Throwing Polyhedrons

There is something up at Throwing Polyhedrons now, so let me know what you would like to see, or questions you would have answered.

We broke up

So I am sure this is not necessary, looking at my recent track record, but I am no longer playing WoW, and so I no longer have much to say about my mage and what not.

I could go on about some excuses, but really it was getting too much, having a baby, now a toddler, means my gaming needs to be in chunks not of my choosing, and usually something I can pause is preferred.  I could only make my guild wait for me for so long on some long, cranky baby filled nights.

And so, yes, there won't be much of anything (or anything at all, really) on this one in the foreseeable future.  However, my other passion, table-top rping, I do still get a chance to indulge in every now and then.  So if you care to, you can perhaps find something interesting there.  There is nothing up yet, but hopefully soon.

Big news

So I apologize for my absence, but I have recently found out that I am going to be a daddy for the first time.  Not until February of next year, mind you, but soon enough, so I am pretty excited. 

Now, on the more geeky side of things, I must confess, I have been cheating on my mage with my death knight.  I haven't played a tank class since vanilla when I had a warrior, and even then I liked the dps side of it more than holding a stupid shield.  I can now finally tank with a 2-hander and not have people yell at me which is nice.  I just hit 80 a bit ago, so trying to get it all tier 9 and the equivalent in all slots.  I don't have the time for massive ICC runs sadly (my mage only has 2 tier 10 pieces I had to buy with frost emblems, plus maybe one or two pieces from ICC itself), so I would be happy with that, and that should keep me geared enough for the early cataclysm levels to make them easy enough.

Anyway, I don't have much else, so until next time, whenever that may be...

ICC First Looks

The last few days I have gotten included in a guild 10-man raid to ICC.  On Wednesday night we set out to take care of the first wing, up to and including Saurfang.  Speaking for myself, I had never been to ICC before other than some rep runs, and one horribly failed attack on Marrowgar.  The stars must have been aligned as we could do no wrong that night, at least after we got started, we had trouble finding our second tank, but after we found one things went well.  We never wiped through the whole run, sure we had a death here and there, and the ship battle we just squeaked it out (we had like 5% to go on our own ship.)  Every battle was done just as it should, no one stood in any fires, Blood Beasts were dropped with the quickness.  All in all it reminded me why I still enjoy this game, even after playing it since release.  It does help to have a solid guild so that I can actually see the end game raids, and even more so that the guildies are very competent, so that said raids go smoothly. 

I came away from the run with both the Bracers of Dark Blessings and the Icecrown Spire Sandals.  So I can't complain too much, got another 100 SP after the gems and enchants were all done with the new gear, so that is not a bad jump.  I will keep everyone posted on the raiding, as well as do some guide write up after I know more.

The Dungeons of Northrend: A Guide for Mages

Welcome to the beginning of my Dungeon Guide for Mages.  In this one we are going to look at the dungeons of Northrend, both regular and heroic.  These are in order of difficulty for the regular ones, so as you level up you can go right down the list.  Each instance review will look at two things; the instance as a whole, namely anything you should know in things like how to proceed, anything to look out for as you do, and anything about the mobs that is of particular interest to a mage, and then each boss encounter.  For each boss I will discuss anything a mage should keep in mind during the battle and any loot they can drop which you should be hoping for.  I tried to keep it pretty spoiler free, but there will be some references to story arcs and whatnot, so you have been warned.

This guide will not discuss any achievements in particular, although you may get them by accident following the guide.  If you are to the point you are going into these instances looking to top off your achievement list, then you are already probably geared above what you can get in these places and so the guide won't be as useful to you.

Also, if you are doing these places on heroic, don't forget your Emblems of Triumph you will be raking in.  Getting your Tier 9 (Horde/Alliance) set as quickly as possible along with the trinket and ring if you need them, too.  So, with no further ado:

Dungeon and Dragons 4Ed and the New Dragon Age Pen and Paper RPG

After changing our weekly tabletop rp group time to a random weekend day, so we can play for longer at a time and make it easier to get together, we had our first extended session yesterday.  I also recently swapped my Changeling paladin of the Raven Queen to my half-elf storm sorcerer, and needless to say this went much better.  I missed throwing thunder and lightning at people as opposed to dealing with swords and shields and needing to be all close to baddies and all.  So yeah, good times had by all.  We saved a haunted town, killed the bad guys which had taken it over, and exorcised the lands, so now our group of adventures have their own staging point that is known by the locals to be haunted, so we really don't have to worry about people being all up in our business.

On a related note, I made a character for the new Dragon Age tabletop, and it was pretty easy.  It uses the same classes and all as the video game, but with a little bit different math to adapt to the dice system (a 3d6 system, by the by) better.  Haven't actually played it yet, so I can't say how it feels yet, but looking at the character sheet and knowing a bit about probability seems like it should be a nice and cinematic game.  Oh, and if there was any doubt, I rolled an elven apostate mage that recently left the alienage to try to find/learn from the Dalish elves which may or may not exist in the area, so hell yeah, explosions and goodness.

Random Dungeon Guide

What started as one giant blog, I now split up into two parts, so the next post will be the guide to the dungeons of Northrend.  If that goes well, I may go further back, but truthfully, not many people will stay at the level where the loot from the dungeons is all that important, since it will be replaced right quick.  This guide will look at the finder as a whole, and what you can do as a mage (and some points will benefit all classes) to help make your time as enjoyable and profitable as is possible.