Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 108 - April's Fool Day not April the Fool

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.

Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or an iTunes $10 Gift Card.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Just remembered why I've been doing Dailies from Shat, it's because I can fly in Outland.

Sunday Back in Northrend. Brought Aprillian, DK twins and Auruk to Agramand where they did quests. Then took Tiiaa and Epril took Maradaun for Tiiaa's Mage Quest.

Sunday night raided.

Spent crazy time finding gems for Aprillian

Monday, had a blast quad boxing. Got back to Dal and Auruk got to 400 in cooking and had 35 cooking awards so got to buy a bunch of recipes.

I know for a fact I am never going to be perfect, in my Real Life and in WoW. One of the things i've done in both is settle for just having a good time and being happy. I like to think I've done that well. Last week I got kind of a wake up/slap in the face call when I was called out on my gear. I freaked out and then after the Kara run, I went crazy looking stuff up online and trying hard to figure out the best enchants. But I feel like I'm wasting valuable time.

Woke up Thursday morning with an epiphany. I was having fun and that's all that matters. I'm not going to worry about the gear on my Hunter, he's just an alt and I'm leveling him with two DK's. I'm not going to worry about gear until and if I'm doing in game content.

Finally got around to taking Auruk to the trainer and got some new stuff, including Snakes!

Listening to BOE, very funny. Auruk got his first Artic Fur, woohoo. He got his LW to 390 and is sending all of his stuff to Primall for DE'ing.

Thu morning ran the Twins and Auruk around Howling Fjord, mainly to kill Shveltusk. Thurs evening I took Aprillian around for the CD on cloth in Dragonblight, she brought Epril with her who is getting closer to dinging 70

Friday morning in Howling Fjord triple boxing to do the JC daily, Auruk did the cooking daily, Legermain, way easy. Auruk earned the Chef de Partie Achievement, 75 cooking recipes.

Listened to BOE on the way to work and then Videogames and Despair.

Epril hit 70 in Northrend. Went back to Shat to get the Flight Quest. I had to take Priimall to Shadowmoon Valley to help Aprillian and Auruk summon Epril. Thank you Hallow's Eve. Almost emptied the bank getting the 900g for training and mount. Then she and Aprillian went flying. Follow is iffy. Spent 1000g

Got the authenticator on my iphone. Deauthorized the fob, sending it to

Took Mi, my bank alt, to og and AH'd whatever I could. Tiiaa, my mage, went shopping for pets and moved them over to the ally side, charging 5g a pet to move money back over. Got my gold back up over 1000g but it still hurts and I've got two more ready to ding 70.

Did the Mustard Dog cooking daily on Auruk and got [Recipe: Stormchops] in his bag

Ashayo

Oracle eggs - 1 x White Tickbird Hatchling, 1 x yolk.

Hiide - Old Kingdom
Jekle - DTK
Dual boxed Jekle and Hiide in Azjol Nerub - intense!
Jekle dinged 75

Culling of Stratholme Drake run
- Ran out of time. First time tanking Blackangel. Did great to complete it!
- Ionnianna (passed on his Paladin, Alithia), so I finally won reins of the bronze drake!
Shoutout to Kiele and Grandours for healing and tanking.


Raiding with Aprillian
- Karazahn, Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon all in one night!
(Awesome healers in Gruul's - DBM wasn't working, so had to heal through nova)

Thanks to the DwP team beautiful crew

Tarqq (Druid tank)
Solador (dirty stinkin' fan of knives tossing Rogue)
Ostira (Mage - cheats at achievements! Got "Intense Cold" by being dead.)
Molsan (Paladin tank)
Sigurn (Holy Paladin)
Elimmile (Resto Shaman) (aka Retsmile)
Westleeyy (Hunter)


DwP making Naxx progress. Getting OS, VoA and one quarter down in a couple of hours. Had our first crack at 4-horsemen this week. Most of us hadn't seen it before, and although we only tried 2-3 times, got the first two bosses down to about 40%. Actually stayed alive during Gothik The harvester this week!


( OS - rolled 100 on Satchel of spoils - and Solador did too. Won on reroll. woot!)

Asheal has done some healing on raids with another guild. 25-man Obsidium Sanctum and 10 man Naxx, where I got an epic chest upgrade. woot!
Healed Heroic Nexus - Lanc, Onassi, Johnni, Deadlyvyv
Normal Gundrak ; Deadlyvyv tanking!


