Morkin/Alfragitax is level 80 !

My tank has slowly but surely reached 80, I just leveled on a high note inside Utgarde Pinnacle on the last boss.

Now it's time to level my professions to 450 and park him for Cataclysm, where I will surely tank with him up to 85 or whatever level cap shows up.

Fraps working fine

A few years ago I registered Fraps, but I never really used it, as my machine seemed too slow to play a game and record live videos.

Well, times have changed and the latest fraps ony my PC handles ICC10 video recording just fine.

So last night I tried to record a few fights. This is me acting as the balloon man in the Blood Princes fight. Pretty funny. Not too many keys pressed LOL. Shadow Ward, Curse of Elements, Curse of Agony Rank 1 on orbs and spam Searing Pain (Improved) on Keleseth. Ok, and a deathcoil every now and then and a few dots on the other bosses when you have free time :)





Yes, yes, yes, Iknow my UI is archaic, but I don't really give a damn about UIs.
They must be minimalist, simple to use, have a lot of screen space free of gadgets, and easily changeable.

There are a few addons I have to fix, and will be working on it, one of them being DBM UI gadgets positioning, and the other is a threat warning that works 100%.

Omen seems to stop warning me sometimes, no idea why, and that shit last night caused me to aggro at 25% Rotface and because of the distance to targe, I got melee hit with 45K and bye bye. I remember I saw the aggro near 100% before an explosion, but tbh, after the explosion, I didnt even consider that I would have to bother with it. Somehow my brain forgot to check it and .. Omen didnt warn me.

Now you ask... wait, but on Rotface, it's impossible to get aggro, since the tank will be 100% on Rotface while you have to go deliver Oozes, and have to move from the middle due to explosions and get back. That's true, but that only works if the tank does enough TPS and does not slack. I had even used a soulshatter since we usually enable heroism in the first seconds, which is really painful for me. I mean, I even specced specially for this with -20% threat in Destructive Reach, but even so, I aggro.

But Rotface is not a dps race, so it's your fault, and that's it. That's true. When a dpser dies, it's his or her fault.

Anyway, I saw the Damage Taken meter and... omg I nearly took 0 damage until the melee hit. So that was all in all a not so bad job.

Paladin tanking

Today I tried something new. I've always been using my paladin as holy or retribution, or hybrid, and, being my 2nd oldest toon, it's a shame I've never tanked with him. Besides, he's named the Moonprince, and Luxor the Moonprince, Warlord of the Free, was the Commander of the Free Army, back in 1985, so he must tank !

Well, now he has. I've just completed my first instance tanking at 76, Utgarde Keep (one has to go slow lol).

It's funny, all those spells I never used, like Shield and Hammer of Righteousness, Holy Shield, Divine Plea, and of course, the milk and cream of it all, Avenger's Shield and Righteous Defense, become now handy.

The +defense armour was courtesy of Morkin, his Midnight son(weird..), my absolutely first toon, which is also tanking at 78.

So, after get the hang of it, I'll be able to dual tank these toons frequently in daily dungeons up to 80, making enough money for the mounts, and then probably park them for Cataclysm.

Speaking of which, I checked my /played for Morkin (21) and Moonprince (44).

Naxxramas revisited

Last night I had 2 hours to try and get the Undying achievement. It's been one year since I last went there.
We cleared 2 quarters and 3rd until Thaddius in 1 hour or so...and then the damn mini-bosses were tanked too far from the coils and killed a few. Gaaah, and I had warned to the leader about it.
Got 40 achiev. points while doing the speed-run, and it was fun and unstressed.

Blood-Queen nightmares

This week of raiding, we purposefully set sail for Blood-Queen Lana'thel on ICC25.

We have a few fresh raiders (I wonder how ppl keep entering and leaving guilds at such a high rate, it seems impossible, even on high populated server, to go on raid with 100% familiar faces, there's always 2-3-4 new players every raid.

Well, that usually leads to failure, as we never know what kind of raiders we are getting.

And failure it was. 2 days later, 16 tries later, Lana'thel is stil up. Now that's morale demolishing!

The beast has 59,4M HP. Our best try was 55,6M, we had a few about 55K.
That's 6.3% left. Dps was 167K, so that was less than 22 seconds off the hook, as the dps in the end is highest with everyone bitten.

