Quest Chains

There had been a confusing moment earlier during another chain. All of a sudden this squire started calling me master and had no use anymore for his pet reptile. He was a bit too quirky for my liking though and I declined his offer.

Rise Obsidion! Not that much. Down boy! Down! DOWN! /splat. Uhm, ok. I spot some opportunities for improvement there. After Obsidion did a bit of bashing on the day before, I cheekily asked a guildmate to sabotage his next go at smashing my party. Thereby the last chain in Searing Gorge was sorted. Having done all chains, including the dreaded Maltorius without help I did not feel too bad about not going for too many tries on Obisidon by myself.

After delivering that chain in Ironforge, I headed out to Zul'Farrak again. Time to succeed in the stair fight and get Nekrum's Medallion. Without that the Sharpbeak chain in the Hinterlands does not continue, and that would ruin my efficiency when going for the Ancient Egg. Previously, I had made two attempts on this fight. Both times I had run out of mana.

This time however, I managed. Barely, and using not only the Symbol of Hope, but also mana potions and Void Walkers, but manage I did. When Nekrum Gutchewer was down, I was totally out of mana and there was a dozen trolls running about. I looted the Medallion before dealing with them, hedging my efforts. Then I wanded the rest down. Sergant Bly was not really an obstacle. The chief of the troll clan and his sidekick were not a problem either.

Captn out.

Level 48 - Prayer of Fortitude

The first step away from the more elaborate individual buff session. Now, seeing as I already had a 60 mage you will probably find this as funny as I do. I learned Evocation from the trainer, but never actually used it until today. I kinda wondered...wait a minute, I should have that, shouldnt I? Well, I did. So while I know now that I wasted some time drinking, I am no longer going to continue this. Prayer of Fortitude and Evocation seriously reduce my buffing time.

Level 47 -The Thorium Brotherhood

HA! Now that I am closing in on the range where I do not really need it anymore, I got the [Robe of the Lich] from the Coldbringer in the Razorfen Downs. I visited him after seeing Tabetha in her swamp domicile to hand in the Tiara of the Deep quest. Oh yeah, I went to Zul'Farrak again and all quests except Nekrum's Medallion and the Divino-Matic Rod are done now. I would have these two sorted as well, if only I had not croaked on the stair fight again, this time a lot further into it, but still. I equipped the [Carrot on a Stick] for Alaire, Dlaire, Elaire and Blaire, but not for Captn, since I occasionally have issues with slight lag breaking /follow for longer distances. With the following characters being slightly faster, this should no longer happen. I hope so anyway.

In my quest to help Dlaire catch up on XP with the other characters, I went and dropped Mog'rash the giant at Janeiro's Point and did the follow up quest. Naturally, I did not keep any Buzzard Wings. I say naturally because the follow up quest requires them as ingredients to cook the bait for the next giant. Wondering where I could find Buzzard Wings I remembered the flock in the western Badlands around a dinosaur skeleton. A quick portal Ironforge and short gryphon ride to Searing Gorge later I stood in front of them. Now, some of you will know what happened next. Prize question. You kill 10 buzzards, with a total of 20 wings between them. How many wings to you have? Three. Thats right. Three. AARGH! So I merrily dilly-danced through the badlands being happy at the 45xp per kill and collected my ingredients.

On the plus side, I noticed at Thorium Point that the Thorium Brotherhood quest givers were ready to do business with me. Right after finishing Captain Smott's chain I headed back to Thorium Point and loaded up on quests. Then I did them all in one go. This finally brought Dlaire up to 47 with the rest, while Captn and Alaire are already halfway to 48. One interesting bit is that Overseer Maltorius got his due without calling in the cavallry as many people who play solo do. If you have quested there, you may remember this level 50 elite and his two elite guards giving you a headache. It was not really a pretty affair, but I had the last laugh and did it in the first go.

I have no real clue how I managed to neglect Dlaire that much, but I guess I will have to play her solo a bit to let her catch up and avoid multiple training stops. There are only two things left in Searing Gorge right now, the chain from the Blackrock Legion Ambassador and his sidekick and the Outhouse quest chain, for which the quest starter is not a multidrop by the way. I did get seven drops of the quest starting item, so that is no issue.

