have a tank/healer for a group. Seeing as the world of warcraft is LITTERED with dps.. And that he and I both have only had DPS characters, we know how tough it can be to get in a group.. Tanks/healers are persnickety. I know.. I have been too.

"come heal VC 4 us man!"
"what lvl is the tank?"
"16"
"16, are you nuts.. no way. Is anyone >30?"
"no, but we can do it!"
"sorry m8"

I don't like doing that.. but the hard fact is that I like healing.. but not as much as I like hitting 70. and not NEARLY as much as I like getting epic loot from moving QUICKLY through instances. Now I have healed some "rag tag" groups.. But its gotta be something I think would be fun. My healer is an alt, so is my pally.. so is my druid. For me to take time away from "the march to 70" to dork around with you.. it needs to be fun.

My financial burden seems to be growing though.. as my alts I want to keep their crafting prof's in good order (priest=JC, pally=engineer). So far the priest has the mats to push up to the cap, but I cant' seem to find time to make it to exodar to train.. bah.. My pally.. well I'm gathering things for the initial push in engineering which won't be for a bit. Seriously though I want him to have some grenades or something.. Don't get me wrong.. body pulling groups of 3 is fun, and survivable for a pally, but so is lobbing a grenade and THEN killing all 3 guys. What? You ask WHY I would push 2 expensive crafting prof's on my poor lowbies? Cause I WANT THEM! Seems kinda obvious to me really.. The only profession I want MORE than those 2 is a master transmuter for primal might. If I can do primal might xmutes for a bit of coin, or in my case.. I'll do it for a primal.. (my thought is for each one I do.. I get an extra primal.. so that I am eventually making my own mights, and selling them for fat gold).

As in life, my wow-life is littered with money making schemes. Funny thing is once I get a few 70's my money making potential will go up by leaps/bounds. Keep in mind, I'm being conservative..

If I do ONLY the skyguard quests in skettis.. ever. I'd make with 1 guy 24g, 2: 48.. and so on. Now keep in mind my feeble amount of dailies I was doing with Mcgoo (mcgoo alone now) was netting me about 80g a day. So carry that over with 3 iterations and my daily gold is 240g. Basically if I was to spend 5 days doing this.. I'd have over 1200g.

My longstanding goal is, since I FINALLY hit the level cap with mcgoo.. To get others there to finance his fun. The other guys are not going to raid. They are not going to do heroics. What they WILL do is jerk around enough to have a reasonable set of blue/epic gear so that when expansion rolls out.. Mcgoo will have a good nestegg for gold.. AND people to do crafting for him (1 JC, 1 miner, 1 tailor, 1 engineer, 1 blacksmith, 2 alchemist, 1 herbalist) {this plan requires 4 alts to hit 70.. but thats more or less me being greedy, the actuality will be all the same, but only 1 alchemist.. and no herbalist}

My mind keeps thinking of reasons to KEEP blacksmithing. I can't see it ever paying off for me big. It may be helpful/beneficial for my pally.. but I can't see it going beyond that. I really wish there were more options.. I mean I understand engineering is where you build ranged weapons.. but I just wish there were some smithing things you can do that are more BOE. Most of the good stuff (if not all) is BOP. Meaning if you can't use it.. it means nothing to you. Epic chest? nah got one from Hyjal.. oh well waste of armorsmithing.. Epic Mace? nah got one from S3, its rediculous.. So there really isn't MUCH you can get out of smithing that will pay off bigtime. I like making weapons and armor though.. So far thats all it has going for it though (that and sharpening stones/weight stones)