My apologies to Dinaer for stealing his post title.

I have an amazing guild. In many ways they count among the best players I’ve had the privilege to spend time with. Some of them are even starting to know it, or have known it all along and have started to share their knowledge and experience. So, in what I hope will be the first of many here are the blogs run by my fellow guild members, all highly recommended and among the best I know at their roles and their classes.

• Dinaer:  Our Guild Master, a rogue, runs Forever a Noob.  Check here for excellent advice not only on playing the rogue class, but also on the game and leading a guild in general.
• Saniel: Our Main Tank, a druid, runs Primal  Precision: THE source for all things feral druid.  Check out his tips on bear tanking and kitty dps, as well as following his obsession with mounts.

Last, but most definitely not least, we have a new kid on the block:

• Karmaze: A Resto Druid.  Karm (yes, the same Karm who’s alt I had splatted in H AN last week) just started up I Be a Tree. There’s not much there yet, but follow it.  If you have any aspiration for healing he’s the man to ask.  Blizzard is going to be nerfing Resto purely because of him, seriously (Ask him about when he soloed Yogg-Saron).

We are, of course, a guild with many talents, as befits one as casual as we are.  If you want a break from WoW go check out Whitney (known to her guildies as Evertoad) at Fawn of White Island to follow her adventures as an artist.

That’s all of them for now.  Tune in next time a guild-mate gets the blogging bug!

Windsoar of JadedAlt fame recently passed a significant milestone in their blogging career.  To celebrate their 6 month Blogaversary  (we’ve been assured that this is, in fact, a real word) we fellow bloggers have been offered the opportunity to gain a muse for a day

.

As one who’s struggling to find subjects to write on between boss guides (and those things take me some time to write, I test everything I say before I say it, sometimes at the expense of my raid members) I jumped at the chance when I found out about it.

So I’ve been offered this:

If you were starting your own campaign in WoW, what would be your primary storyline? Would you focus on leveling your heroes, or the storytelling from point A to B?

My answer is here…

Tags: Gaming, musing, World of Warcraft

What’s said in /o stays in /o.  Its a rule i try to live by.  The things that go on in officers’ chat tend to range from the strictly confidential to the frighteningly bizarre. For those of you who don’t know it’s where your officers go to discuss current goings on, organize, and on occassion, bitch/let off some steam.  Because of the nature of the channel it’s generally accepted that what’s said there doesn’t leave.  This, however I had to share.  It struck me as the final inspiration I needed to write this post:

[O]Karmajudged: No worries Sol.  I pretty much expect you to be a bastard at this point.

Now, I can see someone finding that offensive.  I could see myself finding that offensive under certain circumstances.  What you don’t see right now, though, is my conversation with our newest level 80 Shaman during a run through Heroic Azjol’Nerub:

W to Shockti: When we get to the big hole coming up cast Water Walking on Karm. It’ll be funny :)

My poor mark victim guildy followed my advice, and Karm pancaked on the water.  Sadly (to a certain point of view) the Death Knight in our group, who was NOT a guildy, had the same idea and dropped Path of Frost, so I’ll never know which did the actual killing of our tank.

I couldn’t let this go without writing about it as, I have a confession to make.  I’ve been trying to find the words to explain it.  I’ve been trying to find a way to make it understood.  It’s been a difficult path for me, but I think I’m finally ready.

My name is Sollan, and I’m a Trickster Mage.
Read more…

So, for the two people who read this:  Are you tricksters, like me?  If so, what do you do?  I need new ideas!

I was checking my traffic stats the other day and started to get really excited. Wow, 7,000 hits a day..who the hell is reading this?

Turns out that it’s not so much people reading it as leeching the images I use to head my posts.

I have a simple rule when I put a post together. Unless I can help it I never put a screenshot up I didn’t take myself. I also host every image I use (with one exception) so I don’t eat someone else’s bandwidth.

Guys and Gals…I don’t care if you download images from my site for use on your guild sites but please, PLEASE, don’t just hotlink them. This blog costs me money to run and I refuse to run ads. Hotlinking images consumes the badnwidth cap my host imposes on me and can result 1) The site being shutdown for the remainder of a billing cycle 2) Landing me a BIG overage bill.

I’d rather not prevent hotlinking since I think that’s a lousy thing to do to people and it goes directly against the values which created the internet as the place it is today.

