Why can't I blog?

Ladies and Gentlemen of the not so popular wowbob blog. I'm pretty sure no one reads this blog, but if for some reason you do, please attempt to respond at some point to something I post. This will let me know what you'd like to read here in wowbob world. Today we'll be talking about several different things.....So let's get started.....

Bobpally is now level 74 and counting. I'm a little slow with his leveling, but with good reason. I'll give all of you new to Northrend some good advice: Borean Tundra has 150 quests, do them all before moving on, and run The Nexus at least once to get those quests done as well. If you do all of this you'll be almost 74 before you ever leave the first leveling area in Northrend. The next questing zone will put you where I am now, which is Dragon's Blight. I really like this area as it's fun, and has cool stuff to look at. Being that I spent so much time leveling in Borean Tundra the quests in DB are somewhat easy. I'm leveling Bobpally as protection spec. Why you ask? Because it's alot of fun, plus I like to tank the instances as I level up to run them. Bobpally does have a conundrum before him. Perhaps my one blog reader can help me out...

I don't know that this is that much of an issue right now, but eventually I want to run the endgame content and in my current guild (which I'm the second highest ranking member) we have only three members. I can do one of two things. 1. I can wait until I'm level 80, recruit other level 80s and basically play GM to a guild that really isn't mine. 2. I can find another guild now (I constantly get offers from people I run with) and level with them to eventually run the end game stuff. What I really want is to be raid leader to tank and run the raids. This would afford me the control that I like to use to keep down the drama. I'm very stringent when I run my dungeons as leader. I don't take crap and certainly don't give it. So each of my options has high points and low points.

If I am to recruit at level 80 to get other raiders, I'd have to provide a vent server more than likely and I'd also have to baby sit constantly. The best thing about recruiting is I'd get to control everything from start to finish. I would get to setup raid times, raid nights, and the players that were going. I'd also get to run the raids and make sure everything was fair to everyone that played. It would be my rules for my runs on my time. I like that idea quite a bit.

If I were to join another guild and be a tank for that guild, I'd have to adhear to someone else's rules and time constraints. This is not how I like to do things but it does have it's advantages.
I wouldn't have to provide a vent server, I wouldn't have to put up with any of the crying that fellow guildies did in the runs, or after the runs. I wouldn't have to take the time to setup raids and make sure people signed up for them. I wouldn't have to listen to anyone's problems about anything period.

So the big question becomes, what should I choose? If you are the lone person reading my blog, please respond and let me know what you think.....

A long time ago

I haven't posted in so long and so much has happened in my wow career. I've raided Kara and cleared it, I've done the first four bosses in ZA and didn't get a single drop. (damn it) Last night I did something that made me think of this blog and I decided I should put this up....

I was in my first 25 experience and it was fun!! My son has a hunter that's very well geared and is in a different guild on my server. His guild was doing Mag/Gruul's last night and I got an invite to go.

Mag's Lair was first and it really wasn't so hard. Of course I'm ranged DPS so I'm not sure how hard it is for other classes, and clicking the cubes is kind of a pain because of the timing thing but overall it was fun. My dps is getting up there a little. I did over 750 and didn't really go all out. The fight itself pretty much entails killing all the mobs holding magtheridon down with some sort of energy beam and then having a tank hold him while you down whatever's left after the timer, then switching to Mag himself. I know it's healer intensive during the first couple of minutes that Mag is free, after that it's just clicking cubes, staying alive, and doing as much dps on him as you can. My tier chest token dropped and I lost the roll...yay me, but I did get an epic wand.

Gruul's was up next. This was a little different, but still fun. There's a couple of things about this fight I didn't know, one is cave ins will kill you, the other is some kind of grounding thing that bounces you everywhere, and the last is a damaging effect that happens when you're too close to someone else (15yds). We actually wiped the first time and that wasn't fun, but I learned about caveins. The second I avoided the caveins but some hunter kept getting too close to me and another player and got us hit with that proximity damage thing. I got battle rezzed because of the damage output I had (over 830 dps). It was either going to be me or the hunter that got me killed, and I was out dpsing him by around 200 so they rezzed me and I gave it everything I had. The top dps was a stupid Lock (1100 dps), but his gear was far better than mine. I was 3rd down the list and that made me proud of my work. The second on the list was a frost mage btw. I'd really like to get to that 1000 dps mark, just gotta keep working at my gear. Tier token dropped, but I already had gear that was better, but since there was no one else that wanted the token, I took it to help complete my set. I'm now 3/5 tier 4 and only have one non-epic left (and it's a trinket). I'm clipping along as fast as I can. My guild doesn't do 25 man content, but my son's guild does, and they're about to start doing TK and SSC. I was told by the GM that me and my fellow guildies are welcome to come along on the progression nights because we play very well and he'd be happy to have us help the guild. (we also get to roll on gear because they don't have a DKP system yet) I'd like to go with them in future endevours, we'll see how it goes and I'll post up about it as it happens.

Bobpally is 53 almost 54, he's been on the sidelines a little lately because of the raiding and arenas I've been doing with bobmage, but I haven't forgotten about him. There's just not enough time to get all the stuff done that I want, but I'll keep trying to level my paladin and give updates when necessary....

Badge Gear

I'm starting to get to that 100 badge gear mark and it's time to make a decision about what I'm going to do. My pants are subpar blue item with two sockets and minimal spell damage. I was thinking I would replace them with the badge gear from Queldanas. My problem is there are two sets of pants from the badge vendor, one with a huge amount of crit and the other has spell hit rating. I've found in Kara I get resisted alot, but I never miss. I'm thinking I should go with the spell crit and gem for penetration so I can stop getting resisted and kick my spell crit up a little more. Right now my fire damage spells have a 30% crit chance. That's quite a bit, but it will be even more with the new pants. I've been researching spell hit, and it doesn't seem like I really need alot of it right this second, I'm sitting in the mid 80's for hit, but my penetration is very low. If you have any ideas about what I should do, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment....

Fellow Mages and Their Raid Specs

It's been bit since I posted anything here on the blog, but last night something happened and I just have to put it out there. I made the switch to my new guild, Dirty Hordes. I love my new guild, we raid on Tuesdays and Thursdays which works out really well for me since that's the only time I'm on. I also picked up my tier 4 gloves out of Kara last night (yay me!). Ok, on to the post about a fellow mage in the guild.

We were doing our Tuesday night raiding thing in Kara. I was informed that another mage would be coming along, and as it turns out, a firemage. I was thinking "cool, a little competition." So I zoned in to Kara, got a look at the mage's gear, which exceeds my own by quite a bit. She's over 100+ spell damage on me. I really didn't think it would be much of a competition, but about half way through the instance I realize that I'm out dpsing this fellow firemage by quite a bit, and I have no clue why....So I check her spec, and I begin to find my answers. Everything about her spec says she is trying to be a hybrid of some kind for pvp/pve. So I politely (and I mean politely) ask her if she pvps. She responds, and I quote "I only raid, I despise pvp". Huh? So I reply "I just noticed in your spec build that you have some pvp talents and thought maybe you were a hybrid build". Her "What, I don't have any pvp talents in my build". To which I pointed out that she had blast wave, blazing speed, impact, and of course to get blast wave you have to waste a talent point on pyro. She in turn tells me that she got her training from one of the best raiding mages on the server....I almost fell out of my chair. She says blast wave is her most potent aoe spell, to which I reply....not exactly, that would be dragon's breath. I'm trying hard to be nice to help a fellow guildie understand their character a little better, but it's just not sinking in. I point out the fact that I have less spell damage, yet I'm out dpsing her by such a wide margin it could only be her build that's holding her back. She doesn't like this, and we end the conversation on a good note, with me just conceding the fact that it's her mage and she can screw him up however she wants, I mean build him.... What do I do here? We need her to put out the damage, and if I had her gear I would be close to the top of the dps charts for raid night, but I can't get this person to listen at all.... I guess I just have to let it go and hope that we don't need her to really crank out the dps for any fights that she's ever in with us on raid night, because it will never come.