One thing that is a slight nuisance is that the Armory page has not been updated for any of my chars for a couple of days now, showing me still as level 42.

Captn out.

Level 46 - Misery!

Well, the debuff anyway. I should have put a talent point in Misery alsready at level 45, but I clicked Darkness before realizing that I could have taken Misery. Darkness gives Captn 2% more shadow damage for each point spent, max 5. Misery gives the target of Captn's shadow spells a debuff that makes it take 1% more spell damage from all sources, up to 5% with five points in it. Now, since I am using a party of five casters the later option obviously chucks out more damage. Anyway, misery is in the debuff list now. Since it did not grow for a while, this is quite nice.

I hit Zul'Farrak today. Dropping the troll packs was not as easy as taking out the trash mob packs in other instances, but doable. I worked my way to the fountain where the entrance road meets the dungeons circular main concourse and cleared that. Then I went to the right. I had to martyr the Martyr since he did not want to hand over the [First Mosh'Aru Tablet]. Then I proceeded to nuke the scarabs to fill the quota of uncracked scarab shells to 25/25.

A disappointment was that the witch doctor did not hand out the Vexing Crane staff, but rather dropped some green leather rubbish. Not a good omen that!

I cleared the area around the stairs and the executioneer. The stair fight went fairly well. Until it became obvious that I should have given all chars bread and water, instead of just water. Another try will be needed for that battle.

Captn out.

Level 44 - Curse of Shadow

Can I just say I love it? The awesomeness is simply amazing. Ok, Elaire's contribution in damage is further nerfed now. Not only does she use Curse of Shadows instead of Curse of Agony, but also continues to use the imp instead of a succubus. But hey, Dlaire, Blaire and Captn's damage and Captn's Vampiric Embrace healing has improved noticeably.

I have not played that much in the last few days, mostly because I was occupied with other stuff. Yes, stuff outside of World of Warcraft. Now however, I got a long weekend to nuke some stuff. I already used up the precious few rested XP that I had accumulated and am now closing in on level 45.

Proudly, I can hold the Mallet of Zul'Farrak high. Four of them in fact. Elaire was a bit too dead when it mattered, besides one of them does the trick already. Speaking of that, I am just en route to the racetrack in the Shimmering Flats to pick up the Carrot-onna-stick quest, which completes my ZF quest collection.

Surgeon General's Warning: Elekk riding causes hip damage!

Seriously. I was not happy with Alaire crowding the team's warlocks with her Elekk. Plus, the felsteed's fiery hooves made it look like the poor beast was being BBQ'ed at the same time. I had to do something.

Cosidering my options, I set my sights on a Black Stallion from the horse breeder of Menethil. Much to my disappointment the horse breeder was disinclined to do business with Alaire, since she is Draenei.

Alaire had already reached a surprising amount of reputation with the human capital Stormwind, roughly 16/21k on the last step, so only 5k of the 42k reputation total was missing. This is due to quest reputation rewards no longer being scaled by level, which results in more reputation points being awarded across the board. It also meant that I could do the quests in Elwyn forest that I had skipped to get the missing reputation. Besides being done rather quick, the usual path of going for the repeatable runecloth hand-in reputation quest is only available from level 50 onwards.

Happy to have reached the required exalted reputation with Stormwind, I got Alaire the Black Stallion. Only to find out what the wide back of the Elekk had concealed and done. I always thought Alaire was walking funny, but now it is certain. Alaire's hip has been permanently damaged by riding the Elekk, she is unable to bring her knees to the flanks of the stallion. As soon as she stops crying I will post a picture.

Captn out.

Captn - The Movie

The little incident with the Scarlet Monastry Cathedral encounter was sufficiently hilarious to make me look at the video captures that I made when playing. It is a pretty good example of what sucking the life out of mobs with this team is like.

This is my first ever web movie, so I hope it is not too horrible. Enjoy!



The addon that lets me see all the casts nicely on the party bars on the main screen and much more is X-Perl Unit Frames.

Level 41 - Oops!

In the Name of the Light! Whitemane, Mograine, Herod and Loksey need to die. After already having taken care of the later two, the former were still on my to do list. Proceeding with caution, I cleared everything outside the cathedral doors, then the guards inside.

