The Grins' Adventures

Dropping 5 boxing

2010-01-10T05:43:00.000-08:00

Well, my experiments with Inner Space and ISBoxer turned out to be a great ride - It's a excellent piece of software, the mouse broadcasting alone makes it worth the extra cost over keyclone - Specially for questing and mixed teams.
Not saying keyclone is bad, it's a great piece of software and huge value for money.

I now got my mixed team to 80 - But decide I do not have time to leverage having 2x 80 teams - I'm now consolidating the level 80 characters down to two accounts and will most likely stick with that until a bit after the release of the next expansion.

My lack of time and the new LFG tool simply makes it not worth it to run 5 accounts at the moment.

Time to redo the UI and macros!

2009-12-22T23:17:00.000-08:00

Not been happy with a couple of things that needs fixing, so since I have today off I'll be trying to address that.

For instance:

It's horribly difficult to play most of my boxed characters as solo characters.
My healing setup completely sucks.
Somewhere I lost my team movement and formation macros, which is completely needed to do the harder heroics.
My unit frames and various other things make raiding hard because they are so cramped.

Part of this will be evaluating to maybe replace Keyclone with Innerspace + ISBoxer.

Drak'Tharon Keep

2009-12-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

Added another heroic to the list of what the Grins have cleared: Drak'Tharon Keep. I did try it ages ago, but couldn't get passed Novos, now with some better gear all around I just went in and one-shotted the whole place.

The fun part about this new random heroic quest is that I do get the motivation to try some new heroics, and I have been much more successful than I thought I would be. I've still to do any of the real hard ones, but also, I haven't spent any triumph badges either yet.

Back!

2009-12-18T00:54:00.001-08:00

Well, not 100% sure of that yet ;)

A few months back I started focusing more on raiding on my main, and didn't box much - And the ToC content stunk from a raiding perspective, so coupled with a high workload that turned in to a all time low in playing WoW - Canceled the 4 extra accounts and fired up 2 accounts in EVE instead (since it is much more friendly to low play time play).

However, with the release of 3.3 I found my WoW interest revitalized!

Raids are fun, new instance is great - And the LFG tool is amazing. I renewed the 5 accounts to farm a Battered Hilt from the trash in the new heroics (can't yet box the bosses). So far I scored one, realzied it wasn't much of a DPS upgrade for Perrigrin and proceeded to sell it just before they upped the drop-rate, making a nice profit.

Badge farming is now easier than ever, I boxed a few daily random heroics and added Violet Hold and The Nexus to the list of cleared instances with the Grins.

I think I'll be pushing to get the mixed team to 80 (they are now sitting at 70) over the holidays, given how much easier it is to gear now it definitely rekindled my interest.

In other news I completed What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been on my main for the Violet Proto-Drake!

Bronze Drake and RAF finished!

2009-08-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

Not as much boxing done as I thought I would be doing lately, mostly due to the fact that I'm now raiding more on the main (which is all good).

Did get around to doing COT timed and got 2x Bronze Drakes so far.

I got a couple of weeks left on my RAF, but decided to call it finished - Got warrior, druid, warlock, hunter and priest to 60, and a rogue on main account to 54 - Not much, but it is what I need and I can't be bothered to do more boosting.

I had intended to get the rogue to 60, and have another druid + maybe get a team up on another server - But there just haven't been time or energy enough to get it done - So calling and end to the RAF now. The decision was made even easier by the fact that I now what that druid to be a Troll ;)

The plan going forward is to make sure I can comfortably take the Grins' through all heroics to make sure I get the dailies done to maximize the emblem farming, farm some TOC normal and learn it on heroic (my dps is still low, need to tune macros and gear some). Any spare time will be spent getting the mixed team to 80.

On a side note, I upgraded to Windows 7, 8 GB memory and a SSD on my boxing computer - And now it runs fine even in Dalaran despite being a old machine processor and graphics card wise :D

Cleared Trial of Champions

2009-08-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Well, 3.2 is live - Lots of badge loot to get, not much time to post between work, raids on main and boxing.

The Grins' are in farm mode now and I intend to add more heroics to the rotation, which means that the mixed team will have to wait on its leveling.

The new 5 man is somewhat involved to box, I got it down to no wipes now on normal, but not sure if I have the dps to deal with the heroic - Should probably invest some in geming and enchanting the gear of the shamans.

ZG Cleared!

2009-07-18T06:28:00.001-07:00

Been a while since I posted, did some pvp on the Grins', including winning a few 3v3 arenas, clearing some heroics and clearing ZG + 1 boss in KZ for mount farming for Perrigrin.
The mixed team is 66/67ish, and just about getting done with Nagarand.

Mixed Team Questing

2009-07-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Well, first play session with the mixed team in HFP - 2x62 and 3x61 so far - Not bad, but the change from boosting with RAF bonus is quite disheartening.

Did a few collection quests to up my gear quicker, but will skip most of those and just go for multi-box-friendly type of quests.

If I'm going to do harder stuff I need to work on my warrior tanking skills, and some on my healing setup, but for most questing I'm fine as it is.

Update

2009-06-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

Finally got all the transfers done, so now my mixed 60 team is on the appropriate accounts, ready to start the run to 80. I must say that once you get through the mile long phone wait, Blizzards tech support is excellent.

While waiting on that to go through I farmed enough shards to buy the +10% xp shoulders on all accounts, so the mixed team will have a 10% bonus leveling.

