On the road...

An update. I have had a few of you track me down and ask where I have been. Sorry to any that read my hermit ramblings, but I have been on the road, a last minute TDY trip and will be home soon.

I think I blew the jackals deal, oh well... I was there in spirit. I will post more as time warrants, take care all.

First real Healadin Instance

Ok, so I changed my paladin spec again. I went 40/0/21 and I hear it is called shockadin. I now have a healing gear set (full of 62- 70 greens and blues) and my grinding spell damage set (full of 66-70 greens, blues, and purple.) I am happy. I have tried healing in an instace, currently over 1k healing, and have tried grinding, currently around 700 spell dmg. Not to bad. I will keep you informed, I am sure you are overcome with anticipation, and let you know how I feel.

It has been a long time since I played the healer role. Last time I did so was about 2.5 years ago as a White Mage/Red Mage in FF Online. I liked it then, and do not mind it now. I am going to slowly make my way through BC instances to start getting used to healing a little at a time. We did Ramparts last night, all guild run. Me (70 Healadin/Shockadin), 70 Prot Warrior in his dps set, 69 Prot Warrior, 60 Feral Druid, and 61 Mage. I did not get to heal much, but I did like what I see so far. I was healing for over 1k with flash of light, and just under 5k with Holy Light. You may not be impressed, but remember I have been prot my whole wow-life. My biggest crit with Flash of light prior to last night was just over 700, and Holy Light was just under 2k.

Fishing

I feel that hunters need to fish. It is just too beneficial. Having said that, however, does not make the ordeal of grinding the fishing level any easier. I hit 225 last night and I am ready to head out to Theramore to pick up the "300" quest. I will not do it right away, but I need to go ahead and add it to my log.

Last night I went from 160ish to 225.... an ordeal.

My hat is off to all of the 375 fisherman out there, may your hook never return empty...

Lazy Forgetful Jackal

Bah... another missed day.

I think weekends should not count. Weekends are for n00bs when it comes to posting WoW blogs.

I am moving right along with my Draeni Hunter. He dinged 40 last night and is half way through this level. I am really enjoying this new patch and the xp system. I made it to Duskwallow last night and I am busy doing those quests. Mudsprocket is nice. I like more Goblins to interact with. I have faith that one day the Undermines will be released and all my hard earned Steamwheedle cartel faction will be rewarded.

Patch 2.3

What do I love about patch 2.3? Well just about everything. I really love the improved exp system. The fact that I can now partake of my Altivitus and get more out of it is really a fantastic improvement. I can also say that for the first time ever, I am tempted to start a ret paladin. Probably will not do it, but man is there a temptation.... .... ... moment passed... staying prot. There was a moment there, honest.

I have yet to step foot in Zul'Aman, but there is time. I am sure that I will get to go in there. I will get to see the bear mount drop. I will roll. I will then see someone else win the roll just like they always did on my many many many ZG runs. All good though.

Clones

I need a clone. Yep, you heard me right, I do, in fact, need a clone. There was a time when I thought having a 70 for both factions was a cool idea. I was wrong. This is a horrible idea, well maybe not horrible...

I am torn. I have so little time and so much to do. I want my paladin to do some pvp. I want my paladin to get some purples, pve and pvp. I want my lock to do some pvp. I want my lock to get some purples, pve and pvp. Neither of them have a profession other than farming, and that is the best idea I have had yet. I have a 36 Draeni hunter and a 21 Orc hunter, both named Drakhan that I also want to get to 70, do some pvp, and get some purples.

/sigh

There may be those out there that think that Blizzard needs to bring out more content now. I, although I would like more content, realize that I have more than enough to do right now.

Much to do...

Ok, so we all know that patch 2.3 was released yesterday. It took longer than I had hoped for it to "post" but better late than never. I would have to say that I really enjoy this patch. I am sure as time wears on I may discover something that I do not like, but right now I love it.

I was unable to accomplish all that I wanted to do yesterday after the patch, but meh.. I have a year or so before WotLK comes out. My current plan is to outfit my Warlock, my Paladin, and my two Hunters with purples before WotlK. Not too much work involved seeing as how I have a year. I like having toons alliance side and horde side. It gives me flexability. My lock has some decent gear, not the purple that I want, but decent. He is in a much better position than my Paladin.

The patch gave my Protection Paladin some nice new hp though. I am still looking for tank gear. I have been rocking my grinding/leveling gear for so long, but if I want purples and to be able to tank a 70 man instance I will need some real gear.

Wow... that sucks...

This weekend I had a "great" time in a pug with another guildie. I should have known better, but nope, not me... I joined. A shaman friend of mine just specced Resto for Kara so we were making our Outland instance rounds getting him used to healing again. He is was also looking for some healing "upgrades" to replace his elemental gear. We did well, and he picked up healing quick.

Mana Tombs... An easy instance for 2 70s and a pug right? There were two paladins from another guild, 1 prot (65), 1 ret (64). No problems yet right? There was this huntard... I mean hunter with us. Guildless. Wait... did I say guildless? Yep. Does not always mean a problem, I have rocked the guildless tab before and will do so again I am sure. Did I say huntard? Yes.

Somehow this guy got lead before I joined up on the Mana Tomb run. He was pulling, and wanted to mark. No problem. I did not feel it was needed, but gives him some practice.. knock yourself out dude. We start pulling, no problems. We kill some things... no problems. My shaman friend in a /whisper asks him to turn off his pets "Growl." Huntard does not listen, so no more heals for his pet. Pet dies. Pet dies. Pet dies. "Growl" turned off it seems. Message made, we move on.