The hour had come! I attacked Mograine and dropped him easily. High Inquisitor Whitemane followed the script and came to the rescue. I folled mine and attacked her. She sleept my party and started casting Resurrection on Mograine as she should. Then she droped dead from my DoT damage in mid-cast. The end.

This must be the new, abridged version, without the sleazy dialog. Unfortunately also with only half the loot and me missing out on the kill count for Mograine.

Right then, here we go again. At least the trash mobs give acceptable kill xp.

Captn out.

Level 40 - An ELEPPPHHAAANT!

Ok Elekk, whatever they call it. The really amazing thing is that the thing can jump up in the air as if it would be a horse! Speaking of horses, my dear Warlocks got the 'Summon Felsteed' spell with complimentary 75 riding skill directly from the Warlock trainer in Ironforge. Yay, no trip to god-forsaken Ratchet!

Alaire has learned to portal to Stormwind, Exodar and Ironforge. That should be a great help getting around. Clicking the gryphon master five times, then selecting a destination five times is not really the most fun thing you can do.

As I ducked out of Ironforge to take a lineup picture, I got the interest of some people who were hanging out there. The question in that moment is - run or stay? Running looks weird, staying means explaining what I am doing again. Also people end up in my picture. I elected to stay and had a little chat after this snapshot.

Dinnertime!

Captn out.

Level 38 - Herod down

After doing some Stranglethorn quests this afternoon including the Bloodsail quests with exception of the killing the captains of the Bloodsail fleet I made it to level 38 on Alaire. That in turn bagged me the next level for Arcane Explosion.

So armed and trained I headed back to the Scarlet Monastery. This time I noticed that I had an easier time with the trash. I also took down Herod, but messed it up so far that I did not get loot. Another time!

Level 37.8 - Herod the Bully

After sucking the life out of Arcanist Doan a few times, I decided it was probably time to head over to the armory. I made my way to Herod without too much difficulty, but had to control the Myrmidions to avoid that they take my squishy characters apart.

Herod on the other side, presented me with a problem. Not just his obnoxious nature, but his whirlwind. That forces me to do a little dance while I am attacking him. I gave it three tries, then decided to get training for my level 38 characters first.

Alaire still needed three and a half boxes to 38, but the others already hit 38. Now for Captn 38 just brings some wussy healing spells, but for my warlocks, aah! Curse of Agony, Drain Life and Siphon Life are all getting new ranks with an increase between 25% and 55% in damage. That for each warlock and of course for Drain Life amplified by my talent spec and the amount of affliction debuffs on the target should make a difference.

Level 37 - Arcanist Doan Down

After collecting my warlock quest staves tonight, I was a bit unsure of where to go, but then I decided to give the Scarlet Monastry a shot. For me the wing of choice is the Library. Not only are my characters with level 36 and 37 just in the right rage, but the Library is also the source for the key to the Armory and the Catheral and maybe even more importantly, the Library's boss drops nice caster loot. The lowest level mobs in the place are 33 or 34 elite, while the boss is 37 elite.

Working my way through the guards was done without much difficulty. For single guards I used my DoTs followed by drain life. Casting a volley of shadow bolts, fire bolts and holy fire or smite twice would also do the trick most of the time, but I just like the visuals and the healing of the dot and drain method.

For guard pairs, I used Alaire's polymorph. Alaire's sheeping macro is /cast [target=party1target] Polymorph. I have no action bound to the respective action bar button on the four other chars, so I can trigger her sheep for Captn's target safely. The only issue is that the update Captn's target is slower for my other characters than it looks on Captn's screen. The warlock's fears work the same way.

While I did not intend to AoE at all, I did end up AoEing more than once. Usually when 2-3 targets were close to me. I did not want to use fear in this dungeon since it does not offer the space to do so, unlike the new Burning Crusade dungeons. The highest amount of mobs that I AoE nuked on this run was seven elites.

I made a fraps video of the Doan kill, but still need to see if it is useable.

Anyway, I will be certainly doing the library again.

Level 34 - Down the Scarlet Path

Things are happening. I have done the warlock quests for the [Enchanted Gold Bloodrobe] and the Felhunter. I ran all over Kalimdor to get gryphon points. Azshara, Thalanaar, Nijl's Point and Gadgetzan are now on my travel routes.