Questing in icecrown
- King of the mountain. Jumpbot - FUN
- Quests out of The Shadow vault
- Take control of an Ebon watcher (shade type monster) and quest in a quarry. Pain for dual-boxing because only 2 of the 3 count when done on 1st toon.
"From Whence they came" - banishing scourgestone has to be done per toon.
- Lithe Stalker - fun jumping up mountains.
- 5-man "Battle at Valhalas" - "ring of blood" style series of fights. 3-manned with a DK. Fun fights.

Achieved [Icecrown: The final Goal] - 140 quests.

Howling Fjord - Stuck on 104/105. Eventually found Old Icefin, a murloc off Chillmere Coast.

Achieved [Loremaster of Northrend]

April Fools raid - Got SW boss to 3%

Glanthur

Ran Obsidium Sanctum 10-man on Glanthur and Arlaerus, VoA, and did the construct quarter with another guild on Glanthur. Got a new helm. Woo hoo!

Arlaerus is almost revered with Sons of Hodir

Decided not to buy Kirin Tor ring and got 2 bags from Haris Pilton instead - only 8 valor emblems away from awesome ring

Professions finally maxed out on both Arlaerus and Glanthur

Played Hrond on Wildhammer where a co-worker is leveling an undead warlock

Bladed Edge

The Bladed Edge

Hey all... Blade here...

It's funny how real life rears its ugly head now and again to prevent one from playing during one's regular times... so I found myself coming in and playing either really late or really early.
During one of such times this week, I was able to participate in a truly landmark event... Aprillian's taking down Gruul *and* Magtheridon!
For such an event, I dusted Ol' Blade off and brought him out in all his rogueish finery, and dps'd.
I'm willing to bet I wasn't doing *nearly* as much damage as some of the heavy-hitters that were there, but I'd bet I do a respectable amount... and now having both tanked and dps'd Gruul and Mags, I stand by my previous comment. DPS is *easy*.
And... last I saw... Aprillian was level 72! Grats!
Gogogo! You're almost high enough for Violet Hold and Gun'Drak!



From the Dirty Little Tricks Department...
This week it's all about mana preservation... not that I'm yet concerned on my Mage... but I know some raids are time-intensive... and if you can have an edge (like an extra source of mana replenishment) then you don't have to be so frugal with your spellcasting... one extra heavy-hitting spell may be all it takes.
This one uses the mana gem you have in your inventory, and casts your preferred mana gem if you don't have one. Be aware (I'm sure if you play a Mage, you're *already* aware) that since 3.0.8 Mana Gems are 'Unique 1' meaning you can only have one in your inventory, full stop. Also... for varying levels of Magi... Patch 3.0.2 has Blizzard changing all the casting names of the various levels of gem (Citrine, Ruby, Emerald, etc.) to read 'Conjure Mana Gem'... so it doesn't matter which gem you use, the spell will choose your highest-level one for you. Simply change the name of the actual Mana Gem (in lines 1 and 2) to the one you're using at your level.

#show Mana Ruby
/use Mana Ruby
/cast [nocombat] Conjure Mana Gem

Here's another one for higher levels (and it's correspondingly convoluted as a result)...

/run for b=0,4,1 do for s=1,GetContainerNumSlots(b),1 do local n=GetContainerItemLink(b,s) if n and string.find(n,"Mana Emerald") then PickupContainerItem(b,s) DeleteCursorItem() end end end
/cast Conjure Mana Gem

What's it do?
Finds your current Mana Emerald in your inventory for you... and if it has less than 3 charges, tosses it out and casts a new one. This macro is more for 'preparation' than anything else... 'buffing up' so to speak... Ol' Blade doesn't quite have the technical acumen to combine those two macros into a workable one-button super-mana-gem macro... if anyone else does, then by all means toss me an email - the credit (and the kudos) will be yours!

thebladededge@gmail.com

From Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket...
This one's a two-parter...
Back to Shattrath with you... I'm sure by now, everyone has (at very least) seen the Alliance Battlemaster by the name of 'Adam Eternium' - a not-so-subtle reference to the Masters of the Universe character 'He-Man' (real name Adam). His companions reinforce this reference - a green battle-tiger pet (Cringer or Battle-Cat from the series) and a Gnome associate named Oric Coe (Orko the magician).
When you talk to him, Adam has the following to say:
"I came to Outland hoping to discover powerful artifacts to assist the League of Arathor against the Defilers in Arathi Basin... but all I've found is this smashing magical loincloth, a ridiculous gnome sidekick, and an egomaniacal undead stalker who insists I've stolen his grey skull, or some such. In any case, would you care to join the League in their fight while I continue my search?"
Keldor the Lost (the Horde Battlemaster and counterpart to Adam Eternium) continues the reference. "Keldor" was apparently the identity of He-Man's arch-nemesis, prior to his transformation into the evil Skeletor. Kedor the battlemaster's hood, glowing eyes, dark blue attire, skull-tipped staff and undead face all help to hammer this reference home.