I begin to notice that he is in Melee on every fight now. He fires once, runs back to where I am, then runs back in with his sword. Yep... huntard in melee now, and looks like pet is on passive. I am thinking to myself... "Self, maybe he is new to game. Perhaps he is low on ammo. No problem."

I send him a /whisper like this... "Hey man, why are you in melee? Are you low on ammo?" I honestly ask thinking we can take a break, he can hearth buy more ammo and I can summon back. No problem other than him being a n00b.

I get some expletives back in his response asking why is it any more my business. He is trying to conserve ammo costs. Let him play his toon, and I can expletive expletive shut up. Wow.. what? I try to respond, not to apologize but to "verbally poke" him. Nothing... I am now on ignore. At this point we are at the event in Mana Tombs.

I let everyone in party know that I am now on ignore for some reason and this huntard needs to stay out of melee and do his ranged job. We laugh and my shaman friend and the others try to get him to pass lead. Nope. No real worry, we have 4 manned it this far, why stop now. We are now 1 pull away from Prince and notice that the hunter is (A) Not with us and (B) Dead.

We laugh. He has started the event without us and has died. I then realize that my friend is no longer in the party but is standing in front of me. Then the others start to get kicked. Then I get kicked. Then the instance gets reset while we scramble.... Wow. I was pissed. I can not believe people like this. We need a new "I hate you" feature in wow that will flag you for a year.

Failure

Yep... So I failed. I did not make my post yesterday. No excuse just forgot.... Oh well. I blame in on the three day weekend, yep... that is what did it.

Party Makeup

Last night I helped a friend finish up his Kara key quest by doing Black Morass. It went well. It went very well. I started thinking about how different parties are just so much better than others. I have not done many instances in my WoW "career", Outlands or otherwise. I really do not like PUGS, and Final Fantasy Online left a bad taste in my mouth for groups.

I am not above helping out my friends though. Last night was one of these help times. I have never suggested my own group, nor have I tried to find a group. I do not mind joining a group to fill in a spot or just doing my own thing until the group is ready. Having said that, I have been in my fair share of groups, good and bad.

Last night and the night before was a collection of the good groups. I know I am in a good group when we clear an entire instance (Botanica) with no real trouble. We had to reset one boss, and wiped once, but that was more due to bad luck than a fault of the group. We rocked the Botanica, and we rocked it hard. We also rocked BM, and made it sooooo easy. Everyone knew their jobs and everyone did it right.

They do not like me...

I am goofing around this morning on WoW playing my level 15 Hunter, Drakhan, Horde side. I am not sure why but I like to go around to all the starting areas and gather up/complete all the quests. I have done all of the ORG starting zone and all of the TB starting zone. I then skipped the Barrens for now and headed off to BE land. I discovered something today. The lowbie zone (level 1-6) for BE do not like the horde. You are unable to go do those quests. They all refused to help me. I talked to everyone of them. I even created a new BE just to make sure my memory was correct.

I usually do this for ease of early questing, nice early gold from all that lowbie mining zones, and most importantly the rep. I like having all that easy to obtain rep. I have done this with every toon since my 1st toon, my paladin, waaaaaay back when. I have never had a problem with this before. Not sure why Bliz did this, or even if it was intentional, but oh well. The main city zone (5-13) is fine. I am able to do those quests and as of this post have most done already.

I am not sure where I will head next. I could go into the ghostlands (really hate that zone though) or I could travel over and knock out the UC area. At this point I will probably do the Ghostlands so that I never have to come back... except for Zul'Aman of course.

Do Over...

This post is about named mobs. They are not always elites. They are not always rare spawns. Sometimes they are just quest mobs for quest you do not have. These mobs are in most, if not all zones. If you kill one, at least for me, that almost always means you are about to get the quest....

Last night a friend and I were out gold farming, quest style, in Netherstorm. There is this one quest where you have to kill these level 69 and 70 elite rock giants. After you kill these rock giants you get some crystal/rock sample off them. We are ripping through them no real problem, he is a shaman, I am the lock. There was even a time where we stumbled upon a rock giant pat. Panic mode kicked in for both of us and we prevailed, although Soul Stone was needed.

Side note... How in the world do those GIANT mobs sneak up on you? The Devilsaurs sneak up on you in Un'Gorro. The Fel Reaver has ambushed me in Hellfire Peninsula. Last night a giant rock ambushed me... How?

Well we do fine. We rip through the mobs and then this big named buy comes up. We decide to kill him. He does not appear to be a rare spawn, but you never know. We drop him and what does he have... nothing... 1 item of vendor trash. Bah.

We finish up a few more quests and then head back to do our turn ins before calling it a night. What do we discover... You can guess... Come on.... That is right! We now have the quest to kill that named mob.

There should be some way... Some log... some tracker... So that in a situation like this I can kindly tell the quest giver... "Look, dude... I just killed that guy. Just give me my stuff now. I killed him, he was elite... you are not... Do not make me get upset."

Mob AI

Wow.. look at here... two posts in a single day? I think I deserve bonus NaBloPoMo points or something...

I think Guards should get better AI. I have no problem with a town being raided. I think that is cool. If a group is willing to go out of their way to raid XRs, or Goldshire, or wherever then that is cool. However, I think the existing guards should work together. Perhaps put a priest in there with them to act as a healer? Make it a little more challenging that just riding up and picking off the guards one at a time. How about do something like is done with the Moroes fight. Make it a random group that changes "shifts." Perhaps 1 or 2 roaming groups for a small town and maybe more for larger cities?

On another note I think that "taunt" mechanics and threat reduction should have a pvp effect. Perhaps make "taunt" mechanics auto target whomever taunts you. I do not feel as though it should take control of your toon, just make you lose your current target. Here is an example...

