Holyssa

Based on my own experiences, I must agree with the rest of the gang: Northrend is a visual paradise, and you will NEVER get tired of all the simple quests which steadily nudge you to L80. Not nearly as many lumpy hills or funky crags as Azeroth had, and the other zones like Dragonblight truly make you feel as if you're wandering a frozen wasteland. And Dalaran is crack for the eyes. Such a well designed city! Thanks to Waldy for the mini tour...God I can't wait till they flesh it out more & add things to it. As for pally stuff? The threat generation via our new spells (Hammer of the Righteous) is insane (managed to pull aggro off a 5-sundered elite giant many times and still hold it), and the new talents deep in the prot tree are a grinding tank's godsend. Feels great to be able to grab 16 to 20 mobs (lol Skorn), and still come out at half mana and full life Once I clean my Photobucket account of old junk, I'll upload my own pics. I even took some of the DK starting quests, even though quite a bit of it can be seen in other WoW sites. *looks at Age of Conan box* *casts Exorcism* DEATH is the only escape!

Ok, I know a bunch of item pics are popping up like crazy, but this one is just mind-boggling insane: Yes, that's a one-hand mace. Holy is going to have a very sore arm...

I can't help but get excited at all this new stuff, after months of silence from Blizz. Yea, it will probably change, but my brainstorming juices are flowing like Niagra Falls right now at all the stuff Blizzard has teased us with. You picked a wonderful time to roll a paladin, Lauri.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...73&sid=2000 - patch notes. VERY long read! http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/ - Direct link to MMO-Champion's new talent calculator, including Hunter/Pally changes. Oh, the NDA is lifted, so we can safely talk about new stuff. Be sure to check the usual new sites like MMO-Champion or Wowhead: stuff is being datamined by the crapload, but don't spoil yourselves if you like surprises! Holy's L80 build will probably look something like that, assuming they don't magically re-arrange talents before the final build. Still a pretty bloated tree, but there's a few very nice things that help threat generation even further ("Touched By the Light"? /fap) for us tanky types. The skill changes look rather amusing... -All Auras now affect all party and raid members within the area of effect. - Pwnsauce! No more fighting over who gets what Aura -Avenging Wrath no longer causes Forebearance, damage increase reduced to 20%, now increases healing done by 20%. - I can live with the 10% damage loss, but no Forebearance? And it affects heals? /fap -Blessing of Sacrifice renamed Hand of Sacrifice, is now only 1 rank and transfers 20% of the damage taken to the caster, duration reduced to 12 seconds, cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana. Ouch. I can see this being useful as a CC breaker, but that's about it. Outside of Maiden, I never did use it a whole lot... -Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana. Am I the only one not being a total pecker-head regarding this change? A lot of people refuse to accept Salv as is in favor of DPS blessings, and since threat mechanics are being changed, this is probably going to help more than hinder over the long term. -Judgements of the Just (45 Pts): Your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 10/20%. Paladins get a single-target Thunderclap? *drool* -Lay on Hands no longer drains all mana, cooldown reduced to 20 minutes. ¯\（°Д°） <--/point & jaw drop

I remember seeing a few of these in the leaked Alpha (don't click if you want to be surprised!), and it looks like a great idea. Maybe stuff like killing people in capitol cities will finally motivate people to get some world PvP rolling. Getting some of the reputation achievements will suck for our blood elf & draenei friends. I can't see people ever going back to AQ40 or Molten Snore just to fill in missing gaps, since rep gains are gimped as it is from being L70. This just demands a Lord of the Floor achievement..*COUGH*Baracko*COUGH*

If we're doing Leo first (RAWRGHL Tsunami Talisman), look at this movie for a good rundown of the fight, and a general idea of the chaos awaiting us: Yet another wonderful tankadin-friendly fight, but it's very easy to goof up, pull aggro, and have a topless blood elf maniac hamfist us all.

((Wow, that's really cool. Gorgeous screenie BTW, and grats on the new companion So what's the Don like? I'm thinking of going in with Orcala after work on normal, but I haven't found much about this guy on Heroic -_- ))

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...68441&sid=1 So much for me AFKing through Anetheron. All of Orcala's training was for naught Probably will get fixed via today's rolling restarts. EDIT: Restarts happened, a "hotfix" was applied. Guess what? Still bugged.

