Arena fun

Me and my partner having some fun. It's not always a win, actually it's more like 1:1 ratio.

We still have problems with some combos, namely healer + mage, and in general all of those in the sewers that carry a healer because of the "hide-behind boxes" thing. We do way better with dual dps combos, except when there is a Windwalker Monkey involved. We killed our first last night.. but no video :(

It's enough for 1450-1500 rating. We should be able to go up the ladders, if we used TS, or studied the combos...or if I wasn't so lead-feet sometimes :PP

Into Battle with the Art of Oqueue, the best addon ever

oQueue...it's a dream come true for everyone that wants to do something, but can't find someone, or anyone, to do it, specially targetted at people in lower population servers.

I've heard about openRaid, but it had some problems, mainly the fact that you must reserve a time slot somewhere in the week to do something.

With oQueue, it's not sometime later, it's NOW. You queue, you are accepted, you join a x-realm team, and you go to battle when the team leader decides it's ready.

Today, I joined my first Ordos raid. Simple, efficient, fight, kill, achievement and loot, bye ! No need for guild politics, no need for scams or DKP burning, you get what you queue for, no more no less, a chance for success.

I'm rich !!!

It took a long time, but I finally crossed the 100.000 gold mark on Netcownt.

I don't use my professions for profit, nor do I use my farm (I'm a edonkey, I know!!), so my money comes from questing, raiding and from selling stuff I loot through the AH. Damn, I don't even use my profession CD (Living Steell).

The sad part is that these days, 100k is not so much at all. To buy a raiding title walk with a top guild costs around 150k. Rare or crafted mounts sell easily for this amount... damn, even the materials for the Jewelcrafting mounts cost 60K gold !!!

Oh well, I guess it's time to apply my Nasdaq RL job to WoW !

Back to mount farming.. still 169, damn damn.

Where's the !"#$%& achievement ?

Eleven level nighties, one of each class. Who said it couldn't be done ? HA !

Shandrila the pandila was the last. It was quite fun to heal with her, but no so much to tank. I didn't try the dps spec, tbh, no time, but I should, since the damn dps pandas heal a lot in arenas, and I've got find out when and how to break that heal, if I can.

Ashes to Ashes

I took my time (around 30 tries I think), but it finally paid off. Tempest Keep farming is over, and my sum adds up to 162 mounts at the moment. Long long way to up to 200.

I had a couple of lucky moments last week when Malygos 10 and VoA Grand Black War Mammoth dropped.

Meanwhile, I've been seriously farming Karazhan (having 10 lvl 90's + 1 lvl 89 has some advantages after all), so if it's around 1%, it wont take long... hopefully. I remember the wife of Raidan, my old time partner in Lords of Midnight on Chromaggus, got it the first week or raiding during WOTLK. It's a shame everyone quit playing.

Also, a few weeks ago, I started farming Zul'Gurub. Ah, and last week, I went inside Zul'Aman and got what I missed during Cataclysm runs with my ex-guild Vindication, because I was unlucky and there was always some bastard that rolled higher :) . The place is so soloable these days that I completed my missing achievements. And an Amani bear, of course !

As to raiding...some rules were added to the guild, and the best raiders were out the door, ppl that had been there for years, so I don't see much future in 25-raiding. I'll stick to PVP and arenas with Mr. Stringz !

What else in the gaming front ?... not much. I finished the LOTRO quests (apart from that bloody damn bugged chain, which has no impact on the deeds), and I'm logging for fun and to rebuild Hytbold and recover Wildermore (and get some more deeds with it). Still no big desire to go for Helms Deep. In a year, may be.

The Warchief

"I find your faith inspiring, little one. But I wonder if you have ever met our warchief."

Well, I've met him yesterday. And down he went ! I found the above quote in the Temple of the White Tiger, by a horde chieftain, and it summarizes the whole Mists of Pandaria expansion, which ends in Orgrimmar, with the killing of Garrosh. Yesterday, I went inside, discovered a fun (kind of) fight, actually, I think it's the only fun fight in the whole MoP raid set, and I killed him.

With it, I finished my legendary quest line.

On the same day, I finished all my Isle of Thunder achievements, as Strings helped me kill the last 5-man boss I needed.