Say we have 5v5 with the same makeup for simplicity sake. 1 Warrior, 1 Priest, 1 Rogue, 1 Mage, and 1 Hunter. Nothing special, just as an example. Now they go in with this in mind... rogue, hunter, mage crowd control.... warrior tank, priest heals. Easy. Now the rogue,hunter, mage are also of course our dps. Why would they hit the warrior? Take out that priest first.... However, lets suppose that the taunt now worked for pvp... The rogue gets on the priest and starts ripping in. The warrior drops his taunt and now the rogue has his target auto changed for him. He can still change his target back, but it gave the warrior / priest a few more secs to work with. If this were a paladin and not a warrior, now the rogue, mage, and hunter have to change their targets back.

On this same note, what if threat reduction did something similiar. You could pop your threat reduction and force your aggressor to lose you as a target. They could always retarget you, but again, it gives you a precious second or two for a heal, or pot, or just to run for your life.

Having put this out there, perhaps it should give an automatic 2 sec of "You can not target me". With the taunt perhaps force whomever into a 2 sec "You have to target me". I do not know how this would change things, but it sounds cool to me...

Zombies

Ever since I was a little kid I have always imagined "What if" stories about the collapse of all that we know. Movies such as The Postman, Waterworld, Day After Tomorrow, Night of the Comet, and Mad Maxare a few that help fuel this imagination. I plan out in my head what I would do if I woke up in the morning to find nothing, save myself... alive. Where would I stay? What would I do? How would I get there? How would I cope with the anarchy that would follow? Gunpowder weapons, or a bow?

I have thought it out quite extensively. When I was younger I even incorporated friends into this plan. We made plans together and assigned roles. In high school I even wrote a short story for a Public Speaking class that I titled The Prophet. In the story I cast myself as an apocalyptic survivor leading a small band of humanity through the trials that came our way. I was a quite individual that spoke little, but with wisdom. I wore a leather duster covered in hand written scriptures from the Book of Revelation and carried a shotgun, or Boomstick.

Recently I saw the new trailer for I Am Legend and it has sparked up my Zombie love. Often in my apocalyptic musings Zombies play a pivotal role. I love the concept of the zombie. Such a cool character. So many ways to portray it. So many zombie movies to draw reference from. I shall not list them all here as I would go on forever...

I had a point here somewhere.... I am sure of it... I guess my point was this... If / When the Zombie apocalypse occurs I am ready... Are you?

Ebayers

I think I was in a group with an ebayer last night. I was running ZF with my Druid last night with the guild. I did not need anything from ZF, I was just there for heals, and for the fun. We had a 70 lock, 70 hunter, 46 Druid (Me), 45 Hunter, and 44 Lock. I believe the Hunter may have been an ebayer. Why do I say this... Well.... Let me tell you a story.

There is a wonderful tool called Armory that allows me to check on people. I can do this for the good. I can do this for the bad. I can see something I like in your playstyle and go check and see how I can improve. I can see something that just amazes me and go check so that maybe I can give you some advice. A tool, nothing more, and I like it.

Anyway I played with this guy/girl, and just assumed that they were new. They were making n00b mistakes. I am not mocking them, but truly it seemed like they were brand new to the game. We attempted to share quests with our fellow "40s" but the hunter claims, I am too high "rank" to accept.... What? Too high rank? What?

The story continues. The melee for a bit, which is fine, I goof off all the time running lowbies, but this did not feel like goofing off. It is hard to describe but I could, "SMELL" the n00b odor. Again, I am not mocking, but it is what it is. I do a lot of trash talking while on a fun run, lots of stupid humor. Most of this humor is game related in some way or another. This guy/girl gets none of it. No scholo humor, no quest humor, no old WoW humor... nada.

Well, I look up the individuals profile on Armory and I am shocked. They have Kara gear... they have Serpentshrine Cavern gear... They have Tempest Keep gear... Clearly this toon has had experience, but the guy/girl.... not so much. I have a problem with this. I do not have a problem with someone buying a toon, more power to them. I do not have a problem with someone paying another to level their toon... again, more power too them. My problem, I guess is this...

I think there should be like a "n00b" debuff. Something that lets you know this toon has recently been transfered between accounts or something. Maybe just transfered in general. How about a buff that that just shows up if you have been inactive for maybe more than 30/60/90 days even. You can let the debuff wear off over the course of time, or you can complete a "competency" quest. Maybe just a test your knowledge kind of nonsense quest. Go to Northshire Abbey for alliance, and just say "Hey". Maybe make the horde go and find the "Fallen Wife" in XRs just to prove they have their Barrens merit badge....

Meh... Just a thought....

PVP goodness

Recently I was able to get my first taste of some Arena style pvp action with my Paladin. I created a 3v3 with some guildies, so the team was me (Paladin), Warrior, and Mage. We did not do so good. I think there are a variety of reasons, but the fact still remains we as a team, perhaps individuals just sucked with those current toons. We were all relatively new to the 70 environment and were rocking mostly pre 70 greens and blues. The poor mage I think must have been tripping on his own robes as he never made it more than like 5 seconds in any match. We played 10 for our arena points and called it a night. We each gained like 300 something points for our 10 losses and that was fine by me.

Last night, horde side (remember my recent "Return to the Darkside"), a guildie and I made a 2v2 team. The team consists of me (Warlock), and an Elemental Shaman (The same guy with the Warrior from alliance 3v3.) We did much better. We played 10 games of course, but only won 3 of them. However, in none of those games were we truly owned like we were in 3v3. All but one of those matches could have gone either way. The first 3 games we played the Shaman was still trying to get used to his toon. It has been 7 months since he came back to the horde, and has only been back horde for a little over a week getting from 66 - 70. He dinged 70 Sunday night and here we are Monday night rocking some Arena.