Also, the Grins' got a few upgrades and did some dailys for cash - I'll be splitting my leveling time with some easy heroics and daily quests to get the cash to support the mixed team and to get badges for retribution gear for Perrigrin.

And, on a side note, I am getting quite bored of SFK and SM boosting ;) I need a couple of more characters leveled to get my rogue and druid 2 on the main account to 60 - And then the goal of this RAF session will be filled.

The Grins' are Back!

2009-06-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, starting to move my 60 team over to the main accounts now - Slight hickup with Blizzards billing department, so not quite done yet ;)

But, while waiting on that I took the Grin's back to Gundrak heroic and cleared it - One wipe due to me muting keyclone, but other than that just a few odd shaman deaths - So fairly happy with how it went.

Will be farming retribution gear for the pally and gear for the shamans while leveling the other team. Having the shammies at better gear level will help if I need to gear out tank 2 a bit + Next patch will have some great improvements in loot potential for 5 man stuff, so I need to be ready to exploit that for the paladin.

Mixed Team is 60!

2009-06-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well, decided that I had enough of boosting for a few days, so used what I had to get the tank of the mixed team to 60 - Making it 5 x 60 - Just about to move 4 characters to Lich King enabled accounts now.

As for the rogue and the druid, I'll get to boosting for their levels later ;)

"Gift Teams"

2009-06-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

Well, quest leveled 2 teams to 10, also making sure my druid and rogue on the main account is sitting at 99% xp at level 10.
Getting kind of good at picking the right quests, could probably do another stint in less than an hour now.

Started boosting one of the teams in SFK/SM to help with "the gifting", and they are sitting outside SM at 25 now (the other 4 are sitting at 10 outside SFK).

Perrigrin is being busy working on the Midsummer achievement, so not quite the focus on leveling as it was a couple of days ago - This one is a lot of work, but easy.

Most likely I'll stop the boosting madness for a bit once I have "gift team #1" at 31, that should get me enough levels to get the warrior to 99% into 59 - And then I'll move the "mixed team" off to the main accounts and start the leveling.
But I'll be back before RAF runs out to get enough "gifts" to get rogue and druid to 59 to (which unfortunately means getting another 2 teams to 60 (need at least 2 more 60s on the first RAF account to be able to gift up to 59).

Ding 60 x 4!

2009-06-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it took a week of fairly low playtime to hit 60 on the mixed team, I figure I need at least another team to 30:ish to be able to gift up my warrior on the main account to 60.

Then of course, I wanted to have my druid and rogue at 60 also on the main account, and seeing as how you can't gift levels to someone higher than yourself, I might need as much as 2 more teams to 60 - Not sure if I can stomach that.

Ding 57!

2009-06-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well, LBRS turned into a fiasco. Fell down on my 3rd pull and had to gate to get out, so decided to go back to strat since it's fairly straight forward, and Perrigrin still needs the faction.

If I don't give up from boredom the team should hit 60 very soon, just in time for the midsummer event farm on Perrigrin.

Ding 52!

2009-06-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

Getting bored of strat, maybe trying LBRS a couple of hours, had great success there boosting the Grins'.

Level 49 Reached!

2009-06-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

Xp in strat is pretty decent, I'm doing Baron runs even though the it's only really the first 3 pulls that are good xp/h for the team - After that there is to many ranged mobs and casters that silence to keep the kill rate up.

However, this keeps me from running into the instance reset limit - And oddly enough, on a Friday evening there were not a single occurance of not being able to launch another instance.

Ding 45 x 4!

2009-06-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Well, mornings are much better - Could get in to the instances whenever I wanted, and me deciding to loot all I clear meant that I didn't run into the 'reset limit' even in ST. Xp got a bit slow at 44, but ground out to 45 and heading to strat undead now.

...and...

2009-06-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

...after trying for 40 minutes I gave up, came back 2 hours later and couldn't get in after 5 minutes of trying...guess I'll play in the morning :(

Loosing Time...

2009-06-18T11:31:00.001-07:00

...to the fact that Blizzard can't get instance servers that can support the population of my server ... 30+ minutes of running in and out of ST now :(

SM Getting Slow

2009-06-18T01:47:00.000-07:00

Well, at 41 SM is getting real slow, seems like I need 2 and some arm + cath clears for a level, not sure if it's worth going elsewhere (SM/ZF) for the 4 levels I got to 45...

Not much playtime now with midsummer coming up, but at least got the team to 41/42.

Ding 40!

2009-06-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

Well, the hunter is 41, but all others are 40.

Went to ST last night, but found xp seemingly slower there at 35 - And I hit the instance reset limit real fast - So went back to SM and did cath+arm clears - Which with me being greedy enough to loot all mobs never had me hit the reset limit.

Seems like at 40 the xp is still pretty good, so might stay at SM until 45, but if it goes real slow I guess it's back to ST.

Linking WoW Directories

2009-06-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

Short note, the following batch script ran in a "new folder" will link it to the main WoW installation, speeding up some load times and sharing interface customizations.

