Is it me or do the weeks fly by in a strange and mysterious way?

Yeah thought so, it’s coming to the end of another week – and sling me sideways if it’s been a while since I updated. So whats new in Buel’s world?

Rogue, yeah thats right the rogue – still driving up the levels, hit 79 so it’s the final chukka now all restxp so that makes things alot easier, not sure about you guys, but when you begin the final level, theres like a push driving you on, yet the XP bar seems to get longer and longer, and the quests seem further apart….. aaaarrrrrrghh why can’t it be the big 80 yet!!!! lol

I took the druid out yesterday, just to help on a few group quests, the guild needed some healing so naturally, eager to oblige Buel came out for a while, always nice to do some druid as recently seems the rogue is getting all the limelight since my raiding has been virtually removed due to time limitations IRL at the moment.

Other things, I was out and about the t’internet today reading my usual haunts, dropping some entrecards as I visit. and I was chuffed to see my name in lights, yes indeed Buel’s World has been awarded the Horde Honeys Seal of Approval – I am absolutely speechless, and not forgetting honored to be featured on a site that I hold in great esteem and regularly read

Happy Days guys ‘n’ gals, happy days………………………………………..

/Buel

hehehehe, well good morning all – it’s F-f-f-f-friday the sun isn’t out and the sky is a murky grey – ahh late spring in England.

Todays topic is bough to you courtesy of the good people at WowTCGLoot Chatbox more specifically Thosur & Lubelle who kindly came up with the topic of todays post (well a combination of the two ideas).

Firstly some housekeeping – FSotW is coming later (promise).

So how do you good people get your fix of Wow at work? my list of suggestions follow – bearing in mind I have absolutely no access to the game during working hours so I have to “make do” in other ways.

• Guys you work with: I’m a lucky guy, you’ve probably seen in other posts I work in an office with two other gamers who share the passion of RPG’s not just Wow, but we’ve played Star Wars Galaxies together (two of us), Eve Online (all), Warahmmer Online (all)) and a fair amount of other games – so we chat alot as we work, talk about daily quests, how best to achieve our goals – we all play different classes (Druid, Lock & DK) but we all have alts and spend time discussing best builds etc.

So number 1 way to get thru the day and get a wow fix – Work with people that play – if they dont play, convert them, we converted a guy from another office who joins us online.

• The Internet: There is soooo much Wow related information, web sites, talent calculators all of these provide endless time to while away idle minutes during the day. MMO-Champion, Wow Insider, The Armory, Els Anglin’, Warcraft Pets, and my new friends over at WowTCGLoot – and thats to name just a very minute part of my bookmarked sites. We haven’t even brushed on my growing list of Blog sites that I visit.

So number 2 way to get thru the day – The Internet. It’s all there just go to google and search till your eyes ache.

• Your Mind: So finally I suppose if you’ve exhausted the internet and the guys you share an office with dont play, then try this very simple method – Close your eyes and imagine Azeroth, there you are riding out thru the gates of Orgrimmar, dodging the mass of people duelling just outside – riding towards the Zeppelin taking you to Northrend. See – how easy was that – you can be there without even turning your computer on.

So the final way to get a fix – close your eyes and imagine.

Sure you can spend money on books and magazines, but in my mind – why bother? theres more information, blogs, websites, therorycrafting locations etc to get free information on the Internet that a magazine can cover………..

So in closing this article down, and some might say short as theres so much out there – i’ve not even mentioned Elitist Jerks, Wow-wiki  etc but you know my mother said always end on a song – I have no idea how that fits in at this point, but it’s out there. Finally a big thanks once again to the really nice guys over at WowTCGLoot, who have made me feel sooooo welcome and especially to todays topic selectors – Thosur & Lubelle.

/Buel

Yip, you got it – we (The Ancient Shadows) hit Ulduar last night (10 man).

When it was first advertised I got all excited (well you would wouldn’t you?) then I noticed the day Tuesday – Gah! I have a short amount of time free on a Tuesday night – till about 8:30pm (9:30 server time) and it doesn’t start till 7pm (8pm server) so my problem on Tuesday guild runs is that I cant do the whole run. So I didnt sign up – I wont sign unless I can commit to the whole run – it’s not fair to the others.

7pm last night I got a /whisper from an officer asking me to help out – they all know I have limited time so I didn’t need to explain – I was drafted in.