I realized something last night. I have leveled a 70 on a pve server (Paladin) and a pvp server (Warlock.) I now realize that playing pvp with my lock has helped me devolop nice "panic" skills. I never had to panic with my paladin. I just ran in and beat things slowly and stayed a live. My lock had to watch his surroundings and whatever I was fighting. I think these "panic" skills allow me to play my lock well, much better than my paladin.

I am not advocating one type of server over another. As a matter of fact, if you notice both of my toons are now pve side. I transfered my lock to pve Arathor just because I enjoy it more. Being able to go grind without worry is nice. Farming mats without having to stay too focused on other people is nice. However, I am looking forward to the new pvp only zone coming in WotLK. I think that is a great concept. Now for people like me, those who prefer to solo, I can farm/grind when I want, then roam the pvp zone for fun.

This is tough....

You know, normally I have tons of things to gibber about. I talk about all kids of what if situations. However, now that it matters, now that I am being checked up on, now that I have to do at least once a day.... nothing.... I blame TJ and her getting all her readership (Blog Friends?) involved/hooked on this NaBloPoMo thing. I really do not even know what I have gotten myself into, but I can say this... I am going to have to step up my game....

This just feels like a "cop out" blog post, but meh....

So.... a friend and I joined us a Kara guild last night. It is my second time entering the lovely place, his first... I am hoping things go well, but at this time this is an untried guild and I am unsure of their ability. I realize Kara is not that bad, but I have been in guilds that I think could struggle with ZG at 70..... No.... I am serious....

I think I must have like bad guild wow Karma or something. Maybe I beat Van Cleef down one too many times and he put a voodoo hex on me or something.... Bah....

So tonight the guild is going into Kara and I am helping my friend finish his attunement/key questline. We have to do Key fragments and Black Morass. Should go wel....

Fickle

I am currently guildless. Yep.... I did it again. I am not sure what my deal is, but a fellow WoW member and I last night that it was time to move on. I do not mind being in a guild, I really don't. It just seems that I keep finding guilds where I am like one of very few level 70s and this means that everyone needs something.

I get tells all the time. Can you run me through this... can you run me through that... If you help me grind out some quests I can level faster.... I am sure you have seen the same. I do not mind helping out people that I really like, but please do not assume just we are in the same guild that I like you. I really have not had the chance to even get to know you.

It really comes down to this. I am generally a solo player. I go from level 1 - 70, or wherever I stop with my toon all alone. I do not ask for runs. I do not ask for gear. I do not ask for free enchants. I do not ask for profession items. I most definately do not ask for gold or just general questing help. I really do not like it when some random guy, who I have never spoken with, who I have never seen in chat before, who does not go to the forums asks for help.

"psst.... hey... I am in your guild... could you help me..."

Not even anything specific.... sheesh.... Just in general.. come take your WoW time (which you have taken away from your family for your own enjoyment) and follow me around so that I do not have to waste as much of my time...

/sigh

My boy does me proud...

Yesterday I missed out on my daily rotation of blogs as I did not make it to work. I really need to put more of the blogs I read as links here just to further advertise and share the wealth. Where was I, you might ask.... I was on a field trip to the Asheboro, NC Zoo with my son. We had a great time, and saw lots of the same animals we always see. However, it is rare that just the two of us get to do something like this as normally his two sisters are with us.

I was proud of my boy for a couple of reasons. I am always proud of him, but in this sense I am referring to his future in the lifestyle of the geek. You see at this zoo they have these animal tracks in the sidewalk leading up to the zoo. They all converge in front of the entrance and then lead into a bronze statue collection. At this point my boy (J from here on out) and me (W from here on out) have this conversation...

J : Dad, look at this...
W : What?
J : On the ground, all these tracks... what do you think made them?
W : (Internal debate.... craft up a cool story or tell the truth.... cool story incoming) Let's see, J
J : (Cutting Dad off) I know what did it.... Do you think it was a cowwarrior (What he calls Tuaren) Druid? Yea... that is what it was... Look he came in like this

Break in story for visual... We are standing near several sets of prints... We have bear tracks, cow tracks, leaves, and wolf tracks) Now back to the story.....

J : See first he was a bear. He ran in like this (At this point he goes on all fours putting his hands in the prints) and runs here. Something is attacking him and he is losing all his life points. So he turns back into a cowwarrior (Now he is standing on the cow prints) and casts some heals (The Druid heal icon looks likes leaves) and then turns into a wolf and runs off...
W : J, Druids turn into cats not wolves. Shamans are the wolves.
J : No Dad, not this one. This one likes dogs better than cats so he learned a different one....


We both shared a good laugh at this point. And I thought I should share with you. Enjoy :)

Daily Quota

Ok... so this is not a real blog... just a way to meet my daily quota for NING that TJ suckered me into. It goes like this. We are all teaming up to ensure that we all post at least once a day. And now that I have logged I realize that I have four minutes to post this quickly or I fail on day 1. I may fail, but not this early, I have to beat Doom and Ratshag at the very least.

Felguard Toys

I know there are many people that feel as though the Felguard is cool enough as he is. However, I want more. I want to be able to give him gear. While we are on the subject, I think all pets need gear. I do not know, make a special class of gear just for "pets." That would give us all a way to personalize our pets to where he/she was truly our companion.

I would also like to be able to change my felguards, and other minion's name. I realize that he is an entity that I have summoned and bound to my will. He had a name before I bound him... but you know what... I bound him now... I do not want to call him Kunta Kinte, I want to call him Toby. Maybe this is asking to much... but I think not.

I want to give my Felguard plate armor and a cool weapon, can he duel wield? If not, no worry, I will just him Gorehowl or something.

