WTF? RUN!!!

Wow multiboxing on hold.

2008-12-11T23:13:00.000-08:00

I've decided to Singlebox WotLK, and just mainly do raids with my Deathknight.

I have taken up Eve Online, where i box 3 accounts for now. It's an interesting game with alot of potential. I needed something new, and Eve has provided me with that. This blog will no longer be updated frequently. It's been fun though, and well worth the time invested.

Instances in WotLK Expansion: Drak'Tharon Keep

2008-09-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

Drak'tharon Keep is a Troll stronghold between the Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak zones. Recommended level is 74-76 or anywhere around there. For multiboxing it will be fairly easy I think. A couple of thrash mobs have a void zone ability that hurts alot, but these mobs can be nuked down pretty fast. Other than that you have some thrash towards the end that will constantly fear one character at a time. Final thrash pack is 2 of these mobs, and dealing with the constant fears could be tricky for non-shammy teams.

The instance has 4 bosses in normal. Trollgore is the first boss. A very simple tank & spank fight. Possibly retuned since I was last there. He will occationally call 2 adds to his side (I cant remember if we killed them, or the boss himself killed them) but they die rather fast and the boss will do a Corpse Explotion spell on them. When I grinded the instance this encounter was trivial and we never even got close to wiping.

Novos the Summoner AKA "Undead Aran" is the second boss. When you approach him you'll start an event and alot of adds will come swarming in. They are easily killed and only a few of them are elites. The boss has no aggro-list, but he was tauntable when I did the instance so I was able to absorb alot of his spells (Deathknights are great at absorbing magic damage). This could have made the encounter feel easier than it really was. Again, we were nowhere near wiping in any of our kills, so a simple nuke strategy is probably the answer. I would compare him to Omor the Unscarred, final boss of Hellfire Ramparts.

Edit: I hear they have changed this fight since I was in there, so I'll have to redo this boss to see whats different.

King Dred, the 3rd boss, is a T-Rex which to me felt alittle out of place in this instance. It's a simple tank & spank fight with aoe fears.

Final boss is interesting. A 2 phased fight. The Prophet Tharon'ja phase 1 is a tank & spank phase. When he's taken some damage (20% if I recall correct) he will change form and change all players into skeletons. In skeleton from you're basically a melee unit with some skills. Taunt, heal, shield, and you can rotate tanking him. Since all skills will be the same on all characters he should be easy for a boxer. You might wanna use the taunt skill individually on your characters.

Overall Multiboxing rating: Easy.

Instances in WotLK Expansion: Azjol Nerub

2008-09-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

First a couple of words on the status of Deathknigts and tanking. In recent patchest DK's damage, and particularly aoe damage, has been severely nerfed. Overall aoe damage is down by 60-70%, and main skills (Blood strike, Scourge Strike, Obliterate etc) have been nerfed as well. It's a good change, but right now the DK feels alittle underpowered. Frost aura have been buffed though and you get a nice 10% hp bonus as well now. Right now my DK is level 79, and has 20.000 hp and just over 18.000 armor unbuffed. Gonna start checking out heroics alittle later, but I don't have much time to play beta at the moment.

Right. Azjol Nerub aka "The Spiderkingdom", home of the Nerubians. This is a huge underground complex, and the first instance is only part of the experience this world has to offer. None of the thrash mobs are anything to talk about, although some spiders will web one character, and you have to "kill" the web to free the trapped character. This first instance, which is suitable for characters of level 73-75, has 3 bosses. One of them our good-old friend from Warcraft 3: Anub'arak.

The first boss is called Krik'thir the Gatewatcher, and has 3 groups of guardians before him, which when aggroed, will come at the party one group at a time. No need to pull anything beyond the first pack you wish to kill, since this initiates an event, and the 2 remaining waves will come at you, one by one, after the first one is dead. One of the 3 thrash mobs in the packs have an annoying aoe-fear/horror spell, but most boxers should be well trained in dealing with fear effects. The boss itself is a straight forward tank & spank fight, with alot of small bugadds coming in waves. Consecrate, death and decay, or even holy nova will take care of those adds fast, and they're mainly designed to annoy your healer. An easy fight for most groups once you got the sequence of events sorted out.

The second boss is a huge spider called Hadronox. This boss also has an event to it. 3 packs of thrash needs to be killed, and each pack has 3 mobs. 2 weak spiders and 1 stronger unit. The large unit can knock the tank into the air, but it's nothing serious as long as you have disengaged follow on your tank (if you have one). You will have to deal with some more adds that continue to come at you, while killing these 3 packs, but they are easy. After they are dead the main boss will come up, while a number of smaller spiders will try to kill the boss (civil war inside Azjol-Nerub?). The boss will need to kill all the smaller spiders before you engage it, since it will heal itself whenever one of the smaller spiders die. If you pull the boss and get the adds as well, you're in for a long fight. First time I was there I just steamrolled down and aggroed everything (hey...DK's were supermen back then). We managed to hold out for about 10 minutes while the boss just kept healing itself when the smaller adds died, but then the healer was out of mana and we wiped. Lately they have reduced the amount of adds in the fight, so you can engage the boss much faster. Once again, a simple tank & spank fight.

Anub'arak is the 3rd and final boss of this instance. He is the hardest challenge, and the encounter will probably be tough for new and/or poorly geared boxers. This could be a very hard fight as well in heroic. The encounter is split in 2 phases. A tank & spank phase, with some movement, and an add-killing phase with Anub'arak burrowed underground. Throughout the encounter you will sometimes see the ground ripple, and then an impale type attack will come on that area, throwing any caught characters into the air and doing decent damage. Movement will be important, or the healers mana will be drained fast. When the boss burrows different types of adds will spawn, some ranged, some melee. This makes it hard to gather and tank all of them, while having to dodge impale attacks. The adds should just be nuked down as fast as possible, to prevent being overwhelmed when the boss resurfaces.