By the way, in the last weeks, I reached Rank 10 in the Brawler's guild, and I'm now trying the Proving Grounds, but I'm still playing badly in the endless dps set of challenges (5 out of 30)

All that remains in MoP for me is a bit of exploration in the Timeless Isle. Of course, I'd like to kill all the raid bosses in normal mode, or even flexible, but I cba these days to loose my precious game time on endless wipes because dudes with my gear are doing half my dps and happy with it. So I'm enjoying solo experiences, like exploration, questing, soloing bosses, brawling, proving grounds and PVP arenas and battlegrounds. Ah, and of course, mount collection (160...40 to go ...)

On the LOTRO front, I found a terrible BUG (Quest BUG! MAKE SURE YOU READ THIS BEFORE YOU QUEST IN WILDERMORE!!!! - Page 2) that prevents me from finishing a quest line in Wildermore. That usually ruins the entire experience for me, with my obsession for getting things done the right way. I still got to finish the epic quest line, but then, I think that's it for me. I'm not sure I'll buy the Helms Deep expansion, because both my companions stopped playing, and it's a bit lonely now...

I've got to give RIFT and SWTRO a chance. I liked RIFT so much when I played it, but every time I try to restart, I'm simply lost at level 50 ! I can't even kill a mob !

So.. ON WITH THE SHOW !

Now it's for real

WoW 5.4 is out. And with it, I got...

A proper LEGENDARY Pandaria cloak, obtained in the course of Mists expansion !

Well, it's no longer as legendary as legendaries were, as everyone can get one, with enough persistency (and luck!).

Anyway...

I restarted playing for 5.4, going to the timeless island, a recreation of the GW2 events, with jumping puzzles (basic ones :P), treasure chests, a few world bosses, a bunch of rares... and something new: same-faction-PVP !!! 

On the raiding side, we started, slowly, to go for Orgrimmar's Siege to kill Garrosh. Unfortunately, progress is slow in Normal-25, still 0/14 after 1 week :(

There's flex raiding, but I'm mostly kept out of pre-made groups, so... .|. it.

As to PVP, my old Saviory Deviate Delight pal, Strings, keeps playing, so we do some nice 2v2 Arenas and Bgs.  Again, Rated battlegrounds are premade, so... I'm left out :|

Legendary ? Not really

Back to WoW, for the Assault on Orgrimmar, after Blizzard releases Pandaria patch 5.4 and last.

Chapter IV: Celestial Blessings , the legendary achievement, pre-5.4, is done (on warlock, ofc).

I got a nice a upgraded 608 iLvl legendary cloak, or so I thought.  Actually, it's not a legendary, but rumor says it will be, after the last chapter is complete.

I'm still saving my legendary Sha gem and primal, as in 5.4 I want to be raiding, if I can, with Haunted Heavens. Will I have the patience ? Time will tell...

Hopefully, the new "flex" raiding will provided means for me to raid with my portuguese guild, Turno da Noite, in a more re"flex"ing atmosphere.

As to my alting, my epic task has actually been very fast, all my chars should be 90 by the time 5.4 ends. Hopefully 5.4 will add "speedy leveling" for the 85-90 bracket.


On the GW2 front, I stopped playing and hunting my legendary. I started taking care of too many achievements, ended up loosing interest as the Living Story in GW2 goes on too fast, and they cancel playable content after each Living Story ends. That's not for me, that's for people which anxiously await every patch and start playing from day 1 for 8 hours. Forget it !

I miss only 1 puzzle to finish the GW2 puzzling section, but it's a PVP one, so I might have to wait to do it with a friend or so.


On the LOTRO front, it was a breeze to reach cap level 85. I visited all zones, and rebuilt a bit of the burnt town, Hytbold. However, the amount of days/dailies we need to do in order to fully rebuilt is simply too much. Developpers must be crazy. 
I'm now doing Wildermore quests. Finally, I have companions to kill Warbands. In the other areas, no one kills Warbands, and the dumb ring I need to get in order to upgrade it and get a decent blue item, can't be farmed without a fellowship. So the 2000 store coins I spent power leveling my reputation for the four areas were !"#$%& useless :|
The nice part, is to finally be able to be part of a 5-10 person group that roam throuh Wildermore on mounts attacking warbands and farming coins or whatever they do it for, over and over. 

It's a totally new experience, this mounted combat thingie in LOTRO.

On my 2nd legendary

Three years ago, maybe more, the Eye of Sulfuras dropped on my warlock inside Molten Core. 

