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......