A small trike for a big boned troll

Like everyone rest on the planet of Azeroth i did my Bilgewater Cartel-grind and got a flaming sultry trike mount for the trouble. I still think that the engineering bike is way more sexy, but the trike looks awesomely funny with a huge troll in the driver seat. Since the driver is placed so close to the ground, my feet dig a few inches into the mud while i drive.

The grind itself where piss easy. I did marathon run Northrend heroics two nights a row and that got me from friendly to exalted standing with Bilgewater Cartel.

As a bonus i got to smash two flies in one hit, since the grind also generated a lot of Justice Points that will be saved for a few pieces of starting gear in Cataclysm. 

November 27, 2010, 5:46am | Leave a comment: Comments

What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been since the last blog update. I will try to keep the long story short.

The guild made up of swedish IRL-friends went into hibernate once again during the summer. As foreseen. The guild chat echoed like the empty streets of Dalaran on our low populated server. The dead server was now stone dead. 

I had made an pretty extensive bucket list of stuff i could solo with Hensley, to keep me occupied until the break was over. But as the summer turned into autumn and almost no one even logged in on rainy cold days, my patience was over. AK was dead and beyond resurrection. The few active souls that hung in there during the summer and made occasionally Alt-runs in ICC started to transfer or join other guilds.

It was about time for me to find another guild. 

Enter Shellac
After a few weeks of searching and writing a few applies i found a guild called Ice on Executus (EU) that where raiding hardcore, but only three (!!) times a week. This is extremely rare and made me really happy, since that was a schuedule i could keep up with as a father to a one year old kid and with a hectic real life in the background. The only problem was that Ice where already on LKHC25 and had all other hard mode bosses (11/12) on farm. I was pretty far behind with gear and had no experience of hard modes in ICC. But i tried my luck and wrote the longest guild application i ever written to convince them to bring me aboard.

After a long dialog with the management they where interested/convinced to give me a trial spot in the raiding team, but not as a Blood Death Knight - they wanted my under geared Protection Paladin. *doh*

I transfered over to Executus and quickly became a part of the raiding core. After a few weeks i was geared to the teethes with shiny i277 epics and we where plowing through ICC25-drake achievements on hard mode (for the challenge!). Everything went smooth as butter except the king himself. Fast forward a few months and here we are - still busting our asses on the bastard. A lot of people have quietly given up and even though they still show up for raids, it has become painfully clear that we might won´t make it before Deathwing tear Azeroth a part. Right now it seems like the only progress we make is - backwards. /sadpanda 

The Return of the Troll
With only a few weeks to go before Cataclysm, old-time friends and hibernating guild mates have started wake up from the slumber and are reactivating their accounts once again. My old 25-man guild have disbanded and reformed into a smaller and more cosy 10-man guild made up with only real life friends - which sounds very appealing! I miss playing among IRL-friends and i miss my grumpy troll. So, like a an teenage girlfriend rebound, i am planning to return to my old server and my friends. The best thing: they need a tank for the setup and i can pretty much pick any tanking class i want to do the job. This means that i can and probably will return to my tanking troll (or continue on my paladin if i change my mind in the last minute - again!). The only bad news is that they insist on staying on the low populated RPPvP-server that i hate passionately. But you can´t have everything, it seems. 

November 24, 2010, 6:38pm | Leave a comment: Comments

Finally some progress!

Finally a well deserved high pitch echo of nerdscreams on Vent!

The blood that floats in Crimson Halls are no longer ours. We have been stuck at Blood-Queen for a while. The mechanic for the fight is not very complicated, but requires some focused raiders to not fuck up the bite rotation and spread out and stay alive during air phase.

We have had the fight for a while (we have been killed by the enrage timer several times), but since we lost/kicked (good riddance btw) a few raiders we have had trouble with getting our raids full. With some fresh blood in our setup - we are back on track. Feels great! 

And, oh btw, we downed Lich King in 10-man. Which means that we will start doing some heroic 10-man raiding this week. 

March 29, 2010, 5:29am | Leave a comment: Comments

There is an old (?) swedish saying that goes something like this; “trägen vinner”. It means that those who persist and never give up will in the end succeed. And so i did, i never gave up. After almost one year of weekly egg hatching i was about to give up my hopes on ever cruising the skies over Northrend on a Green Proto-Drake. But today lady luck smiled on me when i logged in sick with high fever to inform my guildmates that i was not able to join tonights raid.