Causes ? A lot of'em. Consequences: death or mind-control, meaning less dps, meaning failure.

In times like this I like to hail the Guild Master. It needs a lot of patience for an adult to lead a gaming raid to have fun (and progress), and to spend hours watching ppl doing the same mistakes, having to cope with the more excited ppl, with the slackers, with those that are clueless, keep pushing, keep increasing the morale and staying cool. But boy, it must be hard, wanting to yell "f*cking afker get over here now" or "f*cking move, get to the middle" !

Tbh, Blizzard has a role in this crap. The single-slacker non forgiving mechanics, the lag spike non-forgiving mechanics, the trash killing and respawning (we killed trash 3 times), time spent waiting for AFK or D/C (the more ppl in raid the higher the odds of someone's RL or equipment getting f*cked) and generally, the problem that, after 2 hours of doing the same thing over and over, ppl start getting tired ( I know I do ), stressed and then fun goes out the window, replaced by anger against failing players, and in general, loss of focus. I wonder if LOTRO raids are the same.


A few personal tips I'm writing for myself for max awareness + might post on the guild forum for this fight.


1 - First, you should remember what names are in the raid and their roles, if they are melee or ranged, and try to remember their positions in the battlefield during tries. Yep, it's hard with new players every week, and ofc, for the new players.

2 - If you get Swarming Shadows, don't go blind dpsing and stay still for 5 secs!, start moving to the side, and keep moving until it wears off. It drops PURPLE stuff of the floor. *NEVER* run through the middle. That's *NEVER*.

3 - If you get Pact of the DarkFallen, run *IMMEDIATELY* to the *MIDDLE* (forget about finishing that 2sec cast), join the other 2 players and.... *WAIT* until it wears off. Do not just go there, gather and get back. Higher lag becomes a problem here, because 3 persons will keep moving around, and the debuff takes time to wear off.

4- If you haven't been bitten yet, *YOU* have to move. *DONT* wait for the person that is going to bite you to go to you, that's double-DPS loss for him => 60K+ dmg loss.

4.1 - If you haven't been bitten yet, and if it helps you getting to the target (you got whispered) that's going to bite you (use CTRA or GRID or..), use follow. Press F, taking care not to cross the middle of the room (darkfallen might go up), keep dpsing and wait for him to become a vampire and bite you, then return to your place . Ranged are easier to spot, but might be out of range (10-12y?) for follow. There's also a DBM mark on the players.

4.2- You can whisper your target when you are near him, warning him, with /script SendChatMessage("I'm right beside you. It's bite time! ", "WHISPER", nil, UnitName("target")); .It might help melee to know the ranged has arrived. Melee is dpsing the boss with their back to the center, so you get to him stay right beside him, dpsing too, until you get the bite (Essence of Blood Queen buff)


5 - If you are biting, wait for the person that is going to bite you to go to you. But act wisely if you can move to him too because he's not coming, or you're already a vampire, just go or bite someone else. At all costs, do *NOT* become MC'ed. Communicate if needed.

5.1- If you are biting, *DO TAKE NOTICE* of who you are going to bite, because that person is going to loose time going to you and back, so if you bite someone else just because it's easier for you, you are messing up his dps => 30K+ dmg loss).

6 - During air phase, it's survivability mode: Use the healthstone during air phase 2 to keep alive, heal yourself if not a healer, mitigate shadow dmg and stay within a /range 6 no-players area until the Bloodbolt whirl is finished (6 secs, boss sends 3 blood bolts, one every 2 secs).

6.1- If the time to get bitten is during air phase, go into survivability mode. Check your biting target and when it's over proceed. Watchout if he has already bitten someone else(rchat may help). This is the hardest part for me. Move too soon and you'll friendly fire others. Move too late and the biter is in trouble.

6.2- If the time for *YOU* to bite is during air phase, go into survivability mode. Then, target your target and proceed or it you're already in vampire mode and close to the 15sec? timer, bite whoever is near you, dpser if possible, or anyone, just bite anyone but do *NOT* get MC'ed.

7- Have dmg pots handy and use them when told.



