At Least We Can Set Gnomes On Fire After 5 years Of Silence

As much as I fought with myself...sometimes violently...to NOT come back to WoW...

I'm back.

I'm a bear.

I'm not going to be anything but a bear unless I am bored enough to heal a 5 man instance now and again.

I'm not raiding, I like the freedom.

I'm addicted to mount farming.

I still religiously farm Ashes of Al'ar.  It's still refusing to drop. 

I'm not as much of an alt-o-holic anymore.  Time is extremely limited.

Where did I go...well, like Thomas Rhett sings, "life changes."  And it did.  Drastically.  It wasn't that I got mad at the expansion or a patch or a nerf or anything like that...my computer couldn't keep up and honestly, life was keeping me happy and busy enough that I just didn't have the time to play much.

I have even less time now, but I think everyone needs something they can do for stress relief.  That's why I haven't unlocked flying in two out of the newest three expansions or worked on any Glory achievements.  I just spend the time I can play farming mounts or exploring.  I'm not interested in raiding or really dungeon grinding anymore.  I come here to relieve stress, not cause more of it!

With that, I apologize if the blog transforms into a n00bfest of farming posts and other less-than-exciting adventures.  One of the main reasons I keep the blog to begin with isn't necessarily to teach anyone about the game, though that used to be one of the reasons.  The core reason I started this blog was because, well let's be honest - we all invest a lot of time and a lot of ourselves in our characters.  They're a digital extension of us in this virtual world.  I just wanted to keep a journal for my druid of things that happened (especially back when this game was my escape from life and it took up so much of my time) to look back on and enjoy.  Isn't that why anyone keeps a journal?  To capture moments, good and bad, for reflection?

Dragon Soul: Solo

Hey, hello and hi!  I'm back :)

I've been working on farming the blazing drake, as I previously mentioned, for the Awake the Drakes achievement and the reins of the emerald drake.  That means I spend some quality time with the gang in Dragon Soul every week.

I have a few friends that struggle with one of the fights and asked me to help so I thought maybe I'd write down a few of my notes.  I wanted to take a video to post here of myself in the Spine fight but I'm not sure I really want to download all of the stuff necessary to do so and I've never really edited video before.  I'm not sure I'd be great at it.  ANYWAY...

I believe there are three dragon mounts you can obtain from here:
Experiment 12-B 
The Life-Binder's Handmaiden 
Reins of the Blazing Drake 

The Experiment drops from Ultraxion while the other two drop from Madness.  Ideally, I'd like to obtain all three of these (one down, two to go!) but I'd settle for Blazing for the moment :)

I wanted to kind of touch on soloing this raid.  Most of it is an absolute cake-walk on heroic, regular and it doesn't seem to matter if you're running 10 or 25 man...all but one of these fights are pretty straightforward.  The only one that seems to get people frustrated is Spine of Deathwing.

I was taught by a friend to use a strafing method, but as I found out this morning, there is another way folks are accomplishing this fight.  Interesting!  

First, I'll explain the method I use because it's what I'm most familiar with...but I'm going to start with a disclaimer:  It took me a few tries to "get it", so don't get frustrated if you have to try a few times.  Once it clicks, you'll be a pro at the dance and you'll have your drakes in no time!  (Right, loot gods?)

After you smash face through the first three bosses - you'll end up on the boat.  There's not much special about the boat fight other than you should PROBABLY try to protect the Skyfire....you know, stand in a twilight onslaught or two?  Yeah.  I do that.  Maybe it's an old raid habit that just won't die, I'm not sure.  That's the only thing I do during the boat fight that isn't straightforward face-roll mode.

Once that's over, you get yourself dropped onto deathwing.

Now for the strafe method, you only kill one tentacle.  The Amalgamation will spawn but don't touch him yet.  What you're going to do is strafe or run back and forth from side to side on Deathwing's back as close to his shoulders/armor plate as possible.  

Once your Amalgamation has spawned, you'll get a corrupted blood every few moments.  Let him come to you and kill him near the armor plate you're strafing near.  You can one-shot them.  As a bear, I tab-target and hit them with a moonfire.  Bam.  Game over, little guy.  The amalg will still be really mad at you, so run him over the smear from where you just killed the corrupted blood.  He'll gain a stack of  Absorbed Blood.  Once the amalgamation has 9 stacks, take him as close to the armor plate as possible and kill him.  Once he's dead, continue to strafe and kill the tendons.

Boom.  Money.  Oh...btw...when I say strafe, you don't have to run back and forth too far.  You actually just need to move between either side of the ridge in Deathwing's back.   There's no need to turn it into a distance event.

The other method suggests that when you kill the first corruption, you sit in the well left behind.  If Deathwing should roll, you'll be held on his back back by grasping tendrils.  One guide suggests you kill the first amalgamation, another one suggests you just let him beat on you until you get the stacks of absorbed blood you need.

