You know you're playing too much WoW when...

You're writing a (long) work-related E-mail to a colleague and write 'DPS' instead of 'dpi'. Everywhere. /sigh

Things to do in Azeroth when you're NOT tanking

After my recent "adventures", I decided to give tanking a break until I figure out what I want to do with AlierahDK next. While I'm thinking I had to find some distractions, so luckily we now have the Lunar Festival (and the accompanying achievements) to burn time on. So, I stripped down (don't want repair bills, do we?), packed my mining pick and went riding through Azeroth. I figured if I'm going to be running all around anyway, I might as well work on the exploration achievements as well, and since I don't want to let good ores/gems go to waste I also decided to drop herbalism and level up JC. So, no lack of things to do here...

Then on the weekend I logged on to AlierahP again, and went about my business questing and instancing. She's now 73, halfway through Dragonblight, and healed Utgarde Keep, Nexus, Azjol-Nerub and The Old Kingdom, getting some very nice quest rewards from them. It turns out I'm having a lot more fun healing with my priest than tanking with my DK*, so I'll probably be doing that for a while.

I've also been thinking about picking up and leveling another alt, although I'll probably wait on that a little. First, it seems silly to level all the way up from 1, when DKs get to start at 55. Not that I have any intention to level another DK. Second, and more important, I think I'll wait till I can get the heirloom items first for the bonus XP (plus, they have very nice stats). Then, it's open season on alts (at least on the realm I get the items in).

* Granted, that's because tanking heroics isn't working out so well right now, whereas healing is. Still, who cares 'why?' when the bottom line is that I'm having more fun?

Heroics... Finally

Wanna hear a secret? I've never done heroics before... Not in WotLK and not in BC. But that's now changed. Over the weekend I finished running all the Northrend regular instances, and between quest rewards, drops and a few rep items I managed to get AlierahDK is finally uncrittable in heroics.

So to celebrate, I tried getting a group for the daily heroic (Oculus), but instead got invited to HoS. Yeah, why not? Heroics are heroics, even if I don't get the 2 extra badges from the daily quest. So in we go, and it started pretty well - we downed Maiden and the big rock thingy boss, and cleared everything for the event. The event itself, however, we just couldn't finish - too many mobs for me to hold aggro on at the same time, and we just didn't burn them down fast enough. After 3 or 4 tries we gave it up and called it a day. Too bad...

After that, I managed to get into an Oculus run. The whole run was fairly smooth, until the last boss. In the last boss, you fight riding drakes. No matter how well geared you are, or how good you are with your class, the drakes always have the same stats and same skills. No matter how many times we tried, how we changed drakes around, what strategy we tried - he just wouldn't go down. At least I remembered to take off my armor before trying him, so my repair bill wasn't that bad.

So where does that leave me? 0/2 on my first day tanking heroics. Kinda sucks... I can make excuses for it - Eregos wasn't about how well I tanked, and in HoS we didn't burn the mobs fast enough. But it feels like making excuses.

There is one thing I would like to complain about - DPS in heroics. While tanks have to gear up, to at least be uncrittable and have enough health that they don't get 1-shotted by bosses, and healers have to have enough spell power and mana to manage to heal the tanks, it seems like most of the DPS classes ding 80 and head straight for heroics. I don't use Recount, or any other addon to check DPS, but from what I've seen on Omen I constantly had 3 times more threat than the top DPS. I'm not that good a tank, so the only explanation is that the DPS were underperforming. And no, it's not just the Omen info I'm basing it on - a lot of them had never been to these instances (regular or heroic). How, then, did they gear up without instancing? Without access to regular instance drops and quest rewards, that would leave them with crafted items and grinding reps, but somehow I doubt they actually made the effort to do that. So, I don't know... The whole thing is kind of disheartening - if that's what I have to look forward to in heroics, then I'm gonna be giving up on it and retiring my DK pretty soon. Let's hope this was just bad luck, and that things will go smoother this week.

Not a real post

In completely non-WoW related news, Feedburner decided to move my account to Google, meaning the feed link was changed. The old one should still work (redirect to the new link), but it could just as well stop at any time. If you have any problems, feel free to hit the updated link on the right.

Might as well blab a bit about last night too, just so you can't say this post is completely unrelated. Did some more running around Northrend on AlierahDK*, and ran Oculus again (as DPS, though). The run went pretty smooth, but there was one thing that happened that I wonder what the "proper" way to handle was... As I said, I wasn't tanking, although I offered to. Instead we had a Pally tank. We down the final boss, and a nice tanking ring drops which both me and the tank want. Now, if I were DPS-specced, it could have been argued that I shouldn't Need it since it's for an off-spec. If I were tanking, there wouldn't be any question - of course I could Need it. But what happens when it is for my spec but it isn't what I actually did in that run? In case you're wondering I ended up passing on it, since it wasn't such a big upgrade over my current tanking rings, but it's still an interesting question.