My problems:
- I died early once, as a result of going to get bitten by a melee and at the same time of getting bitten (12K damage/bite btw), I was hit with path of the darkfallen from two persons in melee range (3K x 2) 3 times (both were may be too slow to get to middle), so I got 3x2x3+12=30K = death. May be I could have been a tad faster getting back to avoid the last dmg tick but there's so much you can click, as you should only teleport back when you are sure you have been bitten.
- Once I wanted to be bitten by a melee during the Bloodbolts, and I pressed F too fast to go to him, as whisper had come many seconds ago, so we was probably near his vampire time, but I friendly fired others, as he was also close to others. Crap move. Must find a way to fix this: graphically detect when the whirl ends, check if the 6 seconds are over... then move to him. What if it's too late for him ? He'll have to manage and bite someone else. Anyhow, controlling this kind of bite seems to be the worst part of the fight.


All in all, it was fun until half way, but later it got annoying.

Rivendell beats Darnassus ?

One thing I like about MMORPGs is to be able to visit all the graphic detailed places.

Last night I walked around Rivendell.

DKP burning and LOTRO

Yesterday I was hoping to get a second sanctified item on Saurfang 25 to enhance my Tier 10, as I have some DKP to spend.

It dropped, only me and a fellow priest seemed to need it.
But, some other ppl started bidding on it, and in the end, both me and the priest
passed and someone who was bidding only to "burn dkp", so he said in rchat, got it.

And this exactly the kind of crap that pisses me off *the most*.

If you play for fun, you, as you say in portuguese, "give the liter" to raid, week after week, with effort and dedication, sacrificing family quality time for a little progress and fun, and hope to get some loot in betweeen to make things easier, and get this kind of attitude from raiders that should be happy for others getting loot, and instead, bid, only to try to fuck someone else's time and effort...

Well, he got fucked up instead, and as to myself... it makes me think if my dedication and effort is worth it.

On the opposite side, LOTRO, there's an welcoming back week, so I took the time to pay for a lifetime membership.

That's it, no more monthly payments, just login and have fun playing.

This week, our small fellowship (soon to be increased as some friend-of-friend is leveling up fast) joined Portucale Electus, a portuguese-only kinship on the Evernight server.

Janariel is now a happy level 41 Minstrel, doing deeds, crafting, a proud member of the Tailor's guild and starting the work on the legendary traits.

LOTRO is beautiful, is fun, and seems to be populatd with mature players.

All in all, a good decision for an alternate MMORPG.

And the Lich King is ... DEAD !

Down we tumbled, slain by the hands of 10 great raiders.

Today we had very few wipes in the Va'kyr phase, meaning ppl started to get how to get out of the middle during the defile and back in during the Val'kyr.
So that quickly lead us to the second transition and with Heroism, the transition ended with only 1 raging spirit that came down fast.
We had 2 tries at this last Vile Spirit phase (40%-10%) and in the 2nd one, I didn't AoE, I single targetted 3 or 4. They actually aren't that bad, one only has to kite them away from others to avoid massive AoE.


In the last attempt, I was the first into Frostmourne, and I started to kill the Spirit Warden so fast I actually got aggro, but Terenas was a good boy and took it away. 2-3 seconds laster he started to Soul Rip, but as I had respecced with Shadowfury, interrupting was a blast. So, the warden was dead and I got back up.
When I got back up, things seemed still very smooth so everyone started to think, oh boy, he's going down.

And down he went 40-30-20-10% and bang.

At 10%, he killed everyone and... 5 secs later... I disconnected ! From WoW, from Vent, from everything ! I hadn't a disconnect for about 10 days now. Well, I had one at the absolute wrong time.

Luckily, I could relog back in, everyone was still dead and the lore was still starting.

I won't say anything else, not to spoil anyone's fun. Just remember, the fight ends at 10% with everyone DEAD. so DO NOT RELEASE !

And pray not to be lucky like me and have a disconnect in the next 5 mins :)

Putricide is history

And down he went, killed by 25 invigorated raiders on the first attempt tonight.
I chickened out in phase 3, when the tank decided to move him to the opposite side through the green pool. I stopped there, watching in disbelief, and then followed, healing with lifeblood and healthstone :) And down he went