Ironarm the Explorer

At level 79 I sat down at my PC one evening with only 30-40 minutes to play. My internet was playing up so I knew questing would be frustrating. So I jumped onto my Nether Ray and finally got around to completing the World Explorer Achievement.


I was pleasantly surprised at how little time it took my to clear up a couple of missing areas and explorer the majority of Icecrown and Stormpeaks. The achievements rewards a title and an epic tabard. Additionally I received about 5% of a levels worth of experience.

Stormpeaks looks stunning, I am very excited to go and try some quests there. However I am not sure what the purpose of Crystalsong Forest is, there are two camps but no quests.

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Open Apology

Sorry I have not been posting, too caught up in Wrath. I have taken a lot of screen shots so expect some pretty posts to come.

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Direct Download Patches from Bigpond

I have had my problems with our Telstra Bigpond internet connection but they may be redeemed yet. Bigpond’s game section, Game Arena hosts all the World of Warcraft Patch files. Anyone who uses a Bigpond internet connection can subscribe to Game Arena for free. Game Arena host all sorts of patches, mods and map packs, all unmetered (ie it doesn’t count towards your download limit) and all at a very fast download speeds.

This is a great benefit for those of us who are cutting it close to our download limits and it means that if you ever need to reinstall wow you can get all the patches quickly and without maxing out our internet. Speaking as someone who has done this on at least one occasion, I am very happy to make this discovery.

Additionally you will need the 3.0.1 - 3.0.3 patches to upgrade to Wrath so if you deleted you can re acquire them here.

As an addendum I am cursing myself for not looking on Game Arena for World of Warcraft related content when I first got Bigpond.

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A time goes by

It seems that everyone, Blizzard blues included, are wishing away the time between now ans Wrath launch. Players are spamming trade chat, guilds chatting away about non nonsensical rubbish and Wow Insider is speed posting pictures and random mutterings. To help keep you entertained, please see the below picture of Ironarm posing in his Paladin Undead Killing plate armor of doom and such.

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Arthas Attacks

Arthas has made his next move running up to the Release of Wrath of the Lich King.

FOOLS OF STOMWIND! HEAR ME, NAIVE CHILDREN OF THE ALLIANCE! TREMBLE AND KNOW YOUR DOOM, FOR THE LICH KING'S GAZE IS FIXED UPON YOU!

Attacks have landed in Stormwind Harbour for the alliance and the Valley of Honor for the horde. The event lasts about ten minutes during which you can fight frost wyrms and abomonations. Neither enemy is perticually hard to vanquish and currently there is no rewards.

It is disappointing there are no quests linked to this event. The idea of fighting off attacks for your boat ticket would be amusing to say the least.


What i found most interesting was the appearence of Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar who fight along side the king in the arena. I would recomend reading the comic book to fill the background of where the King has been.

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Shield Block

Reading a Wow Insider article the other day I noticed something quite interesting about the warrior ability shield block. Improved shield block used to increase our block chance by 75% for two attacks. With the removal of crushing blows and thus the need for crushing blow mitigation this was changed to increase out block chance and value by 100% for 10 seconds with a 60 second cool down. Initially I didn’t understand this change and perhaps others missed it too. This means that for 10 seconds every minute (talented down to 40 seconds) you are blocking every attack and your block value is doubled.

Now I have a block value of around 800 depending on which gear I am in so for a quarter of the time I can be reducing incoming melee attacks by about 1600 plus a 30% chance to double that again. In addition attackers will be hit for between 250 and 500 damage thanks to Damage Shield. Viewed from a damage/AE tanking perspective, if we add Thunder Clap, Thorns and Retribution Aura (do they still stack?) mobs should be sticking to us like we well... glue.

For you amusing reference please see the above image as to how useful this ability if to clearing whole instances with one pull. Here you can see everything in Wailing Caverns that didn't die on the way to the last room. And that is only the tip of the iceberg, thanks to changes such as these I can be second on damage charts in heroics, out DPS arms warriors in arena and well kill stuff. Sure I am not perfect and some times I get a bit big for my boots. For example pulling 3 shadows of doom as well as 5 or 6 non elites while your team mates are fighting off horde warlocks is a close call. Also 6 heroic elites is my maximum so far with the 7th (a Cobalt Serpent) wiping the group.

Playing a protection warrior really has got a lot more fun. You really feel like you are involved while tanking and you are no longer an easy target in PvP. A lot has changes recently and personally I am loving it.

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New Children of Stormwind Site

We have updated the Children of Stormwind website. The new site, based on my design, looks much better and has a great new application form.

A lot of people spent time making this happen and you should all be really proud of your efforts!

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DIY - Wow Items

Have you ever wanted to make your own spells or items? Well where there is the internet there is a way. Wow Item Creator allows you to do just this with the excellent Flash based item creator. You can make spells, abilities, weapons armor and other items with items stats, use abilities, restrictions and flavor text. In fact the final result can look so good you could easily confuse it for the real thing. The Luck Dragon you see above was made in response to a comment on our guild forums. But I originally found this when trying to make an example Spell Power item before any existed in the game.

I would encourage you to jump on and have a look at some of the items people have made, my personal favorite so far is the Illidan Cookie, and have a go for yourself. While you are at it you can rate my Luck Dragon, even though I want to change the use effect to “can only be summoned in Outlands, Northrend or Fantastica”.

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Tangent Time - Team Fortress 2

Welcome to my new weekly (hopefully) column ‘Tangent Time’. I have found that often a fair amount of time can go by without anything of significant note happening in wow. This column will help to round out this blog with regular posts. When there is lots of interesting wow news, say for example the Wrath Launch, then expect ‘Tangent Time’ to be temporarily forgotten.


So onto this weeks topic, Team Fortress 2 (TF2). TF2 is an online multiplayer FPS which started it’s life as a player made Half Life mod. With the release of the latest Half Life (are we up to three now?) Valve redeveloped TF, gave it a graphic overhaul, made new maps and added some new game play types. TF2 is a class based game; there are nine classes, three offensive, three defensive and three support. Each class is quite unique both in terms of play mechanics, has obvious strengths and weaknesses and a distinctive character. My personal favorite is the Pyro an offensive class which uses a flamethrower. Pyros are a fast, low hit point class who at close rage (especially from behind) deal large amounts of damage. If you can pop out of a corridor behind a few enemy players you can easily wipe them all out but you wont last in a frontal assault (conditions apply).

There are two reasons that I have been really enjoying this game recently. Firstly is that it is fast paced and fun, you can power through a game or two in ten or fifteen minutes. Secondly is achievements; the achievements are really addictive and they are worse than wow achievements in that completing TF2 achievements will unlock extra weapons for your characters. Who wouldn’t want an axe wrapped in barbed wire!

TF2 can be purchased as part of the Orange Box or individually in stores and via steam. It’s a fun game and hopefully will soon become part of our regular LAN rotation.

In closing I provide a link to a fantastic Machninma Ignis Solus.

Images from in game and The Orange Box official website.

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