Kinless' Chronicles

2008-07-15T00:33:00.000+01:00

2007-09-28T05:15:00.000+01:00

I Blog at a new service that's work friendly.

Come see me there.

2007-09-13T00:40:00.000+01:00

Furniture arrives tomorrow.

But I've already landed at a new home for blogging that's a little more work friendly.

Future, and more posting, will be done at the Kinless' Chronicles someplace else.

P.S. Last Kara raid I landed Msaker the Eternium Greathelm and the King's Defender. Sweet.

2007-09-08T15:09:00.000+01:00

Raiding, easy mode.

I remember way back when my guild on Smolderthorn first started running Molten Core. We weren't the first in MC, but we were there with the raiders. We were raiders. That guild moved up to be in the top 3 for progress on the server.

But those first times into MC, whoa. We had the advantage of some strategies that had been posted. So we knew things to do, what not to do. And we had decent gear. But, man, it was tough. Though giants and those dogs, and the imps, my god, the imps. Nevermind the bosses.

But, eventually, we'd gotten MC down to a one night affair, done in under 4 hours. Easy purples.

As of last night there is a new raider in my stable. Msaker. His first foray into Karazhan.

The rest had been there a few times now. Not all geared up. But there's a few purples, out of Karazhan, on the rest of them. And gear bought with badges out of the heroics.

Anyway, it's my first time, and I'm the off-tank. That means I tanked Midnight, double-tanked Moroes, and tanked Julianna from the Opera event. I think we had one wipe. Our raid makeup was 2 Warriors, 2 Shadow Priests, a Holy Priest, a Resto Shaman, a Holy Paladin, 2 Rogues, and a Warlock. So we had plenty of shackles, great healing, and good melee DPS. We stopped before the Maiden since they said that required ranged DPS and we had too little of that. No Mage or Hunter.

It was mostly a Rogue night with a lot of leather dropping. (Just like Molten Core!)

But, woot, what a blast. That was a lot of fun. And for my first time I'm certainly glad I got to go with capable and competent people.

2007-09-06T11:46:00.000+01:00

Everything old made new again.

My little polls showing, so far, most folks that visit here and respond to polls, wished there was more 20-60 content. And more land to explore. And then some new classes, and interestingly *not* new races, to round out what my readers want.

(The top two were my two votes too.)

New lands. It's so hard to believe Blizzard will drop a new (Northrend) 1/3 of the land area of old Azeroth onto the world and make it 68-80 zones.

If any of you read about the greater Azeroth, there's lands still out there we can't visit, but do exist in the lore. Undermine and all the islands of the southern seas. Kul Tiras, Crestfall, the Maelstrom, Gilneas. There's lots of places to be added yet. And not all of them need to be level 90-100.

And why not change some of the old quests. Mix it up some. Take those old 20-60 quests, all those silly gathering and run here and there quests, and change them a bit. Make them new. And give the quest givers some new stuff to offer to do for them.

How about a whole "Prepare for Northrend" theme where folks level 20-70 get Azerothian quests that point towards Northrend and our interaction with it.

Well, work calls (and Blogspot is blocked at work) so that's it for now.

In other news before I go, Zug zug.

Msaker's been active, tanking Shattered Halls for the first time he'd ever been there, and only 3 deaths. Two on the boss who can't be taunted. He picked up the razor's edge helm, the style originally on the Tier 2 that Onyxia dropped. Finally a helm I don't mind showing the graphics on again. Lok'tar.

Blackhoof's been healing in the battlegrounds. I guess to build up honor for the day the Arena sets go on sale to the general public. Since I'm not an AFK cave camper the amount of honor I can earn a day isn't really that high. (AFKers earn 10-20 thousand honor a day. What's your honor income?)

2007-09-01T13:58:00.000+01:00

I'd apologize for the past we got, but the future could have been worse.

A guildie, two ex-guildies, one of their hunter guildies, and me. They aren't even in the same guild, these two ex-guildies, but we hooked up and went to Black Morass and got the quests done. A couple of us got our Master's Key. Msaker got his Legplates of the Bold off Aeonus, a dragon of the Infinite Dragonflight. Seemed he was somewhat finite after all. And that's 2 pieces of "the Bold" for him now.

The main healer was a Resto Shaman, and the Shadow Priest was kicking out healing as she did DPS, so we were never hurting. And Not a single loss. Nice. The guildie, a Rogue, did the damage. I tanked, naturally. And the Hunter handled the adds. Impressive.

Oh, yeah, I apologize for the future that came.

But, they say it's better than the future that didn't.

2007-08-26T22:34:00.001+01:00

Gankbang.com. Interesting.

After adding the wife and I's Horde 70's to the Gankbang.com database, I find Droonda on the first page of the Shaman's when I sort on +Attack Power. She's Enhancement, so "Yeah, baby, yeah!" #24 (88%) out of 209 total. Not bad for a non-raider. Blackhoof, logged out in his fighting gear, is at #57 (72%).

Msaker is #194 (58%) out of 466 with regards to Armor. That's kind of disappointing. At least I'm #174 (62%) for Health, but that's also no record.

Now I found I needed to add my characters so that they appeared. If you're checking out Gankbang and don't find yourself, and you're level 70, don't forget that you might need to add yourself to the database.

Other things I found interesting at Gankbang: Their numbers would indicate Shamans are the least popular class. Followed by Paladins and then Druids. Warriors, Mages, and, if you can believe it, Priests round out the top 3. (Where are all those Priests when you need them???)

Least popular classes for the Horde are Paladin, Druid, then Shaman. Least popular for the Alliance are Shamans, Warlocks, and Druids.

Warriors are the most popular for both, followed by Mages for both.

Hunters edge out Priests for 3rd spot for the Alliance. Whereas for Horde, Hunters are bypassed by Rogues, Warlocks, and Priests. They only beat out Shamans. Interesting.

Of course their sample size is only ("Only!" "ONLY!?" Dag!) 850,000, so quite a small sampling of the overall WoW population. (That's just the 70's, and only the 70's the programmer's noticed. I had to manually enter my own two and that of my wife's. Being #24 she should have been there anyway, don't you think?)

2007-08-26T14:54:00.000+01:00

Solo. Instance. Solo. Instance. Enhancement, or Resto? Resto. Or Enhancement? Resto. Chef.

Blackhoof got off his Tauren cowhide seat and flew out to Skettis to do his daily quest. What? The Dwarf had nothing to say to him. Doh. He needed to kill some Ogres first. Twenty of them in fact.

Back to Shattrath and a trip above Aldor Rise to where the Ogres are. Being a Resto specced Shaman, and having been in an Outlands instance, oh, four times, he was kind of the wrong spec for this lifestyle. Shield in one three fingered hand, and a Nexus Claw in the other, he took on Ogres one at a time. (Which is possible since they aren't linked.) Every battle saw him at about 1/3-1/4 health when it was over. Don the healing gear (600 or so +Healing), recover, then reequip the fighing gear (950 or so +Attack Power), and move to the next Ogre.

Then I thought: "Well, hell. This sucks." I went ahead and did the daily quest anyway. The birds managed to knock me off my mount twice. And fighting them was like pushing a wet noodle around. But, I finished that too.

(Reminds me of way back when I was gumming STV Trolls to death. Full Resto. BUT I did manage to leave a Human Paladin, same level, for dead anyway, after he killed my guildies Warlock alt. Ah, life on a PvP server.)

Then I thought: "Enough." Ported back to Shattrath and hopped into the portal back home to Kalimdor, to pay the Shaman Trainer in Orgrimmar a visit.

Did I want to relearn my talents? Yes. Did I want to pay 15 gold to do so? No. Argh! Take it anyway. Reset my talents for the Enhancement plus a little Resto life.

Then I get invited into a group to go to Steamvaults. I can knock out three things there. I can get the Warlord's head. I can pick up the orders for Lady V. And I can get my key fragment. But I'm Enhancement, not Resto.

The party, guild, consisted of a Warrior all in purples. Nice. He knew it. He had purples in his bag he wasn't using. Nice. I've got purples too. :) They're all level 60 though. :(

Anyway, the Warrior is excellently geared. A Rogue. Our guild's 2nd-in-command, a Warlock. Another Shaman, and me.

This other Shaman I assumed was Resto. Isn't everyone used to instancing Resto? But, no. He was Enhancement. Great. Was he going to heal? Uh, no. He didn't have gear to heal, only fight. I checked out his gear. 350 or so +Attack Power. Hmmm. Was that his Healing set perhaps? No. 22 +Healing. Oh, good lord. He was going to help DPS. I was the healer.

The Warrior was great. The Rogue, not a problem. The Shaman? Like a teen going down at an R. Kelly party. Aggro management. (Or use a shield.)

We got my key fragment. But after several tries at the Hydromancer we called it.

Okay. So that's out. I returned to Orgrimmar and respecced back to Resto. And spent the rest of the night working on my cooking skill. (Completed the Gadgetzan quest to raise my cooking limit to 300.) I did that because as an Alchemist I should be able to produce potions and foods that provide effects and buffs. There's two nice recipes I picked up in Blades Edge, but my Cooking, still, remains too low to take advantage of it.

P.S. Msaker, in Defense gear and stance, never gets knocked off his mount by the birds of Skettis. Does the dismount occur upon being critted, and being uncrittable makes me immune to that?

2007-08-25T01:08:00.000+01:00

I was down, then up. But then I realized the solo, or small group, player was going to be left behind. Yet again. And seemingly forevermore.

At first the news of the future brought me down. What? More level 70+ stuff? The Sunwell Plateau. "Sunwell Plateau will be coming in a patch before the WotLK launch. It will include both a 25-main raid and a 5-main instance with both normal and heroic mode." Raiders only. Yeah, pugs in Auchinduon do just fine, right?

Then I read about the leveling process being sped up some by Blizzard. Sure. It kind of has to do this. Since Blizzard doesn't give a green goblin butt's care for "mid-game content" it's pretty darn elven of them to get players to the end-game faster. And the instanced end-game at that. Guild Wars anyone? Instant max level character that you take into instanced areas. Familiar? Too.

It seems, now, that the new races were simply their means of getting end-game Paladins into Horde hands, and end-game Shamans into Alliance hands. Yeah, the new 1-20 content remains 2/3 of the highlight of the expansion. The 60-70 content the other 1/3. At least for me. Mileage from hardcore raiders may vary though.

What I need to do is get two computers here, side by side, and get back inside the game with my Princess. Orcs, Elves, and Humans. That'd make things better for sure. :)

2007-08-16T02:00:00.000+01:00

Hey all.

Not doing much in the hotel room here. But I found word of a new database over on WoW Insider. Lootables. I've linked to it over in my Resources sidebar. Check it out. With guides to level the professions. Handy. And it looks good.

2007-08-08T04:17:00.000+01:00

Bought a house.

Looking for a truck. Browsing Ashley Furniture for a bed and a formal dining room table.

And that takes a bit of time. (Doing affordability studies take even more.)

And playing WoW on a laptop... Not desirable.

But, dang, that house is a nice one. With a pool installed by next summer, my journeys in Northrend will be punctuated with swims in the azure oasis behind the house.

That's where I've been and where I hope to be.

Now, once we get back online, I realize I don't have time to devote to a new foray into a PvP world.

The wife and I need to get an Alliance couple to 70 now.

Is it the Druids?

Or is it the Paladin and the Mage?

All four are in the early 40's.

2007-08-04T10:33:00.000+01:00

Deathknight. Coming to a Valley of Honor or Chapel of Light near you.

Deathknight. Blizzard's first Hero Class for World of Warcraft.

From Blizzard:

The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies. Players might be familiar with the death knight from previously released Warcraft games -- most recently, in the campaigns for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the Frozen Throne expansion, the former paladin Arthas became a death knight and wreaked havoc across Azeroth and Northrend before fusing with the spirit of Ner'zhul to become the Lich King.

We haven't yet made a final determination about which races can be death knights. However, the class will be available to both the Alliance and the Horde.

So which class can start over as Deathknight? Any?

I sure hope so. My Shaman is gimp. What a wonderful opportunity, with a little help from my friends, that I can make Blackhoof, currently a Shaman, a Deathknight. Then Msaker. Then Arcarius. Hmmm. Will we see enough Deathknights around? Shopping for reagents. Farming motes. Dancing on mailboxes. They're going to be as common as Gnomes on the end of a kebab skewer.

Speaking of Orc BBQ, Gnome Deathknights? WTH?

Somewhere a lore writer is weeping heavy tears of infinite sadness.

2007-08-04T00:08:00.000+01:00

New expansion.

Takes place in Northrend.

Appears to be about more end-game.

The new area, Northrend, is designed for 68-80. Bring your Outlands gear to conquer more of the Homeland.

Tuskarr and Taunka are Horde friendly races. No mention of new Alliance allies.

No word on any new 1-70 content. But unless they're going to add new zones or races, there won't be any.

So, you got it, new races, if any, will get their 1-20 content area, and then you go struggle in STV like your Dreanei did, and your Trolls did, and your grandpa did. Why,when I was leveling up, it was uphill, both ways, in the snow, barefoot. Nice to know you kids aren't getting any breaks!

They say they were pleased with the 60 to 70 pacing. If you recall that was beaten in 4 days, or was it a mere 24 hours?, by some French guy if I recall correctly.

That means 70-80 will be reached within a week by the usual hardcore cadre, and a month by the raiders (more guilds broken apart perhaps?), and 3-4 months by the rest of us.

It's all good though. It's WoW.

P.S. I'm not going to level my NE Hunter past 68 though. Spending months at 70 might be as non-productive as spending months at 60 was.

2007-07-31T16:41:00.000+01:00

Call me crazy.

I've created a new character.

On a PvP server.

My old one, Smolderthorn, and they've invited me back in the guild, now called Satori. They're killing Gruul, and I'm questing in the Barrens.

I'm Grorc, Orc Shaman. The wife, bless her, has created Oggra, Orc Warlock.

Playing on wireless, laptop computer, out of a hotel room, starting over on a PvP server.

I must be nuts.

And I stole the name of the other character on this server that I've made. Enricosuave, Blood Elf Rogue. (Of course.)

It really should be interesting. Now, two plus years after release, can you start from scratch on a PvP server and succeed? On the plus side I've got some really powerful friends.

And, dang, it's so cool to me around my old friends from my Day of the Dead/Requeim/Dies Irae days. Now they're Satori and back to the basics. Cool.

2007-07-22T19:40:00.000+01:00

Then there was one.

One more night before the movers show up.

And then down to one computer.

Try to pause someplace comfortable.

2007-07-21T21:38:00.000+01:00

The shoulders have gotten out of hand.

Blizzard. Please fix Orc shoulders soonest.

Ugly pink skin hood adornment is very ugly. It makes me look like rabbit.

Zug zug.

2007-07-20T21:36:00.001+01:00

Droonda's First Time in the Steamvaults.

Training for chaos. #2 on the DPS.

DPS = Droonda, Princess, Shaman

2007-07-19T22:28:00.000+01:00

Mager Twinkage.

Mana Wyrmling and some crafted gear.

2007-07-18T23:21:00.000+01:00

Why Horde lose very AV I've been in. Bruised monkeys, the lot of them.

Rampage-US Battlegroup. The last AV I was in:

The names my change as the battles do, but the habits and trends don't. Every AV I've been in has been a loss. The battles aren't even close anymore. We don't even reach Stormpike nowadays. We lose the entire map. There are Alliance packs everywhere. You only need 10 to kill Drek afterall.

If you find me in the battle, I'll be near the top of the chart, in healing, and healing my Resto Tauren butt off. I'll pick a Warrior, Earthshield the guy, let him do his thing, and keep him going. My small part in the effort.

What I've seen is typically 15-20 Horde sitting in our cave, and maybe 5 Alliance sitting in theirs. But, as you can see, winners will eventually get off their butts and make an appearance and score an honor kill somewhere. But losers? Losers are just yanking their monkeys waiting for the loss to end. How far the Horde has fallen. I bet the Blood Elves regret joining us.

P.S. The Arathi Basin match I was in before this? A win. Go figure.

2007-07-18T14:26:00.000+01:00

A year ago, where was I?

Ah, yes. Just moved to Germany. With ideas.

How did these ideas turn out?

So, my dream team, assembeled on Kirin Tor:

Kinless, level 48 Night Elf Hunter (from Argent Dawn and brought out of retirement)

He made it to Kirin Tor, is now called Arcarius, and is level 65.

Darkhand, level 45 Night Elf Rogue (from Frostmane and brought out of retirement)

He made it to Kirin Tor too, same name, is now level 50.

Greenclaw, level 36 Night Elf Druid (already there)

He's made it to level 43. I do like the Druids. But six levels in a year?! That's got to pick up some! :)

Freewind, level 26 Night Elf Warrior (same)

He made it to 40 and joined the group on Steamwheedle Cartle and is now called Mourneblade. I can't abide losing characters. At least not too many.

Pharazon, Draenei Paladin (because a demon Paladin will be cool)

So I made a Draenei Shaman, and named him Exilarch. Level 21 now.

That's 5 for the Alliance, and a 50-50 split.

Darkhoof, level 60 Tauren Shaman (if he leaves Smolderthorn)

He did leave Smolderthorn. On Kirin Tor he became known as Blackhoof. He made it to 70.

Oddity, level 46 Orc Arms/Fury Warrior (if he leaves Smolderthorn)

He too left Smolderthorn for Kirin Tor. He's now called Msaker and he also made it to 70. Hard to believe!

Morticai, level 36 Forsaken Protection Warrior (Arms/Fury if Oddity stays put)

Morticai met his final demise. I didn't need 3 Warriors on the same server. One Alliance, Freewind, and one Horde, Msaker, was enough.

Darbanville, level 25 Forsaken Priest (if she leaves Smolderthorn)

She too arrived on Kirin Tor. (Time is money, friend.) And is level 40 now.

JohnDoe (no name yet), Blood Elf Warlock (of course)

That became Sunstriker, level 30 Frost Mage.

Nakosi, a 21 Tauren Druid, signed up, to keep my wife's Tauren Hunter company. I figured I'd make a guild called "Hialeah's Pet" and be the only member. My wife being, of course, Hialeah. Until then we're both the only members of "Need More Cowbell" and like the peace.

5 for the Horde.

And a week from today the last of our furniture will be loaded back onto a truck for our return back to the States.

It was a good year, a fun year, but home is calling.

2007-07-17T10:05:00.000+01:00

Two for the road.

Greenclaw and Itarilde are having a bit of difficulty finding quests in our level.

So we headed out to Feralas and Fethermoon Keep. There were some quests there we could start. The one with the Naga in the ruins, that was easy enough for us. Itarilde goes to Dire Bear form and tanks. Greenclaw goes to Cat form and ravages things. It's really a nice combo. We're both Feral and it's synergistic.

With two Druids we have:

Tank, with taunt + DPS, with aggro fade.

Each of us can heal, with two heals over time, plus a big heal. And we can heal ourselves in Bear form as well.

Our buffs are great. And we've got Leader of the Pack.

Crowd control against animals, times two.

We can stealth places mere mortals can't go.

And we can swim really fast. The new header graphic above was taken off the coast of Feralas as we searched for the couriers boat. The water elementals were red to us, but we were faster and never in danger. Felt like Jacques Cousteau subjects there. (Or Steve Zissou's.)

And, at 68, we'll have flight form.

And we're really deep in the lore with the Cenarian folks all over the place.

Druids: Not just tree huggers.

2007-07-12T07:35:00.000+01:00

Woodworking. And some random crafting thoughts.

Tobold mentioned it recently, and WoWInsider too. And I'm pretty sure I raised the issue a long while back in a comment on Tobold's in a crafting post he made.

Anyway, Woodworking.

They'd be able to craft shields. Better woodworking, better shields and higher level. How about customizing shields then. Make Paladin, Shaman, and Warrior shields custom tailored for their requirements.

Arrows. Allow woodworking to craft arrows that address certain needs. Fire Arrow for a small aoe fire burst on hit. Ice Arrow to impart a little slowing on the target. Hate Arrow to act as a taunt. Pain Arrow to add a dot. Useable by anyone that can use a bow or crossbow. (And not equipped in the ammo slot. Simply when used, if equipped with bow or crossbow, fires as the next shot as if in the ammo slot.) This would give non-hunters, but users of bows or crossbows, a few more situational options.

Tribal armor. Made of wood. Like the Forest Troll shoulders. The one like the Horde gets with AB rep. Primitive but "Green." Al Gore would be proud of me. (But is chopping down the forests really PC? I think not.)

Which leads me to custom crafted equipment. Why not allow the ability of include "of the Bear" or "of the Tiger" customization to gear? Using various gems in the standard recipe for blacksmiths, or essences and such, for leatherworking. This would make those crafts a lot more useful for various talent choices.

And, then, woodworking can make basic equipment and ammo for folks just like engineering can.

Oh, how about traps. Like Grizzly Adams. Make a wood contraption that acts like a hunter's trap. (Useable only by woodworkers.)

Or, how about a temporary stable? You know if your stables are full, and you dismiss your pet, you can tame another pet. You're last active pet just disappears into the ether. That's new, but get rid of that. It's not well implemented. How about make a temporary "Dog House" that you can pull out, stable your pet, tame a new one, learn it's ability, abandon, and retrieve your old pet back out of the Dog House.

Speaking of dog houses, I'd better go because I'll be in one shortly if I don't.

2007-07-11T23:52:00.000+01:00

The Charge.

Well, that wraps that up. Grom'tor's Charge is mine. And Droonda got the ridiculously large Torn-heart Axe of Battle. The two-hander is as big as she is.

We simply went to the alter and asked for help with Cyrukh the Firelord in general chat. Two Hunters and a Warlock responded. Droonda can heal, I can tank, we had DPS. That was all we needed. More easy loot.

And, it's a pretty nice axe.

Last bit of gear I want, before I'm satisfied, two really:

The Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves from the Mana Tombs escort quest.
And the Platinum Shield of the Valorous from Hellmaw in the Shadow Labyrinths.

And the rest of the Bold armor set.

And, oh yeah, 2 more points in Blacksmithing, and a few more Primal Mana's, to craft my own Helm of the Stalwart Defender.

Then he can take it easy for a bit.

P.S. The screenshot really highlights the "bug" Blizzard introduced last patch. Orc shoulders look like minitures. Really not sure how a "bug" like this would even be introduced. They aren't cockroaches that enter the Blizzard development room in the middle of the night, and after munching on stale cheetoes and drinking flat jolt cola they wander around and die somewhere, preferably in a forgotten section of code where they next appear as a "bug" in the latest patch.

Seriously, claiming it's a "bug" makes it sound like a random fluke thing. As if some wandering cockroach really just died in the code. Likely?

Maybe the developers were working on Orc shoulders and were calculating in english standard units and in reality metric was required. This seems much more likely. At least it's pretty likely that the developers were working on Orc shoulders and somehow messed up.

Yes, Orc shoulders can be big and imposing. And this Orc likes it that way. That's the whole point!

2007-07-11T12:34:00.001+01:00

Five Reasons Why I Blog

I got tagged and didn't realize it. Back in May, the Ancient Gaming Noob tagged me.

"Kinless at Kinless’ Chronicles: Because he links me despite the fact I haven’t talked about WoW much lately and he appears to be the kind that actually responds to these things. I mean, Gitr got him to do one of these just a couple weeks back. Now he can pass this back to Gitr."

Ouch.

I remember the one the from Gitr. But this one slipped past me. Apologies! So I'll do it now.