On a different note, I have been reading a lot about a demand for Big Red Kitty quality warlock blogs. I am thinking people want to see a blog for warlocks that addresses very good number crunching like he does for BM Hunters. I will do my research and see if I can plagerize.... errr.... link some :)

Musings of a Hermit

All the Patch 2.3 Info has got me thinking about the future of our beloved World of Warcraft. I get in these moods at times where I wonder what they will add, when they will add it, that kind of stuff.

Druid
I would like to see a new form. Balance has the Moonkin, which is cool. Restoration has the Tree of Life, which is cool. What does feral get special? Not that they really need anything special, I just want it. I am thinking like an "aspect" or "were" beast kind of thing. I do not mean to replace the bear as tank, or the cat as rogue/dps, but maybe just something else. Were form would allow you to do a little of both at the same time. No taunt, no rogue skills, just massive hp/armor and some evil dps at the same time. Let the world know that you are feral and proud of it. Perhaps in WotLK....

Goblin
I want to see gobins as neutral race. Make them come out with the undermines. A complete set of zones that takes you all the way up to level 20 or so before you have to commit to a faction. Perhaps have a Quest line for each faction to prove your worth, before you can move on. Or maybe just stay middle of the road and have limited access to both? Who knows. Goblins could be rogues/warriors/mages/hunters/locks or something like that. Off the top of my head that feels right...

Christmas
Now that we have all seen how cool the Headless Horseman was what will Christmas bring this year? I think we should get a "sleigh" flying mount, or at least a new "Jingle Bell" to turn our mount into a sleigh. In addition to last years Grinch quest line, perhaps make a new grinch quest line with 70s in mind. Give him so nice purple epics for us to steal. I do not know make him come with some "Evil Gnome" adds or something...

Honor Grind

I am posting this for moral support. When I see what I want vs. what I have to "grind" for it is almost overwhleming...

This is for a full set of Season 1 gear (2.3 Patch Honor Purchase) as well as the other slots filled with epics....

Totals for Season 1
Honor 107450
WS Token 30
AB Token 50
AV Token 50
ES Token 50

Totals for Other PVP Epics
Honor 127462
WS Token 20
AB Token 60
AV Token 10
ES Token 60

Having said that I have already spent 21229 Honor, 20 AB Tokens, and 20 WS Tokens. I currently have 23 WS Tokens, 42 AB Tokens, 100 AV Tokens, 30 ES Tokens and 21000 something Honor.

Grand Total left to Purchase/Farm for....
192683 Honor, 7 WS Tokens, 48 AB Tokens, 0 AV Tokens, 80 ES Tokens....

/sigh

Return to the Dark Side

I have returned to my Horde toons. Yep, that is right, I am back Horde. I feel I owe my paladin the levels he deserves, but now that he is 70, it is a chore playing him again. I guess under WoW standards I am just not Paladin material. I absolutely love my warlock though.

A guildie and I jumped ship Thursday and I hit AV hard this weekend. Snubmah is not quite 70 yet so I am honor farming so I can have a little head start on gear when we get ready to form our pvp team. I do not like the lengthy commitment that raiding requires so PVP is the way to go for me right now. I think the average AV game this weekend was only like 20 minutes. I gained over 20k honor this weekend and spent a good chunk on some upgrades. I also ran Headless Horseman 5 times, I got a good group, and managed to get the pet and the caster dps ring.

After my pvp purchases I am now sitting with 4 epics. Well three 70 epics plus the epic tabard of flame from the card game, but it still counts....

Need more levels

I am on a mission. I am playing alliance almost exclusively now, not for my love of alliance, or my lack of love for horde, but I have found some good people to guild with. Until that changes I will play alliance. Kind of nice having a 70 on both sides as it allows me to take a real break from any drama that may arise. Having said that, there are times when I regret my decision waaaaay back when I chose a paladin as my starting toon. I like him, do not get me wrong, but going from my horde lock to the paladin is very painful at times. With my lock, things die... very quickly. There are times when I do too, but meh.... it works. My paladin is just the opposite. It is rare that I go down, and when I do, things are a mess, and usually quite comical. However, I think my dps is actually in the negatives.

I am only using him as an ATM (He gives my hunter Gold and farms for said Gold) and to do some pvp so I can get the arena/BG healing gear and wait for WotLK. I am really enjoying my hunter. I have forced myself to not twink him. He only has gear that he finds or that he can craft on his own. I make sure that he has plenty of gold on hand though as I am stockpiling all the leatherworking patterns that I see.

I made it through two levels last night. I did a few quests in STV, a few quests in 1k Needles/Shimmering flats, and now I am sitting in Desolace. With speed and a little luck on my side, Desolace and 2 more levels will be history by the time I log this evening. I may not be the fastest grinder/leveler in the world but I am dedicated :)

How to take Defeat

This weekend I did a lot of goofing off in the wonderful World of Warcraft. I took down the Headless Horseman several times with my paladin. We started up a n00b pvp 3v3 team called Lucid Slayers, and promptly lost all 10 of our games. We ran a guild member through BRD, and I finally got my Key at 70. I changed my spec to Holy.... again.... We did some BGs to start getting some "entry" gear, so that maybe, you know, we can win an Arena match. All and all a great WoW weekend. That is not all that I did this weekend, but it was all that happened on the WoW front.

I like to have fun in the game. I like to challenge myself in the game. As such, I realize that this is just that, a game. I try to find like minded people so that my enjoyment of the game increases. I have been lucky thus far in finding select people that I truly can just have fun with. This weekend, a friend and I went for a fun BRD run for another guild mate. So the team looked like this... Me (70 Paladin / Prot), Gutblades (70 Warrior / Fury), Zondra (70 Warrior / Fury), and Ambience (54 Druid / Feral). Gutblades, his wife Ambience, and I are like minded. As a matter of fact we often do stupid things during runs much to the amusement of each other.

