Loremaster Murkimus

Last night, after seeing both Ryshat and Phosphorex log in, I convinced them to head over to the tournament realm so I could get a few last minute games in. I had been stuck at exactly 200 games played and I was worried that if they threw out a game where the other team had just given up or not shown up for battle that my game total would dip below 200 and I wouldn't get the wonderful Murkimus pet. So we quickly got in 4 games, I ended up with 204 games played at an almost 50/50 win/loss ratio and I'm eagerly awaiting my pet in the mail in a few weeks.

After we had those games done, I continued with my pursuit of the Loremaster title. Over the weekend, having finally regained positive relations with all the goblin clans, I figured there had to be some quests they would ask my assistance with. Unfortunately, prior to befriending the Bloodsails, I had already completed all the goblin quests I could find and they had nothing new for me. So I scoured every city I could find, eventually finding a couple of quests in the Stonetalon Mountains, one in Silithus I had left uncompleted, and a couple in Feralas. I was at a loss for quests and thought I would not find a way to earn my title.

Upon using a portal to travel to Darnassus, I came upon a quest I had forgotten about - cloth turn-ins. So after turning in wool, silk, mageweave, and runecloth, I was close, but not close enough. I took a portal to the Exodar and was able to only turn in runecloth. So there I was, 3 quests short of Loremaster when I remembered...those Infected Nightsaber Runts drop a Faintly Glowing Crystal that starts a quest! So on my first kill I had it, I turned it in, and lo-and-behold, there was a follow-up quest. Completed it, and I'm one away from Loremaster. And there it was, a big yellow exclamation point on my map - The Great Moongraze Hunt. I'm not quite sure why I never did it in the first place, and I'm also not sure why I never thought about coming back to Azuremyst Isle to look for quests - I just mistakenly assumed on my first pass through Azuremyst, I got all the quests, but apparently, one was left behind. I quickly completed it, and upon turning it in...

And, here I sit, Loremaster Tiddlywinks, a nice change from Salty Tiddlywinks for a bit. It would be interesting to see the rarest titles in the game (probably Twilight Vanquisher, or server first titles) - I would guess Chef, Salty, and Loremaster are pretty rare. Now, what is next?

Well, I have just one "quest" achievement left - Rapid Defense - so I'd like to clear that up and have 49/49 quest achievements complete. I also have one realistic "exploration" achievement left to do - Medium Rare - so I'd like to clear that one up as well. Then I think it's back to heroic 5-man achievements and, of course, I need to take down that pesky Kel'Thuzad in heroic Naxx. Unfortunately, I will be gone this Friday and won't have a shot at him this week (so he'll likely go down this week when I'm not there), but I'll get him sooner or later. But perhaps the week after, we'll have a brand new patch with tons of brand new achievements to ferret out. It certainly feels good to finally have Loremaster crossed off the list.

Evoker's Silk Battlegear

With the breaking of Spellfire, I wanted to run the numbers of Evoker's Silk Amice and Evoker's Silk Raiment against Mantle of Nimble Thought and Spellfire Robe.

In the end, I lose 82 armor, 12 intellect, 3 critical strike, 40 damage, and 43 haste while I gain 26 stamina and 68 resilience.

It's an interesting trade off. Armor loss isn't huge. Intellect and crit loss are quite small as well. Gaining 260 health is nice as it pushes me to 10.2k health. And I also gain 68 resilience which is 1.72% less chance of me getting critically struck, -3.44% less critical strike damage and -1.72% DoT damage.

Worth a loss of 40 damage and 43 haste (2.7% casting time reduction)? Tough to say as I'm not on top of Resilience calculations since my main focus is on PvE.

Random Updates

A few quick random updates.

Bought some epic gems with Badges. 2xRuned Crimson Spinel, 1xGreat Lionseye. Since I was 2 over the spell hit cap, I replaced a Great Dawnstone with the Lionseye and I was 4 over the cap. With that, I was able to replace a Veiled Noble Topaz with a Spinel. Also upgraded a Runed Living Ruby with a Spinel. So I'm perfectly on the spell hit cap and gained 10 spell damage.

