A Trip Down Memory Lane..

Greetings adventurers and explorers alike! This post will cover two incredible Raids. Us PVE players have always gravitated around raiding content and what makes it worth all the hours of progression and the strive for gear and downing bosses for the good of our guilds. It was so hard for me to choose these top two, but in my mind they are the few that are most thought out and enjoyable throughout my entire seven years raiding experience. 

Without question, Karazhan was my most memorable experience in terms of proper progression raiding. Even though I did touch on Vanilla raiding in MC and two bosses in Naxx, This for me was my real chance to strive for top end raiding. With over ten bosses to face, some of which were on an RNG type system where you had the chance to go against 1 of 4 bosses (I.E Opera Event) it was one of the most complex and incredibly thought out places to delve into. Its geometric structure was unlike anything I have seen before.. I mean c'mon, A haunted castle, also known as Medivh's Tower who was the last former protector of Tirisfal. With spirits reawakened and Medivh himself still cascading down the haunted halls, you generally felt the epic scale of the place. Ley lines from each magical sector all pointed under Karazhan, from the mages in dalaran to the high priests of Stormwind..  and to me, still holds the title of the most epic Raid to date.

My second top raid would have to be without doubt one of the most awesome raids the dev team worked on after the burning crusade. With a wobbly start to re opening Naxx, Blizzard blew every PVE player out the water with this one. Ulduar, With 13 bosses and 1 extra to go up against, this place was incredible. From Titans to huge gnomish like constructions, old gods and the odd dragon, It was one of those places where everyone had something they loved here. The size of the halls, different sections like the huge conservatory and halls made out of ice, It was beyond the scope of any of our imaginations and to this day is still farmed for the mounts and just to feel the nostalgia of the mighty Ulduar. With the helping hand of Brann Bronzebeard who believed this place to be an old Titan city, we few mortals who dared to enter had one hell of a story to tell the rest of the guild and hold Ulduar close to one of the great raiding memories of all time.

So, these are my top two raids, what was yours?  

Vaylen, Ragnaros EU.

Hearthstone Beta | Priest gameplay

first game I played with some recording software, I was real unlucky with some of the draws, I am new so I'm picking up new things every day! Still a great game!

Profession Progression!

Hello everyone! A little update on the professions on my Shaman, I thought I would post up some information on my professions I have currently got and also my plans for the future. I do intend on diving into heroic raiding so of course, one of the important thing is making sure I have the best professions I can have that will benefit my healing output. So lets crack on! 

Primary 

Currently Im working with mining and Jewelcrafting. On my Monk I raided with enchanting and still use skinning (SADFACE) But with my shaman I wanted to try something I have not done before since WOTLK. So I decided to level Jewelcrafting, the gem bonus seems great, especially early on when I need as much spirit a possible before I starting getting some decent gear.

Mining is my safety as it stands, It's saved me so much money because with this little beauty I can roam around while watching things on netflix and dropping down to pick up some mines, before I know it, I have a backpack ready to be used for Jewelcrafting.

Also, I have kept this because once I reach level 90, I will farm the mats needed to level blacksmithing and drop mining completely. Blacksmithing adds an extra gem slot to bracers and gloves which will help me socket those great gems from Jewelcrafting.

I'm also midway on my Secondary professions, Fishing, First aid and cooking. 

Cooking - I was going to level it once I was in pandaria as its so much easier but I really wanted the Deviate fish recipe to make some money and look awesome from time to time so I decided to take it as soon as I could.

Fishing - is the relaxing past time, I took this to help with cooking, achievements and such, it of course needs work like all of my other secondaries but I thought I would mention them anyway.

First aid - everyone loves first aid, always nice to have, not that is hugely important as I'm a healer but still, nice to have.

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 40 - 50

Hello Ladies and Gentleman! You know what time it is, This week I have done so many things out of game and also trying a few new things ingame I have had almost no time to post much recently! I have been making a few videos here and there, Tried my luck at some RP on Argent dawn, Was lucky enough to get enlisted into a really good and well known guild called <Darnassus> as well as some IRL things such as Popping up to london, cinema, few dinners with the lady friend and passed a pub called The Brewmaster, I have also got some leveling done on my shaman so enough waffle. Time to get on with this Diary Entry. 