Replace "d:\wowmain\" with the path your main WoW is installed.

mklink /d Data "d:\wowmain\Data"
mklink /d Cache "d:\wowmain\Cache"

md Errors

mklink /d Interface "d:\wowmain\Interface"

mklink "BackgroundDownloader.exe" "d:\wowmain\BackgroundDownloader.exe"
mklink "Burning Crusade Install Log.html" "d:\wowmain\Burning Crusade Install Log.html"
mklink "dbghelp.dll" "d:\wowmain\dbghelp.dll"
mklink "DivxDecoder.dll" "d:\wowmain\DivxDecoder.dll"
mklink "ijl15.dll" "d:\wowmain\ijl15.dll"

copy "d:\wowmain\Launcher.exe" Launcher.exe

mklink "Patch.html" "d:\wowmain\Patch.html"
mklink "Patch.txt" "d:\wowmain\Patch.txt"
mklink "realmlist.wtf" "d:\wowmain\realmlist.wtf"
mklink "Repair.exe" "d:\wowmain\Repair.exe"
mklink "Scan.dll" "d:\wowmain\Scan.dll"
mklink "unicows.dll" "d:\wowmain\unicows.dll"
mklink "World of Warcraft Install Log.html" "d:\wowmain\World of Warcraft Install Log.html"
mklink "Wow.exe" "d:\wowmain\Wow.exe"
mklink "WowError.exe" "d:\wowmain\WowError.exe"

Ding 30x4 (Update, 35 now)

2009-06-14T11:09:00.001-07:00

Moved on to SM, decent XP boosting here and all are now sitting at 35 ;) Seems like XP is flowing ok still (a Cath clear nets over half a level still), so might stay another level or two before moving on (most likely to ST).

Mixed Team Started

2009-06-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

So, set up a warrior, hunter, druid, warlock, priest and quested those to 10:ish - Very nice with the 3x RAF bonus - Leveling 5 characters faster than one would be normal (at least it feels like).

Took me a bit longer than optimal though as I first of decided to try the Thunder Bluff starting area, which has way to many collection quests - And even with the new hotkey for interacting with targets, collection quests with 10+ items for 5 characters just take waaaaay to long.

At 10, the warrior stepped out for Perrigrin to start some boosting in SFK - Currently the team is at 16/17 and will head to SM at 20:ish.

I'm Back!

2009-06-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

Well, the MMO project is on hold for now (the graphics people that are working with me are to busy with other projects being the main reason). LotRO had me interested for a while, but I dropped of that due to to much work for a period leading to loosing interest.
But, since a couple of weeks Game has been running an offer on buying 2 WoWs for a bit cheaper than normal, and that has had me itching to get back and get a few other characters up to give me the option to run a mixed team, or maybe even 10 box at some point.
So - Now I have 4 shiny WoW boxes to set up RAF with my main account!.

The main plan is to get a Warrior, Priest, Druid, Warlock, Hunter team to 60 that I can then take to 80 (swapping one of the Hunter or Warlock for my mage around 70 something where he is waiting) - With the purpose to build a 80 heroic team with pally tank, mage, boomkin, elemental mage and holy priest.

Once I have that at 60, I might use the remainder of the RAF time to build more teams to 60 - Not 100% yet what I'll do with that.

Three Gods

2009-03-31T01:24:00.000-07:00

Started working on a bit of a hobby project as well as playing LoTRO - Watch this space for more information ;)

Taking another break

2009-03-25T01:15:00.000-07:00

Canceled payment on 5 of our 6 accounts a couple of days ago, the lack of 5-man content in the next patch killed my motivation to play boxing. Will still keep my main account with Perrigrin active to play a bit with dual-spec and maybe get into some 10/25 mans, but faily low motivation for that to at the moment.

I'm sure I will be back, I still intend to have a Pally, Mage, Boomkin, Elmental shaman and Priest team at some point.

Right now I've renewed one account of Lord of the Rings Online and am happily single boxing that.

Heroic: The Culling of Stratholme Cleared!

2009-03-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

Well, figured it should be easy, so headed over to CoS to check it out....

Boy, I was wrong - The mobs by themselves really were not that hard, but the gauntlet type of event, coupled with my lack of coordination and lack of knowledge of the zone turned the whole adventure into a wipe fest.

I eventually finished the whole thing, after 5 or 6 wipes and an additional 2-3 deaths - I think that if I watch a few boxing movies about it, my gear is good enough to get the 30 minute event done, but I just can't help myself from silly wipes on thrash. Don't think I will add this to my Gundrak + Utgrade Keep badge farm rotation just yet.
One key factor seem to be to not loot to be able to keep moving in the right pace. Might have to try it out with master loot mode on or something.

The good news is though that it gave me enough badges so that now all the shammies have Protective Barricade of the Light. And thanks to some generous guild mates of Hordeland Security, I now have Revenants gear on most of my shammies.

I had to spend a few minutes leveling Babegrins enchanting today to, so that see can shard the Epic drops that I wont use from heroics.

Heroic: Utgarde Keep Cleared!

2009-03-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

Well, once I figured the Prince Keleseth out - It turned out to be quite a easy place ;) Took me 4 wipes before I grabbed this video to figure it out.
Been farming Gundrak enough to get Babegrin the badge shield (Protective Barricade of the Light), and Tuffgrin is not so far off.
Some drops of interest, Battlemap Hide Helm, Dalronn's Jerkin and Annhylde's Ring as well as Design: Fierce Monarch Topaz for Perrigrin.

Heroic: Gundrak Cleared!

2009-02-26T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well, been way overdue to try a heroic with the Grins'. General opinion seem to be that Gundrak is the easy option for a shammy heavy team - And today it was the daily, so I went there.

Didn't give me to much trouble, think I had 3 deaths and 1 near wipe (but no full wipe) on the whole clear - Of course I forgot to share the daily, so will have to go back tomorrow :P

One drop that was interesting: Sash of Blood Removal of Gal'darah. Had some melee drops that I stashed on Tuffgrin as she is my "main" dps shammy. Debating leveling my mage to replace one of the shammies, and swap in a Moonkin druid and Holy priest as a longer term project.