Also, when I mentioned the other day that I ran Utgarde Pinnacle, I must have been on something, because apparently I haven't been there yet. I did try to run it last night, but it seems like no one wants to go there, for some reason. I even called it Utgarde Pineapple to try and lure all the hungry people lurking on the LFG channel, but it didn't work. Maybe I should offer cookies.





* If I'm going to be playing both of them for a while I'll need some way to tell them apart, so from now on we have AlierahDK and AlierahP.

Instances galore

After being away on recent weekends, it was nice to finally have an entire weekend without plans. And no plans means one thing: WoW time!

So I got some glyphs for my DK, switched to Frost Presence and went tanking. What did we have there? Gundrak, Drak'tharon Keep, Utgarde Keep and Violet Hold all tanked successfully, and after turning in all the relevant quests my gear is starting to get where it should be for heroics.

While waiting for the instances I got a chance to do some more questing. I finished Zul'Drak and moved on to Sholazar - where apparently I chose to go with the Frenzyheart Tribe. Unlike BC Aldor/Scryer rep, where it is clearly stated on every quest that completing it will result in loss of rep for the "other" group, there wasn't even a mention of the 2 factions fighting so far. Oh well...

Following a discussion on Altaholic's Are Us I figured that commenting on a priest spec when mine had been stashed away since WotLK came out was a sorta ridiculous, so on Sunday I unpacked priest Alierah, cleared her quest log and bank and headed off to the Howling Fjord. I did some questing, which was OK but seemed a bit harder. Question is, harder than what? While I didn't die, or have any noticeable downtime between mobs, it seems like killing them is just taking a lot longer than it did in Outland or with my DK. Add to that the abundance of mobs that knockback, silence, etc. and it makes for less than ideal questing. And finally, it's hard going from a DK that can pretty much solo all the group quests to a squishy priest who can't solo anything*.

I did, however, get a chance to heal both Nexus and Utgarde Keep, both with no problems. We didn't finish Nexus, but that's mostly due to people not moving and dying to Keri's debuff. Both runs (as level 70) I never had a problem keeping the tank alive, never ran out of mana and never even got close to the tank's threat. I'm actually kinda glad I didn't get Silent Resolve when I respecced after 3.0... With the current state of tanking, that really is a waste of a talent. At the end of the day, Alierah was 71 with some nice new gear (both from instances / instance quests, and crafting some of the Frostwoven set.

Can't wait to see what I'll do next. =)


* I realize that it's ridiculous complaining about group content not being soloable. So what? It's my blog and I'll complain about anything I like. Or rather dislike.

Now what?

I don't know if it's related to not posting for a while, being busy, or what, but I'm having a really hard time finding things to post about. Well, that's not entirely true - I have lots of ideas, but they all seem too small to justify a post all by themselves. Thing is, with Christmas and New Year's, over the next couple of weeks I've got a vacation in Guam (sun and sea, yay!), a ski trip (snow and ski, yay!) and probably a business trip to China, so that means that even though things at work are finally getting less stressed, I still won't have time for anything. BUT... I'm going to go ahead and make myself post about stuff, even if it is only so I can say I posted something and try to get over it. You have my apologies for all the half-baked boring posts that will probably follow.

So why not start my "half-posts" with what happened over the weekend? My DK dinged 70 in Nagrand and went on to clear Blade's Edge. I must say playing an OP class is a lot of fun - there's hardly anyone else out there except for me, but since I can pretty much solo every quest* without help that's not a problem. I'll probably do Area 52 and Shadowmoon Valley too before going out to Northrend since I haven't quested in either of them, so it should be fun. I did get a chance to go to Northrend, though - I hopped on a boat at 68 to go train my trade skills. Can't say I had a chance to actually enjoy the place, though. I'll do that when I finish with Outland.



* OK, so I didn't try Durn... And I had a group for the Ring of Blood. There's a limit to even what a Death Knight can do. I think.

Trading in my Holy Priest for an Unholy Death Knight

So, yeah... Busy, have I mentioned that? I'm hoping things will ease up sometime next week. Anyway, in the meantime I did get a little time to play, so I might as well blog about it.

First, it seems like I pretty much abandoned Alierah (the priest) in favor of Alierah (the DK). I tried, I really did. But when every time I tried logging on to her, I could never seem to make up my mind as to what it is I should be doing next, so I relogged on my DK.
I guess that means I should fill you in a little about her, so let's start with the basics. She's human (can't beat Diplomacy), miner/herbalist and she's 64 already (no matter what the armory says). After finishing up the Death Knight starter zone*, I quested in EPL until 60 and then went on to level my gathering professions (and getting the some exploration achievements while I'm at it). From there it was on to Hellfire Peninsula, which seems to be infested with Death Knights (not that that's surprising really), and is now sitting in Tereldor waiting to keep going in Zangarmarsh.
In case you're wondering, yes, DKs are ridiculously fun to play (read: OP). I could solo all the group quests in Hellfire without dying or using a potion. I did, however, use up 1 Bone Dust when my ghoul accidentally died one time.