A Guild less traveled

Well, I've made a decision about the future of my guild.....I'm leaving. I just don't have the time to do the things that make a good gm. It's pretty much my job as #1 officer to keep the guild in shape and I can't put in the time to make that happen anymore. I've applied to a new guild that I've been running Kara with and I'm sure to be accepted and probably eventually promoted to officer. I only play twice a week right now and it's on the raiding nights for the guild I applied for. This benefits me in many ways. One way is I'll be there for Kara as well as progressions throughout the game with my new guild. I like that idea alot, as it's the reason I play the game. I don't do alot of pvp, I like raids and playing against big baddies that need a beating. Co-ordinating a team to down a big boss that no one could do alone is alot of fun for me, and if I stay with my guild It would be a year before we got there with our current memebers. So I have to give up on my own guild and join another that's already established. I enjoy playing with the memebers of the guild quite a bit, so I'll continue to do so. I'll continue to keep you posted on the happenings and progressions of bobpally and bobmage.....

A Mage's Guide to Instances and Raids

For those of you new to instances or raids I'm puting this together to give you an idea of what it is you should and shouldn't be trying to do in those dungeons.

First a bit of advice....Dungeons are for players that like the team concept and want to be a valued part of that team. Second, things will inevitably go bad at some point in your wow raiding career for your team, don't start blaming everyone around you. If you succeed in a raid or instance, your team succeeds, if you fail, your team fails. It's all or nothing. I personally never point the finger in a way that assigns blame to someone, instead I point out something they could do better and ask that they do the same. There's more than one way to let someone know they did something that was less than beneficial to the progress of the group.

Mage's are casters and high damage dealing killers with no survivability without the other members of their group. Their job first and foremost in a raid or instance is to deal the maximum amount of damage without getting the attention of the mob they're killing. A properly specced fire mage handing out the proper spell rotation will out dps just about any other similarly geared character in the game. I personally have a fire mage with just over 600 spell damage and in Kara I out dps both of the shadow priest in my raid group with well over 700 spell damage. Some of it might be that I understand very well how to play my mage, and some of it is that I'm supposed to out dps them.

When you're in a raid or instance, first recognize your cc assignment in any pull that's about to go down. Make sure you get that assignment done as soon as the pull is made so as not to effect any aoe that might take place. The further away the sheep is the better. Make sure throughout the pull you maintain that cc. A great addon for that is sheep watch. It broadcasts in chat the amount of time left on the cc, and gives you a bar at the top of your screen that lets you know how much time is left on the cc. After you've sheeped your target, switch to the first kill target. It's very important that you don't screw this up. If you start casting fireballs of fury at something no one else in your group is doing damage to you're going to die. If I was the tank in a group and someone hit a target out of order, I might taunt it once and ask them to please not do that again. If they did it twice, I'd let them figure out how to kill it. Something else you need to do as a mage is download a threat meter. Omen 2 is working pretty ok right now, as a mage you'll need it.

When you begin casting on the main target don't unleash your hardest hitting spell first. Throw something light, like a scorch and see what it does to the threat list. It's a quick spell and will give you a good idea of how far you can go on your next spell. I've played with tanks that just had a hard time building initial threat quickly. I don't blame anyone when this happens, I just scale back my attack for a little while. I hate people that pug a group and pull aggro every fight, then blame the tank out front because he can't "hold aggro". Don't be a jerk in group, you never know when you'll need someone in that group to help you out later. Also, you have to toe the line between pulling aggro and maxing out your damage. Pulling aggro is never a line you want to cross, but you also don't want to scale back your attack so far you're not doing enough damage. It's a fine line for a great mage between pulling aggro and doing enough damage.

Recognize the target and what he's vulnerable to. If you're getting resisted alot, change spells. One spell you have that almost never gets resisted is arcane missles. Yes it's a mana hog, but sometimes it's better to use them and do the damage, than cast a spell that gets resisted every other cast.

Another thing that's not only your job, but everyone else's in the group, is protecting your healers at all costs. If you see that your healer has pulled the aggro of whatever you're fighting, jump in there. You have immobilizing spells for a reason, use them. If you're a frost mage, slow the target down with frostbolts, and look for the MT to get that aggro back. If your MT is having a hard time getting back that aggro, frost nova will almost always stop them dead in their tracks and give your MT a chance to whack him a few times to get that aggro back. If that fails, you need to go all out on whatever it is that is going after your healer. Sacrificing yourself to save your healer is never a bad thing. If you save the wipe by giving your MT enough time to get the target back and kill the rest of the pull your healer can rez you and will be very greatful. You will also know that you did everything you could for the good of the group.

Spell rotation is going to be what seperates you from every other mage. Know what spells do what and why. Learn how to effectively use those spells on every single pull. If you're a level 70 firemage with the 10/48/3 raid spec and you're opening with fireblast, you need to stop playing the game. In a boss fight, your spell rotation is crucial to how much damage you're going to be able to put out. For the fire raid spec scorch spells make your target more vulerable to fire damage and it stacks five times. So start with a scorch, then cast a fireball, then another scorch, then fireball, toss in a fireblast every now and then as well. The reason I say every now and then is if you use fireblast every time the cooldown is up you'll run oom before then end of the boss fight, I promise. After you've stacked five scorches, stick with the fireballs and a fireblast from time to time. Watch the 30 second timer for the scorch stack and when it's close to being up throw that scorch to refresh it, then it's back to fireballs and blasts. Make sure you pay close attention to the fight at hand, doing your job also means staying alive with as little help from the healers as possible. They have enough to worry about without having to save a mage that doesn't know where to stand for a fight. Don't get angry if you get assigned to adds, part of being able to do hella damage is downing adds quickly. Do your job! I don't get mad in Kara when I get assigned to the adds for curator, i don't say "hey jackass, I can out dps everyone here I should be on Curator!" No, I do my job and kill the hell out of those bastards. It's your job to do the same. Mage's are elite killers in dungeons and raids, they are feared because of the powerful spells they wield, but they also have a responsibility to the other members of their group to be beneficial in every way possible, you represent mages everywhere...so do your best to be a great mage...learn from your mistakes as you are definately going to be in that situation again I promise. If someone asks that you do something in your group....don't hesitate or refuse. If you have issue with it, try it their way to the best of your ability and if it doesn't work then suggest something else. I know you know your character better than the guy asking you to do whatever, but he doesn't understand that so just do as you are asked. Then in the back of your mind you can say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. Anyhow, if you have any questions I'd love to hear them...so ask away. Hopefully this will make you a slightly better mage in those groups and make you more sought after to fill out the raids.....

Karazhan

Last night was Kara night for yours truly. I farmed enough honor to get the Gladiator's War Staff from PVP, then put the 40 spell damage enchant on it. I'm now at over 600 spell damage which is a huge upgrade from the 465 I was prior to the upgrade. On Tuesday we downed Moroes, Attumen, then I dc'd and they finished up with Curator and Opera event without me. . So last night was Nighbane, Netherspite, and Prince himself. We started with Nightbane.

