Blogger Problems

I recently switched over to Blogger's Custom site service for the blog. Unfortunately, this resulted in the blog banner not being displayed. I have therefore gone back to the normal blog hosting service and everything is now displayed normally. The site won't be able to automatically redirect those coming from www.sabersquadron.info for the next hour or so until the new DNS forwarding propogates through the net. It's usually pretty quick though.

Finally Registered My Guild Name

I have had a partially completed Guild Charter sitting in the Bank for the last 6 weeks. So today I chased up a few extra signatures to finally get "Saber Squadron" registered as a guild on Zuluhed. Woot.

Great Article on Gems for Hunter Armour

I have just been reading an article by Lassirra over on "The Hunter's Mark" blog.I have never really bothered with the whole Gem Crafting thing and have just tended to vendor any socketed stuff that dropped for me. However, I think that I will have to rethink my attitude to socketed armour. This article makes it easy to know what sort of choices to make when the armour you get has sockets and you want to enhance your stats. I suggest you have a read of the article if you want a quick briefing on those Gems of most use to hunters.

Another shot of the Brewfest Rams

Just thought I'd show another screenshot of the Rams. This was last Saturday on the dock at Menethil Harbour.

Level 45 - Feralas

All the team is now at level 45. I have completed a number of quests in STV, Tanaris and a few of the earlier ones in Feralas. I have given up on the idea of getting Tough Scorpid Armour for each member of the team. It's just going to take too much time to farm for Scorpid Scales. I am currently wearing Nightscape Armour with a bit of quested reward items where appropriate. I intend to replace each piece with Wicked Leather Armour at each level it becomes available to wear.

Wierd Little PVP Encounter

I was just out with two of my characters last night (this morning server time) to catch up on a couple of quests I missed when I took the team through STV the yesterday. The Capt and Sgta were just down on the beach near Booty bay when a Lvl 70 Orc Shaman called Brucex showed up. I was out in the open and exposed and thought I was going to be dispatched fairly quickly. He made a move toward me on his mount. He seemed to be attacking so I thought I would go down fighting and sent both of my kittens in to attack. I then backed away and started spamming all sorts of shots into him. He moved in on the Sgt and I thought he was going to melee her so I popped an intimidation on him and continued to spam shots. Within about a minute or so he was dead. I couldn't believe it. He should have creamed both of my characters in seconds with that sort of level difference and equipment. Anyway I decided that I didn't want to stick around to let him have another go, so I dashed back into Booty Bay. Then flew to Darkshire and rode down to the Venture Company site to kill Geologists.

About 45 mins later this guy shows up again and attacks. I set the kittens onto him again and try to kite him fully expecting him to kill me quickly. But no, I manage to kill him again by using Bestial Wrath twice and jump shotting him up and down the road through STV. At no time did he hit me hard, and the only spells he cast were Earth Bind totems. Now, this seems all totally weird to me. The only explanations for this that make sense to me are; Firstly, that he was bored and wanted to go and tease some low level players for a while. Secondly, that his kid brother was using the account and didn't really know how to control the character, or lastly that the account had just been sold/power-levelled and the new owner didn't know how to play that character. Those are the only reasons I could think of that I might win against a player of that level. Anyway, I managed to get 2 kills to add to my total of honourable kills and a whole lot of honor points as well. I guess I should just thank my lucky stars and of course Brucex too.

Keyclone

If you are new to multiboxing Keyclone is the one little program that ties everything together. It is a little wonder of programming that is very well written and enables you to get up and running with five toons in less than five minutes. I see on the forums so many people who are after free software to do the same thing that requires hours of setting up and tweaking before it becomes usable. For $10 you can save yourself heaps of time and aggravation and it seems pointless to scrimp on $10 when you have probably paid $1500 - $2000 for a computer, $150 for 5 copies of WoW, $300 for 5 copies of BC and are paying $70 per month for your Wow subscriptions. Trust me Keyclone is probably the best $10 you will ever spend on your multiboxing equipment.

