srsbusiness

Drunken Master
The amount of achievements I’ve been gaining has tapered off since I finished Glory of the Hero. I have since decided to start working on Holidays, something I just had no interest in previously. I’ve gotten the Brewmaster title already, now I just need to wait a year to have them all finished. Hallow’s End is quickly approaching and it along with Brewfest are my favorite in game holidays. So, I’m excited.

I also moved most of my alts over to my second account, it’s allowed me to do a lot of summons on Coren, I’ve been doing it everyday with a couple of guildies. The strategy has worked well, my regulars all have at least 1 mount, most have remotes too and whatever trinkets they might want. I’m just waiting on a Ram at this point. The only bad thing is, the holiday stuff has been eating into my grinding time for the Insane…

A Twofer, both mounts for the price of one!

Insane News
I’ve made some great progress on the Insane title. It took some experimentation but I eventually found the most optimized route for grinding Ravenholdt reputation. By the end of my grinding I was making 1K rep every 20-30 minutes. After that, it was time to start farming with Cicatriz. First, let me explain a couple of things about Cicatriz, this guy used to be my main back in BC. He’s a Skinner/Leatherworker, this was necessary for getting Darkmoon Faire rep up, you need to turn 180 Rugged Armor kits to the middle of Friendly reputation, after that you don’t gain anymore rep from Rugged turn ins. From there, Infelice takes over with Inscriptions to make Decks to turn in. This will all be covered in more detail though in my Insane Guide which is in progress now.

After getting the needed Rugged Armor kits, it was also time to start farming Heavy Strongboxes. These turn in 5 at a time for rep with Ravenholdt, and are the only option for reaching Exalted with that faction. A non human needs 1470 Strongboxes to reach Exalted from Revered. A few things come in handy for this part, and I figured it would be best to say it now while someone can benefit from my advice. First, the Direbew Remote that drops from Coren in the Brewfest event is an absolute godsend for this. This thing allows you to port directly to the Grim Guzzler in BRD, you can run out and up to LBRS and UBRS to start making a circuit to Pick Pocket those Heavy Strongboxes. Now, first let me say this: My rogue is now very much an AH alt, I didn’t even have talents spent on him when I started this. His spec at level 70 is a simple Combat Maces spec, with points in Subtlety for Master of Deception and Camouflage, likewise I’m using the Pick Pocket glyph to make things a bit easier. This gives me a little room to play with when I’m working these mobs for boxes.

One final thing that I’ve found to be quite helpful for this, the AddOn Loot Filter. I have this set to delete everything except Star Rubys and Heavy Strongboxes (I’m saving Rubys for one of my tanks who needs to skill up his Jewelcrafting a bit). The TLDR version of my LBRS farming circuit is, I go down till I see Spiders Pick Pocketing every mob I see, then turn around and PP my way back to the entrance. Once there, I run out and reset. The screenshot below is after only 2 full runs this way, as you can see LBRS is excellent for this farming.

I have set up a regiment; everyday I farm 100 Strongboxes (for 1500 rep), 1000 rep with a Goblin City, and I run Strath UD or Scholomance twice. This gives me materials for Shen’drelar rep, as well as giving me a shot at the Baron’s Mount. At this rate I should be done with the Goblins and Ravenholdt in about a month. This will leave me to focus on Shen’drelar and Darkmoon Faire exclusively.

In addition to the obvious daily grind for the Insane, I’ve also gone back to running the Argent Dailies, it’s a good supplemental source of income and I’m getting myself closer to Exalted with all of the major cities. After today’s run I will be Exalted with my first of the cities, Thunderbluff. Then I will move on to Undercity. With each city, I’m running to get all the mounts from their city getting myself closer and closer to reaching 50 mounts and an Albino Drake. (Overlapping Achievement Goals FTW!) The main reason I’m working on the Argent Dailies though, is for the new and improved Squire. Since I’m not an Engineer this portable mailbox option is just what the doctor ordered. This should make turning in rep for Shen’drelar much less painful.