As my readers shall know, and for new readers alike, I have been completely leveling through dungeons. I have had a few messages as to why this is the case and why I stick to this type of play. Alot of people ask if its boring, repetitive etc. So I thought I'd quickly go over this matter. Yes, It can be boring and yes it is extremely repetitive, I personally would not advise it if you're power leveling a specific class. BUT! and the only reason why I'm choosing to level as resto through dungeons is to gain that healer experience, Understand how spells work and really get a feel for the class. The easy way would be to quest to 90 as Elemental, soon as I get 90 buy some spirit gear, read some guides, learn all my spells, work out my key bindings etc... That to me just seems more hassle than its worth, What I really enjoy about playing a class is learning to understand it. Healing especially because it takes some time to master, sometime to really understand some of the spell synergy and to me, its always great to get a head start. 

So within this bracket I have been lucky enough to jump in to some of the most well made instances Blizzard has to throw at us pre Burning Crusade. I delve deep into Razorfen Downs, Dire Maul West and my favorite dungeon of all time, Scholomance, Heres a little background story on each dungeon: 

Scholomance - The twisted, evil building also known as the House Of Barov is located within a lake in Western Plaguelands, It is believed to be an academy, Or school for evil Necromancers and dark mages. This building fell during the Second war and for each day since, it has been home to some disgusting work. Humans, re building abominations, ghouls and Skeleton like creatures, this building has a dark past, that it does not wish to share. 

Dire Maul West (Capital gardens) - The second wing within dire maul  this one home to abundance of enemies. From Orc size trees, Ogers, Skeletons, Mana wraiths but that is not all that stands in the way,.Towards the end of the instance you will come across a imprisoned demon named Immol'Thar. This instance requires your group to navigate around the imprisoned monster, killing enemies safeguarding crystals that's shrouding him. Once this is done, you can then move on to kill his protector. 

Razorfen Downs - This Demonic, spiritual place is home to the original ancestral burial grounds for the QuilBoar, Embedded deep below Thousand Needles. The hallways and and tight ridges are now infested with Scourge trying to disrupt the well being of these creatures, its not long before more skeletons and abominations start over whelming this place. so be aware, get your cleansing waters ready!  

In this section I will go over the spells and talents I have acquired during this bracket, They are as follows:

Chain Heal - This beauty I got at level 44, FINALLY! This spell heals the initial target and will then bounce to another 4 targets healing the most injured. If players hit by the spell have a riptide rolling off them, this will then make the Chain heal 25% more potent. I glyphed it to give it that watery look, as well as Glyph of Chaining which will increases its radius. This spell is incredible for aoe healing paired with riptides as well as healing tide totem. 

Tidal Waves (Passive) - After casting Chain heal or Ripide your next 2 greater healing wave or healing wave cast time is reduced by 30% which makes it great for spot healing/tank healing. It also increases the critical effect chance of your healing surge by 30%. This also shares the same amount of charges as above. I love this Passive, it really does make chain heal a great way to keep tidal waves up during aoe healing just incase of huge spike damage. 

Call Of The Elements (Talent) - I chose this one because it works extremely well with healing stream totem, it has a 3 minute cooldown and when activated it finishes the cooldown on all totems with a base cooldown Shorter than 3 minutes. It's great I found for using another Healing stream, Tremor totem, Grounding totem and Capacitor totem.

So thats it for this update, I will be keeping you guys and girls up to speed more so with my progress on this shaman as well as Hearthstone Beta footage! Thats right! I got the key tonight and I was so happy I screamed like a bitch! I'm also doing WW pvp videos and I would love to give a shout out to Nyxrinne who's currently in the middle of my new Blog layout, It looks so awesome and I'm so lucky to have that work done for me, its much appreciated and You guys will see the final result soon enough! - Vaylen. 

Check out his blog at: http://touch-of-death.blogspot.co.uk/

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 30 - 40

Hello Hello! It's come to that time once again were I post about my dungeon adventures between each bracket, this one in particular was one of my favorite dungeon groups, With a number of rather different dungeons to overcome my little shaman had a blast! 

