Progressive WoW

I want my D3 BETA!

2011-09-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

OK Blizzard, I still have yet to figure out your process for selection for beta keys. If it's completely random then I can't really have any complaints, but it does seem that there are certain people out there who receive a beta key just by asking. I'm talking about bloggers, shoutcasters, etc. Sure I'm not a regular blogger, but I feel there should be some sort of reward for being a loyal Blizzard gamer.

I'm sure many people have played a lot of Blizzard games, but lets just go over my past with them. I started out with Warcraft II, never played the first one, but I played that game endlessly, beat both campaigns, and lots of skirmishes both on a LAN and computers. Pretty much the same can be said of Starcraft. I got into that one a little late, say a year after release, but nevertheless, that would make it 11 years ago. Fast forward to Diablo II, and I'd say I played that game more than Warcraft II and Starcraft combined, and not by a small margin. I leveled at least 3 characters over 80, and did countless hours of loot runs. Warcraft III comes next, and yes I of course played through the campaign, plenty of online play, just never made it through the campaign.

So that brings us to WoW. Do I really need to tell you how much I've played this game? I have a blog about it! I've been playing since about 4 months after it was released, I don't even want to think about how much the monthly fees add up to, but I'd like to think I've invested more money in Blizzard than the majority of people out there. Just think, I have leveled 6 characters past level 80, 2 more past 70, and yet 2 more past 60. That's at least one of each class over level 60.

Starcraft II, I haven't done much online play yet, but I played through the campaign and a lot of Nexus Wars.

So, should I receive a beta key for Diablo III? That's up to Blizzard to decide I suppose, but I'd like to think they at least look through current Battle.net accounts and have some sort of selection process other than just picking randomly. I have all those games registered on Battle.net, so it's not like Blizzard is clueless about me owning them. Hell, I've lost my Starcraft disc two or three times and had to replace it each time.

Come on Blizz, let me get a beta key.

It's been a long time

2011-05-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah nobody reads this, but I want to go ahead and do this anyway. New expansion? Well maybe not so new anymore, but new enough!

I didn't know they could make the quest progressions better after Wrath, but they managed to do it again. I love how the quests flow, how some just pop up and don't make you return to the questgiver to turn it in. It's great! Not only in the new zones, but in the new quests they replaced in the low level zones.

Thousand Needles is awesome, I played through it a few times on both factions, I'm a big fan of the new underwater element they added to the game. Which brings me to Vashj'ir. Not sure if it's my favorite new zone, because Hyjal just brings me back to Warcraft 3 and the memories of playing through it the first time. I had such a hard time with that level.

I have a few new characters to comment on. I made a Worgen warrior, and got him up to level 60 pretty quick. It took like 8 months to get my first character that high in vanilla WoW, but this guy went ridiculously fast. My druid is 85, first there of course, with the paladin behind him at 84.

Oh, I've been soloing Heroic Underbog randomly with my hunter at level 82 in an attempt to become exalted with Cenarion Expedition and get the hippogryph mount. It's monotonous, but it'll be worth it. I got the Wintersaber mount with my priest too, that one went pretty quick once I upgraded her flying skill. That one has been in the works for a while, so I was pretty happy to get there.

Hmm, shaman at 82, got my DK to 80 somehow, he was really easy to solo with, almost like the pally, but can't heal himself. Warlock at 74 or 75, she's the one I'm working on right now until I get out of her rested XP range. I went destruction for leveling and I'm excited for chaos bolt. I first went with a warlock for a felguard, but I gotta see this chaos bolt in action before I change specs. I'll have that felguard later.

Rogue is still 70, he probably won't budge for a while, and the mage brings up the rear, at, umm, something around 50, but I can't remember. He'll be the next project. The whole water elemental as a pet thing really helps for soloing, mages were pretty rough before, almost as bad as rogues.

Ok, that's enough for now, I might update a every now and then though. Who am I even talking to, nobody reads this!

Rogues, my only weakness

2010-02-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not know, my very first character was a rogue. He was the first to reach level 60 in vanilla WoW, and I even started doing some instances before the first expansion was released, then I pretty much gave up on him to play a druid and priest, and eventually others.

The thing about rogues that I have trouble with is their lack of healing, especially with their low armor value and the fact that they are pretty much melee only. This results in fairly slow leveling in comparison with most other classes, who tend to either have a healing spell they can use, or stick to attacking from range and don't take much damage. Warriors are the exception, but they have much better armor to mitigate damage.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I have started leveling my rogue again. Getting to endgame content on four other characters has shown me the new stuff rogues have gotten since I left mine behind, and I want to check out what I've been missing. I also am getting a little bored with endgame stuff and need something else to do for a while.

The transition is a little different than normal for me. I think it's a combination of just how long it's been since I played a rogue, and the fact that my main is a feral cat druid with very similar controls.

So far things are going well, but I need to level my first aid skill to keep downtime to a minimum. Other than that I'm finding it to be much less of a grind than before. I'm not sure if I chose better talents or if rogues are just better now than they used to be, but where I was usually resting every two battles I can fight many more in a row now.

So for now it looks like I will be working on my rogue. I think I will shoot for getting him to level 70, then I will probably need a break from him, but I want to get through Outland at least before it comes to that.

My main goal at this point is to get epic flying for my priest. She's been at level 80 for so long and still flies around like slow poke. That's why I'm back to questing again. It seems to be the fastest way to earn money for me at this point.

80s Madness

2010-01-27T12:57:00.001-08:00

A couple weeks ago I went on a binge and leveled up my shaman all the way to 80. It seems to get faster and faster with each successive character, but I'm not planning on doing too much leveling in the near future. Surprised? I was too, but I have other things to focus on.

First off, I have no idea what I want to do with Keldreth, my hunter. At first I was going to use her to farm Heroic Underbog in an attempt to become exalted with Cenarion Expedition and buy the hipporgryph mount. Only problem is her gear isn't good enough to for her to be able to solo the instance, so there goes that idea. For now she's on hold.

Blackbare will continue to be my main, running Heroics with my friends and guildmates to gear up. I've gotten some pretty lucky drops, and he's well on his way to having all purples. That's about all I use him for at the moment, but I will have to quest through Ice Crown eventually, even if it's only to get money from the quests.

Vonari is a little different. She will be running BG's and just be my PvP character for now. I have geared her up in a few instances, but I'm thinking she will just stick to getting most of her gear through PvP.

Avialle gets to be my guinea pig at gearing up on my own. I've been running normal dungeons with her for gear, and now she can queue for most of the heroics as well. I'm gearing her up strictly on my own, without guild help, just to see if I can do it without getting too frustrated with PuG's. It hasn't been bad so far, this new cross-server LFG tool really works well.

As for all the lower level characters, I probably won't be using them much for a while. Now that the endgame stuff doesn't require such long playing sessions to get anywhere, and the fact that I have 4 characters that are at that level, I think I will stick to playing them the majority of the time. Probably better to save the others for Cataclysm anyway.

Bigger and Better

2010-01-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

Well it finally happened, I got a new computer, and for the first time in my life it's a Mac. Actually it's a little overwhelming. The screen is huge, it runs super smooth, and even though it's a Mac, I can still run Windows on it as well if I want, so I can still load up any of my old games if I want.

A new computer with a huge screen also means WoW looks amazing. I can bump up all the video settings with no lag whatsoever, and I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about any graphics card conflicts or anything like that while I'm in the middle of a game.

On to the progress update. I have been leveling my shaman almost exclusively, only playing other characters when my friends are running instances and such. She's level 75 right now, and is just finishing up in Dragonblight, which puts her on track to hit 80 sometime in the next couple weeks depending on how much time I get to play.

I don't know why, but I'm really liking the shaman and the huge burst damage she gets with her enhancement build. Sometimes it's a little ridiculous. One swing of the mace and the enemy just lost half it's HP. Other times nothing procs and I'm stuck in a drawn out battle. Kinda interesting how that works.

I actually think that maybe the shaman could be my BG character. The burst damage, combined with spirit wolves to add a little damage while healing me, and my summonable elementals make it seem like a pretty good choice for a little PvP. It will take some practice though, I still get ganked all the time.

On a side note, Blackbare is getting much better geared. I've gotten lucky on some drops in various instances and he's slowly but surely getting there. He also managed to reach exalted with Sons of Hodir and is now able to get my shoulder enchants for me. They increased the rep gain on each turn in, so it doesn't take nearly as long as it used to. I think I was exalted in a couple weeks.

Not much else to update on right now. The pally has gained a few levels, but still in her 20s so not much to talk about there. For now I will concentrate on getting Avialle to 80 and then figure out what I want to do from there.

Classic!

2009-12-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

That's right everybody, Blackbare is now a Classic Dungeonmaster!

Alright, maybe for a level 80 it isn't the most difficult task to complete, but before going for the achievement I had only been to maybe half of the instances the original game had to offer, but now I have seen them all, and I think I can understand why people are so drawn to it.

My first character I got to level 60 was my rogue, and this was before the first expansion, so I had a chance to run a few of the end game instances. My experience with it wasn't too great. Being a rogue it was very difficult to find a group, as there was never a shortage of DPS characters needing groups.

Now I get to see them in sort of a different light. Sure I can blow through them really quick on my own, but trying to think about what it would be like for a group of level 60's trying to make their way through one of those instances makes it very interesting.

I'm able to skip so many mobs, the loot doesn't matter, and the bosses go down easily for me. An instance like BRD was just so big, I can't imagine working my way through it at that level. I really can see why instances have become more and more streamlined starting with the first expansion. They were big and epic before, but just took too much time for me to want to run through them constantly.

Next up, time to get my hunter ready to solo Heroic Underbog, or get a better attempt in at least. She'll be questing in the Storm Peaks first, then moving on to Icecrown if her turtle pet hasn't hit 80 by then. The new patch just decreased the amount of experience for a pet to gain a level too, so this should go more quickly than it was.

Besides that, I plan on taking my druid to the new Heroic instances with my guild, and hopefully get some crazy gear out of it. Blackbare has really become my instance guy, and the funny part is that since we have such a good tank in the guild that leads us through, I end up running everything in cat form as DPS. Not really what I expected his role to be, but hopefully I can eventually get an off-spec set and go boomkin as my dual spec. Oh that would be sweet. I wouldn't mind trying healing either at some point.

Retro WoW

2009-12-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

So in the process of going for the Classic Dungeon Master achievement, I also joined my guild and a few others for a run of Blackwing Lair. It was quite the experience, and now I know that I would have never been able to raid in vanilla WoW.

The group itself wasn't bad. We had some well geared people who knew the instance, and the rest were just along for the ride. The first hickup we had was attunement. Sure you don't have to be attuned anymore, but without it you have to run through UBRS to get in. We decided to just become attuned.

Well we eventually did it, but only after I got stuck along with two others at one part behind a gate that apparently doesn't open after the boss is killed. So we had to get summoned back and run back through the instance. One player even fell into the lava in Blackrock Mountain and we pretty much left him to catch up with us.

So we're all attuned and make our way into BWL. This is quite the instance. Lots of different mechanics for the boss fights. With 11 level 80s we didn't really have much trouble with the fights, it was the other players we had problems with.

One of them pretty much singlehandedly held up the party for a good half hour or more as he had died in the instance, released (after we told him not to), and came back, only to be killed by respawns from the first boss' room. When we went back to rez him his body was nowhere to be found, and so he had to run back again.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that he didn't get attuned somehow, so the run back wasn't just to the beginning of BWL, but to UBRS, and then you have to run through that to the entrance to BWL. It was quite the ordeal, and all I could do was sit there and wish we hadn't waited for him.

It got me thinking about the 40-man raids people used to do at level 60, and the horror stories I heard about them. With all the troubles we had with just one person out of 11, I don't know how the 40-man groups ever made it. Sure if it was all in the guild you probably are all on the same page, but even then there are hold ups, and after this weekend I really don't think I'd have the patience for stuff like that.

In the end we got through it, but it took an hour and a half, and I went into it expecting to spend less than an hour. At least I can cross that off the list of old world content I want to see that I never got the chance to before.

Next up: finish the last few dungeons for the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement. I tried BRD with my friend this weekend as well, but we got lost, as neither of us has done it before, so I think we might have to use a walkthrough. We're n00bs...

Can't fight it

2009-12-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

I knew I'd be drawn back into this game at some point. For a while there I was just questing every so often when I really had nothing better to do, but I now find myself with more goals to accomplish that are actually attainable for me.

First off, I want to beat all the classic dungeons. Right now I'm working my way through everything but the level 60 stuff, and the last ones I need are Sunken Temple and Zul Farrack, which will be easy enough for an 80 druid. Next up comes level 60 5-man content, which should also be easy to solo. Luckily I've already done all of Dire Maul, that place took forever, I don't know how people did it in vanilla WoW.

Last on the list would be the raid content. At this point I'm not sure how this will go at my level. Can I solo it? Do I need help? And how much help do I need? Anybody experienced with this that has some advice?

Next up is getting epic flying for all my 80s, which is just going to take lots of money, so that goal is pretty straightforward.

Last on the list at this point is getting a Cenarion War Hippogryph for my hunter. This will require running the Coilfang Reservoir instances on Heroic a lot, and I expect I won't be able to get help every time, and I can't do it myself with what I have right now, so I am working on making my hunter good enough to solo it.

How am I doing that, you may ask? Well first I switched to a tenacity pet for the better survivability. Before I had used a core hound, but now I brought out the turtle. Only problem is I need to level it up to 80 now, so I just plan on questing more. More money for me and XP for my turtle at the same time.

I also crafted the entire PvP hunter set with my druid and sent it over. Took a while to farm all that leather, but now that it's done I have the recipes to be able to deck out my shaman in the same gear when she hits 80. Sure it's not quite as good as stuff you'll pick up running instances, but it should do.

I'm hoping that will be enough, but right now I have no idea. I could very well finish all these tasks and then enter the instance, only to find out I still can't take it solo.

That being said, I think I might start blogging regularly again, so keep a look out!

Yes I'm still playing

2009-11-16T08:56:00.000-08:00

It's been a looooong time since my last update, and I don't expect to be posting regularly anytime soon, but I've made some good progress recently despite my lack of time to play.

I've been pushing Keldreth to get up to level 80, and she's 79 right now. I expect she will be 80 by the end of the week. Going through Northrend as a hunter is very different than with my other characters. I can solo almost any elite quest, the regular mobs are never a problem and there is hardly any downtime. This makes for faster XP gain because I pretty much don't have to sneak by any enemies.