And in continuation of the Star Wars references...
I missed something in The quest "Picking Up Some Power Converters". The quest itself will reward you with a Power Converter. The two descriptions on the item itself are both references to Episode IV: "Use: Destroys technological terror constructs." is from Darth Vader's quote "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed," and "The next best thing to going to the Academy" is because Luke's always talking about going to the Academy. The Power Converter shoots off a red rocket that many think looks like the missile Luke fires to destroy the Death Star.

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Loremaster Blade

Emails

Email #1 Karen *

Hey everybody,

My hunter Elsa made 80 a week ago, which was cool. But my niece left her raiding guild and joined a new one, so no raiding for me, yet. Instead I'm working on my rep to get the recipe for the motorcycle. Of course, it would go faster if I was running instances, so maybe I'll try a pug (shudder).

Even though we haven't been running heroics, we've been having fun 3-manning the 5 man instances in BC. My husband's level 80 Hunter brings his ape, Spike. I take my level 62 Paladin (who just re-specced holy) and our guildmate brings her level 62 frost mage. We've done Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens and Underbog. Next up: Mana-Tombs and the rest of the BC instances. The group works well and we're looking forward to seeing how far we can go. Of course, I'm still learning how to heal as a paladin. I do fine keeping the tank up, but our mage has died a couple of times. I just wasn't fast enough to get her bubbled when she drew aggro.

Finally, a question for you three. I've recently started an office job (after 15 years working for myself out of my home), which is great, but I have a lot less time to play WoW. When you find yourselves with limited wow time, what do you spend it on? The answer probably varies with your mood, but I'm trying to decide how to spend my time on my 6 main alts and still feel like I'm getting something done.

As always, the podcast is excellent. Since I'm commuting, I have more time to listen to my ipod, so keep the podcasts coming. I agree that having all three of you together is the best possible situation, but if splitting time means that I get to hear from everyone, I'm happy with that.

Karen

Email #2 from Jason

Hello all,

I'm very much a latecomer to WoW. I signed up for the free trial on 22
October 2008, and have been playing ever since... hard to believe it's
only just coming up on five months! Back on 30 January, my druid
dinged 80; I then rolled a dwarf hunter, who dinged 80 yesterday. I've
also got a human mage who's sitting at 70; he's my oldest toon which
I've been leveling with a friend, so play time is limited to when we
can get together online.

All my toons are still equipped with quest rewards. I've never run an
instance, so have had no opportunity to pick up purples. I've worked
out that the only (apparent) way to get the really good stuff is to
join a guild and start raiding... though that seems a little
problematic, as my gear is not good enough (it seems) for even the
easiest instances that people are still running.

Anyway, I was very much relieved when Aprillian indicated she was in a
similar situation. I'm not the only one!

I'd like to take you up on your offer to provide gearing suggestions
for listener toons--I realise that you'll probably get quite a few
such requests, so I won't mind if I miss out. My druid is the one I
want to gear up for raiding; he's currently feral-spec'd, though I'll
probably dual-spec him as resto when patch 3.1 comes out (meaning I'll
need two sets of gear... sigh).

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Proudmoore&n=Aeonel

I really enjoy listening to you three discuss your experiences
in-game; it's amazing how many useful tips turn up when one of you
mentions something in passing. Count me as another dedicated (if
late-arriving) listener!

Best regards,
Jason.

Email #3 from Ginsue

Aprillian,

I love you but my dear you are a noob. I say this in the kindest way possible.

We all start out as noobs and I think your altaholism has contributed to this for you. You really should gear up one of your toons and see some end game content, even if its just the 5 mans and heroic 5 mans. You need to join a supportive guild and try to stay out of the guild drama. They all have some.

Take heart there is a cure. Ashayo is correct about wowwiki.com is a great place to start to find out how to play your toon and what types of stats you should be looking for. For your hunter you need AP and AGI first and some intel for mana pool. If you hover over each stat on your gear window it will tell you what each one does for you.

Once you get a better understanding of your toon try checking out www.elitistjerks.com they have everything you would want to know and then some.

Once you figure out what stats you need go to www.wow-loot.com. They have done a great job with loot. You can sort by class. Then you can look at where your loot drops or what rep factions you need to get your loot. There is a tab to change it over to heroic mode for the instances as well.