Overall multiboxing rating: Medium (Mainly because of Anub'arak).

Instances in WotLK Expansion: The Nexus

2008-09-05T00:46:00.000-07:00

The Nexus is a level 70-72 (recommended) instance located on the island of Coldarra in the Borean Tundra area of Northrend. The instance has 4 bosses, and the it's themed around Malygos and his Blue Dragonflight.

The fastest route is to take the left path from the start. None of the mobs feel especially hard, and there's little challenge beyond aoe-tank & spank style. It will probably be somewhat more difficult at retail when classes and instances are properly balanced.

The first boss on this route will be Grand Magus Telestra. This boss could prove quite tough for an inexperienced multiboxer, and will require alot of individual character control. The boss will occationally use physics against the group and bounce everybody around, similar to what Omor the Unscarred (final boss of Hellfire Ramparts) will do with the tank. Organizing your group after this spell will reduce dpstime on the boss somewhat. When the boss is at 50% health it will despawn and spawn 3 clones of itself. They are easily focus-dps'ed down (or you could go for option 2 and just aoe them down together) and grounding totems will probably be very valuable in this phase, since all are mage-types. When the adds are killed the boss respawns and it's the same as phase1.

Second boss is Anomalus. He is set in an area of primarily magical elementals and the boss itself is similar to Vexallus in The Magisters Terrace. The fight has 2 phases, when the boss is at 75%, 50% and 25% it will spawn an add you will have to kill, while the boss itself is invulnerable. The encounter is trivial in the beta on normal difficulty, and the boss feels very weak and is easily killed.

Third boss is Omorok the Tree-shaper. An ice/stone giant similar to the second boss in Mana Tomb. It's a tank & spank encounter. The boss hits fairly hard and enrages around 20%, your tank will need steady healing at that point. He has one ability to watch out for. Ice spikes will form on the ground and shoot up in the air. If your group doesn't move away from the shards, you will most likely wipe. Feels like a well balanced boss.

Keristrasza, the final boss of The Nexus, is a dragon who has been captured by Malygos to be his new consort. She is quite happy with your arrival, and even taunts you into "Finishing her" when she's close to death. This is by far the hardest encounter in the instance, and feels well balanced to me. First off the tank will take decent damage, so it will need quite alot of healing. The boss also enrages towards the end and does additional damage. The catch with this fight is that everyone have to keep moving. If you stand still you will get a debuff on you that stacks higher and higher until you die. You'll take damage from this debuff which is applied every second, and a stack beyond 5-6 will spell major problems for your healer. Jumping or moving in any direction will remove the debuff. A priest with circle of healing and hots on tank is the optimal healer, but it's quite doable with a paladin as well, if he knows the encounter. After a few wipes 2-3 days ago with a pug, I just spelled out to our paladin "Heal, heal, move. Heal, heal, move." and the next try was an instant success. The boss will randomly do an ice-breath type of ability with aoe damage in a cone in front of it, it can target random party members for this, so spreading out is advicable. You can spread out before the fight starts and just macro dps and heals while doing the occational jump to remove the debuff. An easy encounter if you know what you're doing, and have good enough healing to keep the tank up, with some gcd's lost due to jumping.

Overall multiboxing rating: Medium.

Instances in WotLK Expansion: Uthgarde Keep

2008-08-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

I've only done a few of the instances in the Expansion, but I thought I should start writing about them with a multiboxing perspective.

Uthgarde Keep is the first instance you get to do in the expansion. Level 67 and up is advisable. This is a very easy instance, I would say alot easier than Hellfire Ramparts was as the intro-instance in The Burning Crusade. Location is Howling Fjort and the instance is set in one of the areas of the Viking-like race "The Vrykul". The instance consists of wide open halls, and there's not much of a gear check involved. I tanked it on multiple occations with a level 70 Death Knight in predominantly "uncommon" gear. As of writing this I have not tested any of the instances in Heroic mode, I'm not sure that its even possible at this point in the beta.

The instance has only 1 mob that can challenge the group beyond the tank'n spank level, and that mob is the Vrykul Runecaster. This unit is a melee-caster type which can cast a flameshield on itself with tremendous aoe damage. Sort of like the Astromancers in Mechanar. This is spellstealable, dispellable etc, but a multiboxer would probably just opt for nuking this mob down fast or crowdcontrol it.

There are 3 bosses in here, all should be pretty easy for multiboxers. When you kill the 4 mobs in the first boss' room, the boss aggros. He can cast an ice trap/tomb on any of the party members that is afaik not dispelable. The challenge here is to be able to take care of the boss and it's relatively weak but continuously selfressing skeleton adds, with one of the team (possibly even the tank or the healer) indisposed in Ice Tomb for 15 seconds at a time. 2nd boss is 2 npcs, one caster and one melee dps. You nuke one down, he respawns as an unkillable ghost, but when you nuke down the other one they both die. Doesn't matter which one you kill first, but a shaman team would probably just nuke down the melee guy while grounding totems absorbed all incoming damage from the caster. 3rd boss is a tank'n spank fight with one significant spell being a shadow aoespell which also silences for 3 seconds. With a 60 yard range, this spell is virtually inescapable, and needs to be planned for. Some incoming damage on the tank, but shouldn't be a problem unless you're really badly geared or underleveled.