Nightbane as far as I'm concerned is the hardest fight in Kara. The enrage timer is 8:00 minutes and the beams have to be picked up in order to be successful. For those of you that don't know this fight, Nightbane is a huge Dragon that hits like a truck and there's three different colored beams that hit him and give him buffs. The blue beam gives attack power, the green gives him life back and the red beam gives a bigger hp pool. The trick to the fight is to have certain people stand in certain beams. If you stand in the red beam, you get aggro from Netherspite, but your hp is upped to around 30k, so you have your tank stand in the red beam and the off tank stand next to him. They alternate in the beam. The green beam is best to have 2 Rogues alternate, and the blue beam is the "caster" beam. Mostly for people that cast such as a firemage. So I was assigned to the Blue beam, but I screwed it up and accidentally went in to the green beam and got killed, then we wiped. I noted to the raid that it was my mistake, and wouldn't happen again. The raid leader and mt was understanding because I had never been here before and let it go. The next fight I did alot better. After the fight starts, the beams come, then the next phase is he kind of vanishes, runs around and does a nasty aoe, then goes back to using the beams again. If you stand in the beams too long it starts to tick life away instead of giving you a buff anymore. The trick is to get 20 stacks of the buff, do as much damage as you can, step out and let the next guy in line take over the beam. It should only take two people per beam phase for each beam. After you come out of the beam, your exhausted so you can't stand in it again for 2 mins. You need four people for one beam so they can alternate each phase. We did this very well I thought. We were getting close to the enrage timer, so when he went into his banish phase, we were instucted to continue dps to beat the enrage timer. I unleashed fireballs of fury, every cooldown I had, Netherspite goes back to beam phase, I picked up my beam, delivered all I could and somehow I got hit and died. There's only 30 secs on the enrage timer and Netherspite is at 5 %. We're not going to make it. Makapuno (MT/Raid leader) calls for all dps to go all out, I wish I could have, but I was dead. They dps and dps, seconds are ticking on the enrage timer, down to 10secs, 5 secs, 1 sec, enrage, but it's too late for Netherspite and down he goes. YAY!!!!! Netherspite down. Wow what a fight. I loved every second of it that I was alive. He drops a spell damage cape....I'm excited because it's so much better than the one I have. Raid leader links the cape to chat and says roll for cape. I roll a 34. Damn it! I wait, I look for the next roll, it doesn't come! The cape is mine. YAY! Another piece of epic gear. Now my spell damage is at 624.

Raid leader asks which fight we would like to do next......Everyone in the raid votes Prince.
So we head up the stairs to where Prince is. We clear all the trash, and run up this long winding stairway. I've never been to this part of Kara, and at the doorway at the top of the stairs I peak through and there he is. Biggest Baddest dude in Kara. I'm excited, I get to prove my worth as a firemage. I will dps like I never have before, I will lead the dps charts against far more experienced players, I will show my raid leader that I deserve to be here. The fight starts when Maka pulls him over to the ledge with his back against the wall. Roune (the epic hunter that's out dpsed me by 22k so far) pops a misdirect and we go to work. I'm letting the spells fly, cooldowns be damned. I stagger my trinket cooldowns so they are up as soon as humanely possible, and think I am doing a good job. One of our healers misses a heal on himself and dies....He's the MT healer...Maka goes down, we wipe at 50%. That's ok, it was just a mistake in judgement and it happens. We all do it, and it's not that big of a deal. So we reload, this time I use every spell damage buff I have along with my spell damage food, and wizard oil. I'm ready. Roune pops misdirect, Maka pulls, I let him get about a 6k lead on me and start my dps. I'm rockin' again, dpsing my little firemage heart out. Infernals are incoming, and one lands directly on our mt. He begins to move Prince out of the infernal and drags him very close to the group. Nothing is said on vent about where he's going, he's got his hands full. I try to move to avoid and contact with the big bad guy, oops, wrong time, wrong place, he shadow novas as I'm trying to get out of the way and bam! I'm dead. Prince is at 48% and I'm dead....This is very dissapointing. So I don't release, I just stand helplessly and watch the fight. I'm thinking any second they're going to run into some back luck with those stupid infernals and I'll get another shot, but wait. Our healers are doing a great job and the MT is handling prince. Infernals are dropping, but in places that they're not a problem. Dps is keeping up the good work. People are positioning, Prince's life is ticking away. 20%, 10%, 3%, 1%, Down....Prince is down! I was in a group that took down Prince! YAY!!!!! He drops some stuff that I don't want and can't use. I did get two more badges though.
Next up is Nightbane...oh what fun.

So we head out to the ledge to summon nightbane and on the way pick up some nifty little books.
Our MT summons the big bad undead dragon. He looks more like the skeleton of a dragon, but he doesn't hit like one. There are a couple of tricks to this fight as well. When he's on the ground the tank has to position him in such a way that all dps is on the side of him. If you're in the front or the back of him you'll take huge amounts of damage so you have to stay on the sides. While he's on the ground he also puts these scorched things down that burn the ground and anyone standing in them, so it's best to just avoid them as well as you can. When he flies up in the air everyone has to run to the tank's position and kill these guys that he spawns. No big deal, but it's best to have a prot pally in your group to consecrate to hold them while they're dpsed down. Then he lands, mt picks him back up and dps starts again while he does the ground scorch thing. I was doing a pretty good job of mana management and holding my own at damage. I'm standing next to one of the healers so as to make sure that I'm not in the wrong place. I'm unleashing every now and then, I'm second on the aggro list which tells me I'm really puting out the damage. Then I get the worst run of luck, I have to move because I get a scorched ground under my feet, and as soon as I move out of it, another one lands right under me. As I'm moving out of it I'm not paying attention, somehow I get the attention of the big stupid dragon.....Did I mention earlier that he hits pretty hard? Well he does, and my cloth gear found out first hand that I can't take a single hit from anything in Kara, including the likes of nightbane. I died again on a boss fight. Not fun. I don't like dying when I'm trying to prove that I can run with the big boys that I can do my job without anyone having to worry about me. This is not good for my reputation. The good thing is that nightbane is at 3% when I die and I was there for most of the fight. I watch as the rest of the group finishes him off and he drops something else I don't need, some kind of spell damage off hand that I'll never use, so I pass it to the shadow priest in the group and he gladly takes it and is thankful that I didn't roll on it even though I could have. I've been working with the shadow priest the whole night and he's been a fun partner in dps. I'm happy he got an epic he could use. Two hours, the three hardest bosses down, and one more epic. What fun. All in all it was alot of fun playing with all the people that were in the raid.

Tuesday we'll be going back for another run through Kara. The Raid leader is very interested in getting me as geared as possible to start taking me on progression through Gruul's and Mag. So I'll keep you posted on the upgrades as they fall from Kara. I think next week if everything goes really well on Tuesday, we might take a shot at ZA.......

