Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 186 - Congratulations, Your Mind Has Been Expanded

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.



What We've Been Doing:


Aprillian

Can't believe my level 26 Warlock who could summon yesterday, can't summon today.

Mage has portal, teleport button. Mana lollipop

Bought another enchanted broom and sold it for 950g on Alliance ah - Made titansteel bars with Epril. Sold all stockpiled glyphs Mi had in guild bank. Found I had another guild I had forgotten about - Lone Sentinal - has one DK in it

Sent Mollyshot the mats for Mechano Hog



The Flight Path map is bigger - Tracker changers0.

I can Summon a Felguard but not a portal at 3



Spoops orphan candy quest is available


Aprillian & Vrishna

Ran Scarlet Monastery with the twins.

Hallow's End with Virinya




Vrishna 

Virinya soloing in the Storm Peaks. Made over 500 gold this week. WOW ! I think it's GREAT that I can still experience content AND get paid for it ! The daily, Overstock, at K-3 killing the fleeing mobs. I have to learn to read the actual quest. Was running around killing, TRYING to kill, these running mobs. Actually FINISHED the quest. Found out it was a daily and realized that part of the quest was laying down mines ! LOL SO much easier ! Virinya completed many of the achievements for Hallow's End including killing the Headless Horseman and Sinister Calling. Just 4 more to get the title.


Level 38 at the end of this week.  The twins did Tricks and Treats of Eastern Kingdoms all on their own and everything in Kalimdor except Winterspring in Everlook. It is great to get so many new flight paths !Tried to get there through Azshara. Actually got the better part of the way before getting killed by high level mobs. Then tried SWIMMING from Darkshore past Moonglade to get there. That was an hour of my life I can never get back. So, finally asked Aprillian and she tells me to go through Ashenvale .... (sigh). If only I had looked at the damn map FIRST ! The path into Felwood looks REALLY obvious now, in retrospect !  Like to give a shout out to Dosi & Norynna. (Same person, different alts.) My first CtrlAltWow guild invitee.

Love the water in 4.0 but sadly had to turn both my video setting to their lowest setting to avoid IMPOSSIBLE lag in Dalaran. I guess we need new computers !

Ashayo


4.0.1

- Quest items now have yellow border
- Blizz announced long-strange-trip drakes won't be 310% any more. But not so! yay!
- Transmute timer now truly daily - resets midnight server


DK Tanking
- Blood tanking seems ok

Druids
- spirit gives hit - need 446 for hit cap - I have 1100
- according to elitist jerks, mastery not beneficial, and haste much better now than crit
- gems: brilliant (red) , reckless (yellow) , purified (blue) - if only for meta activation, plus a nightmare tear
- reforged some crit/hit off into haste

Lunar Shower - increases Moonfire damage ; more if you move, up to 3 stacks
Prime Glyphs - insect swarm, moonfire, wrath
Major Glyphs - starfall, focus, innervate

Ashariss had 7500 Justice points, so bought
- T10 DPS Chest
- T10 Healing Shoulders, Robe, Helmet, Legplates
- Purified Lunar Dust trinket
- Idol of Lunar Eclipse

Pud bought Heirloom gear.
- Heirloom mail shoulders, chest, 1h mace, int trinket

Inscription
- Tried Northrend Inscription Research - and learnt something new!

Mage
- Water elemental now dismisses when you mount up - no more trail aggro

Warlock - Destruction
- Start with Soulfire - 15% haste when mob above 80%
- After Conflag , cast Incinerate and Chaos Bolt (reduce by 30% for 15 sec)
- Shadowburn at end - will get soulshards back if mob dies in 5 sec
- use Soulfire - talent that adds 7 sec dot (though Imp fireball does it too - doesn't stack)
- keep Immolate up - increases damage of Incinerate and Chaos Bolt
- Aura for Empowered Imp - next Soulfire to be instant
- Warlocks now useful in Lich King fight to stun Val'kyr? Shadowfury stuns enemy in 8yds for 3sec and Shadowflame glyph slows by 70%
- Getting 7k on a target dummy only self buffed.


Crazy Train
- Restart ICC
Buggy night. Deathwhisper event started without getting near her.
Cannons in gunship bugging out - no interface. Stuck in combat after end of fight
Rotface died in record time - 2min 56, fell over -- and disappeared
Wiped on Blood Queen at 23% - no bites up!
Oneshot Dreamwalker

PoH
- More heroics for Glory of the Hero. Tranith got it, Wemb just needs dehydration
- Gruul's & Magtheridon

Hallows End
- Did Southshore quests in 1st hour - strong alliance resistance - nice as tank
- Got helm in first bag
- Still had pumpkins from last year to get Check Your Head achievement
- Chol had wisp wand ; last one I needed
- Just need sinister squashling - praying RNG is nice.