In other (more ammusing) news, I've had a fairly ammusing "encounter" one of these days. I was questing around minding my own business, when there was there was another DK on the same "kill X mobs" quest as me. So we group up - makes sense, no? And then she had to share this very appropriate and relevant piece of information:

Now, I ask you, WTF? I mean, not that talking about that kind of thing bothers me or anything, but seriously, I've never seen you in my life, I dont know you**, why do you feel the need to tell me something like that? You don't see me going around advertising that I'm cranky 'cause I can't get it up, do you?

Anyways, that's what I've been up to lately. How about you? Anything interesting?



* Which is really great fun, and very nice story-wise. Highly recommended for everyone, even if you don't plan on ever logging on to your DK again in his/her life.

** Not entirely true. About 15 minutes before we met, she was crying in general in all caps that some quest or another was bugged. She didn't take it very nicely when I said there's a known issue where you can't complete the quest with you caps lock turned on... Well, sorry, I was only trying to be helpful, sheesh.

Where did my weekend go?

I was certain there was supposed to be a weekend between Friday and Monday. Somehow, it just flew by without hardly noticing. I guess time does fly when you're having fun. Define fun? Well, let's see what I did over the weekend:

• Logged in to Alierah to do some dailies. No, that's not the fun part yet. While I was doing my thing, someone was looking for a healer for Durnholde, and since I've never been there I gladly joined them. The run was "normal" - not too good, not too bad, but still fun. Managed to get the Crown of Endless Knowledge which, other than being an upgrade, just looks great.
• Decided to quest through the zones I haven't done in Outlands, starting with Blade's Edge Mountains. Pretty much finished all the quest at Thunderlord Stronghold, when I got a whisper asking if I want to do the quest chain to unlock Ogri'la. Finally! You may now address me as "Queen Alierah". =)
• Played around with Cawti a little. Did the lockpicking quest, picked up all the Deadmines quests, and tried to get a run going. After a few false starts, I headed back to Bloodmyst. Logging on again last night, I managed to find another group, already halfway through*, and together we took care of VanCleef. Got some nice upgrades out of the whole thing - Blackened Defias Belt, Cape of the Brotherhood, and the quest reward Tunic of Westfall. Also got some green weapon upgrades which didn't hurt, and Cookie's Tenderizer which I'm not sure whether or not I want to use (won it on a greed roll). Now I'm getting ready to do the poison quests, and go gather up some Stockade quests. Don't know if I'll actually do it, but it can't hurt to be prepared.

Also, in the "nice but totally unimportant" category - clams stack now. I'm not sure how many you can stack in one slot, but at least 5. Thank you, Blizzard.


* Which was fine, since I managed to finish up all the other quests in the previous runs that fell apart.

"Master of Anatomy"? Is that some First Aid skill?

After realizing my noobish mistake*, I took Cawti (human rogue Cawti, not Blood Elf pally Cawty) back to Stormwind to catch the boat to Auberdine and on to Bloodmyst. I was starting to run around killing things, and skinning them while I was at it, when all of a sudden I get a message that I discovered "Master of Anatomy (Rank 1)". So now I have a slightly better crit rating thanks to my leet skinning skills. Got me wondering what the other professions had, until I got another message for discovering Toughness. While it's not as good as the talent, it's still a nice "freebie". Of course, that means Herbalism should also get something, and it did - Lifeblood. Seems pretty nice since, at least for the moment, it heals more than my bandages and doesn't require any cloth. Too bad I didn't know about it when picking professions... Still, no complaints. The copper is selling pretty well on the AH, and I'm even starting to get some tin and make bronze.

So now Cawti's sleeping at the inn, halfway through level 13. I'll probably get her to 16, when I can get the lockpicking quests, and then head back to SW temporarily to do that and maybe catch some Deadmines runs. As always, time will tell if that plan actually works out.

Also, with all the "excitement" of playing Cawti, I didn't get to do dailies last night. You know what? It doesn't bother me too much. It's nice to know I am not enslaved by the race for more gold (at least not yet).


* Hey, when I passed through SW I saw someone else who was just as surprised/confused as me about it.

It's been a while...

Wow, how time flies. I haven't posted since dinging 70... Better do something about that, don't you think? So let's see what we have for today.

Alierah

Since dinging Alierah's been keeping busy doing dailies, some BGs and a few instances when she can find them. I got her some epics - 2 rings from the headless horseman and 2 pieces of armor from the Argent Dawn for helping to stop the scourge invasion. Other than that, I'm slowly working on getting the Primal Mooncloth set (I somehow forgot about the 4-day cooldown on making Primal Mooncloth, so I only have the belt for now) and leveling up Enchanting. Tailoring is at 374, but should "ding" 375 once I make the shoulders, and Enchanting is currently at 340 waiting for some mats from my bank alt. One very nice potential upgrade I found is a PvP staff, but I need too many AV marks and honor to get it, so I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon. Still, nice to have something to strive for.

