Christmas Eve Eve Eve

Enok finally got his Red Santa Hat, and had to show it off in Ironforge.

Are you finished with the Winter Veil quests and achievements? Not me, been too busy pugging and mining and picking, with so many upgrades lately and with me buying the enchants and gems, I had 10 gold yesterday morning, when I got home I had 800 gold waiting for me from auctions. :)

This weeks schedule is a little nuts, I think it will be an accomplishment to complete the weekly given all the hustle and bustle.

Have you watched all your annual Christmas Movies this year? Cast your vote to the right for your favorite.

Into the Icecrown Citadel

A couple things of note on the above picture. Eternity Matters tabard has changed again. :( and Enok seems to have a new 2 Hander! That is because this morning, The Tyrannical Beheader dropped for him in the Pit of Saron. This is the first weapon I have had that I felt worthy of putting Berserking on. It is the first 2 handed axe I have had since BC.

Now for some staggering numbers. Since 3.3 came out I have run 47 Heroic Pugs. Is that a lot? For the most part I run them as DPS, ya know sit back, relax, and melee, let that other guy worry bout the loose mobs and aggro. I can usually get a group within 10 minutes, a far cry from instant if I was a tank. :)

I was in Utgarde Pinnacle again (seems like I get this pug at least once a day), I had the thought, somehow Blizzard has sucked us back into these instances that we have been running for over a year now. How do they do that? I guess with carrots (Loot), emblems etc. They know if we want to progress we will do them, and we will do them until our loot is all Triumph level. In the last year they have introduced ToC, Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection. I think they should add a new one every quarter. But hey, it is what it is, the instances are easy, the groups 95% are awesome and you get what you want...the emblems and sometimes loot.

We took 10 into Icecrown:



The old "progression" run, high repair builds, wipes etc., however. Last nights first time in ICC wasnt that bad at all.

When we first entered Naxx, I remember we started with Patchwork, the "gear check", well he checked our gear and saw it was lacking, as we wiped all nite long.

What did we do last night? Just took down 3 bosses. Minimal wiping for a progression run. As for the drops, it was a leather kinda night, making some in the party very happy. Grats!!

It may take us a minute to figure out a fight but once we do EM does allright. Traps, Gun Ships, Rocket Packs and more it was quite a night.



4 Days until Christmas and the Browns gave their fans another gift 41-34 over the KC Chiefs.

1 Weel 'till Christmas!

Whew! This fall has flown by! The Christmas season is almost over, 2 weeks until 2010.

My kids always make out a Christmas List and give it to Grandpa. My Dad who spoils them to no end. Do you have a WoW Christmas List?

I do:

1. Time Lost Proto Drake, or a Blue Proto Drake or the Green Proto Drake...you get the idea. ANY PROTO-DRAKE!

I see Daraia at Daughter of Ravenholdt Manor got a nice new PURPLE drake! Grats!

2. How about that elusive Battered Hilt!

Sure 3.3 is only 10 days old but people are already whining about the drop rate for the quest chain that can result in THIS SWORD!

3. Other than that, maybe some more Rare NPC's for my Northern Exposure achievement.

Frost Emblems!

By now most of you have acquired quite a few Emblems of Frost. I think Enok has 36 or 39, I'm not sure.

What is going to be your first purchase? What are you saving them for?

Enok has a few choices. The first is either going to be:

Sentinel's Winter Cloak for 50: Some people are saying this is the BEST tanking cloak in the game.

or

Corroded Skeleton Key trinket for 60: People are saying this is BIS Effective Health trinket in the game.

I am leaning towards the trinket. This means I am still over a week away from grabbing it, but I think it will be worth it.

Cure for the Tanking Blahs?

For most of this week I have been pugging, (I think 32+ pugs since 3.3) as a Fury Warrior. I should be able to get a complete Tier 9 DPS set and Tanking Set before this is all over. It has been a nice change letting someone else tank.

Why do pally tanks always think they can pull the whole room and why do DK tanks avoid mobs that eventually attack? Questions for another day.

Have a Great Weekend, I hope the drops go your way!

And remember, St. Nick may be dead but he isn't the reason for the season:

1 Year Anniversary! (this blog, amazing I know)

It is hard to believe that a year ago today I started this blog. No its not a top blog in the world of WoW Blogs, not read by too many, but hey it's mine and I have had a lot of fun writing about all kinds of things over the last year. A year later and 244 posts later, I still enjoy it.

It was first called "The Tank Hunter", as I figured I would write about my favorite toons, my hunter and my tank. BigRedKitty inspired me, I loved reading that blog every day. He has since retired but his forums still exist and are a good place for Hunter tips and info. So December 15, 2008 this whole craziness started.

I changed it to The Savage Coast, when I started leveling a rogue to 80.

This blog has been a place for guildies to hear about things that happened the night before in raids. It has logged some real life events in my life, my oldest daughter's 16th birthday comes to mind. I have talked a little sports here and there...Go Browns, Indians and Cavs, and don't forget my kids games!