Cicatriz pulling his weight in LBRS

Face on Fire News
I’m really proud of my guild, and things just seem to keep getting better and better. First, we had a lot of progress last week. We’ve been working on Yogg, and we’ve actually made solid progress on him. I think we’re really a few minor tweaks away from killing him in 25 man. And in toc there was progress as well, first we absolutely tore thru 25 man togc like a bag of leaves. Then we had our heroic 10 group. We broke through to Anub there, we got him pretty low but had a few little flub ups before we called it. Much like Yogg, his days are numbers in Heroic.

Likewise, our new DKP system has been a big hit. Last week was our first to implement it, and it went off surprisingly smoothly (though I did miss out on Juggernaut’s Vitality when it finally dropped). Overall though, I’m very happy with our crew and our progress.

Well, that’s about it for this week. I’m not feeling really well the weather here has taken a sudden turn and I think it’s knocked me off balance. So check in next week, I’m going to be talking specifically about Gold, how to make it. How to save it. And why.

Last week I finished my quest to complete Glory of the Hero, now I have my sights set on what some would call a more ludicrous goal: Insane in the Membrane, and more importantly the title that goes with this feat of Strength “The Insane”. Has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? Khaas the Insane…

Anyhow, after a couple of days of work I’ve gotten Bloodsail rep out of the way, got the Bloodsail Admiral title out of the way while doing so. But today is my first “real” day of working on this achievement. First order of business was to repair my Goblin faction. This was absolutely necessary considering we all knew Onyxia raiding was coming back “just not exactly when”. See, the nearest FP to Onyxia’s lair is surrounded by goblins from Gadgetzan. So, I broke the AH getting cloth to turn in for rep, each of the four goblin cities has a turn in quest that gives 500 rep with that city, and 200 rep for each of the other cities in the Steemwheedle Cartel. Of course, this ended up making my Bloodsail rep bottom out. But never fear dear readers; not all is lost for your humble narrator, it turns out you only need to reach the required Reputation level for this achievement, not have them all simultaneously.

So, with all of my goblin factions finally above Neutral (just in time too), I’m able to shift focus: My choices are between Shen’drelar, Ravenholdt, Darkmoon Faire, and the Steemwheedle Cartel. I’ve been farming up Ravenholdt rep; which has let me become acquainted with a variety of peoples alts while I’ve been farming rep from Syndicate members. I have decided however to really focus on my Darkmoon rep, the reason is quite simple really. The day after Brewfest is over, the Darkmoon Faire comes to Thunderbluff. That gives me a week to get Exalted. And I intend to. That being said, it’s time to introduce my partners in crime.

Fresh out of retirement I am proud to present Cicatriz and Infelice.

My main through much of Burning Crusade:

You might have seen my rogue on Blizzard’s Recruit a Friend Zhevra Mount page.

My main through much of Vanilla:

Previously known as Xombi, a Human Warlock on the Malorne server.

Both of these characters actually serve to fulfill very unique roles for me in this achievement. Both have tradeskills that are proving to be quite handy on my quest for the Insane title. First, there’s Cicatriz who’s Skinning/Leatherworking. With Infelice I’ve got Herbalism/Inscriptions. Both of these tradeskills are key in getting my reputation up with the Darkmoon Faire. Cicatriz is covering Rugged Armor Kits, these are good for 5000 of the 42,000 necessary to reach Exalted. After that, it’s all on Inscriptions and the Rogues Decks, these little gems are low level but award rep all the way to Exalted. More importantly, they’re cheap and easily farm-able materials.

As I write this I’ve reached Honored with the Ravenholdt Faction, I may not be able to completely reach Exalted during the week that the Darkmoon Faire is in Thunderbluff, but I will certainly have enough Rugged kits to get to 5000 rep. The problem is really farming the Herbs needed for the Rogue Decks, no one on Blackrock seems to be farming things like Mageroyal except me. And the ones who are farming these materials are charging 30g per stack. So it’s definitely going to take some time herbing to get myself to Exalted. Meanwhile, I should be Revered with Ravenholdt tomorrow, at which point I will begin my herbing in earnest. After that it’s back to farming Strongboxes to finish off Ravenholdt rep.

