Top 10 MSLE moments

Note: MSLE = Multi shot, lightning enchant. Ring any bells?

The big announcement at Blizzcon was the new xpac - Mists of Pandaria. I have concerns about it that I considered making a post about, but I think I will wait on that for a little while. There is still a lot that hasn't been revealed and I honestly haven't mulled over every detail yet, and I (for once) want to reserve judgment for the time being.

The other announcement was that Diablo 3 would be available for free to anyone who renews their wow subscription for a year. So you get the full digital version of D3, as well as a little bonus in-game mount for WoW!

I signed up for it immediately, because I probably would've bought D3 when it came out anyways. I was hardcore into D2 and I played that for a good 2-3 years before moving onto WC3 and finally WoW. This way, I get D3 for free and I get to keep playing WoW - and let's face it, if the new xpac tanks, at least I get a free game out of it.

I began perusing the Diablo wiki page to get myself re-acquainted with the D3 universe. I'd forgotten just how much of a step-up in ESRB rating Diablo is. Everything is dark, sinister, gory, and the whole storyline has a much greater sense of urgency. I remember I actually used to get scared when venturing out into the world of Diablo 3, a feeling that I've yet to experience in WoW (well, maybe in PvP).

It brought me back to the days when I would only play D3 in a brightly lit room with the gamma turned up all the way because it was just too fracking scary otherwise. And there were just certain moments in the game that made you shit yourself.

So I've compiled a list. The top 10 shit-your-pants moments of Diablo 2. For nostalgia's sake.

*Please note that a lot of this stuff was nerfed in later patches - the stuff I mention is relevant to the earlier patch I played.

10. Diablo on Nightmare/Hell



Regular old Diablo. Not nearly as terrifying as Uber or Pandemonium Diablo.

We'll start out pretty tame. As it turns out, the Lord of Terror isn't all that terrible at number 10. On normal mode he's actually a pretty big pushover. As long as you have some fire/lightning resist gear, his attacks are laughable. If you have any cold attacks that can slow him, he hits you maybe like once every 5 seconds, and if you're ranged he's pretty easy to kite around.

But on Nightmare things get a bit scary. He hits for a lot more with his lightning attacks and it used to be a one-shot for low HP casters. For a melee such as myself (played a javazon and an assassin) I could handle it pretty well with some high resist gear and fast life stealing.

On Hell mode...yeah, that's pretty much why he's even on this list. In the blink of an eye you could see your HP drop to 5. It was almost essential to have max resist and bring lots of full rejuvies with you.

9. The Smith



Highly reminiscent of the infamous "Butcher" from D1.

I think that the location of the monster and the anticipation has a lot to do with the shit-your-pants factor. If you know that a superunique monster spawns at a specific location, the anticipation of fighting him/her always scares the crap out of me, almost even more so than the actual battle.

The Smith is a good example. He's actually not that hard. He's just your basic "I'm gonna hit you harder than your average monster" melee guy with no weird enchantments or curses to one-shot you with. But what makes me shit my pants over this guy is the fact that:

-You always know where he is going to spawn because you can see the Horadric Malus icon on your minimap. When you see it, you know he's going to come after you.
-He is always Extra Fast, so as you creep closer towards the Malus, BAM he comes out of nowhere, especially for a big fat dude.
-The location he spawns in is this freaky, dimly lit narrow little room with little space to kite him around. Also, the Act 1 Monastery is just a freaking scary place in general.

All this combined makes The Smith quite the intimidating foe. Now imagine doing this quest for the first time on a level 10 character! Terrifying indeed.

8. Beetleburst



Dung beetles eat poop. Then spit out lightning?

Oh Beetleburst...now his ability to make you shit your pants has nothing to do with his location as his spawn point is more or less random and it's in a wide open dessert. He is just scary because as a beetle, he emits lightning bolts when struck. Now since he is a superunique, those lightning bolts hit for a LOT more. And he brings with him several minion beetles who also emit lightning bolts. Combine this with some other scary modifier like a Conviction Curse or god forbid, an added lightning enchant, every hit you get on him will hit you for a big chunk of health. Don't even think about any type of AoE when you're surrounded by the beetles.