DwP
- Tore through ICC , now facing the LK again


Jeppy

100 gold for dual spec = sweet

Where's my wolf!

2 seater rocket > Chopper?

Is it just me or do holidays bring out  a lower level of DBag?

Shakes....shake....shake

Emails


Email #1 from Londrik

Hello Aprillian, Ashayo, Vrishna and Jeppy

So I wrote a number of weeks ago telling you all I had been farming
for enough gold for my Tundra Mammoth. Well after toiling away I
finally made it and have been loving having a repair bot and vendor at
my fingertips. It is very useful and I do enjoy giving rides to
friends whenever I can. Once I finished up with that I ended up
focusing on my Warlock which in less than two months has made it to
level 58 and is questing in outland. This is a record for me
considering it took me over a year to get my DK to 80. Granted I have
heirlooms and the random dungeon finder to thank for that.

So the 4.0 patch launched today and besides being distressed by the
fact that all of my addons are broken I am impressed with some of the
new additions to the game. For one I think I like some of the UI
changes in the glyph and talent trees. I also find it a lot easier to
pick the talents that make the most sense for my toon. My favorite
thing so far though is the fact that my ghoul is like the hulk and
when he gets mad he grows into a huge monster and just kicks butt.
Also I have an ENTIRE bag free now because my warlock doesn't keep
soul shards in his bags anymore. Oh happy day!

What are some of your favorite additions so far to the game?

Londrik of the "Want to Date My Avatar" Guild
Dragonblight US Server

Email #2 Aleara

Here's a submission for you, April! I hope it's not too long. It's about a minute.

Hugs!

--
Aleara Jackley
alearajl@gmail.com
Aleara's Hobbit Hole blog/podcast: http://alearajl.blogstpot.com



Email #3 from Helmar

Hey CAW!

/waitsforthecaws

Ok, so I think I figured out why the Juno part of the show hurts me ears. It's a mixture of three things:

1) Podcast or Skype quality might be bad for playing a recording. I'm not too sure about this one, but I never have a problem with listening to you guys talk.

2) I have awesome headphones. This could be a huge factor as the sound quality for my headphones is amazing. Also, I turn them up loud so I don't have to listen to the bad whisper singing of my co-worker.

3) I have really good hearing for audio. Don't believe me? Jeppy (at least I believe it's him) has facial hair and is constantly rubbing it. Aprillian, please let that go.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with it. I just lower the volume a bit. Thank you Juno for your concern!

Helmar of Excessus on The Scryers

Email # A From Iceflow and Caoboi
Hi CAW Crew,

Caoboi and I hope that you all are doing well.  It feels like forever since we've written but that's because so much has been happening.  Caoboi and I are avoiding the panic that has been spreading through our guild like wildfire.  There are way too many speculations with regards to guilds over 1000 so we've chosen just to wait and see.

The big news is the patch.  Since the patch, I haven't had a lot of time to play my alts because I'm feeling like I have to learn how to play my mains all over again. It has been a flurry of activity trying to get my mains back up to speed.  Caoboi farmed for inscription mats before the patch but instead of selling them on the AH for a tidy profit, he opted to help guildies by making them glyphs.  Isn't he awesome like that? 

Iceflow is all talented and glyphed out and I'm still trying to get used to her new abilities and the new rotation.  Luckily we raid tonight so I'll get to try it in order. 

And the patch has changed so much!  Good and bad!  The couple of things I like:  1) The water is sooooo pretty now!  Smooth like glass and very believable.  2) I also like how when I ride my headless horseman's mount onto Krausus Landing, I don't have to dismount and mount back up to fly.  I can just take off!

The things I don't like about the patch (that I hope will get fixed):  1) There's a bug when you die in Icecrown, you go at walking speed as a ghost.  Very annoying.  2)  Some of the name plates of the mobs are invisible.  I get surprised very easily that way!

I am soft capped on Justice points (what the badges turned into) so I can't get anymore until Cataclysm.  That takes a bit of the pressure off of me trying to run heroics anyway.

So this week and probably next will be spent on getting our many many alts ready to go.  I imagine it will take awhile.

We hope you all are doing well.