Broke 30k

2009-02-24T02:20:00.000-08:00

Did a 10 man Naxx with guild last night, and along with hitting 400 in JC - Perrigrin now broke 30k hp unbuffed!!

Yay!

2009-02-21T09:00:00.001-08:00

Finally got Essence of the Gossamer for Perrigrin!!

Been a while...

2009-02-20T00:38:00.001-08:00

Not done much boxing other than some dailys, spent most of the WoW time getting the Fool for Love achievement.

Started a druid, Druidgrin, that I level slowly with my wifes rogue to eventually replace one of the shamans as a boomkin. Might also replace another of the shammeis with a mage that I got sitting at 70 at the moment - We will see.

Spent a little time creating this document as a personal reference for Lich King raid encounters. I haven't had time to do much raiding (did 2-3 10 mans, including tanking a full Naxx clear, but nothing else). But I'm hoping to extend my regular friend group that does 5-mans into at least doing a few 10-mans, so really wanted to read up on and learn the strategies.

My short term objectives are:

Level Jewelcrafting on Perrigrin and make the Figurine - Monarch Crab trinket and some Solid Dragon's Eye gems for increased HP.
Get the Essence of Gossamer trinket from Hadronox in Azjol-Nerub Heroic.
Do enough skinning to get the epic mail leatherworking items made for my shamans to get them ready to at least do a few easier heroics.
Gather enough gold to pay for dual spec when it goes live, as well as gather a healing set for Perrigrin.

If I accidently get any spare play time, that will be spent leveling Druidgrin or my DK back on SWC.

Violet Hold Normal Cleared

2009-02-08T01:03:00.000-08:00

Not a big piece of news at 80, but wanted to get rid of the quest for 3 of the shammies ;) In other news Perrigrin now has the 'Elder' title from To Honor One's Elders.

Epic Flyers!

2009-01-25T10:19:00.000-08:00

As I played the team a bit more the last few days, the fact that only Perrigrin had epic flyer was starting to annoy me - Specially when doing dailys.

So, I took inventory of all my gold, and came up with the 20,800 gold needed to get 4x training + 4x Swift Red Wind Rider - Very nice.

Of course, now I have to get my butt in gear and do dailys to replenish my cash - Less than 1k between 5 accounts.

Lunar Festival!

2009-01-24T06:22:00.000-08:00

Not done much boxing lately, just played the DK and done a few dailys on the main.

But, now that the Lunar Festival is in town, I'm boxing to get the Elders of the Dungeons achievement done - So I can get To Honor Ones's Elders and eventually What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

Onyxia Down!

2009-01-14T10:43:00.001-08:00

Was bored, so went and tried Onyxia.

Quite easy, possibly solo-able by my paladin. But, a quick 130ish gold, and I got a Judgement Crown for vanity :P

DK Solo Play

2009-01-13T02:36:00.000-08:00

Well, still a bit burned out from getting the team to 80, so I haven't done much more than a few dailies.

As a distraction I rolled a DK on an old friends server to play with them now and then.

Hopefully I'll get to doing some multiboxing instance clears soon though, just seems like that when I'm done with my dailies, I either have been lucky enough to get to raid - Or just been to tired to play :P

Maxed Blacksmithing

2009-01-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

Maxed blacksmithing on Perrigrin while making 4x Titansteel Guardian for the shammies.

Other than that not much multi-boxing progress. Made an arena team and got properly killed in about 2 seconds in the 2 games I played - Will grind out 10 games at least for the charity points, but don't expect to even see a single kill.

Did a few AVs, and that was more fun - But probably should spec all shamans elemental and the pally resto for PvP - But I'll make do with my PvE spec until dual-specs hit.

First Batch of Dailies

2009-01-06T11:07:00.001-08:00

Well, had intended to go to a normal level 80 instance with the Grins' today, but decided to do a run of Icecrown dailies instead - A run following this thread + adding in a few non-daily quests I hadn't done yet netted me close to 2000 gold.
Not to bad, but gonna be starting from zero soon as I must buy my wife's hunter her epic flyer :P

Some guildies needed DPS for a few heroic runs, so I took Tuffgrin there - Really showed me that

I don't know how to play a elemental shaman outside boxing
The gui setup that I use for slaves don't work that well for "main" play
12k hp sure don't last long in heroics

But, on the up-side I got 4-5 very nice upgrades for her, there will be no contest which shaman will do most DPS in my team now :P

Ding 80!

2009-01-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

Well! It's official - The Grins' are all level 80! - Now time to figure out how to gear the shammies up.

Can pretty much say that 90% of my leveling once leaving "boosting mode" has been through questing, and not instance run - Did the odd one, but found questing less boring.

Just need to catch my breath now, maybe roll a alt team to chill on ;)

Ding 79x4!

2009-01-03T12:53:00.001-08:00

Questing in Icecrown and The Storm Peaks is quite fun and fast - a bit to many collections as usual though :P

1 to go!!

Heroic The Uderbog Cleared!

2009-01-01T10:49:00.001-08:00

Well, not a big achievement, but wife's hunter needed 2 quests in there and decided to do it on heroic instead - At almost level 80 that was quite easy :P

A Thought Before Bed...