Too Much Wow

With the help of my wife, I've discovered that I've been playing too much world of warcraft. It's taken a toll on my life by taking away time from other things. I didn't really realize how much I've been playing until my wife bravely pointed it out to me yesterday. I've neglected far too many other things that I should be doing. I'm not going to completely stop playing, but I've designated certain times for playing. The rest of the week I need to be spending more time with my family and taking care of things that need to be taken care of. I got caught up in trying to do too much in the game, and started treating it like a job. The problem with wow is, there's no end to it. The accomplishments in the game are completely meaningless outside of the game. I was getting a little too caught up in trying to be the best Bobmage in the game. This game thrives on one ups, and being better than the guy next to you. I'm a very competetive person at everything I do, and had I kept it casual (playing only when it was really convenient) I couldn't be great. At first when she pointed it out, I got a little defensive, but after that passed I began to really look at how much of my life it was interfereing with. I've spent almost 456 hours playing this game. I have lots of friends that invest far more hours in a week than I do, and I wonder if I didn't have a family would I do the same thing? Would even more of my life be consumed with getting that next piece of epic gear, or that next progression kill, or higher pvp rankings? At the end of the day, all those accomplishments amount to exactly zero if they cost you too much in other areas of your life. My wife had held back a little about how much of a distaste for the time I spent doing it she really had. She tried to bend a little and point out only the times I neglected other things to play and negociate with me. The problem with that was, I didn't really see the problem. Other people spend just as much time watching TV, or maybe even more, but those same people will turn the TV off, or walk away from it if something else needs to be done. I, as a wow player was getting caught up in whatever task I was trying to undertake. If I was in a group for a dungeon run, I wouldn't log off until either 1) The run was complete, or 2) We got to a place that we couldn't get past and we gave up. I would shun everything else, including sleep. That's not healthy, and it's a bad thing. I took that same attitude with almost all the other accomplishments in the game. Prior to reaching lvl 70, I would set a level goal for a particular day, and I wouldn't stop until I got there. If I had dedicated that much time to anything else in my life, I would be great at it. My golf game has suffered tremendously. The time I would normally try to spend at the practice range took a back seat to whatever was going on in wow. Can you imagine how all of this looks to an outsider who's never created a wow account, or spent a second in the game? We try to justify their lack of understanding by saying "if they played it, they would understand". No, they wouldn't. Because they choose other things in their lives over a silly game. At the end of the day, that's all it is. It feels like more because of the false sense of accomplishment that comes with it, and the fact that it is indeed a "World" in which you can do things that make it feel more realistic than other games. When you get that first piece of epic gear, you get borderline ecstatic, feeling like you just conquered a big goal. The reality is, you're playing a game. The reason other games don't consume so much of our time is they have endings, there's a finality to them. If you play Halo 3, once you've completed every mission in the game, it ends with a cut scene and the story is over. With wow, the story is never over, the accomplishments are never ending. I must admit that it's alot of fun playing wow with friends, but there has to be a line. You have to decide in your own mind that it's just a game. You don't owe the people in your group the time you spend trying to clear a dungeon. If something comes up in real life, and you're clearing trash to the last boss of a heroic dungeon, you don't owe the people in the group more than you owe the people in your life. If real life is happening while your stuck in a game, you're playing way too much wow. I didn't truly understand this, until I was forced to. Addiction? I don't think so, as much as immersion. Addiction is defined as being powerless over something. I have the power to determine how much of my time I spend playing wow and my attitude towards playing it. I now take this quite a bit more seriously. If I find myself not satisfied with playing only two days a week, I'll quit all together. No game is worth more than my life outside of that game. If you find yourself in a similiar situation, give all that I've said here some serious thought. Why are you playing the game? Is it still fun? Do you get mad at other people in the game because they aren't "as good" as you are? That's a tell tale sign that you're playing too much, and taking it way too seriously.

The Smallest Guild

My guild, and by "my" I mean I'm basically the gm, is probably the smallest guild out there. We currently have 4 active players, and about 45 inactives. I'm trying to do everything I can to make it a fun place to level and play, but right now the other lvl 70 in our guild, Azshanas, is saying that we need to start recruiting. She's right, we do. I just don't know how to go about getting good players that are like minded. I basically have nothing to offer them except help with leveling, and a promise of progress in the future. Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do about this. A good friend here at work runs a guild that is currently farming Kara and has asked me more than once to join his guild. I can't do that, I can't leave the only player in my guild that has been there from the begining. I won't do it. I want to see end game content one day, and I want to do it with Azshanas. So you see my conundrum? I have to recruit like minded players and I have to do it quick. I don't want players that don't know how to play entirely, but I don't want someone that thinks they know everything about all the classes and tells people how to play their toons. So what to do now?

Magister's Grand Terrace

I pugged a group with one of my guildies (Azshanas) over the weekend for MGT. We got in a really good group with a paladin tank and druid healer. This is the best combination of tank/healer for this instance as I soon found out. The reason is, some of the pulls are 5man pulls with maybe two cc. That leaves three more elites to tank. That can be very intense at some points.

The first boss is tank and spank basically with a nasty AOE that he does a couple of times after charging from one of the crystals. If you have enough dps you don't have to worry about the crystals as you can down him before he wipes the group, which is exactly what we did. The second boss is the third hardest fight in the instance. He's something like a giant elemental and he spawns energy sparks that have to be killed. If they get to a member of the group that member is going to be hit very hard. If you kill them, they put a debuff on you that ticks for 300 damage and increases your damage output by 50%. Being the only mage in the group I killed the first two that spawned, iceblocked off the debuff and killed the next two as well to get the debuff back. You have to have the debuff for when he gets to 20%. At 20% he spams a chain lightning like spell that hits everyone in the group and must be killed asap or he will wipe the raid. So having that extra 100% damage output is necessary to be successful. Me being the big bad dpser that I am, we got him down first try, and I died right at the end...darn. The boss was down and everyone else was still alive so it was cool.

All of the pulls leading up to the next boss encounter are 4 and 5 mob pulls with at least one caster type and one paladin type. This can be fun as the order of kill must be laid out correctly unless you like your healer dying. There's a witch in a couple of the groups that goes straight for the healer, so she must be sheeped or cc'd. The next boss fight is a fight against five elites with no aggro table. It's basically a pvp type fight against 1 of each of the classes of character. You just have to stay alive and down them as quick as you can. I used every cooldown/trinket I had and only one part member died. The best strategy is to keep moving and stay out of melee range of any of the melee class elites. Be sure to clear the mobs in the two libraries on the sides of the encounter area. Up next is the second hardest pull in the instance. It's a six mob pull that has one of each type of mob in the instance and is very intense.

So we clear up to Kael'thas Sunstriders sanctum, and this is where the six mob pull is. There's a consortium looking mob in the pull that does an aoe that can kill the entire group. It's best to try and kill him first. If you have a priest with you, you can mc the witch and have that group kill her, then cc the consortium guy and the healer, then go after the paladin guy first. It sounds easy, but there's nothing easy about this pull. I can see why they call this the hardest regular 5 man in the game. It takes a good plan and good players to get to Kael'thas. We finally cleared the last pull, btw if you wipe on the pull they respawn immediately so you don't get credit for any of the kills, it's all or nothing.

There stands Kael'thas Sunstrider...the baddest mage in the game. This is a very tricky fight if you've never done it before. The first phase is dps maddness. Ranged dps is essential here. During this phase he spawned fire phoenixes that must be killed by ranged dps. We did it with a hunter+me (firemage). They are immune to fire, so I had to use up alot of mana downing the big birds and the eggs they leave behind. After phase one is done he casts an anti-gravity spell that puts you all up in the air, and three purple orbs float around and follow players doing a huge amount of damage if they get close to you. So you have to continue to dps the hell out of him, and avoid the purple orbs. I had a hard time in this phase as it seems like I was always letting the orbs get too close to me trying to cast fireballs and keep my dps up. We wiped 3 times on him, and time was against us as one of our members had to leave to do guild raids. The last attempt we were doing really well and killing him quickly, then the anti-gravity came and those big stupid orbs start floating around....I was doing a good job avoiding them, then the anti-gravity goes away and we're back on the ground getting back into position, dps is steady, then he casts the anti-gravity thing again and shoots us all back up in the air. Well, I'm still casting and doing everything I can...next thing I know an orb is directly to my left and I have no where to go....dead, next our hunter drops from the same orb, it's down to three and Kael'thas is at 4%. They do the dps job of a lifetime and big props must be given to my lovely guildie Azshanas. Without her going all out the way she did that 4% would have been enough to wipe us. She kicked the crap out of him for that last bit of life.....Kael'tha down, dungeon run success! He dropped the one thing that I was there for...the staff. It turns out Azshanas was there for the same thing. We rolled, she won. Now I have to go back again....but I don't mind too much, I did complete the quest for the epic gem and now have a +12 spell damage gem to put into my fist piece of epic gear....Yay me!!! If you're going to try this instance, try everything you can to get a Tankadin to go along, they are essential to making a few of the fights alot easier!