For the horde and the alliance

Iceflow and Caoboi


Email #4 from Curme

Patchmegadon

Hey CAW crew,

While I knew that the patch was coming and that it would completely change things, I don't think I was ready. With 5 toons at 80, and dual specs on each, I was immobilized by all that had to be figured out. So instead of actually working on the toons, I simply sold glyphs and epic gems for a ridiculous amount. I also realized that I need to create glyphs for all my toons, my wifes toons, and figure out how to spec her mage (dual spec as well) and if I need to move around any of her gems. Fortunately my raid worthy toon is warrior tank, so I don't really have to do much gem switching. However, I've heard that threat is kinda low, so I'll have to relearn that. End result? I didn't run a single heroic dungeon, spec any of my 80's, or try and figure out how to play them. Their just parked in their home cities near their class trainer. Rather than trying to deal with that level of thinking, I brought out my lvl 24 rogue, specced back into subtlety and proceeded to one-shot ambush mobs in the Barrens and Thousand needles while earthquakes rolled and rolled. I dinged 4 levels in a couple hours of play time and decided that its way more fun to face roll than deal with min-maxxing. By the way, recuperate is officially OP,  rogue DPS with a HoT. Just a suggestion to anyone overwhelmed by the patch like myself. Grab a lowby or roll a new toon, and quest for the uncomplicated joy of it. Sure I'll get around to speccing my toon sometime, maybe even a couple of them, but I have absolutely no motivation to learn how to play a blood tank, frost DPS, disc priest, prot pally or even relearn my warrior tank for the moment. Too much work.

Curme

PS. In your show a few weeks back you talked about where you put abilities on the hot keys. I realized that I had every single toon and every single spec set up differently. Since I mostly tank and heal I don't have a rotation per se, but I think I'll take that into consideration when spec them out this time. The only nice thing about have them set up differently is that for every toon, I know immediately that I'm doing something different and that helps get the brain engaged.

Email #5 from Mandrageron

There I was... then Lich King released the Spouse Agro!

Greetings,

There I was... on the verge of getting the two main's to 80 before our favorite hostess.  As I prepared to sharpen my skills and begin help build up the Argent Tournament the Lich King released a hidden 5th column upon my hero's the dreaded spouse argo.  "Arthas!"

Now close to 16 months later I've made my return to North-rend I find that several things have changed...

- my favorite show about Alt's has dabbled with Space (made it to Captain myself before I retired)
- has four talking heads with two new voices
- Quad boxing with 5 tunes?  Does that mean that the show is really done with one person doing all voices while the 5th character online?  If so amazing pipes to get those accents down.
- Confused on when my Blood Elves let their inner Dwarf's come out.  I remember paying to make the change on one tune but I swore my Level 73 Hunter was still a Blood Elf and not a gun toting short person from Iron Forge.
- Not to mention trying to remember what all of those buttons due, not to mention all of the talent changes actually do or if my old guild even exists anymore!

love the show,

Mandrageron, DK Sentinal Server

Email #6 from Agruvona

hunter pets in Cataclysm

CAW CAW:  hey, how's it going?

Here's something I never thought I'd say:  worms are so cool!

Frostheim from Warcraft Hunter's Union has been doing a lot of research on Cataclysm and he came out with a preliminary list for how hunters might fill out their stables.  He suggested getting a worm (not to be confused with serpents) for solo PvE because they're tenacity pets and it looks like worms are the only pets that will have a real AoE attack, which matters a lot, since bears lost their Swipe with the latest patch.

I got a L72 Jormungar worm from the Crystal Vice chasm in north-central Dragonblight and I took it to Sholazar Basin to grind some leather from the beasties.  And OMG it was a scream!  (I can just hear Juno shrieking about it!)  The worm's AoE attack is called Burrow Tunnel (or "burrow" something).  The animation makes it look like it's boring a hole straight into the ground, and once it started this attack I could hit Multishot till I used all my energy (usually about 3 Multishots in a row).  Most times that left me with nothing else to do but get out my skinning knife.  On my L80 hunter with some pretty trashy gear (yeah trashy but pretty, at least for a troll) and my worm at L78 I could handle 3 or 4 L75-L76 mobs at a time no problem:  crocks, gorillas, serpents, whatever.  The worm rarely had trouble holding aggro.

So then I took the worm over to Ice Crown to try it on some of those "converted heroes" you have to kill for the Tournament quest givers.  The "converted heroes" come in crowds of 7 and they're high 70s or 80, but if I did things right and had luck I could handle them too.

So anybody wondering what to do with all those new stable slots definitely you should try a worm.  Check them out at Petopia.  They're pretty cool looking and the tamed ones are huge compared to most pets, even compared to most Taurens.  And they don't leave nasty trails of slime behind, like some slugs we all know LoL.

