The Recked Report: Call of the Grand Crusade

Our guild has been slacking somewhat in terms of progression with a number of regular raiders no longer raiding as often as they used to. This of course poses us with a problem in terms of attendance so we’ve been busy gearing up some of the newcomers through ToC 10-man and 25-man normal mode.

Unfortunately, this has meant as a guild we haven’t been able to progress as much as we’d like to. A lot of regulars that do show up for raids, myself included, were beginning to lose interest. One-shotting the 10-man and 25-man normal modes every week is just too easy and doesn’t present us with any real challenges.

The fights in 10-man ToC heroic are much more interesting and demanding. Some of the fights are a little messy but we got through them week in week out. Up to now we just haven’t been able to get Anub’arak down.

That’s all changed! We took the best group available and finally managed to get him down and it felt great. It was a great evening with all of us working hard as a team. The noise on vent as we conquered the battle was electric!

It took us a number of attempts; getting closer and closer each time. At one stage we wiped with just 400k health points left, then 200k, followed by another 20ok. For the next attempt we decided to switch the Instand Poison on my main hand to Wound Poison.

My DPS dropped from 1st/2nd to 5th but this time, with the 50% reduction to his healing from Leeching Swarm, Anub’arak dropped faster than a sack of potatoes.

What a nab!!? To be honest I’m kicking myself for not being “on the ball”; I should’ve known using Wound would be more beneficial in this fight before we even set foot in there. I just didn’t think about it. Of course my DPS wasn’t as high using Wound Poison but still good enough to do serious damage and the utility it brought to the fight gave us that little extra edge we needed to get the kill.

This is the point with raiding… Fights aren’t just about scoring high on the damage meters. It’s about progression; damage meters count for nothing; it’s the kill that matters.

Raiding Lesson #1: Think before you fight

• Sometimes it can be a small thing that makes all the difference between getting that kill and spending the entire evening scraping your dead body off the floor.

Unfortunately, nothing noteworthy dropped for a Rogue but I was just ecstactic the guild made some progress.

Now, I’m hoping to get stuck in to 10-man heroic every week in the run up to Icecrown Citadel and improving on our performance.

What’s the next challenge? Beasts of Northrend on 25-man heroic… Watch out!

The Recked Report: Howdy Pilgrim…

Before you ask.. Yes, that is me in the picture. No, it’s not the first time I’ve been turned into a turkey over the course of this event. Thanks funny ol’ Blizzard for slipping some anti-Rogue antics into the new Pilgrim achievement…

How was it?

I enjoyed this one much more than Hallowed Be Thy Name. Don’t get me wrong; Hallows End was the first World Event I decided to make it my mission to complete and I did have fun doing it. Ok, the last piece needed in the puzzle was that damned elusive Hallowed Helm. And yes… By the end of the achievement I couldn’t help but feel if I ever saw that Headless Horseman again it’d be too soon. But it was fun… Overall.

With Pilgrim’s Bounty it was just as enjoyable but with much less of a grind;  no need to find unsaved group members and no repetitive boss killing 5 times a day.

Turkey Lurkey

Why did Blizzard make it part of the achievement to turn us Rogues into Turkeys? I have no idea! Still… it’s only a bit of fun and, when you think about it, it’s not a bad price to pay for being the best class in-game really is it?

In short the achievements are all pretty easy and just take up a bit of time travelling from here to there. It’s wasn’t all easy though. I’m sure those of you who have completed the achievement (or still attempting to finish it) will agree the hardest part by far was (or is);

1. Finding a Dwarf Rogue for Turkey Lurkey (especially for Horde) and;
2. The Turkinator

The “Dreaded” Turkinator

In order to get this achievement you need to kill 40 Wild Turkeys in row. Is that it? Don’t be stupid… That would be too easy. You have a time limit of a maximum of 30 seconds between each Turkey kill. If you take longer than 30 seconds between one Turkey and the next… BANG!… You go back to zero and have to start all over again.

There’s a lot of people screaming and shouting about this one and I have to admit it can be frustrating. However, it’s not really that hard once you know what you’re doing.

Peak time is definitely not the best time to be doing this. My first attempt was around midnight and I managed to get to 37 before a Druid came along and stole the 2 Wild Turkeys next to me before I could reach them. Aaaaaaaaaargh! If only that cat was within arms reach of me I could have rung it’s neck!

The second attempt went well; I got up to 33 Turkeys before running out… And the third attempt? Meh! Just got worse.

Then a guildie introduced me to… Tracker Snacks!

Having already attempted this achievement a few times already, this time I set about it in a slightly different way armed with my newly acquired beast-tracking skill.

How did I do it?

Recked’s Turkinator Technique

• Do this either early in the morning (any day) or late at night (during the week).
• Pick a spot far away from the main area. What I mean here is don’t go and do this right in the middle of the map. Go round to one of the far-away corners or around the edge. There’s less chance you’ll come across other players hunting on your turf. Check out the map (Elwynn Forest or Trisfal Glades) and pick a spot out of the way.
• Eat your Tracker Snack (for 10 seconds).
• Check your mini-map for the Wild Turkeys. All beasts will show up as a yellow dot and if you run your mouse cursor over them you’ll see what they are.
• When you find a Turkey and make your way towards it others should appear on the mini-map. The trick here is to keep checking your mini-map and plan your next 2 or 3 kills as you’re running to your current target. When I did this I didn’t even have to use my mount; the occassional Sprint was all that was required… Just run to the Turkey and use Fan of Knives and make your way to the next one without even stopping.

… Simple eh?

First time I used this technique I completed it well within the time required.

Now I’ve got my title and I’m already looking forward to taking part in the next World Event.

Have you got your title? What did you think of it?

The Recked Report: Hallowed Be My Name Now!

As Hallow’s End comes to an end the pressure is on for those who are still chasing that title.

I must admit I never really bothered too much with World Achievements. Having been inspired by Sam’s Hallowed post over on Slice and Dice I thought I’d give it a go too.

Like Dinear over at Forever a Noob, I thought it would just be a grind but there were parts I enjoyed… Flying all over the old world was nice and brought back some of the old areas long forgotten. It was nice just chilling one evening and flying from here to there.

Having said that the most frustrating part of the entire event for me was killing the Headless Horseman until the Hallowed Helm dropped.

The Sinister Squashling dropped on the first kill which was lucky but it took me another gruelling 24 times before the helmet dropped. Now I’m just glad it’s over with.

After all that it turns out the title is now bugged so I can’t even join Sam and show it off. I suppose this will just have to do until Blizzard sorts it out:

Overall, I enjoyed taking time to do something a little bit different and perhaps I’ll get involved in the next World Event.

Did you take part in Hallow’s End? What was your experience?