2008-12-29T14:51:00.000-08:00

...took tank + 2 dps shaman to do a AN normal just to help a few friends - And found the shamans lagging quite behind a 3 level lower warlock in damage done - Leads me to think I need to look over spell rotations and macros (think I might have to go LB+LB+CL, instead of CL+LB that I do now) as well as spec and gear.

Ding 78x4!

2008-12-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

Well x3 really as Babegrin dinged the other day, but getting there - Still mostly questing as it's profitable and I tend to run many instances single boxing as tank, so it's a nice break.

Thread...

2008-12-28T23:38:00.000-08:00

...just a quick note to self to keep this thread at Maintakadin around - It's great as a guide for avoidance, which is my next step as Perrigrin now easily breaks 540 defense with a decent amount of hitpoints.

Didn't get much boxing done, but did tank a few heroics.

Gundrak Cleared!

2008-12-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

Plodded around questing in Zul'Drak, and got a few quests for Gundrak - So headed in there - And it turned out to be a very easy boxing instance, cleared it with only 1 wipe - Which was due to me not realizing I was pulling a boss :P

Some good quest rewards, but no drops to speak off. Pretty good experience though, so had I realized how easy it was, I would have gone here much sooner - I'm sure it could have been cleared at 75/76 fairly easy. Babegrin dinged 78 during the run, the rest got about half a level to go.

In other news, Perrigrin also tanked Stratholme Heroic today!

First Heroic Tanked!

2008-12-24T13:17:00.001-08:00

Not really related to multi-boxing, but happy about it so posting anyways ;) -- Just tanked my first heroic, same day as I dinged 80 even ;)

Was Utgarde Pinnacle, and didn't go to bad, had a couple of wipes on gauntlet and a few random deaths - But nothing to bad :P

Unfortunately King Ymiron didn't give up a Red Sword of Courage, but got 2 quests completed - One with a slight upgrade - Silver-Plated Battlechest.

Publish Post

Ding 80!

2008-12-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

Perrigrin is finally 80, I am a bit annoyed that my banked gear didn't get me to uncrittable, but o'well, that leaves me something to do :P

Working on the shaman now, which yields nice gold on the paladin.

Gearing Up

2008-12-24T00:32:00.000-08:00

Well, should be hitting 80 on the paladin as soon as the servers come up today. Do have quite some crafted gear banked, but will be using this thread, as well as the thread I posted about a month back to figure out how to upgrade.
Then it will be a race to get the shamans to 80 so I can start trying for heroics.

Ding 77x4!

2008-12-23T08:56:00.000-08:00

The shammies are spaced out almost half a level between the fastest and slowest right now, due to participating in instances etc.

Finally ground them to 77 by questing in the Sholazar Basin - Was dreadfully slow, headed over to Grizzly Hills to finish it up - But the amount of collection quests there made it quite painful.

Shelling out the 2000 x 4 gold for the flight skills hurt...but it's needed, now time to save for 4x epic riding skill :P

Ding 76x4 & 79!

2008-12-21T01:24:00.000-08:00

Spent some time questing, first in Dragonblight to get the shamans to 76, and then over to Sholazar Basin to get the quests to get the flight path there out of the way.

Might go back to Dragonblight now and finish off some quests, or head to Grizzly Hills to open up some dailies - Not sure.

At least it's quite soon I'll be 80 on the paladin, and be able to fly on the shamans - Just need to have the stamina to get the shamans to 80 to...might do that doing dailies or something, should be good for cash.

Winter Veil Started!

2008-12-15T23:19:00.001-08:00

Achievement hunting time!

Check this link out for a good listing of what achievements to get.

Ding 78!

2008-12-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

On Perrigrin, 2 more to go - Already got the Titansteel Shield Wall, Tempered Titansteel Helm and Tempered Titansteel Treads made and waiting - Along with the frost resist plate (All blacksmithing skill-ups anyway).

Did try and get Old Kingdom cleared, first 2 bosses were quite easy, but not been able to get passed Jedoga Shadowseeker yet - His AE kills my shamans to quick.

Azjol-Nerub Cleared!

2008-12-14T01:49:00.000-08:00

Went in and cleared Azjol-Nerub to get the shamans quest in there out of the way.

Went fairly easy, except on Hadronox, where the fight ended with 4 dead shaman and a paladin at 10% health. But still, all bosses in there killed on first try (this time around at least, did some wipes in there at 73 or so).

Scored a Signet of Arachnathid Command of Anub'arak.

The Nexus Cleared!

2008-12-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

Well, about time :P

At 77/75 the team is clearly on the high end for The Nexus, but I hadn't got around to clearing it yet - So went there to finish off some quests.

This time at least all bosses except the last one go down on try 1, to get Keristrasza down I had to try 3 times and fiddle some with my macros.

No drops to speak off.

Ding 77!

2008-12-12T11:06:00.001-08:00

Spent a few minutes questing in Dragonblight - Got Perrigrin to 77 - Finally I can fly, which should make it easier to mine what I need to max blacksmithing.

Ding 75x4!

2008-12-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

Spent a few minutes in the Nexus trying to tune the setup to work with a dedicated healer. Can't say that it's going that well so far :P

Mostly it's me pushing the wrong buttons and not paying attention, once I get used to it I'm sure I will see that it's easier to do a lot of hard stuff.

Doing this the shamans got to 75.

Respec

2008-12-10T02:31:00.000-08:00

Respecced Babegrin to restoration today, decided that that should make instances easier - and when questing I don't really loose that much not beeing 4x dps spec - Mobs die so fast anyways.