Right now I have just finished up in Zul Drak and have moved on over to Shalozar Basin. By the time I was at this point on either of my other 80s they were only around level 77 or 78, which meant that after finishing Shalozar they still had to do some questing in another zone to get the rest of the way. At this rate my hunter will be 80 before she even finishes up in this zone, leaving lots of quests and gold to be had from questing the higher level zones.

I have sort of put my Horde characters on hold. I like that I went through to level 40 on Kunzagah, the mage. Knowing that the entire old world will be reconfigured when the new expansion comes out, I'm glad I was able to play through much of this old world as Horde. I will probably save at least two characters to play through when the expansion comes out.

On a side note about the expansion, I'm very excited about the Worgen being a playable Alliance race. Sure they're pushing it on the lore to make it work, but that's not really something I ever cared that much about. As far as I'm concerned, if Blizzard writes some ridiculous lore to make they're games better, then I'm all for it.

I plan on making a Worgen Death Knight right off the bat, but I also want to quest their new starting zone, so I'll have to make another character for that, class TBD. It's going to be very interesting to see how the old world turns out with the release of the expansion, but it's been in need of some work for a while, and while we may lose those familiar quests that us alt addicts are used to, it opens up so much new stuff for us to explore and compare to how it was before. I predict it will be awesome.

What have I been up to?

2009-06-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

Yes I know it's been a long time. I expect lots of the people who used to read this have since given up and moved on to blogs that actually update. I'm not sure if I'm coming back, but it's been a long time since the last update and I feel like I should get you up to speed with what I've been doing this whole time.

First and foremost, Vonari is level 80. Actually she's been there for a while now, and fully decked out in the crafted PvP set that she made for herself. I got a chance to run some BG's with her, and it was really fun. My friend brought his paladin and kept me alive while I burned down the bad guys. We got some really good teamwork going sometimes, making it almost seem easy.

Having said that, I haven't played her or Blackbare for quite a while. I tried tanking some instances with Blackbare, and it was fun (mostly due to the tips I got from reading the BBB), but it's just too time consuming for me. I can't dedicate that much time to the game. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I play for hours at a time, but it's never planned, I have the option of logging whenever I want.

I also started getting Keldreth on her way to 80. She's finished up Howling Fjord and is now on her way through Borean Tundra, but I'm putting her on hold for a while. Avialle is making her way through Outland; she and Deadbare both made the jump over to the new server as well, but they won't be joining the guild until they reach level 70.

Actually my most recent endeavor has been making some progress on my Horde characters. I'm finding it to be very fun making it through good old Azeroth as the opposing faction. Most of the quests are brand new to me, as well as the classes I'm using, so it's a completely different perspective from what I've known.

So far Kunzagah (mage) and Shanaera (warlock) have been the characters I play the most, trading off as each one gets through their well rested XP bonus.

I really like the damage the mage puts out, but I can see how just casting frostbolt over and over would get boring. I might have to think of a way to change things up later on.

The warlock is fun as well. It has the feel of a hunter with it's pet, but it also has the damage output of a mage, and those DoT's can really do some damage. One thing I didn't plan on but that works out really was having her take herbalism, which gives you Lifebloom, and in combination with Life Tap I never have downtime due to low mana. It's also great to use in combination with Health Funnel to keep your pet alive.

So if you haven't looked at the armory profiles in a while, you might be in for a big surprise, and I will try to get back in the groove of posting every so often, but I'm thinking it will only be when I have something more than just little updates to talk about.

Leave of absence

2009-02-25T15:20:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since my last update, and that's because I always update from work. That being said, I got laid off last week and as such I haven't been at work to update. You'd think that means I would have more time to blog, but I guess I like to do other things online when I have full internet access.

Anyway, I probably won't be updating for a while, at least as long as I'm unemployed, so check out my blogroll for some other great blogs, assuming you don't read those ones already.

And if anybody lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and knows of any civil engineering jobs, feel free to let me know, any and all help is appreciated.

For now I have lots of time to play WoW, and once I start a new job I will be sure to update you on all of my escapades.

Slow week

2009-02-19T11:19:00.000-08:00

It's not so much that I haven't had time to play this week, it's just that I've had other things to do with the free time I would normally use to play WoW. I don't think it's burnout, just different priorities at the moment, but this weekend might see a change in that.

I never realized how many different TV shows I watch during the week, and they aren't really shows I can just half pay attention to while playing WoW, I need to focused or I won't know what's going on. Part of it is that last year we had the writer's strike and lots of shows either had short seasons or didn't even air.

Luckily I'm almost fully caught up now, and I should be seeing more free time soon, which means I will be pushing my way to level 80.

I'm not only excited to get to 80 just so I can try my hand at some PvP. I also want to go back and run some of the old instances and raids. I want to do all the attunements from vanilla WoW, then fight through places like MC, BWL, and AQ.

I actually got asked to do BWL by a guildy, but at the time I was busy with other stuff and wasn't going to have time for it anyway. Now I'm hoping there will be some interest for some fun runs through old content that I was never able to experience but have heard a lot about.

Of course the fact that I can earn achievements by doing those instances is a plus, but I think the main reason is to see those places for myself. I know it won't be quite the same as a full blown 40-man raid at level 60, but just to be in those various fights that I've only seen screenshots of before would just be awesome.

Well it looks like I have even more to look forward to once I get to level 80, and I'm really starting to see the benefits of being in a guild with what I can do once I reach that point and start looking for fun activities to do.

Weekend Progress

2009-02-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

I'm making my way further into the Howling Fjord, and so far I haven't had any trouble completing the quests there, even soloing some group quests. I'm now on the last quest hub, at least as far as I remember, and should be moving back to Borean Tundra very soon, where I'll hopefully blow through quickly and be able to move on to new places.

Somehow soloing has been really easy for me on Vonari, but it wasn't always that way. Up until Northrend I pretty much had to skip every group quest unless I had somebody to help me. There were a few I could solo, but mostly I got past those through luck more than anything else.

Now I'm going through the elite quests as if they're just tougher normal quests, instead of quests that are impossible without help. I was able to take out the pirate in the cave and the giant bear that eats him, even though the bear was immune to fear. Then I went after the ice dragon and got him on the first try as well.

I'm finding that most of the time my PW:Shield holds up until the debuff wears off, then I can re-apply immediately, and any health I lost is given back by VE. It's really very convenient, and it's fun getting the hang of all the skills I don't normally use against regular mobs that allow me to stay alive in a longer fight.

I'm hoping this practice at staying alive in longer fights will help me out in PvP as well. Sure it's not quite the same, but some of the tactics used to keep myself alive are similar, and the more precise reactions are something I need to work on as well.

For now it's just sticking with the leveling and making my way to 80, but once I get there I think things are going to start getting really interesting. I'm hoping this time around the end game will be a much better experience than it was in vanilla WoW, and with all the new stuff that has been implemented since then I think it will be.

Still fun the second time

2009-02-13T09:51:00.000-08:00

I was a little worried that running through the Howling Fjord quests for the second time would get a little boring, but so far it's still almost as fun as it was the first time through here on my druid.

I'm getting close to hitting 71 on Vonari, and she has finished off the quests around Utgarde Keep and most of the stuff with the Vrykul towns up on the cliffs above. It's really helpful to have been through here before and I have a pretty good idea of what to do for the quests.

Obviously I have to use some different strategies to complete certain quests, and that's probably one of the reasons why it's not becoming monotonous. I really like the spirit world quests where you get to see the history of the Vrykul. The new quests are just so much better in comparison to anything pre-LK.

I also hope to level my professions while I level up to 80. That was the whole reason I made such a big deal about leveling them to that point. I don't want to have to do any profession grinds again.

I think up to this point I never really had the tools to level up a profession without outside help. Now with three characters at level 70 or above, I think I my characters will be able to provide each other with plenty of mats to keep from getting stuck, except for those few recipes that require atypical mats.

That's about all I have to update on at this point, plus it's Friday (Friday the 13th for that matter), and I'm ready for a good long weekend.

Still can't decide

2009-02-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

So I'm leveling my priest, Vonari, through Northrend now. I finished up what I wanted in Borean Tundra, which got me about halfway to 71, then headed over to Howling Fjord to make my way through that zone.

I'm really starting to remember why I like playing my priest. Actually I think I say something like that every time I switch characters. I just like them all. They each have their own playstyles, and I find them all appealing, although each in it's own way.

At this point it's really looking like Vonari was the right choice to level alongside my friend as we make our way through Northrend and eventually start getting into some PvP action. Actually, I'm not sure how a priest/mage combo will hold up in 2v2, but we'll see how that goes when we get there.

I was actually asked recently by one of my guildies which character was my main. I had to tell them I'm really not sure. I have three characters at or above level 70, another two at level 60, and various lower levels on the Horde server. I just can't choose one to say it's my main.

Then they ask which is my favorite. Yet again I don't know. I just can't choose one. The only reason I'm leveling Vonari right now is to play alongside my friend, and the reason I chose her was because I thought she would make a good partner for his mage to do arenas with.

There were no favorites, just me trying to figure out the best way to do things. I could just as easily have said that Blackbare was a good choice because he was furthest along, and I'm sure he'd do just fine in arenas as well.

What it all comes down to is that I can't choose just one character and stick with it. I know lots of people can, and I used to, but when I started that first alt I just couldn't go back to playing just one, and it just escalated from there.

After thinking about how things will go when I actually get to 80 and start getting into PvP, I don't think it will stop me from leveling my alts. I won't be doing arenas or BGs every single time I'm on, which means I will be playing a different character.

I just have so many other things I want to do in the game with other classes to stick to just one, and in the impossible event that I am able to accomplish those goals, we have a ridiculous number of achievements that I can go after. I don't think I'll ever run out of stuff to do, even if I don't ever raid.

Grand Masta

2009-02-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

It took forever and my funds are running dry, but I finally managed to get my priest up to grand master tailoring and enchanting, which means she's ready for Northrend. Had I known that leveling these two professions together would take such a toll on my gold I would never have chosen them, but too late now.

I think the worst recipe yet has to be the Runed Adamantite Bar. The mats are just ridiculous, and there's no way to get them without help from other professions.

Primal Might has to be made by and alchemist, and the transmute can only be performed once per day, so even if you manage to find someone to do it for you, and you have your own mats, you're still going to pay a lot for it.

Then the Adamantite bar requires a blacksmith, and those are way more expensive than the mats needed for it because they know enchanters need them.

The rest of the mats aren't quite so hard to come by...if you only needed one or two of them, but 8 Large Prismatic Shards is a lot, especially considering how infrequently you get them from disenchanting. Luckily one of my new guildmates had some extras he was willing to part with. What a nice guy.

Well at least that part is past me now, and tailoring wasn't nearly as bad as enchanting was, plus I could DE all the crafted cloth to get more mats.

I sent my priest to Northrend shortly after and made my way to the profession trainers to up my skills to Grand Master. Actually I only had enough money to be grand master in one profession when I got there, but after a few quests I went back and got the other one, although I don't have money to buy any of the recipes now.

I started out in Borean Tundra again, but I'm thinking I'll head over to Howling Fjord after finishing off a few more of the quests since I really liked that zone much better, and my friend is leveling over there right now anyway.

I'm finding a lot less stamina on the cloth drops in Northrend, but much more spell power and intellect. Luckily I don't get hit much because I am almost always shielded, so I'm wondering if this was done on purpose since clothies try not to get hit much anyway and would rather see bigger numbers. I sure don't mind.

For now I'll be pushing my priest as far as I can until I run out of rested XP bonus. I'm sure my friend will get to 80 way before I do, but I just can't stand leveling at the normal rate, so he'll have to wait around before we start our arena team.

I'm still undecided on a spec to go for arenas. I'll be pairing up with a mage, so I'm thinking shadow will be good if we focus fire and just burn down opponents really fast. I was thinking discipline for a while, but I think with two squishies we're just gonna need all the damage output we can get and hope it's enough to kill them before they get to us.

Well, with duel specs coming up I guess I can just try out both and see which works best. It's going to get interesting.

Luck of the draw

2009-02-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

I logged on yesterday for one purpose, and that was to farm some Fel Scales to level up Blackbare's leatherworking. I remembered them dropping fairly often from ravagers, so I made my way over to Hellfire Peninsula to grind them out.

Going by the guide I found, I would need enough to make 10 boots to get to 350, plus some extra since the recipe would go yellow at 345. This meant I would need over 20 Fel Scales, and I wasn't sure I would have enough leather to make them all either.

Well, it didn't go that quickly, but I did get 20 Fel Scales and also a good amount of leather, so I decided to try my luck and see if I could just get to 350 without more farming.

And guess what? It worked! I made 5 boots with the recipe in yellow and got a level each time. Not only that, but I still have some leather left over that I can send over to my priest to make some tailored boots.

I had actually expected that task to take a little longer, but now that it was done I still had time to play. I sent Blackbare to Stormwind, grabbed all the Borean Leather out of the bank that he had been collecting, then sent him to Northrend.

Once there I trained up my leatherworking some more and with all the Borean Leather I was able to get him up over 380. That's over 40 levels in one night, and probably a new record for me. I sent all the crafted stuff to the priest to disenchant.

Now it was time to get Keldreth's (that's the hunter's new name) herbalism up to Northrend level. Obviously this won't get done in one night, but I was surprised how fast it did go. She started off at 35 (pathetic for a 70, I know), and after running around Elwynn and Redridge she got a few levels past 100. It wasn't very eventful, just lots of running and one-shotting mobs that decided to pick a fight.

The interesting thing was, just about every time I picked something it gave me a level, even the yellows and greens. Actually I only remember one or two times when something didn't give me a level. Looks like last night was my lucky night for leveling up professions.

The next place I'm sending her is the Wetlands. I decided to do the traveling last night so I can go straight into gathering next time. I stopped off at Ironforge on the way and put up the herbs she had just picked for auctiong. May as well make some money since I don't really need them for anything. Then I sent her over to Menethil to log out.

I guess I was worried about this profession leveling for nothing. I really thought leatherworking would take much longer. Herbalism is going pretty quickly too, although I think once I get into the Outland stuff I will have a little tougher time of it, but at least it's not stressful like a crafting profession, and I'll actually be making money from it rather than spending.

Soon enough I'll be able to level the little hordies a bit more before I dive back into leveling my priest to keep up with my friend. I'm pretty sure I'll get left behind, but I'll at least try to stay close.

I'm actually really looking forward to trying out arenas, but I'm wondering if I should do some BGs first to gear up before I head in there. I'm thinking I'll probably just go straight to arenas, but when I'm not doing that I'll do BGs on the side to grab some PvP gear so we'll gradually become more competetive. I'll really need some practice figuring out how to play a priest in PvP.