One thing has become abundantly clear in the quests I have done by now: I love 'kill x mob type A' quests. I hate 'collect X 5% drop rate quest items from rare mob type B' quests. I had a horrible time with the trolls in the Arathi Highlands. Admittedly, it was mostly bad for the trolls since what I did there is pretty much genocide, but it took me ages to get the drops from their witch doctors. The tougher follow up quest with the ogres I did in minutes. Joy and pain of sorting five chars. I disgress.

I have made good headway in the Stranglethorn quests, doing half a dozen for Booty Bay, and being mostly through with the hunter camp quest chains. As it should be for my level, the raptors and the king cat are missing.

Nothing major is happening with abilities at the moment, but I can almost feel the mounts comming my way. Two elephants and three burning horses please, on the double!

I removed Captn from my project guild < Minion > and put him into my actual guild. I could not stand the absence of the guild chat anymore.

Captn, out.

Level 30 - the 21st talent point

The team is level 30 now, which means that 21 talent points are at my disposal for each team member. There are several nice talents that require 20 points to be spent in a talent tree. The noteable new talents for the team are now 'Vampiric Embrace' on Captn, 'Siphon Life' on Blaire, Dlaire and Elaire and Blast wave on Alaire.

My warlocks are all Affliction specced, including 2/2 Soul Siphon, which increases the effect of 'Drain Life' by 5% for each affliction debuff on the target up to a maximum of 60% bonus damage dealt and life leeched. That means 12 debuffs are needed for maximal effect. Curse of Agony, Corruption and Drain Life itself makes for three per warlock. Adding Siphon Life for each warlock brings me up to maximal bonus damage when draining life or mana. That is extremely handy, because not only does it do wicked damage, it also keeps my warlock's health topped up.

Vampiric Embrace costs minimal mana but gives a percentage of all shadow damage dealt by the priest to the target as heal for each party member and each party members pet. This means I can nuke with all chars and provide group heals which will grow stronger with more talents and gear to the group. At level 30 a priest also learns 'Prayer of Healing' which is the priests heal for the whole party, and naturally because of this interesting for me with my targetting/focus challenge.

'Blast Wave' is a strong AoE fire damage and stun spell with a 30 second cooldown. I set it up so that I can use Blast Wave and start the warlocks using their Hellfire AoE when I hit ALT-7 and follow up with Arcane Explosion on pressing 7 while the Hellfire is running. I experimented with Prayer of Healing also being party of it, but decided to do it manually to avoid waste in overhealing. At a certain point I will respec Alaire to Arcane for improved mana shield and a bigger Ooomph in the Arcane Explosions.

Stranglethorn vale, here I come!

Level 28 - The Witches of Eastwick

All that is really missing are a couple of brooms and I am set. The witch hats are actually [Dread Mage Hat]s. Available only to warlocks as follow up for a quest next to the warlock trainer in Stormwind. I left them displayed for giggles for a while, but have switched them to be hidden from view later. I made [Enchanter's Cowl]s for the poor discriminated priest and mage of my team. Filling up a slot with an item is certainly better than leaving it blank and not getting any benefit from them.

Level 26 - The Stockade Riots

Things are happening in Stormwind. I cleared the Stockades and finished all quests for the instance for all my characters.

One thing that may catch your eye is that the [Simple Black Dress] has been retired. Instead I am now using [Robes of Arcana] which do offer +8 int, +7 spirit by themselves rather than nothing at all but nice looks like the simple dress.

Level 25 - Duskwood saved!

After completing all quest chains in Duskwood and getting matching gloves, legs and shoulders for my team I though it was time to hit the printscreen button again. I was actually surprised that I could take down Morbent'Fel, Eliza and Stalvan by myself considering the level difference.

Level 20 - Succubi!

I found the warlock's voidwalker minion is a passable tank while I used it. However, now things are different. At level 20 a warlock has access to a quest for the next minion. That minion is a succubus, with high damage output but less of a damage soak than the voidwalker and without an area threat move. That however suits me just fine.

From using an imp and two voidwalkers I swappted to using an imp for his stamina buff and two succubi. Besides clearly better looks this demon's damage output is really noticeable. It is extremely rare that one of my succubi dies. With two of them going at a target and my team blasting the target to smithereens at the same time there is simply no time for the mobs to deal enough damage.