Will have to work a bit on setting up some keys for this though, but all in all I think it will be an improvement - Besides it's the setup that I have been meaning to target all along - tank, healer + 3 dps.

Ding 76!

2008-12-07T00:44:00.000-08:00

Not much playtime this week either, but managed to get Perrigrin to 76 - Mostly through questing. The shamans are about a level behind since I stopped doing most collection quests on them (which unfortunately means missing quite a few follow-ups).

Nexus Bugging on me...

2008-11-30T06:57:00.000-08:00

...been trying 2 times to clear the Nexus, and before I can beat any boss - I completely hang - GMs answer was to port me to UC :P

So, guess no "clear of nexus" heading today, what I saw of the boss fights does indicate that I do get mana problems, so might have to go restoration on one shaman to get mana tide and healing up all the time...

Ding...

2008-11-29T14:56:00.001-08:00

...75 on paladin and 74 on shamans - Did it in the Nexus killing Grand Magus Telestra - She's still hard at this level from a simple multiboxing character management perspective.

Bed time though, so no Nexus clear tonight.

Level 80 Dalies

2008-11-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

To much work and travel right now, so not gotten to play much - And it looks like it will stay that until week after next :(

Found this thread on dual-boxing.com today, which nicely guides how to do some dailies at 80 - Need to keep that in mind ;)

Good Post

2008-11-25T03:53:00.001-08:00

Found this post at Bitling today, some good thoughts on how to set up the boxing - Might have to implement some of the ideas there as right now my healing and positioning macros need work, and I have no CC things set up.

Utgarde Keep Cleared!

2008-11-23T05:53:00.000-08:00

Well, went into Utgarde Keep and managed to clear it - The first two bosses wiped me once each as I was learning, but once I got the fight down they died without a problem - I think that even at level 70 with some half-decent lich king gear it would have been doable - And I was 72 and 73.

Then I came up to Ingvar the Plunderer, and that turned out to be a difficult fight - Took me 5 tries to kill him, and even then I had to blow 4x Fire Elementals and LoH to win.

No loot to speak off, but all the shaman dinged 73, and Perrigrin is almost 74.

Ding 73!

2008-11-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

Perrigrin got to 73 last night, and finished up the quests in Borean Thundra. Might go back and do one more collection quest for the shamans as it has a decent caster bracer reward.

Tankadin Gear Progression for Lich King

2008-11-20T04:49:00.000-08:00

Found this excellent thread on Maintankadin (great site) - I'll be following it to some degree to make sure I pick up the good stuff on Perrigrin.

Ding 72x4!

2008-11-20T01:55:00.000-08:00

Spent a bit questing, finally getting the shamans to 72 - I've started doing most collection quests with my main (the paladin) only as it's just to much work to gather stuff x5. The only exception being if there are great follow-up quests.
I should be able to finish up Borean Tundra today, and then I'll hit a few instances I think.

Zzzzz

2008-11-18T15:08:00.000-08:00

Leaving you with this picture ;)

Not much playing done, but what has been played has been spent questing - New realm is lovely for that - Hardly any competition at all.

Minor Progress...

2008-11-17T00:17:00.000-08:00

Well, the paladin is 72 now - Seem to be a shortage of tanks around so been doing quite a few instances with him.
The shamans are 70% or so through 71, just questing so far - It's getting to be time to go back to the first instance and also try Utgarde Keep.

I find leveling with 5 boxing takes quite a bit longer than solo, mostly due to doing gathering quests - But at the same time I don't want to miss out the reputation some of them gives, so I end up gritting my teeth and doing them.
Have to say that it helps massively that the new realm is not so crowded - On Silvermoon you had 20 alliance standing on the spawn point of quests mobs, AEing to get the kills - Not very productive.

The good news is that I'm fairly ok with it taking a while and just plodding around in my own pace enjoying the play.

Moving Server

2008-11-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

Between the low horde population and long log in queues, my guild finally decided to move off the server today (using the free character transfer).

The Grins' are now calling Chamber of Aspects (EU) their home!

Ding 71!

2008-11-15T04:00:00.000-08:00

Well, haven't gone back to The Nexus boxing, but cleared it a number of times with Perrigrin in guild groups - So he's a bit ahead (half a level) of the shamans now.

Way to crowded to enjoy questing, but I find the area that I'm doing (Borean Tundra) nice and intersting, I'm even doing collection quests even though it's a pain :P

I expect to try The Nexus a couple of more times and try and finish most quests here before moving on to the next area.

The whole group is 71 now, and the Shamans have gotten a decent amount of upgrades.

Killed Ormorok!

2008-11-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it's going to take me a while getting used to having to work for my kills :P

On second try I dropped Ormorok the Tree-Shaper in The Nexus - He dropped a Chiseled Stalagmite Pauldrons which I'll keep for Perrigrins DPS set for now.

Then I went on to Anomalus, but wiped repeatedly, a combination of not attacking portals quick enough, not having a heal macro that works when target has no target - and low gear on the shammies kept killing me.

Will go repair and then quest some for a bit of a break. Managed to complete Have They No Shame? in there though, which gave a nice shoulder (minor upgrade) for tanking: Tundra Pauldrons.

Grand Magus Telestra

2008-11-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

Tried The Nexus, have to get used to actually needing to heal sometimes (as I never really did any 70 instances).

Grand Magus Telestra is a mean one - Can't get even close to beating her - Looks like she has low hp, but her damage coupled with the fact that she tosses the team around is to much for my under-geared shaman who die almost directly after first toss before i can even get reorganized.

