Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!

It appears to have been quite the busy week, in game and out. Work has been quite busy, and the precarious weekday balance of raiding + family raising in between is not one I wish to risk tipping with added time spent writing, no matter how much I enjoy doing it.

As a result of this, I have composed the better part of three or four blog posts and one, maybe one and a half short story vignettes in my head during the lengthy ‘thinking’ time that is my commute. Given the lack of express train routes between Podunkton and Wanna Be Chic Urban Centre of DC Suburbia as well as the lack of portable speech recognition word processing software and hardware in my possession, they are all sadly locked in my head fading word by word as inspiration flits elsewhere.

So let this be a warning, this may be a conglomerate ramble of all those things with most of the important bits missing! I bear no responsibility for the comprehensibility of my writing from this point forward, or even this point backward.

Game Over!

So I finally beat the game. Saved the princess (or just Azeroth), won the day and saw the final epic cinematic as Arthas’ last breath as Lich King expired.

I could quit WoW and never be really hard pressed to go back (at least until Cataclysm). I probably won’t, because there are still things to do. There are 3 more difficulty settings to kill him on, and I’m psyched about that, but the real moment was that first epic ending scene I had been waiting for so long.

My guild and husband are still amazed at my ability to avoid all spoilers until that point. So as a courtesy to anyone else who has steadfastly avoided them and not yet seen the end of the game, there will be spoilers after the jump! To skip past, click here.

Now with 30% more sparkles!

I have a sparklepony.

I will not apologize or justify the investment. It is a pony. It sparkles and spits out magical stars that trail behind you. Magical sparkle ponies need no justifications.

For those in support of the pony, squee with me! Squeee!!! PONY!

As luck would have it, this same weekend I finally managed to tag along with a group hitting the hardmodes in Ulduar 10. An achievement 8 months overdue (grrrrr but never mind that) finally completed, One Light in the Darkness. The drake is pretty cool looking, better than I had thought. But now, I have a 30% faster pony, and that’s the coolest thing ever.

Side note, it was a busy weekend but Pixels are coming I promise! Teaser: I even convinced my husband to dress up for this one. Well worth the wait!

Moving Forward

It feels like a lot of things are finally moving forward, and it’s definitely exciting. The guild is progressing, news for the expansion is progressing, and the stuck-in-a-rut feeling is abated for now.

Last night’s raid was great. We’re finally pushing a little bit of progress and working on a few hard modes. It’s fun and challenging and progression is where I really enjoy being. Not to mention, hard modes get people to show up.

Long Week

So it appears that recruiting has been working out. Yesterday the attendance was down, but we had a full raid + standby on Wednesday. I wasn’t even there yesterday due to family stuff and I expect a lot of folks are doing spring break/easterthings this week, so I’ll grant leeway.

New people took some learning on Sindragosa, and we didn’t get as far on Lich King as we did the first night we had made attempts, but at least the recruits seem to be solidly geared and fully competent if not fully experienced. Learning another guild’s strategies always has a learning curve, small or large.

What a Rush

Updated today, the ICC buff has been increased from 5% to 10%. I know it’s meant to give more casual players a chance to see the latest content for the expansion, but at the same time it feels like anyone not on the bleeding edge is in a race against the clock. The race between guilds for rankings and first time kills is one thing, pitting skill vs. skill, but now it seems like there’s a countdown timer in-game to do the content while it still presents a challenge.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely worse things that can happen, especially considering you can turn it off if it’s really such a point of pride. But the fact that you have to pick between going E-Z mode and rejecting help when available for the sake of pride gives a sense of urgency I’m not overly thrilled with. The higher the buff gets, the more you lose the sense of good old fashioned accomplishment, and turning it off just has this sense of vanity that doesn’t go away.

Showing Up: How hard is it?

I’m more than a little peeved at some of my guildies of late. I should actually say I’m peeved at guildies and several former guildies, since last night we only had enough tanks for one ten man group. This provided our GM with a leisurely evening of trimming the roster of anybody who hadn’t raided in the past couple weeks. But really, it’s ridiculous. For two weeks in a row, we’ve farmed out the easy content, and nobody shows for anything even remotely progression oriented. I’m desperately in need of some ideas.

Astral Walker

So, we didn’t have enough to do progression. Still seething mad at folks who will show up, grab loot from the easy stuff, but then bail when it gets to actually working on content.

I am momentarily appeased and something less than murderous for now because at least we scrounged up enough to trounce Algalon. It was fun. Aside from somebody who came in with the key, nobody had done it on 25, some hadn’t even seen it on 10. We came, we learned, we stomped old content and got fancy titles. As well we should have, overgeared as we are.

Anyway, raid ended early so I made a fancy outfit to go with the fancy title. Astral Walker needs shiny things, flowing white dresses, and space and cosmos type backgrounds, so! BEHOLD! Ceralyn the Astral Walker!

After-patch Hangovers

Drunk with the power of the new ICC buff finally applying to my bubbles, the high of a smooth raid clearing up to Sindragosa with minimal mishaps, and the realization I had 5 emblems left to go, I scrounged up a 2am pug Ulduar and booked it straight to Threads of Fate to purchase the last 2 pieces of my 4 set.

Biggest regret thus far: 2 am pug raid on a work night. Not my brightest idea. But c’est la vie. It was quick, I was tired, and I get to test out how the additional shield buff measures up. But now that I am (semi-)rested, time to actually take a look at what I’ve invested in.

Patch Day!

Ah the joys of patch day!

Tons of lag, sorting your addons, not to mention hoping that the encounters still spawn correctly...

Okay okay so I'm having a serious negative day. Time to cheer up! After all, I got buffed! Or, well. Un-gimped, but hey that's a buff!

I also am having some success in camping for dresses in Moonglade. Two Red Traditional Hanboks and the bright springtime-y Green Wedding Hanbok (different than the dark green). Still no Formal Dangui. Someday it will be mine!! I've demanded Varimir check the vendor when the servers come up. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, for more funtimecheerylike patch info, I found this most excellent summary of patchnotethings from another priesty-blog: Patch notes from I Like Bubbles

No Progress

So no Lich King this week. Last night was worse than Wednesday even, so we ended up doing TOC. Regular. I was sick and feeling lazy/sneaky so I gave up my healing spot for Varimir's paladin alt. I guess it went alright, though only ret gear seemed to be dropping. He utterly despises his Aegis of Damnation and can't seem to replace it.

I was off negotiating terms of surrender and/or fruit snacks with a 4 year old when they finished. Got back to the room and apparently they had been waiting for me to start TOGC, with threat of -100 DKP for anyone not teabagging/jumping up and down on my avatar where Varimir had parked it in the instance. Well then. I had no idea, so hopefully they weren't waiting long.

The Means to Kill the Lich King

I got to play with the Lich King in 25 man last week.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I think the encounter is sufficiently epic for what Blizzard has built him up to be through the expansion. I wasn't far enough in to see the end of the Sunwell when it was current content, so I can't accurately compare the two, but I am having so. much. fun.