Level 42 - Badlands

All toons are now level 42. Got there with a bit of grinding in Tanaris (for Scorpid Scales) and some questing in Badlands. Getting Scorpid Scales (400) to outfit the team in Tough Scorpid Mail Armour might take a while though. I currently have my guys kitted out in Nightscape Leather Armour. But I would like something a bit tougher. I took ages to get 80 Scorpid Scales for a set for my Orc Hunter, so I think this is going to be a major time sink for the team.

Engineering?

I have spent the past two days mining and skilling up the four Sergeants in engineering. I have been having problems in PVP when opposing players get into my dead zone. To solve this I want to get the Gnomish Death Ray and equip all my sergeants with it. I'm hoping it will be a little surprise for those who get in too close during a battle. Still, most of my guys are at skill level 170 so there is some way to go before I actually have it equipped.

Brewfest Rams over Ironforge

Level 40 - Stranglethorn Vale

So I managed to achieve nearly all of my goals over Brewfest. I have all my characters to level 40 and have Brewfest riding rams for four out of five characters. Another day of Brewfest quests should see the last char get her ram. I have managed to get all the quests in Shimering Flats, Hillsbrad Foothills, Arathi Highlands finished with most of those in STV done as well.Next goal is to get enough scorpid scale to craft scorpid armour for the team.

Tethis and King Bangalash

Finally managed to finish off both of these guys at level 37. The prize is of course the Master Hunter's Rifle.

Brewfest - Racing the Rams

It is possible to obtain 100 Prize tickets per day with the Barker and Barrel delivery quests. These quests are daily repeatable. The barrel delivery quest can be done every 12 hours and the barker quest is on a 24 hour timer. The barker quest is quite easy once you work out the fatigue rate on the Ram. My technique is to canter from the start point into Ironforge and turn right. I then follow the inner ring around until I reach approximately 85 fatigue on the Ram. I then drop back to a trot (this allows the Ram to recover stamina) until I reach the Bank. I then go back out the IF gates and start to canter again until I reach the Brewfest start point. I usually manage to have about 40 seconds remaining. Plenty of time to complete the quest.

On the other hand, the barrel delivery quest is best done by going at a flat out gallop back and forth between the start point and the farthest apple barrel. I have missed these barrels many times and had to slow down because of not getting close enough to recharge the Ram. I now deliberately hit each barrel with the Ram mount each time I pass. This ensures that I get a recharge every time. If I can do this I am able to get a minimum of 30 prize tickets for every run. It does get a bit boring though when I am running all 5 of my team through. My mind does start to wander a bit. That's usually when I miss a recharge and have to slowly walk back to an apple barrel to recharge the mount. It is taking me approx 75 minutes to complete all daily quests for all my team members. 600 tickets each is going to take quite a while I think.

BREWFEST

Very interesting little festival on the realms at the moment called Brewfest. It's a takeoff of the German Oktoberfest which is on about this time each year.

I have decided that I want my team equipped with the Brewfest Rams. I originally wanted to get ordinary Rams for my team but the effort of getting exalted with Ironforge would have been too much. It should be much easier to get the 600 prize tickets for the mount. My goal for the next 7 days is to get my team to level 40, and obtain the 600 Brewfest prize tickets for each of them.

Level 34 - Hillsbrad

Managed to get to level 34 by doing the quests originating in Southshore. Plus "The Missing Diplomat" from Stormwind. Managed to grind a lot of Ogre's, mainly the non elite ones. The elites are OK but at times they can be a bit close together.

Level 32 - Ashenvale

I have gotten most of the team to level 32. I have managed to complete all the quests in Wetlands and Ashenvale. There are still a couple in Darkshire that I want to go back and complete later, mainly the end boss quests.Things are moving along quite well although slowly. I am still enjoying the challenge of managing 5 characters at once.