City Building

Well Wisp has now passed 40th level and can now learn her two professions. Well as I’ve been telling the guild since we booked our “Guild Village” spot in the Purple Lotus Swamp that one of them will be Architect. Having a profession beyond the mundane little things really appeals to me.

So what is needed to build a keep, the first building for the village? Well 20 Bricks which is 200 Sandstone, 15 Joists which is 150 Ash, 10 braces which is 100 Copper and 5 Plain Facades which is 50 Silver. Fine so far I have most of that myself already! Add in the fact that our guild village is in a private instance only shared with the guild who take the southern city spot, means that farming is easier as I find lots of 100% nodes.

Now materials covered what else is needed? A plan, which is drawn up from 2 parchment and 1 drawing  ink, sounds simple enough off to see the trader. Ink 25s… erm OUCH. Parchment 50s each… erm 2 by 4 to the face! So 1g25s is needed to build the keep, at level 41 I have 60s.

Building our village may take a while, but at least it’s a guild thing so I don’t have to farm all the mats and buy all the paper & ink by myself. Time now to keep levelling as I have a 3g horse to get and then a keep to build!

Wisp

Dark Moon Fair – Lyon

What an awesome weekend that was. My notes are complete rubbish and I should have written this up Monday so any mistakes are down to that! So time to run over the highlights!

My first time in a plane, I didn’t get a window seat on the way out (but did on the way back and the views are amazing). And take off! WOW! The plane taxied to the runway and I had a small smile, the engines kicked in the acceleration and my smile grew, when the plane left the ground that smile became a grin and with every jerk and jolt it just got bigger, it was all I could do to stop myself laughing out loud! All I can really say is “What a Rush”. I’d love to learn how to fly just so I can take off and land repeatedly.

Once in Lyon I met up with my team mate Jack (who was reporting for UDE rather than playing) and the three Middlesbrough players he had driven down with. We got some food and then went back to our rooms for some play testing.

Saturday and the Fair was HUGE, 209 competitors made it the biggest DMF to date in either Europe or Yankland. We met up with the four from Lincoln, making a group of 8 UK players, UDE report 10 but I’ve no idea who the other two where, ready to face the world!! or Europe as the case may be.

The first pairings came up and it was time to play. I was using my Chaigon deck from the UK realms but with a few more tweaks, the decklist and credits at the end.

Round one was Mage #1. The cards just flowed and he was squashed very flat very fast for a nice comfortable 2/0 win
[UK Players => Me 1-0, Andrew 1-0, Gary 1-0, John 1-0, Julian 1-0, Mark 0-1, Karl 0-1]

Round two was a ripped deck… damn. Game one though I rushed him to death and it was over by turn 5. In game two I sided in only 1 silent fang … why???? Must have been a moment of madness! But it was on the table in time to stop his first ripped and despite recurring deshura my allies squashed him a 2nd time. Another 2/0 win for me.
[UK Players => Me 2-0, John 2-0, Andrew 2-0, Julian 1-1, Gary 1-1, Karl 0-2, Mark 2-0]

Round three was against the world champion. Yup that’s what I said! Before the round Jack told me I was playing the world champion (made me worried) with a runetusk deck (made me more confident). So I sat down against a mage deck….. O well Jack must have been mistaken as to who I was paired against. I went on to beat mage deck #3. Turns our Jack had got some French players and their decks confused, it was the world champ I beat after all. That was good for my confidence!
[UK Players => Me 3-0, John 3-0, Andrew 2-1, Julian 2-1, Gary 1-2, Karl 1-2, Mark 1-2]

Round four was Mage #3. What is it with these little 25 life pipsqueaks?. But By this time I am buzzing and made the win needed to guarantee my cut to the top 64 and the draft.
[UK Players => Me 4-0, John 4-0, Julian 3-1, Mark 2-2,  Andrew 2-2, Karl 1-3, Gary 1-3]