Might have to gear up / level before I can take her - Will give the other bosses in there a go to before I'm going back to questing though.

Gah!

2008-11-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

The lift at the first town in Borean Tundra lags out my auto-follow -- Making it a BIG pain to get up to the top :P

Not sure if it's client side lag, or just something in the design of it.

Anyways, good fun so far - Taking my time and not stressing to get up in levels.

The Grind...

2008-11-13T07:21:00.000-08:00

...has started.

Took the Zeppelin from Ogrimmar and headed to Borean Tundra - Grabbed all GM professions and did the first batch of quests.

Just one collection quest so far, but that was 15 ground spawns (I don't want to look at another Warsong Munitions) - Five times that stinks :P

Installing...

2008-11-13T05:14:00.000-08:00

Went and grabbed 5x normal lich king, and 1x collectors edition today - Got to love the face of the clerk :P

Installing as we speak, the game plan is to stick with 4x shamans + 1x paladin. Going to start with upgrading all tradeskills and then do some quests to improve the shamans gear before rolling into the first instance.

Stay tuned...

Ding 70!!

2008-11-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

Finally!!

Got the shamans to 70!! On the night before the expansion comes out even :P

Now for the big question: Do I swap one out for my mage for the 70-80 leveling?

Ding 69!

2008-11-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

Spent a while questing in BEM and Shadowmoon Valley, not as quick as I hoped - But the shamans are now 69 - A few more hours questing and instance running to go :P

On a side note - this is what happened when I wasn't paying attention in BEM:

Sethekk Halls Cleared!

2008-11-09T03:44:00.000-08:00

Well, Sethekk Halls was not the cleanest clear so far... The charming and fearing thrash mobs caused me a few problems before I figured that out - The first boss was easy enough though ... but Talon King Ikiss turned out to be quite difficult.
His AE coupled with the nuking wiped the shamans quite a few time - Thankfully I could reset the encounter with Perrigrin and go again.
At the last attempt I manage to dodge the AE twice before the shaman died, and then I just soloed him with the paladin (using a potion and Lay on Hands, but still).

This encounter really illustrated to me the weakness of multi-boxing, I might have to do some serious looking over my controls when Lich King comes and I don't outgear the content.

Ding 68!

2008-11-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

Cleared Auchenai Crypts, was fairly easy except for all the shamans dying on first boss and paladin having to solo it :P

Dinged all of the shamans 68 now, 2 to go!

Mana-Tombs Cleared!

2008-11-08T06:32:00.001-08:00

Not much playing due to a football trip and lots of work this week - But sat down and cleared Mana-Tombs today.
Was real easy at 67 with a 70 tank.

Now the big question is: Do I buy Gears of War 2, or try and push for getting the shamans to 70 before the release next week?

Ding 67!

2008-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

Did some more questing in Zang, enough to get the Reservoir Key, and then went in to the Underbog to finish two quests that I had picked up.
For some reason this time around the final boss in there caused me a lot of trouble, as opposed to clean kill the first time.

Firmly got the grins into 67.

Gathering quests really takes the fun out of boxing though, I'll be heading to the Auchindoun instances next I think.

Ding 66!

2008-10-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Spent a bit of time questing in Zangarmarsh (collection quests are a pain, and Zang seem to have a lot of them).
That got the grins to 66, and another 20% - Not sure if I should keep questing here or move on to the next set of instances - 66 is a bit high for Zang.

Slave Pens and Underbog Cleared!

2008-10-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Went back and cleared Slave Pens and Underbog, the grin's are now about 45 minutes of questing from 66 - Which I'll get to asap.

Ding 65!

2008-10-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

Well, did get quite a lot of WoW playing in the last 2-3 days - But most of it spent doing MC/Onyxia/BWL on Perrigrin to get the achievements.

Also did a few of the Halloween events on him.

Then I re-ran Ramparts, Blood Furnace and Slave Pens to get the achievements unlocked - and some experience. Just as I was killing the 2nd boss in the Slave Pens they announced server downtime though - Will be down 2 flipping hours on a Saturday! :(

At least the grins got to level 65 just before I had to log off.

Glyphs

2008-10-16T01:57:00.001-07:00

Next decision that needs to be made is what Glyphs to get. A quick look at the AH this morning shows that there are plenty to buy, but at quite steep prices given how many there are available.

At 70, you can have 2 major and 3 minor - So that's what I need for Perrigrin, at this point the shamans can get 2 of each.

This is what I think I will use for minors:
Glyph of Lay on Hands - sounds quite useful for a minor considering what else there is to chose from.
Glyph of Sense Undead - Not to bad, even if it's very situational.
Glyph of the Wise - Sounds quite interesting.

I haven't been able to get hold of any minors yet.

For majors I installed Glyph of Righteous Defense and Glyph of Spiritual Attunement.

I'll decide on the shamans later, now it's time to fix buttons, addons and macros.

Shaman Talent Spec

2008-10-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

Will stay with 4x elemental spec's for now, going to try this one.

Biggest question here is if the "fire skills" are worth going for, as I've been playing so far I don't use the fire damage attacks at all - So saving it for now.

Paladin Talent Spec

2008-10-16T01:31:00.001-07:00

Well, been looking over Paladin specs, and think I will try this one.

The main questions are:

Do I want Kings?
For raids, probably yes (depending on spec's of other paladins) - For leveling as a 5 boxer, I think I can live without it.

Do I want Reckoning?
Probably not for a raiding spec, but if I skip Kings the points are not bad to have there for some extra damage.

