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.

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 | 1 - 20

Greetings all, In this section of my blog I will be covering my experiences and things I learn as I level up a Restoration Shaman on Ragnaros eu. This will be a home for my accomplishments and what I come across throughout my adventure. - Vaylen.

Like all adventures start, this one began in a foreign place to my knowledge. I had a little dabble in the Panda starting zone but never really paid that much attention to the details. However, with this time round I really did look through every quest, every text, every element and you guessed it, it was a awesome experience. The questing lineage is simple and sends you from point to point, Simplistic and great for new adventures in this land like myself. 

Here You will level to around 11/12 and ultimately save the place of your birthright. With the not so much helpful alliance/horde bashing their ships here and there and generally making a mess of things, we are of course there to clean up their mess. Once the main story is completed You will be given a choice, do you depart as horde or alliance, I went horde, Obviously. 

Once I picked up some quests in Orgrimmar I then headed out to Azshara, North of the horde stronghold. Here I picked up my Heirlooms and Professions. After some research on what would be good for heroic raiding as its what I plan to do on this,  I went with Blacksmithing and Mining  drop mining once maxed and go for Jewelcrafting. I also took this time to grab first aid, cooking and fishing.

Questing here is pretty annoying, its a lot of multitasking so I tend to power through this zone as fast as possible. During my time here I did however find this rather vain artwork, No doubt Gallywix or someone of that goblins status, to get that built for them out of a mountain. :P

Once I reached Level 15 I took a dive in to Dungeon finder and chose my specialization, Restoration. The healing abilities are very limited and will mention my most used healing spells and utility spells at the end of the post.  

After healing that zone I was around level 20, With a larger array of spells, Below shows the spells I currenttly use and have to my disposal: 

Healing wave - My basic healing spell, I use this if I need to cast a small heal, it does however crit big, something like 1.6k at my level and gear.

Healing Surge - My Oh crap heal, Short cast time but costly in mana, use as a last resort. 

Riptide - This I cast on cooldown, it places a hot on a target and also helps with the bonus to health passive shamans posses. 

Searing Totem - I use this with every trash/boss pull. Just shoots a fire bolt to a target.

Flame Shock - A fire dot, I use then when I have nothing to do!

Wind shear - Ranged interrupt  I guess I get in to the habit of stopping everything I can if possible from heroic raiding, so this I use all the time. 

Purify Spirit - Cleanses all magic and curse effects, Only used it once but no doubt will make use of it as much as possible. 

Flametongue - The first Weapon Imbue we get, this we gain a 7% more magic damage done to targets, always helps for now.

Water Shield - This refunds some mana every few seconds, Also when I receive melee damage I retain a lot of mana.  

Stay tuned for my daily updates on this character and I hope you enjoy it as much as I am! - Vay.

Small Update

Just a quick update for my readers, I have not been frequently posting the past few days, due to getting 12/13 Heroic in two nights, with a Lei Shen heroic one shot to add to the mix, I took a few days off to sort out my set up, move my room around and spent the last couple of nights down the Pub. I also have a incredible post for you soon, with an interview with one of the monk communities most loved Brewmasters. More on that soon! 

I had a little move around and decided to stop duel screening off my System. As much as I loved it and how convenient it was, there was no doubt my Pc was starting to struggle. So a few days ago, I bought some upgrades, new graphics card, SSD some cable protectors and decided to go back to a single Screen. I also polished up my Laptop and now will be using this to post, watch streams and such.  

Also, to add to the update, I finished reading Shadows Of The Horde. In my opinion its a really good book, and has some interesting moments, especially when you find out Vol'jin has an unlikely partner throughout his time/recovery in Pandaria. I will say though, out of the books I have read, Rise Of The Lich King is still the best one in my opinion.

Explorers Diary #2

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.

My top two favorite WoW Dungeons

1: This to me is one of the greatest ideas and such a large scale of an area to hold some of the most game changing experiences in my World Of Warcraft playtime to date. Blackrock holds home to some of the most memorable encounters and incredible game development. For new players and people who were not too fond of dungeons per say, This location has been dramatically changed in terms of difficulty and ease of access. With the introduction to Looking For Dungeon, with a click of a button and depending your wait time you will be transported to this location and have quests to guide you through as well as Dungeon maps and can easily get through this in a decent amount of time and not to mention, heirlooms making everything that tad easier.

However, for seasonal players many will either hate this place or love it just like myself. This was the real turning point for me with my gaming Experience. First of all, Black Rock Depths (BRD) Looking for players to run through this place in trade chat was hard enough! But to finally get a team to delve into the depths of this dwarven mountain, each player knew they had 3 to 5 hours worth of challenges to tackle and overcome. With no real clear route to take, with tasks to complete to open gateways, huge dwarven doors and such, this really turned new Players to Veterans. With most people entering with Green/blue gear, backpacks full of potions and back up gear they did not need to repair, the night was set to defeat the mountain. You heard rumors of this place, but nothing beats that feeling as a new player stepping in to this incredible Dungeon knowing this was the first stepping stone to the legendary Molten Core (MC)

2: Would have to go to the stepping stone for me in terms of really getting a feel for the game, before the long nights in BRD. The Temple of Atal' Hakkar, also known as Sunken Temple (ST) was a real challenge and took a decent amount of time. As mentioned above, with the new changes this instance has been made a tad easier than it used to be and a lot less time consuming. A skinning heaven this place was which made me see my first 500g back in the day, this was considered a lot! with so many twists and turns this maze full of Dragonkin and trolls was one of my favorite experiences. What this place also held was my first Epic item, Dragons call. which at the time was a huge thing, not many people were lucky enough to see one till raiding back then and when we did finally get that rare, mystical Item, We felt good! Even though I was a hunter and every melee weapon available we went for!

Blizzard seem to have put so much effort into the old content, not all of it was accessible to everyone like it is now days, so again looking in trade for a ST run was never easy, it was more of a guild thing, which back pre TBC days, being in a guild was more a privilege than a perk boost like it is becoming today, which I think is a shame. *Sad face* but nether the less, this place held so many good moments. I will never forget the Snakehead puzzle to summon the twin dragons as well as the summonable secret boss.