Overall multiboxing rating: Easy.

WotLK Beta.

2008-08-25T03:56:00.000-07:00

Multiboxing is on hold for now. I'm doing 2 ZA runs pr week for gold (boxing 4 shammies and selling bearmounts). I've been betatesting Wrath of the Lich King for about 3 weeks now. Currently leveling a Death Knight (level 73 as we speak), and I've tested out some of the other classes, and the new talents and spells that are coming. There are certainly exiting times to come, and multiboxing will not be dead after the expansion, but I predict PVP is gonna be much harder than it is today, due to the implementation of physics in certain spells. Classes with new knockback spells and skills are going to be difficult to deal with.

In Wrath of the Lich King I will start out as a singleplayer. I will reroll from Warlock as a raiding character, and I'm not sure I will continue to multibox, time will tell. For now, or at least until all WotLK raid content has been cleared, I'm quite happy with singleboxing.

Summer almost over

2008-07-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

I've been predominantly PVE specced lately. I'm running a ZA bearmount selling team with my shammies. Pretty decent money to be had. Still playing some arena matches, but since season 4 started there's pretty rough competition already in the 1600-1700 rating brackets. Top team on the battlegroup has just over 2000 rating. Plan is to keep playing for a few more weeks, then try to kick it up a notch and go for 1850 rating first, then 2000.

Busy busy...

2008-05-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

With anything but wow these days. Lot of work and overtime, and the little time I've had for gaming has been spent on the excellent Savage 2 (a crossbreed between warcraft 3 and counterstrike almost). I didn't get arena points on one of my clones 2 weeks ago, and I only discovered that yesterday, so one more week needed before I have helmet on all of them =/

I've taken on a paladin for the arena team, and we did pretty well last week. Lost only 4 matches, all 4 in a row vs the same team. Still in the 1700 rating bracket.

Hyjal! Part 2

2008-05-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

Some more raiding screenshots from Magtheridon and Mount Hyjal. Done all bosses in Hyjal now.

Magtheridon
Azgalor
Archimonde

Hyjal!

2008-05-09T02:47:00.000-07:00

Quick trip to Hyjal yesterday. Couldn't be bothered to respec PVE so I could have done alot better with stacked wrath totems and more mana sustainability. Still, good fun.

Rage Winterchill
Anetheron
Kaz'Rogal

S4 on the doorstep

2008-05-06T00:23:00.000-07:00

Pvp Season 4 will start soon. Probably sometime late may/early june. I've not decided whether or not I'm gonna get more S3 gear, or just save points for S4 stuff. The s3 helmet is probably still 2 weeks away, so I may just wait for the S4 version. Only played 20 matches this week (15-5), and we're at 1720 rating now, we have potential for 2000, but I just havent had time to play much. Coordinating a full 5man team must be a nightmare, since me and my healer have a hard time getting together for some playtime.

I got the Battlemasters Audacity trinket the other day, and in addition to the S3 pants I got this week, I'm pretty much dead on at 900 spelldamage now for arenas. Also dinged 10.000 hp unbuffed this week, 11.000 armor and 350 resilience. My team is no joke anymore, and I believe any arena team will have their work cut out to take me down.

I teamed up with Largepants/Bluepants this weekend for about 20 Eots games. We won all matches easily. My 5man shammy team and his 4man shammy team was pretty hard to counter. We had some healing backup as well, and even dedicated flag carriers some games. Good stuff.

Long time, no update and all that...

2008-04-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead =)

Busy raiding The Sunwell with my main, so that's taken alot of my time. We're usually raiding 4 times a week, and are stuck at the Eredar Twins for the moment.

In Boxing news, I've taken on a healer for my arena team. A great druid from my guild. We've played 30 matches so far (not alot of time as I mentioned) and we've broken into 1600 rating territory fairly easily. I've gotten the Scryer Blade of Focus as a new main hand, so right now I'm around 800 spelldamage. Need 20 more badges for the new ring from the Shattered Sun Offensive vendor. Getting the S3 pants in a couple of weeks, and the helmet some time after that. These 2 items alone will boost my spelldamage with about 100.

I also cleared Magisters Terrace Heroic a while back, and have done it a few times since. Vexallus was a cockblock for a while, but I figured out a controlled way of taking him down, shocking his Pure Energies.

Some raiding screens

2008-03-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Went with an alt run and did Maulgar, Gruul and Kazzak. Good fun. Some screenshots:

Kazzak
Maulgar
Gruul

Heroic Update

2008-03-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to take a moment and jot down the heroics I've cleared on the 5 x Shaman team.

The Slave Pens Heroic - Cleared
Sethekk Halls Heroic - Cleared
The Steamvault Heroic - Cleared
The Underbog Heroic - Cleared
The Botanica Heroic - Cleared
The Mechanar Heroic - Cleared
The Shadow Labs Heroic - Cleared
The Shattered Halls Heroic - Cleared

This week I've taken a small break from multiboxing to enjoy some raiding with one of my Shamans as enhancement spec. Really good fun.

QQ

2008-03-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have decided to put arena on hold until 2.4. I'm playing all 5 of my guys, since I only have between 600 and 650 spelldamage. I'm struggling to maintain 1400 rating on Cyclone battlegroup. Most teams I meet are very well geared, despite the low rating, so dropping targets are pretty hard still. Got the S3 chest last week, the Icon trinket and the Vindicator's belt, so now I only need the new spelldamage trinket and the ring from Battlegrounds.

