Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 166 - QQ for BG's

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 166 - QQ for BG's

Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna and Jeppy 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 a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.
What We've Been Doing:
Aprillian
I want a rocket mount on a higher level toon. Thinking I want my level 80 hunter to have one, but can't make new toons on that account. Went through and deleted a bunch of toons.

Did TOC and got [Embrace of Madness] a 219 chest piece to replace my Ebonweave robe, a 200 chest piece. GS went to 5045.

On Tues morning, got up with Vrishna, ran Tournament dailies. After maintenance I took Tiiaa and Epril to Sporegarr to rep grind so Tiiaa could get the quest. We got to the last boss and Tiiaa died. Boss despawned before she could run back.

Wed morning, summoned Tiiaa to Coilfang while riding rocket with Epril. Epril's client crashed, when she logged back in, she was in Coilfang.

Dual boxing RAF with a hunter/rogue. Finished most quests razor hill. Upgraded RAF account to 10 day BC trial. Created Belf and summoned one then other. Questing in Falconwing square, level 4 rogue with GS of 907 wants to duel.


Aprillian & Vrishna
Ran part of 2nd coilfang, Underbog. Killed final boss but Tiiaa died. So had to go back in.

Did Underbog like 10 times, finished twice.
Vrishna
Culling of Strathholme ... 1st time pugging alone. How do you choose need when everything is going on SO fast ! Chose need on my first item and had a whisper from a party member asking me to give it to him because tanking was his main spec. He greeded it also. He was dpsing in this pug, but then realized that it WAS tank gear and I was healing so maybe I shouldn't have needed it either. So I gave it to him even tho I'm sure it would have been my first upgrade playing at 80 in a dungeon. What is the etiquette. What should I do. HELP ! But it was fun and tank only died twice and THAT was only 'cause he wouldn't wait for me to mana up before running ahead, getting to 25% health before I even got close to him ! Tried to kick a member literally right before the last boss. Thought that was a wee bit offsides.

Ashayo
Weird cursor lag on 2nd monitor

Children's week
- Started with good co-op in WSG to drop flag. But then a pre-made that farmed us for honor and wouldn't let anyone get the ach
- Got the pet from all of Org, Shatt & Northrend
- Lots of frustrating waits for failed BGs
- Queue for random and hope for one we need. Finally got into EotS and managed an easy cap.
- AV Call to Arms - so easy to finish off .

Crazy Train
- Festergut 50k wipe, then killed him
- Rotface - 22%, lost 6 and was kiting for ages before we wiped at 2%
- Marrowgar (was weekly)
- Deathwhisper (won off spec head)
- Frost Giant - ICC weekly
- Gunship
- Oneshot Saurfang
- Oneshot Festergut

DwP
- One shot Blood Princes.
- Blood Queen - trouble at the fear phase without resto druid healer. Really bad luck with fears and timing of bite/fear. Got her on last try of the night
- Putricide down ; awesome job by healers
- Sindragosa attempts ; wipe from being frozen, wipe at phase 3, phase 3 (25%), 17%, 19%

Misc
- Ashield - Argent Tournament / Oracles. Gundrak - won cloak upgrade
Thought I was smart by teleporting to dungeon immediately after killing a mob and another was running at me. HAHA, I thought. Until I finished the dungeon and teleported out and 4 mobs jumped me.
Ding 78 - can now wear the Ornate Saronite set that I'd made earlier
- Pudendal ; Continued levelling Blacksmith , got to 440. Last 10 points are hard
- Had enough of BG's and queued for heroic - got Halls of Reflection. 1000 Emblems on 1st boss in HoR
- Super fail AN as tank on laptop
- Pudendal - ICC 25 man Pants on Head. Marrowgar down, won [Bryntroll, the bone Arbiter]. Deathwhisper down. Gunship battle down with a mis-start, and 5 missing

Jeppy

Variety is the spice of life - I have therefore been RAF levelling. T-4 Days.
Emails

Email #A from Acaldraa

Hey guys,

Acaldraa here once again with my weekly ramble. First of all, I hope that by the time this is read, a raid containing myself, Aprillian and Virinya will have taken place and fun times will have been had by all. Today I wanted to talk about gearing up when you first hit 80 and method in which you can do such a thing. Please note that this is from a PVE side of things as I have no idea what the heck I am doing in PVP. (Not that my PVE knowledge is that much better ^^)