Thoughts on the Achievement
It’s definitely well named, but in all I don’t think this feat of strength is really “that” hard. The real stumbling point is going to be Shen’dralar. Why? Because the only way to get rep is through Librams, which are unique. I’m going to have to save up for the squire upgrade from Argent Tourney so I can use him as a mailbox. Otherwise I don’t see a possible way to handle all those librams. I’ve made a bank alt specifically for holding all of those librams in mailbox limbo. I can keep mailing them to him, and when the time comes, return them all. So far, I remain hopeful I will achieve my goal of completion before New Years, if anything I’m heartened by my progress today.

More coming soon…

So, the big news for me is I finally met two of my “Pre Cataclysm” Goals: I completed the Glory of the Hero achievement and broke 40K HP unbuffed (I know screenshot or it didn’t happen, well look below smart ass).

A Twofer

Broke 40K AND finished Glory of the Hero

This morning I grabbed a couple of guildies (Rukar and a healer alt named Achellus) and gave Coren a shot. It went better than I’d expected, he didn’t drop a mount or even a remote sadly. But he did drop, three times in quick sucession. To put it bluntly he and his little butt buddies hit like girls. I was overall pleased with the updated trinkets; though a little confused. On the one hand, I’m not going to complain about the awesomeness of the updated Sta trinket I got. However, since it replaced another iLevel 200 trinket I’m a little confused on the stats. That’s a LOT of stamina for iLevel 200. Infact, 170 Stamina compared to the 162 on the i226 Heart of Iron. I’ve been heartened however by my experience today, and will be trying to solo him in the morning I think. I just want to see if I can do it. Meanwhile, I need to move my alts to BRD so I can do more resets (lots of them).

It’s been a busy week of achievement-whoring.
With even more on the way thanks to the holidays

In Other News:
Now that I have Glory in the can, it’s time to shift my focus elsewhere. So this week I started working on Insane in the Membrane. Considering the dense arrangement of Holidays over the next few months, both in game and out, I’m hoping to get the achievement complete by New Years. I would say sooner, but let’s be honest: it’s going to take a while. I have however set up an account with nothing but mules to hold all the crap. And I’ve officially taken my old rogue Cicatriz out of retirement for the epic task of farming strongboxes. I’ll be getting screenshots and video together as I progress, I may even throw together a guide to it all once I get done as I’ve already figured out a few things I haven’t seen elsewhere. Most of the guides I’ve seen have been for Rogues with Engineering, since I’m doing this on a guy that is neither… I can imagine the perspective might be kinda helpful to people in similar situations. That’s all for now, thanks for reading.

It’s been a very busy week for me, both in and out of WoW. First, there’s the ever present situation with the house. We’ve been renovating. At first we’d hoped to get this done before moving in, but it simply was impossible without a Flux Capacitor and a steady supply of Plutonium. So, during the day I’ve been dealing with contractors as well as working on the house myself. After this week, the floors should be done in the entire house! My office is finally getting painted and finished this week too. But you don’t read this to hear about my real life (if you read this at all), you read for the dirt on Warcraft.

As I said before, I’ve been pretty busy in WoW too, as the following screenshot will show:

By the time you read this, there will likely be several other achievements down (but these can go in next week’s update). I’ve been trying to play catch up, there’s not a lot for me to do now when we aren’t raiding. My Northrend reputations are in great shape, my tradeskills maxed. So after doing JC dailies what do I do with myself? Knock out achievements. This is very much a part of my recent interest in Goals, I asked myself, “What do you want to do before Cataclysm comes out?”

So, here’s a rough list:
» Break 40K HP unbuffed before Blizzard nerfs DK stamina AGAIN!
» Clear ALL Vanilla Instances and Dungeons.
» Clear ALL Burning Crusade Instances and Dungeons.
» Farm Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros.
» Complete the Following Achievements: 40 Exalted Reputations, Leading the Cavalry, Insane in the Membrane, Shop Smart, Shop Pet…Smart, Glory of the Hero
» I also want to get the rest of my alts to 80. One of each class, they don’t have to be dripping epics like Khaas but I would also like to max out their professions.