Happy hunting:

Agruvona of Terokkar


Email #7  from Boozah

Hi ctrlaltwow! I thought I’d drop this email by to tell you how I play World of Warcraft for the competition.

Basically it all started back in the year 2005, it was the summer, and even thought I was 13 and should have been full of life running around playing football (or soccer as some of you may know it as) and other outside activities with my friends, I found myself cooped up in my downstairs cupboard screaming “THEY’RE ALL CAMPING B!!”. Me and my friends, agile as we we’re, played computer games instead of playing in the sun. Summer of 2005, the summer of Counter Strike: Source.

So yeah, all through school I played console games, it was only when I moved into secondary school that I got converted into the geek I am today. Counter Strike: Source was the culprit, me and my friends all decided to play, and struggled to do so on our terrible computers that our dad’s used for work. Integrated graphics? It may as well not even be called that, running a game on very low is just terrible. We managed to find a free TeamSpeak and so we would wake up, get a bite to eat and then head to our PC’s for a full day’s worth of gaming, also by being 13 alcohol didn’t really interest us and so going out partying on the nights we’re never considered as an option.

Then, one day a friend came round to my house with a small, thin looking game box. It was entitled “World of Warcraft 14 Day Free Trial!” and I was like “What the hell? World of Warcraft, man that game sucks, FPS is the way forward”. He replied with “No man, seriously you have to play this game, I mean it’s a bit laggy in main cities and our computers are just good enough to run it, but it’s so worth it, my Brother has just started playing and it rules man!”. I took up his advice and within three days not just me and my friend had started playing, but all the guys who played CS:S we’re now on TeamSpeak shouting something along the lines of “I’m sick of this Warlock, I’m making a Warrior”.

Fast forward to 2010 and you get me and all the same guy’s all playing on the same server, raiding as a guild. Awesome right? Although I’ve been left school for 2 years now and I’m in a full time job, and people have just started University (I’m from England in case you hadn’t of guessed by now) we all still manage to get around the obstacles to play this fantastic game together. That’s how I play World of Warcraft.

You see, many people play with guilds, but are these guys you go to the pub with on a Friday night? Are these people you sit down with on a weekly basis with to play poker? Didn’t think so, playing with friends is the only way I play WoW. Now obviously in our guild there are plenty of other people we play with, it’s needed for the synergy of raiding, but as long as the original gang are raiding with the addition of other players, that’s fine with me.

I don’t really play solo play, I mean I do do the odd daily quest here and there, but it’s mainly done with one of my IRL friends. We all feel this way and this is the way we feel most comfortable playing. We sometimes have LAN’s were I’ll get all the lads round to play in my house on a weekend, we’ll have some cans of lager, get in a curry or a Chinese takeaway and then farm heroics, and there’s no need for TeamSpeak when your tank is like 2 feet away!

Even if we’re levelling alts, we’ll do the 300% extra xp so we can quest and instance together. That’s how I play World of Warcraft; I play with friends, thanks for taking the time to read this entry into the competition!

Newcastle, England, UK

a.k.a Boozah on Stormscale EU!



Shout Outs & Thank You

MoMoMoMoMOoooomoments:

Momomoments - sick mo is not a good mo/wow wow wow they have done it again!!!
(Intro to the latest mobook for Ctrl Alt Wow!)

Hello all,
I have missed you and missed emailing in so you will get an extra long email, are you prepared!? Contrary to what that Illidan says I think you are prepared :)
Prior to the patch I was able to get more playing time than usual and I was able to get some dailies and random heroics in.  The guild I am in with my mains is starting to pick up a little bit.  There are more people on than the last few months which is nice.
Most of the last 2 weeks I had a litch king type plague and this past week I was off as I have plenty of pto left to burn for this year.  Instead of going somewhere I just had a staycation, meaning I just stayed home :)
I dont know about you but I am ok with that.
So with all that time and being sick I was able to get even more wow time and than Blizzard drops a bomb on me baby!

