Aug 24 2010
Lelissa the Kingslayer
Posted in Uncategorized

With everything that has been going on these past few days, I didn’t get to post this when it happened last Thursday.

Lelissa the KingslayerAll in all, the fight was awesome. We nearly hit the berserk timer (a lot of us, myself included, don’t really have that much ICC gear), and there was much burning of cooldowns and excitement in vent chat as we inched closer to that 10% mark. It’s a title that Lelissa will wear for quite some time.

Thanks to my friends and guildmates in Stands in Bad on Azgalor – it was one hell of a great fight, and I’m proud to have been there for it with you all.

By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (1)
Aug 13 2010
Shared Topic : Old World Achievements
Posted in Achievements, Shared Topics

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a shared topic from Blog Azeroth, but this one sounded like a lot of fun. The topic is technically about old-world meta achievements that would net you a mount, and I think you could easily add most of these to a meta… but I couldn’t think of enough things to go with most dungeons that would warrant the reward of some rare and/or cool-looking creature to ride on, like a fire elemental, or giant wolpertinger (that no one else could see unless they were drunk – how cool would THAT be??). Anyway, without further ado…

Eight Is Enough Achievement

Considering all the work (and countless instance runs) one had to partake of in order to get a full set of the original dungeon gear (especially Lightforge), 40 points sounded appropriate for this achievement.

Purged Achievement

Ragnaros was the first (and admittedly, last) raid boss that ever inspired in me a sense of fear. Even today, I can run Molten Core with two friends and still be awed by his appearance. Blizzard has yet to duplicate that feat, and I doubt that they ever will.

Look! Up in the Sky! Achievement

This was a lot harder than it sounds. Basically, one of two things would occur – assuming you weren’t trying to cheat the system by hiding behind the throne, someone would either A) not have a cloak to protect them from Shadow Flame’s effects, or B) wouldn’t have enough health to survive the initial blast. Good thing all Druids back then were Restoration, huh?

Death From Above Achievement

Someone always managed to run into the path of an oncoming Infernal in this fight, I swear. Usually it was a healer, which left them stunned long enough for the tank to get obliterated by Nefarian, and then the rest of the raid got chewed on.

You Should Get Out of the House More Achievement

There definitely weren’t any PVP achievements back in the day, and this one seemed appropriate for the Horde. I don’t think I remember anyone ever going after her for any reason. For the Alliance side…

You Should Lie Down For a Bit Achievement

The full title of this one was, “You Don’t Look So Good. Maybe You Should Lie Down For a Bit,” but the creator wouldn’t take a title that long. Oh well. Let’s go back to dungeons.

Suppression Oppression Achievement

I hated the suppression room. A room full of gas-emitting pillars that could only be manipulated by rogues, and a metric ton of dragonkin and whelplings with every step? Brilliant. Whose idea was this abomination, anyway?

Enemy Mine Achievement

If I were just a little more ambitious, I’d try to see if this were actually possible at level, and with only old-world equipment. It’d certainly be a giant mess, considering the player who becomes a drakonid effectively gains a ridiculous amount of magic resistance, and does a boatload of damage.

Stockade Six-Pack Achievement

This one would actually be pretty easy at level, depending on how irritated Gandling was with you. I know that in one fight, my old Warlock was transported into at least four rooms, though twice to the same one. This might be one of those achievements you’d have to do over several attempts.

…

You know, I went into this topic thinking I’d be able to come up with fifteen of these achievements (with clever names included) easily. Apparently my creativity well is not as deep as I think it is. Sure, I’ve got tons more that I could make achievements for, but thinking up a snappy clever name is not as easy as it seems. Damn.

Well, I hope these were at least as enjoyable for you guys to read as it was for me to make them.

By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (3)
Aug 04 2010
A brief update…
Posted in Uncategorized

I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts with regards to the Cataclysm changes, but like many other bloggers out there, I’ve decided to withhold any extensive writing until everything is more or less finalized.

Overall, I’m looking forward to the changes – Arms promises to be incredibly viable and valuable to a raid without having to be dependent on set bonuses or gimmick talent specs. The removal of weapon specialization, while disappointing in terms of weapon usefulness, is a welcome change – no longer will Arms be pigeonholed into axes for rage generation or maces for raw damage output. We’ll be able to go back to using swords again, which in all honesty is where my heart truly lies. Frankly, with the possible promise of the return of the Ashkandi’s graphic, I fully support this change.