My tactic has always been to run away, draw out one minion at a time and kill it, then corner Beetleburst by getting a lake or structure between us and throwing darts at him.

Also, bugs are just gross.

7. The Ruined Temple entry



Oh the joys of getting your corpse trampled by a pack of scantily dressed zombies...

I HATE going into this place, but the quest rewards are 5 stat points, which you just can't pass up. Before they fixed the issue with a patch, I was guaranteed almost instant death upon zoning into this place on Nightmare or Hell.

There's usually several champions and uniques crawling about this place, and if you had bad internet connection chances are by the time the Ruined Temple has loaded, you are probably already dead. This of course brings up the question of how to recover your corpse when it's at the entrance of this place, likely being trampled on by a big group of champions?

6. Fangskin



Notice his vivid blue color makes him extra deadly.

Fangskin, a superunique found near the chest containing the head of the horadric staff, spawns with a huge pack of minions. They're all salamander types, and move with lightning quick speed. The reason Fangskin is so deadly, however, is that he is lightning enchanted. This modifier, combined with the speed and knockback/stun of Fangskin and all his minions combined meant that I always dreaded going into the Claw Viper temple level 2.

5. Tristram on Hell mode



I love getting hit with every type of magic in the face.

Tristram is a sad reminder for any of us that played D1. Our old stomping grounds, now reduced to ash, rubble, and a breeding ground for all sorts of champions, uniques, and superuniques.

You may think, oh it's only Act 1, what's there to shit your pants about? Well, on Hell mode this place is completely overrun with super buffed mobs at every turn. No sooner have you defeated a pack of Champions, you'll encounter some unique with a ludicrous set of modifiers. After you've fought through all the packs of skeletons and devilkins and goat men, you have to face Griswold, who hits you like a freaking Mack truck on Hell mode. Not to mention that he has a mega enormous health pool.

I guess ultimately the reason Tristram was always so scary for me was that I would underestimate the difficuly on Hell mode. Need to do a quick item/XP run? Well, let's go to Tristram, a bunch of champions spawn there. Then I'd zone in and promptly get smacked in the face, die, and not be able to retrieve my corpse due to the portal being overrun by mobs. Then I'd remember that Tristram is a nightmare on Hell mode, only to forget the very next week and die again. Do you know how much XP I've lost on Hell mode Tristram?

4. Bremm Sparkfist WTF



Does...does that say what I think it says???

For an Act Boss, Mephisto is a huge pushover. Even on Hell difficulty he's a piece of cake for most people. What's really dangerous, though, are the minions lurking in his Durance of Hate.

The Council members guarding the dungeon entry are pretty nasty themselves, but none is deadlier than good ol' Bremm Sparkfist. Do you know what happens when you come across a Multi Shot with Lightning Enchant? MSLE is one of the most lethal modifier combos, especially for rapid strikers like an assassin. Even with full lightning resist you'll eat a lot of damage from that stupid multi shot.

Now throw to the mix the CONVICTION AURA. It lowers your magic resist, so that now you're eating raw, unmitigated lightning damage. This is pretty much a one-shot killer right here.

I recall the days of playing cat and mouse with Bremm, kiting him to the stairs then using a portal to get back in the chamber and doing all sorts of LoS-ing and ranged attacks in my desperate attempts to down Bremm. In my opinion, the real act boss is Bremm, not Mephisto, who is totally anti-climactic after the Bremm encounter.

3. Popping Lord De Seis



This is what I call a no-win scenario: being surrounded by Oblivion Knights.

Oblivion Knights are arguably the most feared mobs in the entire game for melee classes. They put on very dangerous curses (Iron Maiden can one-shot you) and throw out massive damage in every school of magic.

Lord De Seis spawns with six of these badasses, and he brings with him my most favoritest aura of all time - Conviction. Getting stripped of my magic resistance then blasted in the face with fire, ice, lightning, and poison damage? Priceless.