We all stood on the top of the stairs and looked in awe at the surroundings at the mass of metal that was to be our machines for the next 1.5 hours or so. The first boss is The Flame Leviathan – our raid leader started to allocate machinery – myself and Moori (Guild MT) got assigned Salvaged Seige Engines (as I’d some Wintergrasp exrperience it was considered I’d know how to drive these machines) – and a co-pilot each, a brave hero strapped into the back with our gun turret to nuke everything that moved. The others climbed about salvaged demolishers and salvaged choppers the raid leader (Mallet) got us underway. The other Seige Engine had the guild leader and I had a Disc Priest (Lillet) manning (or should I say “girling”) the weapons.

Off we went – now someone (I know not who) shouted over the TeamSpeak (TS from here on) that the first part was a gauntlet and we were to “race” to the other side – Believe me when I say this is wrong in soooo many ways. This random charge from the A end to the B end caused the first wipe – the entertaining factor was listening on TS to Nicó (our esteemed Guild Leader – and co-pilot) shouting at the driver to stop moving so bloody fast cos he couldn’t hit anything with the guns…….. my co-pilot was having marginally more success as we ploughed a trough through the centre of the mobs needless to say we wiped in a blaze of glory………..

So second run we set off a little more tentatively, picking off mobs as best we could, shutting down the portals the mobs streamed thru cutting a path to the first repair point and repairing then clearing the second point, all portals closed now I’d read up and following the instructions on Wowwiki I went for repair before engaging the last lot and the flame leviathan…….. didn’t quite go to plan as half the raid managed to engage the other half were still repairng when the bariers activated and were stuck  unable to help from the wrong side of the barriers………. We did enjoy however listening to TS as half the raid laughed their way to 95% health left on the boss when they wiped. the barriers fell so the other half charged in to have a bash and get used to the controls – we did about the same before wiping.

Take 3 – Well this time we did alot better, the whole raid made it in before the start – we engaged the FL and “kited” him nicely around the edge – we managed to get both of the towers down (this stuns the FL and allows 50% extra damage whilst he repairs himself) the choppers failed to pick up the two tower destroyers who got destroyed fairly smartly after so without the towers being disabled again we couldn’t do enough damage to kill him, and wiped again. FL down to 20%.

Take 4 – A Stirling effot all round, we managed to take the towers down really fast – the two Seige Engines managed to guide the FL round the track nicely this time, taking him nicely over the carefully placed tar (nice work by the choppers) and when the towers fell for the first time we DPS’d like crazy people the choppers successfully grabbed one of the two tower destroyers, but the second died….. looked unlikely to get him down this run, but we continued chipping away at him leading him around the edge of the area 5%, 4%, 3%, 2%……. the TS was alive with “NukeHim”, “Agghhhhh no he got me”, “Throw everything at him” – 1%……. yip we got him down, we had 6 deaths proudly the 2 seige engines limped away – we had survived it. A quick rezzing session later and we were all stood over our kill.

Another achievement for me Emblem of Valor, then onto the loot – a pure DPS trinket and a spell casters cloth helmet.

Again my dice let me down – The top roll a miserable 56 took the helm – my 4 not really threatening it – ahh well there will be other times.

Conclusion – it’s a blast, no seriously a blast – it’s not like any other instance, it never was going to be. The first fight there is no healer role, so grab a tank, a co-pilot role or a DPS machine and have some fun. The machines are based on item level so wear the highest even if it’s not for the spec you are running cos every little helps.

It’s a new bright day – and yes that means I’m back with something upbeat, something vibrant and potentially witty.

Well I’ll do my best to fulfil those demanding requirements.

Upbeat

Right this one should be kinda easy, I’m a kinda upbeat guy and most things are looked on positively (except the lag last night perhaps??) I decided to grab the guildies to hit Heroic DTK last night, I really wanted 3 more badges to get the offhander (told yer all about it inyesterdays post)  managed to get a full group (we filled the party out with a nice Warlock PUG, who was in fairness a really good guy who knew the instance and his role very well – even apologised to me for pulling aggro off our tank and causing me to have to heal him……. hehe that’s my job, but it’s nice to be appreciated like that).   We wanted to test out whilst there if a kiity druid could comfortable tank a heroic (in Bear form ofc but using kitty build) we discovered that it’s more than possible – King Dred is a hard hitter, so needs a few big heals (Swiftmend ftw) but other than that we had a nice smooth run (yes one death due to high lag – 2043ms – sorry Shamonkey) but a nice clean run.