Now, before anyone accuses me of being a hypocrite. Yes, at the moment I’m linking spell icons from wowwiki. That’s a temporary situation as I’m in the process of putting together my OWN library of spell/ability/item icons. As soon as I do those links will change.

“Not me battle? I dunnae who ye think ye are, mister, but I got a score to settle with Arthas and yer not gettin’ in me way! FIRE ALL GUNS! FIRE! FIRE!”

-Muradin Bronzebeard

This is all you need to know

Allow me to start off by saying this this fight is FUN. It’s easily one of my favorites in the game thus far.  Two massive airships duking it out while circling the spire of Icecrown Citadel, rocket packs, and, well, bear druids wearing rocket packs.  What more could you want?

I know that the picture I opted to include for this post has become cliché at this point but I simply had to use it.  It’s one of those things that just doesn’t get old.  For what it’s worth, the SS is of my druid, on his first fight as the away team tank.

As always, the fight details below are focused on 10man with an update for 25man if/when I gain firsthand experience of the fight.

Strat after the Cut

Tags: bosses, raiding, World of Warcraft

The Den’s been quiet lately. The fire went out, the light’s have been dimmed, and even the residual magic surrounding the domicile of every mage has begun to wane.

Where has Sollan been?

I’ve been stuck in the real world as of late. As mentioned previously my day job is as a Sysadmin. It’s not only an exceedingly thankless job but it’s an unpredictable one that can often take over one’s entire life for long periods at a time. I’ve been working 80-100 hours weeks since my last post here. On top of that I’ve been working with the planning team for an IT conference in May. Sadly, professional obligations left me ZERO (really…my guild was beginning to wonder if I was still alive) time for WoW, or blogging, or, well anything. At some point in the recent past my baby sister both turned 21 and got engaged. Gods only know when those things happened.

In any case, I’m back! I’ll be finishing up the posts I’ve got half done and getting them up as quickly as possible. They’re a tad out of date but completeness says I need to do them before I move on.

“Through our master all things are possible! His power is without limit, and his will unbending! Those who oppose him will be destroyed utterly! And those who serve, who serve wholly, unquestioningly, with utter devotion of mind and soul?”

–Lady Deathwhisper

I guess there ARE female liches

Lady Deathwhisper resides in the room just behind the Frozen Throne Spire, after heading up the ramp after Lord Marrowgar.  You’ll no doubt hear her long before you see her as she delivers a fairly lengthy rant during the trash pulls.  Once the trash is done it’s time to engage her.  This fight is considerably more interesting than Lord Marrowgar.  There are a lot of things which stand to potentially wipe the raid but coordination and situational awareness will see you through. As always this article is primarily from a 10man perspective.  Once my guild begins tackling her on 25man (or I pug it) I”ll update.

Cut for space

That’s it for now (until I get the macro written).  Tune in next time for one of my favorite encounters in the game this far!

Tags: bosses, raiding, World of Warcraft

“Lord Marrowgar is the guardian of the Frozen Throne within the Spire Chamber. Pieced together by the Lich King from the bones of a thousand vanquished adventurers, Marrowgar wields the power of the throne itself.”

– Archmage Lan’dalock

Ain't He Cute?

One quick note before I talk about killing this guy: STAY BEHIND YOUR ROGUES WHILE WORKING THROUGH TRASH!!! The trash will go much more smoothly if you do this as there are traps in each room which will cause rather large, rather nasty mobs to spawn and pat the room.  For a group just starting out in ICC they need to be taken down one at a time, if at all (though they’re good rep).  So, let the rogues run ahead and mark the traps and then don’t go anywhere near the mark.  If you do you might wipe your raid.

Ok, that little warning out of the way, let’s talk Marrowgar.
Cut to Save Space

That’s it for now.  Next up Lady Deathwhisper!

Tags: bosses, raiding, World of Warcraft

This, folks, is what we’ve all been waiting for.  We will be fighting Arthas soon, very soon.  It’s time to make sure we’re prepared for the weeks ahead.  As I encounter, try, fail, and succeed at killing bosses I’ll post my impressions, useful tips, and general how-tos under this section.  Since my guild has cleared through Saurfang (on 10 man) expect some notes on these guys as quickly as I can write them.