Let's not forget that he used to have the uniquie modifier "Thief", which meant that every spell he threw at you would cause you to drop a potion. It gets super annoying after about your 5th run back to town to buy more pots.

Opening his seal was always the worst, too, since the seal is at the end of the passage and unless you could book it out of there, he would spawn and close in on you, effectively cornering you in the hallway. Definitely the most deadly boss in Chaos Sanctuary, even more than big bad Diablo himself.

2. Nihlathak and the OP Corpse Explosion



How bout we try fighting without any of your stupid minions, tough guy?

Some of the deadliest boss mechanics involve using the player's own skills against them, and that's what Nihlathak does best. He is located in a small room filled with minions and hellspawns. They're easy enough to kill, but that's when it gets interesting. He starts blasting you with corpse explosion that hits for insane amounts of damage and at practically unlimited range. Even high HP build barbarians couldn't survive the damage output.

Even after you somehow destroy all the corpses, he just summons more minions to blow up in your face. There was just no way to clear the room and engage him alone, and you constantly had to battle your way through a giant pack just to land some hits on him.

On Hell mode especially, the minions are immune to cold so shattering the corpses is not even a viable option for assassins. And as long as there are corpses, there will be corpse explosions. As the mob's HP scales up, so does the damage and...you get the picture.

I absolutely hated going into Halls of Vaught just for this reason. The small space makes it impossible to cleverly kite him around or tease him out from his hordes of corpse explosion ammo. The only thing you could do was avoid the swarm as best you can while hitting Nihlathak, who also, btw, teleports around the room. Like...WTF.

1. Duriel's Chamber aka Loading Screen of Death



What's he supposed to be? Praying Mantis? Scorpion? I mean, what IS that?

Duriel is without a doubt the biggest, baddest mofo to ever make me shit my pants in D2. I say that because I can attribute about 70% of my deaths to Duriel.

I believe they fixed it at some point, but in the early patches of D2 Duriel was infamous for killing you before you even realized it. On a good internet day you'd have maybe 4-5 seconds between clicking the door and actually being ported into his chamber, and that was enough for him to slaughter your defenseless character.

So you'd click the door, wait a few seconds, and then you'd see that screen: You have died. You have lost 16 million experience and 50,000 gold.

W...T...F.

He hits like a truck on steroids, he's extra fast (for a big fat bug he's like greased lightning), AND he has holy freeze aura, slowing down your movement speed and effectively making you a fish in a barrel. He can charge/stun you to boot, and even after getting past the initial lag spike rush he was a deadly foe.

I can't even count the number of times he's killed me before I even had a chance to scream, and most of the time the only way to get my body back was to either reset the game and rez in town or die about 12 more times in the process of retrieving the corpse.

Those dark days...they were terrible indeed.

So, now I'm thinking, what unspeakable horrors does D3 have in store for us?

Rerollin'

Why do so many say "I'm going to role a priest" or "I'm making a DK for my rerole"? I know it's a "role-playing" game, but the rolling thing comes from the fact that old-school D&D required you to "roll" a dice to determine your stats. Hence you "roll" a certain character, not "role". Anyways...

A few days ago I ran into an ex-guildie of mine during a random Headless Horseman run. Luckily I was on one of my seldom-played alts but he recognized me and we got to chatting. It turns out he and a few people from my old guild (the one I was all throughout T11 content) had started an alliance guild on another server.

I had always wanted to play to 85 on alliance, because the lore and storyline that unfolds in the questing is really the only unique part of choosing to play either faction. Once you're 85, it's the same daily grinds, same raid bosses, same dungeons, same gear same everything. But the zone quests are unique - not all of them, sometimes you have those generic quests that are more or less the same for each faction. There are other quests that are only available to one faction, and the starting zone is the best example of faction-specific quests.

The problem with rolling an ally, I've found, is that it's so difficult to start from square one. Imagine having no gold, no heirlooms, no high level main to send you bags, BoE drops, or mats to level your tradeskills, no friends to play with, etc. I've tried rolling an ally on my current server when they implemented the cross-faction heirloom thing, but it was just too tough to start out with no bag slots, no gold, and no guild.