Confessions

I have some confessions to make. First, I'm cheating. Please don't tell WoW - I don't want to hurt it's feelings, but I just got LittleBigPlanet and Eternal Sonata, and they're managing to take up ridiculous amounts of my time.

Second, I've gone and done it again - I started a new alt. Cawti (yes, I sometimes recycle names, deal with it) is a Human rogue on Moonglade. It feels really good being back in Moonglade after so long - even just listening to General and Trade channels feels so much more RP and I donno... Mature? than other servers, so it's really nice. Of course, I started out practically broke there (just had enough money to get 2 Netherweave Bags), so I'm working on getting some money with Mining and Skinning*.

The last one is a little embarassing. Cawti finished up all her business in Elwynn Forest at level 11, and I decided to take her to Bloodmyst Isle to get her up to 20. So I headed to Ironforge, took care of business (like banking all my armor) and ran out to Menethil. So far, so good. When I got there, I decided I might as well get the Theramore flight point, so I did that too. But then I sort of got "stuck". I couldn't find the boat to Auberdine. I've been playing for almost 3 years, rode that boat countless times, and now I couldn't do something as simple as getting to Kalimdor. I went to the dock it was always at, and waited for 10 minutes, but the boat didn't show. Talking to the NPC standing there, he said something about getting the boat to Northrend from there. Obviously, that's not going to happen until Wrath hits, but it left me with an even bigger question - How on Azeroth do I get to Kalimdor? So I looked in the official site, but it seems it wasn't updated yet. Good thing we have WoWWiki to tell us that the boat was moved to Stormwind. So, yeah. That was a waste of time, running all the way to Menethil. /sigh

Dailies

Doing the dailies with Alierah got me thinking about several things. First, I was thinking about making a guide not so much on which quests are available or how to do them, but what order to do them in to save time. Not sure it's worth it, though, since most people (myself included) probably won't be doing them once Wrath hits.

The other thing is, it reminded me of a friend of mine. He doesn't play WoW, and every time the subject comes up he says something along the lines of "I already have a job, I don't need another one". Up until now, I could easily say that WoW wasn't work, but with dailies that's exactly what it is. Not only that, but it's work for virtual money**... So, I don't know. I'm not sure if I'll keep doing them or not.

Little Touches

The 3.0 patch notes were around the length of a regular novel, but still they did not include all the changes. Most of the things that didn't make it into the patch notes are things that don't really have much effect on most people, but are still nice. For example, boats and zeppelins now have crews. Some have vendors (or vending machines), and you can even repair there. I never liked the old "ghost ships", so personally I think that's just cool. And there are other small things like that. I don't remember them right now, but they're there, and I applaud Blizzard for taking time to put in these little touches even though they don't actually matter to 99.9% of the players.



* Yes, I know that with Inscription, herb prices should be really high right now. Still, I think I prefer Mining.

** I suppose you could say that all money is virtual. After all, the paper that bills are printed on isn't worth that much - its worth is determined by what you can obtain with it. In that sense, WoW gold does have value in that I can buy things in-game to (hopefully) make me happy. Still, it's not the same as real money.

Miserable weekend

I thought my first post this week would be about hitting 70... That didn't quite work out as I spent most of the weekend in bed with a nasty cold. I did get to play a little Friday night, though, so I made it to 69. I managed to clear quite a few quests in Nagrand, including the Nessingwary hunting quests, and finally got some gear with spirit on it.

Hopefully, I won't feel as "dead" this week, so I should be able to finally "get there". Stay tuned to see how that works out. =)

Just. A little. More.

I didn't have a lot of time to play these past couple of days, but I pretty much finished with Terokkar and moved on to Nagrand. Man, that place is beautiful. First time I've ever gone there, and I think I'm really going to enjoy questing there (even if I do have to kill 30 of every mob type for Nessingwary and his friends). While I was running around slaughtering the local wildlife, I got a whisper asking if I want to heal the Ring of Blood quests, and after hearing about them so many times I gladly accepted. Still, just hearing the name doesn't mean I knew anything about what was going on, but the rest of the group were very understanding and gentle for my first time. =)

The quests themselves involve a series of 6 fights, 1 fight per quest, each giving around 17,500xp and 11 gold and earning a bunch of potions, bandages and a blue weapon to wrap it up. All in all, very nice for 10 minutes' work. The only complaint I have about these quests is that out of 6 weapons to choose from, not 1 has any spirit on it.

I mean, really... Is there a spirit deficit in Outland or something? The last time I had a quest reward with spirit on it seems like a distant dream, with all the items supposedly meant for healers getting mp5 instead. Don't get me wrong, mp5 is very nice, but not at the expense of spirit - especially if you go to the trouble of speccing into Meditation. Most of the items I get now give me more mana, health, damage and/or crit, but even if they have mp5 it's usually less than what I would get from my spirit gear. Even if it does give slightly more mp5, it still gimps my non-casting mana regen and as a result how much use I get out of Spirit Tap*.