Lost my name

2009-02-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

I made the jump yesterday. Switched three of my characters over to the Eredar server to play alongside my friend. He's only level 60 right now so I still have a little time to play the hordies before he's caught up, but he plays a lot more than I do so it shouldn't take too long.

I have decided to use my priest to level with him. I'm not really sure about how that's going to end up in PvP later on (him being a mage), but if that doesn't work out I can always level somebody else up to 80.

Actually, the only thing I wasn't happy about was my hunter lost her name. I really liked Aluvia, but apparently somebody already has that name on the server. I checked Armory, but I didn't see the character on there, so either their account is closed or they aren't level 10 yet. Either way, I think I should get priority, being level 70, but whatever.

I can't even remember what I named her right now. I updated the Armory links on this page, but her's will have to stay unchanged until I get home and figure out what I named her. Not that it's a bad name, I actually like it, but I just can't remember it at the moment. I also had her name her core hound, Corey (get it?), because I felt bad he's been fighting for her all this time without his own name.

Besides that I didn't actually do much in the game. I decided to take this chance to level some more professions. Blackbare got his leatherworking a little higher, although he needs a bunch of Fel Scales to get anywhere, so I'll have to do a little farming. Vonari's tailoring and enchanting are both coming along, but she's out of money. She's just going to have to live with being poor until her professions are leveled all the way up.

I'm thinking I better head back with my hunter and level her herbalism. I'm running into some enchanting recipes that require different mats and I really don't want to pay AH prices for them if I don't have to. I'm hoping it will go quickly, I'll have to find some guides one where the best places to go are and then just gather, gather, gather. Hopefully I can also sell all that stuff as I go and maybe fund Vonari's profession leveling.

So with all that going on, I'll have to distribute my time better. I want to play the hordies, but I also want to get my professions up to Northrend level in time to play alongside my friend. That might mean making some sacrifices, I'm just not sure what those are going to be yet. Looks like I have some thinking to do.

#3

2009-02-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

That's right, I got my third character to level 70 this weekend, and got to do some pretty cool quests in the process.

First I set out to help Oronok, gathering tubers and destroying slayer eggs, but then he asked me to find his sons and help them out. Those quests got very interesting, with different mechanics that we don't get to see very often in our questing.

The first was fairly straightforward. Kill nagas, find a key, and open a chest with it to get the item. Only thing is, the item doesn't have to be in the chest, it could just be a bunch of random items, so you have to keep doing this until you find the right chest. This one went pretty quickly and I got it on the second chest.

Next up sends you to the southwest camp of demons. This son is dead, but his spirit wants you to do something for him. You have to first free his soul, then find his bow so he can help you on the next step. Once he has his bow, he basically becomes a pet, except he has a mind of his own. This made things go pretty quickly, and we downed the required mob and completed the quest.

The last son had me ambush a courier and then disguise myself as a blood elf to deliver a note to the commander at Eclipsion Point. I actually liked the ambush part the best. You set a package in the road across the bridge and then hide until the courier is distracted by it, then you rush in and take him out. The rest was similar to any of the disguise quests, except all the dragonhawks can see through it so you have to stay out of range. Still very fun.

After finishing up those quests and a few more I hit level 70, immediately dropped everything else, and made my way back to Shatt, where I ported to Stormwind and learned all my new skills.

I'll be setting my hunter aside for a bit in order to level my mage. I also need to see how far my druid's leatherworking can get with what she provided to him. If it's not enough to get to the Borean Leather recipes I'll have to do some farming. The priest's enchanting I'm not too worried about though. I still have my shaman, and maybe my rogue, that need to get through Outlands, and they should give me plenty of items to disenchant for mats to get her through the levels.

I checked out my mage for a bit this weekend too, enough time to complete a quest and then fly around to wrap up a few loose ends so I can start in on finishing off Ashenvale and then probably move on to Thousand Needles. I'm hoping to get at least a couple levels before his rested XP bonus runs out and I have to switch off. Leveling goes so much faster at these lower levels.

Left behind

2009-01-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

I feel bad about my rogue, Deadbare. He was my first character, my first main, first to 60 (which was the level cap at the time), and pretty much is the reason I've stuck with this game so long.

Once Deadbare got to level 55 or so I was starting to feel the pull of the alt. I had made it so far, but the grind to get to 60 was starting to wear me out, and I felt I needed a change. So I made Blackbare, my druid, and had a great time leveling him, since I convinced my friend to also create an alt and level alongside me.

As I went, I switched off playing the two, and Deadbare ended up making it to level 60. At that point the game really opened up for me. I was able to go to all those level 60 instances I had heard so much about. I could get some awesome gear, and eventually join in raiding with my guild.

Well, it didn't go quite as planned. Rogues and hunters were a dime a dozen, so getting into a PUG was nearly impossible. It was made even harder by the fact that priests were considered the only viable healing class and warriors the only viable tank class. Sure we had paladins and druids that could heal or tank, but they didn't have all the tools they do now.

So after a bunch of runs to Strat and Scholo, and a few LBRS and UBRS runs with no upgrades dropping I was starting to get very frustrated. I was making some money, and eventually bought a few of the gear upgrades that were BoE, but even those weren't a big help because my guild was fairly strict on gear requirements to get into the raids.

I was playing my druid more and more because I just couldn't justify spending time in the game if all I was going to do was sit around Ironforge for hours trying to get groups together that were just going to fall apart before the end of the instance half the time.

I started thinking about how to fix this. I thought maybe if I were to create a new character of a class that is in demand I can actually accomplish something. So I made a priest, Vonari, and while I was planning on healing in the end, I leveled her as shadow to go faster. I never got her to 60 before BC came out and bumped up the level cap.

So after trying out a few other alts, making some horde characters to see what it was like, the expansion came out and introduced a lot of new stuff to the game.

I had always wanted to try a shaman, and now I could make one on the Alliance side. That was fun for a while, then I left the brand new starting areas and was back in the old world again, with all the same quests to do. I wanted to see Outland.

At that point my druid was also close to being able to go to Outland, but not quite. Deadbare could though, and I sent him out to see what it was like.

After a few of the quests I had replaced most of my gear, including the stuff I had spent all that money on so I could get close to being able to raid. It was sort of disheartening to know how much work I had put in and was now having everything replaced with quest greens. I decided to get my druid to Outland instead and would come back to Deadbare later.

Well that never happened. Deadbare still sits at level 60, hanging out in Ironforge as a bank mule. It's a little sad, but I guess the bad end game experience I had with him sort of makes it hard to pick him back up, and now that I have so many other characters to level he's getting left behind.

Will I come back to him eventually? I'm not sure yet. The rogue talent trees have changed so much in the past couple years, and it would be fun to see what he's capable of now. I also have so much to do on my other characters that I don't know if I'll get around to playing him again. He's going to be hard to fit into my other plans.

Funny how attached we can become to our characters and actually start thinking of them as real people with feelings.

Quite the journey

2009-01-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking recently about my early experiences with WoW. It's been a long time since I first started out, and the game has almost become somewhat second nature to me. I don't know nearly everything about the game, but I am still very familiar with a great deal of it.

I remember first starting out, and getting lost in the gnome and dwarf starting area because I thought it was so huge, then as I go through the cave and reach the other side only to find a new area much bigger, and realizing that this was just a fraction of the entire world. I was a little overwhelmed at first.

Playing alongside my friend, we eventually made it to Loch Modan, which was a nice change from the snowy Dun Morogh. We decided to go exploring and found the entrance to the Badlands. Oh man, we were only level 12 or so, and seeing those dwarves with skulls for levels was so scary. We had no idea what level they were, but we booked it back to the Loch very quickly.

Now I pretty much know all the zones. Maybe not everything there is to know about them, but I know the names, level ranges, where any towns are, and the other basic stuff you pick up along the way. I can read other blogs, and when they explain their progression through a zone I have a picture in my mind of exactly what they're doing.

Thinking about that, I realize that anybody who has never played or isn't to experienced with WoW would never have enough familiarity with it to follow and explanation like that. All the bloggers out there assume their readers have at least a basic knowledge of the game in order to explain things, otherwise a lot of their posts would be impossibly long with explanations and pictures to point out every reference you would need.

Luckily, anyone who has enough interest in the game to actually think about looking up blogs about it is almost guaranteed to have the required knowledge to follow what the blogs are talking about. I guess I just find it amazing that a game can have so much detail that you need a good amount of experience with it just to understand what's going on in someone else's story about it.

Soon I will be taking another step and changing realms to play with some other friends. At this point I might just move all my characters over there. I really don't want to lose that synergy they have with their professions.

I also want to have some options open to me on which character I want to play. Even if one character turns into my main and the others end up being solo projects, I still want to be on the same server to get that interaction with my other friends.

I sure hope all my characters get to keep their names. It would be quite disappointing if I had to change any of them.

Interesting turn of events

2009-01-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have recently become reacquainted with a friend that I haven't talked to much in the last couple years. I knew he played WoW, but I had never really brought up the subject with him because for the most part I try to avoid discussing videogames too much with people.

Well last night we got to talking, and he mentioned that I should start playing again, I guess because he thought I had quit for some reason. I told him I still played, just not as much as I used to because I'm usually busy with other stuff. Then he suggested we should play together.

I asked what realm he was on, and of course it's not that same as mine. He also said he was in a guild with a bunch of people I knew way back in high school. I wasn't great friends with them by any means, but just the fact that I know who they are outside of the game makes it an interesting prospect.

The only problem at this point is that I like my characters to be on the same realm. It's very convenient to be able to supply yourself with what you need, and right now I have a pretty good synergy with my characters collecting materials for each other to advance their professions.

Add that to the fact that it costs money to make the transfer and it's going to be a little harder to decide what to do. If I were to do the transfer it would probably only be one of my characters because I really couldn't justify paying for more than that, so it would split up the team.

I also don't know who I would even want to transfer. My friend said he's not too into raiding, but he likes Arenas, and I'm not sure who would be the best character for that. Right now it's between the druid, priest, and hunter. Not only that, but I'd probably have to change specs on whoever I choose because they're not really set up for PvP right now.

I do miss the social aspect of the game that was there when I first started playing. It was fun when your friends logged on and you could do some quests together, or just talk while you played.

I guess at this point my only obstacle is how much I'm willing to pay. I really have nothing holding me to my current server except that I can't just up and move to another one for free. All my friends there have quit playing, I'm unguilded, but I have 5 characters at fairly high levels and I'm not sure I want to split them up.

It's quite the dilemma.

Something new

2009-01-26T11:35:00.000-08:00

After making it most of the way through Outlands with my hunter, I'm finally finding some new quests that I hadn't done previously on my other characters.

This past weekend I managed to get to level 69 and am about 1/4 of the way to level 70. I figure on finishing up the push to 70 in Shadowmoon Valley, and so far it's looking like I may just be able to accomplish that goal.

The last time I was in this zone was with my druid, and he hit 70 pretty quickly there, so I didn't actually need to finish everything. Now I've finally made it to the point on my hunter where I've done everything my druid did and everything from here on should be brand new to me.

It's been interesting to see how the stories are playing out in this zone, with all the lore being based on the Black Temple and Illidan. The Scryers are training demon hunters, and I was sent in to take them out. Pretty crazy stuff, and it's too bad I didn't have the chance to experience any of it before now.

I'm really hoping to get as much of this zone finished off as I can before I hit 70, but I'm not sure how many quests are actually left there. I want to see how all this stuff plays out, and I'm not sure how long it will be before I am able to make it back to this zone.

My next character through Outland will probably be finishing up their run to 70 by going through Netherstorm, since I never got the chance to finish that zone off the first time through.

Other than that, things are going pretty much normal as far as where I was hoping to be at this point, in WoW at least. Other things not so much, but that doesn't get covered in this blog.

200th post!!

2009-01-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot to post a little something today, and this will be my 200th blog post, so it's sort of a big deal. Well maybe it's not, because I only get about 20 page hits a day, so it might just be 200 posts that nobody really reads.

Either way, my hunter has moved on to Shadowmoon Valley and will be spending the rest of her time in Outland there before moving on to Northrend at 70, although she'll probably get a break when that time comes so I can move on to another character.

So when I first got the expansion I created a death knight. I had to create a human because while I wanted to make an undead one, I didn't have a level 55 on my Horde server yet. Now I don't resent the fact that you don't need another 55 on the same server, I think playing through the death knight starting quests was great both times I did it, but I haven't done anything with either of my death knights since I finished that part.

The only problem at this point is I really don't want to go back to Hellfire Peninsula yet. For some reason that zone is just depressing to me, and every time I go through with a character I need some time away from there before I send another character back in. Since death knights are meant to go directly to Outlands, I don't see myself leveling one through there right away to avoid Hellfire Peninsula for a while.

I could spend some time in the higher level Azeroth stuff, but with how much faster leveling in Outland is now it would just be a waste of time...time that I could be using to level other characters who are way behind the rest.

So it's looking like the little hordies will get to come out to play for a while. At this point I haven't made it past level 30 with a Horde character, and I'm interested to see those zones from a different perspective. Not to mention I've never played some of these classes past level 20, and I'm excited to see what they can do.

Things are going to get pretty interesting once I my hunter gets to level 70.

Hunters nerfed?

2009-01-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

With the new patch 3.0.8 coming out just two days ago, we saw a load of changes to hunters, especially BM hunters, and while it looked like a huge nerf, we weren't quite sure how it would all play out in the end.

For the record, I'm not one to rely for knowing anything about DPS in raid situations. I don't raid, I don't have much experience with it outside of one ZG run in Vanilla WoW when I wasn't even geared for it but my guild at the time had it on farm so they brought me along.

So I logged in to the hunter, more to continue leveling than to test out just how badly we were nerfed. At this point I was almost done with Nagrand, just a few more normal quests, and then all the group quests that I will probably just skip over.

I finished off the easy ones pretty quickly, and at that point I had already killed Gutripper and Banthar, two of the elite beasts for Nesingwary's quest line. All I had left was Bach'lor, but for some reason he had been giving me a lot of trouble. It just seemed like his damage output was much higher than the others, and I couldn't keep my pet alive.

Then last night I decided I really needed to get that quest out of the way so I could continue the chain and get the gun at the end. I also knew that BM hunters had been nerfed, or at least that's what everyone has been saying after reading the patch notes. I sort of figured that I would have no chance to solo him now if I wasn't able to before, but I was going to try anyway.

