A couple of weeks ago my troll hunter Rasfari finally hit level 90,  joining in the revolution against Garrosh’s reign of power.  This also made the fifth character on Drak to join the max level club, along with Arv, Heavy, Caden and Kerian.

Leveling Ras was actually fun.  Before patch 5.3 hit, the trek from 85 to 87 was a long a painful one.  As my bank alt and keeper of my personal guild on Drak, Ras didn’t get to reap in the sweet guild benefits like those in SR.  But after 5.3 hit and the nerf to XP, leveling to 90 was a breeze.  The only thing of help was the BoA ilevel 463 Sonic Pulse Generator gun that can be discovered while completing Mantid artifacts for Archaeology.  Ras is actually still using it, as he has not been lucky in several runs through the T14 raids.

As for spec, I chose to stick with Beast Mastery, mainly because of the rare and exotic pets you can use.  By far, the pet I use the most is the rare wolf from Northrend, Skoll, who I nicknamed Snoop.  His model has always been my favorite, with the blues and electricity crackling around him.

Having my pet tank for you while you sit back and pewpew from afar is definitely refreshing, lol.  Killing mobs and picking up quest items uninterrupted at the same time makes completing quests a cinch.  Some of my favorite abilities include:

Dire Beast - an extra pet to help out dps on a 30 second CD?  Awesome.  And the pet changes depending on the zone you’re in.  Ever seen a giant monkey beating down on the Scarlet Crusade in the Scarlet Halls?  Hilarious.
Lynx Rush – an ability that has your pet attacking multiple mobs, jumping back and forth, kind similar to a rogue’s Killing Spree.  I probably could have picked A Murder of Crows for more dps, but watching Snoop going crazy on mobs is worth it.
Stampede – summons all your pets currently with you at the same time to attack the target.  Combined with Dire Beast, this gives new meaning to the term pet frenzy.  Crazy!

So, being a troll, it was only right that I had Ras go through the Barrens quests and weekly for the title.  It was a slow and painful process, as I did it as a fresh 90 and was still running around with greens on.  Not to mention that the Barrens is pretty much dead on Drak and whatever CRZ it shares.  Snoop died…a lot and Feign Death was my friend, lol.  But I eventually got it done, now he’s properly named, ready for the Siege.

One more thing of note:  I was honored to have Ras be the subject matter for an awesome piece of fiction that Navi wrote, which you can read here.  It’s a really good read that paints a small picture of a Ras’ adventure out in the Barrens.  Thanks again Navi! =)

“A hero has faced it all: he need not be undefeated, but he must be undaunted.”
- Andrew Bernstein

So it’s been a while since I last posted about running Challenge Modes with the Challenge Mode Noobs.  We’ve been running it on the weekends while we can and Navi‘s been detailing our adventures as we go.  My screenshots have been piling up and I’ve been slacking on posting them, so here’s an image dump of our last runs.

There were three instances I needed to finish up the Challenge Conqueror: Bronze achievement:

Scarlet Monastery

Navi, me, Karn, Luxy and Lush in Scarlet Monastery

Shado-Pan Monastery

Luxy, Navi, Karn, me and Lush in Shado-Pan Monastery

Scholomance

Navi, Karn, me, Luxy and Lush in Scholomance

Completing all the Challenge Modes with a bronze medal rewards you with a sweet title, “the Undaunted”.

With bronzes safely secured, it was time to turn them into silvers.  I already had two in hand; one from an earlier CMN run in Mogu’shan Palace and the other in a CMS (Challenge Mode Slackers – aka my guildies, lol) run in Gate of the Setting Sun.

Temple of the Jade Serpent

Sev, Navi, me, Luxy and Lush in Temple of the Jade Serpent

Siege of Niuzao Temple

Karn, Luxy, me, Navi and Lush in Siege of Niuzao Temple

Scarlet Halls

Luxy, me and Navi in Scarlet Halls

This past Sunday, we tried for another silver in the Scarlet Monastery, but we had trouble with the trash pack after Thalnos the Soulrender.  When we finally figured out how to manage it, it got late and Sev had to go.  I think we’ll be ready this weekend to snag the silver in there.

With those three silvers, that puts me at 5/9 (4/9 for the Frostees), leaving four instance”S” to complete:  Scarlet Monastery, Stormstout Brewery, Shado-Pan Monastery and Scholomance.  Halfway there to our Ancestral Phoenix Mount!

To echo a comment that Luxy made on her most recent post (which you should check out for a hilarious pic of Navi, haha), I really enjoy running these CMs with the CMN (me, Lush, Luxy, Navi and our fifth revolving member, lol).  It can get frustrating at times when we make dumb mistakes on adds or missing medals by seconds, but the rewards for finally getting it are totally worth it.  It may take us one or two or four resets to earn that medal, but we never give up, everyone is a good sport and we just laugh about it after all is said and done.  Plus, what can beat bubble-running through adds and getting your favorite druid healer killed in the process? =P

This week’s raiding was a little different and for probably the first time since we’ve been raiding in Throne of Thunder, we extended our lockout from last week where we cleared all the way up to Ji-Kun.  Tuesday night, we took care of the big bird, but had some trouble Durumu as we were just making mistakes all over the place.  Nevertheless, we eventually got him down, leaving the next night to work on the rest of the bosses in the Halls of Flesh-Shaping.

So Wednesday night we started on the saurok Primordius.  I remember this fight being real easy in LFR, as he has been the only boss in all the LFR groups I’ve been in where we never wiped.  Prior to the raid, I found a strat that someone had commented on Navi’s blog about burning down Primordius a la Patchwerk-style and ignoring all the Living Fluid adds.  Doing this also nets you the achievement, Genetically Unmodified Organism and basically no one gets mutated.  I looked up the achievement and others confirmed that this was easy to do.

Adoe wanted to go through the actual mechanics of the fight for the first pull, so we kited Primordius around the room, while the dps got themselves mutated by the pools left from the Living Fluid adds.  We realized it was taking too long for everyone to get transformed and ended up getting overwhelmed by the adds and the Caustic Gas, getting him down to about 40%.

So for the second attempt, we decided to go with our forte and use the brute force strat.  Tyledres and I tanked Primordius in the middle of the room and had everyone else spread behind him.  We lusted at the start, with the dps going balls to the walls, ignoring all the Living Fluid adds.  Tyle and I still had to tank swap at 7 stacks of Malformed Blood.  We let Primordius go through his Evolutions and before we knew it, he dropped over dead.

So this is definitely a fight where doing the achievement is actually a better strat than the norm, lol.

With that kill, that puts SR at 8/12, with just four more to go until a clear of ToT.  It’s always nice to have an easy boss, they should really rename him Primoredps, cause that’s what this boss is all about, lol.