Anyways, first you want to chain run Normal TOC 5 from some iLvl 200 epics. This can be done at level 78 and beyond. Next, move on to Heroic TOC 5 and some ICC 5 normals. After you feel comfortable, move up to ICC 5 heroics and maybe a raid or two. Also, farming the dungeon finder randoms can be a great way to get fast badges. Once you hit 80, try to do the weekly no matter what your gear level as you will be with people that over gear the place. Also, doing your daily random heroic can help to bring in the frosties. For items that you might not be able to get w/ badges, look at the conquest or valor vendors, they might have what you need. Also, you can spend some honor for things like necks and cloaks. Hope that this helps those who might be gearing up.

On a more personal note, this week has been a pretty good one for myself. I have run VOA and ICC on 10 and 25 for maximum frosties, also the weekly. Also, I was lucky enough to tag along to the SIN raid group that is lead by the almighty Dills and contains the like mr extralife himself 0.o. We cleared TOGC 10 with only 44 attempts remaining. Also, in ICC 25, I got a BOE 264 cloth wrists that I am currently trying to sell on the AH. The current market price seems to be around 12-13k =0. Maybe I'll buy a hog...

Well that's all for now, thanks for reading my email,

Acaldra, Champion of the Frozen Wastes
Holy/Prot Paladin, Cohort of Alea Iacta Est


Email #1 from Eskimojoe
Re: Tiiaa
April, April, April.... /sigh :)

I thought you learned your lesson about using Attack Power items with
a caster when you got that AP trinket for Aprillian.

Poor Tiiaa.... :(

I should contact Mage Protection Services and have Tiiaa taken away
from you and sent to a good home.

List of Cruel Offenses against a Mage.

1. Casters should never, never-ever, never-ever-ever gem or enchant
attack power.
2. "Frost" Mages specialize in "Frost" damage, so use "Frost" bolt as
your primary nuke. (not Arcane Missle)
3. MP5 is a healer stat. Replace those gems with a Spellpower,Haste,
or Crit gem or even some mix of +spirit. (see #5) If you stick to
casting mostly Frost spells in your Frost spec you shouldn't have mana
problems.
4. A tanking cloak is not helping no matter how much SP you enchant it with.
5. Sure Glyph of Frost Armor seems like a good idea for a Frost mage,
but Glyph of Molten Armor is a must have for all mages to get that
sweet crit bonus.
6. Book of Clever Tricks is more of a Druid Tank off-hand item, go
with the Hellfire Book until you can find a better off-hand item.

Frost is a great spec for leveling up, pvp, and soloing. Since you're
probably not going to solo or pvp with Tiiaa, respec into the talents
that work well for muti-boxing.
(51 pts in frost and a few points in fire to help Fireball or
Frostfire bolt damage from Brainfreeze as you level. Once you hit 80
move those extra 20 pts into Arcane to get "Torment the Weak")

Remember Frostbolt is your primary nuke. Spam Frostbolt constantly
until Brainfreeze or Deepfreeze procs. Deepfreeze is priority when it
procs.

I hope you don't mind me poking fun at you. I'm just trying to help,
plus I know you'll have more fun playing the mage once you see how
much DPS you'll do with just a few changes.


Eskimojoe
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Khadgar&cn=Eskimojoe&gn=Disciplined+Anarchy

Email #B from Matthew

i have been wanted to start Multiboxing i have one PC with two displays what software do i need and how do i set it up?

Email #C from Tedrah

Greetings to the fantastic Ctrl Alt WoW hosts.

Really love your shows. They make the work day fly. And they are always so informative. For example, I had no idea that Nessingwary got around so much. Do you suppose he has a gnome in every port? Maybe he single handedly fathered all those children running around during Children's Week.

Wanted to say grats to Vrishna for doing his first raid. It's a whole new world now. Now you have to start keeping flasks and buff food on hand. Naxx is a really good place to get your feet wet because there is such a good variety of fights with lots of different mechanics.