Those are very nice reminders, but I will be blunt: why does it look like a poorly illustrated depiction of Archimonde swinging his harbl all over the raid? o_o;

*BUMP* They snuck in quite a few new last-minute tidbits to the patch, which is now live: "Rogues * Sinister Calling now increases damage to Backstab and Hemorrhage by 1/2/3/4/5% (down from 2/4/6/8/10%.) Sunwell Plateau * M’uru, Entropius, Shadowsword Berserkers and Shadowsword Fury Mages have all had their health decreased. Kil’jaeden Encounter * Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil’jaeden’s Shield Orb Shadow Bolts. * Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil’jaeden. * Sinister Reflections are now interruptible. * Sinister Reflections on Hunters now use normal Wing Clip instead of Improved Wing Clip. * Kil’jaeden will now wait slightly longer before casting Flame Darts after casting Darkness of a Thousand Souls. PvP * The time available to accept the option to “Enter Battle” for a battleground has been reduced to 1 minute and 20 seconds (previously 2 minutes) in order ot give each side more time to get a full complement of players before the battle begins. * Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite can no longer be used in the arena. These no longer have a failure chance. * Zoning into an instance on a PvE realm will now drop your PvP flag." Ouch. Slap to the face for Subtlety rogues, M'uru, and rocket boots. On the bright side? This should be Orcala's favorite patch, because now she can show up flagged to as many raids as she wants. lol EDIT: Even more "ouch". The new Brewfest Kodo is Horde-exclusive: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...=2&sid=1#35 If you got a ram from last year, treat it with tender loving care, since it's now exclusive to Alliance... *hugs Thump*

Truly well-deserved mentions, Clan. Well done! *Holyssa eyes the scrunchies as the grunts open their packages, then turns to Cresalia, who is casually sitting by the blood knight's side, cleaning fresh blood stains from her swords* (whispers) "Do me a favor? We're running low." *The rogue nods happily with a warm smile, sheathing her weapons and quietly stepping back into the shadows.*

But...what if someone scratches their butt before having their hands ripped off? Smeddy isn't going to be feeling very well. Bug your local engineer for potion injectors, and always check for 3 health cookies before each try!

My favorite aspect of ZG: watching your buddies get MC'd after approaching a hoodoo pile...only to "accidentally" kill that friend seconds later.

So this is what it's like watching Orcala PvP... "*Shred* YH M8 CHECK OUT MA DPS!" And lol @ the poor on the side.

http://www.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000182 These sold out pretty damned fast last time I looked. This is a direct link to the item for those of us who want to bookmark & spawn camp the page in case it sells out again. Yes, I said spawn camp. /nerd Dunno what the authenticator does? Crawl out from that rock & read this. It's worth the $6.50 for the extra security. EDIT: Fixed the 2nd link. Oops. Should take you to Blizz's FAQ page. EDIT: Just got the Authenticator yesterday (ordered one for myself & Orcala). Damn Blizz is slow...took two weeks to deliver this thing! It's stupidly easy to set up: you go to your WoW Account Management page on Blizzard's site, click the Authenticator subsection, register the code on the back of the keychain, and you're done. You can also use it on multiple accounts (I have it bound to Holy's & Cresalia's). So what happens next? You log into the game, and you get one extra popup window: push the button on the keychain, enter the 6-digit code (it only displays it for like 10 seconds...epic challenge for those of us with ADD), and go play. It generates a new code with each press. Here's a size comparison. No soda left in the house, so we used a bottle of Advil

The fight itself isn't bad, but folks: please don't be "that guy" who gets owned by spout. >.> Awesome job by all tonight! It's a real display of potential and teamwork behind this guild & it's pals

Give Funcom a few months, and Tier 3 raiding itemization will be full of lightsabers & flaming shoulderpads just like WoW has. Most endgame gear looks like togas, Roman infantry armor, or ninja costumes, but then again PvE progression is wonky where I am (only two total raid boss kills, both done via heavy exploiting because of massive add-spawning bug errors, and impatient basement monkeys who simply MUST get server firsts -_- ). Have a look at this page I found from an endgame AoC guild called Dread, which has Tier 1 raid stats (note: loot spoilers! Don't click if you want to be surprised): http://www.dread-guild.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=618 Friggin' PRIEST cloth has +melee damage on it. Many pieces have silly stats like +run speed (which is marginally noticeable), knockback resistance, and +attack rating for melee as well. It's kinda like when Blizzard used to add +spirit in bulk to pre-BC mage gear, but still...*sigh*