We had a lot of time left in the raid, so we make our way to the next boss, Dark Animus.  I’m not sure if this a cruel joke that Blizz played on us raiders, but the trash before Dark Animus is ridiculously stupid hard.  We spent more time wiping and coming up with strat to kill those stupid Ritualistic adds that surround the Anima blob than we did on Primordius himself, lol.  We had some good attempts on the Animus and got it down to 14% at our best before the raid was called.  This construct is definitely going down next week.

After the raid, everyone was pretty much in agreement in extending the lockout again next week, I think we’ll just keep it extended until we kill Lei Shen.  Patch 5.4 is getting closer and closer to becoming live, so it would be nice to finish Throne before then.

Reign of Fire booster box image from Cryptozoic

Cryptozoic has announced the 21st expansion to the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game – Timewalkers: Reign of Fire.  The scheduled release date is July 23rd, 2013.  This is the third and final set of the Timewalkers Block and will feature 227 cards.  Here is the description of the new set:

Travel back in time to the era of Warcraft 3, as the Timewalkers witness the horrific power of the Burning Legion and its leader, Kil’jaeden. Monstrous players who align themselves with the demonic forces will be rewarded with the new Portal keyword, allowing you to summon more demonic minions with one mighty play. Or you can enlist the power of Medivh the Prophet, one of the two new master heroes in this set, as the former guardian seeks to atone for his grand betrayal by bringing the warring factions together against one common enemy.

With new Humans, Night Elves, Orcs, and Tauren at your disposal, will you assist the Alliance and the Horde in their fight for survival, or will you fight for the monstrous Burning Legion?

For the first time in the history of the TCG, this set will not have any new loot cards.  Instead, all loot cards from prior expansions will be up for grabs, so now you have a chance to pull loot like the D.I.S.C.O., the Flag of Ownership or even the ultra-rare loot cards like the Spectral Tiger mount or Spectral Tiger Cub pet.  I’ve included below all the loot currently available from the TCG and the original set that it came from:

Pets

• Banana Charm (Through the Dark Portal)
• Dragon Kite (March of the Legion)
• Eye of the Legion (Timewalkers: War of the Ancients)
• Grell Moss (Aftermath: Crown of the Heavens)
• Gusting Grimoire (Timewalkers: Betrayal of the Guardian)
• Hippogryph Hatchling (Heroes of Azeroth)
• Landro’s Lichling (Worldbreaker: War of the Elements)
• Landro’s Lil’ XT (Worldbreaker)
• Nightsaber Cub (Worldbreaker: Twilight of the Dragons)
• Purple Puffer (Aftermath: Throne of the Tides)
• Rocket Chicken (March of the Legion)
• Sand Scarab (Aftermath: Tomb of the Forgotten)
• Soul-Trader Beacon (Hunt for Illidan)
• Spectral Tiger Cub (Scourgewar)
• Tuskarr Kite (Scourgewar)

Mounts

• Amani Dragonhawk (Worldbreaker: Twilight of the Dragons)
• Big Battle Bear (Drums of War)
• Blazing Hippogryph (Scourgewar: Wrathgate)
• Corrupted Hippogryph (Aftermath: Crown of the Heavens)
• Feldrake (Timewalkers: War of the Ancients)
• Ghastly Charger’s Skull (Timewalkers: Betrayal of the Guardian)
• Magic Rooster Egg (Fields of Honor)
• Mottled Drake (Worldbreaker)
• Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger (Fires of Outland)
• Riding Turtle (Heroes of Azeroth)
• Savage Raptor (Worldbreaker: War of the Elements)
• Swift Shorestrider (Aftermath: Throne of the Tides)
• White Riding Camel (Aftermath: Tomb of the Forgotten)
• Wooly White Rhino (Scourgewar: Icecrown)
• X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME (Servants of the Betrayer)

Other

• D.I.S.C.O. (Hunt for Illidan)
• Dark Portal (Timewalkers: Betrayal of the Guardian)
• Demon Hunter’s Aspect (Timewalkers: War of the Ancients)
• Epic Purple Shirt (Blood of Gladiators)
• Ethereal Portal (Scourgewar: Icecrown)
• Fishing Chair (Fires of Outland)
• The Flag of Ownership (Drums of War)
• Foam Sword Rack (Blood of Gladiators)
• Fool’s Gold (Worldbreaker: Twilight of the Dragons)
• Goblin Gumbo Kettle (Fires of Outland)
• Goblin Weather Machine – Prototype 01-B (Servants of the Betrayer)
• Grim Campfire (Worldbreaker)
• Imp in a Ball (Through the Dark Portal)
• Instant Statue Pedestal (Scourgewar: Wrathgate)
• Landro’s Gift Box (Scourgewar: Wrathgate)
• Little Ivory Raptor Whistle/Little White Stallion Bridle (Scourgewar)
• Magical Ogre Idol (Aftermath: Crown of the Heavens)
• Ogre Pinata (Fields of Honor)
• Paint Bomb (Scourgewar: Icecrown)
• Papa Hummel’s Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit (Servants of the Betrayer)
• Paper Flying Machine Kit (March of the Legion)
• Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E. (Drums of War)
• Path of Cenarius (Fields of Honor)
• Path of Illidan (Hunt for Illidan)
• Picnic Basket (Through the Dark Portal)
• Sack of Starfish (Aftermath: Throne of the Tides)
• Sandbox Tiger (Blood of Gladiators)
• Spurious Sarcophagus (Aftermath: Tomb of the Forgotten)
• Tabard of Flame (Heroes of Azeroth)
• War Party Hitching Post (Worldbreaker: War of the Elements)

And of course, what’s a TCG set without some great artwork?  Here’s a sample (all images from Cryptozoic):

Ky’lai Darkblood

Drek’thar, Frostwolf General

Zhar’doom

Varimathras, Dreadlord Insurgent

So there you have it, Timewalkers: Reign of Fire should be available in a couple of weeks.  I’m a little bummed that there isn’t any new loot cards from this set, but I am excited for a chance to get a Wooly White Rhino, Magic Rooster Egg or any of the Hippogryph mounts from it.  Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping the RCG (Random Card Generator) rolls into my favor, lol.

…don’t you mess around with her!

With the Barrens event going away in patch 5.4, I wanted to make sure that I got at least one Alliance toon through the quests in the zone and get probably the best title for an Alliance character in the game, “the Hordebreaker”.  Valoree hit 90 back in April and is my only max-level Alliance toon, so she was going to have the honor of earning the title.