So, as my journey continues ever more towards the end game content the recent dungeons have been a awesome change to the other ones I have seen so much of. From demonic creatures in the halls and pools of Dire Maul to the lost and all but forgotten mines and temples of the underground excavation site, Uldaman. I had a few new spells to play around with here and as ever I shall list the abilities I acquired through this bracket and a bit of background information on the dungeons. 

A little background on these instances:

Dire Maul East - The east wing is the first entrance that can be found in the dire maul hold to the right within the depths and dense forests of Feralas. The rolling hills give away to a path that runs right through this zone, heading north you will find this building guarded heavily by slightly clumsy ogres and cunning wolves.  The Instance is home to possessed demonic creatures, only but proving themselves to the burning legion. The halls are large but it is a simple navigate around, Just watch out for the trees and other shadowy inhabitants.

Maraudon - This incredible structure sits dormant in the caves of Desolace and unfolds to a huge chain of caverns and underwater features. You start your adventure within the Orange chambers that's home to toxic elements and really hungry plants.. Yes plants! This will then lead on to the twisted and lost caves of the Purple section home to demonic like creatures. Poison falls is then just around the corner, avoiding the blobs and toxic pools you will then see the beauty of the last section, Take a leap off of the waterfall and you will be in front of the last section, The Inner Sanctum of Maraudon.Here you will find Golems the size of zeppelins, Hydras and an assortment of waterlife which will ultimately lead you to take down the cursed Princess if you could call her that, Theradras.   

Uldaman - This long lost and ancient titan fault is buried deep within the mountains of the badlands. Currently in the state of excavation by the dark iron dwarves whom seek all the relics and riches for their master, Ragnaros.  The Caverns will lead you past Scorpions, Bats, Dwarfs, Constructs, Trogg like creatures and deep within his fault the servant of the Titans, Archaedas lies waiting.  

In this section I will go over my new spells

So! Here we go! The juicy bit, but with these 10 new levels I have not required new spells as such but some really strong passives, some are so strong I have noticed as difference straight away and I will list them as follows: 

Reincarnation (Passive) - This beauty is simple, If I die, I can bring myself back to life and continue the fight for survival, great in raids, great in questing, Great for everything, I love it. 

Ancestral Awakening (passive) - when I land a direct critical heal spell, An extra healing spell is thrown on to a player with the least health for 30% of the amount healed, a really strong passive when tank healing and such. It's just a shame you don't see the astral being doing his or hers thing. 

Burning Wrath (passive) - Plain and simple, gives raid and party members 10% spell power, thats why casters love us! 

Resurgence (passive) - This is my favorite one out of the four I have received this bracket. When Water shield is active our healing critical strikes will return a base amount of mana depending on what spell was used from what I read. Healing wave and Greater haling wave replenish more, then healing surge, riptide and unleashed life and then the least to receive the most mana return is chain heal. I hardly ever run out of mana with this beauty.  

So thats it from me this week! Stay tuned for the next bracket! and Remember, stay out of the fire and stay under the rain! - Vay.  

Monk Meditation | Brewmaster Roundtable

Greetings all, in this Episode I was lucky enough to be apart of the hosting team. With a number of great Brewmaster players from around the world, I was one of the lucky ones to be apart of this show.

We spoke on many topics including:

Vengeance, Class synergy, Monk playstyle, favorite spells, Crit vs Mastery, SoO and more!

From Winds To Water

Greetings my fellow readers! As always a lot has been going on within the world of warcraft community and such things have brought my raiding guild to the conclusion it was time to take a back seat. Officers could not come to an agreement and that has lead to the guild I have progressed with to disband. We had a great run and I really did enjoy my time there, so I truly hope the players there find the other end game raiding guilds of their choice and all the best for the future!

As I went semi afk during the progress I was not really playing my monk so much, but instead gaining more experience in raids on my Holy Paladin. So recently my Brewmaster has taken the backseat. Due to recent changes to tanks, and the direction blizzard seem to be going in terms of tank game play, I have been switching around specs and really found my enjoyment for the class again as Windwalker. With the changes to mastery and some more potent cleave I have really found my footing within a Flex raiding guild and currently really enjoying it!