But... warlocks can't use a 2H mace.

However, paladins can... so I bought all the required mats, and waited for it to drop on Moonprince, my Warlord of the Free.

Tonight, it did.

A nice guildie, Brodock from Silvermon, crafted me the Sulfuron Hammer in the black anvil inside Blackrock Depts and then, it was just a matter or combining it with the Eye of Sulfuras.
And here I am, a proud owner of The Hand of Ragnaros !

On green fire !

There's nothing like an epic fight. The Warlock class quest IS an epic fight, you get to use most of your warlock abilities, in a raid-like solo fight, that will kill you over and over, unless you know what to do when and how to do it. In 10 years of WoW, the only thing that slightly resembled this fight was, for me, the Sindragosa Heroic raid.

I did it, with a iLvl 506, with BoK and food. Without them, I got Kanrethad to 10% and then decided that I could do it but it would cost another pack of hours.. and I didn't want to wait! 

So I got the 4% stat buff (that btw, was eaten by the Felhunters, as well as my spell+stamina personal buff, a few mins later !!!) and that allowed me to kill Kanrethad 16 sec before the 7 minute Curse of Doom expired, and before the third wave of Fel Imps was summoned.

Netcownt is now a master of Green Fire.

The fight

Tradução a quanto obrigas

WoW report !

Transferi a maior parte dos meus chars para o Aggra, aproveitando a vaga de migrações livres até fim de Maio.

Mantive o cliente em Inglês, mas não resisto a mostrar este item, tal como aparece no cliente português.

Hilariante !!

Guildless wars

For the last months I've been busy. But I kept playing a bit. I neglected LOTRO and WoW 5.2. But I kept playing GW2 a bit. That enabled me to reach World Completion last month and to look at other GW activities, from crafting to puzzling to structured pvp to WvW to...achievements and to......building a legendary ! I've been virtually guildless and finding a funny thing: I don't NEED a guild in Guild Wars 2 !! Yes it gives some karma buffs yes there are some guild only puzzles now but...no need, much less in pvp. And if you want to be in multiple guilds you can ! You represent one and that's it. All in all GW2 is a nice way to avoid the discipline in WoW, the timetables, the 3hr raids, the pvp chat anger, etc. Now...let's create a legendary weapon, shall we ?

WoW break under way until patch 5.2.

Real Life kicked in.

On Brawling and soloing

A new year with some funny things, for a change, implemented by Blizzard. For a long time I've been thinking, why didn't they allow viewers, spectators, in PVP arenas. Well, they made the first step. The Brawler's Guild is not PVP, but it's 1v1 PVE, hard as hell, and people strangely join together, more than in instances, and help each other, with buffs, ressurrections (much like GW2), and advice.

I joined the Brawler's guild by buying a very cheap invitiation (1K) on Chromaggus, and as it's applicable for all chars on all servers of the same account... there we go. Actually I only found that out after a few rare farming that also drops (3%) that invitation, using a cross-realm invitation for Chromaggus, since the server is virtually empty so I get the rares all for myself (nearly). The rare farming in Krazarang Wilds has another advantage: It gives you a ton of free HP (750HP/hour or more.. shooo don't tell anynone) so you can gear up for PVP and upgrade your equipment in no time.

Talking about PVP, that's my other achievement from yesterday, I got my T1 weapon and that helped making to 1550 rating in 2v2 Arena with Strings, my Arms Warrior pal, so next step is now 1750 :-).

As to PVE, our guild cleared 25-MV (I still miss Elegon, as the damn dudes decided to kill it the night before Xmas when I was away :) and is now battling through 25-Heart of Fear, the 2nd raid in MoP.

My personal raiding was fun too, I decided to solo Ulduar and do a lot ( I mean a LOT) of achievements I missed. Boy, is that hard ! I soloed a lot of bosses, doing the 10-achievs that are not meant for the Glory meta-achiev, and I sweated to do them, but they are done. Only 1 missing, a nearly impossible one to do alone, as it requires interrupt every 5 or 10 secs or so.

Naxxrammas I soloed it completely, cleared all 10-achievemnts too (some are hard because of the excess DPS) and I found that Blizzard is now dropping pets in old raids like this, MC, AQ, BWL, etc. So I get a few more reasons to go inside and visit some oldies like Nefarian.