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 :)