I've started running heroics again. I need 210 badges when the 2.4 patch arrives for one ring and the Scryer spelldamage dagger. With these 4 items I should be able to increase my spelldamage to well beyond 800. This would be a huge upgrade for arenas.

Some pvp statistics:

Alterac Valley: 75% win ratio.
Eye of the Storm: 70% win ratio.
Arathi Basin: 50% win ratio.
Warsong Gulch: 40% win ratio.

Losses in Av are pretty much against premades.

Eye of the Storm is good for boxers. No flags to cap, and so I can focus solely on the fighting. Teams with many bloodelfs (mages/rogues especially) will cause problems with their aoe silence.

Arathi Basin and WSG is all about how the other players react to my presence. If they understand whats going on, they will support the team by defending bases and capping flags, and leaving me to counter the main force of the opposition. In most games however, I will have 1-4 players following me around. They won't even dismount to cap a flag if their lives depend on it. In some ways I understand it, but it's still pretty frustrating.

Vindication

2008-03-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

Gearing continues. I have gotten the Cloak of Subjugated Power, Vindicator's Bracers and Vindicator's boots. I have almost enough badges to get the Icon trinket, which will add some needed spelldamage. Will grind heroics 1-2 more days for the trinket. After that there is only a couple of items I need from battlegrounds, the ring and the belt, and then it will be arena full time. Will get the s3 chest next week. Looking forward to that.

The Slave Pens Heroic Video

2008-02-25T06:27:00.000-08:00

I made a video of how I do The Slave Pens Heroic with 5 shamans. Weighs in at 100 megs, 15 minutes long, and is available at Filefront.

This is a 1-segment run, done in about 35 minutes. Alittle lucky a couple of places, but losing one or two toons here and there. My system is barely able to handle Frapsing, although I'm only running one client on this machine. So this performance is done with 10 frames per second, and imo it shows. Not as smooth a performance as I'd wish to show you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Arenas and 2.4

2008-02-24T04:22:00.000-08:00

A note to self and others: Stay away from arena games in prime time, until the 2.4 patch anyway. I was doing some arenas yesterday and I was totally outgeared by rating boosting teams. I fired off 5 x Trinketed NS+Elemental Mastery Chain Lightning on a mage in one game, and barely got him below 50% hit points. I have pretty much dead on 500 spelldamage on my toons, so I reckon he had a ton of hp and resilience. I gave up after a 7 game losing streak, gotta play myself back up to around 1500 rating at some odd hours of the morning probably. Looking forward to 2.4 patch, when the person with the highest personal rating will decide which bracket the team will play in. Shouldn't meet that kind of geared opposition in the 1400 rating bracket.

While on the topic of the 2.4 patch, I want to touch on the changes to the Shaman class. A lot of people are crying nerf to the addition of a shared cooldown on Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery, and to be honest it's a nerf. Blizzard have a dilemma here. On one hand the elemental shaman isn't a very strong pvp player in solo play, but when you box 4-5 of them the instant, guaranteed critical Lightning Bolt, Shock, or Chain Lightning especially, can be utterly devastating. I'm glad they did this. Lets be honest, boxing 4-5 shamans is riddiculously effective and overpowered in certain scenarios. This nerf isn't even going to change much, but I suspect Blizzard are using it as a statement of "But look, we ARE doing something about it".

They've changed Tremor Totem from a 4 second pulse to a 3 second pulse. This is a pretty decent boost for the soloing pvp shaman, for a boxer it's pretty huge. I like to use 3 global cooldowns for totems both in offense and defense, 4 if I need some aoe fire damage. This isn't very good when you need to press on hard and offensively. With the 3 second pulse, you can probably rely on just one totem (or multiple cast at the same time, if you're plagued by totem snipers), and fear will be removed before you have a chance to run out of range. For a fortified tactic I will only need to use 2 global cooldowns to be in "safe mode" with for example 2-3 staggered tremor totems, 4 grounding, 1 wrath of air, 1 stoneskin etc etc.

More action

2008-02-22T03:11:00.000-08:00

Been back a few days now, gotta work the weekend though, but that's no problem. It's WSG bonus weekend, and WSG is difficult to box with randoms. I got the Gavel of Unearthed Secrets, so my spelldamage is just above 500 these days. Spellsurge enchant on all 5 weapons cost around 2-3000g in materials, but I really think it has been worth it. I have much longer sustain in battlegrounds, and can go longer before needing to drink.

I've played some more arena, and I'm hovering around 1500 rating. Should be able to affort the season3 chest in a few weeks. Still doing alot of battlegrounds, just got the Medallion of the Alliance to dispel those fearbombs I suffer if I cannot get a few totems up. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does the trinket is absolutely golden.

Did the Karazhan prequest with the group. The Black Morass was surprisingly easy for 5 shammies. I popped 2 earth elementals and 3 fire elementals on the second boss, and purged his haste buff. And then just popped the remaining elementals on the final boss. I'm also clearing The Slave Pens heroic every day for the 3 badges. May do some more heroics to speed up the badge farming. The goal for the badges is the Cloak of Subjugated Power, which sells for 60 BoJ.

Gearing some more...

2008-02-13T19:57:00.000-08:00

Been doing some PVP and grinding for gear. It's a blast. So far I've gotten Gladiator's Mail Gauntlets, Gladiator's Mail Spaulders, Gladiator's Shield Wall and Totem of the Void on all the clones. I'm currently working on Lower City reputation to get the Gavel of Unearthed Secrets. It's a decent spelldamage weapon, and I'll probably have it until I get the arena weapon. I've been planning on putting spellsurge enchant on the weapon for some longer sustain in battlegrounds. If I put it on all my characters, it will generate about 50 mp/5. Going oom is pretty much the only thing that kills me in battlegrounds, so I'm gonna add some more mana enchants when I get decent items in those slots (chest, bracers...).