Five reasons why I blog.

I blog because 1) I have opinions. All bottled up inside they're meaningless. May as well have saved the energy the brain cells and/or the everlasting soul used to formulate them, if they remain unheard/unseen. Get them out. Speak up. Sometimes you vent. Sometimes you rant. Sometimes something's irked you. Sometimes you're boasting, got Ruul!, sometimes you want to share your experiences, sometimes you've got some good stuff to share, Blood Elf Bandit Masks. Sometimes you're just letting the words flow like water moves downhill. They just come out. Servers down, Horde sucks in Alterac Valley, loot drops, raiders, casuals, other people, guildies. Yeah, I'm talking about all of it. As it strikes me.

2) I write a blog because I read blogs. I didn't think of doing this on my own. I was inspired by two blogs I'd found, a long time ago: Tomas Rofkahr's and Psyae's WoW et cetera. He's been busy with RL lately, and Psyae, I'm not sure. Both of these had engaging writing and looked like they were having fun. I thought it was an interesting pool to swim in, a community inside a community *inside* a community. And so it started. And now I read a few, and more linked by links, blogs. Not necessarily WoW related. Gaming related is fine, and interesting for me. Mostly WoW, but the rest are just enjoyable to read anyway. They've got eyes on worlds I can't see. I like to hear about it at least.

3) I write a blog because it's the closest thing to a journal or diary that I've ever done. Kinless' Chronicles. Says it right there in the title. It's a journal, recounting, for myself, and anyone else so interested, what I'm doing in the game. This blog is like having a photo album that stretches back a year and a half now, to December 2005. I can read it and remember my raiding days in Molten Core. Or world PvP battles. Or people who's lives, virtual, have crossed paths with mine. I still get the occasional "Hey, how's it going" on MSN Messenger from fellow raiders, guidies, friends, that have long left the game. This is how I remember those times.

4) I write a blog since I've been writing for a while now. I wrote probably a sizeable chunk of the student literary magazine in my senior year of high school. And I contributed twice more to my junior college's annual literary magazine. I even won an award for writing from the other writers in my class, given to me at the school's annual awards banquet by the writing professor who's son's name was given to the memorial award, even though I thought all their stuff was more interesting than mine. At each grade there were the teachers, then professors, who thought I was going into journalism or writing or something. I was learning computer programming languages for a bit, then I switched to engineering as the "default" career choice. I still do the engineering, management side of things now, and writing too it seems. I enjoy writing because I think of it as art, or an art.* I can't paint, I can't hold a tune, I can't bend metal into shapes, but this gets me close to that where I can be expressive and playful in a medium. For myself at the very least.

5) I blog because it's communication with other players/gamers. I'm not hanging out in a trading card game shop to discuss things, or hearing about stuff. I'm doing it here, with you all, via comments here and your own blogs.

And it would be at this point of a meme-based post, to pass it on. But, no, I can't do that. I missed the boat. Gitr is off the hook. :)

However! You can go ahead and do it anyway. All you. All two of you. (Three? no, that's your shadow, nevermind.) Tell us Five Reasons why you Blog on your blogs.

*For writing as art look no further than fantasy writer Gene Wolfe. His Book of the New Sun series, and Book of the Short Sun series are absolutely stunning examples of literature. The language, stories, stories inside stories, scenes, characters, manner of delivery even, provide something worthy of reading over and over into shreds and buying another copy of. Iain M. Banks is up there too.

P.S. I also use my log as a repository of resource links. Handy for all sorts of things.

2007-07-10T20:04:00.000+01:00

Two getting it done.

Ruul the Darkener. Dead.

In the big quest chain in Shadowmoon Valley, working for the pig farmer Oronok and his sons, we're led to Ruul the Darkener. And we kill him. Four man quest, done by 2.

So far...

so good.

Admittedly the 2nd try. First time I tanked and Droonda dps'd. Bad idea. Ruul's got himself a cleave going on. Second try, Droonda stayed in back, in her healing gear. And Msaker piled on an endless stream of devastates, shield slams, revenges, and shield blocks.

Bottom line: Victory.

Now we wait for a little assistance on the final part.

Hey, where did we go
Days when the rains came?
Down in the hollow
Playing a new game,
Laughing and a-running, hey, hey,
Skipping and a-jumping
In the misty morning fog with
Our, our hearts a-thumping
And you, my brown-eyed girl.

-Van Morrison

2007-07-10T11:31:00.001+01:00

Is WoW dying?

There's been a bit of buzz lately about "subscription" numbers, and censii, and impirical analyses involving the cost of pizza at the Pizza Hut in Nanjing. Common wisdom has it that as gold sales increase the cost of a slice of pepperoni pizza increases. And when sales drop, pizza prices drop, and that indicates a drop in players buying gold, and ultimately a drop in number of players. Okay, I'm making the last bit up. (But it does mirror in a way the pizza ordering skyrocketed at the Pentagon on the eve of the first Gulf War. Or was it donuts? You get the idea.)

But, whether or not you like pepperoni or sausage on your slice of pizza, or thin or thick crust, is World of Warcraft dying?

Censii numbers are interesting. But are you going to trust the Government on that? Or a collection of players dutifully submitting CensusPlus data back up the line? I've gone through two phases of running CensusPlus myself. Mostly out of curiosity. Are most players really Night Elf Hunters? Yep. But on PvP servers it was Rogues. A while back I returned to a mid-20's character on a PvP server. Took him to Redridge where he got jumped by a jumping jack level 60 Orc Rogue. Without a damn thing better to do with his time. The Census revealed a nearly flat chart, until you got to 60, where it then jumped to 4,000 some players. Sharks swim. If you aren't swimming with them, your shark food, or detritus sinking to the bottom. This was over a year ago. Was the server dead? Hardly. Dead to me? Perhaps.

Spring forward to today. I was in Winterspring last night. Winterspring is mostly empty of players anyway. What fool grinds out to 60 in the old world anymore? But back when we were, before the Burning Crusade even came out, it was empty. I was gathering Runecloth, and that was also getting me a little Timbermaw Reputation so I can leatherworking patterns to make stuff for characters that aren't 60 yet. Wouldn't you know it, a level 70 Nelf, but of course, Hunter was farming there too. His gun must have been faster since he always managed to tag the Chieftain. I got the Chieftain a few times. And at +25 rep, he's a real prize. (What am I doing wrong? Is +1/+5 and the occasional +25 rep the only way to grind Timbermaw rep? No beads dropped either. And the "totem turn in" item was only good to me once I reached Neutral with them. I'm still unfriendly. Enough to pass through, not a rep point higher.) So this level 70 Hunter was working on his Timbermaw Rep.

Anyway, Winterspring has always been empty in my experience. Going back well over a year. The Plaguelands were always busier. And they show occasional signs of life. Like the *deleted* thorium gatherers. (Wait. *I'm* a Thorium gatherer sometimes. Nonetheless, a plague on them. Let them stay home and sip chicken soup from sippy cups and watch "Lost" reruns. I need, no, really, need more Thorium to craft some more gear for Honorus and Halcyon. And the up-and-coming Winkydink.)

So, the high-end lands have always been bleak. Still are. No change there.

Now I'll admit the old "end-game" instances are pretty much dead. Except I got a tell the other night asking if I wanted to tank AQ20 for fun and shards. And our Human characters are going to make a pointed effort to get keys for Stratholme and Scholomance. People are hitting them anyway.

But that didn't kill the game, these dead former end-game instances. Folks just skipped right over through the Dark Portal into the Outlands. The rare level 60 PvP set I'd put together for Msaker, all the work I put into it, lasted, oh, a couple of quests and an instance run before I started trading it out with green upgrades. Most places will be empty of people, until you hit the level 70 hang outs, like the Elemental Plateau and other farming spots, as well as Shattrath City, and Goldshire where they climb to the roof of the inn and duel out front in the dust.

There's just as many new characters as ever, doing the same things people have been doing since forever. Goldshire is busy as ever. Elf bones line the road in the Wetlands. Somebody is always looking for group to find the flightpoint. The Auction House carrys a wide variety of goods, sellers and enchanters and jokesters populate the channels to the point of silliness.

Is WoW dead because their subscription numbers aren't increasing?

Are you dead because you reached maturity and stopped growing? Hardly.

Relax. Roll a Night Elf and enjoy the trees of Teldrassil. You've got plenty of adventure left in you.

2007-07-09T07:20:00.001+01:00

Shadowmoon Valley vs. Netherstorm. Give me the Valley. But take my guildie, please.

We spent a few more hours yesterday questing in Shadowmoon Valley.

There was the super easy "Kill 20 things" quest that netted us 19g each.

And there was this crazy Blood Elf with a fascination for the dinosaurs. First we had to collect some of their spleens. Then we had to control some mechanical scorpions and go and "tag" some more of them. Then we had to track down and kill the Granddaddy Dino. Easy. No loot, a little cash.

Next quest was something about creating a bomb from Fel Reaver parts. As I was in the water collecting a part, and the mutant ... things were swimming about, I took a screenshot exclaiming "Wow. This place is acid." The whole place. The ground crawls with green nets of felstuff. There's parts of the landscape filled with flying ash. There are just so many things I've never noticed before and did. Netherstorm is sterile compared to the Valley.

(On other things you never notice till you do: Earlier, in the Badlands, Effilda and Honorus, while in an Ogre camp, noticed the tent was made with skins. The skin of a human head was part of it. Creepy. Wild.)

The Fel Reaver bomb quest concluded easily. Just flew in to the green zone. Killed the Mistress. Dropped the bomb. The stone guys all blew up, and the Warlocks kept walking as if nothing happened. Mount up, fly out. Easy.

The last quest we worked on is a rather long one. In the end it'll net me a nice "pre-Kara" tanking weapon. The first part was collecting elemental spirits for one guy. Earth and Fire, then Water, then Air. Upon which he sent us to another guy. This guy raises pigs who will search for tubors. That was seriously the most annoying quest. There are rock flayers in the same area that hunt the pigs. The tubor signs don't last that long. And you can accidently kill the pigs if you aren't careful. Getting 10 each was an exercise in patience. When we got the follow-on, to smash flayer eggs, we were on it. With a vengeance.

And that led us to our next set of quests, and that was to track down this pig farmers sons. That'll be for another day.

We did get a little side quest. While looking for Air Elementals we came upon this valley. You'll know it for the Netherwing Drakes flying all over. Just outside of the Black Temple area. There is an elf there, with twin Resonating Axes, that wants you to show a little kindness to the Netherwing Drakes. The young ones are spooked and getting hungry. So you go and kill some of the big flayers and put their carcass out. And a Drake will drop from the sky. It will then sniff the carcass, and then bat it like a cat might. Then a bite and the carcass is gone. Then it will turn to the person who fed it, say something in Draconic, and sniff the player. After feeding a few we returned to the elf and he told us to go talk to the big Netherwing named Neltharaku. He wanted us to go slay Dragonmaw Orcs. Another day as well.

After Droonda left for the night Msaker got an invite to Shadowlabs. Sure. It was a little late but I'd go. Shouldn't take too long. Well, we started later than I'd care for, and by the time Hellmaw was dead I was done. One player in particular, a guildie at that, who kept screaming we needed to do things his way, and stay by his totems, and just pull Hellmaw wherever the "f$*#" he was. "We usually take him back in the hallway that's behind him." (Seems that's the understanding of the other party members as well. And we don't need tremor totems doing it that way.) "THAT'S HEROICS. JUST PULL OR I WILL." Then the same person, Aldor it seems, said "Just need the Fel Armament," stupid me, I do, because I am, and the Paladin (healing) says, "Uh, no we roll" and rolls a 92. Ding. I'm done. I open a trade window with the Pally, since I'd won the need roll, and I gave him the Fel Armament. "I've got to go." "Replace him," says the Elementalist without missing a beat.

Oh yeah, Damage Meter reports over and over. So Elementalist tops the report. We're not surprised. But we also aren't interested. Over and over. How do you say "You're so leet, you rock my world. Your presence is an honor I don't deserve. You're so potent." without sounding snide about it? "Whatever, dude. Get over yourself."

(And we always greed the armaments regardless of faction because there should be some reward for everyone. You can sell if you aren't Aldor, and use if you are. On guild runs. So with some puggies along, naturally)

I'm figuring our lives need not "intersect," this Elementalist's and mine. Putting him on /ignore won't hurt me one bit. On the other hand I'd miss the opportunity to keep adding "Get over yourself," in guild and party chat.

Color me conservative, but we do fine playing things careful. There was no need to wipe three times before Hellmaw. Oh, yeah, the Elementalist is fast on his feet and didn't die every time. What a shame.

2007-07-05T21:25:00.001+01:00

Two on the Path of conquest.

Msaker and Droonda. Tonight we did The Path of Conquest quest chain. Just the two of us. Flying mount was pretty much required for us to do it alone. Nachmahd gave us a hand on the very last part, healing while we killed our last two Crazed Colossi. There was a nice +Defense and +Shield Block ring for Msaker, and Droonda took the +Attack Power, of course.

Two worlds collide. Ours vs. Theirs. We win.

Who's crazy now?

Two too pretty.

2007-07-05T06:42:00.000+01:00

A year and a half late. (More easy enough gear.)

Remember Molten Core? And Onyxia's Lair? Probably not. Anyway, remember the gear out of there? Again, probably not. "Onyxia's where?" Right.

There was once a day you could get some good, and good looking, gear out of level 60 end-game instances. That's when you ran them. The Molten Core "Tier 1" sets and then Onyxia, Ragnaros, and Blackwing Lair for the "Tier 2" stuff.

Now there's a new shot at Level 70 versions of it. Well, some of it. Well, the helms.

The "I'm a rabid dog, and these keep me from scratching my ears" or "Halp, my head is stuck in a bear trap!" Warrior helm out of Molten Core is available. And the Dragonstalker Hunter's helm, and the Helm of Ten Storms Shaman's helm from Onyxia as well. (And the Rogue and Druid helms too.) And for running a few quick quests in Shadowmoon Valley. You'll need a flying mount, and a tank, but otherwise it's easy enough.

The quest chain involves Teron Gorefiend. You're first stop, for the Horde(!), is Chief Apothecary Hildagard in Shadowmoon Valley. He sends you out to get 15 ash piles. Sooo easy. Just fly south out of the village and collect them along the green goo coastline. (They look like little volcanoes spewing green clouds.) If you want to collect fast, fight some stuff. If you don't want to fight, no problem either. There's a lot of it out there.

Next step is to kill ghosts. You'll be given some "Spectrecles" to see them. And, dang, if you aren't already surrounded by the ghosts right there in the village. Kill a dozen why don't you. They don't aggro and you won't see them, even with the Spectrecles on, if you've killed them and completed that part of the quest.

Next stop Hildagard sends you out to find an "Ancient Shadowmoon Spirit". Some alter on the edge of the world and there's this ghost. He wants three things from you. Teron Gorefiend's old Cloak, Truncheon, and Armor. The Cloak is easy to solo. There's some ghost clerics around, one of which has it. They don't run from the fight, they don't cast anything, and they've spread themselves out enough so you can fight them one at a time.

The Truncheon is a little more difficult, and you'll want a friend. It'll drop from some so-called Ghostriders. (Or you can come back to your lifeless corpse, rez, and loot the one that you did manage to kill by yourself.) They ride the road that runs in a circle around the Hand of Gul'dan. Take the road and you'll run into them. (Or plant yourself and they'll run into you.)

The last part, the Armor. Oh, noes! Five-man! Yeah, yeah. Like Dimensius the All-Devouring required five too. Yeah, right. Something about being a Protection Tank, if you know that you've got healing around, you feel like, no, you know, you're invincible. Msaker took Droonda, DPS Shaman Princess, and Nachmahd, Shaman Healer, and figured we were good. We flew to the highest peak where Vhel'kur was circling around. He's got the Gorefiend's armor.

What he doesn't have is a cleave, nor a kickback, nor an aoe attack. This is a pure "spank and tank" exercise. He hits hard, but nothing a Resto Shammy can't handle. And with Droonda cranking out DPS we got our armor in no time. Oh, yes, I've read some notes about pulling to an area, clearing out some of those flayers... Nuts to that. We three huddled on the very peak of that mountain and fought him standing still. Our battleground for this fight was like a square meter large. (Orcs are metric. Check the lore.)

Then it was back to the "ancient spirit" to whom you turn in Teron Gorefiend's gear. Psyche! You've been punked! That was no innocent "Ancient Shadowmoon Spirit!" That was Teron Gorefiend himself. And he's got one last trick to play on you. He makes you take control of him to defeat a big Draenei called Karsius the Ancient Watcher. You get a pet/minion bar with an attack button and some abilities. Trick is to use every ability as soon as the cooldown is over. I use OmniCC and I get actual numbers counting down on my buttons. This is a godsend. Anyway, for this fight, Karsius appears. I moved a little closer, and then dropped the aoe with Karsius at the outside edge and me on the opposite edge. That way when he moves in to me he's still in the aoe. Then I drop the shield, and then I drain the life. Repeat each as it's cooldown ends. Easy. And, woots, I, and Droonda and Nachmahd, returned to Hildagard to collect our reward. Our reward for releasing a revived Teron Gorefiend onto an unsuspecting world again. (What's wrong with this picture? Black Temple raiders should be rewarding me for freeing him so he can drop loot for them.)

Msaker got his Molten Core helm. Droonda took the Shaman helm. Her eyepatch from the Blade's Edge Mountains was better AP then the hunter's helm. And her headband of Simmonz from Nagrand was better healing. What the Shaman's helm provides her is some spell damage. And some very cool looks.

Then we watched some fireworks.

Then Blackhoof came out. He recruited some guildies, including a warrior to tank, hunter and rogue to dps, and we did the same thing. Some glitches. Even though I was wearing the Spectrecles, I could not see the dragon. When he attacked I did not see him. I could heal my guildies, but could not see him. In fact, being a little confused, our warrior died. And I could out-of-combat rez him, and did. And he kept fighting. And then they stopped fighting. WTF? I unequipped the Spectrecles. And then reequipped them. Dead dragon at my feet. Looted it for the armor. Sweet. I took the Shaman helm because it's slightly better than the headpiece I was wearing from Blade's Edge. And in the Battlegrounds a little more spell damage never hurt.

And, damn it, it's about time Onyxia gave up a Shaman Helm for me. Even if I had to wait a year and a half to get it, and after seeing and then killing a different dragon.

2007-07-04T09:02:00.000+01:00

U.S. guild takes 6th, behind 5 European guilds.

WoWInsider had an interesting article yesterday. (They're all interesting, but this one I've commented about before.)

US guild Death and Taxes has managed to snag the US-first Illidan kill and thus finish all available raid content in the game. Their US-first puts them world-sixth, behind European guilds Nihilum, Forte, Last Resort, Curse, and For the Horde.

I'm just really curious why the Europeans dominate in this virtual world.

With drive like that, (first to Illidian, first to 70, first to 60?) the Europeans should rule the world.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

P.S. This just came into my head. Byproduct of a longer post I trimmed before publishing. From William Shatner's version of Pulp's Common People:

I said, pretend you've got no money.
She just laughed, and said
oh you're so funny. I said, yeah?
Well, I can't see anyone else smiling in here.

Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see?
You want to sleep with common people?
You want to sleep with common people, like me?
But, she didn't understand,

She just smiled and held my hand.

2007-07-02T07:04:00.000+01:00

Black Forest weekend. Mostly. More keys.

The wife and I headed south this weekend. Started playing tourist in Freiburg. We climbed the cathedral's bell tower, were there at quarter till when some bell rang (surprise!), wandered the town, had a fancy dinner, saw the market around the cathedral in the morning. Had coffee and muffins at Starbucks. Then off to the forest itself. Cuckoo clocks all over the place, Germany's highest falls, and then to an open air museum highlighting traditional farmhouses from all over the Black Forest region. One old house was last lived in in 1994 (before being moved to the museum site) and was filled with household stuff from the 50's through the 70's. What a curious life that person must have had. Watching t.v. in a house where cows are still under the same roof. Even the folks in Goldshire live better. Different. It was fascinating seeing these places and imagining what their lives were like.

Ah, back to thoughts of the game. So we return, home that is, and there's a Setthek Halls run called. Nothing there for me. But I tanked. And the Warlock at last got her Dungeon set boots (or legs). So while we had the group together, Nachmahd had already logged and we replaced him with a hunter, the group, my guild obviously, decided to take me to Steamvault and Arcatraz for the next two key fragments. Steamvault was more of the same old underground, lots of naga and water, that the rest of Coilfang is. But Arcatraz? Whoa. Really wild. I mean we've really hit the old Star Trek stage props at this point. These look like floating boats made of crystal, filled with Blood Elves fighting mutant creatures. It was a quick run, altogether way too late, and I, Msaker that is, got my two key fragments. Next stop is to go see Medivh and help him in the Black Morass.

2007-06-28T11:42:00.000+01:00

Easy gear, for Shaman or Tank. Bring a healer. Or three.

Last night Msaker, Droonda, and our friend, Nachmahd, went to Netherstorm to run a little quest for Professor Dabiri at the Protectorate Watch Post. The quest chain is a mere 3 quests long, and the middle quest is a simple bombing run for which they provide the mount! The starting quest is called "Recipe for Destruction."

The rewards are lucrative. 20 gold and some nice gear. +88 Healing mail armor for the Shamans, and a +30 Defence trinket for me, the Warrior.

We spoke with Captain Saeed, who stands close to the Professor, and he brings a group of Ethereal soldiers with him, up into Mana Forge Ultris. There we square off with a huge voidwalker called Dimensius.

Tanking is simple enough. The healer's job undoubtedly tougher. I sundered and devastated and shield slammed and fun was had by all. Dimensius is slain and we go and collect our loot.

But Msaker isn't the only toon in town. What of Blackhoof, recent convert to the Restoration side of Shamanism? He could certainly use a +88 Healing chest piece.

So Blackhoof flies out and the 3 Shamans take the fight on. Droonda didn't tank, none of us did. We simply kept the Captain alive. And kept him alive. And kept him alive. And and and... Well, the sun's set, the cow's have come home, glaciers recede, advance, recede, bonds mature, investements accrue, seasons change, and we healed a little more.

Yes, it was a lot of healing. We healed in shifts, kept Mana Spring and Mana Tide totems down, and we pulled back and drank when we ran low, healing in shifts. Yes. You can actually back away to where you can simply sit and drink Draenic Water to restore your mana. Why waste a potion???

And in the end the Captain prevailed, and Blackhoof got himself some nice +Healing armor.

Funny part about this fight is that it seems the 2nd person on Dimensius' threat list gets to be a "mini bomb" That had them "blowing up" in a purple flash and hitting the cieling. In the last fight Nachmahd, our friend, was "the bomb." It was kind of amusing (that's how long a fight it is) to watch him drinking and blowing up and eating and blowing up. It got to where we was hanging out in door openings so he wouldn't be blow so high. First fight, unbeknownst to the tanking Msaker, it was Droonda that played this game.

All in all, an easy fight, even for three, provided you can get some good healing in. The three of us went with first two, then three healers, and it amounted to easy loot.

Later on Msaker returned to the Shadow Labyrinths. Easy. No wipes and every boss on the first try. And, again, no shield off Hellmaw, and no shoulders off Murmer. Good thing reputation with the Lower City continues to roll in.

2007-06-25T07:09:00.000+01:00

Orcs were busy. I should sell tickets for Orc on Orc action.