I’ve been playing WoW, but less these days. I raid more, sure, but I’m not spending as much time in the game lately. Dragon Quest IX has played a big part of this, as well as Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Batman: Arkham Asylum, White Knight Chronicles, Final Fantasy XIII, and Heavy Rain (can you tell I’m an RPG fan?) rounding out my list of “things to do before the expansion hits.”

That’s all for now. I know the blog has been terribly sparse – I have more than my fair share of prodders who tell me to post, and I always promise that I will. Well, here’s the post that was promised – the rest are yet to come.

Hmm.

I wonder if my lack of posting is related to a feeling of information overload in regards to the expansion.

Nah.

By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (0)
Jul 11 2010
Time Flies…
Posted in News

I haven’t had a post in over a month. Who knows if anyone remembers I even have a blog, let alone have any readers left in the first pl… oh, hey guys! School is done, I’m now a graduate, and I’ve actually got more free time in the evenings to raid or write or do anything I’ve been putting on the back burner for a while.

I had a host of topics in mind to discuss, and thankfully I can cross RealID off the list now that they’re removing the requirement of names on the forums. My guildmaster was all for the change, but I couldn’t agree with a “feature” like this when at least two of our guildmates have less than five people in the world with the same name – one of them happens to have a unique name (and yes, by unique, I mean they’re the ONLY ONE in the US) and has a beautiful family that I wouldn’t want to risk for the world.

I also wanted to talk about the changes being made to the talent trees, and what the new Arms spec would look like for Cataclysm, but that was before the news of 31-point talent trees and reduced talent points was revealed. So, since I’m not a part of the beta at this time, and the new talent trees under the disclosed changes haven’t been published yet, that’s on the backburner (again). This also applies to revisiting the leveling guide and updating the information therein.

Busy with school means I haven’t been perusing the Blog Azeroth forums for shared topics. Moving on.

Right now, that leaves what I’ve been up to in game. Malyss is plugging along in Icecrown, and finally dropped Professor Putricide in 25s last weekend in order to move on to the Blood Queen Lanathel portion of the Shadowmourne quest line. In the current semi-PUG I’ve been running with, that puts me either 2nd or 3rd on the roster for quest completion (we have three people on this particular step, but one of them is a sometimes-tank for the raid), so I’m looking at three weeks before I can add that notch. On the 10-man field, we’re still struggling with Sindragosa. We’ve beaten her a couple times already, but there’s something about the fight that we just can’t nail for an easy repeat. I’m looking forward to moving on with Icecrown – Arthas needs to die. And soon.

Leyl, my once-Human and now-Draenei Paladin, is progressing. Primarily Retribution, she has a Holy offspec for those times when we need a raid healer or I want a fast daily queue. I’ve healed just about everything except for Putricide and Sindragosa with her, and it’s fun to revisit the healing role like I used to play in Burning Crusade. Hopefully I’ll have her decked out in T10 before the expansion rolls around, but right now, I’d settle for all 251s.

Lelissa has made the biggest leap. In an effort to get her geared up and to help out one of the bloggers I have become great friends with over the course of the last year or so, I’ve made my way over to Azgalor to join the roster of the Brotherhood of Oblivion, where Lyrandre of I Like Bubbles and Orithea of Disco Priest reside. Our dear Tart of PW: Bubble is there, too, at times, but she hardly logs on to say hi anymore (poke, poke).

Now that things have finally slowed down, I’ll be working on regular updates again. Friday Fiction will resume, and topics will be visited (or in some cases, re-visited) to bring some life back into this quiet space.

By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (2)
May 23 2010
Huh. How about that.
Posted in Uncategorized

So, I’m still working on changing links at the new page, and by the Naaru, is it a daunting task.

There are so many links to change, and so many images to change… it’s crazy.

So, a compromise. I’ll be updating links as I go, but for now, all new posts will be made at the new site.

If you’re reading this on a reader, the new site is:

http://pixelatedexecutioner.thestorythusfar.com

So go check it out.  The blogspot location will remain up for another week, and then I’ll lock it out.  Hope you like our new home here!

The feed has already been updated, obviously – I’ll update old links and images as soon as I can.
By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (3)
May 11 2010
Trials and Tribulations
Posted in News, Upcoming

Those of you who read the blog and know me best are already aware that I work full-time, attend college full-time, lead two different raids for my guild, am an avid reader, gamer, moviewatcher, and aspiring author.

Lately, all of these projects have left me very little time to write here, or on Nourish.