As times change, as does ones interests. Currently I'm working on a number of things out of wow and in wow.  I have been pretty absorbed by GTA and looking for a Hearthstone BETA key, with still no joys! As well as working out what class to play next, with much thought, changing of ideas and such I'm going back to my roots of playing a Resto/Elemental Shaman. 

My blog will be my place of random posts and what I discover on this new character as well as my thoughts and Ideas on the class as it develops. I think it will be pretty hard to fit it in within this blog but hopefully I can cut a nice deal with a really decent blogger and see if I can get a layout sorted for it. 

Lets play: World of Warcraft!

Greetings all, Follow an aspiring Orc and his trusted companion Barry throughout their exploration and discovery in Azeroth. During the 1 to 90 process we will be thrown in too deep forgotten dungeons, ancient battlegrounds, and exploring the vast places beyond the gates of Orgrimmar, Guys and Girls, You too can be apart of the adventure, so sit back, relax and Enjoy, Lets play: World Of Warcraft! 

Lei Shen... *waves*

Good evening to you all! As you can see tonight has been an awesome evening indeed. I know the reputations are so last two patches ago but I have been slacking on this little monk in terms of them so I thought I would polish of old reputations before 5.4 hits which, judging by the twitter feeds is soon! Between the 27th of august and the 3rd of september, so be ready!

Little shout out to Tadzu from Soul Swap who helped me out in terms of farming Warbringers and War Scouts for the tokens and congrats on his Epic mount that dropped! He now sits on 207 mounts, only fair because I was stealing every rep token in sight!! :D

And so, he dies, the guild has killed him a number of times, but in terms of personal progression, I now have 1 more to kill before a full house! This encounter requires every member to be on point with moving in and out of things and coordinating each platform perfectly, I won't go into detail on the strategy, as there are perfect ones out there, but for Brewmaster monks the following really helps:

- Tigers lust, it provides a great sprint for things like moving from decapitate and Helm of command. 
- Dampen harm, Works perfect in the last phase with the fast tank swaps and ready for taking large hits. 
- Leg sweep, timed right with other stuns for the lightning orbs on phase 2 and 3.
-  Breath of fire, the stun after the leg sweep on the previous tip provides you with another stun and aoe damage coverage beside Keg smash.
- Advert harm, A brilliant raid cooldown, so pick your moments. I used mine on the first group up on intermission 1 and phase 3 when I was not on the boss.
- Transcendence, It has its usages in every encounter, just find out were. On Lei Shen Heroic, Its great for the intermissions for the stacking as well as moving for decapitate, which leads me to my last tip..
- Zen meditation, it absorbs most of the Decapitate damage and makes your vengeance sky rocket.  

Hope some of that was easy to make sense off, tomorrow will be a fresh run in tot for myself again so lets hope for some upgrades, Until next time, Vaylen out.

Heroic Animus down!

Morning all! Last night was a pretty productive day again for myself. After selling on my mounts and making some gold for next patch/expansion the time had come to be ready for my first raid with Invictus Maneo. We went ahead with the zerg tactic and after a few attempts of getting proper cooldown management system going, We got him down. We could of had it a lot sooner if I was more aware of the specific tactic of had some experience with it but it was new for me and we got the sucker down.

The way we handled it was have myself tank three adds and kill them as fast as possible, feeding that vengeance through the roof, then once all three are dead I taunt over our healers add and dps the boss as hard as possible. Our Main tank, Dynoo, took adds as well as the boss and was putting out insane damage, we got the fight down just over two minutes. Such an easier way to defeat this sucker, if you  have the dps for it. From a Brewmaster perspective using Dampen Harm a few seconds into the fight works great with an early fortifying brew to boot. I think I was purifying every two or three seconds so making sure you have the chi is important. I never had the 4set at that time so I never had the luxury of that benefit.

Some nice items dropped and I replaced more ring, a great upgrade to one of my best in slots.