Sure enough the Spellsurge enchant recepy dropped for me as well, while grinding Sethekk Halls I believe. I'm 14000/21000 with Lower City, so in another day I should be exalted. I went ahead and leveled Enchanting before I started the rep grind, so now I got well over 60 Large Prismatic Shards waiting in the bank. Those will come in handy as the Spellsurge enchant alone will consume 60 Large Prismatic Shards, 50 Greater Planar Essences and 100 Arcane Dust.

Have to go away again on business soon, so next week will be pretty quiet.

Oh, and I also played my first 10 arena matches. Lost 8 of them, but it was pretty damn funny. I can see myself bringing a healer on board, because if I can't nuke down 1-2 targets early in the match, I'm pretty much fried. I want to have some more spelldamage before I do that however, since sacrificing 1/5 of my damage will mean alot at this stage.

The big Ding 2

2008-02-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

Shammies are all level 70. /played time: 6 days, 8 hours. The time to level 60 was 3 days and 4 hours. There's alot more /afk time after 60 though, so 60-70 is alittle faster. I wasn't going for any records, but I'm kind of in "all business" mode when I play, so it's been pretty fast levling. Boosting up to level 40, questing from 40 to 60, and a mix of everything from level 60 and beyond.

Played my first Alterac Valley today, and although I met a horde premade team, and lost horribly, it was extremely funny. It took 3 attempts to get the shammies into the same battleground, so I wish we had shorter queues. Average today was 20 minutes, which isn't bad for a normal weekday. The gearing process ahead will probably be slow, but that doesn't matter at all. This is F.U.N!

Spirit shards

2008-02-04T01:39:00.000-08:00

Halfway to level 68 now. Ran out of quests in Nagrand just before level 65. Did the quests in Blades Edge Mountains and some more here and there until I was 66. Voila, 5x Earth elemental. So I figured I could grind spirit shards until I had the helmet, the metagem and the ring, since they're all decent items. So yesterday I grinded 56 spirit shards in total and got the helmet and the metagem. Today I will grind 20 more shards and secure the ring, before continuing on to the 2 endgame zones for the last bit of questing to level 70.

I'm glad theres content at this stage, which actually yield decent rewards. Otherwise the grind to level 67 would have been unbearable. Level 70 will be achieved in a couple of days, and then it will be time for some asskicking in the battlegrounds. Can't wait.

64

2008-01-31T00:55:00.000-08:00

Level 64. Ready to start questing in Nagrand. Have had to grind Slave Pens and The Underbog pretty much since I dinged 63. Boring stuff...

Gievf rested xp

2008-01-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

Shammy team level 61. Slowing down alittle to get some rested xp going.

Whatever...

2008-01-09T05:28:00.000-08:00

Not alot happening. Alittle bored with wow again, so I've not been running instances like I should have. I have the potential to run heroics all day if I want, but I've just not had the motivation lately. Raiding 1-2 times a week with my main, and I've also started to build a Shaman team for pvp. They're currently resting at level 22 in Stormwind. Doing some Stockades runs when I have an hour to spare. When/If I get any motivation back I'll probably kick it up a notch and boost them to 70 to start some pvp.

Shadow Lab

2007-12-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Shadow Lab completed.

The second boss of Shadow Lab is the hardest challenge I've been able to beat so far. The problem is the paladin as a tank. After the first mind control (Time for some fun!) my tank is OOM. And since the mind control phases wipe aggro, getting back in control of the encounter is terribly hard. I made it with potting mana pots and using Symbol of Hope. Really hard encounter for my group. I went ahead and finished my Karazhan attunement quest after The Shadow Lab.

I also cleared The Slave Pens Heroic.

More Instances...

2007-12-26T01:58:00.000-08:00

Cleared some more instances.

The Mechanar (-2nd boss, although I think he's doable in normal)
The Botanica
The Arcatraz

The Black Morass
The Steamvault

The Mecanar heroic.

Planning to do the Karazhan prequest, so next instance will be The Shadow Lab.

The Big Ding.

2007-12-18T01:13:00.001-08:00

Finally, the last one on my team has reached level 70. I've been busy lately, and bored to tears with leveling in Wow. I had to take a break for a while. So I downloaded the trial version of Eve-Online, and had some fun with that. Looking into doing something with Eve as well, but haven't decided on anything yet.

I cleared Shattered Halls as well today. Gonna tie my Hearthstone to Hellfire Peninsula and run this instance for a while. There's some pretty nice upgrades to be had, and the instance wasn't very hard. Some of the biggest pulls were hard. The first boss was kinda naggy, but on the second boss I just had to go all in on dps and heal whoever had the aggro. I wiped 4-5 times on the final boss, but then I got to thinking and came up with a strategy which gave me total control over the encounter. He went down easy.

Busy times now around Christmas, probably not gonna get too much gametime. I'm gonna keep going with this team and maybe (maaaaaybe) make a pvp team as well. My goal was to be level 70 and well established before Wrath of the Lich King, and I feel I've accomplished that. WotLK will be another heavy gear upgrade, so I don't really need the best of the best available now to continue there, so I'm gonna try to take it easy so as not to go bored and quit. That has almost happened a couple of times already.