February 25, 2010, 9:53am | Leave a comment: Comments

After a nasty and unfair 5% wipe last reset we where back, fueled with revenge, to nail the chilly dragon Sindragosa. All decked up in Frost Resistance and a anti-magic unholy spec (6% less spell damage taken, 24% stronger Anti-Magic Shell and Anti-Magic Zone), i was ready to soak those Frost Breaths like there was no tomorrow.

And i did. My heart almost stopped when we reached the last 5% percent. She was hitting me like a truck (full of magic!) and each one felt like it could be the last. Ventrilo went silent for a few seconds, everyone hold their breath, before the nerdscreams filled my headphones. Sindragosa went down.

All wings in Icecrown Citadel are cleared! Which means, that the one year plus journey is coming to an end when we face Arthas next week. I am so excited! I even had to pay him a visit and take some RP-screenshots when he is sitting in his frozen throne.

And, Oh by the way, i played unholy through whole ICC tonight without any issues. I just made sure i got tricks for single target threat. On some huge AoE packs (like the pulls before Sindragosa) i even beat the DPS in damage done. Fun times.

The last couple of weeks i have tried every single valid tank spec for Death Knights. 2H and DW Frost (slow/slow, slow/fast, fast/fast) with and without haste buff and Acclimation. Survival Blood (Spell Deflection, Rune Tap etc), threat Blood and DRW Blood. Unholy with and without AMZ and Magic Supression (and with and without glyphing for DnD).

And quess what; all of them works just fine in ICC.

It all comes down to your gear level, raid setup and knowledge of the encounters. So, take those math crunching guys (no pun intended!) with a grain of salt and pick a spec that you like to play. Personally i really enjoy DRW Blood! Pure fun to pop the rune blades with tricks buff or use it while kiting the ooze in the Rotface encounter.

February 17, 2010, 6:16pm | Leave a comment: Comments

“Has the Edge gone dull?” True til Death / Chain of Strength (a 24 min hardcore history lesson - by Hensley).

It certainly has not gone dull.

In fact, it has never been sharper. As Hensley last night got the final quest item from Rotface to craft this axe from hell. Shadow’s Edge is mine. I doubt i will be able to upgrade it to Shadowmourne, since i am second in line for those shards and i don’t really know how long we will farm ICC after Arthas and hardmodes are down.

But it does not matter. The death knight-ish look of it and the slow attack speed makes me wanna wield it forever (well not really, but hey, until Cataclysm at least).

The nasty looking axe was not the only thing i got yesterday. I also got a pair of new bracers, a cloak filled with armor and the exalted version of the Ashen Verdict ring.

Oh, by the way, we made some progress in our 25-man raid. Putricide bit the dust. This means we can focus completely on Crimson Hall on sunday. Good times!

February 12, 2010, 8:45am | Leave a comment: Comments

Yatta! Say hello to Hensley the Diplomat. A fancy title for a fancy death knight!

I completed my first goal of the year much faster then i expected. Sporeggar and Mag’har was easy, but grinding rep with Timbermaw Hold was slow. Mainly because i did not read a guide before i started. If i had read up on the repgrind i would have known better and saved all quests until revered. Since after revered those small furballs stop giving rep for each kill. That means i had to grind feathers from revered to exalted. Gosh, but now i am done with goal number 8 on my list!

Next up: 9: Get exalted with all cities for the Crusader and Ambassador-titles.

January 08, 2010, 10:00am | Leave a comment: Comments

Right before the raid invite i got the last Emblems of Frost and bought my tier 10 gloves. This gave me the 2-setbonus and the opportunity to try out my Anti-Magic/AoE Unholy spec in a live raid environment.

On a side note: i am not a big fan of theorycrafting, all numbers, spreadsheets and simulations gives me headache. I rather go out and try things until they make or brake.

The setup:
1: 2-setbonus from Tier10 gave me 20% stronger Death & Decay
2: On top of that; Death & Decay-glyph gave me 20% stronger Death & Decay
3: Unholy-spec to boost AoE-damage

First field test - Icecrown Citadel 25-man:
Wow! The gear setup and spec simply pwned on the raid trash. I finally feel that i can keep up with the paladins in AoE-threat, but the best part is that i don’t have to tab around like a maniac on amphetamine to keep threat on each individual mob.

AoE-tanking fights like Gunship Battle (add portals) and Lady Deathwhisper became easy as hell compared to previous runs with Blood/DW Frost. Pure win!