We then took down IQ and Twins down easily and was lucky enough to replace my helm with a heroic tier, not only getting my set bonus but a huge upgrade with my legendary meta to drop in there. With the rest of the night on Lei Shen and a 5% wipe, and lack of focus, from myself included we should hopefully have him dead tonight and hopefully I can be used for Ra den.

Stay tuned!

Vaylen, Ragnaros Eu.

Loot cards everywhere!

Morning all! So this morning I finished Opening my box of Reign Of Fire TCG cards. The final installment of the Timewalkers set and the invasion of the burning legion. I'm going to be setting up some competitions weekly such as Transmog, screenshot treasure hunts and so much more and hopefully give some lucky readers a chance to win an ingame item! Codes will be emailed to the winners by myself that will have the specific card details.

Cards:

White Wooly Rhino is an in game mount worth around £100 - £130.
Thunderhead Hippogryph is an in game pet/battle pet worth £35 - £50
Sand Scarab is another ingame pet worth £4
Landro's Lil XT is another In game pet worth around £7 - £10
Landro's gift is a container that holds any of the WoW tcg mounts including the Spectral Tiger.
Landro's Longshot is an ingame tabard called Tabard Of The Flame worth £10.

These prices are the current selling prices for these cards on Ebay. Of course prices change but these are the ones that have sold within the last two months.

Happy looting!

Being Trolled by a Troll.

With another reset night, We went on a small mission on getting myself some new Gear to catch up with the rest of the guild. I think its hugely noticeable with the damage I sustain on Lei shen to know I need more gear to boost that as much as I can.

So we delve into TOT from the start due to two unsuccessful nights on Heroic Lei and My first attempt at heroic Council was a frustrating one to say the least. Our Druid Main tank took Sul and Frost lord to the left, I taunted the priest every CD while dpsing the grouped two bosses to add in some insane Keg smash damage. Soon as she would get the Dark Empowerment, I would Interrupt her cast, get our Hunter to interrupt her second and drag the crazy Troll lady to the rest of the bosses for some heavy dps. As soon as her empowerment dropped off, I interrupted her cast, rolled x2 (use Tiger Lust helps here) and took her back of the group to continue dps on the other Targets and new Dark empowered member of the council.

What was annoying the crap out of me was her cast time on her abilities making bringing her over very annoying and extremely painful, but with decent communication between myself and our Hunter, we managed to get it down after a few tries! So more progression towards the 12/12 and exalted with Shado-Pan Assault which was a bonus!

I also got two upgrades! heroic chest and my new shiny weapon! BOOM BABY!

Happy Hunting.

Heroic Lei Shen.... *sadface*

I wish I had a picture to add to this post to say we downed him last night, but to be honest, we have not had such luck. We execute the first phase perfectly, with our Main tank on boss first, I taunt the boss to the next pillar at 90% (provoke works wonders as you need the boss to move ASAP and provoke increases the bosses movement speed. I then run like a tramp after a ice cream van when I get Decapitate (tank swap) carry on dpsing the boss and get next pillar to 60-70%, move with Main tank, taunt off and he runs off from decapitate, then on to Intermission phase 1.

Here we had some troubles on the 2/2 platforms, but with a Hunter and a ret paladin on my section, we had it covered (spec in to Tigers Lust for the Helmet of command ability) , although I did kill zeebra once, but thats because he never paid me for resurrecting him, we did decently... then Phase two comes in..

Lightning whip is not a problem, its such a simple mechanic, soon as Lei starts casting whip, the tank who is not currently tanking moves to next sector to pick up the boss.. Its all the crap with lightning balls, timing Leg sweep and a warriors stun to negate most damage and all the other random damage going on, Its hard for a tank like myself in my gear to handle it, sometimes we managed to get in to the second Intermission, but with unlucky deaths, we are still pursuing progress on him.

But in our minds we know, soon as this wannabe' Thor finally dies, Ra den should follow suit pretty quickly, and then we have our 13/13 Heroic Progress completed and ready for 5.4 and the bosses that await us there.

Also I would like to add here, before he causes a shit storm and demands resses every pull, Zeebra, Your gold is welcome here *taps pocket* ;)