I donno, I'm not really sure what to do about this whole thing... If this keeps up, I might follow in Cynra's footsteps and respec Discipline. Respeccing is fine, as long as I don't "break" and reroll.



* Speaking of Spirit Tap, what happens when you hit 70? Since killing doesn't give XP, it seems like this talent becomes useless for PvE, but there's still a lot of solo questing to be done. That seems like a big problem, potentially...

Weekend Report

So how was your weekend? Productive? Mine was... After a very disappointing start*, I managed to do a gazillion things on Saturday and Sunday.

I started Saturday at 63 or 64 (don't remember exactly) in Zangarmarsh. Did some quests and got invited on a Ramparts run, which turned into Ramparts -> Blood Furnace -> Slave Pens -> Underbog. The group consisted of me healing, a rogue, a mage, a hunter and a druid tank (2 actually. We had to replace our tank after finishing Hellfire Citadel), and everything went pretty smooth. The hunter didn't seem to speak much English, and was a little overzealous for our tanks, but I'll give him this - he was EXCELLENT. He trapped, he interrupted enemy spellcasters (Intimidation? Charge? I don't know how things work with hunters now), used every ability imaginable, whenever I'd pull aggro his boar would charge and growl the mob before it even got to me - it was amazing to watch him. Other than that, I got several compliments on my healing, which is always nice. While I didn't think too much of it in Hellfire, since I was a little high, healing Underbog at 65 without any problems was very nice. At one point, our bear commented that I did a good job, and when the mage** said "You'd never know she was Shadow, huh?" the tank was shocked. /grin It's very nice knowing I can still heal easily until I reach 70 and (probably) respec.

After that, I finished up Zangarmarsh and logged off for the night. Sunday started with leveling my Tailoring, currently stuck at 339 - the damned Bolt of Imbued Netherweave is refusing to give me that 1 final skill up to 340. The rest of the day was spent questing in Terokkar, finishing most of the quests there and logging off at 67. Yes, you heard right - 67. Alierah is now officially my highest level alt. I also found 2 Jack-o'-Lanterns, each replacing one of my Netherweave Bags and giving me another 4 bag slots (and that's not even counting the extra bank slots). Of course in between there was also some Hallow's End merriment, although I figured I'd wait with the achievements and scouring all the inns in Azeroth till I ding 70 - according to the calendar there's plenty of time left before the seasonal event ends, so I'm not too worried about that.

And that's pretty much it. This morning I finally found an Arcanite Rod so I can keep working on my Enchanting - that should be fun (and clear up some much needed storage). I am, however, starting to get "that" feeling again. You know what I'm talking about - wanting to roll a new alt (even though starting a new alt now is bordering on criminal). I'm trying to figure out why, and I think part of it is to blame on Vampiric Touch. I'll make a separate post about that, but the bottom line is that I broke down and took it, and I think it's pretty much a letdown. And now that I'm starting to see "the end" and realize that the number of talents I'll be getting is limited makes it even worse. I'm thinking about respecing, although that seems like a waste of money right now - I just had a free respec less than a week ago and the current plan is to spec Holy at 70 which isn't too far off, but if that's what it takes to make sure I actually get to 70 then it might be worth it.


* Internet was dead all Friday. While it means I didn't get to do much work, it also means no WoW.

** Who died in that particular fight, but there really wasn't anything I could have done - he was gone in a second while I was in the middle of a heal on our tank.

What happened to Nopet?

There was supposed to be a Nopet post here, but due to circumstances which were out of my control I didn't actually get to play him this week. What circumstances, you ask?

1. Playing Alierah was just too much fun. She's 45 already, and wreaking havoc in Feralas with her Mind Flay.
2. After reading so much about it, I had to get the Bejeweled add-on. You can fill in the rest. /sigh
3. Thanks to the wonderful people over at Good Old Games, a lot of time was spent with Fallout (in preparation for Fallout 3 coming out this month, of course).
4. My girlfriend decided she wants me to teach her how to play. Since her English isn't too good, that means having to do a lot of explaining. Not to mention that, being a Japanese girl, it took her a whole hour (yes, an hour, I'm not exaggerating) to decide what her character should look like and to find a name that wasn't already taken. But Tsubaki, her Blood Elf hunter made it out of the newbie zone (levels 1-5) and to the first inn.

So you see? It wasn't my fault, really.

Bejeweled Away

Anyway, on the subject of Bejeweled, I can just see it now. It starts with people saying on their blogs "I got Bejeweled". Then they'll start recommending other people download it. And then, inevitably, they'll start posting Bejeweled tips under the guise of WoW blogs until all the WoWosphere* is only blogging about that instead of the game. In fact, since PopCap are working on a new and improved version of Bejeweled, if they're fast enough to release it before WotLK, they might actually cause the downfall of WoW - imagine that.