I’m one happy Tree to be honest, the 3.1 changes dont seem to have hurt us tree’s, Lifebloom is still right up there as one of my top spells, I think the patch has enforced the correct use of LB as the dev’s probably intended (I’m sure it was intended to actually bloom not rolling it constantly) and you’ll get a nice steady tick, a good bloom at the end and a nice mana replenish on bloom.

Vibrant

As in fast moving…… erm….. yeah…… talk amongst yourselves for a minute – I is thinking…….  Hang on a sec, yeah, I got something…

PvP, or more accurately Wintergrasp – Not sure how you guys are doing in there, but we (now this is as us good english folk say “the royal we” meaning Us or The Horde) seem do to extremely well in Wintergrasp it seems that we have an innate ability in WG to take it by the scruff of the neck and basically kick seven shades outta the alliance in very little time (yes it a very tenuous link to vibrant – but hey I’m trying) yes this is generalising we certainly do lose but in my experience it seems that we defend stronger and attack faster…….. hey we need a poll – I’ll sort that later (no really I will)

Witty

There once was a druid called Marge,

Whose butt was as wide as a barge,

When tanking one day,

Was heard to say,

It’s donuts that made it so large!

Now it’s unsure whether that classes as Witty, but hey I made it up on the spur of the moment – and it’s kind of relevant to me beig a druid etc.

Thats me for now – have a cracking day all, the sun is shining and the sky is blue, I mean really blue – it doesn’t get much better than this – all is good, take a minute to sit back, smile, and take a deep breath – smells good eh?

Enjoy your day.

Buel

Morning Folks, and I’ll start with Gah! now theres a perfectly good reason for the Gah! I had a great recommendation for site of the week, then I was staggered, no really staggered (I had to go make extra coffee it was that much of a shock) when I checked my dashboard and saw this…..

Clicky

Thats right, I’d had a Recomendation myself – Buels World was there listed as a site to visit. Now I know what you’re gunna say, why the “Gah!” surely it’s great to get a mention…… yes it is, in fact it’s bloody fantastic – the point of the Gah! is that “Diary of an (Ex?) Wow Addict” is one of the sites I frequent – check my Blogroll – I think you’ll see it listed …..

Still not with me? may be I need to spell it out a little – It’s one on my list for featured sites of the week (yip I am organised at some things), now I have had a good think about how to play this, I could be reciprocal and announce Doa(E)WA as this weeks featured site which seems a little bit like hey they awarded me so I’m gunna mention them and I really dont wanna that to be thought – So I’m gunna do it this way and hope you’ll all understand.

Doa(E)WA will get it’s FSotW (but not today) it’s a great site and I want you good people to visit it and appreciate it when it doesn’t feel like it’s only cos I got a mention on his site type thing – and hey it’s ultra sneaky cos then I’ll keep the attention nicely whilst they visit here to see if it’s the FSotW in the weeks to come (hehehehe)

Right so after all that – lets get back on topc – This weeks FSotW………

<reads list> This week I’d like to mention one of my daily reads, a protector (if you like) of squishies – which I like to class myself as (heck in all my forms I go down real fast – i’m that squishy) – this site is both professionally layed out and professionally written. So I’d like to say my FSotW is…….

Naissa’s Rage

Complete with a clicky as well, head over and check it out – seriously you wont be disappointed.

Well thats another week done.

Buel

Tada, I’m here /cheers (hehe)

So how you all been keeping? I’ve been spending a little time in Naxx – twice I would think since my last post, Did 3 wings on Sunday evening, with some good loot dropping (I got nice shiney purple shoulders  – again cloth – but hey as always I dont intend on gettin hit all that much) but when nice stuff dropped (Token for T7, a nice shiney trinket) my dice once again deserted me and a classy rolls of 4 and then a 2 came out……. naturally I lost – but hey it’s the taking part that counts, and as it’s a guild run we’re keeping it in the “family”.

And whilst we’re on the family topic, finally after a fair chunk of time, and a “little” persuasion my brother finally decided to try Wow, he’s been on War for a while and raved about it, now I admit to playing War, and that for a briefest of brief moments it was great, but hey it didn’t last long and Wow called to me like cheesecake in the fridge…… So yeah my brother rolled a Druid (horde ofc) and is making all the right sounds of enjoyment – ones that I can remember making a few years back so thats a big thumbs up.

Now the hunter, yeah so I dinged 47 yesterday still sticking with BM spec and still with a cat, I did try a gorilla for a short period, but to be honest I missed my Black Cat, so I swapped back and theres no stopping me, think I’m gunna enjoy this goon

Anyways as always say hi if you wanna, and dont if you dont wanna.