(Chapter 1 - Patch me baby!)
This latest patch has to be the best patch I can think of; yes it has lots of bugs but come people, what doesnt have bugs.  Even beds have bugs!
I have read on the internet universe about so many people quitting wow, how bored they are, how they hate this patch, how they dont care about cataclysm!?!?!
I am sorry they feel that way as I do not.
One reason I think this latest patch was so exciting to me was that I was staying away from any spoilers; not on purpose, just worked out that way.  Many of the things on the patch I had not heard or read about.  On the other side, similar to Vrishna's reaction, it is annoying to have everything reset pretty much but as you all have stated this only happens what once a year or two?  I think its worth it.
On to the patch: the talents, wow!!!
For me its like a new old game :)
Right now I would say my main has been Moheal for a long while now, holy healing troll priest and he was drooling from his tusks!
There are a few things missing from before for a holy priest but wow wow wow all I can say.  I see the holy priest as the new druild resto healer.  When I am healing, I always have at least 2 DOT heals going, mainly because of my mastery.  Each of my heals also heals for a specific % amount for 6 seconds! This is a big deal for me and I love it so far.  I know we will all get nerfed at least twice I think before the patch but thats ok.  I healed VOA right away after I was able to fix my ui enough to heal.  Yes I healed with the wow UI and with no healbot!!! I know blasphemy! :)
So in VOA as you can imagine everyone was a noob and not playing well but that did not show as the dps was dpsing like they never have and i was healing with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my chair (not really).
I need to back track a bit, on patch-tuesday I actually spent most of the night as I was having so much fun spending talent points on my Feathermoon characters.  Now that is only 15 characters of many many many more! I have lots of more fun times ahead and I love it!
It was so exciting and fun to read and learn all the new talents.  I just need to learn how to Master each character :) a Momaster if you will.

I would say the hardest class for me right now to momaster are my hunters.  I just need to get used to the focus and rotation but OMG the changes!  Pets at level 1! No ammo in my bags!! Christmas in October!

I was also able to work on my Druid/Mage pair, they are at 73 now, real close to 74.  I have moved onto Grizzly hills.  I love that zone, it looks cool, AWESOME music and just so lively and green.  One of my favorite zones in WoW.

(Chapter 2: Mount Hyjal)
I was on my priest and I saw a message in trade chat of course (dont ask me why people ask for raid stuff, lfg, etc in the trade channel) for heals for Mt Hyjal.  I dont know if any of you have done that but I have not.  Mt Hyjal I think was an end game raid for BC after Black Temple, is that correct?  Well either way I have never been there so I said I will help and I was able to drag my mage too, level 73 mage! It was fun, minus the cluster-(fill in the black) of putting 20+ people in a raid and making sure they follow the raid leader.  we were able to complete it and get the achievement.
I suggest trying it when you can or when you can get 20+ people together.

(Chapter 3: advantage...?)
Someone was gloating in trade chat that his vanishing powder was selling in the AH for 5g a stack.  Now I know people should know better but do you all think people should take advantage or exploit others like this?
I say no but you know it will still happen :(
(Chapter 4: JP for you JP for me)
Do you know if there is a cap on Justice points?

(Chapter 5: MoHallow's End!)
YES! Hallow's End! THE BESTEST holiday event and Halloween = best holiday of all!
As you can guess I like Hallow's end.  Like many of you I am doing my best to log in each day, every hour when I can :) to trick or treat myself and to run Headless Horseman.

On Monday I started on my priest and worked my way down through my 80's but wow was I having issues with lag and  dc'ing.  I know I was not alone but any of your and your servers part of this nightmare! :) get it nightmare!
As soon as I would zone into the HH instance I would get dc'ed.   However let me tell you on one of my hunters; I zoned in and dc'ed as I mentioned.  As I am trying to get back into the game which is taking a real long! time! I finally zone in to find the fight is over :( I apologize to the group and surprisingly they were not mean.
I found the pumpkin in my bag and clicked on it and was expecting noting...first I get the HH's mount!! YES!! and a flying broom! AWESOME!!!! I get grat's from the group (again surprising) and we all leave the instance.

I really would like to take as many of my non 80's around to check in the instances but not sure how many I am able to complete the achievement on.  I just want the loot and treats and the xp is nice.  At level 60 I am getting about 5700 xp; I do have heirloom gear on so I am sure that helps.

Chapter 6: The END (play the Doors song "The End" here) :)
Well if any of you are still alive in game and awake in real life thank you for your patience.

On non-wow-because there is more to life than wow rant, 
I need to provide a public service announcement because I like to help others after my and Gretchen's misery.
If you did not know laptops do not like water; in fact I do not know any techno-gadget that likes water unless they are waterproof.  My other half Gretchen has had the macbook I bought for her for, hmmm since the last macbook came out, I forget how long that is.  Anyway, she spilled water on our kitchen counter and the lively water rolled its way into the cd slip of her macbook and drowned her laptop (named gbook) :(
yes sad
and I have replaced her laptop already because she has the moprotection plan as she calls it (why do relationships cost so much money!?) and she promises not to drown her gbook.

So please remember, keep water or any liquid away from your devices.

thank you and take care

For the "waterproof" and WOW!

--
Mo


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