Languages

Yes, languages again. The one area of the game no one in their right mind actually thinks/cares about. This time I was thinking about the whole business with Horde and Alliance not being able to communicate. I can understand not speaking any common languages. I can even understand how all goblins can speak fluent Common and Orcish. But Warlocks seem to be able to understand demonic. Why shouldn't Alliance and Horde 'locks be able to talk to each other? What, demons have different dialects depending on who's enslaving them? And demons in the wild also adapt according to who's coming to fight them?

Stupid Things

As a last note, I'd like to send a note to myself. Self, next time you happen to get the chance to be present when Vol'Jin goes for a drink and get a 10% XP buff, please try not to go into a BG. If possible, try to avoid long trips just to get some new flight points as well. Thanks in advance,You.

* I'm not sure, is that a real word? Am I allowed to use it? Do I need to credit someone for it? How does this work?

My very first WotLK post!

Messing Around

Alierah's made it to 35. Not a very exciting level, except for neing able to equip the Gurubashi arena trinket, and train artisan enchanting. I managed to find some cheap Vision Dust on the AH, which got me all the way up to 220 - the highest I've ever gone with enchanting. I've also done some more BGs and got a nice Senior Sergeant's Insignia. Considering I didn't have any neck item before, it's definitely an upgrade, and both the spirit and stamina are good for me, so yay.

And I still haven't been able to find a group for SM, which is kinda strange. SM is usually a pretty popular instance, with very nice drops. Probably has to do with the time difference and the fact that it was the middle of the week. Hopefully, I'll have better luck over the weekend.

WotLK

Everyone's talking about WotLK, quite understandably, and whether or not everyone get it doesn't even seem to be a question - of course they're getting it. And, you know, I don't blame them. It's very easy to get excited about a new expansion for a game that you really like but is starting to get old. So I went* to pre-order it, and was at the check-out screen when it occured to me - I'm not sure I really want it. /gasp

Since I've been trying to figure out the reasons for and against buying it. The "against" column is pretty simple - why waste money for something that won't really do me much good? So that's not too much help, it just means I have to think about what I'd be getting and whether or not it's worth it. OK, what am I getting? What's new in WotLK?

• First, and most obvious, raising the level cap. Not much use for me right now, considering that I don't even have any 70s yet.
• New leveling areas, instances, raids - well, same thing. Without a 70, I won't be going to Northrend or Dalaran anytime soon. Hell, I don't think I've seen half of Outlands.
• Inscription - coming in the next patch so it will be available to everyone, regardless of whether or not they get the expansion. The same is true for the new talents and trees.
• Death Knight and DK starting areas - A new class is, indeed, a nice benefit for an altaholic like me, and I enjoy questing in new areas. However, ihis seems to be the only actual addition that I'll be have access to if I get the expansion.

So in essence I'll be paying to get Death Knights, and trying to level in their starting region along with the rest of the world - lag, difficulties getting to quest mobs, you know the drill. Do I really want that? I mean, at the very least, I could wait a while until the DK starting zones "settle down", and maybe even get a 70 by then. That seems reasonable, doesn't it? I guess so. Now, if I could only control my impulsiveness and actually manage to do that, that would be awesome...

* Well, metaphorically went, since it's an online store.

So what have I been up to?

Ooh, how time flies... It's been almost a week since my last post, which is bad. So here I am, with a brand new post.

So what's new this past week? Well, first my WoW instability issues seem to have been solved. I still had a crash after I finished downloading the patch data, but a quick "repair" seems to have done the trick. So now I can, once again, actually play the game.

Melting Faces

Most of my time in-game was spent on Alierah - she's 33 now, has a purple chicken, and is at around 210 enchanting. She's also been doing some BGs and Brewfest dailies, and having quite a lot of fun all in all - I think I'm starting to dig this whole Shadow Priest thing. I also wanted to get some SM done, but managed to end up in a group with a shaman and 3 other priests twice. Needless to say, not having a tank was painful*. Oh, and I managed to get the Gurubashi Arena chest one time - it was 6AM server time and I was the only one in there. Surprisingly enough, it's the first time I've opened the chest and it didn't have bracers of any kind in it.

Let The Experiment Begin

Other than that, I've started my "no pet hunter" experiment. Nopet the Tauren Survival Hunter has actually done the pet taming quests, but hasn't tamed a permanent pet for traveling through Azeroth. I really wonder how it will go with him - can he make it out there, how hard will it be, and what does it mean if he can? For now, things haven't been that difficult, but then he's only 13 and just finishing up with Mulgore. For most of that you can't have a pet yet, so it's not surprising that things are still going well. We'll see how he feels in 10 levels or so.

But even in the little time I've had with him I've already had some insights into technique, gear, talents, etc. While I originally thought I'd have to stack up on Strength for melee, it seems that Strength and Agility both add 1AP per point, while Agility also adds RAP and dodge, so it still seems much better all-around. I would, of course, have to stack more Stamina than usual since I have no pet to tank for me, and using cloth is out of the question but that's not unexpected.

The other "big" insight was about shot order. While it's not usually much of a concern, since you usually get over the get-as-many-shots-as-you-can-before-mob-get-in-melee-range at level 10, but since I won't have a pet it becomes quite important.