One guide suggested you wait for 9 bloods then AOE them down while the other suggests that you kill them as they spawn.  Once you know you've killed 9, you kill one of the other corruptions - grab your amalgamation and walk him over the blood "spots" then drag him by the armor plate and kill him.

My only real concern with the second method is that, well...anything not attached to Deathwing's back by the grasping tendrils is going to fall when he rolls...bad guys included.  I could just picture it being painfully frustrating.  That's all.

Now, that's exactly how you do the achievement though!  Just have to kill one corruption on each side - then sit in the left one, tell him to roll over, move to the right one, ask him to roll over again, and repeat!  Free nerdpoints.

Again, I apologize for not making a video...I'll try if I have some free time that doesn't involve being mauled by my own cubs :) but hopefully this sheds some light on how to do this.  Feel free to comment or message me with questions/suggestions always!

The Handmaiden's Tale

Tonight I decided I'd make a quick run into Dragon Soul 25-Heroic to see if I could grab the Blazing Drake because it's the last drake I need for [Awake The Drakes] and the Reins of the Emerald Drake.

So, I meander through the raid pwning everything in sight.  Of course, Ultraxion refuses to drop his mount but that's fine with me because that's not what I'm after.

I get to the end of the raid...ready...SO ready for Deathwing to drop the Blazing Drake, right?

Know what he drops?

LIFE-BINDER'S HANDMAIDEN.

You know what that's not? 

THE BLAZING DRAKE.

It's always awesome to get a new mount.  Always.  And to be truthful I'm ecstatic for this new drake.  I didn't have any with this model yet and I'm actually a little geek-gasmed about it!

I mean...just look at her!

  
So regal...so proud...so......pink....

Now that I'm out of game and looking at these nerd-selfies of her, I'm actually really geeking out about her.  It's actually a really pretty model.

The Blazing Drake remains a target and eventually I'll get it...but for now I'm going to drive around in my new pink Cadillac.  Oh, and I've made a considerable number of additions to my mount and pet collection since I last posted...I was going to take an inventory of things I've snagged since my last post before the long AFK but they aren't date stamped and since I wasn't actively writing, I wasn't honestly thinking much about it.

Besides, who wants to read some nerd bragging about her new toys?  Not me... >.>

THAT BEING SAID...I found a thing...hold on...let me go grab it.............................. Okay here it is!  Found it!

Simple Armory 

Whatcha do is, enter your realm name and your character name.  You can get all kinds of stats on the site, but look at the links at the top of the page once you've gotten your character to load.  If you click on "Collectible" you can click "mounts".  Right next to the big "Mounts" header, click "Show Planner".

It'll give you a step by step "shopping list" to help you efficiently farm the mounts on your shopping list.  There are other Mount Planners but some of them need you to install an addon or some such thing.  I don't need more addons bogging down my already limited game time.  I found this to be easy to read, clean and all it gave me a list of mounts I had either forgotten about or didn't even know were available to obsess over!

All in good time...this druid NEEDS to focus on unlocking Flying in both Legion AND Battle for Azeroth.

Did I mention I'm a little behind?

RETURN TO KARAZHAN: Smoldering Ember Wyrm Guide

I'll get to the "let's catch up and see what Des's been up to" after we talk about why you came here to begin with:  The Smoldering Ember Wyrm.
 
Maybe I'm just a bad web-search-bear but after endless hours of research, I could not find a guide that showed me exactly what I NEEDED to know about how to navigate this instance in order to successfully farm this mount.  (Yes, as of 10/14/18 - it is STILL available! GET YOU SOME!)

 Right, so first things first - head to Karazhan.  You're going to look for the upper entrance, rather than the entrance you'd use to farm the Fiery Warhorse's reins.  You're going to need the Dungeon Difficulty set to: Mythic.

Head on inside!

 After the load screen finishes:  You'll be met with an emote: The strange chill of a dark presence winds through the air."  This starts the timer for you to get to the first soul fragment.  Hopefully, this guide can get you through the instance fast enough for you to beat the timer and summon Nightbane for your chance at the Smoldering Ember Wyrm.

Just a heads up on a few things:  There is a 20% drop chance for this mount for any party member that is NOT loot locked.  That means:
1 person?  20% chance the mount will drop
2 people? 40% chance of a mount drop
3 people = 60%...you see what I'm getting at.  It's a high drop chance, it's just not guaranteed unless there are five people in your group.

My druid's gear/spec aren't sufficient to survive and kill mobs fast enough to beat the timer on my own either.  And...anyone that knows me at all knows ALL too well that my navigation skills are none.  I have none.  Closet? I'm lost in it.  That's why I snuggled up to my dearest Lindariel so that I could FINALLY make a guide that players like myself can follow.  So, all the credit, kudos, what have you should go to Lindariel for showing me around (and beating the timer so that this druid could spend some time writing you a guide instead of continuing to farm this instance...)  Anyway, without any further blah blahing...

