Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Slim Pickings

Don't have too much to talk about. Again. This post-a-day schedule is tough. Then again, if I don't stick with it, I probably won't stick with the blog, so...

Anyway, if you remember, I was going to start an "experiment" where I only do instances with Enara. Why? Well, why not? But, seriously, it's a combination of several things:
  1. I want to take a break from the "usual" quests that I already know by heart. Since I don't have any high level Hordies, I haven't seen any of the higher level dungeon quests on that side, and even the lower level ones I don't know that well.
  2. I'd like to see if I get much better gear that way.
  3. I wonder if there's "enough" there to make it possible to level that way. Of course, if you just grind an instance, you still get XP for kills, but I hate grinding - the plan is to only run an instance until I'm done with all its quests.
I'm not sure it'll stick, though. For one, finding groups is a bit of a problem for me (time difference and all that). Second, I'm pretty sure it'll hurt my Herbalism and Alchemy (and, as a result, my wallet). But I can at least try...

So, first things first, last night I ran Enara around getting all the quests for RFC, WC and SFK. On the way, I managed to find a new quest I hadn't known before, specific to Herbalists. Yay me. Yeah, I know it's not related to any instance, but still - I'm not going to turn down fun when I encounter it.

After some running around the Barrens, killing raptors and exploring some oases on my way, I finally ended up in Thunder Bluff to get finish getting all my quests. Next up, finding a group. Of course, I'm level 21 and the instance is officially for levels 13-20, so no LFG tool for me. *sigh* Well, I joined the LFG channel and started looking... Not too many people anxious to go in, but I finally found a level 22 Hunter wanting to get a sword from Taragaman (I can only assume it was the Cursed Felblade he was after). So in we went, and at some point added a Blood Elf Rogue to our ranks ("only" level 18, but decked out in AH blues) as well.

It went pretty well until we reached Taragaman. He didn't drop the sword, and what a surprise - the Hunter* just had to go because something came up. The rogue only had the quests from Thunder Bluff, so we finished those and called it a night. Hopefully, I'll get at least RFC done with tonight, and maybe get started on WC.

So the run, however short it was, at least gave me chance to think about how I performed in a role I'm not entirely used to in instances, and with the Nostromo thrown in just to mix things up. Things I've noticed:
  • My Pyroblast/Fireball macro, while pretty good had some problems with resetting the cast sequence. I threw a "reset=combat" into the mix, so we'll see if it fixes it (or kills it completely). There is also the fact that since I wasn't the one doing the pulling I wouldn't be "in combat" and threw around somt Pyroblasts where they were entirely unnecessary. Luckily, using the Nostromo for running a macro with a modifier seemed to work pretty well**, allowing me to override the Pyroblast (when I remembered to, that is).
  • My sheep macro is broken. It didn't clear the focus when it was dead, causing some fumbling around to set it manually when the old corpses still hadn't despawned. I also though the modifier to force it to clear focus didn't work, only to realize that I hadn't actually mapped that button to press the modifier on the Nostromo. Both (the macro and the Nostromo mappings) have been fixed, and I'll check whether they actually work tonight.
  • Fireball crits are really problematic when you have a Rogue tank that can't hold aggro that well. And that leads us to the next point.
  • I completely forgot about Mana Shield when I pulled aggro. Might have prevented the 1 or 2 deaths in there.
So that's it. Nothing too impressive, but then nothing bad either. We'll see how this experiment comes along in the weeks to come.

That RL Thing

There are going to be some changes in my personal life and work, in the near future, which will probably effect my posting in some way. Just to let you know, so you don't freak out if a weekday comes along and I don't post anything...



* I'm still debating whether he was a huntard or just cocky - he ran with AotC the whole time and would often run in to melee mobs. He was also wearing a Bloody Apron - although I agree the +sta on it is pretty good, wearing cloth instead of leather means you take more damage, so it's probably not the best trade-off in the world. I could be wrong, though. And, of course, there's the possibility that it was just better than what he had before (if he had a level 10 white chest with less armor than the apron, then it's understandable).

** I promise another post on the Nostromo once I've had a chance to try it out on at least another character. As I said, I have to figure out a way to work "stance" switching into it as well. Current plan is to play around with Mokla this weekend and have the post up early next week.

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