This weekend while we were running BRD we came to the stunning revalation that Zondra, in fact, is not like us. Nothing at all... We like to challenge each other. I try to pull as much as I can while still judging whether or not I can do it alone. Sometimes... I die. Gutblades, not wanting to be left out, laughs and joins in. Ambience, having no choice must laugh and also... join in. We have fun. We do not mind a 10g repair bill (I was at 0% when we logged). I would rather not, but hey, I am 70... 10g is what? Less than one quest...

We were on the highway area of BRD just killing things when we pull waaaaaay to much. We draw another pat, then another comes from behind the door, then another.... It goes south real quick. Ambi draws the pats, and between our taunts we can not keep her alive from all the mobs coming. We go into panic mode, in a good way, and just try to kill as much as possible. Nope, no luck. We all die. That is right, 3 70s and a 54 just wiped in BRD. Gutblades and I think it is hillarious. Zondra... not so much. He gets pissed because somehow he thinks we are making fun of him... I mean come on, we just died too. Just enjoy the ride, have fun.

To Do Lists...

I find myself more often than not creating "To Do Lists" at work when I am in between tasks. I browse numerous WoW blogs, read a lot of different sites about WoW, and always have something I am planning to do. It becomes very tedius at times, but I know that if I do not make my lists then I will waste in game time.

I have made a gear list for my 70 Paladin that I found on some blogs & sites, that I have tweaked for personal taste. I play my Paladin tankadin style and that is what I plan on continuing to do. I am in a social guild, so unless I make some "raid" friends do not see myself seeing any endgame content with this toon. My horde lock has played in Kara and attempted Gruul's lair, but even he has not made it too far. I am content with this, but sometimes miss the good old MC / AQ / ZG days. They are very fun raids, when they work. More often than not, for me, they did not. RL would always aggro valuable raid members and we would be stuck waiting.... waiting.... waiting....

I have mats that I need to farm, quests to complete for easy gold. I have my up and coming 31 Draeni Hunter that I am enjoying. As I said before I am in a social guild, so the amount of 20 - 40 toons makes grouping, if I choose, easy. There are also several 70s that we can trade off "lowbie runs." Having said that, I have made myself a list of "needed" instance runs for my hunter. Quest completion and loot searching instance runs on serparate lists of course.

I have "farm" lists. Areas that I know to be higher percentage drops of items that I would like to have. I go out there and spend a couple hours easy, and very rarely come away with my drop. It is ok though, as at least I have vendor trash, and green drops.

I have to juggle my WoW time. I am certain many people with "Altivitus" do. The amount of stuff that I want to accomplish seems quite daunting at times though.

Professions

I am of the opinion that professions suck. Yes you heard that right, they suck. With my paladin I have been a 300 Hammersmith, 300 Alchemist, 300 Enchanter, 300 Engineer, 300 Herbalism, 375 Skinner, and 375 Miner. That was a long grueling gold intensive history of "mistakes." I am not saying that professions are not useful, I am just saying that they, in fact, suck.

I am not sure why but I make a lot of comparisons between Final Fantasy Online and World of Warcraft. Final Fantasy Online was really the first MMO that I ever really got into. I would probably still be playing FF Online if grouping were not mandatory. However, grouping was, and I can easily remmember looking for a group to get into the Crawler's Nest for over 2 hours before I finally just logged in disgust. That was really the final straw.

In Final Fantasy Online, you could have "ALL" the professions that you wanted. It took a lot of time and energy into leveling a profession. It took a lot of gil (their system of currency), and there were times when you crafted something that your mats were wasted and nothing happened. However, you could have "ALL" the professions. For someone like me, who is a little on the OCD side, that was wonderful.

Let us take a walk to imaginary land and pretend that we could have all the professions in WoW. I would almost be done. The only three I would need to work on would be tailoring and leatherworking. Maybe they should change it so that you can only have 2 "Active" professions. The rest go idle. In this scenario, you would have to select which professions were idle, in regards to BOP crafted items. You could not sport a complete suite of BOPs just because you had them all. However, you could switch over to Alchemy/Herbalism, grind a week or two to store up some pots, swich to Enchanting for another week or two to power your gear back up, then move on to your "farming" skills.

I think they should make the professions more difficult, then let you level them all. By the same token, they should be more rewarding when all is said and done.

Get the most...

Why do I love World of Warcraft? Allow me to share why I love the game of WoW. There are a variety of ways to play the game, a variety of styles to play, and content at every level of the game.

Level 1 - 70 Quest
You can be the kind of person that just loves to quest... you go through the many levels of the game quest after quest after quest.

Level 1 - 70 Grind
You can be the kind of person that just likes to grind... if a quest gets completed that is cool to, but you just want to tear through some mobs.

Level 70 Raid
Often called "end game," this style of play involves getting a bunch of people together and trying to tackle some of the really big challenges in the game. It takes time, patience, and people you trust.

Level 70 Instance / Heroic / Casual
You can be the kind of person that just does not have the time to devote to a raid guild. You have a good group of people that also do not really have time, so you settle for 5 mans. 5 mans can be challenging as well and do not require the same amount of "stress" that raids generally do.

Level 70 PVP
You could enjoy trashing other players. You can do world pvp, enter arena's, do some BGs, or just go around "ganking" people.

Twinks
This is a term that any MMO gamer should know well. You may be the type that really enjoys the twink experience and just enter low level BGs with above average gear.

