Happy New Year!

Hey Guys! Hope you all had a good new year and didn't get too inebriated!

I had a quiet night in as my g/f was working till 2am New Years eve sadly, but it was OK, I had some beers and played some WoW, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Rock Band.

Anyway I wanted to talk about a few things today so here we go!

First - I've not had a chance to do any 3v3 yet with my team so that'll have to wait for another day.

Second - Ghost Hit Rating. Does it exist? Is it Real? Personally I don't know yet - I'm planning on doing a test to see what my current hit rating is with no Hit gear on on a dummy in Ironforge and see what happens. Many blogs have talked about it already so I wont go into too much detail, but it would appear if you had Precision (+3% Hit rating) pre-wrath then you should still have this buff although its not shown anywhere. Sounds too good to be true doesn't it!
If this is the case it means that I can drop almost 100 hit rating from my gear and not worry about it so much - In my case this would be getting the t7 (or 7.5) legs as I'd loose 80 hit rating.

Third - Titles!

Currently I have 13 Titles on Firelight;

Firelight the Merrymaker - Completing Winter Veil Achievements
Firelight the Hallowed - Completing Hallows End Achievements
Master Sergeant Firelight - Old PvP Rank from Vanilla WoW
Firelight, Hand of A'dal - Kill Lady Vashj and Keal'thas Raid Bosses Pre-3.0
Firelight Jenkins - Complete Leeeeeeeeroy Achievement in UBRS.
Firelight, Champion of the Naaru - Complete quest line to kill Magtheridon in TBC.
Ambassador Firelight - gain Exalted with all 5 City Alliance/Horde Factions
Firelight the Diplomat - Exalted with Sporregar, Timbermaw Hold and the Kurenai.
Firelight the Seeker - Complete 3000 Quests.
Firelight the Explorer - Explore Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland and Northrend.
Firelight, Guardian of Cenarius - Exalted with Cenarian Expedition and Circle.
Firelight the Argent Champion - Exalted with Argent Dawn and Argent Crusade.
Firelight of the Shattered Sun - Exalted with SSO + 1000g

Ones I'm currently Pursuing:

Champion of the Frozen Wastes (just need Malygos for this one)
Loremaster - Stupid Kalimodor quests....grrrr...

I quite like the title systems, its pretty cool - another way to say "Look what I did" to your friends.

Do any of you have any different Titles? Or are you going for anything special?

Good Times!

So I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to the New year ahead.

I know I am!

So a week without WoW and Saturday night I'm back with a vengeance! Or so I thought!

Didn't really do anything when I got back, too tired from an 8 hour drive back from Newcastle visiting my g/f's parents.

Sunday however I was back in Zul'Gurub getting rep and clearing some of the bosses in there for gold with a Mage friend of mine. It seems that the trash is fine to solo clear, but some of the bosses are kinda silly - and much harder than Onyxia! Well not much harder, but certainly hard enough to warrant me getting pwned at 10/15%

I mean I cant even pull the bat boss.........*looks annoyed* and I recon I could solo her if I had some mechanic to interrupt her heals.

But I did manage to hit exalted with Zandalar Tribe.

Anyway its much quicker with 2 people there. Still no Raptor mount dropped for my mate, as I already have it. I'm hoping for the Tiger mount - but the only time I've cleared them was with a shaman friend of mine.

Speaking of Shaman' Our 3v3 team has formed - just gotta get invited and we're set to get a good rating!

Team will consist of me, a resto shaman and an Enhancement Shaman. Can't wait to get my teeth stuck in.

Anyway also I managed this morning before work to get exalted with Timbermaw Hold!

That puts me at 34 factions to exalted and only 6 away from the title!

Oracles next for 35, then I have to decide where to go next for rep. I'm tempted to try the Steamwheedle Cartel Bunch of factions - I recon when 3.0.8 comes they'll be reasonably easy to get due to the rep changes Blizzard are introducing that will not reduce rep gained based on level for killing mobs. Better pack lots of tan lotion in the bags for spending hours and hours in the Tanaris deserts!