First attempt I waited for him to get clear of other mobs, then send the pet in. I started out doing well, my pet was staying alive for the most part, at least enough that it would probably last the whole fight, and I was blowing my cooldowns to get him down faster. Then I see one of those roaming wind elementals coming into view, and he's heading right into the fray. He aggros on my pet and it goes down, then they both turn toward me. If it was just one mob I would have tried to kite it, but with two all I could do was feign death and try it again.

Now I was optimistic. My pet was actually holding up this time, and when it died, Bach'lor only had about 4000 health left, and had that wind elemental not shown up he would have gone down.

Second try, clear out any hostile mobs in the vicinity this time, then send the pet in again. Once again I blew all my cooldowns, kept Mend Pet up, and all was going well. Then what do I see? Horde coming in and AoEing the mob of talbuks that follow Bach'lor around. I was sure that was end of that. They were probably after him too, and were going to take me out so they could have him.

At that point Bach'lor was almost down, just a few more seconds and I could head back to Nesingwary to turn it in. I took a look at the Horde group and they were just finishing up the other mobs, and I knew I was next. Then somehow I pulled off a few crits in a row and he was down! I rushed in, grabbed the horn, mounted up, and fled the scene. I wasn't followed.

I'm not really sure of the exact mechanics of what happened during that fight, but I do know that if BM hunters had been nerfed as badly as everyone says they were, I wouldn't have stood a chance. I was pleasantly surprised that I could handle that fight on my own, although I needed a little help to take down Tusker, but it did prove to me that I can still look forward to soloing a lot of content with my hunter that many other classes can't handle on their own.

At this point I think the only change my hunter will be making is her pet. I really like my core hound and his damage output, but sometimes I run into these types of situations and it would be really nice to have a tanking pet that can outlast the tough fights.

Maybe when I head to Northrend I'll look into switching pets, but I still have some ground to cover until then, so my core hound still has a chance to stay with me if we can get through this nerf and still be as strong as ever.

Independence

2009-01-20T09:29:00.000-08:00

I've always made a point in WoW to deal with the AH as little as possible. Sure it's a great resource to use in order to make money, but with my playstyle I'd really rather do other things than have to traffic my items back and forth to make some extra gold.

One good thing about this is I find ways to supply myself with the materials I need to level up my professions. There are a lot of professions leveling guides out there, but most of them are very similar in which items to make that will require the least amount of materials overall.

This is all well and good, but there are those other players that exploit this, and if you don't want to do the farming yourself you have to be ready to pay quite a bit if you want to level up your profession quickly.

Now I don't tend to have that kind of money, and while I could farm items to sell on the AH, it seems easier to just farm the items I need for myself and skip the AH altogether.

It's worked out pretty good so far. My priest has an almost endless supply of cloth coming from the lower level characters as they come up. The druid gets leather not only from his own skinning, but from the hunter as well, and then any items he makes get sent to the priest to disenchant, thus giving me some enchanting materials.

I will be trying to get my Horde characters to have the same synergy as well, although I will be taking some different professions with them, just to change things up.

This synergy not only relates to leveling professions, but also to supplying myself with items. In the process of leveling leatherworking, I managed to make my hunter a set of mail armor that dealt exclusively with agility and RAP. It's way better than the quest items I was in before, and will probably last me through the rest of Outland. I should be able to supply my shaman as well, and my priest can supply herself with armor oncer he tailoring catches up.

The only thing I'm having trouble with is my shaman trying to level her jewelcrafting. She mines her own ore, which helps a lot, but I'm just not motivated to do the work it requires. I really think I need to use a leveling guide for this one, because it's looking to be way to expensive and time consuming if I try to figure it out for myself.

One thing I'm glad I don't have to deal with is leveling those secondary professions. For all you raiders who need to gather and cook food in order to provide the necessary buffs, it's a no brainer that you need to level your secondary professions. For me, I don't raid, I almost exclusively stick to solo content, I don't really want to go fishing or cook in a game, and so I just don't bother with them.

This isn't to say that depending on people every so often is a bad thing. Keep in mind that there are times when you're going to need help, and knowing when and how to get that help is essential if you're going to get where you want to. So if you like to go it alone like me, just remember that you always have the option of getting help when you need it. I've met quite a few decent people who were willing to give me a hand, despite my solo playstyle.

The hunt is on

2009-01-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

It seems that no matter what class you are, those Nesingwary quests in Nagrand just take forever to complete. Not to say it didn't give me a good amount of leather, but it still wasn't all that much quicker than the first time I did it. I guess killing 30 of each thing is just going to take a while.

The disappointing thing is that even with how many skins I was able to get, I still don't think it's enough to get my druid's leatherworking skill up to 375 where I can start to use the Borean Leather he's been collecting in Northrend. Looks like I'll have to do some farming at some point.

In the meantime, it doesn't look like my hunter's rested XP bonus will last her until she hits 70, at least not at the rate I'm going. I can see the end of it, and I'm about halfway through level 67, so by the time I hit 68 it will be almost gone. She's also getting close to finishing up Nagrand. She's on the tail end of most of the quests right now and should be moving on pretty soon, which means 2 more levels in another zone.

I'm thinking I'll head over to Shadowmoon Valley next. There are some interesting quests over there which go pretty quickly, and my first time there I didn't actually get to see most of it because I hit 70 part way though.

But first I'll have to spend some time on my mage and the rest of my low level hordies while the hunter builds up her rested bonus again. Then it will be time to get her the rest of the way to 70 before she takes a rest for a while.

On a side note, I've noticed most of my posts recently have been about my planning for my various characters, what I expect to accomplish with them, who to play next, stuff like that. I'm not sure if this is interesting to people or not, and if not I apologize, but getting it written down like this really helps in my thinking process.

In the past I would sign into the game, then sit there for about ten minutes thinking about which character I wanted to play, trying to figure out the most efficient, and then another 5 minutes second guessing myself before finally either just picking something and going with it, or giving up and exiting the game to do something else.

Now I can do all my thinking here, make a plan, reason it out in writing, and then when it comes time to play I have a clears sense of exactly what I want to do next and maybe even what I will be doing the next few times I play.

Hopefully that makes sense. This isn't to say I won't bring up some topics sometimes that have to do with game mechanics and how I see them, but those come to me on a whim, so I really can't plan on writing about stuff like that, it's just something that is maybe triggered by something that happened while playing or maybe something I read on another blog that I feel I should make my own post about.

That's enough rambling for today.

Better, stronger, faster

2009-01-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Well for me I guess it's just the faster part. When I logged in last night and saw myself sitting in Shatt, I decided I really didn't want to make the run to Nagrand on my old +60% speed mount.

I took a look at my gold and saw that I had almost 500g. I can never remember the prices for that kind of stuff, but I figured I was pretty close, and I could transfer some from my druid if I needed more.

So I took the portal over the Darnassus and bought the riding skill, but didn't have quite enough for the mount, so I was going to have to "borrow" a little. Hopped on the druid, sent it over, and went and got my new Swift Stormsaber.

How did I narrow the choice down on which one to get? Well my druid and priest have the other two, so naturally I have to take the one I don't have yet. I also trained a few new skills while I was there, then hearthed back to Shatt so I could make the run.

As I traveled I grabbed all the quests on the way, although I didn't have time to do any of them, but I always think it's better to have the quest and do it later than wait to pick it up, just in case you end up in the area for another reason and can kill two birds with one stone.

So I'm now running around Outlands faster than before and it feels so much better. Seeing myself getting passed up by all those death knights with their free epic ground mounts that they get just for finishing a quest was getting old, but now I can keep up (or run away).

On to Nagrand

2009-01-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to finish off Zangarmarsh on my hunter last night before logging out. Not only that, but I dinged the quest and exploring achievements for the zone, and hit level 66.

I'm really realizing just how awesome of a solo character my hunter really is. I never have to ask for help, and the only time I think I remember dying while questing in Zangarmarsh is when my internet went out but I didn't disconnect right away so I was getting beat on by invisible mobs, then I logged back in and found myself dead.

Doing all the quests in each zone is no problem, even the group quests, so not only am I able to get those achievements, but also the extra XP and sometimes even a good quest reward that I can use.

Does it really matter anymore if you side with the Aldor or Scryers? It doesn't seem like those rep rewards are that useful anymore now that level 70 isn't the cap. I ended up siding with the Aldor, if for no other reason than my other two characters that made it through Outland did the same and I'm used to going up that elevator already.

Next up I will be moving on to Nagrand to roam the plains. I'm a little worried about the end of the Nesingwary quests, not because I expect them to be too difficult, but because the reward is a gun and not a bow.

I'm not a big fan of guns.

I've stuck to a bow from the start, but I know the gun reward will be a big upgrade to what I'm currently walking around with so it wouldn't make sense not to take it. This also means I'd need a new ammo pouch, so hopefully I can find something cheap that holds a good amount of ammo.

Other than that I'm expecting Nagrand to go very smoothly. I probably won't hit 70 there, but I expect to be level 69, or close to it, when I finish it off, especially since the end of my rested XP bonus bar is nowhere in sight.

Scarce quest rewards

2009-01-14T13:24:00.000-08:00

As I make my way through Outland on my hunter, I'm noticing a lack of good gear coming as quest rewards. For the most part you get some choices as to which piece of gear you want when you turn a quest in, but more and more I'm finding that the gear that's offered usually isn't for hunters.

I see lots of mail with intellect and spell power, which are better for caster shamans, or the stamina will be high, but the agility or attack power will be fairly low, which I would assume an enhance shammy would want.

See, as a hunter, with my pet doing all the grunt work, I don't see much need to have a lot of health. When I do start getting beat on, I can just feign death anyway and send the mob back to my pet.

For the same reason, I haven't really been bothering with getting a lot of armor either. For the most part I will tend to look at the leather option when it comes to quest rewards. These tend to have more the stats I want for hunter gear, just with less armor, which is fine because I don't care so much about that.

I guess I just find it unfortunate that there is a noticeable lack of gear specifically for hunters until you start raiding and picking up the high end stuff. With the number of quests out there you will eventually get what you want, but it really seems like the hunter gear comes much less often than the others.

Maybe it's just because they changed the stats that are important to hunters in WotLK, and all that BC gear is outdated. I'm basically looking to boost AP and agility over all else, with maybe some +crit if it comes along, with AP being slightly higher in importance than the others. Stamina seems to be on everything in generous amounts already, so I don't really need to worry about that, and with Aspect of the Viper I can lay off trying to find anything with +int, or any other stats for that matter.

I didn't really pay much attention to the other gear while running my druid through Northrend, but I'm hoping there will be a little more variety, and I can get more than one or two upgrades per zone.

Other than that, I'm most of the way done with Zangarmarsh, and should hopefully be done in the next session, then it's time to move on to Nagrand, where I will hopefully be able to get enough leather just from questing to supply my druid through to 375 LW.

A slight return

2009-01-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Despite all the football playoff games going on this weekend, I did manage to get some playing time in on my hunter. Actually, since I really only cared about one of the games, I watched that one and played during the others while just half paid attention to them. It worked out well, and I was able to get my hunter to level 75 fairly easily.

At this point I think I have Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh down pretty well, at least on the Alliance side. Within a few hours of playing I finished up Hellfire and am now probably around 75% of the way done with Zangarmarsh. I should be about halfway to 76 before moving on.

Next up will be Nagrand. I figure being in the 75-76 range I can just skip Terokkar, since I've been through that zone twice already, and I have other characters coming through that will have plenty of time to get acquainted with that zone.

I'm also getting a little tired of Hellfire Peninsula. The big downside to this is I have my shaman sitting there waiting to be played, but I'll probably hold off on her for a while until I can psych myself up enough to run her through. I also have my new death knight that will be going through when I play him again, and he might take precedence over the shaman just because I've been wanting to try him out.

In the meantime, once my hunter runs out of her rested XP bonus, I'm debating whether to go back to my druid to continue on through Northrend or switching back to one of my lower level hordies to get them a little further through the old content.

Right now I'm leaning towards the Horde characters. Not only would questing through some of the older content be refreshing for me, but those guys also don't take long to run out their XP bonuses, so I figure I'd be back to my druid fairly quickly anyway, but with a newly refreshed mindset.

One good thing about my Horde characters is 3 of the 5 get their own class mounts, one of the others already has their level 30 mount, which only leaves one more to buy their first, and then those two to buy their epics at 60. I've had such a hard time with my other characters getting their mounts on the Alliance server, but I don't think I'm going to have to worry about it this time through.

Luckily I really don't get into the content that requires flying much, so for now I'm not too worried about getting any flying mounts, but it has still been a struggle. All my characters that have been through Outland haven't even gotten their epic ground mounts until around level 74-75 because of lack of funds. My hunter still doesn't have her's, and my shaman will most likely end up in the same boat.

I have a lot of stuff I want to try with all the different classes, and I have a long way to go before I have them at a level where I can, but I'm slowly working my way to it. At least for now it's nice just to think about getting there and working my way towards that goal.

Clarification

2009-01-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

I feel like my last post was a little vague on why I think I need to cut back on WoW when normally I'm complaining about how little time I have to play.

See, this past summer I was leveling my druid through Outland in an attempt to get to level 70 and be my first max level character in BC. I managed to get it done, but it took a long time. I think he started the push at level 63 and it was almost 3 months later that he finally got to 70.

Now compare this to my priest's leveling through Outland more recently. She also started at level 63 when I decided to concentrate on getting her to 70, and I believe it took less than a month before she got there. I know they had made leveling through Outland faster at that point, but cutting it down to less than a third of the time would suggest a drastic change in my playing habits.

Despite my complaining about lack of time to play WoW in the past, I was actually sort of glad that I wasn't becoming too addicted. I didn't let it get in the way of real life, and while I may not have been leveling as fast as I wanted, I felt I was letting the more important things have priority.

Then a few months ago I found myself with a lot more time to myself. Because I was used to a lot less of that free time, I would use it to play WoW, so that's what I did, except now I would get home from work and just play the rest of the night until I went to bed, which meant almost 6 hours, sometimes multiple nights in a row.

I was on a binge, and I was using WoW to escape the real life problems that were the cause of my excess of free time.

Over the holidays I have been spending more time with family and friends, and thinking more about the situation, and I have come to the conclusion that if I keep playing WoW the way I have been it will just make things worse. I need to confront the situation in order to resolve it, and more WoW isn't going to help me do that.

It's strange how much of an effect a videogame can have on your life, but WoW proves once again that it has the power to be a major influence. Some of you readers may even have had a similar experience and know exactly what I'm talking about.

So that's the reasoning behind my decision. I'm not sure if it's making things better yet, but I'm hoping it will. Only time will tell.