Wanted to briefly say, shame on you guys for not telling Aprillian about the engineering AH in Dalaran, lol. I don't have an engineer and I was helping a friend level his by farming mats. He told me to meet him at the AH in Dalaran and I had no idea what he was talking about. I'm very jealous of the engineers and their AH.

Ashayo said he was working on the Oracle quest chain and I was wondering if he, or any of you have done the Frenzyheart reputation chain? I have exalted with Oracles and have gotten all the pets and flyer from the eggs and am wondering if I should switch to do the other side.

I got a real kick out of Jeppy's Hogger griefing. Made me want to head to Elwynn Forest and give it a try. Unfortunately there is no logging in from work.

A little about my week in WoW

Sunday I ran to the orphanage and grabbed a child to take to the battlefield. It's always good to show them mayhem and carnage. For my efforts I was rewarded with my long awaited Violet Proto Drake.

Monday it occurred to me that I hadn't touched Teodora since she hit level 68. So I promptly logged on Tedrah, bought a Tome of Cold Weather Flying and mailed it off. Thank goodness those will cross faction. I spent Monday night flying around Northrend opening up the map. I got an entire level out of it and my Explorer's Tabard. So Teodora is now 69.

I did manage to get into the Unbroken progression raid Tuesday and we made a couple hours worth of attempts on Sindragosa. Each attempt was better than the previous one and we can consistently do phases one and two without losing anyone now. Phase three is a dog of the female persuasion ( does that meet the clean tag okay?) we'll get it eventually. Hopefully next week.

That's about it for my week in WoW. Again, great podcast you all. See how I didn't say 'guys' there? Wouldn't want to bring down Aprillian's wrath. But you know, if Juuno hadn't done that we wouldn't know she has such a nice singing voice.

So this is Tedrah, level 80 hunter,
Joslynn, level 73 Mage
Pettrah, level 75 DK
Teona, level 63 Shaman
Teonna, level 63 Priest
And various others saying

For the Horde!

Email #2 from Thegatorwife

Greetings to the lovely and witty Aprillian, the Aussie- licious Ashayo, the talented and humorous Vrishna, and the "maker of sweet dreams" Jeppy. I also have to admit that Ashayo's voice has inspired a few sweet dreams as well. I just got thru listening to episode 165 and as usual it was great and once again my coworker who I share a cubicle with thinks I'm a little spun, as I tend to laugh out loud sporadically for no apparent reason. On the topic concerning the length of your podcast, IMO they don't last long enough. You guys and Aprillian(notice how I acknowledged you)have such great chemistry together. Each show is better than the last and my work week is not complete until I've had my crtlaltwow fix. I haven't done a whole lot in WOW this last week or two, but I did get my Loremaster achievement and I finished my Children's Week achievement. That leaves me one more to go for the Violet Proto-Drake. I'm so happy for Vrishna and all his accomplishments this past week and kudos to you Ashayo for taking our little fledgling on his very first raid. It makes the experience a little less daunting when you're with someone you know. All I can say about Jeppy's little stunt in Lakeshire with Hogger and the pet from hell running amuck and killing all the unsuspecting lowbies in the area, PRICELESS !!! That was totally awesome in a twisted kind of way. I've got to go try that one myself now, what can I say I'm a little twisted myself, but in a good way. Well I guess I've bent your ears enough for now, keep those podcast coming. Love you guys. For the Horde(most of the time)and for the Alliance(some of the time).

Moondance on Sister's of Elune
Thegatorwife on Twitter


Sent from my iPhone

Email #D from Xanndar

RET PALLY NEEDS HELP!
Good Morning Everyone!

It has been a while since I have been in contact with you, but I am
back and have a little more time to be able to dedicate to listening
to podcasts and playing WoW again like I used to. I have recently
taken a job that takes me away from home Monday - Friday and so at
night I sit in my hotel room praying the hotel Wi-Fi doesn't kick out
and I can play WoW without interruption.