For the most part, the lack of updates here lately have been due in part to two things. First, that I haven’t had much to write about. I’m busy, the guild is progressing (slowly, but progressing), I still haven’t seen Iron Man 2 yet, and I graduate in June. The second and final reason, that I was waiting on one little event to complete before really diving back into Pixelated Executioner and bringing back content.

That little event has happened, and it’s almost time. The new theme is finished, and it looks amazing.

I’m in the process of importing the posts to the new site, and updating the links so that they go to the correct pages. I’ll be working on it as much as possible this week, since one class has finished, and the other doesn’t start until next Tuesday. My goal is to have the site ready to go by Saturday night. Once it’s done, I’ll make one final post here directing readers to the new site, which should hit everyone’s feedreader. Then, I’ll change the feed to redirect to the new site.

I’ll leave this blogspot location up for a week or two, and then after that, it gets shut down. I won’t delete the blog, but it will be locked, with a page redirecting to the new site.

For those looking forward to the redesign, I have to say that a few changes were made to the final product. Lassirra had some great ideas that I loved, and Siasha’s header was replaced (it will remain on this blog, though – it’s too awesome to get rid of completely). The colors are bold and defining, and really fit the feel of the Draenei Warrior we’ve all come to know and love (or hate, depending on who you are) through this blog (by the way, the new blog will be best viewed on wider resolutions – just trust me).

Are you excited? I’m excited.

I can’t wait.



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By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (2)
Apr 29 2010
Cataclysm is Not the End of the World
Posted in Cataclysm, Raids, WoW

Okay, well, technically, I guess Cataclysm is the end of the world, but that’s not what I mean.

No, I’m talking about all the controversy of the 10- and 25-man raid changes.

So far, the community has been in an uproar about the combining of the lockouts, of making the same gear drop in both 10- and 25-man content, and how this will be the death knell for 25-man raiding. I thought similarly, until I had an epiphany of sorts.

In the first place, my guild has always been one of those guilds with people who fall into two groups:

1) a small group of more hardcore players, who like to see new content and progress in the game, who also like to spend their time with the guild socializing and joking and doing whatever they like on a given evening.

2) a larger group of extremely casual players who log in to spend their time with friends and family, who don’t particularly care about progression, who raid for the shiny purples and usually show up mostly when we’ve got raid zones on farm status.

I’m in the first group – I play the game for the lore, for the excitement of new content, and to hang out with the people I enjoy spending time with online. I don’t begrudge anyone from the second group of anything, because they, too, are spending their $15 and playing it how they wish. It’s an interesting symbiosis, and for the most part, the guild dynamic works. We have spats and disagreements like any other guild would, and they get worked out.

For a long time, the raiding style of this guild has been, “Run 10-man content with the hardcores, try to schedule some 25s, but don’t get bent out of shape if they don’t run.” This usually means that two 10-man teams form up, run content, get geared, and then use the gear and skills they obtained in the 10-man to try to get the guild through 25-man content.

So why change this dynamic? It still works, with a little modification. Follow along with me, here.

Unless I miss my guess, the 20 or so people involved in the 10-man groups will level fastest, getting to 85 and gearing up for heroics and raids before anyone else. They’ll move into the 10-man arena, and work on progression while the folks in group 2 work through content at a slower pace. By the time the rest of the guild catches up for progression raiding, the 10-man teams will move on to the next raid series, and the 25-man teams will begin for that content the 10-man teams left behind.

Let’s say that we have three raids opening up at the start of Cataclysm: Uldum, Nazjatar, and the Elemental Plane (whatever it’s called – I’m at work, so I can’t look it up), their difficulties in that order. The 10-man teams would head straight for Uldum, letting the rest of the guild catch up. By the time the 10-man teams move into Nazjatar, the guild is caught up, and we can start working on 25-man content in Uldum. When Nazjatar is done on 10s, it becomes available for 25s as the 10-man teams work on Elemental Plane. Seems pretty simple.

In the end, what we have are two teams staying ahead of the 25s, which allows for a few benefits. Because the gear is the same, those two 10-man groups are likely to have gotten all the gear they will need or want before moving on to the next, allowing the people who show up for the 25-man content to get drops right out of the gate, competing only with those among the other more casual players. Because the two progression teams have seen the fights, they will already have a handle on the abilities they expect to see in the 25-man raids, and will be able to educate the others joining in 25s.

I think that any other guild similar to ours will be able to duplicate this to the same effect, so it’s not the end of the world – just a little restructuring.



