Words of Replicant Jesus

I love achievements on the Xbox 360 and in World of Warcraft; I am not sure why but they drive me to do things that I normally would not care about.  Perhaps it’s just another carrot on a stick but it drives me and it resonates with my gamer instincts to continually achieve especially if I enjoy the game.  Last night I finally hit level 60 in Mass Effect, over fifty hours of play time and a third partial play through.  But I scored 50 extra nerd points.

I have to wonder if I am just addicted or perhaps wired to continually achieve especially in World of Warcraft, although no where near the top I have a respectable amount at 6500… I don’t play often now, just login to raid but with new content coming I will probably get my dailies going again for extra money and tokens.

I love me some nerd points.

I should be studying for a Java programming exam but I have some time to kill to talk about my experiences in Ulduar.  I will break the overview up into three parts, each section pertaining to a subzone of the raid instance.  This only covers the content I have cleared or experienced and should not be taken as gospel but just a collection of my experiences.  Breakdown of Part 1 after the break.

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Ulduar progression continues unabated for Taurential Reign, just cleared Auriya and Assembly of Iron in Heroic Mode last night.  I maintanked both encounters last night, well on the Assembly I was on Steelbreaker and the interrupt duty on Stormcaller Brundir.  Fairly easy encounter tanking wise for a paladin just remember to dispell the Fusion Punch if you are not GCD locked.  I tended to save a cooldown just for that reducing my threat but hopefully saving myself with a Cleanse.  The other thing to watch out for is to move the boss out of the blue rune/void zone, Rune of Power, so he does not get extra damage output.

The Auriya encounter is all about the pull, the tanking part is relatively simple.  The most dificult part is to make sure she is turned in a direction that is advantageous to the raid after the fear.  If you are fear warded, resist the fear, or break it quickly then this is not an issue and you hould probably just stand there and have the raid run back.  If not just use your judgement and base where you face her on where the majority of the raid is feared to.  Move her as needed away from the void zones and push out as much damage as possible.

As far as Noblegarden is concerned I really hate this holiday, it encourages camping and doing unfun things.  I do like that alot of the items are able to be bought but the camping part and the static nature of the spawns lends the holiday a no-fun feel.  Worse then the Love Fool achievement in my opinion and I hope they rehaul this holiday next year and do soemthing better with it or just make it like it was a one day event with no attachment to the meta-achievement

for the mount.

Easily my least favorite holiday.

This is simply awesome.

It is done.

Glory of the Hero.

I have been plugging away at this achievement seriously for the last two weeks or so when I am not raiding.  Tonight I finished Emerald and Ruby Void; it was a tough battle.  If you have heard it is easy, it isn’t and definitely something you want to try in a PuG unless you have people with the patience of saints.  It takes coordination and a smidgen of luck but it can be done.  The essential setup is Five Amber Drakes; one person charges  the channeled ability, button 3, and the other four attack the boss till the 5th person gets ten charges.  Then the other four channel and the fifth fires.  If this is done correctly then the other four should instantly get 10 charges and they fire, while the fifth channels and it goes back and forth.  You will need to spread the Time Stops up a bit we didn’t start using them till about 10-12 seconds into the encounter.

If done correctly you may not even get whelps and push him directly to his Planar Shift phase; simple fly away and once he comes out of it immediately time stop and get your channeling going again while the four others keep shooting.  By this point it got a little hairy for us but we didn’t lose anyone till about 13% and we pushed him to his doom.  The strategy has a some luck because the whelps don’t have a set time to spawn, but the best way to complete this is to not get whelps if you can help it.

It was a resounding moment of success after about an hour or so of attempts, I made sure to do them wearing my Festive Green Dress and nothing else that could take durability.

Hopefully tomorrow I will complete Make it Count and the the achievement will be done.

After vanquishing multitudes of Scourge, powerful minions of the Lich King, and even the venerable Sapphiron; we came before the master of the dread citadel Naxxramas.  No quarter was asked and none was given, the battle was joined against an immortal and indomitable foe… Kel’Thuzad cackled with madness as he did his best to throw us from his domain.

But it was I that had the Last Laugh when we threw down our enemy and crushed the evil within the dread citadel.

Elder Vanifae, respect your elders people.

I really enjoy the new 10-man raiding system, we couldn’t get enough together for the 25-man version so we did the 10-man and down him in three tries.  Very interesting and fun fight, frustrating but I like the direction.  I also got a Barricade of Eternity out of the deal.

Not bad for a casual raiding guild.

I hit 80 on Tuesday or Monday and I have been doign heroics ever since and I have had some moderate success in most of them besides Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom but that was my first opne and I was woefully under geared.  Since I have cleared Culling of Strat on Heroic and nearly made the timer, but the boss teleported out on us, that was an exciting moment and I expect to be back there soon to get that drake.

Other then that been replacing gear at a fevered pace, just check out my Armory for all my current gear.  Overall the experience is fantastic and the game is supr fun and I can’t wait to do 10-Man Naxx with my guild this weekend.

Kudos Blizzard, you did good.