Back from the holidays, and resolutions

2009-01-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last post. I've been pretty busy with other stuff, such as taking some time off work and all that other holiday stuff.

Well, in all that time I haven't played WoW at all. I'm not really sure why, but I haven't been too motivated to continue on recently. I got a Playstation emulator and have been playing through Final Fantasy IV instead, and have the other rest of the series lined up to played once I'm done with that.

I also got a Blu-ray player for Christmas from the gf (which was an unexpected but awesome gift) and have switched my Netflix account over to send me blu-ray discs and sent back the DVDs I had so I can get the blu-ray versions instead, so I'm pretty excited about it. Actually, I'm not sure if it was just my imagination, but my old DVDs even look better through the new player. I think I'll be watching a lot more movies now.

This sort of goes along with my resolutions for the new year, so here they are:

1. Get back in shape - Ever since I finished college and got a full time job I have had less time to work out, and less motivation. I managed to gain about 20 pounds in the past year and a half, and it's time to get rid of it. So far I am back below 200, but not back to what I was, so I still have some work to do.

2. Cut back on WoW - This helps me out with resolution #1 as well, because that hour a day less of playing WoW is the hour I need to work out. I will also be looking to other ways to spend my time. Lately almost all my free time has been spent on WoW, and I feel I need to expand my horizons, not just in other games, but other things in general.

And I have a few more resolutions, but they are sort of private so I won't be discussing them here. For the most part I probably won't be posting every weekday anymore. With less WoW playing in the future I really won't have enough to talk about anyway, but I'm not quitting yet, I just needed a little time off recently.

I'm fairly certain my next move will be to continue on with my hunter. She's almost done with Hellfire Peninsula and I'll be glad when she is. That's probably one of my least favorite zones, especially now with all the death knights running around, but they're slowly filtering through and it should be back to its old barren wasteland self pretty soon.

Time to get back into work mode after my time off, which is turning out to be pretty tough. Hopefully you didn't miss me too much.

Distracted

2008-12-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

The holiday weekend is coming up and I have a lot on my mind that seems to be keeping me from playing WoW.

First, I am trying to get a PSX emulator to work so I can play some old games that I recently decided I want to play through again. Mostly the Final Fantasy games, but there are a few others. Those ROM downloads tend to take up a lot of bandwidth, and that means no WoW while they're going.

Surprisingly I don't have any last minute shopping to do. I pretty much finished it this past weekend, so I'm proud of myself for that since it almost never happens.

I also have some other drama going on that I'm not gonna get into, but it's taking up a lot of my thinking power trying to figure out how to go about fixing it, especially when I'm not even sure what the problem is that I'm trying to fix. It's pretty frustrating.

So this will probably be the last post until after the new year since I will be busy not being at work until then.

Happy Holidays everybody!

Cruising through Hellfire and the future

2008-12-22T10:53:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't say it's necessarily much easier for my hunter to make it through zones, but it is definitely much faster. I made it to level 63 last night, and I probably still have enough quests left in Hellfire Peninsula to get me at least halfway to 64 before I move on.

Now I need to start planning my next move. Do I go on to Zangarmarsh? Do I just skip that and go to Terokkar?

I think my main goal is questing in Nagrand. With the Nesingwary quests having you kill so many skinnable mobs, it just seems like a no-brainer when I need to supply my druid with some leather to get his leatherworking up.

One bad thing about leveling up so fast is the lack of gold. With it taking fewer quests to get through the levels, that means fewer rewards, and fewer mobs I have to kill, which translates to much less cash than I was used to earning. Both my hunter and my shaman need their epic ground mount riding skill, and this doesn't help the funding. I want to get that for both of them before they head to Northrend.

Actually another problem I will be running soon is my rested XP bonus. I'm getting close to catching up, and then I will have to put my hunter on hold for a while to build it back up. At this point I'm thinking I might not want to switch over to another character that's just starting Outland. I do have a Horde death knight, and the questing would be different, but I think I want a change of scenery more than anything at this point.

So that comes down to choosing between my other Horde characters. My mage is the furthest along, which means he has the most potential for some new stuff that I haven't seen before.

Right now I see some pretty good potential for my Horde characters to make their way through the game in different ways. My mage should finish up Ashenvale, then maybe make his way through Thousand Needles, and hopefully be level 35 at that point, which is when I will send him to STV and the gankfest that I expect to be a part of there.

This means I will have skipped a few areas, in the 25-35 range, and leaves them open for any of my other Hordies to level through. The big ones are Desolace and Arathi Highlands, and there are a few quests to do in the Alterac Mountains that the mage may not need to utilize before moving on to STV.

Looking to the future, it also seems that with how much there is to do in that zone it will be another 10 levels before he leaves, which will mean even more zones in that level range he will be skipping. I'll have to wait and see how it all turns out, but ever since they accelerated leveling I've noticed that you really don't need to do much zone jumping to make it through the levels, you can usually just use one zone to make it through a particular level range.

Overall I think it will do very nicely in making sure I don't have to repeat too many of the same quests on my Horde characters like I used to with my Alliance characters. It will take a little planning on my part, but I don't see myself becoming bored with doing all the same quests but on different characters. They will overlap a little, but not nearly to the extent that we went through in the early days.

It will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

Invincible Pet

2008-12-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

I got a chance to play for a while last night, and logged onto my hunter. Remember yesterday how I said I wasn't feeling it? Well forget that, it was great.

First I took out some fel orc blade throwers. Just tossed some fire in there and they burned to the ground. When I went to turn in the quest, they rewarded me with a brand new bow...or so I thought.

I made my way to Expedition Point to help out against the Legion, and they asked me to blow up some portals, and then blow up some more portals, and then they flew me up to a floating island to continue helping.

Did I mention my new bow? Yeah, so I found out the hard way that it actually isn't a bow, it's a crossbow, and I had never used one before so I was missing left and right for a while. See, you can usually tell the type of weapon just by looking at the picture, but this one looked like a bow in the picture, so I equipped it and went on my way.

Luckily for me, my core hound pet apparently can't die. I just sent him in to attack mobs and fired from a distance. Of course most of my shots weren't hitting for a while, so he pretty much took the mobs out by himself, and had no trouble at all.

Then I saw a rare spawn walking around the Legion camp I was attacking. Sure I couldn't hit with most of my shots, but let the pet tank him and keep mend pet up and I should be fine. Well, not only did I take out the rare spawn, but two adds that showed up halfway through the fight, and the pet had no problem staying alive. I also got an achievement for it, which was a great surprise.

I also saw an elite felguard come through one of the portals, and decided I'd see how the pet would hold up against him. Well Feign Death was still on cooldown, but I didn't see any other mobs around. I sent in the pet, just as a mob spawned on top of me, and with no FD to get out of it, I ran, leaving the pet to fend for himself.

Eventually I lost aggro on the mob and made my way back. The pet was still there, and while I had expected him to be dangerously low on health, he was only down to half. I threw a Mend Pet on him and we took out that elite with almost no trouble, it just took a while because I was still missing a lot.

Well after my bombing runs on some portals, they thought I did such a good job that I should go bomb the Abyssal Shelf, where a bunch of Legion forces are posted. I remember the first time I did that quest over a year ago and I had to take two flights to kill everything I was supposed to. This time I was done halfway through and just spent the rest of the time bombing even more stuff.

They decided they could use my help at Honor Point once I got back, so I was flown up there to see what I could do. I basically killed lots of stuff and then shut down their portal. Not too exciting, and then I made my way back to Honor Hold so I could set out on my next quests.

All those will have to wait til later though, because at that point it was time to call it a night, so I will have some more fel orc killing to do, then head over to the haunted garrison to retrieve a book, and I might even make my way into the mine under Honor Hold to clear out the bad guys.

Oh, the hunter also managed to hit level 61, and her crossbow skill is now at 300 so I shouldn't be missing so much anymore. At this pace she'll be at least level 63 before she even leaves Hellfire Peninsula.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I guess I can't complain about leveling faster. I'll just have to be picky about which zones she levels in. I know for sure that she'll be going to Nagrand though. I can't pass up all that leather, and being a hunter she kinda has to do the Nesingwary quests there, it's just an unwritten rule.

Busy busy

2008-12-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

It's been pretty busy at work this week, and as such I haven't been able to write a post the last couple days. Well fear not, for I have returned, and I bring words for you to read while you act like you're being productive at work.

We left off with me being ready to log on to my hunter and show Hellfire Peninsula just what she can do. Well I haven't managed to get much done since then. I did log in once, and did the first few quests, but that's about all I had the time for.

See, over the past week I had built up a good amount of anime episodes of shows that come out weekly and that I try to watch as they come. This time I was unable to watch them due to time management difficulties, so I had about 4 hours worth of shows to catch up on. Well I decided I should catch up now rather than letting them pile up even more, so most of my free time that I usually use for WoW was spent watching those.

Besides that, I'm not sure where all my time is going, but somehow it's been tough to get any good quality WoW time in.

I think part of it has to do with my hunter. I usually love logging on with her and sending the pet in to tear up mobs while I shoot from a safe distance. It's usually a great change of pace to whatever character I was playing before.

This time though, I just wasn't feeling it. I'm not sure if it was the hunter I couldn't get motivated about or if I just wasn't in the mood, but after doing those first few quests in Hellfire I logged out and it's been two days since I logged in last.

Don't worry though, I'll probably try again tonight and see if I got that spark back. Somehow I think it was the combination of just being really tired and the kitty being very insistent that I pay attention to him instead of the game that really got to me, so assuming I'm in a better mood next time I play, it should go a lot better.

Hell Bent for Leather

2008-12-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

I was out of town most of this weekend, but I did get some quality WoW time in last night. According to my goals set last post, I logged into my druid and pushed myself the rest of the way to level 74.

I went back to Borean Tundra and found the quests I had missed my first time there. I had also skipped the last D.E.H.T.A. because I didn't think I could handle an elite, but upon my success in Howling Fjord with elite mobs I decided to give it a try.

It took a couple tries, and that was mainly because the quest item that calls for help didn't work the first few times. In the end I finally got the mammoths to trample him, pretty much cutting his life in half, then I finished him off. Upon turning in the quest I got the achievement for finishing the all the D.E.H.T.A. quest chains in that zone. Not bad.

I also finished off a few quests for the gnomes which required an engineering item, and once that was done I got the Borean Tundra quest achievement. I also hit level 74, and it was time to move on to the next goal. Getting to Dalaran.

Well, all I had to do was talk to a guy in Valiance Keep and he teleported me there. Sort of anticlimactic. I also did the quest that takes you to the other teleporter and back, but other than that I just picked up the flight path and then ported to Stormwind.

Now it was time to get some leatherworking done, but before I could do that I had to get some leather. I tried the AH, but apparently nobody sells Rugged Leather anymore, because there was only one auction for 3 of them going for 4g, and I needed a lot more than 3 to make it to level 300.

At this point I wasn't really sure where to go to farm the leather. I know I needed to find mobs that are level 55-60 and skinnable, but where is the best place for that? At first I considered WPL, but it seems a little sparse for farming. Then I thought maybe Silithus, but bugs don't always drop leather and hides like most beasts do, and I really didn't need that other stuff.

I ended up deciding on Winterspring, and I'm very glad that I did. This place is great for farming leather. Right outside of Everlook is a yeti cave. I remember doing the quests here that end up getting you a mechanical yeti, and they are all level 55-58. Being level 74 I could two- or three-shot each one, and I was getting leather like crazy.

What I ended up doing was actually running through the cave a few times, since most players on the quest just kill the ones outside, and with about 25 yetis in there I was getting a lot of leather. Then when I made my way back out there was usually somebody out there doing some part of the quest chain, so I was scavenge their kills for leather as well. After 3 runs through the cave and some various skinning outside I had more than enough leather to get my leatherworking to 300.

I made enough Wicked Leather Headbands to get my skill to 302 before I ran out, so I actually got a little extra for my farming work. Then I made my way back to Stormwind to grab all the Knothide Leather I had stashed there, and from there to Outland where I found the master leatherworking trainer in Honor Hold and learned the ways of using that Outland leather.

In the end I had enough leather stockpiled to get my skill to 335 before I ran out. It's quite a relief to finally get my professions up to a level where I'm not so far behind my character's level. Sure I'm still stuck using mats that I should have been using 10 levels ago, but at least it isn't mats that I should have been using 20 levels ago.

My next move is to level my hunter through Outland. He's just starting out, but I expect him to go quickly, and since he is also a skinner I'm hoping he can supply my druid with the leather to get him up over the 375 leatherworking mark so he can use all the leather he's been collecting in Northrend. The extra Netherweave Cloth supply to my priest won't hurt her tailoring either.

So it's finally time to take the new white Core Hound out for a test drive, and now I get a chance to see just how much mayhem I can cause in Outland. I'm gonna need to think of a name for him soon though, any suggestions?

Druid break

2008-12-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

If you haven't noticed yet, I like to plan out my time on WoW ahead of time. I set goals for myself, and also plan my next course of action once that goal is completed. Then I set new goals along those lines.

Right now I'll probably be switching gears from my druid to my hunter. I haven't played my hunter since she hit level 60, aside from getting her core hound pet, and I really want to see what she can do in Outland.

So the plan is I will get my druid to finish off Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, and that will hopefully get me to level 74. Then I will go through the quest chain to get to Dalaran before heading back to train my skills and then farming some leather to get his leatherworking up to 300.

After that I will be letting him sit for a while. I know I usually stop playing a character when their rested XP bonus runs out, but at the pace I'm going it probably won't run out before I get to level 80. Not that I don't like Northrend, but I just need to switch it up for a while.

Why the hunter? Well, I haven't even gotten to try out her new pet yet, that's the main reason. I also have a lot of fun playing her and her ability to get through some very tough quests on her own, and while I just went through Outland on my priest, she ended up skipping a few zones, so there is still a lot of stuff to do that won't be repetitive.

Once I start in on my hunter and see how her progress through Outland goes I'll decide how far I want to go with her before switching over to another character. She tends to blow through quests very quickly, and with the new Outland leveling speed I'm not sure just how fast she'll go, but judging by how fast my priest was able to go I'm expecting to go pretty fast.

Well it's Friday, and that's about all I have for you today since I really don't feel like doing any thinking at this point. Have a great weekend!

What the...

2008-12-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

Alright, this happened to me last week, but I didn't mention it until now. It's about being ganked by a death knight, and what confused me about the whole thing.

Now I've played through the DK starting area, and I know most of the skills you start out with. I haven't actually chosen a spec yet with mine, but I've done some research and I'm just torn between blood and unholy. On the one hand I would love to be able to control my ghoul, but blood seems much more solo friendly with all the skills that give you back health.