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By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (5)
Apr 23 2010
The Voices in My Head Are No Longer My Own
Posted in Death Knights, Fate's Legacy, Screenshots, WoW

This is unusual for me, since I don’t typically flaunt loot on this blog, but this is something of a momentous occasion.

Yes, that’s Shadow’s Edge.

And damn, is it ever awesome.

Two weeks ago, we dropped Rotface for the very first time, supplying me with his blood. A later attempt that same night got Festergut to a measly 186000 health, but we just couldn’t pull it off before the enrage. Last night, things finally clicked for us, and Festergut found himself melting into a puddle on the floor, bringing an end to a very long wait (thanks to the loan of saronites from several guildmates, I’d had all 25 saronites in my inventory for a little more than two months).

It’s an incredibly powerful weapon, and already up to 30/1000 souls gathered for the next step of the quest (from the pulls up to Valithria, and a single Valithria attempt), so it’s well on its way to Shadowmourne. But the one awesome thing about the weapon?

Arthas spent the entire evening taunting me about it.

Every so often, The Lich King sends you whispers (maybe every 5 souls or so). My favorite from last night was, “Go ahead. Create your ultimate weapon. It, too, will serve me when I claim your soul.”

More than anything, the little pieces are what make this thing awesome – the struggle to attain it, the bits of flavor while you carry it…

and the fact that 25 people, against some pretty titanic odds, managed to make it happen.

Thanks, Fates Legacy. Without you guys, it wouldn’t be part of our arsenal.

(Now I’m really looking forward to the 10-man on Sunday!)



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By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (5)
Apr 03 2010
Catching a Few Z’s
Posted in Fate's Legacy, Progression, WoW

Hey, look! A post!

Unfortunately, it’s neither a guide nor a fiction thread, just some rambling and reflection from me on a few things that have been going on for myself personally and Fates Legacy in general.

Lelissa is almost to the point where she’s out of her Ulduar raid gear. I have a few more pieces to upgrade (helm, boots, and belt come most immediately to mind), but she holds her own in Icecrown Citadel (when I can get her there). I refuse to play Fury (it bores me to tears), so Malyss has stepped forward into a more permanent “main” role for me. I’ve made a few educated guesses on Lelissa’s output with the 2- and 4-piece bonuses for the T10 gear, and I’m thinking she’ll end up in the 6-7k range, which makes her a respectable contender to take over the main slot again, but with Malyss edging out between 8 and 11k on ICC boss fights, we may just need the powerhouse rather than the utility DPS. We’ll see.

Heads Will Roll (aka HWR, my 10-man raid series) and Zerg The Crap Out Of It (aka ZTCOOI, run by one of our guild rogues, also a 10-man series) have been making some pretty good progress in Icecrown. ZT has been extending their raid IDs for a while to focus on progression content, and are now working on Sindragosa. HWR hasn’t been extending our IDs, so we’re clearing the Lower Spire, Rotface, and Festergut every week. For the most part, we’ve got it down to an art form – we can kill Toravon, Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Gunship, Saurfang, and both of the Fugly Twins in about 60 minutes.

Initially, I had decided against extending raid IDs to work on gearing people up, and requested that my team send me a game mail with any items they really can’t live without from the lower spire, but considering I’ve only received 3 replies, I’m thinking that this weekend is the last weekend we’ll see the Lower Spire for a while.

On the 25-man side, we seem to be doing better. This past week’s attempts on Deathwhisper weren’t giant lagfests (although we weren’t able to complete Deprogramming because some folks either don’t read chat or listen in vent – when we say don’t attack the star, we mean DON’T ATTACK THE FUCKING STAR, PEOPLE), and Saurfang wasn’t too much trouble. I’m itching to get Rotface and Festergut down in 25s (one, because it’s progression, and two, because they’re the only thing between me and a Shadow’s Edge right now), but our signups have been a little wonky now that the weather’s warming up again.

For lighter raiding, I’ve started running BCMU – the Burning Crusade Mop-Up raid “series” on the occasional Friday night. The primary purpose was to allow us to knock out some of the old raids in BC that we didn’t get to see due to lack of numbers, but it ended up having a nice side-effect as well: because I only allow mains on this series, we’ve been able to use it to gear up some of our lower level members in the 70-75 range.