On Saturday, Droonda, Enhancement Shaman, and me, Msaker, Fury Warrior, hooked up with a guildie, Socrates, Protection Warrior, in Netherstorm. Three Orcs. Seemed Droonda had difficulty picking us apart. "I'm the good looking one," I'd tell her.

Anyway, Socrates, the wise, had a plan of action to acquire some quest chain loot rewards. Droonda and I were only interested in clearing out our quest logs.

Wound up going to Kirin Var. That little town of human mage ghosts is just incredible for the number of quests in such a small location. No sooner did we arrive and get 10 quests, it seems every drop off a ghost started another quest. Just wild. The three of us wrapped up the quest chain that culminated in the killing of a Lich in a church. Droonda is tired and we wrap it up for the night.

And checking the records Droonda was out DPSing Msaker, despite Msaker having a crafted epic axe in his main hand, hasted by his offhand, and Droonda simply have the quest reward from ... Hmm. It's also a one-handed axe, starts with a small glow in the center of the blade that grows into a ball of white light? And the Mag'hari Furybrand (fist weapon) in her offhand. When gearing up Droonda we've taken a 2-pronged approach: Healing/Mana Regen and AP. And it's been paying off.

Anyway, Droonda, the DPS Princess, was getting sleepy and called it a night.

Except Msaker, he's a bit of a loot hound. ("Loot whore" sounds ... harsh and judgemental.) So there I was in Orgrimmar when the Senthris, our guild master, whispers "Do you need Shadow Labs," I say "Yes." "Are you Protection?" I say "Well, with my tanking gear I'm blah blah blah."

Long story short I wound up at the Warrior Trainer. I'm still discussing it with him. He thinks I should be Protection to tank instances. I'm thinking "Maybe" and then ask "So which talent in particular do you think I should tank?" I've got 20 points in Protection already.

Anyway, It's something I've been gearing towards, maybe more so than Fury, so I take the leap and become Protection, yet again. 4/5/52. Well, I'm 490 Defense, so I'm Uncrushable, which is something.

And we go to the Shadow Labs and I get my key fragment. The Murmer fight really throws me though. I couldn't get the timing down. The Vorpil fights have always been easy. And for the Inciter I kept telling everyone "Don't worry about me, I'm Protection specced."

So on Sunday Droonda and Msaker return to Netherstorm, and Kirin Var. And we tear through the quests. And we go shut down more Mana Forges, and do more quests. We must have cleared 500 gold in quests yesterday.

We took a break, had dinner, watched an episode of Lost (Season 2 DvD) and returned to the game. Before my loading screen is gone the Senthris has whispered Droonda "Do you need Shadow Labs?" She sure does. I don't but "Hellmaw owes me a shield, and Murmer owes me shoulders." (That's my mantra now.) So we return to the Shadow Labs.

Senthris, 70 Mage (Frost), Macail, 70 Warlock (Demonology), Halafu, 70 Shaman (Restoration), Droonda, 70 Shaman (Enhancement), and your's truly Msaker, 70 Warrior (Protection).

Nice, clean run. The pulls from Inciter's classroom were handled easily. We had one student sheeped, one off-tanked by the Felguard, one feared, and two to tank. Droonda stuck by my side and we killed them in tanked, next tanked, off-tanked, feared, and then sheeped order.

The "Orc on Orc" action comment comes from the Inciter fight. It was Droonda's first time there. Lots of fun.

Vorpil was easy again. Twice back, then forward, then back. First time I tanked him in this pattern I had slowly pulled him back. Last night I simply shot him to start the fight and ran all the way back. Senthris frost nova'd the Void Walker spawns to hold them in place. I found that following a teleport I was still Vorpil's target. Great, and so I simply ran back, or forward, to my tanking spot. Easy.

Murmer. What a job the night before, we made it look easy. And I was in and out of his circle like a pro.

What I did, tanking him, was to "shorten" my viewpoint. While I tanked him I'd swing my camera around so I faced myself. Usually if the camera is too far back and all I'd see was the white insides of Murmer when I turned back. But now I saw my tusked mug and my path back to safety.

I also have an add-on called BigWigs. It's Ace-based, of course. And it'll put bars up for Murmering Touch and Sonic Boom. (It'll provide more info for a lot of boss fights. Recommended.) And when Sonic Boom started I pushed down both mouse buttons and instantly ran back. Boom over I wheeled back around and got back into the fight. Very easy. We downed Murmer first try despite Murmer making Droonda and Halafu the bombs. Halafu twice.

There's a few more items on our wish list, and our quest log is only half full, so things are looking up. Level 70 and it feels like the game's just starting.

P.S. Capturing the Flames from the enemy cities for the Midsummer Festival can be done by any level. Actually starting the quests from them, to get your reward, requires Level 50. So says the GM that responded to me. If I can get 8 levels on Greenclaw before the festival is over, great. If not, I'll turn them in next year.

2007-06-23T09:02:00.000+01:00

How to keep two Orcs busy. And a Druid.

Not really sure what the minimum level requirement for the new Midsummer Festival quests is. We did them with Msaker and Droonda, and I did it later with my Level 42 Druid, Greenclaw. The Orcs did the Wild Fires, and the Flickering Flames, in both the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and the Druid just did the Wild Fires in the Eastern Kingdoms (for the Mantel of the Fire Festival shoulders). All of them did the basic "Recover a flame at each capital city" quest too.

Today we plan to take the Orcs to Stormwind City, Iron Forge, and Darnassus, and steal their fires. That'll add the Crown of the Fire Festival to the set.

And in a few short moments, Greenclaw is going to take a stab at it as well, assaulting Orgrimmar, Thunderbluff, and the Undercity.

Why?

Why not?

"Too much trouble for no reward," said someone. Hmm.

It's pixels when it comes down to it. It's all just pixels. All effort is simply towards higher numbers in the spreadsheets that are our characters to overcome lower limit thresholds the designers set before us and progress.

Or, it's pimping your Orc with better gear, ala Champion's Battlegear, so he looks badass when he's hanging around Orgrimmar. And/or wearing spotlight shoulders and having people ask "Where did you get those?"

Otherwise, taking your high numbers to overcome lower numbers to acquire even higher numbers... boring.

Too, it was an evening's journey across the lengths of the two Azerothian Continents, planning out a route so it doesn't take bleeding forever.

Anyway, here's a few screenshots.

I call this one "Wife Aggro."

For a Level 42 Druid, completing this quest got me a few more flight points. I was not once in any serious danger. The Kalimdor reward are bracers with 3 charges on them to summon a guardian. Pfft.

This last I call "A man of letters."

I enjoy the seasonal festivals. And we do them for the amusement factor.

Yes, the last screenshot has nothing to do with the Festival. But doesn't this guy look relaxed? He's only missing the cognac and a good cigar.

P.S. Stealing into Orgrimmar now. Leaving a line of elven skeletons behind me. Why don't they move the cemetery closer??! Kek.

Update: Orgrimmar's flame Stolen.

P.P.S. Stealing into Thunder Bluff was a piece of cake. Cow pie. Died twice and then I was home free.

Update 2: Thunder Bluff's flame stolen.

P.P.P.S. Stealing into the Undercity wasn't even necessary. They like the old throne room for such festivities. So do I.

Final Update: UC's flame stolen.

P.P.P.P.S. I'VE BEEN ROBBED!!! NOOOOOO. There appears to be a minimum level for getting the quest after stealing the flames.

I cry "Foul!" There was no indicator that I was not high enough level. (Other than trying to take the quest from the items.) There should be an indicator or something.

Don't know what it is. But it ain't 42. Three more bank slots taken. Till next year then.

ARRGH!

Heh. "Why?" "Why not?"

2007-06-22T12:28:00.000+01:00

Anonymous said...

This blog pissis me off and I wonder what excuse u gonna think out one day when
you stop playing WoW and believe me the day will come. Great work shooting down
Tobold like that which is a lot better and more open minded blogger than you!

I was originally just answering this in the comment below his (or hers?). But I decided I'd just go ahead and make it my post for the day...

So you figured you'd do a little drive-by there, Anonymous?

"Shooting down Tobold?"

Not at all. I think he's pretty good when he's got something worthwhile to say. Today's topic, "Free epics!" is a really good read. I agree with him. And it's analysis like this that make it fun reading commentary about the game. My writing here is more of a journal type deal.

Anyway, the trouble I had with him lately is he'd just gotten silly with his anti-WoW rant. Yes, silly.

It's one thing to say you've moved on. Another to say you've quit. For the last time. You've moved on. You're cancelling your account. He finally wound up complaining that WoW didn't have among it's 8 million players anyone who would do hand-drawn maps for the game. Not like the nice maps he'd found for LotRO. C'mon! Was he being for real? And what's up with the constant comparisons? They're each their own game.

And, hell, he ruined his own game in my opinion. That was kind of sad. Like watching a train about to wreck and you're cringing and whisper "Stop! Stop!" under you're breath. The whole LotRO farming deal of his was pretty painful to watch. Once you place sooo much importance on a single facet of the game, you will come crashing down.

And since he allows comments on his blog, I did comment. I suggested to him, perhaps in slightly strong terms, but you know, keeping it gamer style, (and, admittedly, trite and I apologized in a post on his site today) that he concentrate on being more constructive/productive with his posts. Give us more Pew Pew! Like today's was. I love to read what he's got to write about LotRO, even though I don't play it, and maybe I don't play LotRO because of what he's written, and, eventually I hope, about the beta test he's in that's got the NDA on it. Warhammer probably. I sure hope they're the listening type because I'm sure, no, I know he's got some good stuff to add to their efforts to come out with a great game. Tobold's been around the genre. (I sure hope he likes Warhammer longer than he liked LotRO.)

But, anyway, I haven't thanked you yet for stopping by. And be sure to keep stopping by. As I keep having fun with this game, yeah,

"I LIKE WoW!"

(I'll even bold it to highlight it.)

and I've been playing since release, I'll keep posting about it.

And when I get bored with the game, or bored with blogging, or whatever, I'll stop.

And what excuse do you think I'll have to have? Heh. It'll be because I want to, or I need to, or I found something different, or the wife has, ;), whatever.

I do get my jabs in at Blizzard here on my blog. I've complained about the end-game, about server reliability, about why Alliance always wins Alterac Valley!, or that Warlocks are overpowered. Yeah, it's just a vent, not like they read my blog.

And it's also where I keep my WoW links for handy reference, from add-on sites, to WoW blogs, or WoWHead searches, etc. I can peruse it from anyplace, and even tell my wife or friend "Look on my website for the Crafter's Tome link. Check that out for the recipe you need to do X."

But when my day to move on comes, I will.

And I've played this game too long to all of a sudden realize this has been the worst game. Then again:

Dear Blizzard,

Can I get 45 days of my life back after playing my Shaman to 70?
You're intentions for the class don't jibe with the game mechanics that let the
Shaman be pretty damn cool to 70, but leave me thinking it's a tad lackluster at
the moment. Are Shamans DPS/Healer hybrids, or just piss poor
Healers?

I kid! I kid!

Heh.

P.S. Thanks for giving me a topic. Talking about Honorus and Effilda working on Tanaris Bandits and such just sounded a touch boring! Not that Pally AoE isn't a fascinating topic. One of those "Whodathunkit" things. Hmmm...

2007-06-21T08:57:00.000+01:00

What's in a voice?

Vent can be an endless source of amusement sometimes. You hear a voice, listen to what they're saying, see their character, and you can think to yourself "OMG! That's a dude!" That female character you've seen all along, and you never, not really, wondered about the player behind it, and then you hear them in Vent for the first time. It's really jarring.

About as amusing, sad really, is when a new guildie joins vent for the first time, and she's really a she, she's a girl in real life, and you get the whole "ZOMG!" and the chat just dissolves into mindless blathering as the boys will be boys. I'm sure the real life girl is wondering "What did I get myself into?" Or she's expecting it.

Kind of a safe assumption to make, a catch-all kind of rule: Every character you see, whether they're tall and macho, or lithe and sexy, or goofy and bald, or green with tusks, the player behind them is a 23 year old guy. Just assume that and go from there. If they surprise you with remarkable eloquence when they explain the strategy for the next fight, great! If you're expecting that all along from the gold beggerz in Orgrimmar, or the duelists in Goldshire, your expectations have been met. Bottom line is how well the class is being played, not the player behind it or their choice of avatars.

But the voice behind the character can sure be distracting sometimes. And that's why some refuse to use Vent. The old "Mic is broken" excuse.

/p I can hear, just can't speak. I'll type when I need to. Go ahead though I hear you fine.

What if your voice wasn't your voice though? What if you could adopt a "voice avatar" much like you can adopt a "character avatar?"

Over on Virgin Worlds there's an interview with someone from Vivox. In it they mention they're doing voice communications for online games and virtual worlds. And they mention "voice fonts." Would this transform voices on the fly?

If you could transform your own voice, squeaky where you want to portray yourself as leadership material, or manly where you're playing a woman, would you? I'm wondering if that's something "voice fonts" would allow.

We all want to retain a bit of our privacy. And if we could transform our voices into something fantastical that matched our avatars in-game, I'm sure a lot of folks would.

I know the "next thing" in MMORPG's will be built-in voice communications to replace Vent or TeamSpeak. And I'd like it a whole lot more if we could customize our voice like we already customize our avatars.

And then the girls who play girls could still use a "Lurch" voice and we'd remain confused. And the boys who play girls and use a "Morticia" voice ... well, it's probably still best to assume: Every single player is a 23 year old guy.

2007-06-19T21:49:00.000+01:00

Server Down? Spam those servers that are up then.

Ah, the time honored traditions never die, do they?

Is your server down? Go roll a toon on a server that is up and whine, befoul, and otherwise stink the trade channel up with your incessant yapping. Yeah, yeah, we all have 70's elsehwhere. Subject Matter Experts the lot of us.

Or play an alt that is on a server that is up.

Frightened, level 6 Warlock, was on a server that is up. My other 19 characters are on 2 servers that remain down. I *hate* when that happens! ;)

Which let me run Frightened up to Silvermoon and do the Blood Elf quests. "I'm here to help," he'll announce in Tranquillen.

Plus he took up herbalism and mining and cooking and first aid. Time sinks all.

P.S. Real nice job on the patch there, Blizzard. Real nice. A little over half the servers couldn't be brought back from regular maintenance. And the servers that are up... lag city. Five minutes of dead realm, but the chat channel? Joy. It's not like you nerfed the Shamans again. That usually goes so flawless. Tuning instances for those five guys over in Europe? And the rest of us suffer for it? GG.

2007-06-19T19:12:00.000+01:00

My space.

Cuppycake's got a meme going. Show us your game space. "Here’s my demand: Fellow bloggers, you have to post a picture of your habitat."

Highlights:

Roger Dean signed "Floating Water"
"Eroica" pencil drawing by Czech artist
Sony 19" + Philips 17"
Logitech G15 keyboard.
Logitech G5 gaming mouse.
Panasonic headphones
Odds & ends
Picture of me & wife (who's desk, pretty much like mine, but neater, is directly to the left of here, on the other side of the door opening).

2007-06-19T09:06:00.000+01:00

Two nights. Two Alliance nights.

After two successful instance runs we took a break from the Horde. Droonda has earned herself a bit of rest.

First up were the Druids, Greenclaw and Itarilde. We didn’t do much but knock out a few quests in STV. She playing Bear/Warrior me playing Cat/Rogue/Healer. It worked out very well.

Last night we brought out the Humans, Honorus and Effilda. Our first stop was in the Badlands where Honorus attempted to grab as many Rock Elementals onto himself as he could. They appear to be spaced far enough apart that three or four is the limit since I have to body pull everything together. Some just get bored and leave. We completed all three of the quests there. Then we returned to Dustwallow Marsh and fought spiders. Lots of them. Oddly, despite them swarming everywhere, again I couldn’t get as many as I wanted to fight me. “Cowards!” A little later we were down on the beach and I saw the Murlocs. I hate Murlocs. None of these Murlocs had mana bars. *Idea*. That was amusing. I’ve got great armor and health and it was amusing to have these things just mobbing me. They’d get low on health and run away, “Great, bring your friends, there’s more Holiness here for all you lot.”

I remind my wife that there’s good Druid gear in the Outlands. She reminds me there’s good Paladin gear there too. So many toons, so many things to do.

I seriously hope Blizzard’s next expansion includes a healthy amount of new mid-game content.

2007-06-17T13:20:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to Droonda, level 70 Orc Shaman Princess.

Well, she came a long way. Always by my side. Through thick and thin. Out of Durotar, across Azeroth, into the Outlands, and then back in Time even.

So I collected a few snapshots of our journey together.

Could almost be today. Traveling through Mulgore.

Ah. The Shimmering Flats.

No more walking!

The merry band.

Letting her hair down. Orc style.

Getting ready.

In style.

Yowza. Almost there. 69 and ready to rock.

Unstoppable. (Yes, we were two Resto Shamans, one Enhancement Shaman (Droonda), and two Fury Warriors, Msaker tanking. We did it.)

No, really.

And here we are. Kind of full circle. Again on tawny Windriders. This time they're our very own.

Msaker is a lucky Orc to have such a Princess by his side.

Grats, Droonda! You've come a long way, Baby!

2007-06-14T08:47:00.000+01:00

Dog and Butterfly.

See the dog and butterfly
Up in the air he like to fly
Dog and butterfly, below she had to try
She roll back down to the warm soft ground
With a little tear in her eye
She had to try, she had to try
Dog and butterfly - Heart.

Don't know why that song came to me thinking of our Druids at play last night. The wife and I, it's pretty cool, riding through STV, or running through in cat form, getting some quests done.

She likes Bear form, and in Dire Bear form she's about wearing Plate armor. (Damage mitigation 51-52%.)

Me, I like Cat form, and I'm mostly wearing home crafted Nightscape Armor. (Though I know I should be adding more strength to the mix.)

Together we took on Tethys, level 43 Elite Raptor. Dead, and pretty quickly too.

And we worked on Skullsplitter Trolls, collecting their tusks until the lag became too much. You know you've got lag when you've got a mob down to half health and everything freezes, and the next thing you know your wife is killing the next mob. These were "I swear, this is a disconnect" type lag spikes, but no disconnects. Really annoying to see ten moves play out over the space of a microsecond.

Lagged, late, and like a sauna, she retires for the night to the air-condition bedroom.

That means some solo knocking around. This time Honorus (HONORUS: Variant of Latin Honorius, meaning "honor, valor"), who was close to level 42. He journeyed up to the Badlands and started collecting rocks. Protection Pally is just amazing. I couldn't gather enough rock elementals on to myself. If I pulled too far to gather more I'd lose some. Three or four at a time, five if I was lucky. I completed all three quests, and got about 45% of level 42 done before I logged off. Pally AoE ftw.

2007-06-13T08:00:00.001+01:00

We admitted we were powerless.

But our lives were certainly manageable. All of them in fact.

Steamwheedle Cartel is the home for the alts of our alts.

And in the last few days, over on SWC:

Amanijin, Troll Rogue, and Jazul, Troll Shaman, have left the Valley of Trials and have begun to quest in Sen'jin Village.

Spellblade, Belf Paladin, and Valessa, Belf Warlock, have left Sunstrider Isle and journeyed to Falconwing Inn.

Ironhorn, Tauren Warrior, and Graymane, Tauren Druid, have left Camp Narache for Bloodhoof Village.

Iduve, Draenei Hunter, and Rainessa, Draenei Hunter, went and got two Dragonhawks before returning to Azuremyst Isle.

Shatar, Draenei Paladin, and Nehemiah, Human Warrior, knocked out some Goldshire quests.

And Abdiblis, Human Warlock, and Faluna, Night Elf Priest, have been seen wandering the area around Dolanar on Teldrassil.

It's not new for us. That's a fact. As Jazul ran up the Hidden Path to complete his Earth Totem quest, the wife knew exactly where to run. Albeit it's been ages.

It's not 100% new for us, but it's new in other ways. It's new ways of partnering together, the wife and I. New race/class combinations. New roles for each of us. It is revisiting the old (ancient!) content with experienced eyes.

And, yes, Droonda, the main back on KT, must reach 70 this weekend. That's a good, attainable, goal.

And it'd be great to get an Alliance character of hers into the Outlands as well. I'm thinking Druids get a lot of love over there. And the whole Cenarian deal is there as well. And, sooner or later, we're going to get to the Emerald Dream.

But are we Powerless? Like we needed to be members of some form of Altoholics Anonymous? Not at all. It's about having fun. And this game continues to deliver.

2007-06-11T08:30:00.000+01:00

Eversong, ho!

I have to add the comma, and the exclamation point, because if I simply name a cat “Eversongho” then things get taken out of context.

“That’s a ho from Eversong.” Um, no. But I can see how it might be mistaken for that.

That was the lead-in to two Draenei Hunters who left Azuremyst Isle, all of levels 12 and 10, and journeyed to Eversong for some unique pets.

So Iduve and Eversongho, and Rainessa and Cat, left the comfort of our isles for a journey across Azeroth, from our starting point to that of the Blood Elves.

First few steps were easy. Boat from Azuremyst to Auberdine. (Catch the flight point.) Auberdine to Menethil Harbor. (Catch the flight point.)

Then the swim north (mind the Murlocs off the Wetlands coast) to Southshore. It’s a long swim, but easier with company. We ran into Naga, and Murlocs, just shy of the Southshore docks. We died, but were able to resurrect on the dock itself. We repaired and grabbed the flight point.

Then the run north. The cats, on defensive mode, make for a nice ablative layer. They’ll take the second and subsequent hits, and recalled when you’re well ahead, they might even survive as well. Eversongho, we hardly knew you. But we resurrected you a few times on the trip.

By the time we hit Silverpine Forest we knew we were going to have some easy coasting for a while.

Spotting the Worgs at the border of Silverpine and Tirisfal I note they know Bite 2, which we didn’t know. “Farewell, Eversongho. Take care.” And we tame two Worgs.

I learn Bite pretty quickly, but Rainessa’s Worg isn’t quite as forthcoming. We kill those little demon dogs and bats outside of the Undercity Zeppelin point. And at last the talent is learned. Time to continue. Oh, yes. I named my Worg “Orcmother.” But I regret that because perhaps some friendly Orc would have run us to the portal in the Eastern Plaguelands, except I’m making fun of his mother. Except it’s a fine looking Worg. No insult intended! “Look. You have her canines! Aw, like mother like son.”

And so we pass through Tirisfal Glades. And we near the Bulwark. I understand the Bulwark to be the base of the Argent Dawn. Surely it would be friendly to us. The Argent Dawn might have been, but Executor Whatshisname, was not. He spots us and gives chase. Into the Western Plagueland where he kills us. Aw.

And that means we appear in the Western Plaguelands cemetery outside of Chillwind Point. Yay! Spirit Rez taken we grab another flight point, and repair.

Level 12 and level 10. And you know what? It was going to be easy to get into the Eastern Plaguelands. From Chillwind we moved south again, back into the Alterac Hills. There is a river that runs south from Darrowmere Lake to the sea at Southshore. Leave Chillwind heading south, and then move east to this river. There’s only turtles to be found and they aren’t aggressive. We run north again, and then skirt the southern and then eastern shores of Darrowmere Lake, until we can finally move over some hills into the Eastern Plaguelands. We almost reach the road, but not quite. And we appear in the Eastern Plaguelands cemetery. Near a PvP tower, and not Light’s Hope Chapel, so no new flight point to grab. Nor any need to spirit rez this time.