Buel

Seems that alot of my favourite haunts have started packing up world of warcraft, Resto4Life stopping first then BRK posted about closing his doors, now Omenscourge has announced his retirement (reading between the lines from both Wow and the blog). So firstly I would like to /salute those three (and any others I have missed) for realising that it’s only a game, damned addictive and time consuming, but none the less a game. I’m lucky I guess,  I appreciated from day one it’s only a game, and have my gaming times as non confrontational as possible sure theres always mis understandings, but there is in 95% of relationships and it’s as good a topic as anything to have mis understandings about sure beats the news, the recession, money, food, etc etc. On the whole things are good.

‘Nuff Said

So got a call up to help on the final boss on Naxx (10 man), I had a couple of hours to kill so gladly stepped up to the plate (I’m english and have little idea what that actually means but I’m sure it’s something related to baseball) it was a 2 healer run which I knew wasn’t gunna be easy, wow was I right, we took wipe after wipe after wipe, myself and the pally healer were run ragged – now we both kept shouting for a third healer but to no avail. The mana bomb just kept wiping us both outta mana fast now I had innervate, and a nice guy playing a druid dps kitty so I had his innervate too, but in my opinion it’s a three healer gig. One for the tanks (and throw a few onto the melee) one for the range guys and the Ice blocks, and one AOE healer & Ice blocks, this I reckon covers the raid nicely and can easily be done inside the 19 minute before enrage. So naturally we failed, miserably – but I think on the whole we learned from it, and hopefully next time we go there a third healer will be in place

In other news, in between healing I’ve just dug out my old hunter (orc) – a level 44 one that I’ve had kicking around for some time and none of my other goons really excite me at the moment so I’m gunna run with this one for a little while and see how it goes, BM specced.

Take it easy all.

Buel.

Morning Gang, a new shiney achievement is whats new hehe – if you take a look to the left and then scroll down you’ll see that I am sporting a rather shiney, brand new achievement – Kel-Thuzad’s Defeat yes I’ve been in Naxx rather a few times over the last couple of weeks and finally I got to see the end content.

So thought’s about this from a healing perspective, I was asked to stand in a couple of times to help the guild raid, this naturally I jumped at (helping the guild and healing is a good excuse to see the content, and potentially earn some loot).

Firstly loot – chuff all to be honest, there was a couple of drops during the times I was there, but nothing could beat the kit I currently have, I found this really dissappointing that the Naxx kit dropping was worse than my crafted and heroic purples! Now I’m sure if other items had dropped that my blues would easily have been replaced it just wasn’t to be. The Hunter, Shammy, Warrior Helm dropped (seen waaayyyy to much of the hunter, shammy and warrior tokens in my last few trips!).

Secondly – Healing. This time around there was only 2 healers available myself and a Disc priest so I saw a different side to the healing, not quite so “laid back” as it is with three healers but still were capable of handling the situation (right till the last boss! which is a very different story). I’ve learned that swiftmend is a nice “get out of jail free card” and that along with natures swiftness you can get those heals out fast and make a difference. I found that rejuvenation is still a firm favourite even tho I’ve change my idol for another shiney item Idol of Lush Moss which boosts my Lifebloom (which I try to use as often as rejuvenation altho stacking it three times can sometimes interefere when healing a full raid in my limited experience but guessing that will become easier with practise), now my other firm favourite which I find extremely useful is Wild Growth – whilst it’s not a massive heal, it is certainly very effective when theres alot of AOE going on and the melee guys are beginning to take a hitting, instant cast one off on the MT and it ticks nicely onto the DPS guys, in fact I found alot of cases it was just as friendly dropping it on myself and letting it tick on the healers and other ranged casters around me.

