Friday, January 30, 2009

Random old screenshots

Some random old screenshots that I guess I intended to put into a post somehow but never did...




Read More...

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Sons of Perverts

Now I've mentioned before that I call the Sons of Hodir, the Sons of Perverts because of the dirty natured dailies those bastards give out. If you weren't convinced... here is a summary of some very funny conversations from the other day. (I was laughing too hard during the conversations and forgot to take screenshots).

Jess: I've never done Thrusting the Spear.
K: OMG!
Jess: Yeah, I'm a spear virgin.
K: Wow, well it gives you the most rep for the rep grind so you should do it.
Jess: Where and how do I get the quest?
K: Come to K hon, come to K. Up here.
Jess: Um, I can't get the quest, I don't see anything.
K: What? Well maybe you are missing some prequest. Hmmmm... if you can't thrust the spear, you may just have to make do with oiling the helm. Just oil the helm baby, looks like that's all you can do for now.
Couple seconds later
Jess: Oh, I see. I have to do Raising the Spear first in order to thrust it.
K: Ums yeah... if your spear wasn't raised, not much I could have done to help ya there. So is it creepy if I come watch you thrust your first spear?
Jess goes for first attempt
Jess: F!
K: You died?
Jess: Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. I thought I'd be on top.
K: Oh my.
Jess goes for second attempt
Jess: Hell yeah!
K: You did it?
Jess: Yep. /smokes cigarette

Read More...

Monday, January 26, 2009

Three kinds of stinkers

First, a cute stinker. I got my 50th minipet, and thus my very own little stinker! He is super cute, though I am thinking I should carry around some tomato juice.

Second, a locked out stinker. When we did Naxx the other day, Jess rushed in before I really knew what was going on (remember the cardinal rule of healing... blame the tank). Thus, the tree was a little too slow and got locked out. Look how sad I look grasping the bars!

Finally, a big old asshat stinker. So everyone I'm sure has gotten used to coming across asshats, whether its someone who tries to ninja your ore or herb. On a side note, I have to laugh whenever non-druid folks try to ninja the herb I'm already picking in Sholazar then beat me to the next one. Buddy, you cannot beat a druid at herbing... especially this druid.

Ok back to my asshat story (maybe this will become a recurring post on my blog...). I was doing the Hot and Cold daily and had gotten my five Essences of Ice. Well I go to throw the first on a smoldering scrap, and I see this whirl of brown feathers, then it tells me that I can't use that item. Well I do it again, and same thing. Except this time I realize what happened. A tauren druid was hovering above, waiting for me to throw in the essence of ice, then swooping down to ninja the frozen iron scrap. Asshat!

Now in this kind of situation, most normal people probably spew some expletives to themselves and/or in guildchat, then go on their way. Most bloggers probably do the same and maybe mention it on their blog. But what does K do? Well K follows the said asshat tauren druid, swoops down, and takes a screenshot, emoting:

Hee hee. I never said this tree wasn't feisty. This is one situation where I have no qualms about posting toon names or guilds, as there was no way this was an accident or misunderstanding. So to you, Scarletoak of Bonzos Brass Buttoneers on Drenden, congrats on K's asshat of the week award!

Read More...

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Left Claw fashions

I've talked a lot about what our guild does... but really let's get down to what's most important, ok? How does our guild look?

Well first, here's my last couple of outfits and my fashion commentary:

Seriously, Fungi-Stained Coverings has me looking like a rogue. Here's a shot of me and Atania.

And here's me and Ata trying to confuse the warrior:

Now let's take a look at Jess:

Here are the pretty cloth wearing hot ladies of the guild. And yes, I am jealous. Have you seen above what I'm wearing now?!?

Here's our gnome Buns and our two draenei toons Ash and Heidi.

Finally, lets take a look at our boys, Bigal, Terrondris, and Wut. They clearly are shopping at the same store for their shoulder pieces. I wonder why Wut has such a scowl on his face. But if there was a theme across the three, it would have to be the hair. Let's just call them the Hirsute Trio, shall we?

Read More...

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Chef Keredria

With the latest patch, I am now a chef! As a new budding chef, I'll take some inspiration from Morimoto and DeLaurentiis. Speaking of Morimoto, K would like some more sushi in Northrend. But anyways, I can now cook Fish Feast.

Oh and my Oracles egg hatched successfully into Proto-Drake Whelp. I'm convinced carrying it around in my bags all week did the trick. ;)

Read More...