So finding out that I have some potential friends/guild on another server was a big plus. I'm maxed out on character slots on my current server anyways, so this way I wouldn't have to delete any characters that are well into their 50s and 60s (I will get them to 85 someday...).

I rolled another rogue since that's what I know best. I chose worgen because I've heard that the Gilneas starting storyline is pretty goth and epic.

I have to tell ya...this shit's TOUGH with no heirlooms! I had forgotten what it feels like to actually fear for your life as a level 3 rogue. Heirlooms boost your damage and health to the point where elites are a joke and everything else die in 2 shots. This time...I was the one constantly getting killed. Mobs took a good 15 seconds to finally die under my pathetically weak daggers. Anytime I pulled more than one mob I had a 50% chance of dying. Let's just say that this is the first time I've relied so much on sap in order to avoid certain death.

After all the ordeal I somehow made it to level 13 and out of the starting zone. The quests were pretty fun and sometimes emotional, and definitely very different from the silly, happy goblin starting zone.

And once again I find myself with no money, no bags, no gear, and no idea where to go. I'm in Darnassus, so I guess Darkshore would be the place to start. Having no money really sucks. Now I can understand the kind of desperation that drives lowbie players to beg for gold on the trade chat...

Luckily I do have some tricks up my sleeve. The first thing I did was make a bank alt that I could park in Stormwind. That way I don't have to use up my precious bag space carrying around things that I eventually want to sell on the AH. Already I've picked up some stuff to sell - things like a few stacks of leather I spent an hour skinning, some low-level gems and random greens, things like that. I'd say 20g in 1 day for a brand new alt isn't too bad!

I was thinking of rolling a DK and picking up mining & skinning just so I can use that character as both a bank alt and to generate some gold. But it takes so long to get out of that DK starter zone...maybe someday, when I have more time to invest in this character.

As soon as I hit 20 or so I'm going to hit up my friend for an invite. I generally like to hold off before asking for guild invites, because there's a good chance I might just give up and not play that character anymore after a certain point. I'd hate to waste anyone's time and wedge myself into a guild on a toon I'll never play.

So we'll see how this alt ally adventure plays out. One thing is for sure - Yo ho yo ho, a rogue's life for me!

Warglaive, bitches

Weellllllpppp, you heard right. I am now the proud owner of a legendary weapon.

It was our business as usual transmog raid night, where a group of geared 85s go en masse into BC raids and basically fill our bags with all sorts of pretty purple BC gear.

Why BC raids? Well, there aren't many vanilla raids left anymore - Zul Gurub, Naxxramas, and Onyxia's Lair have all been converted to higher-level instances. All that's left is MC, BWL, and AQ20/40. Since AQ20/40 doesn't drop any tier gear, there is little interest in farming those. MC is easily soloable by almost any geared 85. BWL has a tricky mechanic that requires at least 2 people on the first boss, but the rest is pretty easy as well.

Northrend raids, on the other hand, are a tad bit harder to "farm". Sure, they're doable with a reasonable number of 85s, but it just takes a lot longer. Not to mention that most people didn't really love the look of Northrend gear, and it's still a tad too "fresh" in their memories to evoke nostalgia.

So that leaves us with BC. Plenty of un-nerfed, un-touched, un-revamped old raids to clear with just a handful of 85s. And lots of shiny, cool-looking loots.

BC is pretty famous, I hear, for brightly-colored, garish items. I have an epic screenshot somewhere of a level 60 priest wearing the quest rewards from hellfire peninsula and oh my...it's like a clown suit. Tight lavender pants, bright orange vest, black motorcycle gloves, a frilly gold cape and a glowing blue staff. The kicker was the purple-and-yellow fedora.

Anyways, so people love BC gear, and our guild has been organizing BC raid nights to get said gear. With 7-8 people we blow through Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern, Gruul's, Magtheridon, Sunwell Plateau, Black Temple, and Battle for Hyjal in about 4 hours flat. That's 7 raids, people!