I like Wow because no matter what style of gamer you are there is something for you. Personally, I like to level grind, do quests, and some casual pvp. I think the success of this game is in the design of it. The game meets a lot of gamers needs and continues to give.

Sell Out

Today's post /rant will not be WoW related as I have other "geeky" interests and some that are not so "geeky." Today we shall discuss this Tragedy. I have read comic books for a long time. My favorite was Spiderman growing up, but I really can not stand the movies. I read all the "X" titles, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Ironman, Hulk, Wolverine,and Captain America. I was pretty much a Marvel junky. The only DC stuff I ever really read was some of the Batman comics, JLA, Teen Titans Go! (The cartoon :P ), and Green Lantern.

I loved comics, yet I have not really loved most of what the "mainstream" market has done to them. As they have become more popular with the Cinema masses I have stopped reading. I am not saying that this was the only reason, just a good stopping point. I long for my son to get old enough to want to collect / read so that we can enjoy this together.

Having said that, I came across the above article and was just shocked. I knew that Captain America was going to come back, there was no doubt there. I just thought that, you know, when he came back he would still be Captain America. I read the Death of Superman stuff and knew how bad that was when he came back. I went through the Ben Reilly Spiderman days and "wept." But come on... what Captain America has become is just wrong.

Here is a neat little comic from a Applegeeks that more or less sums up how I feel about this.

I work at a military base as an IT Contractor. When I picked up my issue where Captain America died, I put up several "Memorial" shots of Captain America. I even tried to talk the Commander into lowering the flag to half mast as Captain America was a hero. He had a good laugh, but nothing. I did however, take the afternoon off as bereavement to mourn :P

"We love to fly and it shows..."

I knocked out a few quests last night and purchased my flying mount. Not my epic one mind you, just the normal poor man mount. So finally my paladin has caught up to my lock. It feels nice to be able to fly around and look for ore deposits, or as I now begin to quest for even more gold for gear and enchants, I can just skip over areas and go directly to the quest area.

Some guild mates and I have been talking pvp lately. We are a "fun" guild and do not have the manpower to try Kara. Even if we did have the manpower, our balance is all wrong. We have decided just to continue having fun and try out some pvp. I am even planning on changing my spec over to a holy build after two years solid of prot. I will keep you up to date...

Questing

I am not sure how you like to quest. I am not even sure how I "best" like to quest. There are times when I will just grind around the general area and if I complete a quest, then that is cool too. There are other times when I am on a search and destroy mission. I know where the quest is, I know what I have to do, and I excecute.

I am not sure where I stumbled upon it, but I have an excel spreadsheet that I am currently converting to a word document with thottbot links. This spreadsheet shows most if not all the alliance quests up until the Skettis / Netherdrake quests. It shows where the quest starts, where the quest takes place, and who you turn the quest in to. It is broken down by zone, starting with Hellfire Peninsula. It is not a powerlevel guide by any means, but has been a helpful little tool for me that has saved me a lot of time.

Quest Guide

Now as I mentioned, this is not my creation. I have used it, but can not remember who or where I got it from. If anyone stumbles upon my post and can identify the author for me I would love to give him/her proper credit. Also if anyone has a horde equivalent then please pass on a link. I am afraid that I lack the patience to build one of these on my own. :)

Lay-a-Way

I recently made a confession that I have the very deadly disease "Altivitus." I do not for see ever finding the cure to that particular ailment, and have just learned to live with it. The symptoms are not overly worrisome, and really only affect "guild time."

I have come to the conclusion that I have an even more deadly disease... "AHA." The scientific name is Amustis Havif Allofeverything, commonly called Auction House Addiction. AHA is a terrible thing. It affects one's gold supply, "guild time" (to replenish said gold), and travel time, just to name a few...

In short the problem boils down to this. I go to the AH with good intentions. My plan is simple. I want to put up for auction, this netherweave cloth, these mined bars, or these skins, or whatever else I may have to produce income. What happens? I will tell you... I can not just list. Like some sort of sick compulsion I need to browse...

I search for plate on my paladin.... I search for "goofing off weapons" (You know the skills you never use but level when you run "lowbies" through instances) ... I search for "deals"... I search for tank gear, or healing gear... I just search...

Now, you may ask yourself, "Self, what does this have to do with the title?" Quit rushing me... I am getting there...

I need a new addon. I need an addon that allows me to set a target purchase, and save for it. I need it to "steal" a set amount of my gold and reserve it for that purchase. I need it to hide it so well that even unloading the addon will not find it. I would even like it to be able to separate my funds into different reserves for different targets that I want all at the same time. What should we call this addon...... LAY-A-WAY!

Advice

Today's post is going to be off the WoW topic if you do not mind. I am sitting at work and to be honest wish that my coworkers did not know my name. I am making physical diagrams so that I can later put them in Visio. The plan is to combine our current power, network, and HVAC layouts into one "Presentation" for the big guys.

This morning I am going around measuring all the offices, closets, electrical rooms, bathrooms, and the server floor. I have measured the extire of the building. As I am going about my business people keep offering their advice on who I should talk with or what I should do, or what I should purchase to make the job go easier. Everyone has their opinion and they believe it is their God given right to mention it to me.

If I take the time to ask your opinion, then feel free, tell me how I could be doing my current job/tasking better. Please. I have obviously not thought about what I am doing, so you are doing me a favor. I try to be polite. I listen. I nod my head. I go "check" what they recommend I check... the whole time realizing that I am probably wasting my time.