But we're getting off topic, this is about my druid getting ganked by a DK last week and the turn of events I can't explain.

First, I was surprised just after killing a mob, but that's how ganking usually goes, and he already had an unfair advantage. Now most of the time if I know I have no chance of winning I will just stand there, maybe give a /sigh or two and wait for him to kill me. This wasn't one of those times. I had most of my health and didn't feel like going down easily.

So I get grabbed and pulled to him, and immediately I shift to bear since I know my best chance is to outlast. I turned and hit him, multiple times. I got of some Lascerates, a couple Mangles, as well as the normal white damage. I saw that he had some of those blood worms out, so I added in some Swipes as well, but for some reason they weren't hitting them.

I'm not sure exactly what he was doing, but I was dying, and quickly. Then I glance at his health...and it's still almost full. But wait, I know I've done some damage, I saw the numbers come up, and it was a good amount of damage too. Why was his health so high?

He ended up killing me easily and, despite my various attacks on him, he still had all that health. It's like I couldn't even scratch him. I just can't figure it out. Just how much health do those blood worms give back? And why couldn't I hit them with my Swipe? I was just completely baffled, and I still am.

Can anybody tell me what was going on?

I confess I'm really no good at PvP, but I can usually at least put up a decent fight. This guy pretty much said, "You can fight back, but it won't do you any good." It was a little embarassing, and very frustrating.

Hopefully somebody can shed some light on this, but I guess I'll eventually find out when I get some more experience playing as a DK. This really pushes me to level him as blood, since I think that's what spec the guy was. If I could take down a feral bear druid in PvP without losing health then I should have no problem in any PvE content.

More enchanting

2008-12-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I just did too much questing this past weekend or what, but suddenly I'm having trouble getting motivated to log on to my druid and finish up Howling Fjord. Instead I decided to do some more enchanting done on my priest last night.

When we left off I was sitting pretty at 300, and with all the mats I built up from disenchanting Outland stuff, I had a good amount to use on those enchants. Not nearly enough to get me to 375, but a good amount.

First up I needed to make a Runed Fel Iron Rod. I actually got a pretty decent price on the rod, and I ended up having to buy most of the rest of that mats as well. I ended up transferring over 100g from my druid to pay for it, but he's made so much money in Northrend that it's not a big deal.

So that got me to 301, and following the guide I found I enchanted up to 320 just using arcane dust. At that point I was almost able to disenchant those greenies I've been getting from my druid from Northrend, which require enchanting to be 325. I did decide to enchant my bracers with Major Intellect, which wasn't on the list, but it was an upgrade.

That didn't get me a level, but with the rest of my supply of Greater Planar Essences I was able to get my enchanting up to 331 before I ran out.

Now I need more materials. My once full enchanting bag that overflowed into one of my other bags is less than half full now, and it seems sort of weird to me now. I'm so used to having to clear out bag space because of all the enchanting mats I have taking up all the space, but now I look at those empty slots and it doesn't feel right.

For now I think I'll take a break on the enchanting for a while. I've already spent a lot of money to get it this far, and I figure since I have a few more characters to send through Outland still I should have plenty of chance to disenchant whatever they find and get the most of the mats I need myself.

I think my next goal is to finish up Howling Fjord on the druid, then go back to Borean Tundra and figure out what I missed there. I was considering just taking the ship back to train my skills after that, but since I hope to be level 74 by that point I think I'll make my way to Dalaran and portal back.

I say I need to be 74 because I plan on getting to Dalaran by going through the quests rather than just have a mage port me there. I think it will be more rewarding, and for my first time there I want to go the route that was created for us if we had to get there on our own without help from others.

Leveling up professions can be sort of relaxing, and I think the past couple days I was at just the point where I needed a little break from the constant questing, but now I'm ready to go back in and continue leveling through Northrend.

Finally over the hump

2008-12-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

I didn't level my druid last night like I've been doing for the past week. Nope. After watching the football game (I'm a Panthers fan and actually had to pay attention to this one, so no WoW during it), I decided to go ahead and push my priest's enchanting skill to the 300 mark, no matter what it took.

Luckily I didn't have to spend all the money I had to do it, but I did have to spend a lot. Enchanting mats are expensive, especially the ones that everyone knows you need to level.

I made my way to Moonglade to buy a couple recipes that would make it easier to level. I was already at 290, so I only needed to go 10 levels, but I pretty much had none of the mats I needed to get there.

First up was making a Runed Arcanite Rod. Guess what you need for that? An Arcanite Rod, and those are made by blacksmiths, which I don't have any of, so it's off to the AH. Oh look there's a few on there, the cheapest one costs...75g. Well I'm getting to 300 tonight, so goodbye 75g, hello Arcanite Rod.

Next up is a Golden Pearl, and the only ones selling are a stack of 3 for 6g. I bought them and put the other two up for 6g, maybe I can get away with it. I also had to buy Greater Eternal Essences because for some reason they hate me and everything I disenchant gives me dust, doesn't seem to matter if it's a weapon or armor.

Then I needed lots of Illusion Dust, of which I had 8, so I only had to buy 2 more, sweet. And surprisingly enough I already had the Large Brilliant Shards I needed to complete the recipe.

So I made my new rod, and now I'm at 291 skill. Only 9 more to go. I take a look at my recipes and see that with the mats I have I can still enchant 3 bracers with Greater Stamina, and with no more recipes from this point on needing Dream Dust, why not see what I get out of it.

The recipe was green, so I was expecting maybe one to get me a level, but the first one got me a level. Well that was unexpected, but great! Then try the next one, and get another level! Awesome! My luck has probably run out by now, but I still have one more to try...and it bumps me up to level 294! Maybe that will make up for the 7 times I used it last time I was on and it gave me no levels. Either way, that's 3 less levels I have to buy mats for.

So I need more Illusion Dust, and I just used the last of it on that rod, so now it's back to the AH to buy the cheapest I can find in mass quantities. Surprisingly, it wasn't the stacks of 20 that were cheaper overall, it was the stacks of 5.

So after buying enough to finish the job, I had probably spent more than half the money my priest had on her when I started, but I did make it to 300. From there I made my way to Hellfire Peninsula to find the trainer, but when I got there I got interrupted by the cat and decided to call it quits.

In the end I did make it to 300 enchanting. Did I spend way more gold getting there that I needed to? Probably, but a lot of that was on the Arcanite Rod, which I can't get on my own. So while I could have waited for some random greens to disenchant from my hunter and shaman for the rest, I can always sell them to pay myself back later on too.

I'm so glad my druid only has one crafting profession, although he's almost level 74 and his leatherworking is still below 300, but farming for leather is easy, especially when what you need comes off mobs that are 20 levels below you. Hopefully all the Outland leather he has built up will get him a good chunk of the way to 375 as well.

I think I'll be sending him back to do that once he finishes up Howling Fjord. I need to get his new skills anyway, and with no class trainers in Northrend I guess I have to make my way back at some point.

These professions are so much work, but I find myself needing to do them anyway. One of the drawbacks of being a completionist.

Dumbed down?

2008-12-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

I got an interesting comment from Anonymous on my post about druid versatility last week and it deserved some thinking on my part. Here it is:

So although I am happy that you are finding the druid powerful I think you also must look at the severe nerfing to quest level difficulty in the game as well.

This really got me thinking about my experience with questing through Outland and how it compares to what we got with Northrend. The first question we have to ask is, does it seem like Northrend is a little dumbed down compared to what we're used to?

Now being that I'm still level 73, almost 74, I may not be far enough in to make the most accurate assessment, but from what I've seen so far it does seem to be a bit easier than what I was used to. I can solo elites without much trouble, the regular mobs seem to die much faster, and I'm not even in the TBC raid gear that many of you started in.

But here's the thing. While the quests may be easier than we're used to, they also have a lot more variety, and there are more of them in each zone. They really set up many more quest hubs, and a lot of those quests are a lot more fun what anything we did before. I think they wanted to scale back on the grinding aspect of questing and focus more on accomplishing objectives that are both interesting and fun.

I'm finding I have to think a lot more about how to get quests done. It's no longer just finding the right mob and killing enough of them to complete the quest or collect a certain item (well it is, but the ratio is significantly lower).

Now we get to fire cannons at giants from a ghost ship, trick wolves into letting you help them by disguising yourself as one, and scare the crap out of bats so you can collect the guano. It's not as straight forward, and even when you figure out where to go you still have to figure out what exactly you have to do when you get there.

I'm finding it a lot more stimulating, and I really don't run into those quests that are just so boring and monotonous that I have to take a break afterwards just to let my brain come back online.

Back to the point. Are the quests easier? Well if you base this only on how easy the mobs are to kill then I would say yes, but I don't think that's the only factor they look at when they come up with this stuff.

I think we all know that Blizzard wants the fastest way to level to be questing, but also that all those end game junkies want to get to level 80 as fast as they can, so why not make quests that those people are able to blow through quickly so they can level up? They also know that players like me, who just like the experience of solo questing and exploring, are excited about fun quests that are stimulating and don't frustrate us.

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe the quests aren't as difficult as we're used to in the way that it was almost impossible to solo an elite of the same level, but those elites are still difficult and require us to use up our cooldowns to take down, they aren't a cakewalk that we can defeat without some amount of skill.

I think what they took out in mob strength they managed to make up for with quests that appeal to a wider variety of players and won't frustrate the hell out of those of us that choose to solo as much as we can. So while the quest difficulty may be nerfed, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing unless you really like to struggle your way through the levels.

Moved on too early?

2008-12-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

I get the feeling like I'm missing something in Borean Tundra. I've pretty much traveled the whole map, but reading this post by Spicytuna I see a quest where you dress up as the opposing faction, and I never did anything like that. I'll have to look into it, but even if I did miss something it will have to wait until I go back there.

Right now I've moved on to Howling Fjord. It's a pretty cool looking zone, and once again the Alliance town is under attack at the gates.

Before heading there I finished up the last few quests I had in Borean Tundra. I like the debuff you get from killing mammoths where the D.E.H.T.A. can tell you killed one and attack you for it. I think a lot of little things like that is what makes WoW great, and I love finding stuff like that. I am glad your rep with them doesn't get lowered when you kill the animals though, becuase it was part of a quest and I didn't want to miss out on that XP.

In the end I still hadn't hit 62, but I was within one bar, which is close enough for me. I hopped on one of the sea turtles and made my way to the fjord, stopping off in Dragonblight for the flight path and to switch turtles on the way.

I'm almost glad they don't let you fly in Northrend until later on. Despite not having the money for the skill, I also wouldn't want to miss out on the exploring by just flying everywhere. A lot of what I enjoy about this game is just how massive it is, and flying around causes you to miss out on a lot of stuff.

I did manage to get another few levels of leatherworking on my druid, and even better was the fact that I could send the stuff I made back to my priest to disenchant and get some mats for herself. The mats she got out of it got her a few levels as well.

One of these days I'm going to farm some leather so my druid can get over that 300 hump, and maybe the mats my priest gets from that will get her over too. Is it sad that I have two characters over 70 with crafting professions under 300? I just need more money I think, that would solve everything.

Saving my own hide

2008-12-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

As I continue to play my druid through Northrend I'm remembering how to deal with certain situations, which I had forgotten over time since I had been playing other characters. One of the best things is how versatile he is when faced with various situations where most classes would either die or have to run away.

I think the most helpful is their ability to outlast an elite mob. When you come upon those quests where you have to fight an elite mob, and of course the reward is always better than normal, it's such a drag to have to skip it because you just can't find any help. On a druid things are different, because there's a pretty good chance you can solo it.

There was an elite quest I came across last night that had me kill an elite tauren and his kodo mount. I was actually saving it for later but on my way to do something else I saw him and figured I should try it and see if it's doable. First try I killed him.

Bear form is awesome. All I have to do is Mangle every time it's up, Lacerate the rest of the time to keep it going, and if I get low on health I can pop Frenzied Regeneration or if that's on cooldown I Bash, heal myself, then go back to bear form. For the most part I rarely have to heal more than once, and I'm specced for cat DPS, not tanking.

For normal questing I'm in cat form. It helps me kill things fast, and there is almost no down time. I can usually take out 5 or 6 mobs in a row before having to heal, and since cat form uses no mana I always have some available for a quick heal before getting back to work.

Then I run into those unexpected moments. The times when you've got one mob on you, then another walks up and starts beating on you, and then just when you thought you were finished with them another mob somehow aggros on you and you're already below 25% health.

At that point I have to figure out if that health will last me the rest of the fight or if I need to do something else to save myself. And it doesn't even mean healing either, I can usually just switch to bear form and the extra health and armor does it's job. Last night I had to last through 4 additional mobs and was hovering at about 15% health the whole time. It was awesome when I finally killed them all and realized that I had survived.

I've been hearing lots of talk about big changes coming to druids, most specifically armor from things such as trinkets and rings not being counted in the armor increase from bear form. Well, I might be one of the few that this could actually help. Not really being a tank, I don't have anything other than leather that provides me with armor, and since the change is supposed to compensate for that loss of armor that others will suffer, it should be a benefit to those that don't have the kind of gear it affects.

In the time I played last night I made it to level 71 and am already more than halfway to 72. These zones have so many quests, and I'm just hopping from one quest hub to another and clearing them out. All the money I get from them isn't too bad either, and I think the new gear looks really cool. I'm thinking I'll have this zone done after my next session, and then it's off to Howling Fjord.

I also sent my priest some stuff I picked up from various mobs and she now has new pants and a new wand. I had planned on disenchanting the rest, but her enchanting isn't high enough. Looks like I better get that leveled up before she heads over to Northrend.

Helping out

2008-12-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

The more I play in Northrend the more it grows on me. My druid is closing in on the level 71 mark and the way these quests are set up is great, an awesome change from the normal way we've been used to for so long.

First, despite there still being many kill X amount of Y or collect X amount of a certain item, there are many other variations on how to accomplish those quests. On top of that, there are a lot of brand new mechanics used, such as being able to ride wandering beasts, spearing a giant sea creature to drop it's health to a level you can deal with, and lots of others.

Another thing that threw me off at first, but that I now think is a great change is getting away from only having a few central quest hubs per zone and pretty much having to run back there every time you have quests to turn in. Now the quests givers are scattered around, but not in a way where you would miss them entirely if you didn't know where they were.

Much like when you first started out in your starting zone at level 1 and finished those quests, then were sent on your way to the next town via a quest, you are now sent to find various NPCs around the map after completing other quests. Not only that, but the quests have a certain succession to them that minimizes travel time. It was very well thought out.