I've been collecting some tier4-6 pieces just for shits and giggles (too ugly to actually wear, in my opinion), but I'm mainly there for capes and daggers. BC had some wicked looking daggers that you just can't find in any other expansion. And the capes are the same - the ornate designs and bright colors are just nonexistent elsewhere.

Anyways, so we're in black temple and we're about to pull Illidan. As usual, I say, "Come onnnnn, Warglaives!", which everyone chuckles at. Warglaives are probably THE most unique and badass looking weaponry in the whole game, and hence most sought-after. And what do you know, we kill Illidan and on his loot screen I see them - the bright orange name indicating Legendary quality. Warglaive. Of. Azzinoth.

I rolled a 65. A pally rolled 45. Then a warrior rolled 20. There was another rogue in the raid but he was a low level alt and didn't roll. A few agonizing seconds ticked by and I saw the message "You receive loot [Warglaive of Azzinoth]"

I'm ecstatic, of course! It doesn't look as cool without its twin, but I'm just happy to even own a legendary. Who knows, maybe the other blade will drop next time...must...farm...BT...

Top 5...Most badass NPCs

NPCs come in many different sizes, shapes, and flavors. Some NPCs are cute and funny while others are menacing and mean. And some are just really really badass, so much to the point where you feel compelled to make Chuck Norris jokes about them.

Now I know a lot of people think Garrosh is badass, but let's not kid ourselves, ok? There's clearly a difference between being a pigheaded bully and a true badass who has a noble cause, but plays by no one else's rules. Garrosh is just a schoolyard bully, a bully on testosterone!

5. Garona Halforcen

"I can make you look like an accident."



Yes, she was once a ruthless assassin who betrayed King Llane, but really, he was filthy alliance scum to begin with. Besides, she's way past all that drama now, and is dedicated to eradicating the Twilight Cult once and for all.

You have to admit that many rogue NPCs strike you as "cunning" or "sly", and Garona is probably the only exception to that. She's brutal and unapologetic and merciless, just how an orc should be.

4. Vol'jin

"Da Horde is my people, if it be war you bring, den I stand against you."



You think Garrosh is badass? How about the guy who openly threatens a big brute like Garrosh right to his face?

"And when tha time comes dat ya failure is complete and ya "power" is meaningless, I will be dere to end ya rule, swiftly and silently. Ya will spend ya reign glancin' over ya shoulda and fearin' tha shadows, for when tha time comes and ya blood be slowly drainin' out, ya will know exactly who fired da arrow dat pierced ya heart."

Did you know Vol'jin spent months in the deep, ancient jungles of the lost isles, battling the ancient Loa spirits in order to become a shadow hunter? Did you know that he single-handedly led the charge against Zalazane and took back the Echo Isles? Did you know that he dared take up arms against the entire combined forces of the Zandalari, Amani, and Gurubashi trolls for the sake of the Horde?

I admit Vol'jin, as the troll racial leader, has somewhat of a special place in my heart. But even without being a troll I think he earns a place as one of the most badass NPCs.

3. Illidan Stormrage

"Imprisoned for ten thousand years. Banished from my own homeland. And now you dare enter MY realm? You are not prepared...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!"



Hey, I never said that only the good guys can be badass. Out of all the raid bosses who try so hard to be badass (Arthas comes to mind...he tried harder than anyone else and just came off as whiney), Illian really takes the cake.

Let's break it down - first of all, he turned all crazy and evil because the woman he loved chose his harmless & boring brother over him. That's kind of a romantic way to go batshit psycho if you ask me. Everyone else is all like "oh the Old Gods whispered some enticing words" or "Oh I was just suuuuuper power hungry". No, that's not how Illidan rolls. He's all like "I'm heartbroken and hell bent on revenge!"

Secondly, he burned out his own freaking eyeballs and made a demonic pact and basically sold his soul for power. I know all the cool kids are selling their souls these days, but how many kids ritually burn off their eyeballs?