Heading through Kara last week, I picked up the T4 glove token and purchased Gladiator's Silk Handguards. Threw a +20 damage on it and last night Mercreus and I went 5-6 in arenas. We're just barely staying above 1,500 rating at 1,520 right now.

Last week, the Gold 25 Man Team quickly took down Gruul and headed to Mag. We were short one of our regular clickers so we assigned another warlock to the cube. First time through, he tried clicking the wrong cube so no one was on his. Next time through he got disconnected. Third time through I clicked and we took Mag down. We then went and only had time to clear trash up to Lurker. As the only mage, I had fun sheeping and watching who broke my sheeps.

Tonight we once again go to Gruul, Mag and Lurker.

No new pets or recipes. Enchant Boots: Vitality was on auction for 2000g and didn't sell. Seller lowered it to 1600g. Still too pricey for me.

I logged out last night in my PvP gear which is odd for me, but I can see that I have almost 10k health and 201 resilience. With the new gloves I got, they break the Spellfire bonus, so I went out and purchased Evoker's Silk Raiment and Evoker's Silk Amice. I haven't run the numbers, but I will lose damage in the trade, but gain 68 resilience (or more depending on how I socket them). Once I run the numbers, I will post again.

Arena Layout and Letdown

On Sunday night, Panoply, Vetarra, Mercreus and I got in 8 arena games before we lost two people and our 3v3 team, Aspect of Frost Wrath had to call it a night. I had hoped to get two more games in to get my weekly points, but after waking up last night, both Panoply and Vetarra were in SSC and our 5th member was not online. So it seems that we ended up two games short of the minimum number of required games and I will stay one point short of my pants.

Speaking of arenas though, this is my new arena layout:



Not much changes from my standard raid layout as I have my grouping in the upper and lower left side, I have my trinkets and gems/pots in the middle with Decursive just to the right of those rows. The only thing that changes from my Raid UI to my Arena UI is the extra large buttons on the right side. I have my frequently used Arena buttons that I rarely use otherwise - including my PvP trinket and Escape Artist. And then, the best part of the whole thing, Proximo. Proximo is a must have and shows me the other team, allows me to quickly switch targets and also will allow me to set my focus for sheeping and then target my DPS target.

In the shot above, we won the game as we were able to lure the shamans (way too many shamans) away from their totem jungle. Of course, I'm sitting there with my Jubling out and antennae on my head.

Zul'Aman Fun

Ahh, my favorite time of the week, Zul'Aman. After breezing through Karazhan on Tuesday and one-shotting every boss with an odd team make-up (no hunter, no warlock), in well under four hours, we continued rolling along and switched up our strategy in Zul'Aman a little.

We usually would go for Nalorakk first, but now that we have Akil'zon down, we went to him first, then quickly downed Nalorakk and bum-rushed Halazzi. Unfortunately, we needed about 5-7 more minutes than the timer allowed and we only unlocked two timed chests. But after quickly dispatching Halazzi, we moved on to Jan'Alai. After a few wipes - one close call - we tried a new strategy. After two tries with the new strategy, we downed Jan'Alai! We just barely pulled it off as we killed him five seconds after his enrage timer. I luckily got an invisibility off during his last fire bomb stage so I had no threat and as he went around and one-shotted our tanks, our DPS, our healing, it was just me, Legionaire and Harkor standing. Just enough DPS to get rid of him.

We are certain we can improve on the strategy next week now that we've gotten him down and I look forward to more practice and new bosses. From the second timed chest, Nefernetcher finally upgraded his staff from the Curator to the sweet Amani Divining Staff. Comador picked up a couple of new pieces (like he needed them) and we added seven more badges to our stashes.

However, I had to use those seven badges to buy a primal nether to make some Runic Spellthread. After making the thread, I headed over to the arena vendor to pick up a brand new pair of Vengeful Gladiator's Silk Trousers. However, when I tried to buy them, he told me I was short on points. What!? So I checked...1,874 points. Needed 1,875. ONE point short. Oh well. Next week they shall be mine (unless of course they announce the new arena season and set a date for the new patch).