So one day last week, I switched over to Val on Winterhoof to start working on the Barrens quests.  I was doing pretty good on time, moving through the quests pretty quickly, until I reached the weekly 150 material gathering quest, the last one needed to get the title.  Even with the 502 boots from Kun-Lai and a handful of blues, I could only handle four or five mobs at the time without getting totally smashed.  I figured this was going to take more than a day to do, so I was planning on just getting one set of materials done and stopping for the day when I saw someone announce in Barrens chat that they were forming a group to kill the Kor’kron Commanders.

Hold on…a Barrens chat with no trolling or anything vulgar and instead useful?  Unpossible! Lol

Now Arv and Ras never got the pleasure of killing any of the Kor’kron Commanders because the Barrens on Drak’Tharon is just, well…barren.  I’m not sure if it is a CRZ, but even if it was, there was no one around when I was doing the weekly on those two.

So I joined a group that already had four others in it and we proceeded to take out the commanders one by one.  We plowed through each commander quick as more and more Alliance came to help.  Here are the five commanders that we encountered:

Ruka the Eruptor

Jessina the Blazing

Kar Greyskull

Speegle Blasttorch

Get out of the fire!

Commander To’karg

Killing the commanders nets you a lot more materials than any other mob in the barrens and they even give you all four types of them: stone, oil, wood and meat.  What would have taken days to solo took only hours to complete and soon I had all the materials I needed to complete the weekly for the achievement and title.

For the Hord-…er, Alliance!

So thanks to all my fellow Alliance on da ‘Hoof for making the grind a lot faster and easier.  I think I’ve had enough messin’ around with my Horde spy and it’s time to move back to my Hordies on Drak to prepare them for Garrosh, lol.

The Lootsaurok must be laughing his ass off from his grave right now.  He knew fully well that the next boss after him wasn’t going to be a cakewalk like he was, lol.

We didn’t have Wok or Zarm Tuesday night, so we started a fresh Throne of Thunder run with me and Tyledres tanking, Van, Slice healing and Pix (Zug), Adoe, Shadeey, Psynite and Ryugan as dps with Sorak flex healing.  I brought Caden for the first few fights and even solo’d Council with him, even though it was really shaky (sorry about that healers, lol).  I had trouble holding onto the bats on Tortos with Caden, so I switched back to Arv and we finished the night killing the turtle and Megaera.

Wednesday night, we got Wok and Zarm back, but Van wasn’t feeling well, so Sorak went heals in her spot and Tyledres switched to dps.  We took Zarm’s lockout from last week, so we started with the Dark Animus.  But before we got to deal with the Animus, we had to deal with those stupid Ritualists first.

Give me the snail trash leading up to Ji-Kun any day, because this trash is horrible and annoying.  For whatever reason, we had trouble with our interrupts last night, with the short-range Ritualists getting their casts off, wiping the raid.  We had lag, DCs and even weird things going on with our AoE interrupts that kept us from killing these guys.  After a good 15-20 minutes, we finally took them out and prepared ourselves for real fight in Dark Animus.

We started off similar to our attempts last week, with Wok and I grabbing two of the small Anima Golems and everyone else grabbing one.  Because we were tanking two Golems, Wok and I had to position ourselves in between both adds to prevent Acceleration Link from happening.  If the two got linked, both adds would gain an attack speed and damage buff that would eventually just smash us.

Instead of activating one of the Massive Anima Golems off the bat like we did last week, we dumped the Anima from some of the small Golems into the disabled Large Anima Golems. The priority was to take one of the two adds from the tanks and the adds attached to Slice, Zarm, Psy and Zug, being careful not to accidentally activate a Large Golem, thus preventing them from using their annoying AoE Crimson Wake on us.

We then took Wok’s add to activate one of the two Massive Anima Golems, leaving the other one alone.  The Massive was brought to the middle of the room, where the remaining small Golems attached to the rest of the raid were killed one by one, filling the Massive.  Our goal was to get the Massive to 36 Anima, so we used a couple of the small disabled Golems around the room to top it off.  Healers had to deal with dispelling Matter Swap, which wasn’t too big of a deal, unless a tank was involved, which would put us out of place from tanking our targets.  The Massive Golems also use Explosive Slam, which does damage to anyone in front of them and applies a debuff that stacks, so we would do a tank swap at around 4 to 5 stacks.

Once the Massive Golem reached 36 Anima, we finally activated the Dark Animus, also bringing him to the middle of the room, but not stacked with the Massive.  The Dark Animus will then begin to drain the Anima from the other Golems in the room.  Every six seconds, the Animus takes one Anima from every Golem, even disabled ones.  When it reaches 100 Anima, the Dark Animus will wipe the raid, acting as the enrage.  So with the Massive being at 36 Anima, this gave us basically 3 minutes and 36 seconds to kill the Animus.

While tanking the Dark Animus, he will cast an Anima Ring, which will apply a damage debuff when you come into contact with one of the spheres.  I had gotten so used to running through them in LFR that it caused a couple wipes while we were working on this fight last week.  So instead, we had the melee dps break the spheres, giving me a lane to run through.  We did a tank swap between the Massive and the Animus after the second or third Anima Ring, when Wok’s Explosive Slam stacks got high.  The other ability the Dark Animus will do is Interrupting Jolt, which does a lot of damage to the raid and interrupts any spell that you’re in the middle of casting.

It took us most of the night, but after everyone got their assignments and positioning straightened out, we finally got our kill.  I was so focused on tanking the Massive Golem that I didn’t realize we were done until the Bonus Loot Roll window came up on the screen, lol.

After our kill shot photo-op, Sorak wanted me to grab a screenshot of his emote for his Spirit “Lyss” Totem.  I think he just misses having our favorite lock in our raids, lol.

That kill puts SR at 9/12, with one more wing to go, the Pinnacle of Storms.  We put some attempts on Iron Qon and got to his second Quillen a couple of times before calling it a night.  I have a feeling this fight is going to take a good number of attempts to finish; the tornadoes in phase 2 bring back bad memories of Alysrazor tornado dodging during Firelands, lol.  Looks like we better pull out our Jordans again for this fight!

Cryptozoic just released new details about their upcoming expansion to the WoW TCG – Reign of Fire.

The first talks about the loot card distribution:

Time-Lost Relics

The Time-Lost Relics have been rediscovered by the Timewalkers in their journey through the past. Now you have a chance to uncover treasures from the past, as Reign of Fire, the third set in the Timewalkers Block, gives you the chance to open up any Loot Card™ from the previous twenty expansions of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game!

The odds of opening up a Loot Card has also been improved (to 1:9 packs instead of 1:11 pack). That means you will get four Loot Cards per box, and there’s a whopping four rare Loot Cards per case!

The Reign of Fire Epic Collection will also contain one Loot Card, which can range from common to rare.

As a note, just because a Loot Card was common, uncommon, or rare in its original release doesn’t mean it shares that rarity in Reign of Fire. Some Loot Cards might be easier to obtain than before; others may be a lot harder to acquire.