Third, have you SEEN the BC opening cinematic? Illidan's bitter, chilling words are the first things to greet you. And the oft-parodied outro, "You are NOT PREPARED!" is still one of the most popular boss quotes of all time. He's been exiled to Outland, he's super pissed, and now you DARE set foot in Outland? Into HIS realm? You are clearly NOT PREPARED!

And lastly, even when you kill him, he gets the last word: You have won... Maiev... But the huntress... is nothing... without the hunt... You... are nothing... without... me...

Out of all the raid bosses with anger/revenge/demonic/girl issues, Illidan is definitely the most complex and the most badass.

2. Grand Apothecary Putress

"Now, all can see this is the hour of the Forsaken!"



Technically he is a bad guy since you kill him during the battle for the Undercity. But I dunno, I think of him as somewhat of a misguided hero. Sure, he ended up killing a bunch of innocent people but let's remember that half of them were alliance, our sworn enemies. The other half were unfortunately Horde, but I dunno, I always think of the Forsaken as kind of out for themselves anyways. Sure, they're part of the Horde and all, but they're really in it just for their own benefit. I don't think for one second the Forsaken care for the "Blood and Honor" shit that orcs are always going on about.

So in that light, Grand Apothecary Putress was serving his own people, in his own twisted way. Besides, you have to admit there is a significant element of badass-ness in the way that he will stop at nothing for revenge. What he wants is revenge against Arthas and the scourge, and he will stop at nothing to get it. Just mark his words as he unleashes the deadly plague upon the undead and living alike:

"Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven? Behold, now, the terrible vengeance of the Forsaken! Death to the Scourge! And death to the living!"

I just love those first two sentences - the Forsaken have NOT forgotten, and they certainly have NOT forgiven Arthas. And their vengeance is terrible indeed.

And now...the most badass NPC of all time...

1. High Overlord Varok Saurfang

"I am he who watches they. I am the fist of retribution. That which does quell the recalcitrant. Dare you defy the Warchief? Dare you face my merciless judgement?"



Saurfang is legendary in the world of warcraft. Numerous Saurfang jokes are known across the fields of Azeroth (Chuck Norris is Saurfang's alt, Saurfang's hearthstone crits for 1337k damage, Saurfang uses [Thunderfury] for mining). He is a veteran from not only the first and second, but the third war as well. He's lived through the War of the Shifting Sands all the way to the fall of the Lich King. He rules with an Iron Fist and is the loyal protector to the Horde and the Warchief. Just listen to his bone-chilling speech prior to the battle with the Qiraji:

"An orc - a true orc warrior - wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy...We defend. We stand. We show that as one. United. We destroy. Their god will fall. To die today, on this field of battle, is to die an orcish death. To die today is to die for our little ones. Our old ones. Our… loved ones. Would any of you deny yourselves such a death? Such an honor?"

What is probably the most badass of all, is that he isn't a single-minded brainwashed maniac like most other badasses. Much like Vol'jin, he is a rational and intelligent leader. Varok's true badassery comes from the fact that he is incredibly wise, and he'll cleave you in the face with his axe if you try to do something stupid. He's a veteran and he's seen all the bloodshed and horror of war, and so different from the petulant Garrosh who just wants to crack open skulls. He's known personal tragedy too, like the loss of his only son at the Wrathgate and the heartbreaking reanimation of his corpse into a Death knight. He weeps as he picks up the broken body of his son at the footsteps of Icecrown Citadel, and says these memorable words:

"Honor, young heroes... no matter how dire the battle... Never forsake it!"

We salute you, High Overlord Saurfang...you are the greatest badass to walk on Azeroth!

(No alliance are mentioned in this list because alliance are in general wussies)

Domo Arigato & Casualcore

Our guild downed heroic Domo last night - we are now 3/7 hardmodes! I'm incredibly proud of us and how far we've come in just a few short weeks. Since the nerf we've downed one new heroic boss per week and we're showing no signs of slowing down! As we down more bosses, we're getting more signups to raid and you can feel a renewed sense of enthusiasm in the raid group.