As ghosts we head north through the EPL and pass through the portal.

At this point we need to confuse matters. In the Ghostlands, as ghosts, we log out of the game. This is so the game forgets where we really died and simply sends us to the closest cemetery when we spirit rez.

We log back on, as ghosts in the Ghostlands and run north to Tranquillen where we find our last cemetery. This is where we speak with the spirit healer. And, voila, we are alive in the Ghostlands. We quickly head north and soon find our prey.

Two Dragonhawks are quickly tamed.

Now, as a test, I “dismissed” my Dragonhawk. I did not abandon her, but dismissed her only. And then I tamed a Ghostpaw Lynx. Rainessa did not opt for the second pet.

Then we both hearthed back to Azurewatch.

Going to the Stable Master I get a touch of panic. No 2nd pet, my Dragonhawk! I’d never bought a pet slot in the stable. Oh noes! So I buy the slot and drag my cat into it.

And below the cat the Dragonhawk is revealed. Yay! I blow the whistle. Nothing. Hmm. I log out and log back on. I blow the whistle. The Dragonhawk appears. I look in the stable and my cat is there. Whew.

I name the Dragonhawk “Vaikka”*. I haven’t thought of a name for the cat yet.

So, in our journey we got pets and flightpoints. In my case two Eversong-only pets, and Auberdine, Menethil Harbor, Southshore, and Chillwind Point flight points. Not a bad run.

*In the Iduve language, “Vaikka” translates roughly into the need to demonstrate ones power, revenge, or honor. (From C. J. Cherryh's novel Hunter of Worlds.)

2007-06-08T08:34:00.000+01:00

Orcs, now castles.

Well, Droonda dinged 69 last night. Anyway, we were in Netherstorm and doing some quests there. There is a cool looking main-hand axe there, the one-handed version of the two-hander you get from the Ring of Blood quests. It's got the hollow blade in which a glowing ball of energy sits. Very cool looking. Droonda and Blackhoof will have to get those since they do a touch more damage than our current main-hands, and it's a slow weapon, so perfect for the new Shaman dps fashion.

Is it hot in here?

It is. It's Germany in the summertime now (as opposed to Summer in wintertime like we had a couple of months ago) and it's hot. Damn hot. Steamy, jungle, tropical hot. Right in the heart of Europe. No central air-conditioning, no fly screens on the windows, they open wide to the bugs and humidity every year. We even get those afternoon rain showers just like Florida has. 2007-1907-1607. They deal the same way with hot summers regardless of century.

But, anyway, we're driving south to go see Neuschwanstein. That's the Disneyland Castle. The real one where some crazy Michael Jackson-like, the kids guy, not the beer guy, King Ludwig passed some time. He's also got that weird grotto there, pretty colors and a swan boat on a lake, and the table that's raised up to his level from the kitchen below where the peons worked. And some natural scenery to enjoy as well.

And when we get back the Orcs will be back in business.

2007-06-05T07:54:00.000+01:00

Being 70 means Crush.

Being 60 meant I could log out anywhere I wanted. No more looking for Inns in which to stop. At 60, when 60 was the limit, I could log out in the bank in Everspring, dammit. Wherever I wanted. Nobody and nothing was the boss of me.

Now, being 70, means I can do stuff. I'm sought after. (Well, being Fury I'm not the Tank everyone really wants.)

Droonda has never been on a successful Ramparts run. Killing the Nazan the Dragon eluded her. Not last night.

New guildie in the Outlands. Druid. Level 60. Wants to run the Ramparts. It's early in the evening. So do we. While we wrap up a quest in the Blades Edge Mts he gathers a group. He's ready, are we?

We steal a bag from some big Gronn guy via a well-trained boar, and then drop our group and get invited to our guildies, and then get summoned.

Level 62 Warrior, Level 70 Pally, our Guildie, Droonda and I. "I'll Tank," I say. The Pally says "Don't worry about it. DPS, use a two-hander, whatever."

Now this is the same Pally I grouped with the night before in Shadow Labyrinths. Over 10,000 mana pool. And just an incredible healer.

Droonda and I were neck in neck in DPS, topping the charts. Everything got mowed down. The Pally kept us all alive and never dropped below half mana.

We kill the Rider before the Dragon lands. Then I Fury DPS'd Nazan the Dragon, with my The Planar Edge and Blackout Truncheon*.

Woot. Job done. And turning in the quest Droonda picks up a set of blue gloves. The same gloves Blackhoof has yet to replace. (Blackhoof needs to get out more.)

*The Blackout Truncheon procs a haste buff called Blinding Speed.

The Planar Edge is a 2.7 speed weapon. The Truncheon is 1.5.

When the Truncheon procs, the haste speeds that up to about 2.1 and 1.0. Same damage on the weapons, and noticeably faster. More DPS. It's an amusing off-hand.

2007-06-04T09:48:00.000+01:00

A Tanks Request.

Posted in the community section. http://forums.worldofwar.net/showthread.php?t=389139

Originally Posted by Ziloxus from the official forums:

This post is something of a cathartic exercise for myself. If someone gets something out of it great, if not that's fine too. I feel like I got it out of my system before the next pug either way.

Things every warrior tank thinks every non-tank should know.

My ability to generate threat over an extended time frame is inversely proportional to your ability to generate threat.

Huh? Ok here is what I mean, we will use a mage for this example but the same applies to rogues hunters, or anything else not a warrior or a bear druid.

As a fight commences both of us have two bars. We both have big full green health bars. Under my health bar is a big empty bar. Under your health bar is a big full blue bar. When you do dmg, it drains your blue bar. When I give or take dmg it fills my red bar. You have all the ammo you need at the start of a fight to make all kinds of threat which will pull all kinds of aggro. I don't have much ammo to generate threat or take aggro, it takes me a minute.

The difference is that at the beginning of the fight, your threat making resource; mana, is full. You at this moment can activate whatever ability you want and instantly create tons of threat. Mine is empty. My resource, rage, fills up as I give and take dmg. Over the course of the fight I will get a lot to spend, so the longer the fight goes on the more and more threat I make.
Problem is at the beginning of the fight I have little or no rage. It takes me time to build the threat to hold aggro off of you.

So what does this mean to you? It means that if you start every pull with your biggest most evil 10 second cast fireball, it"s gonna be real tough for me to get aggro off of you with my empty rage bar.
How to apply this advice: You need to learn to pace your dps. Whether you are a mage or a rogue or a lock whatever (except hunters who feign death whenever the cooldown is up) start off the fight with lighter lower dmg attacks.
As the fight wears on rank it up to the bigger meaner stuff. You can do the same amount of dmg, but instead of front loading all of your dps (and threat) back load it.

Seriously, this is the biggest problem I see with every single DPS class in the game. Yes, I can taunt the mob off of you, but then the taunt is on cool down. What if the mob then does an aggro wipe like a knock down and it goes after you? What if it stuns me right after I taunt so I can't build threat? You should be trying to play in such a way that you don"t ever have to see the warrior taunt outside of extenuating circumstances like aggro wipes.

When not to stun.

Ok so you have a stun button. I"m happy for you, no really I am. Stun buttons are great. You see a mob start to cast a heal or a "Level 5 Death to Tank" stun him, that"s fabulous. You see something chewing on a healer, stun them, awesome. A mob "attempts to run away in fear" go nuts stun lock them to the floor.

So why insist on stunning a mob I just pulled? Why stun the mob I just taunted? Here is what happens when you do that. When I am tanking I don't really do dmg to make rage. My little red bar fills up when I take dmg. If you stun early in a pull I don't get pounded on so I don"t gain threat so I don"t hold aggro, so someone like a healer or a mage is going to get the aggro. This wont usually produce a wipe, most mobs you can stun aren't a big deal, but seriously, why make things more difficult then they need to be?

If you absolutely need a rule of thumb, wait till there are two sunders on a target before you stun it.

What to do when you get aggro.

The tank won't always hold aggro. That"s a fact. Maybe the tank sucks, maybe he got feared, maybe he got stunned, maybe you just unleashed a cruise missile that crits the target for umpteen gazillion points before the tank had so much as an auto-attack on the mob. Whatever the reason, eventually you are going to have the mob beat on you.

If you are wearing pajamas and the mob is elite I understand the panic that sets in. You don"t want to get two shotted. I don't want that either. So let me explain first the two things NOT to do.

Don't nuke the thing with another cruise missile! You just pulled aggro so why go nuts trying to dps the thing to the floor before it can kill you? This isn't a lvl 11 Defias Pillager, most likely you wont take it down in time. What you WILL do, is generate another gajillion points of threat that the tank needs to top to get it off of you. Stop hurting it. If you have a threat mitigator (cower, feint, fade, feign death) use it, if not. Just hold still for a sec. It wont be for very long, soon enough you will be sticking it full of sharp metal things or setting the mob on fire again. Just don"t make it harder for the tank to get the thing off of you.

Don't run for the hills! I am a bit baffled as to where this gut reaction comes from. When you were lvl 40 did you outrun a bear or something? I don't think you did. Do you think if you run far enough you will drop aggro? In an instance an elite mob will not drop aggro until you are dead or until you have left the instance. Running won't keep the mob from chewing on your keester the whole time you run around, really it won't. The mob runs the exact same speed you do. Guess who else runs the exact same speed you do. That's right, me!
So if train A leaves Pheonix at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, and Train B leaves San Diego at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, at what point does train B catch up to Train A? That"s right! Never! So when train A dies in a monstrous fireball or twisted metal and diesel fuel, it is probably even going to blame train B for not saving it.
You need to run TOWARD the tank, at the very least hold still.

Ok Pally OT, bear OT or other Warr OT, when should you taunt off of me?

Um, really close to never. Why on earth are you taunting off of me? Are you trying to prove a point? Are you trying to demonstrate that you can tank as well as me? Great for you! You have tank buttons too. Now I have to burn my taunt to pull the mob back off of you so you don"t die, or so the healer doesn"t waste mana on you. Now my taunt is in cool down if I need it.

The only time you should taunt off the main tank is if I ask you to. When will that happen? Only if the healer dies and I need to bandage, or if it's a fight that requires a tank rotation. That's it.

Now of course there are times when things are confusing, something is chewing on the healer and you are trying to save the day and I taunt and then you do too. That"s fine, you did the right thing in saving the healer, don"t beat yourself up about it, you don't need to apologize to me for it either. I saw what happened, I"m 4% smarter than I look.

When should you bubble me?

I hope this is a priest asking this, I really don't need divine intervention thanks. If you bubble me I don't get threat from taking damage. Don't bubble me before a pull. Don't bubble me early in a pull. If my bar is mostly red, sure if you think I need the extra mitigation and there isn"t time for a real heal, bubble me.

Don't BOP me please, it's a fantastic way to kill healers.

The pull.

Sometimes we aren't going to fight the mob out where it is standing. Some times I will even shoot the mob and then duck behind a corner. This is not the universal "unleash your mana wielding ranged casting might" signal. What probably happened is I saw a little blue bar under the mob out there; I want him to come to me so I shot him, then broke line of sight. If you shoot him, guess what, he will stand right where he is and shoot back. Then I have to go out there and risk pulling the whole room to get him off of you unless you figure out how to duck behind corners too, that is assuming that the Moonkin and the Hunter standing next to you didn't just take your cue and unload their blue wad all over the mob you just launched WWIII on.

The sheep

We pull 3 mobs on accident. You can sheep or seduce or scattershot or whatever. That's a fabulous idea. Don't sheep the thing I am beating on! You know what will happen? It will break and I will already have another move queued up behind the move that broke the sheep which will break the next sheep you are trying to do since you didn"t change targets. You might not be familiar with the "F" key. Click me, then click "F", now you are targeted on my target, so target something else, anything else and sheep that.

Multi mob pull

Ok so we just got more than we can handle and I am tanking 3 mobs with no offtank. Attack my target would you? I only have so much rage to spread around. If you start shooting something that I am not concentrating on your going to pull aggro, then I have to decide whether I let you die, or whether I go pull it off of you and risk letting the rest of the party die while they keep attacking the thing I was attacking. The "F" key works great for this too.

The off tanks target

Just because I am the main tank does not mean that my target is the most important target to kill. In fact, often it is the opposite. I am the main tank because I take the best beating. The Hunters wind serpent that is tanking that other orc over there wont hold up as well as me. His target needs to die first. My target should be the last one to die. Those other tanks aren't built to take the abuse I do, help them out. I will be ok, I have all kinds of squishies watching my back. Seriously, go fight the other guy"s target.

2007-06-04T07:06:00.000+01:00

Rain days are Ding days.

It rained Saturday. And that means between Friday and Sunday I got my last two levels and dinged 70 on Msaker, my Orc Warrior.

We, Droonda and I, were in Shadowmoon Valley, spying on the Legion's activities, when the moment came. Upon returning to Shadowmoon Village she gave me a loan of 200 gold and I was on a flying mount. Droonda herself is 68 going on 69, and is just a few more quests from being on a flying mount herself. Loan repaid, she's now over 1000 gold and is just counting the days.

And Blackhoof, newly rich again running ordinary quests, repaid her, and then bought himself, and Droonda as well, two Crystal Pulse Shields. Both are Enhancement Shamans, but when it comes time to heal, it doesn't hurt to have the best equipment for it. Blackhoof's got Mogor's Anointing Mace, and she's got the dagger reward off Durn the Hungerer. The CPS's are the best healer shields outside of Karazhan I've heard.

One highlight for Msaker and Droonda was our going to Karazhan and getting the first two quests towards getting our keys. With careful pulls our time in the Master's Cellar was mostly against a ghost, or two, and she being dual wielding Enhancement and I being Fury Tank, and we tested both the waters easily. Well, the testing part was easy. Actually getting there, and the well in particular, was not.

And with our friend Nachmahd's help we finished up some 3-player group quests down in old Nagrand. Summoning and killing Gurok the Usurper, the Elemental that the Warmaul's worship, and finishing the string of quests against the Forge Camp's for Altrius the Blind.

And what's the first stop of a 70 with goals on the Karazhan Key quest chain? Well, the first part in the Outlands? The Shadow Labyrinths. PUG, again, Msaker was tanking, two Hunters (great crowd control! No multi-shots!), a Mage, and a Priest. That was my first time into the instance with Msaker (and only once before with Blackhoof). And we did well. We killed Hellmaw, on the first try, dropped Pally plate, not the tanking shield I wanted, and the Inciter, killed on the first try, and he dropped a tanking trinket for Msaker. We cleared a little further into the place and at that moment the priest informed us "I've got to go." and hearthed out. I look at the group. /lol.

Someone knew someone and we shortly have a Paladin join us. I see her mana pool is huge. And Vorpil, killed on the third try, drops the Blackout Truncheon, which Msaker took to accompany his slow The Planar Edge. The last boss, Murmer, we didn't down. It was late, one of the Hunters had to go, and I really had to go. We gave it like 4 tries, but success eluded us. (Funny how Blackhoof's time there it was easy on the first try.) Oh, yes, a random mob dropped blue plans for the Felsteel Helm. Since I was the only smith, they came to me. Does not seem to be a bad helm. And only 8 Felsteel bars. (16 eternium ores being the holdup there. And I'm not 365 smithing.)

It was a good pug, my first time tanking the higher level instances, and overall I think we did okay. (Msaker did complete the two quests there and that'll get him bracers and boots, happily both with tanking attributes on them.)

Msaker will stay Fury/Prot until Droonda is comfortably 70 and we've gotten things accomplished. Then he'll go more into Protection, providing the instance running becomes regular.

*And* Arcarius picked up some pointers on instance running with a Hunter. Two Hunters kept a lot of trapped trash mobs frozen. Now the lazy elf just needs to get those Nesingwary quests done Nagrand and get a decent gun.

2007-06-01T10:09:00.000+01:00

Almost 70. Do I go deeper Protection, plus Arms that support Tanking? Or is Fury DPS still a viable option for dungeons/raiding?

So I got to thinking about improving performance, and came up with the following build:

10/0/51.

Arms Talents - 10 point(s)
Deflection - rank 5/5
Iron Will - rank 5/5

Protection Talents - 51 point(s)
Anticipation - rank 5/5
Shield Specialization - rank 5/5
Toughness - rank 5/5
Last Stand - rank 1/1
Improved Shield Block - rank 1/1
Improved Revenge - rank 3/3
Defiance - rank 3/3
Improved Sunder Armor - rank 3/3
Improved Taunt - rank 2/2
Concussion Blow - rank 1/1
Improved Shield Bash - rank 2/2
Shield Mastery - rank 3/3
One-Handed Weapon Specialization - rank 5/5
Improved Defensive Stance - rank 2/3
Shield Slam - rank 1/1
Focused Rage - rank 3/3
Vitality - rank 5/5
Devastate - rank 1/1

I hate to keep putting money down to test out theories.

And if the guild already has two full Protection Warriors, would I, as a Fury Warrior, find a role as DPS?

2007-06-01T06:19:00.001+01:00

And it ended with a "Leeeeeroy Jeenkins!"

That was my PUG experience last night.

Msaker had been out mining. He and Droonda had just finished up a handful of quests up in Blade's Edge. He needed to find just one single Eternium Ore and he'd craft The Planar Edge.

Then in comes a whisper. "Do you want to run Slavepens?" I check my quest log. No Coilfang Quests. However, I had the intro quest, which leads to finding the lost guys quest, and that quest has you finding two of those lost guys in the Slavepens. "Sure."

It was a 64 Hunter doing the asking. When I join the party I see a 2nd 64 Hunter, and a 62 Warlock. Oh boy. "Guess we need a healer now :D" someone says. 10 points for the obvious there.

But I've got the shield, and I'm the tank. We've got DPS. Yeah, a healer is the last part. And they recruit a level 70 Paladin. Alright! We're going to do this. I'd been there before. We'd taken out the first guy, and wiped on the 2nd, the crab guy, until we called it. This time would be different.

You know, there are some subtle signs that things aren't going to go smoothly. Little clues that kind of foretell your destiny ahead of time. That sublime arrangement of tea leaves at the bottom of that teacup, or dried foam on the side of that beerglass, whose words, if you can read the language, spell out for you, in no uncertain terms, your future. Todays reading, brought to you by the Amazing Msaker, was "This is going to go badly."

Hunter runs ahead and multi-shots the first pack. She's apparently a Gladiator pvp-ranked member of a guild running Karazhan twice a week. This must be an alt. Who's never played a hunter in a group before.

The other hunter is no better. And apparently they don't have their pets on growl. I guess they'd figure I could just swoop in and gain all their aggro and then enough to hold everything on me.

Uh, morons.

The Paladin did okay. I was kept healed. He joined with a Mogor's Anointing Mace so I figured he must be Holy spec'd.

The Warlock. I'm sure he did something. Oh, yes. He'd fear adds. In an instance. That's something. You get to 62 fearing the crap out of things, so why stop?

We kill the 1st boss. The "Spellsword" drops. Looks spiffy. I figure the Warlock or the Paladin will want it. Though both are honest enough to say it's not an upgrade. Pally even says "I've been so wanting that sword for a long time." So everyone just random's it. Multi-shot Hunter wins it. "For RPing. Lol." Moron.

We get to the 2nd boss with just a wipe. And the 2nd boss then proceeds to wipe us again. 2nd try on the 2nd boss I go down again, but this time he's got 1,000 health left so he drops. Some healing mace drops. It's actually pretty cool looking. The Mogor's Anointing Mace is shiney and this thing is glowing, but in a nature way. But it's not a need for the Pally so it just gets /randomed. I win. It'll pay for repairs. But, damn, nothing in the place is an upgrade so I'm in here hoping for lucky rolls.

After Rockkor (or whatever the crab guys name is) we get ready to proceed. Multishot brings like eight back and we wipe. "WTF" says the Paladin.

Oh, yeah, the 2nd Hunter has run out of Ammo. We summoned him from Ratchet, but he's out of ammo. So he's there dual wielding. And after the wipe, and we're getting back health. "Ive got2go." He sits and zones out.

So then the Paladin complains "I can't ever get a PUG to clear this place." Pally must be an alt of someone too. Legolas was his name. Or something pretty close to it. Armory says he is a Hybrid, something/something/zero. Taking none of the defining features of Holy or Protection. Enchanter/Tailor. Now he complains? The last boss has Paladin pants on him, go figure, and he's annoyed that we won't get there.

I check the watch. It's 1 a.m.. It's been 3 hours now. These new instances were supposed to be short. I check the damage taken meter. Oh, yeah, I'm doing my job, with 90% damage taken. Pally comes in 2nd. I tell them "It's 1 a.m. so I've got to go too."

So the Warlock, I'll just call him Ignored now, he yells "Leeeeeroy Jeenkins." Whatever. And then I see a DOT land on a Naga, and six start cruising our way.

Well, that stunt cost me a gold and a half. As I wipe again. My tooltip on my durability meter, watching what 10% damage does to me. A death costs me a gold and a half. Five deaths this run.
BUT, I got level 69, I got the last Eternium Ore I need (until I can get my mitts on a primal nether), and I got some tanking experience.

Signs your run will fail: Your hunter runs forward and multi-shots to pull. Their pets don't growl. And your Warlock fears adds in crowded rooms.

2007-05-31T08:49:00.000+01:00

Coming along.

Last night was a pretty interesting one. It didn't start out that way.

Droonda was taking a break doing her nails. (Orcs are so vain!) So Blackhoof ventured out, not to do any quests, but to farm some Motes of Shadow rather. A Primal Shadow goes for 18g on my server. And some joker was selling 4 Motes of Shadow for 4g. (Now there are bargains to be found. Somebody was selling a full stack of 20 Primals for 30g. I should have bought it without hesitating. I hesitated. And I've found partial stacks of Motes of Shadow for sale cheap. 7 Motes for 1.5g. I didn't hesitate.) Anyway, I farmed enough for 3 Primal Shadows and tired of it. That raises Msaker's Primal Shadow count to 11. Just 9 more and he's got enough, and all the other materials he's already gotten, to craft his epic The Planar Edge one-hander.

Flying above Shattrath later Blackhoof gets a /whisper: "Have you run Shadow Labs yet?" "No." "Do you want to go?" "Yes." That was from the guildmaster and so we had a little guild run into the Shadow Labyrinth, to secure for me the Karazhan key fragment, and to get Lower City reputation for everyone.

Our group was two Priests, shadow and holy, a Mage (frost), a Warrior (maxed protection, 5/0/56, 12,000 health), and yours truly, Blackhoof (enhancement). What's nice about my guild is they're fine with all our specs. When I mentioned "Enhancement" they say "Cool, DPS."

And what a run it was. Only one wipe, and that was against a 5-man pull. We'd sheeped the healer and the two priests did us in. (We later sheeped one of the priests and killed the healer first. That was the ticket.) I was DPSing my Tauren heart on all bosses except Murmer. Well, when healing was required I pulled back and did my job. There were some moments, but we did fine. And a shadow priest can generate some truly amazing healing, and mana regen??. Combined with the holy priest spot healing, the place went easy enough. Wait, we did have another wipe. That was against the Inciter. (Or did we? It was an extremely close fight.) The fight against the Warlock, Volpir, went smoothly. There's tactics to use, and we had them down.

For the Murmer fight I stayed at a distance and never got anything worse than a knock up into the air. Otherwise it was just lightning bolt spam. And Murmer dropped something for me, for the healer/caster in me rather, the Tidefury Kilt. My first piece of D3. And I got my key fragment for the Karazhan attunement quest.

Blackhoof's coming along.