I even tried the spec on Festergut since it’s a magic heavy fight. I was a bit worried about the single target threat, but since we run with good rogues (i love you!) that always Tricks n Trade the tanks, threat was not an issue at all. I felt that improved Anti-Magic Shell and Anti-Magic Zone where lifesaving with all the shadow damage flying around. Especially during the third inhale when Festergut gains 90% attack speed and damage.

Second field  test - Heroic dungeons:
Big chain pulls has never been easier. It’s paladin-easy! Pure love.

January 07, 2010, 6:01am | Leave a comment: Comments

Today was a good day. My fellow co-tank Blyerts came over with his daughter to hang out with me and my son. After eating some extraordinary mouth melting vegetarian Korv Stroganoff with rice for lunch, the kids finally crashed and took a nap in my bedroom. Yatta! This meant that the dads could drink some coffee and discuss tanking uninterrupted for at least one hour. Happy hour of the week!

We started off by preparing ourselves for the three new bosses that will be unlocked in Icecrown Citadel. Festergut and Rotface does not look too complicated. But it seems like there will be plenty of magic damage hitting us in this wing, so i am wondering if it might be worth picking up Spell Deflection in the Blood-tree or just get an anti-magic Unholy tanking off spec (with AMZ and improved AMS). Other then that, effective health and armor will still be king when choosing between gear for those bosses.

I am pretty confident that our guild (AK) will down Festergut and Rotface during the first reset. But Professor Putricide on the other hand looks like a real challenge with a lot of coordination to master. With only 10 tries each week, it should be a nice server-first race and with our current setup i think we might have a chance.

Hello Mr Festergut, you might just be ugliest boss in the game. And thats good. It will be a pleasure to down you every single week months ahead from now.

Emblems of Frost pick order seems to be the topic of the week on the interwebz, so we discussed our plans and did some research with a little help of Chardev.org. At the moment it seems like upgrading my item level 232 tier 9 gloves to tier 10 is the most effective upgrade. It will give me a nice threat boost for AoE-tanking (2-setbonus gives 20% stronger Death and Decay) and it allows me to use my Onyxia-tankhelmet (item level 245) that are collecting dust on the bank. Those two upgrades give me both more stamina and avoidance then picking the trinket. So this one was easy. I will probably go for the trinket or the EoF-belt once i collected 60 emblems again.

The 2-setbonus from tier 10 will also open up the opportunity for an awesome AoE-tank spec. 20% stronger Death and Decay combined with the DnD-glyph (also 20% more damage from the same spell) should generate insane AoE-threat. So, going with a anti-magic (AMZ and improved AMS) Unholy spec with this gear (and glyph) should be an strong spec for trash, heroics and magic-intense bosses in ICC. Fun times ahead.

It is always hard to stick to a plan while gearing, since all dropped loot is random (doh!) and the most effective upgrade (of course) always depends on what you wearing at the moment. So it might seem worthless to make a gearing plan, but it still gives you an overview of your current setup and an clear(er) view on what to prioritize.

On the gold making side. The rare quality gem market has crashed over night on our server. Deep under cutters are destroying the market at the moment. Instead of buying them out or try to push them out with even deeper undercutting, i will just avoid the market for a while and let them fight each other. In the meanwhile i will save all my gems and continue to make a living out of glyphs, bags and scrolls.

January 05, 2010, 1:26pm | Leave a comment: Comments

Beware, a new era of terror, plague and death has just begun in the Emberstorm battlegroup.

Hensley lost his mind and bought PvP-gear for all (200+) Emblem of Triumph and have entered the PvP-scene with no clue how to play and what to expect.

I never cared about PvP at all and got minimal experience from both battleground and arenas. I tried some 3v3 arenas in the first season with my rogue (Soviac <3) but did not manage to achive anything other then grind some welfare points every week which i finally spent on a set of swords (which was crazy by the time and better then anything i could obtain in PvE at that moment).

But time is changing and so is Hensley.

Right now; some hobby-PvPing for achievements and spontaneous adrenaline rushes on PvP-weekends seems more fun then spending emblems on PvE-gear that would rot on my bank.

The PvP-spec i am currently trying out got all the fun talents (Corpse Explosion, Desecration and Anti-Magic Zone) that i never are able to pick up in a normal tank or dps-spec.

Unholy PvP (with Lichborne)
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight#flc8jpZ4-52ylQ,SHF3eO,10958

January 03, 2010, 7:05pm | Leave a comment: Comments