Overall, I don’t think this list is being too optimistic. One great thing about this is, as I said in the previous post: working toward one goal completes another. For instance I really want to break 4K Achievement Points. Along the way I’ll get that by completing these. Similarly, I want to put together a respectable set of PVP gear, this is possible as well. I’ll need to grind BGs to get mounts for Leading the Cavalry, which will lead to Honor. Which leads to PVP gear. It also adds more achievement points incidentally since I’ve done next to no BGs on Khaas since his creation. So, I have a direction. And I have a use for my army of alts. Between them, they cover every trade skill in the game. So if I need bags made, I send cloth to Miraru. If I need gems cut, Khaas can do it. Need Ore? Log on Grimmand. Etc.

What this all boils down to is this:
Many times in the past few years playing this game I felt like I was missing out on something, and so I would reroll. I had 5 characters I played in arenas during BC. I would play one for a season, then decide to try something else. Level it up, and start the grind all over again. In the end, I wasn’t completely satisfied. However, now I really like the class I’ve chosen as my main. And when I have those straying feelings, I can easily indulge them without losing anything. In essence, I’ve chosen not to choose. Or at the very least not to limit my options, and this works for me. In fact, it’s actually comforting to know that I have an alternative to burn out.

That’s it for me tonight, a quick not however. I’m working on a write up that continues the previous discussion about Goals and Alts. This time the topic is handling Tradeskills, I’m going to try to answer a lot of questions I get regularly about this subject. Check back Tuesday during Maintenance for my take on the various Professions.

Recently I talked about Gear Rating Sites; how they can help you establish and meet goals in your WoW career. Today I saw this post on Banana Shoulders that has led me to revisit this topic. A few other things have happened to lead me to consider this topic in greater detail as well, for starters I’ve recently consolidated my characters. With RAF and mulit-boxing I’ve amassed a fairly large stable of alts, I have recently however decided to curtail my boxing habits. Boxing has been good to me, but it just doesn’t make sense to me to do it anymore. I won’t deny I enjoy it. In essence, I’m more interested in tanking for my guild than five-boxing heroics ad nauseum.

Throw in the much anticipated faction transfer service and I’m finally able to play my old level 60 main, Xombi. This warlock has been languishing on the Malorne server, virtually unplayed since the release of Burning Crusade. Levelling him up now and replacing all that vanilla tier gear and other beautiful purple goodness won’t be so painful since I haven’t touched him in a couple of years.

This brings us to something very pertinent to the discussion of goals and managing them: I now have 10 characters (one of each class) on my main server. All are level 60 and above, in varying levels of gear. Now what?

Alt-Itis:
It happens, and it can be either a very good thing or a very bad thing. Most of the time when people think of alts, they automatically go to the negative aspect: “Soandso doesn’t raid with us this week, he wants to play his Huntard lulz“. Obviously, this is a very real possibility. But it’s a little short-sighted to think of it only in this way. Take for example my own situation, I’m the main tank. When we raid it’s my job to take the boss and have my way with him, while making sure he doesn’t have his way with me (or the raid for that matter). This is fine, this is what I signed up for. However, there is a point where you’re not getting loot anymore. There’s nothing left in the zone, and you’re doing a stressful job to help guild mates get gear.I’ve seen a lot of dedicated tanks burn themselves out and quit WoW altogether because of this very issue.

There’s a lot of ways to deal with it, one is alts. Play a healer for a while (trust me no one is going to ask you to come tank Nexus if you’re playing a Priest). Of course, you’ll still get asked to go to those same instances… but you’ll be doing something different and possibly getting some loot that this character needs, you’ll get to experience the feeling of progress, achievement. Of doing something that is immediately important to you. It is in this way that an alt can be a god send to the burnt out tank, and really to the raiders who depend on you. Remember raiders, it’s in your logical self-interest to let your tank play his alt once in a while.

Time Management and the Alt
There’s a few things yet for me to accomplish on Khaas before I can honestly say I’m “done” with Northrend. There’s the obvious: kick Arthas in the balls and lay claim to Frostmourne er, I mean Shadowmourne. And the not quite as obvious, I want to clear all of the old content that still exists on Khaas. That is, clear out the old dungeons and raids. Especially before Cataclysm makes some unplayable in their current state. Similarly, I have some achievements I’d like to get out of the way: Glory of the Hero, The Exalted, etc. I’d also like some specific mounts: Ashes of Al’ar, Netherdrake(s), Anzu, Great Brewfest Kodo, etc. Some of these goals overlap and so working on one brings me a step closer to another, for instance getting the Netherdrakes requires Exalted reputation with the Netherwing which is another reputation closer to the 40 needed for “The Exalted” title. Obviously, I want to get as many titles as possible too. I’ve only had the one Champion of the Frozen Wastes for far too long. And it’s long past the point of being “cool and unique”.