Karazhan

Notice the title? Yup, Kara....Well a couple of bosses anyway. I was in BGs farming honor working toward getting the pvp staff when a friend of mine that has a guild that's been farming Kara for a couple of months now (and also does ZA) whispers to ask me if I'd like to "run with the big boys". Of course I would. I was the least geared member of the raid. I don't own a single level 70 epic, and I still have a couple of green pieces of armor. Since this group has Kara on farm it really wasn't that big of a deal to take me along to down a couple of bosses. I was summoned to the stone by Makapuno, (raid leader and MT) I had to stop and take a look around for a second as this was my first trip. Very cool place, looks kinda spooky... So I follow the two that summoned me to my first boss fight in Kara. The Opera event is what I get to see first. Very cool! We get the big bad wolf boss. For those of you that don't know about the opera event, you can get several different boss encounters for this fight. We got the big bad wolf, which would have been fun, except this is my first time to ever do this fight and I didn't exactly know what was going to happen. I got turned into little red riding hood and the wolf killed me, immediately. I didn't even get to cast one fireball...darn it. So I sat there dead watching the rest of the raid kill the wolf without me. Oh well...nothing drops of significance, but I did pickup my first two badges of justice. Yay! It was decided by the raid leader that we would do Curator next. We go through some stuff, out of Kara, and up to another door and enter. We clear all the trash that leads up to Opera and it's fun. I'm having a great time firing off my best spell rotations, managing my mana, and just doing all that I can to help the raid. We get to the room where Curator is. We clear all the trash that leads up to him. The raid leader puts me on adds with a couple of other ranged dps and casters. He makes the pull on Curator, I wait for the adds, we DPS down the adds fairly quickly as they come out. Then I'm instructed to unleash the fire fury on Curator himself. So I do....now I haven't read too much about this fight, so what flashed on my screen after popping combustion, my insta-damage trinket, and downing a damage elixr blew my mind! I just crit Curator for 11k. No way, I couldn't have. So I stack a couple of scorches and load another fireball....bam! 11.2K. Can I possibly do it again? Stack another scorch, pop my other trinket, loaded fireball....bam 10k. I didn't know it right then, because I didn't know much about the fight, but when he phases to his shadow like form he takes wayyyy more damage. I realized this as my next spell cast only hits for 1400...It was still very cool to see those numbers though. I was told before I entered the raid that the only way I would get a drop is if no one in the guild needed it...turns out that was a lie because I wasn't told that by the raid leader, just some jerk that's in the guild. Nothing dropped for me, but I was told that no other clothies in the raid needed anything that dropped off of the two bosses we fought. That's just my luck. I did however get to DE and roll for a void crystal, and I won! What I'm going to do with this void crystal I have no idea, but I've got one. Maybe I'll start leveling my enchanting and use it on something cool....?? Well...that's about it for now. I'm supposed to go back to Kara if they don't have a full group tonight. That's going to be alot of fun. Can't do Prince because I'm not geared enough...but I can do everything up to him (so Maka says). I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Hit 70

Hit 70 over the weekend and got my flying mount. Yay! Now I'm stuck with making a decision about what to do next. I need to farm honor to get the pvp staff, but I also need alot of rep with different factions. I went over the Caverns of Time to do the Dark Portal quest and ended up running Black Morass 4 times. I'm now honored with Keepers of time and was able to get the enchanting recipes that I wanted. Yay me! Now I'm trying to run Shattered Halls and Shadow Labs to start building rep with all the factions that I can. In between all of this I'll be doing bgs to get that staff. Wish me luck as I try to get the gear together to do my first Kara run.....

68 YAY!!

Hit 68 over the weekend and parked bobmage up at blade's edge. I like Blade's Edge for the kill quest(s) I've done so far. I like quest that require a certain amount of killing intead of drops. It always takes too long to get the drops done. The quests I've done in Blade's Edge have mostly included killing the big ogres. I like killing them, it makes me feel like my mage is very powerful to down such a big dumb enemy. Though most of the quest I've done so far are below my level I'm still getting decent exp and will continue in Blade's Edge until I reach 69, then I'll decide what I'm going to do next.....Bobpally hit 35 this morning in Arathi Highlands. I'm going to try to stay in the Eastern Kingdoms all the way to 68 with him. I don't like the Kalimdor stuff very much. I'll keep you posted on the cool new abilities I get from leveling my awesome pally....

67 and Counting

Hit level 67 over the weekend by doing Mana Tombs again. I got a nice pair of boots out of there from the last boss as well. I don't think I'll have them very long, but they're cool for now. I guess it's time to go up to Blade's Edge which I'm not looking forward to. It seems like every time I have an area figured out I've leveled out of it and have to move on. Oh well....Bobpally will be getting alot of playtime this week as I am resting bobmage to get that coveted double exp. Bobpally is 32 right now and on the cusp of 33. I'll try to run him through SM as many times as I can to get the crusader mail set even though I'll be changing to plate at aroung 40 or 41 by doing as many ZF runs as possible. Several of the guild members are in Outlands now which is really cool. I like helping my fellow guildies and getting some help in return.....I'll post Bobpally's progress tomorrow....

Ring Of Blood

There's a quest in Nagrand up north called "Ring Of Blood" where you have to fight 5 elites in a row to complete. I got whispered by someone I've never played with before asking if I wanted to do the quest. I wasn't doing anything of importance so I said "sure". So I met up with the group of 4 (which is basically required to complete the quest) and accepted the first fight for the quest. The first elite is basically a tank and spank fight. Fairly easy, the second fight isn't too much harder. Two elite "twins" spawn and you tank and spank again. The third fight is against something that looks like a void spawn who hits hard but doesn't have much hp. I don't remember the fourth fight very well except that it wasn't much harder. The last fight however is a tough one if you're not paying attention. It's against the shaman ogre standing next to the quest giver and he puts totems down as well as heals himself. The trick to the fight is dps never pulling aggro and downing totems quickly. He heals himself several times in the first phase, and he also hits pretty hard. It's best to have a tank stay down in the pit with him and make sure they're always in melee range. The second phase starts after you kill him the first time. He is rezzed and it starts all over again with him enraged. Dps has to work quickly to down him before your healer runs oom, the first time we fought him I didn't expect the rez and was caught a little off guard as were we all. The second fight went alot smoother and we were able to take him down. The reason I made a post about this is for mages the quest yields a very cool staff that you will probably keep until lvl 70, so if you can put a group together for the quest make it a point to do so....

Mana Tombs

Got a chance to run Mana Tombs over the weekend. It was Bobmage, 2 priest (one lvl 70) a druid tank (66) and my old friend Miam (64 undead warrior). Mana Tombs is an interesting fairly short instance. The first boss is the hardest imo because of the knock backs and when he goes into shadow form and reflects all the spells back at you. We one shotted the first boss, but lost a couple of people in the process. Then we wiped on a trash mob pull because we weren't ready but our tank was. We wiped a couple of times, but never on a boss. It was a pug, and one that I was asked to join by Miam. Miam generally knows how I play and that I do my best to do my job as cc and dps. The level 70 priest was healing and let the tank die more than once, which was kind of aggravating. My armor doesn't like melee damage very much and it's getting to the point that it costs alot of gold to repair. I whispered to the priest to please not try to out dps everyone and keep the tank up because I'm a completely broke enchanter/tailor that can't afford to repair his gear. He laughed and agreed that he wouldn't cast anymore damage spells. If you present a problem to someone in your group, always appeal to their kindness or sense of humor. If I had told him to stop casting damage spells and healers should heal, or something along those lines...he might have taken offense to it. No one likes to be told what to do, so it's just easier if I appeal to him and his sense of being able to help someone else. Anyhow....after that we didn't wipe anymore and I think we clipped along nicely. Nothing dropped that I could use...darn it. I did get another prismatic shard though. I have 4 now and counting. I was thinking about puting them in the ah, but I'm probably going to need them later so I'll save them. If you're going to run Mana Tombs and haven't yet, make sure you have a tank that knows the fights and what he's doing. The first boss can be frustating if you don't have enough dps as well. When he phases into shadow form....don't cast spells at him unless you like taking damage from your own spells. Keep your back against a wall and cast from range if you're a caster. The second boss i don't remember too well because we downed him so fast. It was basically a tank and spank fight. The last boss was fun. I had the job of burning down the adds before they could become a problem, and that's just what I did. If you take down the adds before they change the fight is very easy. If you don't stay on the adds they change forms and can do alot of damage. The trash mobs are fairly straight forward fights. Almost all can be sheeped, so that makes it a little easier. I will be running this instance again, as well as crypts. Lots of fun!!