Since you are a HUGE podcast star I'm sure an Earthen Ring guild would love to have you. If not transfer to Anub' Arak and we (Warpath) will take you. Once you are in a good guild and spend some time on vent with good well educated wow'ers you will learn a lot.

When you run instances that you do not know. You will screw up. You will cause wipes. We all have and we will again. That's just part of the game so don't be worried.

Email me with any questions you have and I will try to help. I have been playing for a few years now and I don't have all the answers but I know where to find them.

Good luck this week in Kara and as always "Happy Hunting".

Ginsue

Ginsue Part 2

More hunter info

Hello Aprillian,

We guys have a habit of trying to fix things so I have taken it onto myself to help you find more information to help you along in learning the things that every top notch, mob slaughtering hunter should know.

Being a podcast queen you have prolly heard about this already but, there is a podcast out there called "Big Red Kitty" and I think you will find it very helpful. The host talks a bit fast but he is very wise in the ways of hunters. The latest episode goes over the talent tree and hit rating cap. I haven't listened to a ton of them but it seems to be a very informative without a lot of the silly stuff you get from some podcasters. Not that thats all bad.

I hope the web page suggestions I sent were helpful.

I'm not looking to have these emails read on the show. These can be just between you and I. I figure the more informed you are the more informative you will be to listeners thus helping your podcast stay on which helps keep me from nodding off into the stuper that doing daily quests causes.

Keep up the great work an I will send you more info as i trip over it.

Happy Hunting,

Ginsue

Email #4 from Molsan*

Hey Aprillian and Ashayo:

It was a blast running Kara, Gruul, and Magtheridon with you both! We were able to finish all three raids in about two and a half hours. Hopefully the super-fast pulls, mass AoE'ing, and general wackiness didn't get in the way of you enjoying the dungeons, Aprillian.

So now that you've been bitten by the raiding bug, do you think you'll want to get to 80 and join us for Naxx? We typically have one spot reserved in our raids for a celebrity, but since Ashayo takes up that spot, we'll have to create a second one just for you.

I've been enjoying your recent episodes of Ctrl Alt WoW and I always learn something new after listening to your discussions.

For the Horde!

--Molsan

Email #5 from Eranth

Well met, guildmates Aprillian, Ashayo and Blade!

Greetings and Salutations, Glanthar of the Alliance.

Just finished listening to 107 podcast from Monday and wanted to fire off my response to the request for how we’re blundering through WoW with our gear and/or gaming as a casual player.

You’ll find Eranth on the Armory here: http://tinyurl.com/Eranth

You can find my Be Imba! Report here: http://be.imba.hu/?zone=US&realm=Earthen+Ring&character=Eranth

I’d add a link from http://www.wow-heroes.com, but I can’t seem to find a way to do that, but it looks like my score is 1195 there. I think I need some minor upgrades on enchants there, but right now I’m so casual, I’ve been just buying them off the AH, so I’m getting items that score 12 instead of 15 on that scale. I need better trinkets and rings.

You might also want to look at http://gear-wishlist.appsot.com/ for upgrades on gear. Eranth can be reviewed at: http://gear-wishlist.appspot.com/wishlist?character=eranth&realm=earthen+ring&region=us&site=Wowhead with the Wowhead settings.

This really leads me into this question: Has anyone collaborated on some sort of ‘guide’ on how to play a class for the casual player, in a sort of step-by-step manner how to gear up after you hit 80? I’ve seen guides, even generic ones, to get you to 80 pretty quickly, which a guide from http://www.wow-pro.com/ to give me a jump start, which I liked. http://wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/james_horde_leveling_guide and there’s an Alliance one there too. I still point people at those guides if I’m asked. But, now that I’m 80, as Aprillian says, I’m going to have to go do some more research about what I should be doing to gear up, to be ready, to improve myself for the end-game.

I occasionally get to do some Heroic runs, and I always start by letting people know if, or how many times I’ve done something, because I don’t want folks to be frustrated if I make a mistake. I just want them to tell me so I don’t repeat it, and hope that I don’t make us wipe! As most of the runs I make are guild-based, with just a little PUG added if we need it, then that’s usually not a problem. I do love to run with guildmates. It makes it so much easier to sort out loot, ask questions, etc. But, I could go on about that. I just want to not be in a position as I get to do Heroic runs, that I’m the reason we can’t put someone down because I’m ill-geared. Thus, some sort of end-game guide for classes would be a really useful tool. But, I also know that as a casual player, I’m not the one who could really put something like that together.

I look forward to your input if you have any for me. Always happy to take constructive suggestions!

Keep up the good work!

“Be well…”

Eranth

Beastmaster Hunter of AIE

Email #6 from Ivii *

Another tip for Glanther this week.