I had read a rumor about this on another TCG site, so it wasn’t really a surprise to me.  Always good to see the drop rates increase on anything. =)

The next detail is about the crafting cards:

Crafting Cards

Normally, when you open up a booster pack, you have a chance at opening either a hero card or a crafting material. When you collected enough crafting materials, you could send them in for a special promo.

In this set, things have changed. Instead of opening up crafting materials, you might have a chance of opening up the crafting card itself.

That’s right. We’re making it easier for players to gain access to these crafting promos. Rather than collecting the materials needed and then sending them in to us so that you can get your promo, you have a chance to simply open the card in a booster pack!

Now this is pretty cool.  Usually, I’ll have to bundle the different crafting cards together from each set and send them off to Cryptozoic, where it would take 2 to 3 weeks to get the cards back.  Getting it instantly and saving on shipping is a plus.  Here is a couple crafting cards from this set:

And last, probably the most exciting bit of news regarding this set:

God Packs

Some lucky fans may open a booster pack that contains not one, not two, but fifteen Loot Cards – primarily rare Loot cards – instead of the standard cards you expect to open. That isn’t an accident. That’s a God Pack!

God Packs were created internally to be as juiced and as exciting as possible. And they’re very rare. If you open up one of these, then congratulations!

Hoooooooooly shit!  A freakin’ pack that contains nothing but loot cards?  I’m definitely looking forward to snagging one of these, opening booster packs will more exciting that ever, lol!

So make sure to buy your packs or boxes when the set comes out next week, happy loot card hunting!

So after a couple frustrating weeks trying to get a silver in Scarlet Monastery, the CMNs decided to change it up this past weekend and we headed out to Scholomance instead.  We had the usual suspects: me, Navi, Luxy, Aimei (Lush’s monk) and brought Sev along for the run.

One of the longer instances with five bosses to kill, I wasn’t sure we were going to get silver and thought we were going to have a tough time, similar to SM.  But I was wrong.

Our first attempt in Scholo was almost perfect; no one was dying, trash was handled swiftly and even bosses that have given us trouble in the past, Jandice Barov and Rattlegore, went down with ease…..until we got to the last boss, Darkmaster Gandling.

We were making really good time and poised to get a silver, when everything blew up in our faces, literally.  In the Challenge Mode version of this fight, the tank always gets targeted first with Harsh Lesson, unlike the normal version where it is random.  So I was trying to quickly dps myself out of the room so I could grab the ghouls that Gandling summons, but everyone was getting owned as the ghouls exploded on them.  When I was able to aggro the ghouls, I found out that I couldn’t survive the explosion myself, as they pretty much would one-shot me.

Aza, who was listening to us on vent, said that ghouls explode on a timer after being summoned and offered a suggestion to help us out.  He said that Luxy and Sev should set themselves on the second floor of the room, opposite from the stairs, and AoE the ghouls down from above.  Doing this would cause the ghouls to run up the stairs and around the second floor to get to Luxy and Sev, but the ghouls would explode before reaching them.  With the silver medal timer already passed, we practiced Aza’s tactic until we could get Gandling down, getting Aimei and Sev their bronze medals.

Our second attempt went a lot better and Gandling finally went down easily.  Thanks Aza for the tips!

I was pretty pumped after that and thought about going back to SM to finish that pos, but it was getting late for Lush and Sev, so we decided to call it there.

Six down and three to go…I can smell the Ancestral Phoenix mount getting closer (and no, I’m not smelling it’s poop =P).

Oh, I did want to mention one about the valor you get from doing Challenge Modes; it definitely beats the hell out of doing the Barrens weekly by yourself, lol.

I managed to cap out on valor last week on Ras first (I’m REEEEALLY enjoying playing my hunter lately, lol), so Arv got to reap the benefits of the 50% extra valor points from the Valor of the Ancients buff.

Completing a Challenge Mode with a medal nets you the following valor:  125 for bronze, 150 for silver and 165 for gold.

So our first Scholo run where we finished with a bronze, I got 188 valor (125 + 63 from VotA).  Our silver medal run netted me 225 valor (150 + 75 from VotA).  And when we finally get gold, that should reward us with 248 valor (165 + 83 from VotA).

And if the daily Challenge Mode quest that’s offered at the Shrine is the same one you’ve just completed, you can earn yourself an additional 80 valor.  With the VotA buff, that would give you 276 valor for a bronze run, 305 valor for a silver run and 328 valor for a gold run.

Not a bad valor haul for a Challenge Mode run, right?  Most bronze medal times are easily obtainable with a good group and as long as you’re careful with the trash and boss pulls, you really won’t have to rush through it as quick.

I think the Barrens and it’s weekly quest just got a little more…barren, lol.

I meant to post this along with my latest CMN post, but I had to farm for one more achievement to reach my milestone, lol.

It all started a couple of weeks ago, when Navi asked me to help her get the Protected Unga Keg for the Monkey See, Monkey Kill achievement in Unga Ingoo.  We went through several pugs and got all the bosses except for the Keg.  We then brought Cain along for the farming and we eventually found it.

I also got another achievement as well as the one for completing 100 scenarios.

Then it was off to Greenstone Village for quick achievement I didn’t have.

I’ve never gotten the Crypt of Forgotten Kings as a random Heroic scenario, so Navi queued us up specifically for it.

Last week was more of the same, this time the scenario we were grinding was the different parts of Binan Village All-Star.  We took Cain with us and later bought Tacky along for the ride.

With that, Navi finished her scenario achievements, but I still had a couple more to do.  Off to Theramore we went for No Tank You.

And one last one in A Brewing Storm.

Completing all the special achievements from the original scenarios get you another achievement and a nice gift from Mama Stormstout, an Honorary Brewmaster Keg.

Using the item puts a keg on your back.  It does clash with any weapons or shields you may have sheathed, so it might look funny on your back.

I actually prefer the Pandaren Brewpack that you can buy from Brewfest.  The keg is bigger and you can actually drink from it and throw drinks to others for them to consume.

So with all those achievements, that got me to 17995 points.  I tried to find a quick one to obtain and thought of ones from Archeology, but I still needed a bunch of Mantid solves to get close to one.

I ran a random heroic on Ras yesterday and got into a really good group that was blasting through Scholomance.  The tank must have needed the achievement from Rattlegore, which is one I needed to.  Woop!

And with that, I joined the 18,000 point club.

Whew!  Now all I need to catch Luxy is……2000 more….

/facepalm

So another Comic-Con has gone by and I again missed out on a good one.  The last time I attended the San Diego event was back in 2008 and because of it’s increasing popularity, it’s getting harder and harder just to get tickets to attend it.  I was fortunate to snag Blizzcon tickets though, so I still get to take a trip out to Cali this year.