Coilfang Slavepens

I got Bobmage and pugg'd a group for Slave Pens yesterday. I ran with a warrior I know named Miam. He's an undead warrior that really knows his stuff, even though he's only lvl 61. I also enlisted the help of a holy priest friend of mine named Warkrac. He's just fun to run with, he's always doing something out of the ordinary. The full group was bobmage (fire mage) 2 holy priest, 1 warrior (tank), and a warlock. (demonology) I found that in this instance the hardest boss to kill is the first one. His stupid totems bring up his suviveabitlity quite a bit, so by the end of the fight I was oom and had to use evocation. Of course I lead the way in the dps dept, but never pulled aggro in a single fight. That's the key to being a good dps mage. You have to balance your attack to make it as easy as you can on the tank. We ran pretty much straight through without too much trouble. Two of the drops off of the bosses no one needed so we disenchanted and rolled for the small prismatic shards. I won both rolls! yay! I'll be putting those in the bank for use at a later time. I still haven't bought my swift mount, I should be farming gold for that....but I am more focused on lvling than farming right now. I'm going to try to run underbog this afternoon, and then it's on to Mana Tombs. I've made one attempt at Mana Tombs, but with the group we had it was just impossible to get it done. We couldn't kill the first boss because of a lack of dps, and our healer was having a hard time keeping our tank up. No big deal, I'll just have to go back when I get a little higher in the lvling dept. I should be able to get 64 this evening if I really work at it. I'm trying hard to get all the people in my guild to lvl their characters so we can all run together and really start working to see how well we can play together. I like all of the people I've recruited, but it doesn't seem that they are lvling as fast as they could. I'm not upset about it or anything, but I would like some of them to get to oulands so we can all work and play together to get to 70.....This is the time when we need to be running all of these instances together to learn all of our roles and how to work best together, so when we all hit 70 we can do the heroics and actually have a good shot at getting those coveted badges.....

Scarlet Monastary Graveyard

Over the weekend I spent quite a bit of time on Bobpally doing pugs for SM GY. I love tanking! It's so much fun to tank instances. At this low of a level it's not as hard and there's not quite the pressure. I love the fact that I can aoe and hold targets 3 and 4 at a time. At first we were c.c.ing one or two of the mobs in the groups that we were running into, but I kept running oom from lack of damage taken. So I stopped the cc and just took the damage so I would actually get heals often enough to keep some mana. Our healer was doing a great job of keeping me up without expending too much mana, and we ran through the instance with absolutely no problems. What fun! I'll be spending my time on bobpally over the next week while I'm resting bobmage to keep the dbl xp up. Leveling requires so much less playing time while rested. I'll be playing bobmage to 64 in the next two days, then resting him again to 65. I know I should just knuckle down and play straight through until 70, but I get so fatigued doing quests that I don't really enjoy, or looking for a needle in a haystack. Drop quests are the worst. There's no exact amount of time that it will take to complete one. Like that stupid quest that's in Hillsbrad where you have to kill the Yetis and get the drop from them for a rod or sword or whatever. That took two days on Bobmage. What a giant waste of time that was. Anyhow, I'll keep posting about bobpally and bobmage as they make their progress through the wonderful World of Warcraft......

Fire Mage Specs

I had respecced bobmage recently, and was trying to decide what I was going to do. I know I like being a fire mage, so that wasn't going to change. The connundrum was whether or not I was going to go 21 into arcane to get presence of mind. Presence of mind might be one of the coolest spells in the mage's arsenal. For those of you uneducated in the ways of p.o.m., it's a spell that makes your next damage spell of 10 second cast or less an instant cast spell. What this means for the fire mage is, that next pyro-blast you want to cast can be cast mid fight after you've already used it as an opener. This will seriously increase your damage output. The cooldown keeps you from being able to use it in most non-elite fights more than once. You have to give up dragon's breath in the fire tree to get it. You also have to give up some other very nice to have fire talents. After carefully weighing what I wanted to be capable of, and how useful I wanted to be in raids/instances, against the spec build I would have to use in order to get to presence of mind, I decided that I wouldn't get pom. I'm going to roll the 15/46/0 build that I think will put out a sick amount of damage, but not be as mana efficient as one would like. I can manage my fire spells well enough to last in most boss fights I'll be running into. I'll be looking for +spirit gear to supplement my fire spec, and of course find mana giving consumables along the way. I'm almost 62 (less than 50k to go) and I still haven't left hellfire. I'm not looking forward to Zangarmarsh. I hate the way those plant jungle worlds look. Big ugly tree looking mobs? No thanks....but it must be done. Bobpally has definately taken a backseat to my mage. It's just so time consuming lvling from 60-70. At least he'll be rested once I get back to him.....

So much fun So little time....

It seems like the leveling with bobmage has slowed some. Could it be that each level from 60-70 increases xp required almost exponentially? Well, I'm getting to the point that I'm going to have to leave Hellfire for Zangarmarsh. I'm going to try and do as many of the quests I have left as possible before I leave. I should be able to make 62 before traveling next door. I wish there were some more dungeon quests for me as I love to run those instances. Being part of a team really appeals to me. I like having a specific job to do, and making sure that it's done well. Bobpally might be taking a back seat for a while, even though I'm having a blast playing him. Bobmage is getting close enough to 70 that I'm really going to have to focus and get him there. I'll keep you posted....

Bobpally Tanks SFK

Last night I got home late from watching the NCAAB championship and decided I wanted to play a little. I signed on to Bobmage and after about ten seconds decided I really didn't want to play bobmage. I hop on bobpally and LFG for SFK. I find 2 pallys and a druid, that makes 4 players. After a short wait for a fifth, I suggest that we run with what we've got and stay in the LFM in case we can't handle it. I had just dingged 22 and got a couple of new abilities that I wanted to play with. I'm the highest lvl player in the group and suggest that I tank, but there's a 19 in the group that wants me to DPS since I have pretty good gear to do damage for my lvl. Plus I get one of my 70 mage enchanter friends to put chants on my gear. I really wanted to tank, but I'm going with the group on this one and dps instead. About half way through the instance, which we're clearing right through and having fun doing it. We decided (the pallys) to switch rolls every boss so we can all get a chance to do what pallys can do. I loved all of it, but tanking was the most fun. I loved holding aggro on everything that crossed my path. I made a couple of mistakes here and there, but didn't cause any wipes. When I had to do the healing, the tanking pally at the time couldn't hold the aggro well enough and I had to heal the entire party. Not fun, as my mana pool doesn't allow for that right now. It was alot of fun though, and I only lost aggro one time as tank, but got it right back. I'm not sure I have a good spell rotation for tanking yet, but we'll find out tonight as I plan to run everything I can. I need a couple more instances to complete the pally quest for the sword that comes from it. Next up is Tarren Mill and the Sepulcher. I prefer to level in Tarren Mill. I've already done all of those quests and know how to level quickly there. I can't wait to try tanking in SM.....There's just not enough time for both of my characters right now. I love being in Outlands with bobmage, but this tanking thing is new and exciting.....What to do...?