Also, it’s important to note that some of this is simply possible only during certain times of the year, as with the Brewfest mounts. That being said a certain prioritization needs to be taken into account when figuring out your goals. Prioritizing goals, and managing the time spent toward reaching those goals is even more important when dealing with multiple characters. In the words of Captain Jack Sparrow, “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.” For instance, you can spend a couple of months working on quests for the Loremaster achievement/title on one character, but you can’t do it on 10. Realistic goals are just as important as having goals in the first place.

Sorting out the Short-Term from the Long-Term
The easiest way to understand this is by looking at the achievement Glory of the Hero, in itself the achievement and it’s mount respectively are a perfect example of a long-term goal. It is impossible to complete this achievement in one sitting, because of some of the limiting factors imposed by Blizzard. It is however theoretically possible to complete most of it in one shot; it’s just not likely.

This achievement is made of a series of short-term goals, if we examine the requirements we can break it down into it’s parts.

Utgarde Keep: On the Rocks
The Nexus: Split Personality, Intense Cold, Chaos Theory
Azjol-Nerub: Watch Him Die, Hadronox Denied, Gotta Go!
Ahn’kahet: The Party’s Over, Volazj’s Quick Demise, Respect Your Elders, Volunteer Work
Drak’Tharon: Consumption Junction, Better off Dred, Oh Novos!
Violet Hold: Defenseless, Lockdown!, Dehydration, A Void Dance
Gundrak: What the Eck?, Share the Love, Less-Rabi, Snakes, Why’d it Have to be Snakes?
Halls of Stone: Good Grief, Brann Spankin’ New, Abuse the Ooze
Halls of Lightning: Timely Death, Lightning Struck, Shatter Resistant
The Culling of Stratholme: The Culling of Time, Zombiefest!
Utgarde Pinnacle: The Incredible Hulk, Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi, MY Girl Loves to Skadi all the Time, King’s Bane
The Oculus: Experienced Drake Rider, Make it Count, Ruby Void, Emerald Void, Amber Void

Again, it’s possible to do almost all of these in one sitting, but not likely. There’s just too much here. You would need to be a very experienced player with a group of people dedicated to the cause. My advice would be to pick one of the instances and work on it until all of the achievements are done in that instance. One good way to do this, is watch for the Daily Heroic and Daily Dungeon, you can usually find people who are anxious to do those instances and get a couple of achievements knocked out. Pugs might not be the best for some of these (Less Rabi for example) but they’re still doable. And it’s a lot easier to convince guildies to go along when they can get a couple of extra Triumph badges out of the deal as well.

In the case of alts, this mindset is similarly applicable. I have 10 character slots filled, so naturally I want to make all 10 Revered with the Oracles to maximize my chances of getting the Green Proto Drake and the various pets. All 10 of my characters are at different levels of gear and experience though. So, in the case of my warlock and hunter for example, I need to level them up before I can even work on these quests. My Shaman and Priest however are 80 with some epics. So they’re perfect for working on this rep grind. My DK and Warrior already have Revered and are getting eggs every 7 days. So, say in a weeks time I’ll have two more eggs per week. Then I can work on the quest line with my Druid and Mage. Then my Paladin, level up my rogue a bit and do the quests with him. Then Hunter and Lock. This also will help my gold doing these dailies, and give me a little something constructive to do with my time. In the end, what matters is that you take a deep breath an really critically examine your options and figure out a logical progression from one step to the other. It’s not as easy as saying, I want Netherdrakes on all 10 of my guys. Sometimes you have to compromise, and accept the fact you can’t get it all at once. But with enough time and planning you can eventually meet all of your goals.

That’s about it for me right now, check back later in the week when I’ll be talking more about alts and tradeskills.

One last note before I go: My guild, Face on Fire has a new home page check it out.