Blogs are a great place for the "lookie what I got last nite" to shine. And I have had numerous of those posts. Found some strategies I have tried to share, posted links that I think help players play this game we all love.

You have seen my hunt for Spirit Beasts, My changing of Mains and Main Specs (wow how many times in the last year?), patches, achievements and even have followed some of my short stories.

I haven't been too political, there are enuff blogs about that sort of thing. But from time to time I have shared Christianity with my readers. Hopefully there have been a few smiles and surprises as you have read.

Probably the thing I am most proud of about this blog is that after creating this, other friends of mine started their own. At last count eight people started blogging, as this caught fire in our guild this year. I have most of them listed to the right in the "Blogs that Matter". They are very well written and informative, we have talent in Eternity Matters outside the game as well, and they are fun!

Writing this has also lead me to some awesome blogs by other players, and as I have found them I have linked them also to the right.

So, to my readers Thanks for taking the time to visit and read this little blog!!
Here's to the next year, I wonder what it will bring.

Told You!


I said yesterday that the new LFG system has been forcing me to visit dungeons I have avoided. I normally have not been an achievement guy, so not having the Champion of the Frozen Wastes achievement and title never bothered me.

Well this morning there I was in Occulus. The first thing the healer said was "Great! No One Left the Group after seeing it was Occulus." We even got a couple of achievements out of the deal. And those great 2 Emblems of Frost. :)

I have one more Boss to go on the Champion achievement, some of you may be surprised who it is, but I am sure I will face him at some point in the next week.

I think the whole new LFG system is forcing us all to become better players. And to alleviate some of the tanking burn out, I went in as DPS a couple times yesterday. Make sure you go in as your offspec every now and then.

To Everyone: Thanks Again!

LFG & The Annual Christmas Play

LFG
Seems like every WoW blogger is talking about the new LFG feature from patch 3.3. It really is the one feature that stands out as the biggest change. Has it changed the way you play? I guess it won't hurt to throw my thoughts out there. :)

1. As a tank, I can log in and get a group right away. I have never waited longer than a minute. Great stuff if you don't have much time for a log in.

2. Emblems of Triumph are flying at us so fast it almost feels like cheating. I wonder how those players that grinded their Triumph gear Pre-Patch feel about how easy it is to get these now? I have seen some putting "alt" time in.

3. From a tanking perspective:

a. Those that know me, know I try to be a careful tank, by that I mean I like to see the mana users have mana, mark targets etc. Well that is the last thing people in the LFG system want, they want chain pulling, they want to finish the instances as fast as they can so they can jump into another dungeon with another group. Must get PUG pet...must get Pug pet..must... So I have been doing a better job of chain pulling.

b. It was over 2 days before I was in a group that wiped, and only because we were trying for an achievement. They have been a little more frequent since then, usually on the rougher dungeons, H ToC, PoS, HoR, those wipes have been a few of the nastier in terms of rudeness I have been in. You know the types:

-Undergeared people thinking they aren't, but only putting out 1200 DPS. Those are the ones usually carried thru by their guild but in these groups they are expected to perform, but their gear won't let them, and their guildies aren't around.
-Healers in Blues that think you are too squishy.
-My favorite, the undergeared "know it alls", that can tell you all about Halls of Reflection, even if it has only been out a few days.
-The guy doing 5k dps slamming the ones that aren't.

c. However 90% of the PUGs have been great. There is usually not a lot of talking, just do your duty and get it over with, we have things to do, more instances to Pug. Many of the groups it feels like you could pull the whole instance at once and be ok. That's how talented they are, I wish there was an option to keep a group together for more.

d. Lastly from a tanking perspective, I hope I don't get fried, burned out. I take wipes and deaths a little too personally, I don't have short term memory, I feel I always could have done something better to save it. When you Chain LFG as a tank, instance after instance...well I think I need to switch off to my dps speck every now and then. I will have to watch that carefully, as it seems warrior tanks are under a bit of fire again...darn you Halls of Reflection! :)

4. It has also lead to some achievements I never got before, as I am forced to run the Dungeons I avoided. :)

5. The price of Abyss Crystals, Dream Shards and Infinite Dust has really dropped, sorry Enchanters. Saronite, Titanium and Frost Lotus's have all risen in price. I think people are too busy in the instances to farm, affecting the number on the Auction Houses. A good thing for me. :)

6. There is no longer an excuse to be under-geared, we are all gonna see Arthas die, Blizzard wants it so.. In larger guilds, with over 25 consistent raiders like we have, it will be harder to say "you don't have the gear for this fight" as everyone will have the gear they need. I look forward to see how we handle this as we have around 35 players on every night.

6. It does cause another problem, but that is a great one: What to spend all these emblems on!?! And the cash has been flowing too...do I save and buy a chopper or grab some cool BOE stuff?

Christmas Play.



Every year my wife runs our Church's Christmas Play and every year she says "never again". Well she did it again. This time TJ was Joseph. The youth wrote the skits and scripts themselves. Great Job Everyone! and Merry Christmas!