Total /played time on the slowest toon was just over 9 days and 12 hours. The time might not seem that much, but this has taken around 4 months with planning included. My goal with this team was to try to find the "ultimate" PVE team. A team that could basically handle itself well inside any of the many instances in Outland. Heroic instances should be doable for me soon, still need to upgrade some gear from Shattered Halls, Shadow Lab, Steamvault and the Tempest Keep instances. I'm curious to see wheter it's possible to do well with a "classic" teamsetup in heroics, and not have to resort to "cheezier" methods like kiting and such.

For anyone reading: Have a great Christmas and a happy new year!

More changes

2007-12-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

I've replaced one of my mages with my level 70 warlock main. This gives the group-setup of Paladin, Warlock, Mage, Shaman, Priest. Although boxing 5 different classes could seem difficult, my dps (lock, mage, shammy) behaves in a similar manner. My warlock casting Shadow Bolt (2.5sec cast time), my mage casting Frostbolt (2.5sec cast time) and my Shaman casting Lightning Bolt (2.0sec cast time). Got some more utility by adding the Warlock. Soulstone is great anti-wipe addition, healthstone is great for the tank in those critical moments, and I got the 70 stamina imp buff. My warlock is geared with pretty much the best gear attainable (Black temple/Hyjal stuff) so this adds a formidable force to my nuking and AOE power. I use imp simply cause aggro is a nightmare already, hardly need that 15% extra dps from sacrificed succubus.

Sethekk Halls has been cleared. The extra dps from my warlock allowed me to just nuke the boss down, instead of going for "control", and dps'ing the adds down. I'm back to an awkward work-schedule, so I dont have alot of time to play. Seeing level 70 might take another week or so. I'm almost level 67 with the lowest leveled toon. Will probably just grind some instance until level 68. I assume I'll go quest in the two endgame zones after that. Questing is alot faster xp than grinding when I don't have any rested. It's also alot more fun.

Still trucking!

2007-12-03T18:18:00.001-08:00

Done quite alot lately, but have neglected the blog alittle. Summary of events:

Ramparts & Blood Furnace cleared at level 61.
Slave Pens cleared at level 63.
The Underbog cleared at level 64 (-Swamplord Musel'ek, came back and finished him at level 66).
Mana Tombs cleared at level 64. Wiped completely on Shaffar, but took him down with me. The Ring of Blood completed at level 65. Got some help from another team. Nice rewards! Old Hillsbrad cleared at level 66. Only my tank and healer survived to the end, but hey... A kill is a kill, right? =)

I attempted Auchenai Crypts at level 65, but the first boss proved too difficult for me. Since my dps has cast-time on pretty much everything, this will be a tough battle for me. Got my herbalism and mining maxed out. Thinking about adding Engineering on 2 of the clones for fast travel to Tanaris and the Caverns of Time instances. Gotta say Earth Elemental kicks ass. This one is great for those few times I need an off-tank. Did some questing in Terrokar, Nagrand and Blades Edge Mountains inbetween instance running, since I don't seem to have much rested xp these days.

Oh, and I changed the guild name again. Figured I needed something with alittle more oomph for when I start my PVP team. I kinda stole an idea I saw Bradster mention either on #multiboxing or the forum. He said Ellay should rename his guild "zomg run" (or something like that). So I kinda snagged that one and called my guild "WTF RUN". Now lets see how long I can keep it before GM's start nagging.

So whats next. Well, I'll not try Black Morass yet. I fear the second boss slightly. May have to wait until level 70 with this one. I'll be doing some more tries on Auchenai Crypts. Don't really need anything from this instance, but I want to do it just to know that I could. Also Sethekk Halls should be doable soon. Don't think I will have any problems there.

Tradeskills suck...

2007-11-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

Most of the weekend was spent leveling tradeskills. From 0 to 300+ mining and herbalism on my main (wanted to impale myself on a hayfork 10-14 times in the process). 275 enchanting and 300 tailoring for my healer. I had some time for PVE and did the Slave Pens from start to finish. The second boss hit kinda hard, but it gave me an opportunity to work on hard dps'ing and maximizing aggro with the tank. I judged Seal of the Crusader, then used Seal of Righteousness and spammed Holy Shield and Consecrate. Wicked threat, the boss was glued to the paladin. Frost Resistance Totem came in handy, but this encounter is all about fast and crazy dps. I also made a sort of duct-tape and chickenwire solution to a cast-bar for my mages/shammy, using AG_Unitframes and focustarget. Works pretty well and I've upped party wide dps alot by it. Final boss of the Slave Pens was just a pushover. I dinged 62 on the dps/healer, and my pala tank has just dinged 63. A couple of semi-difficult patrols/spawns, but they're only a problem if I'm noobing and reset focus instead of sheeping and such. I'm curious on how the final boss of The Underbog will be.

Outlands

2007-11-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

I got impatient and decided to go to Outlands at level 58. It's a complete change of pace and I was level 60 after some hours of questing (bombing missions etc). At level 60 I went back to Ironforge and trained new spells and skills, and went back to Outlands to try some instances. I was curious how I would do on especially Nazan since I'd heard some people had some problems here.

Ramparts went really smooth up to Omor the Unscarred. I got owned twice, and after some research found that I'd written my decurse macros quite poorly. Once I fixed them he was pretty easy (if slightly chaotic with the bouncing around and stuff). My first try on Vazruden & Nazan ended pretty bad as I took over 2500 damage (over a period of 1-2 seconds) when the mount landed. Second try I downed them both with relative ease. Slight problem with a oom healer, but I had symbol of hope cooldown ready, so I was able to endure until Nazan was dead.