Round five was a rogue deck, and my cards finally deserted me. In one game I had a had fall of jank, completed a one dreani’s and hit two jubilies but still had a hand of jank, at the end of my 3rd turn I’d discarded 4 cards. Well ended up losing 0/2. Was a shame but hey these things happen.
[UK Players => Me 4-1, John 4-1, Julian 3-2, Mark 3-2, Gary 3-2]

Ok the draft and I’m in pod 2, I’ll need 3 wins to guarantee top 8 and taking advice from jack on board I grab an infusion of fortitude from my first pick, as I let priest cards wheel it becomes obvious to me that I am the only one drafting priest. I pick up a second infusion and a couple of absorb magic’s. Later on I pick up an Eclipse after letting it wheel, which goes nicely with the instant 3 cost heal 8 (split as you like) card Salvation. I’ll admit I’m not the best drafter, I let two Ingrid Shadowstorms go past me and picked up an Atani of the Watch which being honest is pretty crap in draft as it doesn’t trade off in any way shape or form. So in the end I had a reasonable but could have been better traitor priest deck – list at the end.

Round six and lol victory in game two came from the use of Piana and Eclipse to slowly burn his hero and allies until I could drop the big guns. I won 2/0 comfortably keeping me on track.
[UK Players => Me 5-1, John 4-2, Andrew 4-2, Julian 3-3]

Round seven and letting the flip denial dude slide came back to haunt me, that combined with no early game cards beyond my healer and Antani showing up in either game meant I could not get an momentum going and in the end I lost 0/2. So my dreams of top 8 almost gone – might have a chance on tie breakers if I win my last match.
[UK Players => Me 5-2, Andrew 5-2, John 5-2, Julian 4-3]

Round eight went to time, I lost the first game, and got the second game with an eclipse and then healing his hero for 8 when he had 7 health left. The third game had been on 1 damage each for a while when time was then called. He had just done intensify rage on Jezbella of Karabor and used it to kill off Order Keeper Henley, and it was over to me at time. I promptly stole his ally with my flip traded off his only other remaining ally. His turn was some more aggression ready to hit me with. In his end phase I dropped prayer of healing on my acquisition to keep it alive and hit him with it. His turn and he couldn’t get the last 3 damage needed to beat me.

So my final score was 6/2. Turns out that the person with 7/0 folded against his 6/1 opponent so that they both got into the top 8. The result was 8 people on 7/1 so no top 8 for me.

[The final UK player standings where => Me 12th, Andrew 18th, John 22nd, Julian 52nd]

I am understandably really chuffed with 12th out of a field of 209! This netted me a £60 amazon voucher – will be a lot of books. And 12 boosters, 6 MotL & 6 SotB. Called a rocket on the first Servants pack and pulled on! (Would have done that on every pack, but getting it on the first looks impressive!!!) Just need to give it a few months before I sell it (I’ve used one already) and that’s the whole cost of the trip covered.

Overall it was an awesome event and I really enjoyed myself.

So I end up with my constructed and draft decks. The constructed deck is based on a deck by Mark Slack which he used in one of the USA realm championships, I was trying to build a 
myriam deck and jack pointed me to an article featuring his deck. I like playing hunter decks to I took it, tweaked it and ran with it!

Contructed Deck - Hero: Chaigon Steelsight
Main: 61 Cards

4x Xavar the Resourceful [1]
4x Zandar Shadesprocket [1]
4x Apprentice Merry [1]
4x Marksman Glous [2]
3x Vindicator Kaldel [2]
2x Chipper Ironbane [2]
4x Waldo the Decoy [3]
3x Jubilee Arcspark [3]
4x Myriam Starcaller [4]
3x Fury x 3 [5]

2x Bloody Weclome [2]
3x Feign Death [3]

2x Annihilator [2]
2x Glaive of the Pit [7]

4x Kilbler's Exotic Pets
4x Marks of Kil'jaeden
3x One Draenei's Junk...
2x Chasing A-Me 01
2x The Defias Brotherhood
2x Dr. Boom