I'm finding the experience very enjoyable so far, and while there are more players around than I'm typically used to seeing, I don't find it overly crowded. I also haven't been ganked much, and the few times I have didn't interfere too much. It seems Horde is more focused on leveling than picking a fight that could possibly cause them more trouble if that particular player has any friends around.

I'm not really sure how much more I have left to do in Borean Tundra, but after I'm done there I will be heading over to the Howling Fjord to check that out too. I'm excited to see what that place is like.

70 priest and feralization

2008-12-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

After a lot of playing over the last couple weeks I finally managed to push my priest the rest of the way to 70. With only 4 bars left to go it didn't take too long, and after turning in those last few finished quests I dropped the rest and made my way back to Stormwind.

While there I learned my new spells and then decided to clear up some inventory space. How did I do this? Well, I put away all the enchanting mats that I will probably never use because they are for low level enchants.

In the process I decided to see about getting my enchanting to 300 so I could use all the mats that I got from disenchanting Outland stuff.This turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Pretty much all the enchants I had that were orange at my level used Eternal Essences of some sort, and I had none and nothing to disenchant.

I ended up looking up enchanting leveling guides and found an enchant that would help: Enchant Bracer - Greater Stamina. It was yellow to me, but only used 5 Dream Dust, which I had in great excess. I ended up getting my enchanting to 286 before I ran out (which is 18 levels on just that one enchant). Now I'm stuck again, but I'll figure it out later.

On to my druid, who I finally sent over to Northrend. Of course I didn't do my homework and was confused when I went to Stormwind Harbor and found only one boat that would take me there when I thought there would be two. Then I read that to get to Howling Fjord you have to take the boat from Menethil.

I didn't really have a preference, so I just went to Borean Tundra anyway since I'll be going to Howling Fjord after I'm done there.

My first impressions of Northrend? It's very cool. Finally we have some buildings with new layouts. No more of these keeps and inns that all have the exact same floorplans. The variety of quests is nice too. Rewiring harvesters, throwing nets on flying mobs, unlatching a mine cart, uncovering cult members, and that's just to name a few.

Actually when I first got there I still hadn't redistributed my talent points since they were refunded last, and upon fighting my first mob I found I had no Mangle in the '2' position like it's supposed to be. I guess that's as good a time as any to research feral druid talent builds.

I found a pretty good one that seemed to go for all the cat talents, since I'll be leveling mostly as a cat, and after making a few tweaks to it I had my new talent build all set up. It's pretty crazy how fast mobs go down now. My gear is just quest greens and a few blues from Outland, but the damage I put out now is crazy.

After doing the first few quests I got some significant upgrades to my gear and now I'm having no problem taking down multiple mobs in succession with little to no downtime. My crit rate in cat form is over 30%, which is awesome, and I get to see crits pop up all the time now. I'm also noticing a lack of strength on most of the leather items and instead they include agility and +attack power. I assume these are the stats to look for now.

If the rest of Northrend is as interesting as the little that I've seen so far I think I'm going to have a lot of fun making my way through, although it won't go nearly as fast as most of you are probably going.

Big weekend

2008-12-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

So how did my holiday weekend go, you might ask? Well even if you didn't ask I'm going to tell you anyway.

First off, Thanksgiving was awesome. Lots of good food and fun with the family. My cousins had their Wii there, and we all had a great time playing. Watching my parents try to figure out how to do the bowling, and then how much fun they had when they finally got the hang of it was awesome.

I also got a lot done in WoW. The gf had to work most of the weekend, and with most of my other friends either out of town or also working, I had a lot of time to myself, and a lot of it was spent trying to push my priest the rest of the way to 70.

I didn't quite make it, but I got close. I did manage to finish up Terokkar (except the group quests), and made my way to Nagrand, but only for the flight path. From there I flew up to Orebar Harborage and ran through the cave to Blade's Edge. Since I was there I decided to do those first quests at Sylvanaar before continuing on to Netherstorm.

I did pretty much all the quests in that first little area, but when it was time to move on to a new quest hub I skipped it and went straight to Netherstorm. By that time I was a few bars into level 68 and figured it would be a good time to make the move.

I'd never been there before, and didn't really know what to expect. It's a really strange zone, and I don't think I was really prepared for it. The thing that surprised me the most were the ecologies.

On my way to turn in some quests I pretty much expected to just see more of the same purple landscape, but then I ran into a glowing hemisphere with plants and wildlife inside, and I could pass right through into it with no trouble at all.

When I finally called it quits last night I had finished almost all the quests given at Area 52 and the southeastern island with the Kirin'Var village. I also managed to do a few of the quests at the first ecology and made my way up to the Stormspire and got the flight path. After all that I was about 4 bars away from level 70, and with lots of quests left to do I should get there in my next play session.

It's been a great experience playing to 70 on a second character, and being able to go through an entirely different zone to get there makes it even better. My usual motto is to stop playing a character immediately when the run out of rest XP bonus, but I'm so close I'm going to have to waive that restriction this time.

The only problem I'm having is that her enchanting skill isn't high enough to disenchant the green items she's getting. I ended up putting all of them in the bank so I can get some mats out of them when I get there.

The big problem is that I've outleveled my enchanting. All the items I get give me the mats for the next tier of enchanting recipes, so I'm going to have to figure out the easiest way to go about getting those mats. I'm hoping the items my hunter and shaman will be getting when they start up again will disenchant into the right mats, but I'm almost certain that's not the case, so I'll probably have to figure something else out.

Hopefully I can push my priest to 70 tonight, then it's time to head over to Northrend on my druid and see what all the fuss is about. I'm hoping the big rush has calmed down by now, and maybe I can quest without too much of a crowd, I'm not holding my breath though.

That was my weekend, how was yours?

Holiday plans

2008-11-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

It's a holiday weekend, which means much more time to play WoW.

I would love to get my priest to 70 over the weekend, but with her running out of rested XP bonus very soon I don't think it's gonna happen. I think she might be parked for a week or so while the bonus builds up, then she'll be ready for the final push.

I changed my mind again. I want to see Northrend. I know it's crowded. I know there will be a lot of ganking. If it becomes too frustrating I can always switch off to another character and come back when it's settled down more.

I just want to see it. I want some new gear. Everything my druid is wearing is quest greens and a few blues, so unlike all you raiders out there, pretty much any piece of gear I get will be an upgrade.

From what I can tell, Northrend is a little different from Outland in how you level. Outland had one zone to start out in, while Northrend has two. Not only do we now have a choice of where to go first, but when we're done with that we can go to the other so there's now way we'll be behind when we go on to the higher level zones.

I was originally going to finish up some more Outland quests and maybe get to 71 or 72 before heading out, but with three more Alliance characters still to send through Outland, not to mention the Hordies, I'm thinking I'll see everything eventually.

On a side note, does anyone know what you need to train the druid Swift Flight Form now? Do we need the flight training first or can we just learn it as soon as we hit 71? I know with normal Flight Form we didn't need training, and I'm hoping thats the case with this one too.

Have a great weekend everyone, and be sure not to spend the whole time playing WoW, especially if you gorge yourself at Thanksgiving like everyone tends to do or you'll be about 5 lbs heavier just after this weekend. I'll be back on Monday, hopefully you'll be alright without me until then.

Definitely faster

2008-11-25T11:12:00.000-08:00

I might have to rethink some things about leveling in Outland. The first time through on my druid I thought I was falling behind a little when I got to Zangarmarsh and was only level 61. I ended up grinding out a level there, then questing the rest of they way through.

By the time I hit 70 I was only halfway through Shadowmoon Valley and that's when I parked him until now.

I'm having an entirely different experience on my priest. I was level 63 by the time I started Zangarmarsh. Not only that, but leveling is also much faster. Right now I am level 67, but I'm still not done with Terokkar Forest yet. It's looking like I'll probably hit 70 before I even finish Nagrand.

I hate to skip zones, but seeing as I've never even been to Netherstorm before I might have to make my way over there to finish up her trek to 70, which means I'd probably have to leave out Nagrand and Blade's Edge.

The reason she was so far ahead of the curve in the first place was because I stuck around in Azeroth until level 61. At the time I didn't know they would be making the leveling faster in Outland, and I also was under the impression that I should enter a zone at a higher level to make it easier.

Turns out that with the changes the made I'm just going way to fast through the zones. Sure it's nice to level fast, and I've done it before so it's not like I'm missing anything I haven't seen before, but it just feels like I'm skipping around and not leveling as intended.

I had mentioned before that I would be leveling my death knight to 60 before moving him on to Outland, but I'm rethinking that idea now. With his blue gear he's already pretty much set up to be ready for Outland, and it was obviously intended that after the starter zone they would be able to head there next.

The death knight will probably sit there for a while more though while I level my hunter and see if starting in Outland at 60 puts me ahead of the curve. If so I am definitely skipping the rest of Azeroth on my DK and going straight to Outland.

With 4 more Hordies coming up I think I'll have more than enough time to get my fill of Azeroth, and if not I can always go back and do some of the many achievements there.

Do I think this new faster leveling is necessarily better? Maybe not. It's definitely more convenient, but at the expense of skipping over lots of content I don't think I could say it's actually better.

Busy weekend

2008-11-24T10:02:00.000-08:00

Leveling in Outland is much faster. Much, much faster.

I found myself with a lot of free time this weekend due to various circumstances, and with nothing else really to do I leveled my priest.

So how far did I actually get? Well she now sits happily at about halfway through level 66, and also managed to buy her epic ground mount so I can finally outrun those stupid death knights when they attempt to gank me.

I finished off Zangarmarsh, except for the two elite nagas, and headed over to Terokkar. I got a good amount done there too, although I know there is a lot more to do, but I'm usually a couple levels higher than all the quests that I have to do so the quests are fairly easy and go quickly.

I'm very surprised with the pace I'm going. I've only been through these areas once before, but it seems like I know them just as well as the old world stuff that I've been through 10 times.

Somehow I still have some rested XP bonus that I didn't manage to use up, despite how much I played. I guess most of the experience is coming from quest turn-ins.

I'm also starting to develop a slightly different style of play than my previous shadow priest excursions. First, Dispersion would be a great spell if it wasn't the top tier talent in the shadow tree. I pretty much use it as a glorified version of Invocation. I could care less about the damage reduction, but I do like getting my mana back.

I also really love Shadow Fiend. I try to plan out the cooldowns of this and Dispersion so when I run out of mana one of them is up and I can get it all back.

I also had to learn to cope with not having Star Shards anymore. As a Night Elf that used to be my racial priest spell, but now we all get Devouring Plague. It's a good DoT, and I use it all the time, but Starshards was free to cast. Yep, free, and Devouring Plague costs about the same as Shadow Word: Pain. Sure it's not that bad, but I liked the free one.

Other than that it's all Mind Blast and Mind Flay, and the mobs almost never bring my shield down before I kill them. It actually makes it feel a little too easy, but it's nothing compared to what I see death knights doing.

I can take one mob at a time easily, two gets tough, and more than that I have to use a bunch of cooldowns, but I'll make it. For death knights I see some running around pulling 3 or 4 mobs at a time, and having no trouble with it.

I don't really care so much that they have the ability to do that, they are supposed to be a hero class after all, but it gets annoying when they are using it to take a bunch of mobs away from you that you need for a quest.

As I'm getting further along I'm noticing less death knights though. It's as if most players started them, got them through a little bit of Outland, and then either got bored or decided to take their mains out to Northrend. I'm sure some of them have already leveled through Outland and are on their way to 80, but I'm fairly certain that's the minority.

It's nice for me because I don't have to deal with them interrupting my questing, and I haven't had any more bad PvP experiences since the one I mentioned in my last post. Sure I got ganked a couple times, but there was no corpse camping involved, and after playing on this server for so long I'm used to it.

I think I'll be playing my priest until her rested XP bonus is up, or until she hits 70, whichever comes first, then I have to figure out who is up next. I think I'll wait on that until I get there though. I like to make my character choice a last minute decision.

Death Knights are flooding Outland

2008-11-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

I logged onto my priest for a bit last night. I still have a few of those elite quests in Hellfire Peninsula to do, but I'll be skipping those for a while and moving on to Zangarmarsh for a bit.

I noticed on my way there that I was 1 experience point away from hitting 64. This seemed a little weird to me, but I think what happened is that with the new faster leveling from 60-70 I would have hit level 64 with the amount of experience I had already into level 63.

I sort of expected in that situation that they would leave you at the same percentage of the way to the next level that you were at before, but this would mean you were getting XP taken away. Instead they left you with the same amount and it just gets you further toward the next level now, although in my case I probably had more than enough to level, but they just stuck me at 1 XP below hitting the next level.

Oh well, I was happy anyway, and upon turning in my first quests I was level 64 and knew this zone would be a piece of cake now. I only had a little time to play, so I decided to go after the Umbrafen tribe and get that out of the way.

Here's the problem with Outland now. With all the new Death Knights finishing the starting zone and heading to Outland right after, they're crowding up the place. Not only that, but that means a much higher chance that you will run into one of those jackass players.

Of course that happened to me, and in the hour I had to play I barely got anything done. There was a Horde DK running around killing the Umbrafen mobs and basically harassing all the other Alliance players. He killed me a few times, then I tried to move to a different area and found him killing another Alliance players, so I loaded him up with DoTs and took him down while he was occupied with the other guy.

I guess this wasn't the best move, as I ended up relocating again, managed to kill a few mobs that I needed, and then he found me again. Not only did he gank me, but proceded to camp me for a good 20 minutes before I just gave up and logged off since I was running short on time anyway.

Needless to say, I'm reconsidering playing any characters in Outland for a while. It's like a slightly lesser version of what happened when TBC was released, but this time 95% of the players are death knights.

I might have to go back to my Hordies for a little while and let things settle down out there. I'd rather play my priest, she was melting faces like nobody's business, but with DK's decked out in blues and her just in quest greens she doesn't stand a chance anytime one decides to come after her.

How I keep travel time down

2008-11-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

As you may know, my WoW time is fairly limited, and as such I have to find ways to get the most out of the time I have to play.

One thing I hate doing is traveling long distance, and this game requires a lot of it, so I find ways to travel without cutting into the time I could actually be leveling. The best way to do this is to use those little windows of time you have where it isn't enough to really play, but you don't have anything else to do in the meantime, or just where you can't give it your full attention but you can check in every so often.

Some examples of this are maybe you're waiting for a friend to pick you up for something and you know they won't be there for another 15 minutes, or maybe you are working out so you can't concentrate fully on the game, but in between sets you can check it.