I've noticed though that we're starting to go back to that "serious progression" mindset. While I don't mind serious progression, I like knowing where we stand one way or another. Are we a progression-driven, casualcore guild that keeps track of attendance, performance, min/maxing etc etc? Or are we strictly casual and missing one raid is not going to land me on the bench indefinitely? It's hard to gauge things right now.

When we raid we do joke around plenty and the RLs don't fly off the handle if we get one no-show or someone is 15 min late. During a boss fight people still crack jokes and poke fun at each other, even if it's a progression fight.

But last night we were told by the more serious of the two RLs to "stop messing around and focus". His tone wasn't mean or snippy, it was just a calm, but firm warning. It caught me a little off guard because while it was hardmode Domo, we had only put in a couple attempts so far - it was far from a situation where everyone is pissy from 2 hours of almost-had-it situations. And the other RL was joking around too, and I thought we were all having a good time and being a little goofy.

I didn't take it personally because I knew it wasn't directed just at me, but it did dampen my attitude for the rest of that night. And yeah, we downed Domo after all and everyone was happy. But I dunno...are we really the type of guild that can't tolerate a few silly comments during fights?

I know my guild used to be a pretty serious progression guild - that's why I joined, and that's why I left, because we no longer raided. At that time I wanted raid progression, and I treated the guild as a means to get what I wanted out of the game (as I'm sure many of the raiders did as well).

And now I'm back in this guild because I like the people, I like our atmosphere and I like that I click well with everyone - we have similar nerdy hobbies, similar sense of humor and similar interests. I'm not here to push bleeding edge progression - I'm just here to have fun. Which is why I don't mind sitting out a couple nights or I don't sweat it if a raid gets cancelled.

I guess the whole point of this is that I don't know if I would be happy going back to the old model. I gave up hardcore progression for a reason - it was too much like a job. It took a lot of enjoyment out of the game to treat raiding as the single all-important element of the game. When you stake 3 hours worth of fun on getting down a raid boss, and that raid gets cancelled or you wipe all night, you end up just feeling crappy and angry at other people for not showing up, not playing well, etc.

I still enjoy raiding and still look forward to every raid night - I think end-game raiding will always be a big part of wow for me, but I've learned to not get hung up on it so much. I would be happy raiding once a month or twice a week and anything in between, as long as it's with the right people and it's a chill atmosphere. I've learned to branch out and enjoy other aspects of the game (soloing old instances, BGs, achievement farming, alts, the list goes on). Raiding is not the ultimate goal anymore - it's just one of the many things I do on wow.

Well, I guess we'll see how things play out. At this point it's nothing more than a gut feeling that's worrying me. I know that we're going to continue pushing progression likely until heroic Rag goes down, and then the Deathwing raid will be right around the corner. I just don't want to go back to that "THIS IS SRS BSNS" mentality at this point. It's no fun to sweat bullets during a raid.

Mogging efforts

I am so excited for transmogging, and with every preview and PTR patch notes, the harder it is to contain my excitement! I'm finally going to look the way I want my character to look, as opposed to whatever garbage gear blizz decides to slap onto me.

I don't expect to look "unique" or anything - from what I've gathered on the forums, every other rogue is going to be rocking Bloodfang, so I don't expect to be original. Hopefully though, most people will go for the original red bloodfang rather than the blue recolor that I'm going for.

After months of BC heroic dungeon grinding, I have finally completed the look I want - it's mainly the blue recolor of the bloodfang set they introduced in BC, but with a few tweaks of my own. I swapped out the bulky boots (makes me calves look big!) with a more skintight version, added in a matching cloak and found a good dark blue shirt to go with it. I'm not a fan of the exposed-elbow-look you get when you don't stick on a shirt with set pieces.



As for the weapons I thought that Timeslicer matched perfectly, with the graceful yet deadly blue design. Starlight dagger was also a good choice (I love the brutal serrated edges), but unfortunately it's a specifically main hand dagger :( I just want to add that getting that stupid dagger took me about 20 kills of Epoch Hunter in Old Hillsbrad. Anyone who's tried to farm a scripted instance knows that a pain in the ass that is...by the end I wanted to kill Thrall myself.