Is the Improved Devotion Aura worth it?
Once I start to hit 70+ content, I am sure it is going to be worth it. Before that it's probably not necessary (I use Retribution Aura most of the time). Since I'm not going for Kings in this build, I do have the points for it now though, so will be trying it.

Is Guarded by the Light worth it?
I'm getting it for the mana cost reduction, but the points might be better spent on Improved Judgments.

Is Shield of the Templar worth it?
Extra damage is nice, once the shaman are 70+ it might be worth trading it for the mana save of Improved Judgments.

"Echoes of Doom" Released!

2008-10-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

While I've been having great fun with Warhammer the last few weeks, I think that WoW will now get some attention.

Patch 3.0.2 - "Echoes of Doom" - among many other things means that leveling 60-70 will be quicker, and I should have a fair chance of having the shamans at 70 before the release of Lich King in about a month.

3.0.2 changed a lot of things though, talents and add-ons needs to be redone, so I don't expect to get any proper play time until I got that sorted.

Check out the patch notes here.

Pause Button Hit!

2008-09-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

And the pause button is called Warhammer - Picked up a copy and been fiddling with it instead of multi-boxing - Good fun, hopefully it will last longer than Conan did.

Will get back to multi-boxing at the latest when 3.0 patch hits though, for those last levels to 70.

The Slave Pens Cleared!

2008-09-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

Went in to The Slave Pens and cleared it - Turned out to be quite easy aside from forgetting about an AE on Rokmar the Crackler which wiped me, and some interesting pulls when mobs managed to fear Perrigrin.

In the end Quagmirran died, and gave up a Spore-Soaked Vaneer.

Not to bad experience, not sure what would be faster - Farming this or questing.

Less than 2 months to go!

2008-09-17T04:26:00.000-07:00

Well, Blizzard finally announced the release date of the expansion - November 13!

I pre-ordered 1 collectors and 4 regular to be able to play day 1, but I have to say that I feel a bit disappointed that I didn't get a chance to spend a month or 2 at level 70 farming with my team.

Since my current play time don't really allow me to worry about raiding I have decided to level to 80 with the entire team - As I don't need to reach 80 particularly fast for raiding, but can go at my own pace.

HFP Questing and Ding 64!

2008-09-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Spent quite a bit of time questing in HFP today - Which dinged the 'grins' 64.

I have to say that questing was a bit slower than I anticipated, but got some nice gear out of it - And it is a nice change from just grinding instances.

For the record, collection quests on 4 characters is a bitch, doubt I'll get around to doing them - Currently debating if I should finish the quests (minus the collection ones) in HFP before heading to grind the faction out in The Slave Pens.

Ding 63!

2008-09-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

Well, decided that I really wanted 4x Diamond-Core Sledgemace - Took me around 20 kills of The Maker to get it :P
At least I got 4x Girdle of the Gale Storm and dinged level 63 in the progress.

Time to burn of the HFP quests 4-boxing!

Ding 62 and Farming The Maker

2008-09-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

On the second complete clear of BF I scored a Diamond-Core Sledgemace from The Maker - Which is one of the better maces for the 'grins' until 70, so decided to farm for that one and some faction by killing him repeatedly.

I can do a run like that in around 20 minutes if I push it - But in 6 runs, I got 4x Libram of Saints Departed and 2x Ironblade Gauntlets - At least the shammies are 62 and got Thrallamar reputation to 5999/6000 (as well as scoring a few shards).

Most likely I'll try a few more runs for that mace, and then 4-box the quests in HFP before moving on to Zangarmarsh.

Ding 61 and The Blood Furnace Cleared!

2008-09-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

Didn't get to play all week, but cleared Ramparts another time this morning, dinging 61 - And then headed to The Blood Furnace.

Turned out to be a decently easy instance, I managed to get one wipe due to not paying attention - And on the last boss, Keli'dan the Breaker, all shamans died due to sloppy AE dodging (I can imagine this place being quite difficult in heroic mode).

Scored some healing gear (Auslese's Light Channeler and Girdle of the Gale Storm), which I start stacking on Babegrin as she will be the dedicated healer once/if I need one.

Finishing the two quests in there also provided some minor upgrades.

Hellfire Ramparts Cleared!

2008-08-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Finally cleared Hellfire Ramparts!

Some careful positioning and this macro:

/castrandom [target=party1target] lightning bolt, grounding totem

Helped kill Nazan and Vazruden with no deaths. Did get a Witching Band, and completed the quest - So of to The Blood Furnace next.
Did get a few more AVs completed for the shammies since it's AV weekend, as well as started some HFP questing (some good upgrades to be had).
Experience coming along ok, a bit over halfway to 61 so far.

Wiping in Ramparts!

2008-08-30T01:22:00.000-07:00

Well, the trash in Ramparts die fast now - And it's decent experience. I want to build a bit of faction before doing the HFP questing.

The first boss dies quick and easy, but boss 2 killed all the shaman before Perrigrin got him down, and for boss 3 - I just can't kill him before he kills all the shaman with his bad-ass fireballs.

I need to review my moving around setup as well as my healing setup and then go back and beat that place.

AV weekend this weekend, which is nice on Silvermoon horde - Played 5, won 5 (at level 60, level 70 is a completely different story). However 10-30 minute queues make it a bit of a drag to wait for.

Negative Cash Flow

2008-08-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

4x Horn of the Swift Timber Wolf - That hurt the funds, got to remember the 5x dailies quests that I'll be able to do soon.