BCMU has been pretty successful so far: our first run was to the Sunwell which ended in a victory (it’s ridiculous how overpowered 12 ICC-geared raiders are in there), followed by our raid just this past Friday to Serpentshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep, and Mt. Hyjal. SSC was a quick run to Vashj, culminating in a boss battle that I’d never want to do again unless I absolutely had to. Honestly, playing Hot Potato with an object to disable an invulnerability shield? Up a staircase? Four times? With infinitely spawning adds? Sargeras preserve me, that was a mess and a half.

Tempest Keep was a little worse – Kael’thas got a little Mind Control-happy in the first fight, and we wiped. Second go, we had a better contingency plan in line (casters with MC-breaking daggers? you got it) and took him out. No pretty bird, but what the hell. I’ve got to go back there to follow the rest of the Ashen Verdict questline, and other people would want shots at the Ashes anyway, so I’m not too worried about it.

After Kael died, some people wanted to make a rush at Mt. Hyjal. I’m sure this fight was exciting and tense at level 70, but these days? With a dozen level 80s? Not so much anymore. To keep people interested and moving, Pacificus decided to throw on his Retribution gear/spec, Righteous Fury, and tanked a boss or two. When Anetheron came stomping down the mountain, though, he suddenly started taking some heavy hits, and nearly died. The reason?

We were way overpowered on healing for this, so Myrlia and Ilcyira went Shadow from the start, leaving Esmerellda, Wylson, and Shocpiper as our healers. I don’t know what was going on between the healers, but maybe Wylson was the only one assigned to the tanks right off the bat, and…

well…

Wylson had fallen asleep somewhere between the first wave of mobs leading up to Anetheron and Anetheron himself. Pacificus didn’t die, but came really close.

Once all the small, squishy bosses were down, we made our way down the mountain path to Archimonde (where I almost took a flying leap off a cliff because I was trying to eat dinner at the same time). We all picked up our Tears of Falling Really Really Slowly for Half a Damn Second from Tyrande, and moved to engage.

I accidentally-on-purpose failed to mention that under no circumstances should Archimonde be allowed to reach Nordrassil. Kelarr was tanking this one, and was slowly backing up toward the lake…

and everybody died. Raid chat was filled with “WTF” and “What the hell just happened?” Vent was overloaded with “Oh my god what was that” and “Holy shit, I just took 100000 shadow damage.”

I was laughing too hard to formulate a response.

After we had all recovered and made our way back down to Archimonde again, we took him out on the second time without incident.

In all, we had a great time. The MN contingent got to spend the evening drinking and playing in the same room, a couple of our lower level folks made out like bandits (the rule is, anything that drops that they can use, they get – everything else gets vendored and goes to the guild bank), lots of people got new achievements (SSC and Outland Raider for me! Woo!), and fourteen people got to while away the evening laughing and killing things way under our power level.

Now I just have to log on tonight and change Wylson’s guild note to NAPTIEMS NAO PLZ THX.



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By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (1)
Mar 19 2010
Spring Cleaning – Out With the Old, In With the New
Posted in Other Blogs, Upcoming, WoW

I think I mentioned about a year or so ago that I’d be moving to self-host. That day is quickly arriving, and it’s about time. So, in honor of the upcoming change, I felt it was time to make a change here at the existing blog.

Check out the new banner! No, not on this text portion. Look up at the top!

I don’t have that kind of artistic talent, so I commissioned some art from the incredibly awesome Baenhoof. She did the two drawn images you see up there, along with a new background image that will find its way to the new blog location as soon as everything else is done.

Baenhoof isn’t the only one who can take credit for the banner, though. Siasha clipped a background of the Black Temple out of the WoW Model Viewer, added the game-models of Malyss and Lelissa, dug up a very awesome-looking font, and created a very kickass banner (Holy run-on sentence, Batman!). I had wanted Baenhoof to do the art for the banner originally, but I liked Siasha’s so much that I asked her to take out the WoW models so that Baenhoof could replace them with her artwork. Looks great, don’t you think?

Over the holidays, I traded emails with Lassirra of The Hunter’s Mark to get a custom WordPress theme going. What originally started out as a very vague plan has become a… less vague… plan… of sorts. No, really, we’re better off than where we started! Honest! I think. Oh, hell. She’s going to set me on fire with her brain before this is all over, I’m sure of it.

Finally, some props go out to Etherjammer, who has handled hosting for the upcoming P.E. location as well as Nourish. I don’t think I could ever convey in words how much I appreciate his effort and his help. Thanks, EJ.

I can’t wait to finally see this all finished. I hope that everyone is pleased with the result.



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By Pixelated Executioner | Comments (1)