Side: 10 Cards
1x Chipper Iron Bane [2]
1x Bloody Welcome [2]
2x Burn Away [3]
3x Thrill of the Hunt [4]
1x Annihilator [2]
2x Silent Fang [2]

Draft Deck - Hero: Remba Abbess of Ash
Main: 31

1x Touch of Darkness [1]
2x Infusion of Fortitude [1]
1x Prayer of Mending [1]
2x Absorb Magic [2]
1x Salvation [3]
1x Mental Anguish [3]
1x Eclipse [5]

1x Xavar the Resourceful [1]
1x Atani of the Watch [1]
1x Piana [1]
1x Hanaga Silvervein [2]
2x Durae Crystalshield [2]
1x Vindicator Agran [3]
1x Anchorite Alonora [4]
1x Magdeline Prideheart [5]
1x Breen Toestubber [5]
1x Orderkeeper Henley [5]
1x Narthadus [6]
1x Weeble [6]
1x Gabble [7]

1x Abyss Walker's Boots [2]

1x Gurok the Usurper
1x Information Gathering
1x Forces of Jaedenar
1x Natural Remedies
1x The Spirit Polluted
1x The Sigil of Krasus
1x Wanted Durn the Hungerer

Side: 9 (The other playable cards drafted)
1x Vindicator Belian [1]
1x Zaistor the Vigilant [1]
1x Aldana [2]
1x Orderkeeper Calister [4]
1x Rames the Purifier [4]
1x Fade [1]
2x Heartening Arrival [3]
1x Crystalfire Staff

Wisp

Flash of Insight

To day at work I had one of my flashes of insight!!! About 15 years ago Lenny Henry did a comedy called Chef. Now flying forward to recent years Gorden Ramsey swears a lot and shouts and every one in kitchens in a similar way.

THEREFORE – Gorden has OBVIOUSLY modelled himself on this show!

Like all my sudden understandings about the inner workings of life and the universe this one was completely unrelated to the current topic of conversation.

Wisp

My first Illidan Kill

Well, last night was our guilds 2nd Illidan kill and my first. So I have finally got my neck piece that teleports me to the gates of the black temple, conveniently close to the best place I’ve found for farming cobra scales….

Any way he dropped the main hand Warglaive of Azzinoth. Which went to the only rogue in the raid, had no fury warriors present either.

Ok now a quick question in Warcraft III what class was Illidan? Answer – Demon Hunter. Ok what classes can use the warglaives? Answer – Warriors & Rogues. Can you see the issue here? Illidan is a HUNTER but we can’t use his weapons….. stupid game :p

Wisp

The Death List

Before I get onto the main topic off this post, here is another screen shot of my AoC character highlighting something I noticed on the character selection screen while loading the game. Its only a small thing but these kind of touches can really make a game. This one is the fact that the neckpiece being worn is actually visible on the character.

The other reason is I can't get over how damn good the characters in this game can look!

Now onto the main topic of this post. I rolled on a PvP server and I am fully aware of what this means while playing and levelling. But there are still some things that piss me off.

1) getting ganked by someone twice your level - I was killed by a level 40 Assassin when I was level 20.
2) getting attacked while talking to quest npc's - you can't do anything to defend yourself and may not know its happening until your dead.
3) killing someone who is almost dead from fighting npc's - this one is less annoying tho, especially as I have been guilty of using it to kill someone a lot of levels higher than me.

But as I’m on a PvP server I know these things are going to happen all the time, although in the case of the first one I think its mainly sad losers trying to get over an inferiority complex. So its silly getting annoyed as it was my choice of server type. Instead I have my Death List! I'll happily make a note of these people from the combat log and screen shots and one day I'll hunt em down and have VENGENCE! REPEATEDLY! First on my list is.

He was ganking people in their low 20's around quest giving NPCs. After my death I used tracking to hunt him down in stealth, arriving in time to help 3 other irate people lay into him.