Here is also another set that I like - I might have to switch between the bluefang (ooh I just made up a nickname) and this one. It's rather flashy for a rogue (can you imagine trying to sneak around while flashing this much bling?) but who really cares? This isn't an RP realm...



It's the gold recolor of the Nightslayer set, another excellent and popular set that drops from Molten Core. I especially love the look of the mask/helm - subtle yet chic. Unfortunately the original Nightslayer was a little too "bleh" for me. I already had a dark bluish set, I really didn't feel the need for another one. The gold recolor looked absolutely gorgeous, and had that cool plate mail look to it that I loved but is unfortunately not often available to leather classes.

My only problem was the shoulders - the original ones look like bowling balls (or D-cups, depending on who you ask) and it just looked hideous. Trying to find something else that matched was also a big challenge since that bronzed-gold tone is unique to this set. I experimented with pretty much every shoulder model & color that wowhead had to offer, and came up with this one. I'd have preferred a black motif, of course, but at least this one has a gold trim that matches the rest of the set pretty well (many gold tones looked too orange or yellow). By throwing on a red/gold cape and completing the look with black/gold/red daggers, the shoulders flow with the rest of the set pretty nicely.

The minor tweak I had to make was to swap out the fat calf boots with a skintight version. Other than that I think everything is the original intended recolor except the shoulders.

Farming this one will be a bit tricky though - while I can acquire everything easily from BC heroics, the weapons are a drop from a Sunwell raid boss. My guild is doing some transmog gear runs, and my best bet is to just hope that it drops during one of those runs. I don't think you can 2-man Sunwell easily...

So yeah, it looks like when 4.3 hit, I'll be rolling around Orgrimmar either as a dark blue assassin, or a ritzy gilded ninja. Can't wait!

FL Nerf

Last week our guild went into FL for the first time since the massive raid-wide nerf (25% nerf to all bosses HP and damage). Having downed normal Rag literally a few days before the nerf hit, we pat ourselves on the back and took a short break, and came back ready to f*** s*** up.

We decided to go straight away for heroic Shannox. He still wasn't a pushover on heroic mode, and it took us a good 20 attempts or so to down. Having spend the majority of the raid night on the encounter, we called it a night.

The next day we came back and to clear the rest of the raid on normal. We only had 9 people online so we begin clearing trash, figuring that once someone logs on we'll work on bosses.

We waited a while and no one came on, so we decided to 9-man Rhyolith. And he went down easy. Like, we poked him a few times with a sharp stick and he cried, "I surrender!" and crumbled. And dropped my new helm! Finally I can get rid of the ugly monstrosity known as tier 11.

Next was Beth'tilac. Again, easily one-shotted. Alysrazor was a total joke. Not only was HP and damage nerfed, they had nerfed the two most crucial mechanics that made the fight somewhat difficult - the fire tornado was slowed down, and the flame druid initiates no longer spammed fieroblast. Given that my personal biggest screwup is not interrupting the fieroblast, that made my life a whole lot easier. And given that whenever someone dies, it's usually to that fire tornado, the encounter was a breeze. With 9 people we were able to beat our previous kill record, and everyone was just sort of stunned into silence after we downed her. "Seriously...that's it?"

We brought in a 10th finally for Baleroc, but I feel like we could've easily 9-manned that too. At least we got the speed kill achievement.

Ragnaros was also significantly easier. We had only one wipe and the second try was a little messy but we got the job done. I didn't notice much in the way of damage reduction but the phase transitions sure went a heck of a lot quicker with that massive 25% nerf to HP.

We're planning on attempting more heroic modes this week. My guess is they'll be pretty challenging, but given how boring the normal modes were, the heroics will actually provide some challenge. I guess my question to Blizz is, did you really have to nerf so much? I feel like a simple 10% nerf would've been sufficient, or maybe just a 25% nerf to HP and leave the mechanics alone. Yes, we like loot but we also like to not pass out from boredom while raiding.