Some Days It Just Doesn't Pay To Get Out Of The Inn

Last night I logged in briefly hoping to do some catching up on my Blacksmithing. Horde blacksmiths have a quest chain in Orgrimmar (Barbaric Battlements, On Iron Pauldrons and Trampled Under Foot) which is pretty much where I was on my Blacksmithing so I figured I might as well go ahead and do them.

Having spent most of Cawti's money on skills and respeccing, I had to do my shopping with my banking alt, and trying to scavenge mats (like Medium Leather) from other alts. Usually, it's not really a problem, but I kept getting side-tracked and forgetting stuff - I logged onto Mokla to check if she has any Copper Ore or Medium Leather, but only remembered to send the leather. I logged onto my bank alt to get stuff from the AH, got the attachments from the mail and forgot to send it to Cawti. Thank god there isn't a 1-hour delay until mails with attachments arrive, but still logging on and off takes a lot of time and is really annoying.

And then, when I thought I finally had everything I needed I discovered I was missing 1 Copper Ore (and the AH only had full stacks). I mean, seriously, it's just 1 ore - can't I just borrow it? I'm good for it... But, no, they wouldn't go for it, so I had to run out of Orgrimmar and find a vein - more time down the drain.

Finally, after finishing all 3 quests (well, not actually finishing them - stupid things have a level requirement, so I just made all the items) I learned how to make the Green Iron Hauberk and was happy that I would be able to replace my Shining Silver Breastplate when I ding. But, surprise surprise, I forgot that you need a Green Leather Armor to make it. I checked the AH, but no luck there - I'm hoping to find it soon for a reasonable price.

Before logging off, I took a little time to try out my new spec. With Seal of Light and Blessing of Sanctuary, I can definitely see this working out although I've got some serious mana problems. I'll have to test it out some more before deciding, though.

And that's it for today. Stay tuned for, uhmm... stuff.

So Soon? But I'm Not Ready Yet...

As I'm sure no one but me actually remembers, Cawti started out a Protection pally. Then, at some point in her 20s I decided to try out Retribution for a while until 30 or so. So far so good - I paid the 1g for the respec, and watched as things started dying faster. Also, doing quite a few instances, I've had a chance to tank and heal and I can do a pretty decent job of both - I guess the spec doesn't matter as much as gear for now, and I do have different sets for different occasions.

So first off, having done all these instances (a couple of SFKs, WC, BFD, RFK...) and the relevant quests I got some pretty neat gear, often long before I could actually use it. I had to wait 4 levels to use my Tusken Helm, and 5 to get the quest from the Small Scroll. I've also done some more Blacksmithing, and am now wearing Green Iron Leggings and Boots.

Most importantly, I'm now 30 which has a lot of implications. First, I can Summon Warhorse (although I'm still considering getting a Chocobo). Second, I have Divine Intervention - should come in very handy for using on my tanks. Finally, with Blessing of Light, I can probably do pretty well AoE grinding so it's time to switch back to Protection.

And that's where the dilemma starts - as we've all heard by now, patch 3.0 (pre-WotLK patch) is "coming soon". While the patch itself is not a big surprise, the fact that it's coming so soon is. And, going by past experience, I think it's pretty safe to assume we'll all be getting a free respec (since the new trees will be so radically different than the current ones). So why waste 5g for a respec that'll only last a couple of weeks? Not to mention that I don't even know if the AoE spec is still viable with the new talents*. Having known myself for, oh, at least 2 weeks, I can say I'll probably go ahead and respec anyway (despite common-sense suggesting I shouldn't), but I might just switch to playing another character for now, who knows?



* In case you haven't noticed the distinct lack of talking about WotLK around here, I don't go for all that Beta frenzy. I haven't even opted in to the beta, despite recurring mails reminding me that I can. I just prefer to play my games when they're ready instead of having to keep track of all the changes and dealing with all the bugs in Betas.

Who Knew PUGs Could Be Fun?

So Cawti's been having a lot of fun in Ghostlands, but at some point all good things come to an end. In this case, it was at level 20, after finishing all the quests there, and starting on the level 20 Paladin quest chain for my Blood-Tempered Ranseur. I'd gotten the insignia without any problem on my own, and was then faced with getting 3 different items from 3 different instances: RFC, SFK and BFD.

So, into LFG-land I go, starting with RFC before I level up and get too high for it. There 2 druids, 1 rogue and 1 warlock on LFG, and in 5 minutes I had a full group for the instance. The druids took it upon themselves to tank and heal, so I was basically in charge of killing things and helping out if anything goes wrong (which it didn't). One full instance clear later, our tank had to leave but the rest of us wanted more, so the next stop was SFK. I tanked, the druid healed, and all in all we had a blast.

Such a blast, that it was a shame to stop there. At this point, going to BFD for the Corrupted Kor Gem would have been great, but we ended up doing WC instead. But we were just having so much fun that I wasn't gonna let 1 quest item get in the way. There were also some nice gear drops along the way, but that's secondary...

By the time we finished up with that it was really late so we added each other as friends and called it a night. So that was a great evening - Cawti's 23, missing just 1 more item for her quest, and most importantly made new friends. You see? PUGs can be fun sometimes.