One of the reasons I really wanted to attend this year’s Con was for the some of the Blizzard exclusives that were being sold, which wasn’t revealed until a couple of weeks before the event.  Two of the exclusives, a Shadow Illidan Funko Pop! figure and a mini Sylvanas figure, are what caught my eye, so I asked a friend who did attend the convention to snag me one of each.  But by the time he got around to the Blizzard booth, they has already sold out of all the figures.  I told him that it was ok and joked about how now I would have to sell my arm and a leg to get one off eBay, lol.  Needless to say, I didn’t have to cut off my appendages to purchase them and found both for a reasonable price.

So here they are in all their out-of-box glory (die-hard collectors must hate me right now =P).

Chibis in the flesh, er, plastic!  I’ll review each one next.

The Mini Betrayer

I’ve always been a fan of Funko’s Pop! line of figures and Lil’ Ill is no exception.  He stands around 4 1/4 inches tall and despite his exaggerated head, he’s pretty sturdy standing upright.  The color scheme is simple; straight black all around, with the greens to accent the fel energies that flow within him.  My biggest gripe with the figure and you’ve probably already noticed it….one Warglaive.  Really?  Did the little guy get lazy and not go back to the Black Temple to farm the other one? Lol.

Here’s the front of the Illidan box.

The SDCC 2013 sticker you see in the front says that the figure was limited to 1008 pieces.  Odd number, if you ask me.  I wonder what the significance is.

And here’s the box of the box.

As you can see, the Pop! line is going to include a regular version of Illidan in his purplely form, along with Arthas as the Lich King for the Warcraft figures.  Also included in the Blizzard line are popular characters from the Diablo series, Diablo himself and Tyrael, and from the Starcraft universe, Kerrigan and Jim Raynor.  I plan to own all of them and I hope they look as good as they are on the box.

After studying the box for a bit, I came to the realization that this could be the only Blizzard figures that Funko will make.  The fact that they combined all three Blizzard products into one set leads me to believe that they only intend to sample it.  I’m not sure what other figures from Diablo and Starcraft they could make in Pop! form and we know there’s plenty of candidates from Warcraft.  I’ll take a mini Thrall or even a mini Alexstraza, lol.

As for Illidan here, I think he’s a great figure and recommend getting one yourself or just wait for the regular version to come out.

The Queen of the Undead

Lil’ Sylvanas surprised me…a lot.  I knew that the figure was small, but I didn’t realize until I got her how REEEEEALLY small she was.  She stands just under 2 1/2 inches tall and comes with a stand to keep her upright.  Most figure stands attach to the bottom of one’s foot; Lil Sylv here has her CAPE attached to base, lol.  Yes, she is that small.  The figure is based on an older model of Sylvanas, not her current smurfy skin-looking color.  She comes with a detachable crossbow that has little grooves that go over her small arms, but isn’t tightly secured.  The crossbow can stay in place, provided you don’t do a lot of moving around with her.

Here is the front of the Sylvanas box.

The SDCC 2013 sticker on the front states that she is one of 2500, more than twice than the number of Illidans made.  Her quote on the front is pretty funny too, I wonder who she could be talking to.

Here is the back of the Sylv box.

Nice little background on Sylvanas, for those who are new.  Other than that, that’s pretty much it.  Nothing on the box says of any other figures or if there’s even a line for them.  The company that produced the figure is called Happy Worker and it looks like this was specifically made for the convention.

Lil’ Sylvanas has great detail and i also recommend getting one if you can.  Just be careful with the crossbow, lol.

Sizing up the Competition

So how do these guys size up with other Warcraft figures made?  Let’s first compare them to the most current line of Warcraft toys out, the Mega Bloks.

Varian stands about 2 inches tall, the average height of a Mega Blok figure (unless you have a bunch of goblins and gnomes, then your average goes waaay down, lol).  Illidan easily doubles Varian’s height, his head alone is about the same size.  I expected Sylv to be a lot taller than the Mega Bloks, but she barely is.  I still think the detail on the smaller figures is what amazes me the most, if only we could be larger versions of these.

Speaking of larger figures, let’s now compare them to the now defunct line of Warcraft toys from DC Unlimited.  First up, Lil’ Ill and Big Ill.

*I guess the big guy still thinks he’s still the Dark Knight, lol

I think it’s a pretty close comparison, the Lil’ man needs to go farm for the other ‘glaive though.

And now for Lil’ Sylv and Big Sylv.

I guess Lil’ Sylv has a lot of growing up to do, lol.  If she’s not careful, she’ll end up as another skull on Big Sylv’s base.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my review, good luck to those who plan on getting one or both of these figures for themselves.  I plan to post another review once the other Blizzard Pop! figures come out.

Oh, and here’s one more photo for the road. =)

So I logged in Sunday night and I got a whisper from my friend Cain.  He had made a troll on Drak and asked me to meet him out on the Echo Isles.  I made my way on Arv over to him and as soon as a landed, I was greeted with and given this:

Sweet, a Pygmy Direhorn!  I’ve never seen one drop from Horridon in my numerous runs through LFR and our guild runs and the only peeps I know who have the pet are Zari and Tyledres.  Cain said he was looking to get me something I didn’t have already, probably as a way of saying thanks for the Bloodwing mount he won.  You really didn’t have to, dude, but I do appreciate it. =)

Now that I think about it, I should have taken a screenshot of the Pygmy with Mini Horridon too, lol.  The only Direhorn pet left to get is the Stunted one.  It’s gonna be a while for that, I haven’t done any PvP pet battles yet…/sigh.

So last night, SR went back to Throne of Thunder to take care of some business after missing a few core members last week.  We used our lockout from last week where we killed Ji-Kun and began the night on Durumu.  A couple mishaps from peeps dying to Eye Sores and Adoe accidentally running the blue beam around the room revealing his add and we eventually got the big Eyehead down.

Primordius was a one-shot and so was the Ritualist trash before Dark Animus, which Sorak was very happy about, lol.  We had to adjust our positioning and assignments around for Dark Animus, since this time Tyledres was tanking and Vanicus went heals, who wasn’t there for our first kill.

Another couple pulls after working out some kinks with mistakenly activating the Large Golems and the Dark Animus soon fell over, which Sorak later proclaimed was less exciting than one-shotting the trash before, haha.

So it was off to Iron Qon and his flying doggies, Ro’shak, Quet’zal and Dam’ren.  The last time we faced Iron Qon, we were having trouble with Ro’shak’s Flame phase and the tornadoes from Quet’zal’s phase and only got to Iron Qon once.