Next stops will be The Arcatraz, Steamvault, and the Caverns of Time, Durnholde and the Black Morass. And that means shots at more Tidefury (Steamvault and Arcatraz) and Desolation Battlegear (for my fighting side) (Caverns of Time).

And when Droonda's ready for more action, Msaker and she will be making our own way down this road to Karazhan.

P.S. It's nice being in a competent, and casual, end-game capable, guild.

2007-05-26T23:28:00.001+01:00

Ding. 70. Flight.

Oh, yeah.

Broke, but elated.

2007-05-26T07:36:00.001+01:00

Playing with Orphans, we find a bully. Visiting former times.

Had some fun last night running around with our Blood Elf orphans. Msaker scouted the way out, and Blackhoof and Droonda followed behind.

The Orphans last request found us traveling to the Caverns of Time. And there we, Blackhoof and Droonda, took a side trip. To the Hillsbrad of before the Scourge, but trouble is imminent.

What a blast. That was really cool.

"'Blades of light!"? Punk."

And Blackhoof and Droonda didn't look too shabby. A mite pale and furless though.

Nobody in Southshore suspected a thing as we rode in our Frostwolf and Kodo. And the vendors there did business with us. If you like riding, you might have a look.

It's not like a regular instance. Going to Old Hillsbrad you get to play a tourist in the area around Durnhold Keep, Tarren Mill (mind the guards, they were red elites, our level), and South Shore itself. Watch Sally Whitemane running around, with her champion. And the discussion that goes on in the Inn. Lots of familiar faces. ... And that just makes the whole history that unfolded after that much more dramatic and sad. (Except for Herod. Apparently he was always a punk.)

2007-05-25T08:37:00.000+01:00

Fury+Protection. Looking for some thoughts.

Can I play a Fury Warrior, and be Protection at the same time? I.e. can I level, and tank, with one build?

My experience with playing a Warrior has been pretty much that of leveling one up. I've never been a regular group's "main tank."

But I do know a thing or two about tanking, I think, and I always carry a shield and a +STA one-hander for tanking purposes.

A couple of days ago I joined a pug in the Auchindoun. Not sure which part of it. The level 70 Mage that went with us (Shadow priest, two hunters, the mage, and me) complimented me on my tanking. Thanks. Not bad for a Fury + some Arms Warrior I guess.

But I'm always wondering "Can I do more?"

Blackhoof got a whisper the other night. "You Resto?" "No." Nothing more. Somebody was seeking a healer for an instance, and they decided to go with a Shaman?? Hmm. But I do know, as an Enhancement Shaman, that I'll sooner or later need to set up one of those "Take a number" units to dispense tickets, and then I'll call out, in general chat, "Alright. #53. #53? I'm ready to join your group now. /Invite please." You know everyone wants an Enhancement Shaman along to join their groups. Ah, ha, ha! I jest! qq

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, "Can I do more?" Can I be of more use to others than just myself. And, frankly, now that we've made Droonda a killer queen, gunpowder, gelatine, dynamite with a laser beam, guaranteed to blow your mind, anytime windfury procs, she does do a little DPS. She gives my DPS numbers a run. Stormstrike and she steals my aggro.

So, could I party better if I were a tank that could do some damage? I.e. keep some of my Fury, to let me put my The Planar Edge to use someday, and still be more of a tank than I am now, go into the Protection tree some?

Can I be Fury/Protection and enjoy the benefits of both worlds? It's got to improve my tanking from what it is now. But would I give up too much DPS?

What do you think? My reasoning is below...

Link to build.

Warrior Talents TalentsMinimum Required Level: 70Required Talent Points: 61

Fury Talents - 30 point(s)

Cruelty - rank 5/5
Critical strikes are good.

Unbridled Wrath - rank 5/5
Need more rage!

Commanding Presence - rank 5/5
Improves Battle Shout for fighting, Commanding Shout (at 68) for tanking.

Dual Wield Specialization - rank 5/5
I need to remain viable in DPS for grinding/questing.

Enrage - rank 5/5
This leads to Flurry.

Flurry - rank 5/5 (filling this talent last to 70)
This for the fighting.

Protection Talents - 31 point(s)

Anticipation - rank 5/5
Defense skill is good.

Shield Specialization - rank 5/5
Put that shield to use when I'm using one.

Improved Shield Block - rank 1/1
More blockage.

Improved Revenge - rank 3/3
Stunning.

Defiance - rank 3/3
Need threat to hold aggro.

Improved Sunder Armor - rank 3/3
Faster, cheaper, sunders, easier threat maintenance.

Improved Taunt - rank 2/2
"Don't hold back too much. I've got it."

Concussion Blow - rank 1/1
Stunning. If it's stunned, it can't hurt me.

Improved Shield Bash - rank 2/2
Silence.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization - rank 5/5
This must apply to off-hand one-hand weapons as well.

Shield Slam - rank 1/1
Threat.

So, to you Warriors out there that Tank and DPS. How does this look? I don't PvP at the moment so don't see the need for Mortal Strike.

Now I briefly played around with a 41 point Protection build earlier. I liked the feel of Devastate.

Now with a The Planar Edge in hand, would Devastate be worth getting vice the ten points I've put in Enrage+Flurry?

I'm thinking the One-handed Weapon Specialization + Dual Wield Specialization must stack so for PvE/non-tank fights, I'd be dual wielding.

110% damage on main hand + 85% damage on off-hand. (vs. 110% on main hand + 60% on off-hand).

Or I could skip Shield Slam and take Blood Thirst.

Is the 30 rage getting me 217+ damage and +150 health recovered worth it?

Versus the 20 rage 478-502 damage, plus threat?

Thoughts on the proposed build please.

Edit: Some further analyses on my part, and using Llew Mason's Armory analyses, and the numbers there.

Improved Shield Bash silences for 3 seconds. Ordinary Shield Bash will interrupt the spell and stop casting from same school for 6 seconds. That's probably enough, and this would be a PvP ability. 48% of Protection Warriors use it. So I could drop that. Improved Revenge is used even less, 43% of Protection Warriors use it.

Now Concussion Blow, Defiance, Shield Slam, and Shield Specialization, all of which I've planned, these are the Top 5 talents Protection folks take. Good. Vitality is next, but too far down the tree. Toughness next, and I can take that.

So I'll drop Improved Shield Bash, and Improved Revenge and put the points into Toughness.

The same 0/30/31 build, but following the crowd.

P.S. Yes, yes, my gear sucks. I'm casual and suffer from self-induced altitis. I won't be tanking your Karazhan raid. Nonetheless, advice would be appreciated.

Edit: Deflection. 5% Parry. How do I work that into the build? I'd assume 5% parry chance is 5% damage avoided. Which means rage generation is avoided. Keeping One-handed Weapon Specialization over in the Protection tree generates 10% more damage, which implies more rage. Parry would decrease my rage, more damage would increase it. Since I'm also Fury, and need rage, it seems that it's best to not take Deflection at the cost of One-handed Weapon specialization.

2007-05-24T06:30:00.000+01:00

Druids are not broken. The lonely Hunter. The world is broken. Pretty cool.

1.

Last night we brought the Druids out to play. Sending some money out of the "Epic Mount for Arcarius the Old Fashioned Way: We Earn It" fund, Itarilda respecs and goes Feral. She'll be the Tank and Greenclaw will be the DPS. (Being a Bear is easier, she says. And she did me proud, charging into most every fray with zeal.) One little incident aside, Col. Kurzen got himself taken down, got himself taken downtown, express bus, no stops.

"Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged
my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll...
uh... well, you'll say 'hello' to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you.
He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a
corner, and he'll say, 'do you know that "if" is the middle word in life? If you
can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you'... I mean I'm no, I can't...
I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man. I should have been
a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas..." (from
Apocalypse Now)

Yeah, yeah. Hubris. Downfall.

So the Druids did pretty good last night. Arcarius is a little poorer, but what the hey.

2.

Speaking of Arcarius... Many moons ago Arcarius once travelled down into the Swamp of Sorrows. He was after elusive prey, the Swamp Jaguar, with it's rumored high rate of attack speed. The swamp jaguar tamed, the pair took to further adventures.

When at last the 40th season came, Arcarius returned to Darnassus and selected his mount. He took the white spotted saber. It fairly matched the jaguar and that made it cool. It was quite a nice sight. To ride across the land, faithful pet at one's side.

But those days are gone. Hunters must choose. To ride on their mount, or be accompanied by their pet. Why? Huntards with flying mounts. Too lazy to dismiss pets, annoyed that the land based pets would run after them, anywhere. Why couldn't Blizzard simply auto-dismiss pets upon mounting a FLYING mount. Leave us old-timers alone. Let us have our pets back. Give us our pets back. Our partners in crime. Our friends. Let them run alongside us as they've done for 30 levels of our lives now. Mounted Hunters have become loney.

3.

Anyone else notice glitches in the world? The distance flashes with blocks of terrain flickering. (Changing visual effects doesn't change that.) The bats in EPL have green in their wings and look wierd. The Elder Mistvale Apes, one of them was hopping about like a Gnome Mage, about 2 meters in the air. We fought it while it was in the air. The Reaver of Hellfire Penninsula has developed a new hobby. Ice skating. The world rumbles, as if with every stride, but he's ice skating. My wife's interface, which is pretty clean of add-ons, no unit frame add-ons, her target isn't always showing, or it'll not update. I noticed that with X-Perl too, figured it was an add-on problem. But since she had it too, I suspect it's the game. Not my add-ons.

I basically unloaded all my add-ons. Then I reloaded the ones I can't live without. (Cartographer, MetaHud, Healbot, X-Perl, KTHM, Damage Meter, simpleminimap, etc. etc.) and found I'd left like half in the old folder. Hmm, might not have needed them after all.

ALL of my add-ons pretty much worked post patch, after updating them via UI Central and WoW Ace Updater. (Keeping Ace mods up-to-date is super easy with WoWAceUpdater. And their collection of add-ons, extensive, get updated nearly daily it seems.)

4.

Arcarius did some more Zangarmarsh quests last night. I'm seriously trying to clear out the quest log so I can take more in Nagrand.

Anyway there was a quest to go return to the Broken in Feralfen and talk to them, ask them to come to our side.

The quest involves turning myself into one of their bird spirits. It turned me into a Arakkoa.

Now I had five minutes to play with this.

Naturally, the first thing everyone does turning into another race: /dance!

Interesting. The Arakkoa have their own dance.

Then I waved. It looked like a creepy granny wave. Palm open facing out, and the fingers closing in a wave.

Then I saluted. Kind of like a two finger boy scout salute.

You know what they say. SPECULATION RUMOR MILL: If they program a race to have all these emotes, they could make them a playable race. WoW Wiki says they have "sage" and "warrior" classes, and they're pretty smart. And they have owl companions. Mage, Priest, Warlock, Warrior, Hunter, Rogue.

Naga for the Horde, and the opening of the Maelstrom, and Arakkoa for the Alliance, with further outlying Outlands found.

2007-05-22T06:38:00.000+01:00

Unbreakable, I like Naga.

Particulary the STV Naga just outside Booty Bay. They don't cast.

Me, Honorus, 41 Paladin, and Effilda, 40 Mage, can easily take on two 43-44 Nagas at a time. Without breaking much of a sweat. Seal's flying, swings landing, our biggest problem was the Nagas were of a level to keep resisting Effilda's magic. She's even taken the Arcane Subtelty talents. But that makes her the equivalent then, if my theorycrafting is right, as a level 42. Which means these Nagas had their usual resist chance, or better, against her. Of course a spell resisted is Aggro not taken, so not at all a problem.

Ultimately, the Akiris Reeds we gathered were to be delivered to Theramore.

Stranglethorn Vale gets old, and we were seeking a new haunt for a spell.

Our first quick little business there in Dustwallow Marsh was the level 40 Mage quest given by Tabetha involving some Orb. Let's say "Big Gun" and leave it at that. Job done.

With that out of the way we retired and the upcoming humankind adventures will be in the Marsh. This is a short, enough, ride down to Tanaris, and Un'Goro, and Silithus. All new, kind of, quest locations for Effilda (and my wife).

Demon Killing. And their minion too. Or does Honor stay my hand?

Blackhoof, 69, went to Azshara seeking some quick mageweave. The elves carry runecloth. The stayrs and ghosts near Valormark carry mageweave. Problem solved. (Mageweave becomes bolts of mageweave become low 40 gear become, hopefully, dream dust, becomes materials for enchanting and getting Darbanville's enchanting up. 280 right now, with material enough for 4 more skill-ups. 300 is my goal, and a quick run again to Thrallmar, via windrider, not skeletal horse, to train in everything else.) Back to Blackhoof in Azshara... Suddenly I see a yellow name. Names. Warlock and voidwalker. Yellow. Bad people, managed to get flagged. Not being nice he was. Warlocks soooo infuriate me. Oh, please Blizzard. Please Buff Warlocks More! Please! Nerf me, personally, if you need to balance the game. Nerf Shamans so you can buff Warlocks. (Done.) Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. So I see that this Gnome (yes, double it) and see that he sees me. Stopped in his tracks, then scurries away. What? Like I'd just run over there and kill him? A Warlock? Someone who will gleefully DOT the hell out of me, my friends, and my allies, and laugh and /spit about it? That person needs to live? This steaming pile of dishonor should live in peace? This is why we seem to lose yet win: Honor. I let him be and continued farming my mageweave. Yes, I had 14 levels on him. He was dead. But I left him alone. A little while later he reappears. Blue, killing my ghosts. I laugh, got two stacks of mageweave and it's midnight, so I hearth home to Shattrath and pop the goods in the mail to Darbanville. Karma.

2007-05-21T11:35:00.000+01:00

No, I don't think a cat is better.

Well our Draenei finished up their quests in Azuremyst Isle. All of them. We have tabards to prove it.

As an almost aside, as if it didn't matter, we concluded, after getting the tabard and the cheering crowd, with closing out the quest to actually close the Sun Gate. (I mean we got cheering crowds before we'd done that.)

My only quest left was the Shaman quest which was to take a Bota Bag and fill it with wine, I mean water, in Ashenvale. But that's something I can get to.

Anyway, when our day comes, as it does (see characters on Kirin Tor sidebar) we don't want to be riding those goofy elephants.

So we got to thinking... We've got cloven hoofs. Hmmm... Rams have got cloven hooves. (And Tauren too, but by the time you can mount a Tauren, it's dead and unrideable.) So we headed to Dwarfland, Khaz Modan. Into the snowy reach of Coldridge Valley we started our quest to have the Dwarves like us.

And it was a good opportunity to build up some weapon skills. One shot still gets you a level up.

Time drew to a close as we headed out of the Valley to Kharanos and the Thunderbrew Distillery.

Anyway, as we were in the Frostmane Cave in Coldridge some dwarf stopped us. Both very clever, and very assuming. "Cats are better."

Maybe so. Except we want to ride Rams.

2007-05-18T10:59:00.001+01:00

When am I going to learn to play?

Yeah, yeah. Blackhoof is level 69 and change. But can I claim I know how to play?

I'm pretty happy that I got to spend months raiding Molten Core in a well respected guild. I was a guild officer and Shaman Class Leader. Have I told you about all my purples I once showed off in Orgrimmar? That was me. Happy as a clam with my Unstoppable Force. Then I'd switch over to my healing get-up (good enough to still out heal the Resto Shamans even after I went Enhancement) which was full Earthfury. Onyxia never dropped the helm for me. "Hey. I've arrived," my gear announced. Last Summer I knew exactly what I was talking about. Class leader in a great guild, in the gear, my opinion should have mattered.

But I'm not going over to the official Blizzard Community Shaman forums now and saying one damn thing. Not one. I'll admit the Shaman Class has wants. I've respecced numerous times to meet raiding, pvp, and pve requirements. But I'll also admit the class can get things done. And overall it's a fun class. But I'm not going to open my mouth.

Even if I were 70, my gear sucks, my opinions don't count. Yeah, it's AH greens if I can get them. (That I did around level 60. Since then I've been hording cash.) Or an instance blue, if I can get into one. Or just a lucky world drop, or quest reward.

Or Vendor greens. They're not that bad - for my needs. Blackhoof picked up the Consortium fist weapons from Stormspire. And for 8g, eight!, no rep required, Msaker picked up the Arkadian Claymore (80.3 DPS, +28 Str, +42 Sta, +27 Crit Strike rating), and some Ninja Stars, after the Blue Moon rose and Horde took Halaal.

But, anyway, my gear sucks. It's not stuff out of Kara or gotten from mindless reputation grinding.

So, posting as a "Level 70" with an opinion, and greens for gear, I'd only be shot down, bbq'd, told to "shut it" (hell, that happens here on my own blog!), because I'm not raiding Karazahn. Two years plus playing a Shaman and my opinion about the class would mean NOTHING on the forums. Level 70 Draenei Shamans would be flaming me. I don't need that.

But does it mean I don't know how to play?

Nah. I do know how to play.

I play to have fun.*

How about you?

*And would I play another Shaman knowing what I know? Yep. Too late. My Draenei Shaman is level 20. (Already out-leveled my Warlock who's ignored at 14.)

P.S. Tseric, requiescat in pace.

2007-05-17T06:24:00.000+01:00

World of Craftcraft.

Blackhoof is about 20% into level 69. What's he spend his time doing? Farming motes. Water breathing helps immensely getting Motes of Water from the water elementals in the lake north of Garand, in Nagrand. The air elementals also found in Nagrand supply Motes of Air occasionally. Then he'll fly up to Area 52 in Netherstorm and fight various mobs for Motes of Mana. Water and Mana are plentiful. Air can be, but last night it wasn't. It seems there are areas reachable only by flying where there are more, but he's not 70 yet, and not flying.

He does have Transmutation Mastery, except I don't see where it says that in my character info. And the one Transmutation I did, for Primal Might, resulted in one Primal Might. (So no proof that it works yet.)

Now I could be doing quests. But I figure I'll have to get these motes sometime. May as well save the questing for when I'm 70 and the XP I could have earned just translates into gold. Every mote I get is roughly 10 mobs, and that's a lot of xp I'd be losing out on. So, he farms motes. And, damn, does that take time.

He's not the only one.

Msaker, after the grueling drive to 300 Blacksmithing, and getting the full Imperial Plate plans, because he could, circling the Plaguelands looking for Thorium during free moments, is now circling the Outlands (a loop that stretches from Thrallmar, through the marsh, into Terrokar, yes, by wolfback) looking for ore veins. He's now at 330 Blacksmithing so far, and a bank full of gems for some jewelcrafter to cut for him. And mining brings in Motes of Earth and Motes of Fire. Together they ought to be able to produce a Primal Might every day.

Where do/will the Primal Mights and the ore go? Ultimately into a The Planar Edge for Msaker. (That is until this patches collection of nerfs drives the material cost up.)

Otherwise Darbanville is kept busy just selling all the greens and blues that drop, or get crafted, in the Auction House.

Alliance side we just checked out mail boxes and took care of some admin business.

Can you tell we didn't really play last night? And, yet, still put hours into it?

Otherwise, a normal gaming session, Msaker and Droonda, or any of our other couples, will find us questing and enjoying the changes of pace.

And what will the material farming get us? Better gear, for starters. We don't really instance, and that's a handicap. Msaker and Droondas last venture into Ramparts failed, yet again, to kill the Dragon. One single Death before the Dragon, and yet unable to kill the Dragon. Blackhoof has been into Coilfang a few times, and the groups always fall apart before the last bosses are killed. (No, wait, one time he was invited in for the last boss that they took down.) The Fel Iron Plate has good stamina on it (the Imperial Plate set of the beginning Outlands, but all trainer provided) and is a set with bonuses. The Fel Iron Chain, for fighting Shamans and Hunters, isn't bad either. GRANTED it's not the leet best you can get, but for a husband-wife team, playing relatively casually, it's not bad. And the axesmithing will provide an epic axe for him, The Planar Edge. Otherwise, group quests are possible, and planned on, especially the Ring of Blood and Wanted: Durn the Hungerer. That'll provide a nice one-hand fist weapon for Droonda, a nice two-hand axe for Msaker, a nice healing dagger for Droonda, and a decent tanking sword for Msaker. (The 2nd fist weapon, Droonda dual wields, is the main-hand we can buy off the Consortium vendor in Stormspire.) We can get to 70, easily, with this. And once 70 I'm sure knocking out instances will be easier. Particularly if we return to the states and can raid with the guilds.

The Motes and Primal business will also be a profitable one, in the future. A Primal Air sells for, or is is being sold at, rather, 30g. Not sure what the Primal Mights sell for. It must be a healthy amount.

Too bad there appears to be no money to be made Axesmithing. The good stuff is all Bind on Pickup. You can provide mid-range stuff to the masses, but only the good stuff to yourself. Is this unique to Blacksmithing and Engineering?

I guess this all comes to mind in recent discussions about what the end-game is. Or what it can be. It's not all instance raiding. Some folks make a game out of crafting. Some folks make a game out generating income. Some folks make a game out of roleplaying. ("Zug, zug." There. My Roleplaying is done for the day.) Hell, I'm making a game out getting to level 70! :)

With all my characters, so many yet to get to 60, much less 70, this game has got some damn long legs. And, frankly, I've yet to get bored.

P.S. I *am* curious what the next Blizzard product will be. Buzz is a new MMORPG. World of ... Starcraft?

2007-05-14T23:24:00.000+01:00

Coming along.

The Orcs are doing fine in the Bone Wastes. With a little help from our friend, Nachmahd, the cow with wings.

2007-05-11T21:55:00.000+01:00

We've decided to kill stuff.

Droonda has gone Enhancement.

Msaker has gone Fury. I'm saving the last 5 points for Deep Wounds 3/3 and Impale 2/2.

Together that's four axes flying, and a lot of Orc.

2007-05-11T15:35:00.000+01:00

Blizzard sells out.

This is the visual equivalent of the whisper wall of gold spam I'm getting when I'm logged in now.

If something's broken in the game, it's the goldsellers spam. This needs addressing.

2007-05-09T23:07:00.000+01:00

Volchan.

He dropped cloth boots. Must have been made out of asbestos.

2007-05-09T21:56:00.000+01:00

Doing something.

Friend told me to attack, so I did.

We wound up killing this 68 Elite Farahlon Giant thing.

I'm Enhancement, he's a 70 Resto.

2007-05-09T13:54:00.000+01:00

Folks, it's the same as it ever was.

I've played a Shaman going on two years.

I think it's just funny that all these level 70 Draenei Shaman are posting in the official forums, QQing, about the upcoming nerf. (No longer letting different ranks of Windfury to proc independently, and some Elemental stuff, to which I say "whatever.")

They've invested so much time into the character, and then Blizzard takes it all away. They'll just /wrists and /quit. These folks have all of a couple months invested and now they're shocked?? Let down? Disappointed? My Shaman was 60 before we even knew we were getting Draenei. They were promised one thing, and now it gets taken away?

QQ - Shamans been doing this from the start. Deal with it. It's still a great class to enjoy.

And, Welcome to my world! Is this a Revelation for you?

You might have asked, I'd have told you.

Folks, being a Shaman is going to be the same as it ever was.

We were never leet DPS. We never took out Elites our level on our own. Hell, I remember 60 Shamans who couldn't clear the Scarlet Monastery on their own. (We needed a 60 Warrior for that, and he had to work at it.)

But our Dungeon gear, The Elements, let us do a little of everything, provided we weren't really looking to fight. ZG finally produced some Hunter gear with +Attack Power that we eyed and took seconds on.