Heyo folks. With WotLK coming up, it's tough to find something outside of the usual WoW grinds to occupy oneself. So Holy thought she'd try out Funcom's MMO entry, Age of Conan. And no - Holy ain't quitting WoW. It is my life & hobby. If anything, I tinker with AoC for maybe an hour or so when the chance arises & that's it. The following is a little summary of what this nerdy pally went through in it's first few weeks while exploring this new, bloodthirsty boob-enriched world...just so you don't have to "Getting the Ball Rollin" The starting zone isn't all that bad - it's very solo-friendly, and the quests are as basic as they get, with a few exceptions (like killing 30 damned NPCs in a public dungeon). Tortage was designed well, familiarizing yourself with the game's basics, while still providing a few laughs via general idiocy through chat channels. I personally picked the Wiccania server, since the only RP servers available were RP-PvP only. Screw that ######. And just my luck: Wiccania just happens to be the game's "unofficial" RP server. Why? Dunno. But the people were very nice, and much like WoW - you can find it if you look in the right places. Once you hit L20 and do your "destiny" quest (which rewards you with some kickass blues), you're tossed into the 100% multiplayer portion of the game, beginning with your race's capitol (Khemi, Old Tarrantia, or Cimmeria). There's a crapton of easy lowbie quests to get one started, but my God, this game needs more dungeons. The lowest one is around L35-ish (Sanctum of Burning Souls), and is on-par with Deadmines if you were to compare it to WoW standards. I went in at L37, and loot was very generous to all who went in (I myself walked out with 4 upgrades and a plethora of quests). Group quests outside the dungeons were no joke. Whereas a decently geared player could solo elites in WoW with little trouble, elites WILL wreck you in seconds regardless of class & spec makeup. A L35 mob (who is grey to my L63 character) can still dish out enough damage to make you hesitantly look for potions in order to survive. Perhaps this was done to prevent instance farming, since some items will last you a very long time. Levelling isn't all that bad, despite the cap being at 80. Mobs and quests will FEED you XP, but money is very scarce until you see your first BoE blues. I didn't get my mount until L55, after finally saving the exact 3g needed for the animal & training (FYI - 3g is equal to 300g in WoW numbers). Questing has begun to suck during endgame, with a good portion of grinding done via dailies & wanted poster stuff, but is slowly picking up as I crawl past the mid 60s. "You're Doing it Wrong!" Classes are something I'm still not totally familiar with, but they are amusing to compare and play with. My first was the Priest of Mitra, since I was tired of rolling a plate-wearing badass like I first did in WoW many moons ago. And besides, everyone loves a smart healer - how could things go wrong? Mother of Christ on a pogo stick. Never have I seen such an imba class, even for a clothie. It can AoE like a mage (with knockbacks!), stack HoTs like a resto druid on some kind of gizmo-crack, has plenty of defenses via shields & light armor (leather?), and packs as much punch as an endgame WoW rogue, even when I was in common white gear. The class has only gotten one nerf, but I can see why people QQ like madmen. I think I'm in love. I'm able to easily juggle 8 mobs at once and not break a sweat, but it eats up mana like popcorn...kinda like a *gasp* Paladin in cloth. Healing isn't too hard, but no more insta-heal spamming like most games: you have a HoT (big), a HoT with a nice mana-regen proc, and a huge heal with a 1 minute cooldown that also roasts nearby foes via holy damage. Keeping people alive could easily be done in one's sleep, since heals can stack almost endlessly. "WTB Raid (can)" Bugs. This game has em in spades, sadly. All new titles have them, it cannot be helped. But how bad is it? Look at Funcom's forums, and there's so many tears flowing, you'll probably drown. People still claim the game is a "beta out of the box", but it has it's moments. I was able to solo a 6-man boss due to a faithful glitch which placed me in perma-combat, but had the mob staring off into space...got an amazing bunch of blues for my troubles. And some pulls of 4 to 6 mobs come one-by-one even if you run right at them Leeroy-style. You figure barbarians & bandits would be a bit more...well, territorial. I even managed to bug out a mighty Tier 