Victory over Nefarian

Last night, our guild finally defeated Nefarian! It was a tough fight for us. We'd had a few aborted attempts before (I think this was our fourth or fifth night?), but were hampered by folks who weren't up to the task, as they'd just returned to WoW after time enough away to forget how to do things. It's not a horrifically difficult fight, but one does need to be current with one's character.

Last night's effort took 11 attempts (data based on the number of Seafood Magnifiques I had left). Varied tactics were tried and we made progress each time—except for I think about four attempts where someone/thing screwed up and we decided to wipe immediately.

My task was to kite the skeletons in phase one and interrupt the blast nova in phase two. A mistake I made early on was putting too much damage on the skeletons, as they took too long to die. And one fight I just could not get their attention away from another person. Frustrating. The other times went smoothly enough, plus or minus. Having a hunter freeze trap in the center of the room was helpful.

Anyway, we got 'im down and the last attempt went pretty smoothly!

I forgot to snap a pic, so here's one from the internets!

Image courtesy WoWHead

Leveling before MoP

There are new panther mounts made out of jewels (see them in action in a previous post).

Regarding that, this post from Blizzard:

These will be Jewelcrafter recipes and we're not actually completely decided on whether there will be a recipe for each colour, or whether the creation of one will produce one of the four colours at random. 

As I think you already know, the black one will be a little different. It's a flying mount and it'll be created by combining the other four mount colours together. 

We're estimating that the cost of creating these mounts will be very expensive. ;)

So, that's why I'm leveling Abvilsk, my shaman jewelcrafter. Not so much to make money from making mounts for others (though I suppose that may be possible? Or providing materials for others?) but the primary reason is I want every one of those mounts. By which I mean, I don't just want the black one, but the black one plus the each of the other colors.

I figure the best way to effect that plan is to be a jewelcrafter.

As a bonus, I'm learning about shamans and being melee DPS!

The mounts of Mists of Pandaria

These mounts are fantastic. I love them all. Panther, turtle, crane, yak, water walker. All of the super cool, and I want each and every one of them! For all my characters!

Have a look-see...

Despite the fact that I have the Mountain of Mounts achievement, I'm still avidly collecting mounts. And now, with MoP, this behavior will only more rabidly increase since the mounts are OMG cool!

In fact, it was all my mounts that prompted me to get into addons again. (That, and the fact that my new shiny has more RAM than the OS can address means I have plenty of room for addons now.) I installed the GoGo Mount addon, which I adore.

All it does is randomize which mount comes up when you issue a Mount command. Plus it knows whether you can only summon a non-flying mount, and you can pick favorite mount(s) for specific zones. Quite keen.

Using it has reminded me of mounts I've long since forgotten, and that's no way to be!

MoP + GoGo Mount = awesome.

Why I dislike PvP

I stumbled across this forum comment. Since I can't link to specific posts, I'll just quote it here verbatum. 

Point one is terribly wrong, I think. I know people who PvP and they're very nice. kaelspriest must've had too many bad experiences.

Anyway, the other points are closer to the correct side of the circle than outside it...

kaelspriest Apr 3rd 2012 3:20PM

I don't like PvP.

1) I don't like the culture of hostility. My experience of people who like to PvP, overall, is that they are *jerks.* Not all of them. Perhaps not even a majority are actively jerkish, although most seem to tolerate it. But it's enough to completely ruin my experience in battlegrounds and on PvP servers. And I'm not talking about the opposing faction - I'm talking about *my own side.* The sheer volume of viciously insulting chat in PvP areas is enough to make me never want to do it.

2) I'm gay. I don't like being called a f*g/got. Or a p*ssy. I don't like being called gay as if that's a bad thing. I don't like being called a girl as if that's a bad thing. I'm also extremely upset by the n-word and other racist language just on principle. And the PvP community is full of all of that - not just in the jerkish behaviour I covered in (1) but also just thrown around casually. I'm not all that thin-skinned about it - I actually enjoy interacting in trade chat, because even though there are some people who troll with derogatory language, there are also a lot of decent, intelligent people who will call it out. But that balance isn't present in PvP environments.

3) I'm primarily a healer. I like healing. I do not like being CCd. I do not like CCing. I do not like being interrupted. I do not like spending time trying to avoid being interrupted. It is impossible to simply go into an organized PvP environment and do what I like to do - I spend ~80% of my time doing things I don't like to do.

4) I don't always want to fight. I don't even particularly want to fight NPCs most of the time - I'm a champion at avoiding combat (probably because I'm a healer). When I want to do something, I want to do it, not fight someone/something else for the opportunity to do it. People who want to encourage open world PvP seem to operate under the assumption that everyone should want to fight, all the time, and should be willing to endure all manner of inconvenience (see: removal of HGWT, no flying until 90) in order to arrange it so that everyone is in a position to be forcibly engaged in PvP combat at any time.

5) I like being able to talk to the people I'm playing with. All of them.

6) I think PvP is bad for the game. It limits possibilities for everything from class balance (shamans can't be buffed because it would make them more OP in PvP!) to travel technologies (we can't have HGWT or flying because it's bad for world PvP!!)

7) I don't think MMOs are the right platform for PvP competition. MMO PvP is inherently, permanently unfair, and the more depth there is to a game's PvE gameplay, the less balanced it can be for PvP. Strategy games (Starcraft II rocks!) and shooters are much better PvP platforms, and I wish people who wanted to PvP seriously would go play games that are actually suited for it.

I especially agree with number six. PvP ruins things for the rest of us because it demands that all classes be balanced in ways that they wouldn't otherwise need to be. Because of PvP, everything needs to be reigned in.

Cloth Diver Set from WoW Fashion

Ran across this nifty transmogrification set (requires Engineering though):

Keen, eh? That would be really fun to tool around in while doing Vashj'ir quests, yes?

Here's all the gear. Thanks to WoW Fashion for the set!