I'm going to apologize in advance for folks that don't like a ton of screen shots but I'm a VERY visual person.  You can tell me to go through the seventeenth door on the right that has the pink curtains on it but if I don't know what that door is supposed to look like...I'm going to miss it.  So, LOTS of pictures coming up with hopefully very few words...

IMPORTANT TIPS:
*  Only one person in the group should be clicking on the soul fragments. 
*  You'll know if you failed the run if you see an emote:  "The air grows slightly warmer".  Go ahead and throw your keyboard, but I'd continue the run anyway just to practice and learn the dungeon better.  Plus...gold, right? 
*  There is also a quest that goes along with these fragments that you pick up near the entrance of old Karazhan (I believe).  I don't know what effect the quest has or does not have on completing the timed run for the Nightbane encounter.  I did not complete the quest yet.

Let's start with the entrance and your emote again...

 THIS IS THE ACTUAL GUIDE PART, YOU CAN START READING HERE  :) 

Upon entering the dungeon on MYTHIC, you'll see the emote: "The strange chill of a dark presence winds through the air."  

You have 8 minutes to fight through and click on the first soul fragment now.

From the very entrance point, you're going to want to start heading toward your right.

Make your way toward the opera stage...

Head up toward the doorway to the opera stage

Keep on going...

Turn right once you pass through this doorway.

Most of the first leg of the journey is self explanatory.  You just keep following the path until you come to the end of a hall or a doorway.  Once you're through this next little ramp/hallway, you'll arrive at the stage to fight!

This is one of the fights you'll have to win in order to continue onward. 
Once you've beaten the stage fight, head toward the doorway ahead.

Once through that doorway, you're going to turn left, walk a little ways then turn left again at the next doorway

Head through this doorway and continue on straight ahead until you come to the next doorway leading to a ramp that goes DOWNARD.

Head through this doorway and follow the ramps downward. 

You'll come to yet another doorway on your right. 

Once through that doorway, the opera audience will be to your right with the first soul fragment. 
Chances are, you're not going to make it to the fragment without attracting some attention. 

Once you're done murderfacing any friends you made in the audience, go ahead and click on the soul fragment.
***BE AWARE:  The soul fragments are CHANNELED.  You have to stand there and wait for it to finish channeling.  
This soul fragment gives you a 6 minute buff called Medivh's Echo.  Each subsequent soul fragment adds five minutes to this buff timer.
If you don't, you're going to have to try again next week because you'll have lost your shot for this week!"

Once you're through channeling the fragment,  turn toward the doorway at the opposite end of the room from the stage.

Head through the doorway and turn left toward the grand ballroom area.

Once in the grand ballroom, turn toward your left and head toward the ramp (but don't head down that ramp just yet...)

You're going to want to take the doorway to your left as you're heading toward the ramp.  This is going to lead toward the guest chambers.

Once you're through that doorway you'll want to turn RIGHT and start fighting/heading toward Maiden.

There is NO need to actually fight Maiden.
You're going to enter the room to your left JUST before her chambers for the second soul fragment.

The soul fragment will be in the back, left corner of the room.

Now, retrace your steps toward the grand ballroom again.  Exit the 2nd soul fragment room, turn right, then go through the doorway to your left, marked here.  If you start going down another ramp right now, you've gone too far.

Welcome back to the grand ballroom...once you've entered, you're going to turn left and head toward the ramps going down.

Go ahead and take the ramps downstairs now to get to Moroes.

When you reach the bottom of the ramp, you'll come to a doorway.  You want to head RIGHT once you've one through the doorway.

Straight ahead, you'll see MOROES in the banquet hall.  The mobs in here are easy kills and given that this fight can be a little rough, you may as well clear the room quickly before engaging Moroes.

DO NOT FORGET TO LOOT THE KEYS THAT FALL NEXT TO MOROES' BODY.
DO NOT.  FORGET.  TO LOOT.  THE KEYS. 
Forgetting to loot the keys can cost you the entire attempt because you'll have to backtrack and even at level 120...backtracking could cost you too much time.

Once Moroes is dead and you LOOTED THE KEYS, the third soul fragment will be found behind his table.  Grab it.

Retrace your steps out of Moroes' room.

You're going to head out the door to the left again, as if you were heading back toward Maiden.

This is the door you're looking for.  Take this and head back up the ramp toward Maiden.

Once you're up the ramp, you're going to take the door on your right.

Instead of turning left once you pass through this doorway, you're going to turn LEFT.

Turning right will bring you to another doorway and ramps that head down to the spider room.