Last night I was able to go on a guild run into ICC. They made it all
the way to Sindragosa prior to last night's raid. Well to make a long
story short, my Ret Paladin main Xandarr (Lovingly referred to as
Double R, for reasons I might explain if asked) has a gear score of
just over 5100 but could not do the DPS needed to really assist the
raid. Know everyone knew this going in, and the guild said that they
would help me to gear up or do whatever to make my DPS crush all
others. But I am trying to do what I can and asking the experts what
can I do as far as spec builds and gear that could make me better for
ICC?

Here is my armory page:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Crushridge&cn=Xandarr

Talents , glyphs, gear... you tell me what I can do and what the guild
may be able to help me do to be better DPS for them. Also, is there a
different Spec that I might need for Raiding that my current Ret spec
I use for dailies and PUG instances?

I am putty in your very capable hands.

- Elder Xandarr (Double R) of the Crushridge US server

SHOUT OUT TO Spírítus Ímmortalís Guildies!


Email #E Telonnord

Dear Ashayo, Virshna,Jeppy, and our illustrious Aprillian.

It is I, Telonnord the rogue. I apologize I could not send this sooner, but I am in process of being deployed overseas to Iraq so there has been little time to write a response to Aprillian's commentary.

Gentlemen, I would like to apologize for creating such a stir. The undue stress I cause you was not intentional. (Heh-heh-heh.)

I did not realize that our dear Aprillian would take her lineage so seriously. I had no idea her temper would be so short. I did leave a note in Addillian's mailbox informing him of my findings. There's been no reply as of yet from the gnome warlock, but I did hear a rumor he got himself a new small, yippity pet and named it Aprillian. It has a bent pointed ear and a crooked, fanged tooth. At first, it would just ignore everyone who tried to reason with it, but eventually, he taught it to sit up and beg not to be kicked from random dungeons. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Well, on a brighter side I am glad to say that I have started making some gold with a small side business. Thanks to Aprillian's reaction, "Email4" t-shirts are now springing up all over Azeroth. Check them out at a local vendor near you. (I hear gnome sizes are selling like hotcakes!)

Continue with the good work everyone.

As always, disarmingly yours,
Telonnord
80 Human Rogue
Burning Blade

Email #3 from Gongrim

How I wow and feedback
Hi all at ctrlaltwow

Firstly I recently discovered your podcast along with others including your friends at BoE. Having listened through your back catalogue I would like to congratulate you on a great show.

Its great to hear your different views on aspects of the game through your own knowledge and experiences.

I plan sometime in the near future to start a RaF account for the mount and to help me level yet more alts :) I understand the basics of running 2 chars to together for the better xp bonus then passing levels back etc. But am a little unsure on how you actually set your machines up to run them ? Is there minimum requirement cpu memory graphics wise to try this ? Which ways do you guys actually do this and what would be the best resource to read up and plan how to do it.

Lastly how I WOW :) I started playing wow about 6 months before WotLK came out. When I first started I had no idea how big and engrossing the lands of azeroth could be. I started several characters trying out there starter abilities till I settled on a dwarf warrior named Gongrim ( nothing like doing it the hardway for a first char )

After fighting my way through the starter areas and moving on to the human areas I made my way to lakeshire where I met a few people and joined my first guild. We then proceeded to level making our way to outlands just as WotLK hit, working our way to 60 then 70 then on to 80.

Sadly most of the people I had levelled with drifted out of the game due to personal or family reasons. And the guild fell apart. So I was left at 80 without much clue what to do next.

So after much research and wasted time doing not really much I decided I wanted to see some of the raids I had about.

So I struggled to gear up my warrior in heroics learning all the tactics as prot or as a arms dps I started getting the itch to start more chars so I levelled a hunter priest and paladin getting them all to 30ish. Always going back to my main the warrior but he never seemed to progress much. So I started on my hunter again levelling him to 65 so I could level 2 more profs to max level.

With the advent of the new LFG I decided to try my warrior again. So I found a new guild that where recruiting to raid and geared him up using the emblems and started by doing the weekly raid and VOA. 3 months later I am now an officer and play most nights and just recently completed ToTC 10 and started in ICC and have done the first wing in there.

I have also since levelled my hunter to 80 and and am gearing him up on the nights I'm not raiding helping others out in the guild as much as I can passing on any knowledge I've got.

I have learnt so much in the last 3 months playing with my new guild so I would like to give a shout out to them.