Bobpally Leveling Progress

I played a little on Bobpally yesterday evening. He's level 21 now. I downed the two elites in Ghostlands with the help of a healer, I also completed the Paladin quest that gives "sense undead". Now I have a small conundrum to deal with. To complete the next Pally quest sends me into every dungeon available to me just about, for a sword that's almost the equivalent to the quest sword in Ghostlands. So do I complete the Paladin quest? Damn right I will. I love running instances, I love tanking with my pally, and I really want to do things differently with Bobpally that I didn't with Bobmage. I never did any quests for mages with Bobmage. I just spent all my time leveling with the easiest quests I could find. I'm also treating my professions a little different with Bobpally. I'm leveling them and gathering with mining as much as possible. I plan to be maxed out with both as quick as it's available to me. I'm going to try to be able to make good armor for Bobpally so I'm not as dependant on drops and AH stuff. I'll also try to make as much money as possible off of my blacksmithing profession as well as mining. I only have a few quests left that I have to do in Ghostlands before it's off to the Sepulcher and Tarren Mill. I really liked leveling in Tarren Mill, killing those farmers and all the humans. I have a couple of unspent talent points, I'm just not sure what to do with them yet. I might put them all in the ret tree for now and respec at 30 or 35 to prot to be more effective as a tank. It was nice grouping for SFK last night because I could fill either roll of healer or tank at my low level. I won't have to completely commit until later. It's nice to be Bobpally.....

Blood Furnace

Over the weekend I pugged Blood Furnace for two quests I had. The group I was with was alot of fun. Everyone understood their rolls and played them very well. No wipes, and I topped the dps charts. Though it's not my goal to be the top dps, it always feels like an accomplishment. I did quite a bit of cc and held my cc'd targets down in every encounter. The tank we had (undead warrior) wasn't even marking the targets, but stated at the end of the run that he was thankful for the crowd control and my selection of targets to sheep. We could have probably done almost as well without the cc, but it's always easier on the healers if there's one less target hitting the tank. I'm getting a pretty good foothold in hellfire and running quests without much problem. I even kited a 62 elite back to the Thrallmar camp to complete one of my quests when I couldn't find anyone to help me down him. I died a couple of times trying to kite him as I ran into mobs on the way back to Thrall, but in the end it was one dead elite and one group quest done. I leveled to 61 on that quest and got a nice trinket out of the deal.

After turning 61 I was asked by my GM to help a level 49 hunter run Marudon. I hate that instance, stupid looking mobs and really no reason for me to go there. So of course I went to help out. It was Jushin (60 warrior GM) myself (61 Firemage) and Azshanas (62 shadow priest) plus the hunter. We ran straight through the instance without a problem. Azsh handled a few heals when needed, but mostly we were just careful about pulling mobs and beat the hell out of them with dps. I still despise that instance and other than running guildies through I never step foot in it. Never did it with Bobmage, and won't be doing it with Bobpally. I prefer instances in the Eastern Kingdom. From Deadmines and SFK, to Black Rock Depths. They're just alot more fun for me, I don't like things that look like plants and green shrubs and trees. I like the fire and rocks and molten lava. It just looks better visually, and the mobs look more menacing.

Ramparts

I did hellfire ramparts last night for the quest from there. Very fun. I pug'ed it and found a really good group. The Warrior tank we had was 64 but had just switched to prot spec. I try to do as much cc as I can, but him being new to tanking he was spamming thunderclap and breaking everything I cc'd so I just gave up on it and let him TC all he wanted. We cleared Ramparts in 41mins with a group of mostly 60s plus the warrior. No wipes, and everyone pretty much did their job. The last boss in Ramparts is alot of fun, I might run it again just to down him. Next up is blood furnace. I'm probably going to be doing some pvp for a while to get my honor up, plus I really like killing the alliance. I don't want to turn 61 quite yet as I would be at the top of the pvp food chain for AV until I turn 61. Then it's back to lvling and running instances.

I've been doing alot of enchants for free for people in my guild, and people are starting to expect me to enchant their stuff. Not real happy about that. Especially when they don't bring the mats, or even ask what they need to get the enchant. It's kinda frustrating because they're in my guild and alot of them I recruited, but I wouldn't ask them for adamantite rods for enchanting without at least getting the mats for it. It took alot of money and time to get my enchanting up to where it is now, and I didn't do it so I could enchant people's gear for free. I guess what I really should do is not carry any mats around anymore and make people go get their own from the auction house. I just hate being mean to the guys in the guild when I don't think they know they're doing something wrong. Anyhow....that's my small rant for this week. Did I mention that I really like outlands? It's alot of fun for me right now because it's all new, and I have several friends that are tier 3 and tier 4 geared that will come help whenever I need it. That's nice to have when I have to kill an elite for a quest of some kind. I'll be running Blood Furnace later today to get a trinket that I want....I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Level 60 finally

Last night I made level 60 in outlands. I'm pretty much restricted to Hellfire for now, but I don't really mind too much. Most of the quest that are there are pretty easy and keep you in hellfire. I haven't made a complete Ramparts run yet....I'll probably just pug for it this evening. My crits are hitting for 1900-2100, which is really fun. I respecced my fire last night, only cost 10g and was well worth it. I went into imp scorch to get the bonus damage for my fire spells. I'm now 40 fire, 11 arcane. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go 48 fire to get max damage, or 21 arcane to get to presence of mind. I really like the idea of pom and instant casting pyroblast. With combustion up and imp scorch stacked 5 times then pop pom, pyro, fireblast....ouch. Death to all who oppose the great fire mage....Well except stupid locks....I hate locks in pvp. My new spec build isn't really centered on PVP, but there are some pvp worthy talents in there. Alot of people consider pom a pvp talent, but I can see how it would be useful in lvling, and 5 mans. In instances I usually open with fireballs because of the casting time of pyro it makes the dps for fireballs higher, but with presence of mind I'll be instant casting to pyros and topping the dps charts. (I usually do anyway) I love being a firemage, watching things light up like matches from crits is fun. Burn sucka burn.....

Bobmage PVP

I'm getting so close to 60 that it's time for me to think about what I'm going to do once I get there. I was thinking about doing nothing but PVP for two reasons. The first is, I only need 27 marks from AV to have enough to get a battlemount. The second is that I like being at the top level for the pvp environment I'm going to be in, and because I'm not on a pvp server it's the only time I'm in pvp. I would like to go ahead and earn all the honor I need to get the best pvp gear I can for when I turn 70. In full pvp gear I should be ready for Kara as soon as I turn 70. Also I would be ready for daily heroics in outlands.

Being an enchanter/tailor has caused my first aid profession to suffer greatly. I just noticed yesterday that I was still running around with mageweave bandages. There's two reasons for this I guess. One, I'm a mage and rarely ever bandage. Two, I was using all the mageweave I was getting to level my tailoring, and by the time I had leveled my tailoring enough to go back to mageweave I was in a zone that mageweave didn't drop. Well, last night I took the time to go to Hammerfall and do the training to get the master first aid skill. Then I had to go buy the mageweave to level to heavy mageweave, and next will be runecloth and heavy runecloth. that will be a barrel of monkeys. Now you might be asking yourself why I'm lvling my firstaid skill if I hardly ever use it anyway, which brings me to my next paragraph.