It only took us a few attempts to get the flame phase right this time around, with the melee group and ranged group working in sync.  The tornado phase was much better as well, save for the first few attempts where I totally brain farted and failed on them, lol.  I tried to outrun them by running in front, but got caught every time, so I waited instead to let them pass and sprint my way through.  Dam’ren’s frozen stage was pretty trivial; it was pretty easy to avoid the lines of ice from the spear and attacking him on its non-shielded sides.

Then it was Iron Qon’s turn.  At this point, we still had everyone alive and it was just a matter of cycling through our defensive raid CDs during Qon’s Fist Smash and popping our offensive ones and before we knew, we had ourselves a new boss kill.

We didn’t have much time left in the raid, so quickly made our way to the Twin Consorts to get a few attempts in.  We only managed two attempts and was pretty close to getting another boss kill when we wiped at around 5%, real close to the enrage too.  And that was pretty much without any Celestial help, save for maybe one crane assist that Zug was able to pull off.

Hopefully we can burn through the Twins quick tonight and finally get some work done on Lei Shen, maybe even a kill? =P

Yep.  One-shotted the Twins Wednesday night.  ‘Nuff said.

Why did they have to wait to put the LootBosses™ in the second half of Throne of Thunder?  Why couldn’t they make Horridon a LootDirehorn™ when patch 5.2 came out so we didn’t have to take several weeks and numerous nerfs before we could down the dino?

Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait deep into the Siege of Orgrimmar raid to get our next share of LootBosses™, mmkay Blizz?

The Twins fight is pretty much the same as the LFR version, the only difference I noticed was that the tank who was tanking the Beast of Nightmares cannot be healed by your healers, or else they would get a stacking debuff of them for each heal.

Tanks still have to swap after 2 stacks of Fan of Flames when fighting Suen. She still needs to be dragged to the Ice Comets that Lu’lin periodically leaves to keep Suen’s  Blazing Radiance buff low.

You could use the Celestial buffs to aid you with the fight, but they didn’t seem necessary.  I think Zug was able to get Niuzao’s Fortitude of the Ox (increases health) and Yu’lon’s Serpent’s Vitality (restores health and mana) once.  There may have been Chi-Ji’s A Rush of Cranes (damages enemies) that went out, but I’m not sure.  I did want to see my favorite Celestial come out, Xuen, who grants The Tiger’s Celerity (slows boss abilities), but his buff wasn’t really needed.

And for the final phase, we just rotated raid CDs to minimize the Tidal Force damage that Lu’lin uses.  And that’s pretty much it.

The Twins even fell over the same way next to each other.  Arv’s sleeping with the ladies, lol.

So we spent the rest of the night on Lei Shen.  We put in about 20 attempts on him and on our last and best attempt, we got him down to 30% and into the second transition phase before everything fell apart.  I think once we smooth out our transitions and keep the adds to a minimum, we’ll eventually get him down.

One more boss guys, let’s finish this so Slice can get back to pet battling!

Tuesday morning before work, I logged into WoW to do a little bit of bag cleaning on my toons when I noticed that Luxy had broadcasted a message looking for a Blood Elf with a Hozen Beach Ball to pose for a screenshot.  I was curious as to what she was up to, so I whispered her that I would be glad to help her out.  She wanted a pic on the beach and since we were on different realms, I suggested we queue up for the Unga Ingoo scenario for the shot.

So we got set up on the beach, both in our beach grab, when she started shooting me with a gun that was turning me blue.  I laughed and asked her what she was shooting me with and she laughed back and told me to read the post she would put up later.

After reading her post, I found out that the gun she was using was the Shado-Pan Geyser Gun, a rare item that can be found in Throne of Thunder.  The gun is bind on account, so it can be sent to other alts and you could also own multiple guns.

And the interesting thing is that it doesn’t drop off any boss, but comes from a jumping game that Blizz snuck into the raid.

Remember those geyser pools that form a circle on the top platform right before Tortos?  Yep, that’s where this mini-game is located.

I noticed these pools a while back when we first starting working on Tortos and always wondered what they were for.  I didn’t realize they would be part of a hidden game, let alone reward you with a nifty item.

Walking over one of these geysers will launch you in the air and forward in the direction that your toon is facing.  You will also receive a buff called Spray Water that lasts a few seconds.  After certain stacks of the buff, parts of your body begin to shimmer with a watery effect.

So what’s the catch?  You have to maintain not 25, not 50, but 250 consecutive stacks of the Spray Water buff without dropping any.  Yikes.

Sound easy, right?  Well, for some it was.  Luxy managed to get it after three tries and so did NaviLush.  Me?  Not that easy.

So after work Tuesday, I queued Rasfari up specifically for the Forgotten Depths wing of Throne.  As soon as we killed Ji-Kun and the raid left, I ran all the way back to the start of the wing to begin working towards that gun.

It took a couple attempts to get the mechanics of the geysers down, but then I started having trouble with my placements.  I don’t know if it was my computer lagging or what, but I would either swing my camera too far in, which would put me too far from the next pool and my stacks would fall off, or not swing my camera far enough, which would send me over the platform and into the surrounding water.

I even turned on Ras’ Aspect of the Pack to give me a little help running back to a pool in case I overshot it and that helped a little.  I can’t remember how many attempts I took, but I know I was getting increasingly better: 75 stacks on one attempt, then 130 on another, then 162 and so forth.  After getting sick of hearing the pool splashes for the umpteenth time, I decided to give it a break and went to run some arenas with Ryugan to cap our Conquest for the week before the SR raid.

After our raid, I stayed in ToT and went back to work on the geysers again, this time on Arv.  I was on one run when Slice laughingly asked in guild chat if I was working on that spray gun.  I wanted to respond back quick, but couldn’t; good thing for Slice I didn’t have too many stacks before I failed and they dropped off, lol.

The next attempt started really good.  I took quick glances at the counter.

75 stacks, then 100.

This could be it.

150 stacks, then 200.

I finally got this.

212 stacks, then…..splash!

I zoned out and totally overshot the pool, straight into the water.

NOOOOOOOoooooooooo…….

I was so pissed.  I vented my frustration in guild chat.  I whispered both Navi and Luxy how fail I was.  And I seriously thought about giving up, so frustrating to lose it, getting so close.

It was getting late, so I logged off and told myself that tomorrow would be a different day.

——–

I woke up yesterday morning and logged into WoW again for some toon cleanup, when I decided to give the geysers one try before heading off to work.  Ras was still in ToT in the same place I left him before, so hopped over to him.

The first pull started off great.

25 stacks, then 50.

50 became 75, then 100 stacks.

I then stopped looking at the counter and zoned out again, but this time I was focused and was nailing each pool like a pro.

I took a quick glance at the counter and I was sitting at 200.