Most hunters I've seen around, start the fight with Concussive Shot, to slow down the mob and buy them some time. That's obviously a good idea, but I have a couple of problems with it. First, it starts off with an instant ability. Of course, I don't have Aimed Shot or Steady Shot or anything that takes time to cast, but the way it works is if you start with an "ability" the first Auto Shot happens a "shot" after the ability. But since the ability is instant anyway, there's no reason not to start with Auto Shot and stick the ability right on top of it, gaining an extra Auto Shot in.

The next thing I've noticed was that if you do the Concussive Shot - Arcane Shot - Serpent Sting sequence, the mob gets in melee range just before that second Arcane Shot goes off CD. That's a shame, as an extra Arcane Shot would be a nice bonus to the ranged damage, so I tried to see if I could do anything about that. As it turns out, if you start with an Arcane Shot, and then fire off the Concussive Shot, you can still squeeze in the same number of Auto Shots (at least with my current gun - might be different with other weapon speeds) and have Arcane Shot off CD just in time to fire another one before introducing the mob to the business side of your axe.

Of course, there are also some things I'm still undecided about, too. Should I, in fact, be going down the Survival tree (which is the most melee-oriented of the three), or should I go with MM so I can do the most damage up front**? Is it worth the mana to start the fight with Aspect of the Hawk and switch to Monkey when the mob gets in melee range? Or maybe Monkey isn't worth it at all, who knows? So, yeah, I've got plenty of things to check and to play around with, so it looks like it'll be a fun experience.




* For other people, mostly, as I made sure I generated less threat than everyone else and ran out when it was obvious we were going to wipe.

** BRK would probably have a fit if he saw an MM hunter with no pet. =)

Oops, I did it again

Had a long weekend here in Japan, which is just perfect for starting a new alt... So in comes Alierah, my new Blood Elf Priest. She's also a tailor and enchanter, although I still haven't gotten any advantages out of either of them.

As expected, I'm going down the Shadow tree for now, trying to find a good way to manage more than 1 mob. Single mobs are a piece of cake, and I practically don't have any downtime, but 2 mobs or more are a little problematic. Not that I die or anything, it just feels a little "random" - I don't have a plan for casting and killing more than 1 mob, and just go with whatever's off CD, so that's obviously not the best I could do. Well, guess it's time to hit the books.

Also, despite her shadowy take on life, I really had no problem healing anything from RFC to SFK even when I was a little low for the instances. That's good, at least. And with all the instance running, I have gear that should last me for quite some time (in case I have trouble finding decent PUGs) - Robes of Arugal (no belt, though), Feline Mantle and Slime-Encrusted Pads to name a few.

The long weekend even gave me time to go into some BGs, with a roughly 50-50 ratio, so it wasn't too despairing. I guess my biggest problem with it was that although I tried to do my part and heal the people around me, they hardly ever took the time to actually help me stay alive. I also got a chance to do a Mana Tap jump-shot on a hunter that was chasing me* one time - I just love the irony. /grin

So last night, I parked her back in Tarren Mill, after going through some of the quests there and training my level 26 skills. I guess next stop is SM. And that's about it - I have some other random stuff that happened this weekend, but I can't remember them right now, so they'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Ha, tricked you. You though I was done, didn't you? That'll teach you not to trust me. Anyway, I had this crazy idea to try and level a hunter without a pet. Why? Well, why not? Call it an experiment. Not sure if I'll actually go through with it, but if I do you can be sure you'll hear about it.



* That didn't change the fact that he killed me, but I did manage to last long enough to bring him back to the farm to die, and cleared the lumber mill for someone else to take. Then again, no one actually took it, so it just means I died so some other people could get an HK. Hmph.

Here we go again

I've been having a lot of fun lately playing Cawti, but I'm getting that itch again... I need to make a new alt, but I don't want to give Cawti up* just yet. I've invested quite a bit in Cawti - leveling BS isn't cheap, and I think Pally skills are more expensive too. Another problem is that, for some reason, I want it to be a priest - but I know that I don't like leveling priests**.

And with all that, knowing myself, that isn't going to stop me. I'll probably have a new priest up and running around Azeroth by the weekend. But actually, maybe the fact that I don't like leveling priests will work in my favor here - if I get sick of him/her/it quickly enough there's a good chance I'll come back to Cawti. Decisions, decisions, everywhere I look...

Oh, and a mini-rant. Just something I have to get off my chest. What's up with the Mithril Order quests? I mean, practically all the other Blacksmithing quests have you make stuff and give you a pattern in return. They're a waste of money, but at least you get to level up your BS while you're at it. But no, these quests just have you dump obscene amounts of Mithril (along with some other materials, but let's say that's negligible) for the patterns. Back before TBC, that quest line was required for anyone wanting to specialize in Armorsmithing, but now that there is no Armorsmithing it becomes even less justified. Now, I know what you're going to say - "so skip 'em". But that's the thing, I just can't. For some reason, I just can't seem to be able to skip class or profession quests. And with Mithril going at 30g a stack on my server right now, it'll easily cost 300g (along with the other materials) to do these quests. So bummer. Hey, maybe that's why I want to start another alt...