In episode 107 Glanther mentions that he wished there was a proto-drake that dropped. Skadi the Ruthless in Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle has a 1% chance to drop the Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake. This is the only place to get this mount.

Ivii - 80 DK in AIE on ER




Sent from my iPhone

Email #7 from Gothicplate *

I had the same issue with the Oracle egg but the message boards say you can still hatch it on the 7^th day. Mine said 4 days left on the 7^th day and mine still hatched. Have your friend try it anyway.

Later,

Gothicplate

Email #8 from Sevenonine/ Tajj*

Hey Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur,

In the last podcast you had a conversation about how it can be hard to concentrate on a certain
objective in wow especially for new players and how you choose gear for your alts. I am writing to say that I think
altoholism stems from the fact that wow has so many different ways to play and no way is more or less right that
all the others. Altoholics just want to experience all those different ways to play.

Personally I don't go out and read guides or web posts on how best to spec, I just goes with what
ever sounds good at the time or the talent that helps me the most in the way I play. As far as gear goes I dont
even look at the stats I go with whatever option has the highest armor number, I know probably not the best but
hey I dont go do extensive research on what is best for my class.

Maybe you could shed some light on the subject my main is a unholy death knight and I also play a Ret. Palidan.

Thanks for a great podcast!

Sevenonine/ Tajj

Email #9 from Keelhaul

Hi guys. Great show last week as usual. I am glad that my little intro guide to dual boxing has helped a couple of people. In game I have been splitting time between my Tauren Druid who is now level 79 and my Dorf Hunter who is 80 and working on his Oracle rep. I think I have about one more sweep of dailys on him until he is revered and can start buying eggs!!

Thank you so very much on the cooking daily tip about looking for the half empty wine glasses in the dalaran sewers, that has made that quest so much easier for me. It was my least favorite since I also had difficulties clicking on the glasses like Aprilian. Now make sure you remove that tip from the archives and dont tell anyone else :D

During the week I usually only have time to do a handful of dailys before I start the day off getting the kids ready for school and heading off to work. The weekends are normally my days to explore dungeons. Last weekend I was able to run two instances on my Tauren Druid. He is feral so I typically tank. The first one we ran was Gun'Drak, which I had ran before on my hunter but the second was the Oculus. I have heard alot of folks complain about this instance in guild chat, but I ran it on a PuG and we had a blast. I thought it was very cool fighting on dragons! I hope they add more instances like this into the game.

Thanks again for the great show.

-Keelhaul

Email #10 from Caydyn

Hi Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo. I want to start off by saying that I love your podcast. I have a wierd work schedule so I can't listen live most times but I enjoy listening to the archive while I am sitting on the river bank grinding my fishing and cooking :) I have the same alt addiction that you all have and was thinking it would be helpful to get some group therapy. Have you ever thought of picking a server and starting a Ctrl Alt WoW guild for your listeners? I think it would be a lot of fun to get together with other people who are into the alt thing and who listen to the show each week. Thanks for the good commentary and keep up the great work.

Caydyn (Kay-Den)
Altar of Storms

PS Grats to Aprillian for the Kara run :)

Email #11 from Valathilia


Hello guys and happy early birthday April :)
Valathilia here
Ok so latly I haven't been able to play any of my alts there just boring :(
But I do have a interest in a holy pally or restro shaman
Which should I choose? They both seem like fun but I can't decide which to lv. Any pointers?
Great podcast guys
For the horde
- Valathilia

Email #12 from Xandar*

I ventured up to Ulduar and the Halls of Lightning the other day and to my surprise I was met by none other than Chester Copperpot from the great movie Goonies. Did you notice?

I was wondering if I might get a plug for my blog? With all the questions on Twitter if I am the same "Xandarr" from the CtrlAltWoW emails I have to laugh that I am already a little recognized. Thanks guys for reading the emails, and I just heard that authenticators are being pulled, so can I get the month of WoW or whatever else you might have instead?

You guys put on a great podcast, and I love it when all three of you are on together. Besides, Glanthur is outnumbered 2 to 1 on your show. How is that fair to the Alliance? We KNOW he can't possibly have more alts than you two combined... heck he probably doesn't have nearly as many as Aprillian.

--
Xandarr

http://twitter.com/Xandarr2112
http://theexperiencednoob.blogspot.com/

Thanks and Stuff

Thanks #1 from Ryan

Thanks for the awesome roll glanthur, and i would like the iphone gift card to get the app when it comes out. Thanks again for doing this great podcast and.... FOR THE HORDE!!!!