So onto that last boss, the one that gives the achievement that sooooo many PUG’s want before they let you join (which is kinda strange if you ask me lol, I understand the need for knowing raids etc, but surely if they are kitted and can understand simple instructions like stand here, hit the boss type thing, surely thats a good start?)  not that I often do PUG’s not being a snob just limited time restricts that – there always seems to be a group going in the guild. SO the final boss – now I could list out the strategy but to be honest theres better strat guide sites out there, lets take a look at the healers potential pitfalls during the fight, phase ne isn’t really an issue for the healers, everyone stand in the center of the room, stopping those encroaching before they get too many in the middle and swarm over us all, phase two – this in my opinion is the tricky bit for the healers Kel’Thuzad come’s into the battle and start throwing his “ample” weight around (you should allready have an encounters add on like deadly boss mod if you haven’t seriously get one, makes it alot easier – google it to find the linkage) so many of the key spells and offensive attacks from him require you to be 10 yards away from the affected player, spell casters is relatively simple deadly boss mod tells you if someone is within 10 yards so just start 10 yards from others, the healers really need to be stood cloe to the centre of the room and the others spread out around so healing is made easier. In my humble opinion the killer ability of this guy is Frost Blast this basically affects the player taking 104% of your heal in 4 seconds, you need to stack these guys up fast, very fast, instant casts for the win, HoT’s dont seem to cut the mustard on this you need the big guns out, it’s exceptionally hard work to keep everyone upright, and with two healers a little bit too much to keep everyone upright, we found when one of the healers has this spell (he is stunned and cannot help) the other healer struggles to keep you alive and keep everything else together.

We finally put this guys down on the 4th attempt with a third healer brought onine to help heal throughout this boss, I’m sure it’s possible with two healers, but for both of us who hadn’t really dealt with the boss much before the third one in made the difference.

Anyways enough gabbling for now, cya all later.

L2Heal

Once again I’ve been playing more than blogging – sorry

I’ve been putting in some time into the heroics and Wintergrasp (mostly for Raid healing experience – it’s not a good reflection due to the lag but it’s fun too) I managed to get enough tokens to pick up The Egg of Mortal Essence which replaced my last green item – ya, that along with a few nice heroics a notably nice blue trinket Talisman of Troll Divinity and my crafted Wispcloak which wasn’t much of an upgrade but enough to make me shell 0ut for the mats.

Then my moment of truth came – guild run to Naxx, I had a free (ish) evening so though why not sign the druid up, it was a late sign up and 2 healers were already ahead in the queue so I really didn’t expect to get in – but when 7pm (UK time) came around sure enough I got an invite – lucky I’d stocked up on Food & a flask.

Phenominal is about the word I’d use – the druid’s healing is outstanding – there we 3  healers, 2 druids and a disc priest – I was amazed at the results (I’ll put some screenies up tomorrow) I topped the healing charts & 4th on overhealing which I was dead chuffed about – not the overhealing is an issue – just nice to not have massive amounts, I thought i’d do ok, but to be top healing was just amazing to me – the others being Naxx kitted and having visited there before as a healer so pretty much nowing what to do and where best to stand.

We managed to get thru to Saphiron and stopped there – on the whole a nice run – always nice to get involved in a raid with the guild people who truly understand what it’s like to be new in an instqance / raid and take the time to explain rather than running headlong with others trying to work it out on the fly.

Screenies will follow guys.

L2Heal /out

Has it really been 5 days since I updated?

Firstly then, my apologies for the “downtime” things have been pretty busy “IRL” so to speak and the free time I’ve had has been firmly in Northrend.

So, whats new?   Well I dinged the big 80 on Saturday afternoon which was great, I’d managed to save up almost enough mats to get my boots and legs made and after a quick visit to the AH to get the last few mats I was the proud owner of Earthgiving Boots and Earthgiving Legguards.

Next I respecced accross to tree spec, I’ve jiggled some points around taking the 5 points from Gift of the Earthmother and put them into Naturalist which kinda changes my initial build ideas, but my thinking was, I might just need to have the biggest heal on a faster time, rather than the GCD being .3 of a second faster.

The rest of the weekend online was spent in and out of battlegrounds, not really cos I want the PvP honor, but I really wanted to see how healing in Raids/Parties would work out. I was pretty chuffed with the results, came top healer on many occasions which consideringmy inexperience and my kit isn’t the greatest I was quite happy with.

Last night I got the guild to break me in gently to Heroics, so we went for Nexus & Utgarde Keep (the latter was our daily) we dragged along a PUG warrior to fill the last slot (a diamond guy/gal – Ive’ checked the armory and cant find him/her – named something like Eatulive would have like to link them here so if I remember the name I will link it here) the party was – Deathknight, Paladin, Druid (kitty), Druid (me), Warrior and on the whole the heroics went fairly well to be honest, we did have a couple of deaths along the route (the Pally took a 16k belting hit which took her straight out and the warrior had a shave with death with some outstanding aggro generation which caused a temporary switch on targets followed by a fantastic change of direction from vertical to horizontal).

Got a rather nice pair of gloves (Gloves of the glistening Runes), albeit cloth but a nice upgrade and I dont intend on being hit all that much.

Anyways, thats me for now – will be around soon (really)

L2Heal