Well, guess that's it for today. Now we just wait and see what happens.

* It's just what inevitably happens. I mean, when was the last time I played Mokla or Enara? And I'm not even talking about alts on other realms.

** Not that there's anything wrong with them. It's just that whenever I try it inevitably comes down to soloing or healing instances. I don't like face-melting soloing (at least as far as I got down the tree, which isn't that far), and doing instances is a whole other bag of problems.

Deja Vu

I spent a large part of last night just running Cawti around Azeroth (well, her horse was running, at least) and getting some new flight-paths. Being my highest level Horde alt so far, there were quite a few places I've never been to before - Stonard, Kargath and Camp Mojache*, to name a few.

The last place I decided to go was Raventusk Village in the Hinterlands. I've always liked that area - most people seem to ignore it so it's usually pretty quiet, I like the scenery there, and there's some nice ore. So I landed in Tarren Mill, set forth up the path to the Hinterlands, remembered not to run into Aerie Keep**, and made my way to Raventusk. Finally, I reached the graveyard on the cliff, and went down the path to the beach. After trying to get a tan on my pale Blood Elf complexion (didn't work, BTW), I headed south to the outpost and suddenly had this overwhelming deja vu.

Except, I've never been there before. Ever. I can probably count the number of times I've been down to that beach on one hand, and never have I had any reason to go south towards the troll outpost. It wasn't till later, long after I had logged out for the night that it hit me - that scene, heading to an outpost on a beach, with the sea on my left and a towering cliff on my right brought back memories from Guild Wars (I tried to find a decent map of GW to find the name of the place I was thinking about, but couldn't, so I guess you're out of luck). So I got to reminisce a little about "the good old days", before I knew what grinding meant.

Actually getting to the village was a little anti-climactic, though. Although the area is "officially" for levels 40-50, at 42 I was too low for any of the quests and was surrounded by "silver" exclamation points***. Oh, well, it's all about the journey...



* That's if you don't count the numerous times I was riding through Feralas on an Alliance alt and missed the path going around it, running right into the guards and being introduced to their axes.

** Although, it is possible that being such a small place they still haven't heard about Blood Elf Paladins, and would have mistaken me for Alliance. Still, I wasn't in the mood for checking.

*** Silver my ass. It's no more silver than the usual quest marker is gold. It's just plain gray and yellow!

Random weekend happenings

Quite an eventful weekend, as far as WoW is concerned - I got Cawti through all the different parts of SM, pretty much cleared out all the quests in Desolace and Dustwallow Marsh, and dinged 40*. I also had a chance to set foot into WSG and we actually won. Imagine my surprise. Also, it was quite the educational weekend.

For starters, I noticed that my mount costs mana - not a lot, but still. In WSG when you're constantly mounting and dismounting chasing someone with a stupid flag it gets annoying. Not sure if it's worth forking over the cash for another mount, but annoying nonetheless.

Second, something that I found highly ammusing, but that will have no effect whatsoever on anyone's game - you can HS while eating/drinking. Not only that, you'll still be eating/drinking after you've been teleported to the inn (assuming there's still time left). I wonder if that was intentional.

Third, I learned quite a lot about this whole AoE thing. Especially that it can be really fun when you pull too many, or get too many adds, or runners bring in too many adds, or whatever, regardless of whether or not I actually survive the encounter.

Fourth, while possible that Murlocs aren't the brightest race in Azeroth, I really don't understand how out of a pile of 8 corpses, I only managed to find one head. On the same note, having dragons withhold their Searing Tongue, but drop a Forked Tongue is just plain ridiculous. How many different tongues do these things have?

Uhmm, whatever's next, I lost count already. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. If you're a Warrior who's geared in the finest AH blues available for your level, but still want me to tank for you, and then go on to Whirlwind your way through the instance with huge crits stealing aggro on every single mob, don't blame me when the healer dies. If you're an asshole to boot, it doesn't help. That, however, should not be reason enough to be an asshole myself and take it out on someone else (who, although in the same guild as said warrior, was nice and did nothing to deserve it). So, Cyzti, I'm sorry I didn't go to the Armory again with you guys to finish your quest. If you ever need a Pally for anything at all, give me call.

Got me some nice plate as quest rewards, but I'm still far from replacing everything. What's a good area to quest for some pieces, now that I've cleared Dustwallow? I'm not really sure. Guess I'll hit the other 35-45 zones (if there are any left) and try to find something.

I guess that's almost everything, so one final thought - things are actually going pretty well for Cawti right now, making me wonder if she's The One. Will I finally make it to 70? Will it be before WotLK? Who knows... I guess time will tell.


* Which is kind of anti-climactic now, with mounts being a level 30 thing.