When we started to raid, Molten Core and such, just look at the Tiers 1, 2, and 3 armors. We were expected to be healers. Nothing more.

The old adage: If you can heal, you heal.

New adage: If you can heal, you heal, unless you're a priest, and we'll leverage your shadow abilities to greater effect.

It was our PvP gear that let us PvP, and favored the Enhancement Shaman.

Otherwise, the "serious, raiding, Shaman" was, is, and will be, a healer type.

That's right, "Healbots" if you don't like the role, respected "Healers" if you do. I did.

Now, and then, and in the future, being a Shaman was and is about 1) Healing, Buffing, and Cleansing in Raids and Groups, or 2) playing an Elemental or Enhancement off-spec to PvP, or 3) leveling/grinding as Enhancement. That's how it's always been. That's how it's going to be.

Hey, I got a few levels in Nagrand dual wielding with Flametongue on both weapons. Not Windfury. Yeah, I really appreciated Windfury lately, with good weapons, with two different ranks, but if I were called on to go into an Instance, I'd expect to heal and cleanse. I've got a bag full of healing gear. And I can still just get a kick out of dual wielding with a little windfury thrown in.

The Shamans have always been what they are, and what they're going to be. It's all the same as it ever was.

Shaman, medicine man, healer. Not rogue in mail, not mage in mail.

P.S. And until I start raiding again I'll be Enhancement, and I'll be loving it. Do note that I have *two* Shamans on Kirin Tor. I won't be deleting my Draenei Shaman.

On to another topic:

Pearls Before Swine

2007-05-06T21:53:00.000+01:00

Zauberin, my wife's Mage, reaches 40.

A little while later she also got Whitemane's Chapeau. Stylish.

You'll note the cats on Blackhoof's hands. I call them Tom and Felix. They are the Nexus Claw and the Void Talon. I picked them up in the Stormspire from the Consortium guys. Level 66 vendor stuff. I was cranking out over 400 dps with them in the Scarlet Monastery. Absolutely brutal. I guess I always figured faster was better for Shamanistic Rage and mana regen. But damage output is damage done. The Hungering Bone Cudgel was just too fast for a proper main hand. I needed top end damage and the Claw delivers. Now if I could get some proper Shaman weapons...

Too, there is a quest in Blades Edge. The final reward is a dagger with +109 Healing. The Thunderlord Scalpel. Thing is it's One-Hand. Most every +Healing one-hander is for the Main-Hand. This isn't. So I'm dual wielding it with the Mogor's Anointing Club, with +160 Healing, for some healing goodness. +573 in my +Healing getup. Finally something to replace my Landslide Buckler with.

2007-05-05T18:49:00.000+01:00

Great jobs:

Rescuing kids from parrots gone bad. "Bad, Polly, bad. No cracker for you! Now let their children go."

But I've got to ask: There are Draenei kids. Sure, that's expected. It's their world. (Kind of.) But the human kids? What's up with that? "What are you kids doing here? And stay off my lawn!"

"And so, Miss. There I was. Surrounded by Alliance. To the left of me. To the right of me. The enemy flag beckoning me to capture it. Not a friendly tusk in sight. ... Do you dance?"

2007-05-03T22:37:00.000+01:00

Being (nearly) 70 means: No Pugs for the wife.

Zauberin was taking a mana break. We're in the Scarlet Monastery. She'd hopped up on a cannon and said "Take a snapshot with me with the big guns."

At first I thought she meant me.

But if she didn't, certainly she meant to.

P.S. My screenshots are treated before I post them. I usually do a Gamma Correction of 2.0, and then, to correct the resulting color washout, I adjust the Saturation to 120 or so. This makes the screenshots brighter and richer than the saved screenshot. But it also looks more like it does in game.

One of WoW's strengths for me is the vivid richness of the colors. And I must add Commander Morgraine's armor never looked better. (I know they update NPC's regularly. Has he seen a recent gear/appearance upgrade?)

The software I use to crop and edit screenshots is called Irfanview. It's freeware and will read the screenshot in their native .tga (?) format. It's then easy to crop, enhance colors, and save as .jpg or whatever.

2007-05-02T08:51:00.000+01:00

Blizzard strangles own head to grow new disembodied one. Old one left in place to wither away on it's abandoned body.

Off a newsgroup posting:

> I finally did the grinding needed for that last half-level and my warrior hit 58 tonight. As I understand it, I can now walk through some portal.
>
> Where is that portal?

That's right. Why on earth is this poster going to spend one hour in the formerly 58-60 areas, and in the 60 end-game content? Why? You'd have to be an idiot, farming, or a farmer, to do so.

Killing some Fel Orcs in the minutes after this person has stepped through the portal will result in gear better than 95% of the player base found in the old world. Getting to 65-66 will find him being able to have replaced Tier 1 gear, had he ever gotten it. (However, his Warrior is in for a bit of a shock since most plate armor quest rewards have +Int and +Healing on them. He'll have to make friends with the Sporeggar before he picks a new shield up.)

Gone are the reasons to go to BRD, LBRS, UBRS, or Molten Core. Gone is the reason to go work for Argent Dawn and go to Stratholme and Scholomance. The entire 58-60 game content has been eliminated as any value to the average World of Warcraft player. Replaced by seven zones in the Outlands.

Blizzard is most likely spending a lot of it's time now developing content for the smallest fraction of it's players. Pretty soon, maybe I'm just an optimist here, but I think Blizzard will be spending all it's time developing content for nobody. 100% of it's effort for 0% of it's players. Imagine the creativity let loose when they don't have actual constraints to worry about! I mean, if you don't need to worry about players not having 30k health and +1000 mana regen/5s, the sky is the limit! They'll knock our socks off (and leave us for dead).

I still love the game. But I'll say it would blow us all away if they spent a little more time developing content for the rest of us too. We aren't all level 70 yet. Some of us, shocking, yes, I know, actually still have characters in the 10-50 range, and like it that way.

2007-05-02T06:49:00.001+01:00

Otherwise I'm just looking at the maps, and the region levels (i.e. Durotar, level 1-10) and thinking about the races and their routes to 60.

Some quick thoughts:

Orcs/Trolls and Tauren have it easiest. They never have to leave Kalimdor to get to 60. Durotar - The Barrens - Stonetalon Mts - 1000 Needles - Desolace - Dustwallow Marsh - Feralas & Tanaris - Azshara - Un'Goro & Felwood - Winterspring & Silithus. It's "Horde favored" according to Blizzard through Desolace and level 40.

"Alliance favored" on Kalimdor ends in Ashenvale at level 30. Now how Blizzard figures Ashenvale is "Alliance favored" given two Horde Flightpoints, go figure.

The Eastern Kingdoms is a little simpler. Each of the four races, Blood Elves, Undead, Human, and Short People, have their 1-20 zones for themselves. Here the "Horde favored" ends at 20, and the Alliance have two zones, Wetlands and Duskwood, that end at 30. Those really are Alliance favored given no Horde Flightpoints in either. But, countering that, Badlands and Swamp of Sorrows both have Horde Flightpoints and no Alliance Flightpoints. Clearly "Horde favored" and that's at levels 35-45. Blasted Lands. Nearly forgot about this place. Alliance Flight point, 45-55 level range. Pretty much "Alliance favored."

2007-05-02T06:17:00.000+01:00

Did cavemen ski?

I know ol' Ötzi the Iceman used snowshoes. But, if they had skiied, and I guess if they wanted to go spend a nice afternoon snowshoeing and raiding their neighbors, they'd have had some difficulties in the Spring time what with the melting snow. This last weekend I was up there, in the Austrian alps, skiing the last of the snow. Watching it melt before my eyes as I rode the lifts up, spying the marmots spying me and whistling "Danger!" to their buddies. Melanie C, former Spice Girl, performed up above, and the bottom station was a party zone. Good beer after some decent skiing. (If skiing mashed potatoes can be called decent. But it was sunny, warm, skiable, so decent.)

Last night we brought out the dead. Zauberin and Darbanville knocked out a few quests there in STV. Collecting a pristine tigress fang and 8 shadowmaw claws, and then collecting some tumbled blue crystals off the Venture Co. geologists. It was painfully easy. A bubbled fire mage can put out some damage on single targets. Darbanville kept her shielded and all was good. We really need to play around with some AoE grinding tactics.

2007-04-25T21:59:00.000+01:00

She moved.

I took the night off from playing tonight. (Well, we did level up a level over on Velen on Palatine and Sunderella. The chat was driving me nuts though. Didn't hear that many uses of the F-word since Scarface. I finally turned General Chat off.)

Anyway, after the wife went to bed I decided to just browse the internet. First looking at Azerothian maps to course out a questing strategies, alternate leveling routes for those tired of the same-ol' same ol' (such as we altoholics). Doing that I loaded up my Media Player and started listening to music.

That took me to looking up Pete Townshend (of the Who) and his album All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes on Wikipedia. I love his song North Country Girl. Which apparently derives from an earler Dylan song. Which then got me to thinking along those lines, I'm using Wiki here to jump connection to connection, and I found a song I've heard several artists do. But I didn't know the lyrics.

"She Moved Through the Fair" or "She Moves Through the Fair" is based on a traditional Irish Folk song. Its original author is unknown. The song, a folk staple, has been performed by many artists, and its haunting tune and lyrics will be familiar to many.

My young love said to me my mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say
It will not be long now 'til our wedding Day

And she went away from me, she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her move here and move there
And then she went onward, just one star awake
Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake

The people were saying no two e'er were wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear
And that was the last that I saw of my dear

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in
So softly she came her feet made no din
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say
It will not be long now 'til our wedding day

Yeah, Warcraft nerd I am I got to thinking "Forsaken backstory."

Version I know best is by B-Tribe (off their ¡Spiritual, Spiritual! album), and so then I listened to La Guapa (off B-Tribes Sensual, Sensual album).

That then leads to Gin Blossem's Hey Jealousy, and on to The Judybat's Waiting for the Rain and Liquid. Mint Royale's Little Words. Nirvana's Lithium, Smashing Pumpkins 1979. Moby's Porcelain. Chemical Brother's Surface to Air. Blind Melon's No Rain. Collective Soul's She Said that Time is Unfair. The Cure's Cut Here. Oi Va Voi's D'Ror Yikra. Adam Ant's Wonderful. 10cc's I'm Not in Love. William Shatner's (yes) Common People. Oliver Mtukudzi's Todii. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Oh What a Circus (from Evita). Four thousand, four hundred, seventy three songs to choose from. Where's the time?? :) Touch and Go's Life's a Beach.

So what's on your playlist?

2007-04-23T08:33:00.000+01:00

Boyblue, not his name, is selling all the Thorium on Kirin Tor.

First time I ran into him, Saturday, we were up in the corner of the Eastern Plague Lands. At first glance, nothing out of the ordinary. Your run-of-the-mill Orc Hunter.

But the "BOT!" tell tales just screamed out. His pet owl was named, "Owl." And he ignored everything, working on undead. He targeted me for a bit, just standing there, and then moved on.

Where his behavious screamed BOT was that he ignored attacking mobs, why not, he's got a pet, and attempted to mine my thorium vein. Mine because I just happened to mining it at the moment.

Classic Bot, so I added him to my friends list. I use FriendswithBenefits so my Friends list is copied to all my other characters of that faction on the server. Anyway, Boyblue, not his real name, is literally on-line from 4 a.m., server time, to 4 p.m. server time. I see him Sunday morning when I log on in the morning to look for Thorium, and in the afternoon when I play a little, and at night, when I'm questing in the Outlands. Saturday he spent the entire time in the Eastern Plague land, and Sunday he's all over the map. The entire time he's level 60 so his player has not purchased the expansion.

Sunday, I'm ahead of him. Six arcane crystals already, and I've got stacks and stacks of Thorium in the bank building up for the big push to Blacksmithing 300. I've got plans to make 4 entire sets of Imperial Plate (480 some Thorium, 48 rugged leather, 4 star rubies) 1) to level up my blacksmithing, and 2) prepare some equipment for Honorus, Halcyon, Freewind, and Winkydink.

So there I was, in that little ravine with the slimes. I'm mining my Rich Thorium vein. Two loots and a slime attacks. I'm standing on this vein, fighting a slime, and this Boyblue shows up. And starts hacking. A new slime approaches and attacks him. My slime dead I resume mining. He frost traps his slime and proceeds to start mining.

Obviously a bot. Or an asshat.

I get the last of the Thorium and mount up and ride out. I see him ride out too.

So I figure, clever me, I'll follow the Bot and see what he's up to. Obviously this thing is programmed with vein refresh timers so I'm sure he's got a route planned out. So I follow him, and sure enough, he's heading to the next vein I know about. (Cartographer Mining ftw!) The vein is gone, probably due to me, so we continue on.

Then we get to Hearthglen. That's the elite Crusader camp there in the corner. And he dismounts and starts attacking a guard. Hmm. I'd never ventured in. But if it's worth this effort to him, it must be a bonanza inside. So I ride past, 4 more levels than him allowing me to aggro less.

Not a vein inside and I barely make it back out alive. But I do live.

And then I see it. In the chat box.

I got myself ROFLPWNED! The guy played me like a cheap record. I got owned!

In chat, very cute, "Blueboy waves farewell to you." Son of a biscuit! He lured me into Hearthglen, and I took it, hook, line, and sinker! ROFL!

He certainly pulled one over on me.

But, it also means this was not a bot.

This is a live player, with brains, who does nothing but farm mineral nodes across Azeroth. (I later noted him in the Barrens, Winterspring, Burning Steppes.) He does nothing but farm, and plays round the clock, and does not own the expansion. He's certainly not funding a main, or a twink, since he's got no time. And it's a live player since he played that little trick on me.

Later, I was in the Burning Steppes, looking for Thorium. At one of the veins, there's this, level, yep, 60, warrior in, yep, crap gear, mining it. 60, crap gear, Bot. So when he's done and mounts up, I do too. And I follow him, figuring I'd check out it's programming.

That is until it stopped, targeted me for a bit, untargeted me, rode on, me on his heels, targeted me, and then spit on me.

Tsk, tsk.

I returned with him to the Alliance flightpoint and we parted ways.

Apparently not bots. Apparently rude farmers.

Is it me, but wouldn't a level 70 farmer, with lower aggro range, be better able to quickly make money?

And could someone claim that they 1) enjoy farming minerals to sell in the auction house, and 2) enjoy it to the exclusion of all other activity. I guess so. Sad life though.

Because this weekend I had Msaker help out a few folks in Hillsbrad, sent Darbanville with Zauberin to STV. Had Blackhoof start on the Ogres in Blades Edge, rescuing some troll trapped in a pile of poo. Msaker probably farmed 120 thorium and 7 arcane crystals. And Sunstriker and Halcyon travelled to Stonetalon Peak for a change of pace.

2007-04-21T10:49:00.000+01:00

It's 4 a.m.. Do you know where your Thorium is?

I don't know where it all is here on Kirin Tor. It's 4 a.m., server time, and the Plaguelands have been stripped nigh bare of the metal.

I do see one single seller is selling numerous stacks of 20 bars in the Auction House. How fortunate for him. Hats off to you, Sir, or Madam. Because I couldn't betake the mind numbing drudgery of locking out every other gatherer to secure it, all, for myself.

It puts me in a bit of a quandry since I can't level up my blacksmithing past 280 without it. I'm sitting on stacks of easily obtained Fel Iron just waiting for the day I can break past the "Locked tighter than Paris Hilton's chastity belt, not" period where Thorium, and only Thorium, is required for everything a Blacksmith does.

Does anyone, ever, manage to 1) get the plans for the Imperial Plate Set, and 2) make every piece of it, before 3) way out leveling the point where it's still useful? Well, it was a good set, I was still wearing parts of it at 60 when I started replacing it with PvP gear. Should my wife's Halcyon need tanking gear, that'll certainly be a good set for it with Stamina and Strength. And my Arcanite bars are being saved up to make enchanting rods for our enchanters. (Or, that would be pretty cool too, I equip my lovely wife's Blood Elf Paladin with an Arcanite Reaper.)

Thorium Bars! All ye, all ye, in come free!

Now for tailoring, Runecloth drops off pretty much any humanoid over level 50. It can be farmed easily by anyone. (I.e. the whole Paris Hilton thing again.)

2007-04-19T21:21:00.000+01:00

A "Hey there," from Silvermoon on Velen.

Sunderella and Palatine moving on up in the world. The evening found us reaching level 10 and completing the Voidwalker summoning quest for her in the Ghostlands.

And this is a PvE server. So no RP required, and the chat channel was pretty good for a change. All sounded reasonable. That is, heh, until a couple folks started talking about starting up a guild. "We'll be the 'Crusaders of Velen!'" "Yeah!" "Cool guild name!"

So I, stupidly, sought to correct them. "Velen is a Dreanei Prophet found in the Exodar." "I know that. That's what makes the name cool." Uh, yeah, you knew that. You and your five 70's on another realm.

Anyway, Velen is PvE, and no PvP to worry about. Here's a snippet of some conversation overheard in Silvermoon tonight.

Yeah, I'm going to miss that. Not! Heh. And I haven't for a long time. If I want PvP I'm going to do it with 39 strangers on my side, and 40 enemies on the other. That's fun.

2007-04-18T06:45:00.000+01:00

An evening with two altoholics suffering altism.

The servers finally up, about 7 pm our time, we begin our slow entry into the night's gaming. I’m browsing add-on sites checking out the latest creations. I run WinAceUpdater and UI Central to make sure I’m otherwise up-to-date. Looking over my shoulder I see the wife is looking at her characters over on Steamwheedle Cartel. “Dwarves are ugly,” she says. Alas, poor Grethel, her Dwarven Priestess, after having her inventory cleared out she’s smacked by the Mack truck of the delete key. Hmmm. What do *I* need a Dwarf Hunter for then if I’ve also got Iduve, my Draenei Huntress? Caelik logs on, liquidates his assets, and goes the way of the Dodo bird. We’re Dwarf free and happy with it.

While Caelik is cleaning out his bags, the wife decides she wants a priest. (Just not a Dwarf one.) And she decides Melissand, her pale human Paladin isn’t worth it. She’s already got a Paladin in Halcyon. Smack. Melissand is no more. Le Melissand est mort. Viva la Melissand. Melissand is then reborn, a human Priest this time, in that Nefertiti look that Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, made so fashionable. Dark hair, bangs, dark skin. She’s the perfect partner for my Warlock, Abdiblis, who looks like he just stepped off the subway in Baghdad. Priest and Warlock. We have some sustainability there.

But, what professions to take? Well, now that Melissand is no longer mining and smithing, she can have her Nehemiah, a Human Warrior, do that. And since he’s doing that he’s no longer the herb gathering alchemist. So the new Melissand can do that. Nehemiah was going to start in the Elven lands for the herbs. So he’s gained a reprieve and will instead return to the human lands, where ore abounds. And in his place goes Melissand. Level 2, Melissand leaves Northshire, and with the company of Level 14 Adbiblis, she makes “The Long Run”. In reverse. A couple of deaths in Wetlands and we finally reach Dolanar and get a well earned rest in the Inn.

And while Abdiblis tries to procure some linen off Furbolgs to craft bags and stuff for the new Melissand, it’s back to the character screen for the wife. Her Troll Frost Mage, Katonga. She’s ugly. And has a funny run. Doy dee doy. Smack! Katonga is no more. But, nature abhors a vacuum. Katonga is reborn. This time as white haired, male, Troll Shaman. Stretching after a hard gaming session, the wife informs me she’s going to bed. “G’night dear.” So my Troll Rogue is replaced with another Troll Rogue. Purple haired Aminijin, Rogue, is replaced with white haired, female, Rogue, named Amanijin. We’ve got to have Trolls.

And then I logged on as Blackhoof and worked off a few more quests in Nagrand. Just a couple more bars to go and I’ll be 68 with him.

2007-04-16T15:28:00.000+01:00

Beautiful Undercity.

Because we're in it.

(Halcyon! C'mon, honey. Stand up straight. C'mon, please? I'll have Msaker make you some more armor. Pretty please? Oh, nevermind.)

2007-04-09T14:36:00.000+01:00

Living Large, Gotta' Get Goals.

Gitr tagged me.
After he was tagged in a post in a blog by Phil Gerbyshak.
From a meme being followed by a Greg Balanko-Dickson.
And that meme begun by Alex Shalman. (This is where you'll find the rules.)

(I hope I kept that straight!)

Anyway, in short, I need to list and write about the top 5 to 10 goals that I "gotta’ get" so that I can truly say I have achieved my wildest dreams in life. These have to be my best, most exclusive, and over-the-top goals that I can pick off my goals list.

So, here goes:

1. Become a family man.
Well, I got married almost two years ago to a wonderful woman. So I'm off to a good start.

2. Go on safari. Ride in an open-top jeep through the wildlife of Kenya. Climb to the snowy peaks of Mt. Kilamanjaro in Tanzania. See Victoria Falls in Zambia.

I have been to the Sinai but have never set foot on the African continent. This would be in the something akin to being in the footsteps of the Victorian Age explorers ala the National Geographic Society of the bygone era.

3. Go on a long, slow, cruise. Round the world. West to east, and see Australia along the way.
I've been on cruises, the Inside Passage to Alaska, and the Caribbean, but this round the world trip would simply be like *living* an ocean goers life.

4. Live in a home, with my family, connected to the world, close to everything, yet private, with a view of mountains, forests, and ocean, and experience all the wonders of the changes of seasons. A stone wall with a fireplace. Heavy wood to last the ages. This would be in the Northwest, or the Northeast. Or Scotland. Who knows. Home is where the heart is, does it matter where it's geographically at?

5. Financial security. I don't want to worry, or be worried. I don't need ten homes, or exclusive country club memberships. I just want to be comfortable, have the best for my family, and have us all be "Just fine."

Towards that goal I've managed to do well at my career, I am relatively debt free, and I've invested heavily into our company's 401K program.

This is a "pass it on" kind of thing. I'll pass the baton now to three more bloggers who've shared.

DM Osbon
Tomas Rofkahr
Excalibur

2007-04-08T14:04:00.000+01:00

Where we came from. Where we are. Where we're going.

Where did Honorus come from? He was of humble origin, a farmer originally. He and his wife, Effilda, lived a quiet existence in the sunny fields of Westfall. He counted amongst his neighbors the Furlbrows and the Jansens. But the world changed, the wars came, and he was one of the farmers driven from his land by the Defias Brotherhood.

The world didn't need farmers then as much as it needed the means to survive. Freedom isn't free, and Honorus was prepared to fight for freedom, for his land stolen by the Defias, and fight against the greater threat, that of the enslavement or destruction sought by the Scourge.

Leaving his wife behind in Stormwind, their new home, he journeyed to Elwynn Forest to enlist in the army.

Basic training went quickly, and he soon graduated from the training at the Cathedral in Northshire. Level 06 and ready for the world.

His wife Effilda followed him not long after. It's a hard enough world, and where one might make a small difference, two can make even more. She enlisted, as a mage, and he returned to Elwynn to help her. This time both left Northshire to fight the battles in the world. Effilda, a mage, and Honorus a more seasoned level 25.

And now, as soldiers for Stormwind City, Honorus and Effilda, both coming into their prime at level 40, riding in defense of the Human race against the evils of our time.

2007-04-06T23:38:00.000+01:00

The Scarlet Monastery at last completed. Except for the detail of one small scarlet key.