Spiders...my favorite.

There are two "rooms" when you first enter the spider room.  Carefully navigate the first room, avoiding stepping on spider webs to avoid extra spiders, until you reach the second room.

Once in the second room, you'll find a doorway to your left.  Go through that door and turn toward your right.

In the back of this new room, you'll find the fourth soul fragment and a portal.  Work your way through the room and channel the fragment.

Soul Fragment #4

Once you have completely channeled the soul fragment, click on the portal.  Be careful not to click on it prematurely or, well, you're not going to be very happy...and it will very likely cost you the whole run.

You'll be teleported back to the beginning of the dungeon once you click the portal.

Start running forward, hanging toward the right and following the curve of the wall around.

Don't enter that doorway yet.

You're going to be following the ramps/stairs upward until you reach Curator and the fifth soul fragment.

Go through the doorway at the top of the first ramp.

Go through the doorway at the top of the second ramp.

Head through this opening and keep on following the staircases/ramps upward.

This part is another pretty self-explanatory portion of the journey.  Just keep following the pathway upward to Curator's room.

Keep going!

More stairs...but you're almost there!

Head through that doorway to the left.

There are two sentry guys here.  You might be able to avoid them.  You might not.  They're not a huge obstacle.  You can even drag them into the room with Curator if you like.

Head on through the doorway into Curator's room.  He'll be patrolling to your left.  There are some mobs in here that are just time consuming.  If you can pull/kill Curator without having to fight these extras, go for it.  (I was preoccupied with taking notes on how to navigate this beastly dungeon, and I face pulled...so I'm not sure if you can pull him by himself or not.)

Unfortunately, I didn't take the screenshots while we were actively running this dungeon for the timed run, so I don't have a screenshot of this fifth, and FINAL fragment, but once you down Curator, it will appear between his feet.  Go ahead and click that.  You now have FIVE MINUTES to get to Medivh and talk to him to start the Nightbane encounter.

Your soul fragment buff should now read: MEDIVH'S PRESENCE and should have a 5 minute timer.***DO NOT GO THROUGH THE PORTAL AT THE END OF CURATOR'S ROOM.  THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE UPPER DUNGEON AND YOU'RE GOING TO FAIL THE TIMER***

Instead, we're going to retrace our steps back towards the dungeon entrance.  Head back out of Curator's room toward the ramps/stairs.  Run/Sprint/Move Fast!

Keep heading out of Curator's area toward the ramps.

Just outside of Curator's area, there's a green rug.  You can actually jump off of the ramps where my character is to save time.  You'll take some fall damage, but it's not enough to kill you unless you're not already at full health.  I think it does takes about 40% or so of your health bar.

This is the spot we jumped from from above.  Go ahead! Jump!

You'll land somewhere around here.  Turn around.

You'll see this doorway.  Run through it.

Then you'll run through the next door to your right and you should be back outside.

Once outside, you'll want to take the next door to your right.

And now you're back INSIDE.

Once you're back inside, you'll come to the same ramps you began the journey to Curator on.  You don't need to run all the way down (but you can if you so choose).  You can jump from this spot though to get to the bottom a bit quicker.  Again, it doesn't do enough damage to really worry about.

This will be your view upon landing.  There will be Door #1 to your left or Door #2 ahead.

For the purpose of this guide, I choose door #1, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter which door you take.  As long as you still have some time left on your buff, you should still run into Medivh.

Don't go down these stairs.  This leads to where Attumen and Midnight are.  You can come back and kill them to try for that mount AFTER the Nightbane encounter.  Attumen isn't in a hurry to get anywhere, but Nightbane is.

Again, I failed to take the screen shots while we were in the active dungeon.  Medivh will be around the halfway point when you follow the outdoor walkway around.  He almost looked stealthed, so be careful not to miss him.  At any rate, click on him and talk to him to get the encounter started.  There are a lot of guides out there that explain the Nightbane encounter, so I'm not going to get into detail other than to say don't stand in the fire.  Even at 120...it stings!

Talking to Medivh here also gets you the achievement .  Mmm nerdpoints...

Now, I'm going to throw a disclaimer in here.  There's a reason I've been out of game for the past almost five years and it wasn't so much that I stopped enjoying the game.  That's not even a little bit of the reason.  You see, I went and got remarried a little over three years ago.  We ended up having our first child together 9 months after the wedding (heh...ahem...) and then 20 months later...another son.  So, currently this bear has a teenage cub with two little guys that keep me running almost constantly and more surprises in store.

My in game time is casual, to put it nicely.  I don't have the time I used to.  

That being said, if there are any errors in this guide or something needs adjusting - PLEASE comment below or reach out to me in game and I'll get it fixed ASAP!

Missed y'all!  So happy to be back in Azeroth!