I then went to Furnace and proceeded to clear this instance as well. Some minor problems with healing aggro (I still suck at utilizing the priests fade and fear spells). Also the dual Felguard Annihilator pulls by the final boss gave me a headache or two. Need to work on iceblock/fear/fade those times where stun and taunt are on cooldown. It's alittle down to luck I guess as the felguards can charge different persons at the same time, and you have no way of taunting both. It needs to be said that my mages are extremely squishy though. I replaced some items yesterday that I'd had since before level 10. My Paladin went from 3500 buffed hitpoints to 6000 buffed hitpoints in one afternoon, so that should speak volumes for the changes that happens when you enter Outlands. Final boss in Furnace was really easy, although I had to reset the first encounter (Divine Intervention) due to healing aggro. But that was just because of sloppy play on my part. One thing that I've found is that having 2 extra ressers can be golden. If the priest dies and I see that I'm about to wipe, I can DI the shaman and save anhk. And vice verca, DI the priest.

Got the instance quests for Ramparts and Furnace done, and upgraded quite heavily on gear, and will continue to do this until I have all that I need from these two instances. After that I will probably run Slave Pens and The Underbog, but I will also probably do some questing since it's quite effective experience. Also worth noting, I did the Overlord quest, and almost wiped here due to totally underestimating him. This was fairly early in the day, so I hadn't upgraded much gear.

Great Success!

2007-11-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

So my new priest has reached the rest of the DPS group and they are level 58 now. My tank is level 60, closing in on 61. I got ahead of myself in the last post, naturally I had to ditch Earth Shield when I respecced the Shammy to DPS. Changing the setup around took a good 3 hours work. I basically had to rewrite all macros, and change the positioning of the clones, do some respeccing and familiarizing myself with the Shaman in the DPS role. Really learning this setup took me the better part of the day on Sunday. Getting the hand of it now.

LBRS has been cleared from top to bottom, every nook and cranny. It's a step up in difficulty from BRD for sure. But with this new and improved team, I only wipe on stupid pulls and "unforseen accidents". I once pulled the entire subfloor with totems (40-50 mobs) in the crack where Bijou the npc stands. One pull next to the Quartermaster mini-boss gave me some trouble. 2xWarmonger, 1xSummoner, 1xRanger and his 2 wolfguardians, but it gave me an opportunity to practice sheeping under stressed conditions. Rule of thumb: Don't Panic. I also have the AOE fear ability that the priest brings to the table, and although I've had little use for it yet, I'm sure it will come in handy later. I find this group setup to be immensely powerful, and as I'm getting smoother with my micro I find that things have sped up. I'm also starting to get that feeling of control and mastery where I do things without really thinking about what I'm doing.

I haven't gone to Outlands yet. Don't know when I'll go, but probably soon. I've had a heck of a good time doing the Old World instances. Wish there was time for a trip to Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul and UBRS, but I doubt I'll do them all. Some proper gearing in Outlands is really tempting. Oh, and I had my first epic drop for this group yesterday. Dwarven Hand Cannon dropped from one of the spiders in LBRS. Great Success! =)

Changes, changes...

2007-11-17T04:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, after running BRS for a while I got really bored with getting my tank Hexed by the Trolls. This caused some wipes and I decided I could not go on having to dodge encounters like the Shadow Hunter boss in LBRS. So I decided at first to add a holy/disc dps priest to my setup, but something was nagging in the back of my head and finally I found out what it was. I went Shammy healer for Tremor totem alone, and I never considered going with priest healer because I (thought) would loose Tremor Totem. The answer was naturally just to kick out one of the mages, respec the shammy to elemental and add a priest as healer. So I did. The priest is level 54 at the moment and I'm boosting him up to the rest of the group which is level 57.

This gives me the setup of Paladin Tank, Priest Healer, Shaman Elemental dps and 2 mages. The bonuses and synergies are off the charts. In a pull I'll be able to use Earth Shield and Power Word: Shield, and Renew on top of that. 5xGift of the Naaru is a sweet backup for those extreme pulls as well. I lost one sheep that I honestly never used, but I also gained a shackle. I will loose some dps due to 2.5 sec casttime on the mages and only 2.0 sec casttime on the Shaman (Lightning bolt) but hopefully Totem of Wrath will make up for that. Now I'll be able to disspell the tank whenever I need. Divine Shield is on too long of a cooldown to solely rely on. I've also gained 2 new buffs; Power Word: Fortitude and Divine Spirit. I'm excited for the changes I've made, it will not impact my playing style at all. I'm alittle weaker in the AOE department, but that doesn't worry me at all.

Level 55

2007-11-06T00:40:00.000-08:00

Turned level 55 yesterday. Pretty much been grinding BRD with the occational detour to Western Plaguelands, Eastern Plaguelands, Burning Steppes and Winterspring. Also did the Jailbreak! quest. Wiped once but survived the second time. The supply room was hairy though and Windsor barely made it out alive. Almost time for Outlands, that's when the real gearing will start.

My G15 keyboard finally arrived. Took half a day to set up. New mouse (G9) as well and with Logitechs SHITTY setpoint mousedriver software, figuring out how to get stuff to work took hours.

Almost 50.

2007-10-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Level 49. Had to go away on business for 2 days, so I only brought a laptop with me. Can't wait to get to level 50 and get some new and powerful talents to play with. Been running Zul'Farrak for a while, also some Sunken Temple. I got what I needed from these two instances, and started doing the first part of Blackrock Depths (Detention Wing). Still need a few items from this area. Bosses include Gerstahn, Lord Roccor and the Arena Event.