But, I got my new sword, the Sword of Serenity, and a nice new shield, the Aegis of the Scarlet Commander, out of the deal.

And I've reached level 39. One more and I'll be riding in style.

Now if I could get in on a successful Library run, my day would have been made.

P.S. "Honorus" is not "Honor us." It's a bit of an uncommon spelling of the Emperor Honorius's name. And it's the proper spelling for a few Popes. Honorus III in 1216, for example. I think it's not a bad name for a Paladin. And if I manage to display some good playing skill, by all means "Honor us." ;)

2007-04-03T13:24:00.000+01:00

It's the 3rd? I missed the 1st?

No, not really. But color me unimpressed. The Tin Hat thing? That's the best they come up with to amuse 8,000,000 customers? And the old "forum switcheroo" thing, where players are GMs and GMs are Trolls? C'mon, tell us what you really think of your customer base, Blizzard! ;)

Nothing really jumped out at me for April Fool's Day.

Things that have been keeping me busy:

Effilda and Honorus are 2 levels each from Level 40. Horses! An all-Protection Paladin partying with an all-Arcane Mage. It works.

Blackhoof has reached 67. He continues to be adequate. But I'll admit, as the only healer my group survived the Ring of Blood quests. Going back to help some other folks out, and taking a back seat to a 70 Druid for healing, we wiped. True story.

Darkhand came out to play last night. He journeyed to Strahnbrad in order to get the tailoring pattern for Black Silk Bags for Effilda. The place is mid-30's with lots of rogue-types to kill. Joy. The recipe dropped after the 15th Spy, but he continued on. Wandering into an Inn, he wound up killing a jailer, and then killing an Orc. (But of course.) That flagged him for PvP. Hmm. I'm a Rogue in a PvE world and got me thinking about the old days on a PvP server. At this point in WoW's life it must just be level 70 psychos cruising for kills. Thanks, no. He then headed south to Tanaris and went town to Ogre Town. Just a few levels below him they drop quickly and it will be a good place to grind out xp for him, and mageweave for Effilda. And in a few levels he'll be able to go into Alterac Valley. Given his current combat spec, if he waits till 55 he'll get enough points into Subtelty to get Improved Sap. I think the BG's will see good use of that.

Effilda was escorted into Uldaman by Arcarius to take care of two things. Recover a power source from some big metal thing, and to visit Annora the Enchanting Trainer. Mission accomplished.

Sunstriker is quest logged up for Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deeps. Droonda, the Orc Shaman Princess is going to escort him through to acquire some (relatively) phat lewt. Rod of the Sleepwalker and Arugal's Robes will be some of the rewards. Then he and Halcyon will return to their Pally + Mage questing.

I respecced Sunstriker to Arcane now. I'm thinking the reduced threat from my Arcane spells will go well with a Paladin that's trying to hold aggro. At some point I will try out the Frost tree, for the so-called "Shatter" build.

2007-04-01T07:19:00.000+01:00

I wish.

'Nuff said.

2007-04-01T07:10:00.000+01:00

PUGging hasn't been too bad.

Over the last two nights Blackhoof has conquered the Ring of Blood (and got a great +Healing one-hander, Mogor's Anointing Club) and slain Durn the Hungerer (and got a fast combat one-hander, the Hungering Bone Cudgel).

For the first one I joined after being whispered by a guildie looking for some help, and was joined with three other non-guildies. The second one I was with Nachmahd killing beasts and I figured "Why not?" and announced "LFM" for Durn in /general and got three more.

I met some good folks (Masstiff was in both parties, a real good Feral Druid) and got something accomplished.

Folks don't like PUGs but I've had more positive than anything experiences with them.

2007-03-31T16:00:00.000+01:00

Or finding mushrooms.

I noticed this today, for the first time. What a beautiful fountain. Reminded me of Italy, and don't the Draenei make the perfect Nymphs?

2007-03-31T09:56:00.000+01:00

It's not all about nuking Forsaken.

Sometimes you stop and watch a moon rise.

Then you get back to the business.

2007-03-27T22:39:00.000+01:00

"And if I live, something will die."

We were two Level 36 Paladins and we completed a level 39 elite quest in Stromgarde.

Seal of Light stacks with Judgement of Light. I know that today.

And Reckoning with a very fast weapon just puts out a flurry of attacks. Very cool.

Folks say Paladins are at their strongest in their 30's. Does this power go down in later levels?

2007-03-27T10:44:00.000+01:00

"I'm not here to do damage. I'm here to live."

That's what Honorus tells the two warriors that have summoned him to the summoning stone outside of the Scarlet Monastery.

They've seen his little Knightly Longsword, and compared to the big axes on both their backs, they assume he's not going to do much with it.

"My wife is a Mage. She's the killer. I just live."

And that little Knightly Longsword, with a fast fast 1.5 second swing, that gets enough hits in to let the healing from my Seal of Light flow.

We had a good enough romp into the Scarlet Monastery. We first visited the library, where I only needed to find a book, and kill Loksley the Houndsmaster. The two warriors, Night Elves on Jumping Jacks, were literally bouncing everywhere and ensuring we never had a dull moment, with full and double pulls the routine. One of them was level 34 and the other 39. We also had a Draenei Priest along, and a level 32 Druid. The Druid later left and we replaced him with another Night Elf, this time a Rogue. Well we worked our way mostly to Daon, but in the last room they managed to get all the groups and we wiped. Coming back we realized there'd been a repop behind us. Game over. Well, I'd gotten my book, and we'd killed Locksley, so now what?

So they decided to try the Graveyard. Turns out there is a rare spawn in there that carries a rare sword. (The rare spawn was there but I lost the need roll.)

But here is where this little Paladin shone. The warriors would go to both sides and bring back groups of ghosts. This is where my Consecration spell came in handy. Over and over, and I stayed at the top in DPS. Not bad for a little sword, or Pally survivability. And at nearly 1900 health, if I'm remembering right, I had more health than even the 39 Warrior.

2007-03-25T07:25:00.000+01:00

A new technique.

And the wife was just blown away. She was laughing with power. "That's what I'm talking about."

The new idea? For us at least. Honorus gathers together a handful of mobs, she melts them with AoEs. We realized (yes, yes, we're such noobs) that killing one was as hard as killing six. If I could survive six beating on me, which I can, we can up our kill rate sixfold. Sweet.

Running a Protection build now, she deep in the Arcane tree, we sought mobs we could round up and beat down. The Kurzen guys we gathered up in their huts, and dispatched them. Like pigs in a poke, or fish in a barrel.

Fun, fun. Those Kill X quests should go more quickly now. Warhorse and Chestnut mare, we'll be collecting ours shortly.

Later, trying to wrap up my Stockades quests, I joined a group with three others. 21 Nelf Priest, 21 Nelf Druid, and a 27 Draenei Shaman. I'd turn on Seal of Light, let the Consecration flow, get mana back from the heals I got. I'd run into groups of Defias prisoners and we'd end their pathetic little riot.

I've so much yet to enjoy in this game. Burn-out is other people's problem.

2007-03-23T07:12:00.000+01:00

Hellfire Ramparts through the eyes of a Beastmaster.

Last night was Arcarius's turn into the Ramparts. So far I've taken an Enhancement Shaman on healing duty, and a Protection Warrior on tanking duty, so now I was going in as a Beastermaster Hunter on DPS* duty. (*I use "DPS" lightly because I achieve half of the numbers that BRK's dwarf, Damh, gets. I removed my damage meters last night, but I might reinstall them. I'm not one that prints them out in chat, "WOOT! LOOK AT MY LEETNESS!", but I do think knowing my relative contribution to the efforts (healing or damage) is important.)

Did I get sidetracked or what?? Anyway, using the Looking for Group tool I was relatively quickly matched up with a Mage (pink ponytailed fire meteor throwing mage), a 60 Arms Warrior ("No shield, I'm Arms. ... By the way, I don't have a shield."), a 64 Druid (Feral/Balance), and a 65 Paladin, of talent spec unknown.

So, I'm yanked from Zangarmarsh and wind up outside the instance. The LFG tool, and the summoning stone thing, are wonderous. So much easier going instancing with these tools. Good job, Blizzard!

The Mage is the party leader and we simply start. No marking. The first two pulls are easy, and we start into the Ramparts, and on the first or second dog packs we wipe. Ouch. All except the Arms Warrior who's managed to reach the exit. We recover and move on. That was our last wipe.

And I started by laying freezing traps, to immobilize one of a group, but the Paladin said he wanted to AoE them so just lay a frost trap. The Paladin had a shield and that worked pretty well. The Mage had a propensity for gaining aggro, but I'd jump to that as I could, sending in my new Ravager pet (loyalty level 2, noob) to protect her, and interrupt spell casting with Intimidation.

We got into a comfortable rhythym and that worked very well. The first boss was a joke. His first healer was melted, the second was grazing on grass, and he went down. The groups were easy enough, no challenges there. The demon boss was a cakewalk. The dragon was next.

Now, the dragon has wiped every party I've been in so far. And while Blackhoof has seen him killed, Msaker is missing that satisfaction. But this time, with this group, he dropped like he'd taken a whippit shot. His health dropped so fast I thought I was watching lame duck poll numbers. Flawless I thought.

That was a good run. I'm pretty pleased with that.

My new ravager... The former one, which I tamed for the Gore 8 ability, and the cool looks, was a green one with purple highlights. I named him Outlandish. He reached loyalty level 4 or so. But he wasn't all that. So I dismissed him right outside the Cenarian Expedition and tamed a new ravager. This one is all purples, with red glowing eyes. I named him, or her rather, Darkense. (It seems I may have mispelled that. It should be Darckense. Ah, well, no loyalty loved or lost there. A new one will be tamed tonight and properly named.)

Anyway, I can be pretty oblique sometimes. Anyone want to speculate why Darckense is the most chillingly perfect name for a Ravager?

I mean, I wasn't even really going there. I was looking for a good name, of a protaganist or so, and wound up spotting and settling on this one. And the reason behind it, and she's a Ravager, is perfect to a T. (And the source is an incredibly excellent read as well. Don't read too much background though, cause the spoiler is a Crying Game type twist. If you're at all into the genre it's one of my favorites.)

2007-03-19T07:57:00.000+01:00

Transformation.

Msaker has been a Mortal Strike Warrior for some time now. In his 40's he was Fury, dual wielding for leveling goodness, but upon getting into Alerac Valley, and getting his mitts on an Ice Barbed Spear, he was specced for Mortal Strikes because that was good for burst damage and that's good in the Battlegrounds.

Yes, I had a shield, and I knew the basics of holding aggro, and I considered myself a "Tank." But sword and a board don't a tank make. Yes, I'd tanked Scholomance to good acclaim. But how was I going to stack up in the Outlands? Where, oddly, there are no Warriors tanking. (I see why, since Outlands is clearly Paladinlands with regards to plate gear.)

So, I stepped into the machine, journeyed to the Undercity, and became transformed. I am now a Tanking Warrior. Full Protection down to Devastate, some points in Fury for crit chance, and the rest of the points in Arms. I'm not sure if it's a typical build, but for me, it seems to fit the requirement. (I am now putting points into Iron Will after being stunned over and over by the Orcs in the Blood Furnace. I can't tank if I'm stunned.)

(Scene from the Blood Furnace. Yes, that is a Tabard of the Protector from the Dark Portal opening event.)

So, my first order of business of practice with the new build. Into the Armory wing of the Scarlet Monastery. I killed everything, including Herod, and then Thunderclapped his students. I never even paused. Into the Cathedral wing. I killed everything, looking for Scarlet gear for my wife's Paladin, and even started into the Cathedral itself, pulling, and killing, two at a time. Again, without a worry. I don't know if I can solo the Cathedral or not, but it looks awfully promising that I can. The build worked, and I've got my buttons set up decently.

So, test of fire, back to the Outlands for a real instance.

I didn't have any quest there, not having done the Ramparts yet, but into the Blood Furnace we went. A Resto Shaman for healing, a lock, mage, and somebody. Woot. One death and we cleared the instance.

So, still full of energy, positive rage, and after dinner, I returned, and this time went into the Ramparts, Paladin, Mage, Warlock, and Rogue with me. No deaths until we hit the Dragon. Woot. And this Paladin, Protection specced, healed like a Priest. I see now why Holy Priests are furious. This guy was main healing, and handled it great.

Protection Warrior Tank. This is going to be an interesting career move.

P.S. Devastate feels a lot like a Rogue finishing move. My MetaHUD puts sunders up like combo points, and while you can Devastate with any number, the more sunders you have, the more damage you do. But, rather than get cleared, the sunders are refreshed! So it's like finishing moves that you can do over and over. At least that's what it felt like.

2007-03-19T07:36:00.000+01:00

Two are better than one.

Blackhoof was in the Bone Wastes the other day. Slowly, and methodically, working off quests given to him by the folks at the stranded caravan. One quest involved entering the Shadow Tomb and recovering some artifacts. I worked my way down into the tomb and discovered a Dwarf Hunter, named Bluntte, and his bear, Oscar. He was going into the same side room as I was. It quickly became clear that we were working on the same quest, and that fired off the partnership. He'd pick one of a pair, I'd get the other, and we'd help the other finish theirs off. Left and right sides taken care of and we moved to the end room. We cleared this using the same tactic and were at least at the big four armed lady there. He pointed at her, and pointed at me. Ah, he's letting me have her and her loot. Thanks. So we kill her, no loot of note, and grab our artifacts.

Now this room also contained a Broken prisoner, Akuna. And he needed rescuing. So I pointed at him, then at Bluntte. And we were off.

Well, Akuna (I hope I've got his name right) is one annoyed Broken. Rather than quietly, and quickly, coming with us to his freedom, he walks till he spots one of his Orc captors, and runs to attack them. Much hilarity ensued, however, we did manage to get him out into the night air. And out onto the sands and heading to the caravan. Except for the group of two that materialize around him, joined by two more that were already there, and the two skirmishers that just rode up.

Akuna the Maroona, was dead. Bluntte cried, I sighed, and he turned and pointed back to the tomb. I nodded. If at first you don't succeed...

So we head back down, and Akuna is there again, none the worse for the wear. Bluntte points at me, then Akuna. My turn. We head back out, trying to keep him safe. As we clear the tomb Bluntte goes ahead and clears the path. Excellent. And Akuna instead runs to the right, behind some tents, and finds two more we didn't even consider threats. Good grief. What an angry Broken.

But, lo and behold, the pre-clearing worked and Bluntte and I got Akuna to safety. Now I pointed back to the tomb, and we both returned.

And once again Akuna was recovered and delivered to safety.

Bluntte and Oscar, of the Rangers of Kirin Tor , I salute you.

2007-03-16T09:23:00.000+01:00

Just the two of us. Happier wearing, not singing, the Blues.

I see the crystal raindrops fall
And the beauty of it all
Is when the sun comes shining through
To make those rainbows in my mind
When I think of you some time
And I want to spend some time with you

Halcyon is level 20. An up-and-coming Paladin. Ready to serve the Sin'Dorei causes. One new mission was laid before her by her Paladin Trainer. To acquire the materials for the Blood Tempered Ranseur, the trade-mark weapon of the cadet Blood Elf Paladins.

There was a part to be retrieved from Deathholme, but we would save that for another night.

The other parts appear to be slightly more difficult in getting. But Halcyon has friends. Powerful friends. She knows 800 pounds of bovine intelligence: Blackhoof. And, well, in the old world a level 65 Enhancement Shaman is a force to be reckoned with. If you happen to be one of the beginning instances.

So, our first target was Shadowfang Keep. He met in the Undercity, she porting in from Silvermoon City, and I from Shattrath City. We both hopped bats to the Sepulcher, and ran to the Keep. Rawr. (Sorry, but you get to feeling like that when you revisit old instances, particularly ones that gave you problems.) We make our way down to the jail cells, whack, whack, turn the dogs to bone. We speak with Sparky, the Keep's new (NEW?!?!) prisoner in the jail cells. He reveals the secret of where the ingot, the first material she needs, is to be found. In a box in the stables. I can't kill him, pink skinned human, (URGES!) and oddly, I can't lock the cell again. (Heh.) And then we speak with the Forsaken prisoner who gets us into the courtyard. And there I am unleashed rage, a Shaman on the warpath. I leave everything dead, and those already dead, they wind up deader. WOP WOP WOP WOP dead dead dead dead. Hooah! /flex. And there's Sparky, in new skin. Furry skin. Thin skin. Paper thin. Aw. Poor Sparky.

Halcyon enters the stables, her path cleared before her like she was royalty. I wish I had some rose petals to dust the path before her with.

And I decide it's just a minute or two more until we reach the ghostly Commander Springvale, so let's pay him a visit. And we leave Springvale pushing up daisies and Halcyon loots him. The Commander's Crest drops. (A nice, blue, level 23 Shield: [623 Armor, 13 Block, +6 Str, +3 Stam, +3 Spi]) She's dinged 21 by now, and in 2 levels she'll be able to use it. Nice. We shake the dog fur off our gear and make our way out and back to Tirisfal Glades.

The next step was the zeppelin flight to Orgrimmar, and into Ragefire Chasm. Halcyon happened to be on a quest there already, and the two tomes she needed quickly dropped. (What are Orc hooligans doing with reading material??) But the real goal was killing a named Orc and activating the orb behind him and summoning a demon. Demon summoned, and we've got his blood. Two materials acquired. When we departed the average intelligence, and beauty, of Orgrimmar's populace plummeted. (Blood Elves have behaved themselves remarkably well on Kirin Tor. The feared nekkid belf dance parties on the mailbox outside the bank never materialized.)

Next stop was to make the trip into the Night Elf lands. We ran to the Crossroads, picked up the flightpoint, then turned north for the long jog to Splintertree Post. That flightpoint in hand, we veered west and travelled around Astranaar ("Hello you lop eared bastards! Get into the sun more you freaks!" /wave - Life on a PvE server isn't all death and bloodshed!) to Zoram Strand. The last materials we'd get in the old world was the gem, and those drop quickly off the naga outside of the Blackfathom Deep's entrance.

It was a long night. Halcyon and Blackhoof visited three world instances, on two continents. And Halcyon is just short one material, the insignia of the Blood Knight. That task will fall to her and Sunstriker when next they return to Deathholme and complete the last of the missions they have there.

Just the two of us
We can make it if we try
Just the two of us, just the two of us
Just the two of us
Building castles in the sky
Just the two of us, you and I

(Just the Two of Us, 1980, by Bill Withers.)

P.S. My wife *hates* pugs and enjoys it best when it's just the two of us. And I love seeing her happy, wearing, not singing, the blues.

2007-03-15T09:43:00.000+01:00

"Call me Legion." Lol.

Last night we took it easy, the wife and I.

Our Blood Elves are nearly done with the new Blood Elf area. The Amani Trolls have been put in their place. We've poisoned their food, collected their Juju, killed them, and killed their leader. We've also killed the traiterous Blood Elf found in Deathholme, we've killed the giant dead guys wandering the place, and now we're tasked with a few final quests, and that is to find and kill his lieutenants and rescue some folks.

Our Draenei are also coming along. Still on Bloodmyst Isle.

I think I prefer the green, albeit gloomy, atmosphere of the Ghostlands, to the red, stifling, atmosphere of Bloodmyst Isle.

But, flipped around, I liked the Draenei northwestern forest feel of the beginning area a little better than Eversong. I guess I prefer cool green to warm reds and oranges.

Anyway, as we were getting our training, and after Zimraphel logged off, a guild recruitment announcement caught my eye. Legion of Light was recruiting.

I thought to myself "I'm all about the Light, being Draenei." So I ask the recruiter what kind of levels? Casual or endgame? Some 60's. Casual. Hmmm. I'm about to take the bait. Wait, wait, do you have a website? Yep. (See sidebar.) Alright, they had me at Legion. Sign me up.

Hello. Welcome. welcome, they greet me with. Hello everyone, I say.

Then I mention to her I had a few more characters. I see that there's not that many 60's in the guild. No 70's. The recruiter, Druid, is only a Private. I later meet the guildmaster in person, a Paladin, and he's not wearing a set. And he's got no PvP title. And then I look at the guild roster. So many low and mid-level characters. Cool! This sounds like a casual guild.

So I bring Arcarius on. And get him an invite. They're happy to get another level 60+ character to instance with.

Then I bring Darkhand on. And get him an invite. At this time I say "Call me Legion." They laugh.

So I bring Greenclaw on, /gquit the abandoned Nightsong Moon (they having left for a new server), and got him an invite.

Then I brought Freewind on. I feel like I'm pushing the limit of something. (On the other hand that's 2 40's, a 48, and a 62 that are new to the guild.) The guildmaster is a blacksmith and offers to make me anything I need. Truesilver Gauntlets and Heavy Mithril Leggings. And I had the materials already. Cool.

Then I brought Honorus on. I think I confused them at this point and got a party invite, and not a guild one. Lol'd, and they /ginvited me.

It turns out the guildmaster was going to go help someone in Uldaman because he likes the place. Cool.

Six invites. So I tell them my wife plays a little too. And she tells me that anyone can recruit. Nice.

And the guild chatter was friendly. No rping, though I ask about it. When I mention that my Horde guild rp's in guild chat and does out of character stuff in an additional channel they immediately create an lolooc channel. And they plan a lolrp channel for heavy roleplaying. And within seconds of getting each guild invite I was promoted twice, getting the ability to recruit, and they recorded my professions in the player note.

It's past midnight and I bid them a goodnight. "Goodnight, Legion. Lol."

It's nice having a friendly chatter in the background again.

2007-03-12T12:11:00.000+01:00

Running around Terokaar Forest. And back to Hellfire Peninsula and into the Blood Furnace.

Blackhoof, completing most all of the quests in Zangarmarsh, and dinging 64 in the process, graduated and moved to the forest around Shattrath City, Terokaar Forest.

Most all of the quests are easy enough to accomplish solo. Highlights include taking out the Firewing liaison in the Bonechewer Ruins. This wound up being the worst. I didn't die as I returned to kill Vindicators and those Warlock types, and I managed to kill the liaison easily enough as well, but as I grabbed my last Vindicator, standing in the back of the compound on the wooden beams of the dam, I must have pulled the Vindicator and a mounted patrol. They beat the stuffing out of me. I ankh'd and tried again, carefully backing away. And a Peon appears and the two of them start beating me like egg whites, and I don't make it. I come back and gleefully, no quest needed, slaughter that freaking peon, and the vindicator, and go collect my reward. As a Shaman none of the rewards mattered for that quest. Oh, well. The vendors will buy most anything.

The quests centered around the Cenarian Thicket were easy as well.

And a few quests took me to the Arakkoa sites where I slew more than a few of the feathered punks.

Dual wielding Grunt's Waraxes from Thrallmar, buffed with Frostbrand, I was doing about 200-220 DPS if I remember right. That's not too bad I guess. (Outland greens and blues at the moment.) Rank 1 Earthshock for spell interruption, and there was a whole lot of that going on in Terokaar.

The Cenarian Thicket quests took me to honored with the Cenarian Expedition. Woot. I returned and bought the Preserver's Cudgel, a really nice one-handed mace that looks like a massive totem and has +105 Healing on it. My old Staff of Dominance is a two-hander which had +40 Spell/Healing, to which I added a +55 Healing enchant. The mace has +11 Intelligence versus the +37 of the staff. But, it's a one-hander, so I can use the Landslide Buckler too. That too has +11 Intelligence, and +13 spells/damage. And the +3 mana/5s on the shield adds to the +5 mana/5s on the cudgel, and with +2428 armor, it's a clear winning replacement. Less +Int, but adding mana regen, so it's a great trade off.