Wisp

New Trinket

Last night I got my first bit of Black Temple loot in over a month. From the Illidari council comes.

On our Illidan attempts during the rest of the evening I recon the proc is up at least 33% of time which is nice as it lifts my armour penetration to 586. Plus I saw it refresh itself before the duration was up, this is good because it shows the trinket doesn't have a hidden internal cooldown.
The major bonus from the trinket for me tho is the 20 hit rating, this allows me to swap my 3 orange HR gems (total +13 HR, +13 Agi) for yellow crit gems (+26CR). I will hit 33% crit unbuffed eventually (a random target pulled out of the air).

Talking about crit not sure what is a good amount the more the better I suppose. As I'm using a 3/2 Steady/Auto macro and Steady shot has a 1.5 second cast (without haste buffs) this means in theory every 4.5seconds I have fired 5 shots. So an average of one crit a "cycle" would be 20% i.e. one crit every 4.5seconds. Which is crap. So if I wanted twice as many crits it would be 40% and one ever 2.25seconds. Fractions are annoying so I think I'll like to round down to one crit every 2 seconds. A quick bit of maths…

There is a shot every 0.9 seconds so S = 0.9. And we will say that T is the time between critical hits. Finally we sill say the C is the % chance of a critical. Putting this together we get a nice little formula.

S/C = T (If we have a 20% crit chance this gives > 0.9/0.2 = T = 4.5)

Ok now we want to know the crit % needed for 1 every 2 seconds giving us.

S/T = C (0.9/2 = C = 0.45)

So from a quick bit of theory crafting based on an assumption that the 3/2 macro gives me 5 shots every 4.5 seconds I have aquired my target crit % (raid buffed) to get a crit every 2 seconds.

Wisp

A new incarnation of Wisp

On Friday, I went an brought a copy of Age of Conan because I was curious and a lot of friends from wow had been giving it a go. Including some who have quit playing. First thing to notice, my graphics card is just below the recomended level (I have a 512Mb GeForce 7800 Gsomething, and recomended is a 512Mb GeForce 7900 GTX) Then we move onto the 32Gb hard drive space... Yup I said 32Gb!!! As I only have two 80Gb hard drives in my PC, full of a lot of junk it was time to make a trip to Argos.

Eventually I arrived home with my new game and a 500Gb external hard drive. This game having cost me over £100 but I needed the storage anyway. 30 Mins to move all the junk from one partition and its overspill onto another into my new harddrive. A quick defrag of the now empty partition and its was installation time.

We will now take a quick break to read my book, go to buy food from the supermarket, prepare and eat dinner, do some more reading.

Over two hours later the game was installed and patched.

Well character creation is awsome! I could spend hours on this screen customizing how my character looks down to the smallest little detail! Basic mode lets you choose your chars size and height, select from a list of predefined body marking, facial features etc. Then you hit advanced! your can change anything from the angles or the eyes, shape of mouth, nose & chin. The shape and lengths of arms, legs, torso etc. After 5 mins of messing around with this I did realise that I have no sense of proportion and only if I wanted to make a bug eyed monster would I use this section! Back to basic for me. And so the new incarnation of Wisp is born! Small and slight, a mere wisp of a lass. (See I can even justify keeping a variation of my WoW chars name.)

The gameplay reminds me of a multiplayer morrowind, some one else mentioned Oblivion but I never got around to playing that due to WoW. I am seriously enjoying it at the moment, and the music, well, its impressive. Combat is resonably simple in concept but mastering it will of course take time. You have 3 basic attacks left, centre & right. Then you put combo moves onto your hotbar these involved using them and then one or more basic attacks in sequence. Add to this the fact you can get other combat bonuses by double tapping movement keys, and it becomes a really engaging system.

Will I keep playing? A good question, and I think it will depend on the end game. I have already almost decided that in the next wow expansion I will be doing the end game instances in the 10 man mode rather than 25. A more relaxed approach should give me the time to actually do other things!

Wisp