Thanks to all in Degeneration X Dragonblight EU server.

Well that's enough of my rambling keep up the good work on the podcast

Gongrim 80 Dwarf warrior
Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media

Email #F Bidkar

Hello CtrlAltWow crew,

Bidcar, level 41 human mage Winterhoof server here. This week my ally raf duo hit 41. Bidcar teleported around and picked up all the portals he could. The only old world portal missing now is Darnassus which he can get at 50. I'll pick it up just to have it, but are there any major quest chains associated with Darnassus? I have not come across any yet and have yet to see any reason to go there. It is nice to look at though. Anyway, they are now in Duskwallow Marsh, which I love, and happily questing there.

I spent my Saturday Wow time playing my death knights. The night elf dk is 61 and the dranei dk is 62. I wanted to earn enough gold to pick up the next level of riding for the ally duo. I really like how they are playing, though I still get bored with them after a bit. I think I am implementing a proper rotation but I still feel like I'm rolling my face across the keyboard.

I did my jewelcrafing dailies and cooking dailies on my Horde warlock. I finally ran out of dark jade after all this time, so she had to scrounge up some ore to prospect. Bidkar ran out to Shattrath to pick up the orphan quest. He made some portals along the way for the people who needed to go back to Shattrath. Bidkar loves to make portals and I think all mages do even if they might not care to admit it. I never charge people for a portal. It's fun for me and that's enough.

So far the ally experience has been quite nice. I'm finding the ally people to be exactly like the Horde folks, go figure. Every day the trade chat gets vile about the time school gets out, but I do not find it as offensive as the Horde trade chat. A higher class of filth I reckon. I enjoyed Elwynn Forest. Lakeshire got on my nerves a little, but it was still fun. I loved Darkshore and found it to be the best ally zone so far. I still want to impale every night elf I see though. Old habits die hard.

Aprillian, give Jayson a pat on his head for me. My sister's dog has a similar situation and he's 16 and going strong, though a bit gray now.

Have you heard from Glanthur?

I hope everyone has a great week.

For the Horde and For the Alliance!

Bidkar, Bidcar and his many alts


Shout Outs & Thank You
MoMoMoment

Hello all,
Hope everyone has has a fine week and Happy Mothers day to all mothers out there.

What a fun leveling week I have had with my RAF and Pally/Mage combo :)
They are level 31 so far and by the time the weekend is over they should be 35 at least.
I still do not know what I will level next and how I will use the level grants for the RAF on feathermoon.
Also I have been trying to figure out what other server I will create characters and get some more leveling done.

For the big kids, my 80s, just a few random LFG's, and our ICC 10 run Friday for my priest, we are trying to work on making progressions on different wings and work with everyones schedule. We shall see how that turns out.

Last week Ashayo was talking about his failed pugs and how he always gets Gund. on his randoms.
For my priest it seems as though I only get a few select dungeons as well; either HOS (at times HOL), Gund. and that is it!
Not really random if you ask me.
On my hunter is seems she only gets HOL/HOS mainly; as you can imagine I am sick of that but still need frosties on her and my warrior. Thankfully my warrior at least gets other instances than just HOL or HOS.

Going back to my pally/mage for a second, I had a blue drop (forgot the name already) and I was a second away from disenchanting it (but I did not). I check the auction house just to see if it was worth anything (I have auctioneer turned off on my low characters). You will not believe it, there were 3 other auctions there, ranging from (roughly) 90 gold to 150 gold! So of course I went below that amount and within a second of posting it someone bought my item.
Now I am trying to understand, do only twinks buy low blue items? Or people leveling might by items, low blue or purple items? And, why?! Any opinions you all have to share about this? And if you are ever undercut, well I would say I am sorry, for me I was just trying to off load it and I have to believe the person that bought that piece probably put it right back on the ah.
Write us at ctrlaltwow@gmail.com
Visit us at http://ctrlaltwow.com
Well that is all from me this week. Happy leveling or what ever you are working on in wow and have a great week.

Oh one quick note, if you have not checkout the Cataclysm screenshots on the wow site, please do. They are unbelievable and I do not think they are spoilerish :)

Bye