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Yes, yes we can

In honor of Obama's inauguration today (yay), I have prepared a speech:

* To those who think you can't successfully have a casual raiding guild, I say "Yes, yes we can".
* To Blizzard, who apparently thinks we cannot handle dual specs, I say "Yes, yes we can".
* To the Gods of WOW loot drop who think The Left Claw can't use anything other than mail drops, I say "Yes, yes we can".
* To those who think girls can't game, I say "Yes, yes we can".
* To those who think healers are all about flowers and rainbows and can't be bitchy, I say "Yes, yes we can".

How about you? What would you say "Yes, yes we can" to?

Read More...

Friday, January 16, 2009

K's process flow

My world the last week has been dominated by mapping out hospital process flows. I've been living in Visio. Well as I was doing yet another process flow, I figured I'd share with you the thoughts that go through my mind when I enter an instance or raid.

It'll probably be too small to read on the page, so double click on the image to see it better. I should probably do a real one around healing decisions... but this one was much more fun to create. (I'm such a dork).

Read More...

Thursday, January 15, 2009

I've been classified

Many of you may have been wondering what type of tree I am. Well, if there has been any confusion, Jess has classified me as a North American Bitch Tree. Now what could I have been doing to merit this classification?

We did an impulsive Naxx mini run earlier this week, going to the Military Quarter. We were able to down the first two bosses in that wing, but were able to get in two shots at the Four Horsemen before calling it a night. I don't want to go into too much detail (which would make me even more of a bitch), but I will just say that we had a member who took raiding and explanation of these three fights way more seriously than we are used to. As I shared on guild chat, it was as if this guy was presenting his oral dissertation to get a PhD in Naxx raiding.

Here's my deal with raid boss explanations. There is such a thing as too much information. Twenty minute lectures do not stick in my head. Instead it sounds to me like the adults on the Peanuts, "Wa wa wa wa wa wa". It just made it seem too much like school or work to me, and almost took the fun out of raiding.

So I was saying a lot of stuff on guild chat. While I was definitely the first one on the bitch train, everyone else got on board by the third boss explanation. I was painfully annoyed at first, but it ended up being very comical by the time we got around to the Four Horsemen explanation. I had to mute my mic because I was laughing so hard that I was crying.

But it was a good lesson. Not only did I get from this night a classification and the hardest I've laughed in a while, but I got a deeper appreciation for how we run raids. Yes, strategies can be discussed and we all want to do well. But at the end of the day, we're here to have fun.

Read More...

Monday, January 12, 2009

The Left Claw ventures into Naxx

This weekend was our guild's first foray into Naxx. Over the weekend, we finished the Arachnid and Plague quarters. My thoughts/impressions:

Here we are with the Arachnid quarter's first boss Anub'Rekhan. I don't really remember anything too particular with this guy, other than thinking that he looked kinda cute and cuddly to me (for a beetle) and that he'd make a very cute mini pet. I didn't get screenshots of the next two bosses in this wing. Grand Widow Faerlina was pretty standard I thought. If anything, I thought we were close to killing some of worshippers too soon. Our offtank BigMu was softening them up too much. Now we did have some trouble with Maexxna. The two healers had some trouble keeping Wut up during his frenzy. However, as it is with all big spiders, his/her life did come to an exterminated end.

Now in the Plague quarter, we started with Noth. Our first try at him went sixteen minutes. Yes, one-six. It was insane. I innervated three times. It started to get comical around the ten minute mark. Thank goodness we had three healers this night. Our next and successful try at him was much shorter.

My favorite encounter so far has to be Heigan and his little safety dance. Here's a shot during the encounter.

Its not a great screenshot, but I wanted to try to capture the crazy green eruptions. For the first attempt, it was only Jess who made it successfully across the floor during the phase two eruptions. I died again on the second attempt. I think what happened to a lot of folks was turning around quickly enough in the final fourth safe zone to run back in to zone three.

We then had a couple of attempts where the only ones left when we went back to phase one was Jess and two healers. But eventually the group figured out the positioning and timing, and I think it was our fifth attempt when we got him down with eight of us up.

Now the last guy in the Plague quarter is Loatheb. After a lot of work up and concern about the fact that we could heal 3 out of every 20 seconds, he ended up being a big nubcake. It probably helped that we had a tree and two priests healing. With my hots and the priests huge group heals, he was oneshot.

All in all it was a successful first weekend of raiding. I generally just performed the following rotation: heal - heal - heal - trinket - heal - heal - heal - fire seed - heal - heal - heal - innervate - heal - heal - heal - make fun of Jess - heal - heal - heal - rinse and repeat.