No raid progression this week as the guild are on a raiding holiday until the 4th jan. Other than doing the Archavon in Wintergrasp - but that's not a real raid boss - he's a free loot bot!

Anyways - watch this space as we return to our usual service...

Upcoming posts will deal with arena at 80, and the mysterious Ghost-Hit-Cap for Ret-Paladins!!

Christmas Break!

So its that time of year again!

I'm off to spend Christmas with my Girlfriends Family!

I hope you all have a good Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Naxxramas 25-Man Update

Hey guys - Just some quick updates and thoughts on Naxxramas 25.

So with the instances all reset this week Rage entered Naxxramas and cleared 3 of the 4 wings in 4 hours.

Death Knight wing all bosses cleared no wipes.
Plague Wing all bosses cleared no wipes.
Spider Wing all bosses cleared no wipes.

Last night we were 2 men down for the night due to no-shows and cancellations but our raid leader took us to Naxx none the less to see if we could get through it.

Patchwerk is a wall. A big fat wall of PAIN.

I mean don't get me wrong, we've gotten past him already last week, but 2 people missing and its just pain city.

This is NOT a dps for melee and no-matter what we tries it just ended every try with the melee going down hard and fast.

Its so unforgiving. Its a DPS race - but the healers cant heal anyone but the 3 tanks. melee have to keep themselves under 8/9k health or die a horrible insta-gib death.

Anyway so we moved on and took down Sartharion then the raid disbanded.

My first egg from the Oracles hatched today, and I got the White birdy non-combat pet out of it.
Bought another one - and just gotta play the waiting game till I can get the other 2 non-combat pets and eventually I imagine the Mount.

PS - If anyone is after the "Red Winter Hat" the best place to get it is normal Nexus - 2/3 level 80's can skip most of the mobs as long as you've got a ret-paladin/warrior/druid - well any melee class that can take a beating from 3/4 mobs at once. The mage boss in there seems to have a 100% drop rate of the hat. Much easier than years past.

PPS - Has anyone seen a blue "!" running around in Dalaran on the mini-map called "Frostie"?

I saw it twice last night...I cant find any mention of it anywhere on the web and nothing on the WoW forums either.

Please tell me I'm not seeing things!!!

Character Customisation and Kel'Thuzad

Hey guys! Pretty happy here today! Hope you're all getting ready for Christmas!

So last night Rage managed to take down Kel'Thuzad in 25-man Naxx!

It was so funny!! Kel had like 60/70k health down and we had about 10/15 people left up and all our tanks died! The adds went after the remaining healers then the remaining dps.

BAM! Kel'Thuzad goes down!

Who's left standing?

Our enhancement Shammy and a hunter!

It was so funny - Vent erupted in the biggest cheer I've heard in a long time! We were all shouting louder and louder as his health went down lower and lower!!

Was awesome! A long night of tries on him but we were successful!!

We popped to Sartharion after and took him down fast - I think we'll try him with 1 or 2 of the other dragons up soon! I cant wait for that challenge!

Anyway as many of you may have noticed the Winter Veil has arrived in Azeroth and I've been spending my time when I'm not raiding getting the achievements done so I can pick up my title "The Merrymaker" I'm only 3/4 achievements away from that. One of which I cant get till the 25th anyway.

Also character customisation has come to the European servers, and being how I like to experience everything the game has to offer, so I paid my £12 and dove in head first!

See if you can notice what I changed on Firelight!

Factions, Factions and More Factions!

Hey Dudes! Its been quiet on the WoW front these past few days so just been working on getting rep for that elusive Achievement: 40 Factions to Exalted.

Currently I'm sitting on 31 Factions to Exalted:

Alliance: - Darnassus, Exodar, Gnomeregan Exiles, Ironforge, and Stormwind.

Alliance Forces: - Stormpike Guard (Alterac Valley)

Alliance Vanguard: - Valiance Expedition

Classic: - Argent Dawn, Cenarion Circle and Wintersaber Trainers.