Last night before I realized just how low my first aid was, I attempted to run a pug for Ramparts. I don't mind pugs at all. Usually there's at least one person I've played with before in the group, and I am a skillful mage so most of the time I can make up for any lack of dps skill we have. For some reason unknown we couldn't find a holy, or resto to heal. So I looked up one of my guildies whose a shadow priest but doesn't mind healing, and a ret pally friend for when we got into trouble and needed a hand at the healing thing. So we make our way into the instance and I find out that I'm the only one in the group who had set foot or paw into ramparts.....and there isn't a single person in the group above lvl 61. This is going to be fun. So we make our first pull of a pat that walks almost to the entrance of the instance. I do my cc on my marked target, give our warrior tank a chance to build some aggro before I unleash the fury, and next thing I know then shammy standing next to me is spamming lightning and pulls aggro. We all do this from time to time, so I think nothing of it, and as the mob gets closer to the shammy I throw frost nova, get lucky and only trap the mob that he pulled. The warrior, who happens to be someone I've run with more than once, easily comes to where I've parked the mob and gets the aggro back. We down the first pull with only a slight hic-up. On the very next pull, I do my cc, and again right after our fearless warrior starts his melee, the shammy unleashes every lightning spell and instant cast damage spell he has, and wouldn't you know it, pulls aggro. so I wait again for the mob to get close and frost nova.....this time it's resisted and the shammy is getting wacked about the face and head. I move back far enough that I'm not in the way so as not to crowd the area so our warrior can see what's happening and take action. Instead of running straight to the warrior with his new found friend, the shammy pulls back towards me and away from the guy that can save him. Down he goes, then the mob turns his attention to our priest, I can't let our priest go down just because Shammy the wonder lightning thrower screwed up, so I unleash.....fireblast, scorch, fireball....now the mob is mine, and I look down....sure enough I'm still wearing cloth. I wait for the mob to get as close as possible without getting hit and blink to where our warrior is dealing with the mob I cc'd, but got broke because of the mess at hand. He attempts to pull my mob off, but he's having a bit of a difficult time...so I frost nova again and run. He was able to get the situation back under control after the nova, and the wipe was averted. I'm slightly annoyed at the shammy for getting me hit in the head with a mace by a big retarded thug, but I've managed to survive worse, so I talk to the shammy about when to go all out, and when not to. He makes mention of his omen 2 showing me above him in the threat order and he doesn't understand why he's pulling aggro. I ask him if it's the first time he's used it since the update....then laugh uncontrollably. We agree that omen 2 might not be the best source of info for threat levels at this point, and he says he won't cast a spell until I do. Well, we have several more pulls that go smoothly, and we make it to the first boss. Keep in mind that our priest is actually a shadow priest, but is doing a good job of keeping our warrior alive. First time we pull the boss, I cc one of his adds, our warrior gets the aggro of the boss, and we focus our dps on the second add since I'm the only one with a real cc spell. We get the add down and go to work on the boss, our healer runs oom and we wipe. Damn it. So back we go.....new strategy. CC the first add, put the shammy on the second add, and go all out on the boss with me, warrior and ret pally. The shammy dies, add goes after our healer, we wipe. Ok....this isn't funny anymore. New Strategy. Warrior pulls on the boss, cc the add,me and the shammy will kill the other add while the pally and priest keep the warrior up with alternating heals so he can hold the boss until we finish with the add. Goes just as smooth as I've just written it. One dead boss, one roll for a new sword between the warrior and pally, and I have a hand for a quest I'm working on. Yay!!!! We decide that we're not going any further, we've died enough today and my cloth gear is resembling a 10 year old terry rag. We call it quits. So while we're on this run, there were serveral times that I could have used first aid on one of the people in my group, if only my skill was higher. It would have taken some of the pressure off of my priest and helped overall for the group. So now....I have to go back to Hammerfall to get my runecloth training....yay me. The lesson is...when you turn lvl 35 and can do the quest to lvl your first aid, don't use the mageweave to make crappy gear to d.e.

BobPally

As you can see from my username I have a paladin to worry about now (Bobpally, as you can see I'm real creative with the names here). I rolled a blood knight. Mostly because I'm not an alliance player. I only have one other toon and he's a blood elf mage. Currently Bobpally is level 19 and counting sitting in Ghostlands. He's a blacksmith/miner. I like the idea of being able to gather the things I need to make my own gear, and since my main is a mage I can send whatever gear I can make that I'll actually use to him for good enchants.

I actually rolled a pally because my guild doesn't have a single tank in it (we're a leveling guild atm), and I thought a paladin would be a fun class to try to learn to tank with (thank you Honorshammer for your incredible blog on tankadins, if you're reading this I owe your blog a great deal for the insight into the world of pallys). Also, paladins are the closest thing to caster classes that wear plate armor. Since I'm used to using spells already, I'm hoping the transistion from caster to melee/caster will be smooth. I've already "tanked" my first instance with RFC (Rage Fire Chasm for those keeping score) though I guess that doesn't really count. It was fun, but I never really struggled with keeping aggro and we never wiped. I'll be heading for SFK (Shadow Fang Keep) pretty soon to give my tanking skills a little test there in a couple of levels. I didn't think playing a paladin would be as much fun as it is, but I'm having a blast and I'm only level 19. I've decided to go against the grain with my paladin and level as prot after the first ten talent points go into ret. The reason is, I want to be able to tank any instance at any given time. I need as much practice as possible as I level. It's hard enough to convince people that paladins are viable tanks, but should I convince people to let me tank the group and I screw it up, I've just put them off of paladin tanks premanently. I can't take that chance, as I really want this to work. So the leveling will be a little slow, but it will come none the less. It also helps that I've convinced a friend and fellow guild mate to level a priest with me so I'll have a healer with me as I level. That might make things go a little quicker to get group quest(s) done and find players for instances. As I do different instances and quests with my two characters I'll update here at bobnation. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading as I learn to manage my Bobs and learn new things about each class and the rolls they take on in the game. Until next time, thanks for reading...

BobMage

Welcome to BobNation, A Wow blog.

A little introduction:

I'm a casual World Of Warcraft player. I like the game quite a bit, but I also have a family to attend to, so I don't have as much time to play as I'd like. I currently only have two characters, but I'll be adding to that pool as I finish leveling the ones I have. My goal is to have a stable of Bob characters. Currently on the Uldaman server I have Bobmage and Bobpally.

Bobmage is a level 59 fire mage. He's my main and I love to burn things. Right now I have some of the greens that are first attained in outlands, but other than that nothing really of note. Bobmage is a tailor/enchanter, and something you might want to write down now is: if you want to have gold to use while leveling a skill, don't do this combo. I did it specifically to make and enchant my own gear, of course this being my first WoW toon I didn't know that I wouldn't have time to do that plus level and run instances. I would suggest that if you are going to use the combo, make sure you level both equally as you get mats for one from the other. Also try to keep the gear you are making with tailoring slightly above your current level, this will ensure that you have gear options as you go up should that piece you were counting on from whatever instance you're running doesn't drop. Oh wait, that's for another post.....Back to introduction to Bobmage.....I like being a caster, and my favorite thing to do on WoW is to run instances. PUG's, assembled guild groups, invites from previous players I've run with. I like all of them, they all offer a unique experience. I do my job as a mage in instances to the best of my ability and help in everyway I can. A piece of advice for you guys new to running instances, or don't do it very often. Your tank and healer are your best friends, take care of them and try to do whatever nessasary to make their jobs easy. If they die, you wipe. I see alot of dps class players that don't do what they should in the instances, such as pull aggro on every mob pull, or mess up their cc assignement constantly. Doing aoe spells because they look cool is not beneficial to the group. All that being said, I love being a caster, and firemage. It's fun, it's high damage output, and it's proactive most of the time instead of reactive. If you have to take a dps class for your guild, or just want one for fun, mages are some of the most fun in the game......