1 raid boss named Yakhmar with some quick hill climbing, but I did not have what it took to solo the mighty worm due to me being a lowly L54 at the time (raid bosses are L100 FYI...the skull next to it's name doesn't fark around). Got him to about 98% after what...half an hour? Screw this. (click his name for a pretty, yet scary look at this Onyxia wannabe). *gets eaten* ..I'll be back! *shakes fist* The environment itself can play some nasty tricks too. People magically fall through floors & bridges (hello waterfall, meet my face), mobs have insane-fast repop rates (one dungeon had them on a 2 minute timer), and some stats are totally broken (WTF mana regen). Mobs will also sometimes refuse to reset, chasing you all the way across a zone until guards steamroll them into oblivion. And if you're clever enough, you can wallclimb to practically any outdoor goal you want, bypassing hours of mindless clearing & grinding to get that extra mob. Seriously, don't companies test this stuff? "What has been seen cannot be UNSEEN!" Visuals...hot damn. This game is gorgeous, even with my measly 3 gigs of ram and on the default/semi crappy settings. I had to lower particle effects by a bit, as zerging mobs in groups began to drag my machine down a bit in terms of framerate, and the client is plagued by the occasional crash/memory leak. It doesn't lag as bad as one thinks, but the better your rig, the more enjoyable things become. Even water looks amazing, but once you dive down, it looks like thick Kool-Aid for some reason. MY EYES!! The sound & music is very relaxing, but some songs grow annoying very fast, like the dramatic music that plays when you even so much as sneeze at a named/boss mob. Voice acting is very well done, but it only shows up for specific lore characters. Fatalities are awesome. While the Priest fatality is kinda boring looking (it's a beam of light that looks like alien invaders took a mobs soul), some are really nice, like when a tank impales someone on their sword, and kicks the body to the floor. They even provide some amazing buffs. Boobs. Yes, it has them in spades. Even a Jewelcrafting lady in one town stands topless as you try so hard to look at the starting quest she gives you, as opposed to her own...treasures. WTS shirt. Over time though, you grow used to seeing them. And no mailbox dancers here, since all the item swapping/buying is done via tradepost NPCs. "It Could be Worse" Overall, AoC isn't bad, but Funcom has to get it's crap together. It's not a bad escape from WoW if you want a new game to play on the side, but I'd still save your money for Warhammer. This game is still taking baby steps as far as I'm concerned, and Funcom still has a lot of work to do before it can do any real ankle-biting on it's own as a viable WoW competitor. When I have the time, I'll post some screenies to share. I'm trying to take just enough to make a "day in the life of..." kind of reply. EDIT: here's a link to AoC's forums for those who want to know just how strong the current of tears is: http://forums.ageofconan.com/index.php. Watch what you click though...while there isn't anything nasty like keyloggers, lots of links are NOT work safe (*COUGH*tits*COUGH*).

http://www.thehonorempire.org/forums/index...ost&p=63807 >.> <.<

Do it for our raiding moms, Xeno! *cheers*

1. No, but it gives you a good idea as to how quick your reflexes should be to make it a very clean kill. And yes, they only slow with the lance attack. 2. The most efficient way to deal with them is by Snaring -> staying ahead/moving backwards -> shooting them once each so the slow effect stacks gradually, just like in the movie. Like a real mage's Frost Nova, damage WILL have a chance to break the snare early. After hitting each construct, the debuff gives you just enough time to target a new one before it runs out, so click fast!

Why can't you be more like Sebudai? I love the "airplane" & UBRS comments

"Have an appetite for life? Use both hands!" So...many....evil thoughts...

And I thought being affected by Roots sucked. Happy Birthday!

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/events/midsummer/ Damn, lots of new stuff has been added. If this is what they got planned for Midsummer, I can't wait to see what they got for Winter Veil & Hallow's End If you wanna know what quests provide Blossoms to buy all that stuff, clicky (Wowhead filter). - This is what happens when you /dance with the full Fire Festival "set". zomg need - The new Fire Brazier item in action. Fap with caution.