Afterwards, I had to think back to our first experience in raiding nearly a year ago in Kara. This weekend in Naxx we finished six bosses. In Kara, it took us much much longer to do the first six bosses up to Illhoof. Yes, we are better geared for Naxx now than we were for Kara then... plus we are more experienced with raiding. I know that the second half of Naxx is going to be much more difficult than the first. However, its kinda crazy to me that we're already halfway through it.

Read More...

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Incubating those Oracles eggs

My second Mysterious Egg from the Oracles hatched today, and for the second week in a row, all I got was aged yolk. Sad tree. The five things that can hatch from this egg are:
White Tickbird Hatchling
Tickbird Hatchling
Cobra Hatchling
Proto-Drake Whelp
Reins of the Green Proto-Drake

I was telling my guildies that I am obviously not a good egg incubator. Then I realized the problem. With my first two eggs, I've just thrown them in the bank and waited for them to hatch. Now that's not the proper way to incubate an egg! Obviously the eggs have felt no love from me! Of course it wouldn't hatch into a pet or mount. Thus, this week I will carry my little egg every where I go. I will love it, pet it, sing songs to it, and keep it nice and warm. It better hatch into a pet next Saturday or else...

Read More...

Friday, January 9, 2009

Obsidian Sanctum

We did Obsidian Sanctum last night. We had tried him before a week or so ago and a couple best shots got him down to 120k or so. Our first run through there last night was going ok when on the second group of trash, my laptop froze up and DCed. Seriously, it took me 45 minutes to get restarted and logged back on. Fortunately during this time the rest of the crew went and did a quick Archavon. I felt really bad. All of my work colleagues and I have been having laptop issues. When it affected work, annoying. When it affects raiding, unacceptable. I'm going to probably have to get a new personal laptop. I'm thinking one of the Macbooks.

Anyways, so after I came back, we went back to Obsidian Sanctum. We were initially having some positioning issues, but eventually got it. It became easier for Wut to just eat the waves and for me and Heidilux to heal him through them. This way we knew exactly where Wut was at all times and with Sartharion positioned the same way most of the time, we had less issues with tail whip and fire breath.

With just Heidilux and I healing, my biggest issue was running out of mana. I haven't really had any issues with running out of mana in a while, so it was probably good practice for me to get back into trying to time things and conserve just right.

All in all it was a good time. We got to use Atania's latest favorite word hitbox last night. I was also calling a lot of people my new favorite word, nubcake. There was also of course a lot of bedonkadonk talk going around, which seems to be a theme lately for our runs.

Read More...

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Kitteh loves flowurs

As Jess pointed out the other day, if you find me in Borean Tundra for any amount of time lately, it is because I am trying to farm Fire Leaf so that I can make Flask of Endless Rage.

Now's here's the funny thing about picking those Firethorns. You have a chance of getting the Fire Leaf or the Fire Seed. Apparently when you pick a Firethorn, you have a much much higher chance of getting the item that you could actually use. So if you are a toon going off of mana, nearly 80-90% of what you pick will be Fire Seed. This was the case for me when I first went to the Geyser Field area, as it was for my herb/alch partner in crime Vel.

I'm trying to pick enough Fire Leaf for both Vel and I to make flasks. I fly around in flight form, swoop down, then shift into kitty form before picking. A little more work, yes, but now I would say 70-75% of my picks are Fire Leaf. So if you are a druid herbalist trying to farm Fire Leaf, switch into kitty or bear form before picking.

Read More...

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Time for another loot prayer

I guess its been a while since we last sent up a prayer to the God of WOW drops. Apparently our previous prayer has been forgotten, because since Wotlk we have been cursed again with inordinate numbers of mail drops during heroic instances. So here's my latest prayer/appeal/plea/wish/letter.

Dear God of WOW drops,
How have you been since I last wrote? How's the fam? I hope you've been doing well. We, The Left Claw, have been doing well too. We are now out in Northend now. Did you get our 'We've Moved' card?

I'm sorry its been so long since we've been in touch. Thus, its understandable that you may have forgotten about the gist of our last communication. If so, I just thought I'd give you a gentle reminder that our five man groups can't use mail. So if you could be so generous and merciful as to stop allowing so much mail to drop, we would be so eternally grateful.

And then maybe we would stop saying things like "Effing effety eff eff".

As always, with great humility and praise of your wisdom and power and greatness,
K

Read More...