/sigh

Level 70

Woot! I finally dinged 70 with my paladin. It feels good. I have had gear sitting in the bank for a while now that I equipped and my bonus spell damage just went up. I run a protection spec, with "shockadin" gear. If you are unfamiliar with this term, that means I maximize my +spell damage. When questing/grinding I start off judging Crusader then follow up with righteous and watch the bonus damage work. I have even found that tanking works fine with my gear too, but would never try to tank any really tough bosses.

ReClass

I was in the Army for a little under 6 years (involuntary extension ftl) and understand the term ReClass. There are many others that may understand the term, for those of you who do not, allow me to explain...

In the service you have the ability to reclass or retrain a different career field. Perhaps, you joined up and there are just no promotions available in your career field. Perhaps, you are looking down the road and realize that there is no way you will get a decent civilian job with your current skill set. Perhaps, you just want a change of pace. All of that is your choice, and you have the ability to reclass. What this means is that you will go back to AIT (Training school, sort of like a college environment with Drill Sergeants shouting at you), and you will learn a new "trade." Congratulations... you have just reclassed.

Now to somehow connect that random bit of information to WoW..... My paladin. My paladin was my first toon and I feel like I owe him something. I feel as though I have to level him. I feel as though he deserves it, when to be honest, man I hate leveling a paladin. He is only 6 bubs away from 70, but still... that is 6 looong more bubs until I can safely say I am done again until WotLK comes out. Well not really, I still have to grind out some decent gold so I can get my really cool flying mount.

I want to reclass. I wish there was a system in place so that I could say... you know what.. Paladins do not suck, they just do nothing for me. I want to reclass. I realize that such a feature could be abused, and realize that it would never see the light of day, but still the concept would be great. My paladin could become a rouge... or a shadow priest... or even a mage...

Remembering When...

A looooong time ago (around 2 years)... on a server far far away (Skywall)... There was a level 1 Paladin.

Ah, that very first toon. It has been so long ago it is almost hard to remember the mistakes that I made. I tend to forget how long it took me to find things... how long it took me to level.. how long it took me to decide on which profession to begin (not that it mattered)... how long it took me to find the AH (yes this was before the AH patch, when you had to go to IF or Org.) It is almost hard for me to believe that there are any truly new players out there, that is until I log in and read some of the questions that flood general and trade chat.

Did you know that it is possible to skip the tram and run a level 25 paladin all the way from Stormwind to Ironforge? Did you? Well, it can be done.... however I would not recommend it. How do I know it can be done? Well, you have to remember that he was my first toon, I did not know any better, and I wanted to get to the AH that I heard was in IF. There was a lot of death involved... often times very shortly after my res... so it was more of a res hop and less of a "run." I thought it must be possible, because I see Night Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes in my area all the time. I thought to myself, "Self, how are they getting here... there must be safe path through those tough zones." I, of course, was wrong.. there was a Tram...

I understand why people shout for directions. I really do, but it still bugs me to see the same questions spammed over and over again. There needs to be a chat faq or something that auto directs redundant questions from chat to the faq... That would be great.

Last night was the start of brewfest. I was on when it started, and wow.... the n00bs were out in force. Within a matter of minutes people were shouting for directions.... Come on people, please, just do a little looking around. Please, just try to use that God given brain of yours and find it first. If you fail, that is fine... I am willing to help. However, I want, nay I demand, that you at least look first.

"Altivitus"

I have a confession to make.... I have "altivitus." You may ask yourself, "Self, what is altivitus?"

Allow me to explain:
I am addicted to the creation of new toons. I am addicted to those first 10 or 20 levels. Why? I am not sure, but I love that lowbie content. Perhaps it is instant gratification of an easily obtainable new level. Perhaps it is the way that every couple of levels you get this new, amazing mechanic to add to your class. Perhaps it is just because...

I have pve toons, pvp toons. Then there are my alliance toons and horde toons. When a new server group is released by Blizzard, new toons have been created just to enjoy the new server level race. I have probably deleted more toons than the average WoW player has ever created. I am not sure that there is a combination of race / class that I have not enjoyed up to at least level 20. However, rarely do any of these toons make it much farther than level 20.

I am really excited about patch 2.3 for a few reasons. The main reason, of course, is that the amount of xp needed to level from 20 - 60 has been reduced while at the same time the quest xp for those 20 - 60 levels has been increased. So now, when I am "alt hiding" or just doing my Saturday morning "rest burn" I may be able to enjoy my "altivitus" all the more...

That last level...

I know not what it is about that last level, but for me it is the worst. I do not care at what point in your "WoW Career" you are in, for me, it always seems like the most grueling. When I was level 9 at the lowbies, as quick as they go, it seemed like level 10 was harder than level 11. When I was level 39, getting to level 40 seemed like it took forever. Pre-BC, level 59 was the longest, and now I am sitting at level 69 with my paladin and creeping through 1 bub at a time. The thing of it is, I have run out of easy quests in Nagrand. I do not want to have to move on to Blade's Edge, or Netherstorm, or Shadowmoon until I have a flying mount. I have limited the area in which I level, and so now I am stuck killing ogres and watching my xp bar slowing creep towards level 70. The only perk is... at 70 I would still be killing these suckers for the beads and rep. Two birds with one stone I guess...

Making Progress

Ok, so I am making slow progress.... I am taking this blog at its most literal interpretation, a web journal. I am afraid that at times this will be more for me (posting links and stuff) than for others, but that is my choice as this is my blog. :)

New Beginnings

I have decided to begin a blog and have no real "creative" way to begin than to just start throwing stuff on the page. My hobbies currently include World of Warcraft (WoW), camping, hiking, and Biblical research. I will devote the majority of blogspace to my "adventures" in warcraft. I rather enjoy the level grind and have played quite a few "toons". I will share my thoughts as they occur more for my friends than for any real readership, but if any care to stop by and read what I have to say that is fine too.