Then my hands started to go numb.

Oh noes, not again.

215 stacks, then 220.

I started to shake.

235 stacks, then 240.

I looked ahead and saw that I was coming around to the pools in the back of the platform, the same ones that I would always overshoot on my fail attempts.

If only I can get past these pools….

248 stack, then 249, then…..

250!

BAM!  Finally!  I defeated the geyser boss!

A wave of relief washed over me, no pun intended.  I was so excited that I almost forgot that I still had to go to work, lol.

Ras, on the other hand, looked exhausted.  After 250 stacks, your entire body shimmers and even snowflakes start to fall.

Well done, my friend. =)

“So tired, mon.”

So after I got home from work, I logged in to finally test out my new toy.

As soon as you hit 250 stacks, you immediately get a mail from Taoshi, congratulating you on your efforts and crazy jumping skills.

According to wowhead, you can target other players and most NPCs with the spray, so I sent the gun over to Arv, where I had some fun in Orgrimmar.

I tried to spray Gamon, but was one of the NPCs that couldn’t be effected by the spray. so I turned the jets on to the Kor’kron instead.

“Back off!”

I then had some fun with my fellow blood elf brethren, I don’t think they looked too happy getting their hairdo wet, lol.

And what better way to test out the gun’s effects than on that hot-headed orc himself, Garrosh.

“Cool it, brah.”

Here’s a close up of the gun, I’m not sure if it’s a unique model, but it is pretty cool-looking.

I did get to spray my guildies as well last night as we were working on Lei Shen, but I forgot to take screenshots. I’ll have to get some next time.

I know this item may not mean a big deal to others and my bag space is definitely paying for it, but as I was going around Org spraying all the NPCs, all I could think of was the fun times I had with my brother when we were young, playing with the real Soakers.  We used to have all kinds of Super Soakers, from the small handguns to the midsized ones to the massive ones that felt like spraying a firehose, lol.  We even ran around with those belts that carried multiple tanks and we enjoyed spraying each other on those hot summer days.  Those were some good times. =)

Now I just need to get some guildies to get their guns so we can have some water fights of our own, lol.

It’s been a while since my last BMAH mount purchase, as there haven’t been many on there lately or ones I already had.  I missed out on a Blazing Drake a couple of weeks ago that got too high in price for my blood, but I did manage to snag this mount for dirt cheap, the Reins of the Drake of the North Wind.

This is the mount that drops from Altarius in the Vortex Pinnacle.  I’ve seen the mount only drop twice through all my runs in VP when the instance was current.

Now all I’m missing is the Drake of the South Wind, which is a blue mount that drops from Al’Akir.  I’ve seen it once on the BMAH, but I dropped the ball and didn’t follow-up on it.  I bet it went for cheap too.

Oh, and Blizz should make a Feat of Strength for collecting all four mounts too.  “Directional Drakes” is what I would call it, lol.

It’s been another frustrating couple of weeks for the Challenge Mode Noobs.  After our last silver in Scholo almost a month ago, we decided to work on getting another, this time in Stormstout Brewery.

One of the problems we’ve been facing is our ever-changing roster.  Our group from the start has consisted of me, Luxy, Navi and Lush and the fifth spot has been filled with members of both Shadow Rising or the Frostwolves or friends of Luxy.  Sev has been our fifth for the last couple of runs, so he’s helped out with the consistency a bit.  But in one of the weeks, Lush was out got sick and wasn’t online, so we brought in a few more Frostees to fill his spot, first Moo, then Xyn, but in the end it wasn’t happening and we couldn’t get our silvers in the Brewery.

So last weekend, with a healthy Lush, we went back to the alehouse, determined to finally get our medals.  Ook-Ook wasn’t really a problem for us and Hoptallus would occasionally give us fits, but the boss that gave us the most trouble was Yan-Zhu the Uncasked.

We would get to Yan-Zhu with about 7 to 8 minutes on the silver timer pretty consistently until his alementals spawned.  Our goal was to burst him down as fast as we could before we got overwhelmed with the adds.  For the most part, we did a good job in blocking the healing beams that the alementals would channel towards Yan-Zhu, but if even one of the beams got to him, it would heal him for a lot.  We had some weird things happen, where beams would get through, even though we were blocking them.  Even Sev was using his pet to block the beams and it would sometimes work, sometimes not.  I would try to help by interrupting a couple to group them up to make just one beam, but sometimes the repositioning would put them right up on Yan-Zhu or place me in a position where I was hitting the group with Bloat.  Luxy then suggested creating a square formation close to and around Yan-zhu for blocking the beams without having to move too much and angling ourselves so Bloat wouldn’t hit anybody.

So, in normal CMN style, it took us a few attempts and a couple resets, but we were finally able to claim our silvers.  Go team!

Bigga Lush, Lil’ Luxy, Lil’ Arv, Lil’ Navi and Bigga Sev

That medal puts me at 7 silvers with two left to go (need to do Gate of the Setting Sun again to get the Frostees caught up, lol).  I know we can get Scarlet Monastery, there’s only one trash pull that gives us problems.  But Shado-Pan Monastery is gonna be the big one, we haven’t stepped our Challenge Mode feet in there in a long time and I believe it’s the hardest one to do.  With a couple of resets, we should be able to get that one too, lol.

…is what we got Lei Shen down to last night on our best attempt…

/facepalm

/facedesk

/flipsMegaBloksStormwindKeep

/blamesRekcalsKaros

That was only the second time we got into the last phase last night, so things were pretty hectic at that point.  But I think we’ve got this next week with better RNG and internetz.

Thank God that patch 5.4 has been delayed a couple of weeks to allow scrub guilds like ours to finish off Lei Shen.  I’d like for SR to start the Siege of Orgrimmar raid on a clean slate. =)

It’s a sad day for fans of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game…

Cryptozoic and Blizzard Entertainment have announced that they will be discontinuing the WoW TCG, with the Reign of Fire expansion as being its last.

From Cryptozoic:

We are very grateful to the incredible community of players that have made the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game such an amazing experience. Timewalkers: Reign of Fire, the 21^st installment to the World of Warcraft TCG, will be the last. Reign of Fire has been one of the fastest selling sets of all time and has been overwhelmingly well-received by drafters and deck brewers alike. While we are sad to see the World of Warcraft TCG end, we are proud to see it end on such a high note.

We hope that you have enjoyed cracking packs and playing with the most iconic characters in the Warcraft universe as much as we have. From raid and dungeon decks to unique heroes, each with their own deck-defining powers, the World of Warcraft TCG has left an unforgettable mark on the world of trading card games. Darkmoon Faires have long been a place for the most friendly and welcoming gaming community on the planet to come together and share their enthusiasm in a competitive, yet friendly, environment.