Shattrath City: - Lower City, Sha'tari Skyguard, Shattered Sun Offensive, The Aldor, and The Sha'tar.

The Burning Crusade: - Ashtongue Deathsworn, Cenarion Expedition, Honor Hold, Keepers of Time, Kurenai, Netherwing, Orgri'la, Sporregar, The Consortium, The Scale of the Sands, and The Violet Eye.

Wrath of the Lich King: - Argent Crusade, Kirin Tor, Knights of the Ebon Blade, The Sons of Hodir and The Wyrmrest Accord.

So I got 9 Factions I need to get to exalted.

Factions at Revered:

The Kalu'ak - 20206/21000 - Will get this tomorrow.
The Oracles - 6232/21000 - 8 Days of the 3 dailys left.
Zandalar Tribe - 11429/21000 - I might go see if i can solo the mobs in there for coins/bijou's.
Timbermaw Hold - 1143/21000 - This is Slooooooooww..... Gave up a bit on this at revered.

Factions at Honored:

The League of Arathor - 2253/12000 - The Endless Grind....
Hydraxian Waterlords - 11296/12000 - LFM to MC - Must be over 70.
Steamwheedle Cartel - All 4 Factions Honored.
(Frenzyheart Tribe - Will switch to Frenzyheart once I get the protodrake from the Oracles)

Factions at Friendly:

Silverwing Sentinels - 3281/6000 - Anyone else hate WSG Rep Grind?
Explorers' League - 4689/6000 - How do you get rep with these?
The Frostborn - 553/6000 - And these?
Darkmoon Faire 2115/6000 - Mission Impossible!

Factions at Neutral:

The Silver Covenant - 0/3000 - Not implemented in game yet as I know.
Magram Clan Centaur - 2136/3000 - Zzzzz Kill a zillion centaurs..
Ravenholdt - 5/3000
Shen'dralar - 660/3000
Thorium Brotherhood - 2090/3000

So 4 at Revered, 3(4) at Honored and 4 at Friendly equals 11.

So I guess I have to choose the easiest.

This is the order I plan to do them in:

1 - The Kalu'ak
2 - The Oracles
3 - Zandalar Tribe (if i can down the trash in ZG)
4 - Timbermaw Hold - Groan - can you say slow grind?
5 - Frenzyheart Tribe - Once I get the Green Proto-Drake from the Oracles.
6 - Scryers - I'm exalted Aldor at the moment, and I imagine Scryer Rep Items are really cheap right now, but You have a hard slog to get to exalted due to only being able to do 1 quest for some basilisk eyes.

That's as far as I can predict right now - its a big old task now. Lets see what happens in the future and if any new factions appear sooner or later. I just don't wanna get to 39 factions to exalted with nothing on the horizon!!

Solo'ing Instances.

Hey guys! Just wanted to write a blog post about something I've always tried to do to the best of my ability as a way to prove myself as a decent ret-paladin.

So at the weekend I thought to my self "Now I'm 80 and decked out in some nice epics its time to go see Onyxia again. I'd been to see her at level 70 and solo'd her but that was in beta, before all the nerf's.

Would it be possible again?

In short: Yes! As usual the trash leading to Ony herself proved to be more of a pain in the butt than the dragon herself. She had just over 1 million health, and contrary to popular belief you can melee her in phase 2, she went down in just under 20 minutes. Easy as pie. For the most part I played it safe. Using seal of Light and Wisdom when required. I switched out to Seal of Command for a few seconds here and there when she wasn't doing anything particularly nasty.

The whelps went down fast with the new consecrate ticking for 4/500.

So that got me thinking, a few days before I'd gone and cleared out most of Normal Ramparts in Hellfire Peninsula, I wonder if it'd be possible for me to solo a level 70 Heroic?

Obviously I'd only have to do the bosses and given my level I could probably skip the majority of the trash mobs.

Does anyone think this could be possible? I might try tonight if I get time to go have a stab at heroic Ramparts.

Edit - I've re-enabled anonymous comment posting again.