Gerstahn has an aoe fear ability where Tremor Totem really comes in handy. I would not have been able to do this boss without it. It's a pretty dangerous encounter with underleveled dps and healer (lvl 48-49). My Paladin tank is now level 54, so I manage.

The Spawning room of Doom in BRD. I cleared the way with my 70 Lock to test aoe grinding this room. So I ran my team (53pally, 48mages & 48restoshaman) down there and did it for about an hour. The result was quite underwhelming, I could do like 25.000-30.000 xp pr hour, and it was horribly boring. Boosting a 4-man team with a level 70 paladin would probably be extremely rewarding though, and maybe I'll check it out. A level 70 character should easily be able to pull hundreds of mobs in one single pull. They only give about 20-25 xp around level 50, and with a level 70 in the group it would probably go down even more, but with the huge amount of mobs one can pull, I can see numbers above 100.000 xp pr hour being possible. The mobs here are level 55 so it could be doable beyond level 60 even.

The Scalpelmen

2007-10-21T05:22:00.000-07:00

Changed the name from "Docsquad" to "The Scalpelmen". Being a member of the WOW Guild "The Axemen", I figured it was a fitting name. Not much going on the past days, been working my ass off (IRL). Should have some time the upcoming week, and hopefully I can reach level 50 at least.

Level 40

2007-10-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

Level 40 achieved. Boosted some with my 70 lock, and borrowed a friends 70 paladin (with tier6 gear) for a day. Cleared Cathedral in 2 pulls: Aggro Mograine and run back to start. Kill off everything, drink up, gather the rest of the instance, run back to start, kill them and reset). Full clear took about 7-8 minutes. At level 40 I did the Shaman "Call of Air" quest which I had put off since level 30, expecting it to take an hour like the previous totem quests. To my relief, it took about 10 minutes. Also ran around and learned the Teleport and Portal spells.

Made a short trip to Uldaman just to test alittle. It was pretty simple (although my mages were only level 40), but I identified some issues I need to work on. My G15 keyboard haven't arrived yet, and it looks like I need it. I need one-touch healbuttons for all the toons, "/assist macros" aren't good enough while actively tanking and dps'ing. Also found that after playing around for a good while on my main, and having to adhere to global cooldowns, it's quite hard to let go of that natural break that the gcd provides. All in all I'm satisfied with how things are going, it seems a daunting task at first to micro 5 characters, but with little practice still it's all coming together quite nicely.

Level 30

2007-10-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Clones have reached level 30. Nothing special going on. Should be level 40 in a few days. Shaman quests are taking up some time here and there. I ran The Stockade for 2 days, from level 15 to 26. After that I tried to run Gnomeregan a few times, but freakin patrols everywhere, and underleveled toons (eating poison AOE everywhere) made it a dangerous place to be. Need to be same level for this kind of environment to work as I had to work hard for aggro with my level 50 paladin. Moved on to Scarlet Monastery, and ran Library once. Didn't much care for patrols and layout, so I went straight to Cathedral. Will boost there until level 40. And I swapped the paladin with my level 70 warlock for some quicker boosts. Wish I had a level 70 paladin to boost cath with.

Have installed a few addons.
Omen & Damage Meters - Not really needed yet.
Mainassist - Check that my clones have correct targets.
Twoboxing Toolkit - Mainly just to relay whispers that the clones receive.
Grid - Party/Raid interface.
Some more...

I also have ordered a new keyboard and mouse. Logitech G15 and Logitech G9. I recently purchased a new keyboard, but found that it didn't like it when I pressed three buttons at the same time, so I had to get something new. I thought why not add some programmable buttons. It was either that or buying an Xkeys board or something similar. The G15 should give me more buttons than I need. I have alt mapped to my mouse thumb button, so in effect all my buttons are dual-use. Just need to memorize the combinations.

Progress continues...

2007-10-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Albeit slowly. Naturally once I got the wow copies, I got really busy at work. My toons are lvl 15 now, and I've done The Deadmines a couple of times. I have preleveled my paladin tank, and currently working on getting him to level 50 (47 at the time of writing this). This will allow me to level alittle faster up to Sunken Temple content, and I will not have to do much outdoor questing. Why level 50? Well originally I was going for lvl 48, but decided to make it 50 due to getting a new rank of consecrate, and the lvl 50 talent Avenger Shield. But also at lvl 48 I get to use the best paladin tanker weapon there is (at least for a good while) the Fist of Stone that drops from Landslide boss in Maraudon. It procs +50 mana, has a 1.8 second attackspeed (great for reckoning), so in addition to seal of wisdom, not alot of drinking should be required until I catch up with the rest of the group.

I have also aquired the Mallet of Zul'Farrak to summon Gahz'Rilla, have made the Staff of Celebras, and have done the prequest for the Avatar of Hakkar. After the pala dings 50 I will be boosting Stockades and Scarlet Monastery, and start working towards Zul'Farrak, Maraudon and Sunken Temple. Having a solid tank will also help ease things along, and prevent wipes due to testing of macros and addons etc. It will also help me settle into a playing style for the group, gradually working on dealing with increasingly advanced encounters. Things are not moving as fast as I'd like, but the few sessions I've had to play sure has been alot of fun.

The Docsquad is born

2007-10-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

Just received the extra copies of Wow/TBC, and have played for a couple of hours. Due to work I have not had much time yet. Level 7. The docsquad consists of a Paladin Tank, 3 mages and a shaman healer. The team is designed for PVE only. My goal is to be lvl 70 and well established before Wrath of the Lich King. Will come back with my setup and further development.