It has truly been an honor to be a part of such a passionate community that continues to grow year after year. The World of Warcraft TCG holds a special place in our hearts here and we are thankful to Blizzard for allowing us to be part of it.

And from Blizzard Entertainment:

We wanted to take a moment to thank all of you World of Warcraft Trading Card Game players out there for your support of the game for close to seven years.

We’ve had a blast working on it, and we knew that Set 21, Timewalkers: Reign of Fire would really grab everyone’s attention. In addition to delivering original and fun gameplay mechanics and giving players a new way to explore the story of Warcraft III, it’s stuffed with every single one of the much-sought-after Loot cards from each of the previous sets.

Set 21 represents something else as well: it’s the climactic last set for the WoW TCG. We are grateful for being able to collaborate with the artists and everyone else who helped make this game a reality all these years. We’re also thankful for all the players and retailers who’ve participated in the community globally. You made ripping open booster packs, discovering the wonders they held, and then building decks and taking them into battle a truly awesome experience.

Thank you all again for your support in making the WoW TCG one of the most epic trading card games of all time.

I kind of had a feeling that the end to the TCG was imminent, but I didn’t want to believe my assumptions.  Here are a couple of the signs I saw that the game was going to come to an end:

1. The Reign of Fire expansion contained no new loot cards.
   • Since the very first expansion, Heroes of Azeroth, every set since has always had a new set of loot cards to obtain.  There were some datamined items from the PTR that I thought could be candidates for new loot, like the Iron Hitching Post (which more looks to be an item that will be purchasable from the Blizzard Store) and there are always pets and mounts they could make available.
2. The loot cards from the Reign of Fire expansion could come from any of the prior expansions, including the rare mounts, like the Spectral Tiger and X-51 Rocket.
   • Related to #1 and probably as a result of it, this was Cryptozoic’s/Blizz’s way to “clean house” with any remaining loot cards that they had lying around.
3. Cryptozoic has a new online TCG coming out, Hex: Shards of Fate.
   • With several online TCG games already out there, I’m guessing Cryptozoic wanted a piece of that pie and came up with their own.  The game is not Warcraft-related and is all brand new.  Maintaining the WoW TCG game at the same time would have probably been too much for Cryptozoic to handle.
4. Blizzard Entertainment also has a new online TCG coming out, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

• From the very first day that the online TCG was announced, I had a big gut feeling that the physical card game was soon coming to an end.  A lot of the artwork for Hearthstone came from the WoW TCG and some elements of the game are similar.

It’s sad to see the game go, but of course, nothing lasts forever.  I’ve played/collected the WoW TCG since the very beginning and this is what introduced me to the Warcraft universe, even before I got into the MMO.  I will miss opening new booster packs and the smell of fresh-cut cards, lol.

There is a little part of me that hopes one day they’ll revive the game, along with the loot cards.  They did it before when Upper Deck Entertainment gave up on the franchise, could there be another developer that takes it from Cryptozoic?  /crossesfingers

I guess I’ll have to resort to Hearthstone for my Warcraft card game needs, where is my beta invite already? =P

2 pulls….that’s all it took to take down the Thunder King last night.  Makes that 3% wipe feel so insignificant, lol.

We didn’t raid Tuesday night because we were missing Shadeey and Zarm, so we went into Wednesday night with a lot of anticipation and determination of finally clearing the Throne of Thunder and putting this raiding tier to rest.

We changed our strategy a little, opting to start the fight with Lei Shen on the north conduit (Static Shock), instead of the eastern one (Diffusion Chain), and going clockwise, ending up on the west conduit (Bouncing Bolt) before the first transition.

After the first transition was complete, we brought Lei Shen back to the western conduit and made our way around counter-clockwise, ending on the eastern one.  We used lust on this phase to quickly push us to the next transition.  And once the second transition was done, it was a matter of staying focused and out of bad before the big guy went down.

Our first attempt started off great, but Adoe and Shadeey had trouble on their quadrant during the first transition and were soon overwhelmed by adds.  The second attempt was nearly flawless and the fight just seemed to flow smoothly.

Wok and I managed Decapitate and taunting Lei Shen back and forth with ease.  The group handled Lei Shen other abilities perfectly, stacking tight and spreading out when needed, even during the transitions.  I made sure I positioned myself correctly for Fusion Slash on the second phase so I wouldn’t get punted off the edge like a noob, lol.  Wok did die on the last phase but was quickly brezzed and we finally killed Lei Shen with the entire raid alive.

From left to right: Zug, with Zarm and Adoe behind Lei Shen, me, Sorak, Van, Tyle, Slice, Wok and Shadeey.

We also got a nice Feat of Strength for completing ToT before the patch too:

I am really proud of my guild for this accomplishment.  We put in a lot of nights and attempts and used many feasts and flasks to achieve this moment.

Last tier, we missed out on a Sha of Fear kill in the Terrace of the Endless Spring by a week before patch 5.2 hit the servers.  I blame that on our guild meet up in Orlando though, which we totally had a blast at, lol.

Side note: The resort we stayed at in Orlando recently had a sinkhole swallow up part of the complex, which is just crazy and scary to hear.  I blame that on a certain fat shammy panda *cough*Sorak*cough* for loosening up the foundation before he left, lol j/k.

I want to give a special thanks to the other members of SR: Lyss, Psynite, Bocat, Zari, Ryugan and Chewy.  Even though they were not in on the Lei Shen kill, they were all a big part of our Throne of Thunder progression, from our countless wipes and frustrations, like Horridon and Tortos, to our first boss kills and easy ones, like Primordius and the Twin Consorts.

I want to also thank the delay in the release of patch 5.4, without that, this achievement would not be possible.  Bring on the Siege of Orgrimmar, we ready!

And one last small thanks goes to Final Fantasy 14.  Since most of SR is currently playing that, I’d like to believe they were eager to get back to it, so they all brought their A-game to kill Lei Shen quickly, lol.

Great job guys, I’ll see you next week when we down Lei Shen on Heroic and defeat Ra-den!

…..a pally can dream, right? =P

A week or so ago, I was talking to Luxy about changing up my header image for my blog.  I jokingly asked her if she would create some for me and she surprised me by saying she would gladly do it, lol.  Luxy has a real talent for putting together some awesome and funny screenshots together, just check out the various images on her blog and the comic that she and Navi created, The Faily Frostwolf.

So I gave her some of my toons to use and a dew ideas and here are the images she came up with:

First are my Blood Elf siblings, my rogue Kaelina and my mage Kerian.

Next are my Tauren twins, my shaman Vynndicator and my druid Caden.

And the last one features my paladins duking it out, Arvash and Valoree.

Thanks again Luxy, my new headers look awesome! =)