And I was about to put it to the test.

Employing the Looking for Group tool I signed up for the Hellfire Citadel's Blood Furnace. Within minutes we were assembled. All of us mid-60's except the one guy we added, a level 70 Hunter.

The Warrior was level 66, and had run the Furnace for something like 30 times already. He just wanted one particular drop off The Maker. A set of plate gauntlets. I play a Warrior too so I know that this is 2nd piece of plate for the hands a warrior can get in the HP. So he was experience.

The Druid was level 61. He was in Molten Core Cenarian gear, and he was Resto, (Good for him!), and he healed like a madman.

We had a level 65, or so, Warlock.

The Hunter was level 70, and me, level 64 Shaman.

I signed up planning to heal, and I pretty much stayed in that gear for the run. That'd be full Earthfury + Landslide Buckler + Preserver's Cudgel. +196 mana/5s and +395 Healing.

I was more the "Other tank" on this run, since the Druid did some spectacular healing. I did spot healing, but more importantly, I did my best to pull unintentional aggro off the Warlock and the Druid.

And this group made the place look simple. Three bosses here, The Maker, Brogguk the eye, and Keli'dan the Breaker. The trash mobs were easily handled. The Warlock kept his charm active, and/or his banishes, and we really only ran into difficulty once. That was when the Warrior ran past a group to grab another. We survived, but it was crazy hectic there for a bit.

Basically I kept Windfury and Strength of Earth Totems down. We really didn't need to exercise more care. We ran the place, almost literally.

So well in fact, that when those gauntlets failed to drop the first time, we completed the instance and reset it, and tried again. Second time was a charm, and he at long last got his gauntlets.

I liked the Blood Furnace, and the story behind it. They made it very clear how the Fel Orcs came into being.

And Blackhoof dinged 65.

And, yes, I occasionally donned my Enhancement kit and tried DPSing. Sometimes 2nd on the DPS chart, occasionally touching the #1 spot.

When I first started dual wielding I was focusing on keep Windfury on the weapons. You know, Windfury Rank 4 on both. Ha! I got suckered. Because most self-respecting Shamans knew to keep different ranks so both have a chance to Proc. I started doing that and Windfury was proccing way more. SCT was just a spam of Windfury hits. Niiiiice. They said they've "fixed" that and I supposedly don't get these "double" procs anymore (Why the hell should the buff on the 2nd weapon NOT proc??!), but it still "feels" good and productive.

But against anything with any armor, that's not the best. Fire ignores armor, so Flametounge appeared to be a good buff. But what I found was Frostbrand was doing better DPS and as a bonus slowed the mobs down when they thought to run. And those Waraxes are 1.90 weapon speed, so reasonably fast. SCT was showing a good deal of Frostbrand spam too. SCT is just plain fun for a Shaman.

Next stop for Blackhoof will be to start on the quests down in the Bone Wastes. And with the Looking for Group tool, hopefully soon into Coilfang Reservoir.

2007-03-11T08:41:00.000+01:00

A Clear Winner. By a nose. Of the Darwin Award. Now I need Midas.

My Frostwolf needs it's brakes checked.

2007-03-10T15:12:00.000+01:00

Here are my add-ons, and the sources for them.

What it looks like:

Sources:

WoW Interface http://www.wowinterface.com/
Curse Gaming http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/files/addons/
WoW Ace Addons http://wowace.com/wiki/Category:Addons
WoW Ace Addons Listing http://files.wowace.com/
WoW UI http://ui.worldofwar.net/
Auctioneer http://auctioneeraddon.com/dl/AuctioneerComplete/
Gazmik Fizzwidget’s http://www.fizzwidget.com/

A lot of my add-ons are Ace based so I can use this program to automatically update them:
WinAceUpdater http://wowace.com/wiki/WinAceUpdater

My friend told me about WoW UI’s updater program. UI Central. http://ui.worldofwar.net/ui.php?id=2106 I will have to check it out.

The add-on list:

!BugGrabber

This add-on will suppress error messages.

!OmniCC

This adds countdowns to your action bar/hot bar icons.

!Swatter

Another bug swatter. Duhr.

Ace2

The backbone of any Ace add-on suite.

AdvancedTradeSkillWindow

This gives me a nice crafting window. Sortable by item class or difficulty. Nice for finding recipes to level up on. Includes a queue and a “buy missing reagenst to fulfill the queue from vendor” function.

AllPlayed

Tells you how many hours you’ve played. Or days.

Antagonist

This is a set of bars for enemy casts and buffs.

Atlas
AtlasBattlegrounds
AtlasDungeonLocs
AtlasFlightPaths
AtlasLoot
AtlasOutdoorRaids
AtlasOutlandsMaps
AtlasQuest

Atlas is an in-game map, different from the built-in map. Loot, Instance, and Quest features are helpful.

Auctioneer

Invaluable for casual Auction House play.

AutoBar & AutoBarConfig

Keeps my potions, mounts, pets, hearthstone in a place separate from my action bar/hot bars.

Automaton

This provides auto-repair, automatically decline duel requests, automatically accept group/raid invites from friends and guildmates.

AutoProfit

Another add-on that auto-sells vendor trash.

Bartender3

My action bar add-on.

BattleCry

Roleplaying emotes and communications. “For the Light!” shouted when you heal someone. Or whatever.

BugSack

I keep this since add-ons aren’t perfect. This will take the bugs and quietly just suppress them, doing away with the red text pop-up in the middle of your screen.

Capping

Battleground add-on for flag timers, resource count, time to win/lost, ownership, etc. Nice.

Cartographer
Cartographer_Fishing
Cartographer_Herbalism
Cartographer_Import
Cartographer_Mining
Cartographer_Noteshare
Cartographer_Opening
Cartographer_QuestObjectives
Cartographer_Quests
Cartographer_Stats
Cartographer_Trainers
Cartographer_Treasure
Cartographer_Vendors

This is your built-in map on legal steroids. Highly recommended.

Chronometer

These are timer bars for buffs, totems, etc.

ClassLoot

This is new for me. It supposedly ties in loot recommendations to the tool-tip. I.e. “That Hand of Ragnaros is definitely a Shaman weapon.” That kind of thing. ;)

Click2Cast

This is an easy click to cast add-on. Set up bindings (shift-right click) and associate a spell with it. It works and is simple. Like Clique.

cyCircled

This add-on makes other add-ons like Bartender, TrinketMenu, Autobar, etc., look better. My current favorite gives the appearance of a piece of glass over every action bar icon, beveled at the top.

DamageMeters

How am I doing DPS, Healing, against the competition?

Decursive

This really works well. Gives you small little boxes to click when folks get diseased, poisoned, etc.

DruidBar

I used this to keep track of Druid mana in animal form. I’m not sure if XPerl includes it already, or if it uses this.

ElkBuffBar

The built-in buff display is lacking.

EQCompare

This should be built in. Hover over an item link and it’ll put what you’re already wearing/wielding next to it.

FriendsWithBenefits

Makes sure your friend lists of your characters are the same across all the characters of the same faction on a server. A godsend if you have a lot of alts.

FuBar
FuBar_AnkhTimer
FuFuBar_BagFu
FuBar_BattlegroundFu
FuBar_CharmsFu
FuBar_ClockFuFuBar_DuraTek
FuBar_ExperienceFu
FuBar_FactionsFu
FuBar_FarmerFu
FuBar_FriendsFu
FuBar_FuXPFu
FuBar_GuildFu
FuBar_HonorFu
FuBar_MailFu
FuBar_MarkofHonorFu
FuBar_MoneyFu
FuBar_PaladinTimerFu
FuBar_PetInfoFu
FuBar_PlayFuFuBar_QuestsFu
FuBar_RecapFu
FuBar_RecZone
FuBar_RogueTimerFu
FuBar_SkillsPlusFu
FuBar_SpeedFu
FuBar_TopScoreFu
FuBar_TrainerFu
FuBar_VolumeFu
FuBar_WarlockTimerFu
FuBarPlugin-2.0

All these I like. Fubar is far and away better than Titan Panel when it comes to resource useage. Titan Panel would kill my warrior with memory leaks.

Fudge & Nudge

No, it's not a new Girl Scout cookie. Fudge is for casters, and Nudge is for Hunters. It’ll show you what’s in range of a spell, or not. And for Hunters it’ll show you out of range, in range, deadzone, and melee. I’ve put this so that it backlights the name of my target in MetaHud. For my Shaman I’ve tied it to Frost Shock range. (Since that’s a mid-range spell.)

GFW_AdSpace

Tells you where that recipe in the Auction House is actually sold so you can go buy it yourself.

GFW_DisenchantPredictor

Wonder what that Hand of Ragnaros will disenchant into? Wonder no more.

GFW_FeedOMatic

Got pets that demand feeding? You need this.

GFW_Gemologist

This will tell you what type of vein to mine the gem from.

GFW_HuntersHelper

This will put the beasts abilities in the tooltip of a Hunter. I.e. see what that Ravager will come with when you tame it. Highly recommended for filling out the pet abilities.

GFW_TrackMenu

This lets you use the tracking minimap button to select your tracking type. Also used by paladins, herbalists, and miners. (Fewer action bar/hot bar buttons lost.)

Grid
GridStatusHealer
GridStatusHealthFade

This is a very compact raid health overview.

GrimoireKeeper

This will make your Warlock Minion training screen look like all the other training screens. Say goodbye to books.

HealBot

This is my primary healing/buffing/shielding add-on. Get it if you heal.

HotCandy

This provides bars for your Heal Over Time casts.

InFlight

In Flight will give you a bar once you’re airborn to tell you how long you’ve got until landing. That way you know how much you’ve got to grab yourself a beer, or visit the nearby McDonalds drive-through.

ItemLevel

This will reveal to you what the internal item level of something is.

ItemRack

Get this. You use different items? Get this. Still the easiest to use imho.

KLHThreatMeter

This just shows me that Shamans can easily grab aggro form Warriors. It’s broke, or my Warrior is.

MetaHud

I like information. On screen, centered.

MobHealth

This add-on provides information to the unit frames so you can tell exactly how much health a mob has. Handy.

MrPlow

This add-on sorts your bags for you. And your bank bags. And it works with other bag add-ons.

Niagara

This is a graphical user interface for all the other Ace Add-ons you are running. Like Duece Commander, but easier to use.

OminousCastingBar

This is a casting and mirror bar replacement. I like it. I like that all my various timer bars have that cool “NotSteel” look.

OneBag
OneBank
OneRing
OneStorage
OneView

The one to rule them all. This is basically an all-in-one bag view. And you can always see what's in your bank, and you can see what's in any of your characters bags or bank. (You'll have to view them all first so the add-on can remember.)

Personal Sentry

This is very interesting in battlegrounds. Basically hover over a blip in your minimap and you’ll get a bar with which you can target the person. Hunter/Druids will like this one.

Prat

This will make your combat log straighten it’s act out. Info, not blah, blah.

Recap

This will track my leetness. My best scores, and provides another damage meter.

RecipeBook

This does something. Oh, wait. “RecipeBook is a mod that allows you to browse tradeskill recipes with one alt and see whether your other alts know it.” Oh, yeah. That's it.

RecipeRadar

This will mark on your minimap where recipes are found in the local area. Helpful if you want to get those rare recipes that vendors are selling in out of the way corners of Azeroth.

RicoMiniMap

This is the minimap shaper for the corner. Nifty.

Sanity2

This is a new add-on for me. It’s a listing of your gear. Since probably 30% of my bag space is taken up by gear, this lets me quickly see what all I have (four sets of gauntlets???) and compare them and begin planning some space reduction.

SCT
SCTD

Scrolling Combat Text, and Scrolling Combat Text Damage. I’ve got it where the incoming damage scrolls down on the right side hud bar, and the outgoing hits scroll up on the left side hud bar.

SilverDragon

This remembers those rare mobs that you occasionally see wondering around. And marks them on your map. Why? Because they can drop decent loot.

SimpleCombatLog

Hmmm. I have this and I don’t know what it does. It might work with Prat in some way. (I’ve got too many add-ons!!)

SpamIam

This reduces Spam. (The state meat of Hawaii! Yum.) Don’t have enough energy? Need more rage? You’ve heard that enough, haven’t you?

SuperInspect

This appears to be broken for me since I only see a few slots now. I like the utility of the program though so a definite for me if I can find an upgrade for it.

TheoryCraft2

Wasn’t sure how much I’d like this. On a basic level it’ll put spell damage, heal amount, right on the icon in your action bar/hot bar.

TrinketMenu

This shows your two equipped trinkets, and lets you switch them out.

TTCraftAddict

Stand-alone addon for displaying craft item dependencies. Hmmm. I'm sure it's doing something for me.

Warmath

This is like Item Level, which is the “built-in” item level of something, but this one does math and tells you what it really is. Another way to look at your gear when comparing it with possible replacements.

XLoot

This replaces Quick Loot, putting the looting window under your mouse, wherever it is. Small and slick looking.

XLootGroup

This adds a smaller looting window in the same style as XLoot and XLoot Monitor.

XLootMonitor

This will leave, for a bit, a list of loot won and who won it.

XPerl

This is a good-looking unit frame, with animated character portraits, and easy to configure.

Yata

Yet another Totem Add-on. I like this one. Call of Elements doesn’t seem to do the things it used to, so I opted for the Ace based replacement.

ZHunterMod

This is the hunter mod that provides bars for pet abilities, tracking (which I’ve turned off), traps, and aspects.

And that's it. For now.

2007-03-09T09:45:00.000+01:00

Addons, the live list.

What I plan to do in way Addons, and using Bloggers label feature, is keep a listing of the addons I'm using, explain why I like them, and keep a link for where I found them, and keep this in a post I'll keep updated. A precursor to that list is the list below (if you've browsed directly to posts with the Addons label) or found in the Jan 2007 archives.

When that list is done visitors can use the link in the sidebar, "**** Add-ons I use **** " in order to jump to it quickly.

Some folks don't like add-ons. They think addons are crutches, and to that I say "Hey, whatever lines your cave." Blizzard has built the functionality into the game for users to customize their interface however they like. They build in restrictions as well to keep it from getting out of hand. It's a feature Blizzard supports. And Blizzard appears to have designed raid encounters that demand add-ons of one type or other. Mass decursing in Molten Core anyone? And Blizzard has taken some of these good ideas and built them into the interface over various patches. (Usually not as good as the "state of the art" that the addon authors produce. Scrolling combat text, for one.)

For those that like add-ons, hope my list proves of interest and/or value to you.

2007-03-08T10:04:00.000+01:00

The Lost Craft.

What happened to it? Where did it go? Is it hidden in the code somewhere, waiting for a new expansion or update to be released? Was it dropped to the cutting room floor, lost forever amidst the crushed cans of Jolt Cola and Cheeto bags?

What I'm I talking about? The very foundation of Warcraft! Wood.

What game of Warcraft did not start with peons being immediately sent to the nearby forest to harvest wood? Wood is the veritable foundation of every crushing victory. And where is it in the World of Warcraft? Nowhere. Why?

How would it work? You could harvest Wood like an Herbalist gathers herbs or a Miner mines ore. I'd love to see a "Tree Node" and when you set to work to harvest it, it would first drop to the ground with the first harvest action, and then disappear when the node is fully tapped. Every area could have it's own tree types to harvest. With ever increasing level of trees in the higher level areas.

What would you do with wood? Enchanters already require wood for wands. But they buy it from Trading Supplies or Enchanting Supplies people. Simple wood and then Star Wood. But they can only make 3 wands. The Lesser (at 15) and Greater (at 70) Magic Wands, then the Lesser (at 150) Mystic Wand. Requiring Simple and then Star Wood as one material, both you can get from a vendor.

How about more wand types that required gathered materials?

What else could it be good for?

You know leather workers can create armor kits that cover four armor slots. Legs, chest, hands and feet. Why couldn't gathered wood not supplement this? How about wood armor kits for shoulders. Anyone see a Forest Troll lately? Think wood fashion.

In addition to more wands, what else could be done with them. How about a carpenter craftsman type being able to make weapons and ammo. Just like engineers use metals to makes guns and bullets, how about a carpenter being able to make bows, crossbows, and arrows? Why not? And wooden stocks for engineers to make guns with.

And what blacksmith makes Staves? None. A Carpenter could craft staves. And off-hand items.

Maybe the amount of items that could be made in wood might not warrant a complete crafting profession, so how about a new craft that combines gathering and manufacturing into one? Woodsman. Able to harvest wood, and in addition to providing basic materials for other trades (enchanting, engineering, etc.) be able to produce some armor kits, produce arrows, and produce weaponry like bows, crossbows, staves, and offhands.

Anyway, I'm sure others have thought of it too and I think there's enough here to provide a little more crafting in the World of Warcraft.

Edit: Crafted Shields! Let them make Pally, Shammy, and Tank shields. At all the levels.

2007-03-08T10:01:00.000+01:00

And, something completely different: Troll Paladins.

Troll Paladins.

No, not the race. Paladins able to regenerate insane amounts of health. Like a Troll.

I brought Honorus out last night, and he quested a bit with Effilda. This is our Human Pally-Mage duo, where I'm the Paladin and my wife the Mage.

Anyway I was curious about something after reading a little about Paladin AoE grinding.
Anyway, the tactic basically boiled down to

Keeping Blessing of Wisdom on myself.
Casting Seal of Light
Judging mob with Seal of Light
Casting Seal of the Crusader
Finishing off mob Judging Seal of Crusader

It was pretty darn amazing. At level 32 every swing got me +25 health. And holding a 2.00 speed one-handed mace, sped up by the Crusader seal, I was recovering any health lost. The Retribution Aura produced Holy Damage, as did the first Judgement, and I've got Righteous Fury going. Plus my shield's got an iron spike on it, when I dinged 33 I put a point into Redoubt in the Protection tree. With 4 more points there I'll put 5 into the talent to reduce the mana cost of seals and judgements.

So Effilda and Honorus traveled to Southshore and we went to the Yeti Cave and got fur clumps from them. That was nice with no down time.

And when Effilda got aggro I used a macro in the KiSS principle: /target Effilda, /cast Righteous Defense. It worked but it didn't hold like a Warriors taunt does. I.e. I'd get a swing in and it would revert right back to Effilda. We'll have to experiment a bit more with that.

Honorus and Effilda are good practice for Halcyon and Sunstriker. And being a Troll sometimes is good.

2007-03-06T09:01:00.000+01:00

Life in the Swamp. What's up with the gear? One of these races is not like the other.

The questing continues. Blackhoof discovered that windfury weapon buffs on two weapons do not both proc, unless they're different ranks of the buff. He felt pretty powerful there. But, being Shaman, there is a nerf incoming.

Msaker and Droonda also started the quests there in the Marsh. The Lost Ones fell to our Orcish invasion of Umbrafen Village, and we rescued the Cenarion Refuge Tauren lady. Next stop for them will be assisting the Sporelings

I'm enjoying the Swamp.

And Msaker is still wearing his rare PvP gear. Now some of the greens that are dropping, or are quest rewards, they've got a bit more +Stamina on them, and more Armor, but none of them have any decent crit rates. I've even sold a few socketed greens because the +4 Crit Chance gem I can buy for it just doesn't seem worth it. The synergy of having the full PvP armor set is still greater than the Outland greens, and I'm singing the blues.

I like crits. I party with a healer. What do I need a lot more armor for? And, by the time I need to behave like a responsible warrior, and be prepared to tank for others, I'll have level 65+ greens and blues. Other than the mining helmet I got from the goblin who ran the mine under Thrallmar I've vendored all the Outlands plate I've gotten. And the items I could actually use, belt and bracers, I had to find those on the Auction House.

And, for love of all that is Holy, or Shadow if that's your ticket, why is all plate in the Outlands for Paladins? The Maghar Orcs are giving out Paladin plate for crying out loud!

Work with me here:

Orcs!

<>

Paladins!

(The two don't mix! Seriously.)

2007-03-02T13:20:00.000+01:00

Death in the Mosh Pit.

Last night was a good night.

Last night I, Msaker, rustled through my bank account and bags, sold all that I could spare, and amassed another 300 gold. Mind you this was on the heels of my own purchase of the training required to ride an epic mount just days earlier. Not sure how I managed it, but there it was. The last of the auctions collected from the mailbox and tallying the figures, 300 gold.

Now Droonda had already been given some gold. Blackhoof had given her no small amount already, his Outland questing going well enough. (And the big cow has had an epic mount since forever now.) And Darban-"I'm not a bank alt!!!"-ville has been selling a lot of Outland derived loot and materials. Her activities provided a large amount of the cash Msaker needed, and Droonda got some as well.

Anyway, Msaker rejoined the story in progress, in Kargath, and he goes to the Burning Steppes in his quest to get a little more thorium. And in a "pics or it didn't happen" moment (I'll add pics later! - added) I actually mined an Arcane Crystal. WTF? I've been mining thorium for months and that's my first one. Ever. I was so shocked I had to screen shot it. When it turns out I need 3 for an Arcane Rod for my enchanter, Darban-"I'm more than an enchanting alt"-ville, my heart sinks a little. (Blackhoof later transmutes it, with a little Thorium, into an Arcanite Bar. Woot! I was perplexed however that the item text wasn't orange for legendary.)

All the Thorium will buy plans so I can craft an Imperial Plate set for Halcyon, my wife's Paladin.

So, back to the story, Droonda logs on and I tell her to check her mailbox. She's got cash. I've returned to Orgrimmar and ask her to meet me at the wolf seller. It's time she bought her epic mount. I gave her the last 250 gold she needed and she picked the Swift Gray Wolf. She's got her trinket and I've now got spurs made and am waiting to put them on her boots. Two Orcs on fast wolves. Nice.

So, that mission done we hearth back to Shattrath and fly back to Falcon Watch to wrap up some odds-and-ends projects.

Not much later we're asked by a guildie could we please come to Un'Goro Crater. ... That's like 20-30 minutes away. What did he want? His level 54 Blood Elf, Mortannon, had found King Mosh and wanted to kill it and see what loot it dropped, and skin it for mad amounts of Ravasaur Leather.

Well, we fly to Shattrath, port to Orgrimmar, and fly to Marshals Point. The hunt was on.

Well, the first go wasn't stellar. Droonda was not wearing her "Healing" outfit and the 54 Hunter's DPS wasn't that great, and King Mosh has 61,000 hit points, and that's 10 times what I have. I'm stomped, the Hunter goes down, and Droonda, beloved Shaman Princess, bites the dust of Un'Goro Craters floor.

Alright. Plan B. Mortannon logs off and brings out Maelstrom, his level 65 Undead Warrior. Msaker would tank, Droonda would be healing in her Healer gear, and Maelstrom would DPS.

The first fight I noticed the bear was feared a lot. Msaker was never feared. The second fight I was feared over and over. But with a Tremor Totem out I recovered quickly enough.

And the 2nd time King Mosh did the dust munching thing. Pwned. Shammy and two Warriors.

We loot and King Mosh had a Jade Plate Chest Armor hidden on him (not a bad piece of armor) and Mortannon returned and skinned King Mosh. The big guy dropped 1 piece of Ravasaur Leather. One. :) Ah well.

We saluted Mortannon and hearthed back to Shattrath. We did finish the couple of quests we'd started and then we journeyed to the Cenarian Refuge in Zangarmarsh and logged off for the night.

P.S. Going to Paris for the weekend. Woot. Viva la vacation.