Most of the time traveling doesn't even require you to be there, you just click the flight point and wait while you fly there. These are the best times to do something else while you wait. I usually watch TV, go to the bathroom, get myself something to eat, or if it's a situation where I'm getting ready to go somewhere I will change clothes, put shoes on, or whatever else I need to do to get ready.

The whole point of this is that next time I get the chance to play I will be ready to go.

Just yesterday I had gotten home from work and was changing out of my work clothes and getting ready to head back out. Now I know I'm going to want to play my hunter and shaman at some point in the future, and they will be starting in Outland. At the time they were still in Azeroth, on in Ironforge and one in Stormwind. Since I had other stuff to do anyway before leaving I made the trip to Outland with each of them.

Both characters had the Nethergarde Keep flight path, so there was no land traveling I would have to do until I got there. While each were flying I did other things I needed to do to get ready to go. When they landed I mounted up and made my way to the Dark Portal, picking up the quest on the way and went through.

Not only did I get to Honor Hold, but I got some XP out of it too from those first few quests. Even better is the fact that when I decide to play one of those characters I will already be where I need to be and can jump into some quests right then.

I also managed to find the time to transfer money to my mage and buy him his first mount. I was a little worried about his money situation, but with the money I made leveling the other mage to 55 in order to create my death knight I even had a little extra after buying the mount. I'm so glad they're have the price they used to be, otherwise he'd still be on foot.

That's really all I was able to do in what little time I had, but the upside is I won't have to deal with any of that boring stuff next time I log in. For anybody else out there that has limited time to play WoW, it's always a good idea to find ways of getting the most out of the time you do have and try get those other little things done in their own time.

The trek continues

2008-11-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Do I ever expect to get every class up to the level cap? No way. I would say my only aspiration is to get one character to the level cap before another expansion comes out and raises it on us again.

Right now I have my druid sitting at level 70, but for some reason I'm not particularly excited about taking him to Northrend. I'm not even really sure what my hesitation is. Everyone says it's awesome, and I know it will be, but I'm just not a big fan of dealing with crowds of players all doing the same quests.

I'd rather wait a bit, work on other characters in the empty Outlands (well not too empty with all the new death knights), and take advantage of the faster leveling from 60-70, then maybe I'll check out Northrend once most players have moved on to the higher level zones.

Not only do I like to solo, but I like to with no distractions. I get more XP per kill if I work alone, and unless it's a group quest I usually have no trouble getting it done.

I also hate when people send me group invites from out of nowhere. Sometimes I'll get an invite, take a look around, and see nobody. Why would you invite me to your group without asking me when you're not even close to me? Just because we're the same level or in the same zone doesn't mean we're doing the same thing. At least ask first, tell me what you're doing, and if it will benefit me as well I might join you.

I also hate the douchbags that like to hang around quest mobs and kill them so nobody else can, or otherwise impede a quest. It's annoying enough having to compete with others for the quests, but when you take the time after you've done the quest to keep others from doing it, that's just not cool.

I think the next order of business for me is to put in some time on my priest. I haven't gotten to play her for a long time and I think she's ready to get back out there and melt some faces.

Above and beyond

2008-11-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

Remember how I said I'd be happy with getting that mage to 55 by the end of this week? Well apparently I wasn't going to be happy with that, so I got her to 55 yesterday. Not only that, but I also managed to finish the death knight starting zone with my human, then made an undead DK and went through the whole thing with him.

How did I find the time for that, you ask? Well Sunday I decided to play some soccer with some friends. Ended up spraining my ankle, or just bruising it really bad. Either way, I could barely walk yesterday, so I decided to stay home from work and let it rest. I'm currently at work in an ankle brace wearing a sandal on that foot because I can't put a shoe on yet.

So staying home from work, not able to do anything physical, what else was there to do except play WoW? I had finished up Feralas and started in on Un'Goro on Saturday, had to resort to the human DK on Sunday because of server population issues.

So yesterday I finished up Un'Goro and still had most of a level to finish off before I hit 55. I decided to go to Azshara, since there were a few quests I needed to turn in there anyway from other places.

There aren't many quests there, but the ones I did were very easy as I was a few levels above the mobs. After completing everything I could I wasn't quite there still, but I had some turn-ins at the capital cities.

This is where being a mage came in handy. I ported to each city, turned in the quests, and each had a me return to Azshara to the original quest giver. After turning in those quests I finally dinged 55 and was done. I logged out instantly and created my death knight.

Incidentally, that particular mage made quite a bit of money doing all those quests, and will be sending that to my other mage to help fund his first mount. With a pally and warlock on the way up I won't be needing money for their mounts at level 30, and hopefully they will be able to help out the warrior when he gets there.

At this point I had already completed the DK starting zone with my human, but the ending was a little disappointing for him. I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't gone through it, but let's just say the final event had already taken place and hadn't reset yet, so I really didn't get to see much.

Luckily on the undead DK I got to participate and see the story unfold. After that it all made a lot more sense as to why the death knights are siding against Arthas. The whole experience of questing in that zone was awesome, and it really gave a good look at the new mechanic that causes the world to change as you complete quests. Very well done.

I think for now I will be setting the DK aside to build up some rested XP bonus, then I will probably get him to 60 in Azeroth before I move on to Outlands. For some reason I still don't like to head through the portal at 58, even though I know now that the leveling in Outland is much faster than before.

Actually, I'm not sure who I'm going to level next. I could send my druid to Northrend, which would mean more new content for me to experience. I also have the rest of my Alliance characters sitting around level 60 and ready to quest in Outland.

I'll probably leave the Horde characters alone for a while in favor of the higher level guys, but I will be coming back to them later when I feel the urge to quest back in the old zones we all know so well.

Looks like I have a lot of choices of what to do next, and I'm thinking my decisions will be made on a whim for now, rather than planning it out like I usually do. I'll be playing characters just because I feel like it at the time now that I have my previous goals accomplished and nothing else immediate that I really want to do. I sure hope I don't neglect any of my alts too much in the process.

Hmmm...

2008-11-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

After getting off work last night I stopped off at Best Buy to grab the expansion. As expected, they had a full display right at the entrance so I didn't even have to go searching for it. I got home and installed while changing and getting ready for the hockey game. By the time I left it was fully installed and patched, although I ended up missing the first few minutes of the game because of it.

Fast forward to later that night, after the game, and I decided to load up WoW for a bit before bed so I could create my death knight and see what all the fuss is about. Logged in and went to configure a new undead death knight so I could wreak some havoc.

I finished messing with his appearance (I'm never completely satisfied, but now that I can change hairstyles if I want I'm not so picky), then clicked the button to create him, and to my surprise a message popped up saying "You must have a level 55 or higher character on this realm to create a death knight." Hmm...

Seems to me I was mislead at some point about the requirements here. I was under the impression that the level 55 character requirement applied to the account, not just the realm you are creating the death knight on. I have plenty of characters over 55 on my Alliance realm, but I wanted to make my death knight an undead. I was sorely disappointed.

Now the good news is I have a level 50 mage on the realm who was left there by a former roommate and he luckily just left her on there. It means I still need to go 5 more levels on her, but with the highest character I've leveled on that realm being only level 30 I think it's something I can live with.

It looks like he left off in Feralas, so I guess that's where I will be questing first, then probably moving on to Un'Goro or something where I can hopefully get to 55 without much trouble. I'd like to try to get there without having to travel all over the place.

It's kinda strange playing a level 50 that you didn't get there yourself. I ended up just traveling to Feralas, distributing talents, and then killing a few things before I got restless to make a death knight.

I logged out the mage and went over to my Alliance realm. I ended up deciding on creating a human death knight over there, and while he won't end up getting much past the starting quests, he will at least hold me over until I can get the mage to 55 and create the one I want, and then I can get that one through those starting quests even faster.

The first few death knight quests were pretty cool, and really make you feel the mentality of the death knights. All in competition with each other, and willing to kill any of the other initiates who could pose a threat.

The new rune system of fighting is a little different, but so far it seems to be pretty easy to pick up. It was a little crowded once I got out of the keep and I had some trouble searching for other death knight initiates to duel, and with this being pretty late at night, we'll just see how much worse it can get over the weekend.

I'm still trying to figure out why I thought I only need a level 55 on the account and that would allow me to create a death knight on any realm. Was the wording that Blizzard gave us misleading? Did other sites assume this and I blindly believed them?

How many of you thought this was the case too?

I guess at this point it doesn't matter much. What's done is done, and I'll just have to get through those 5 levels as quickly as I can. It will at least let the death knight starting zone calm down a bit so I don't have to deal with so many players. I should be able to get there by next week, so it's only a slight setback.

EDIT:

After some research I've found that the requirement was recently changed to require a 55+ on the same server, not just the account. Apparently they may change it back to just a 55+ on the account, but for now it has to be on the same server. Why, you may ask? I dunno, probably to mess up my plans at release, and then change it back once I've already done the extra work.

Wrath Day!

2008-11-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here!

I'm sure most of you won't even read this on account of you playing WoW all day to check out the new expansion. For those of us stuck at work, maybe reading this will help pass the time faster so you can get home and play.

I was actually on my way home last night at around 11:30pm and I was contemplating going by Gamestop to see how the line looks and whether I'd be willing to stand in it to get a copy of the expansion. I ended up deciding against it because I could barely keep my eyes open already, and waiting a little longer might actually be better for my health.

I will be stopping off after work tonight though.

I was originally going to wait until Friday to buy it since I have a hockey game to attend tonight (go Sharks!), but I think if I leave work a little earlier today I can make it in time. I know how long it takes to install, and then probably patch, so I want to get that out of the way early so I can actually play when I get some free time rather than sitting around while it installs.

Why oh why do I have to have plans that keep me from playing on launch day? I was in the clear when my Thursday night softball league ended, and I almost never make plans for weeknights, but this is where I have to decide what is more important.

Do I tell a friend that I've known since elementary school and I rarely get to see anymore that I'm sorry, but I can't go to the hockey game with you because WotLK comes out and I want to play it inested? Obviously not, so I'll just have to stick it out. Luckily hockey is really fun to watch.

So for those of you playing now, I'm envious, and for those of you going home after work to play for the rest of the night, I'm also envious. For those of you who won't get to play until sometime after I get to play, sucks for you! I kid, I kid. But seriously, this will be in the back of my mind, keeping me distracted all day while I still only get to imagine how awesome it will be.

On a side note, I am adopting a kitty, an orange tabby. It's pretty exciting, because not only are cats awesome, but he will keep the gf occupied and maybe I can get some more WoW playing in while she's over. It will be interesting to say the least.

The anticipation is killing me!

Am I crazy?

2008-11-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Didn't get to play last night, although from what I hear it only caused me to miss out on the servers being down. The expansion comes out tomorrow (or tonight at midnight for those picking it up then) and I just hope they have everything squared away by then so they can avoid the massive QQing that would ensue.

I won't be getting the game at midnight. I didn't even pre-order it. Am I crazy?

I don't think so. I remember when TBC was released and I didn't pre-order that either. I went to Best Buy on release day, totally expecting that they might be sold out and that I would be sent home disappointed.

Well they had it. They had lots of copies. It didn't even look like they had been picked through yet. The shelf was almost fully stocked.

So I'm not too worried about whether or not I'll get my copy. There are so many places I can go to get it, and with the fanatics going to the Gamestop midnight releases, I'm pretty sure the places that chose not to do a midnight release will have plenty. And I only need one.

Actually, I won't be picking it up on release day either...WHAT?!?! How can I be so into WoW that I blog about it and not pick up the expansion ASAP, you may ask?

Yeah, I actually have no time after work to stop off to buy it because I will be going directly to a hockey game, do not pass game store, do not collect WotLK.

One good thing about having to wait a bit is that I don't have to deal with the initial rush of players. I predict that within the first week most of that burst will be done with the first zones of Northrend and moved on, leaving those areas lag free.

Even so, I won't be starting in on Northrend for a while as the new Death Knight is first order of business. When I finally do decide to level my druid past 70 he won't be going directly to Northrend either. There's a whole zone in Outland that he hasn't seen yet, and he should make it to level 71, maybe even 72, by the time he's finished there are ready to move on.

Actually, I expect the new Death Knight rush will have died down by then too and moved on to Outland, or gotten dropped after completing the starting area for those that are only doing it for the story. I was one of the people that made a new Draenei shaman at the release of TBC, and while the zone was a mess with so many players doing those first quests, it wasn't too much of a hassle to get them done.

With respawn rates being directly related to number of players in the area, the mobs just keep coming and you don't really run out like you would pre-TBC. I'm not sure how many mob killing quests are part of the DK starting area, but if it's anything like the rest of the game there will be quite a few.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, but for now I just have to focus on finding time to play, then I can worry about what's happening in the game and what the next step will be. Everyone else have fun with the expansion when you get it, and I will count on all you other bloggers to post some good stuff about it to hold me over until I get to play.

More event?

2008-11-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Why didn't anybody tell me? I come online today to find a bunch of blogs talking about the new event of the Scourge attacking Stormwind and Orgrimmar. It looks pretty cool, but even though I played a little last night, I had no idea this was going on.

I guess it would be cool if when you start up the game it would tell you what event is currently going on. I'm not sure if I just wasn't paying attention, but I didn't see anything telling me that the capital city is under attack. Sure I was on a level 30 mage, but I'd still like to see it.

Either way, I'm trying to finish up Ashenvale on the mage, and will be completing my last Stonetalon quest, as well as another Hillsbrad quest that I've been putting off before I move on to a new area. At this point I'm thinking I'll go to Thousand Needles. I'm not a big fan of Desolace, and I want a few more levels before I got to STV so I can burn through the first quests quickly.

I had a lot of trouble with one quest in Ashenvale where you plant a banner and defend it from furbolgs until their leader comes out. Normally quests like this will send a few waves at you, then the leader shows up. Apparently this one is on a timer, and you just have to defend the thing for a certain amount of time.

This is not easy on a mage. Two mobs is hard enough, but when you kill one and another appears it gets frustrating, especially since after the second mob you kill you are usually low on mana. At the best I managed to kill about 8 of them, which required me to blow all my cooldowns and use a healing potion before I died, and the boss still hadn't appeared yet. I gave up and did some other stuff at that point.

I guess I should have checked earlier, because I was reading online about this quest, and it looks like there is an easy way to do it by jumping on a barrel with the enemies aggroed and you will evade bug on them. Then you just wait for the boss, jump down, kill him, and loot the item you need.

This info would have been great to know before I had died 3 times with the closest graveyard not really being that close. That's just one thing you miss out on when you use QuestHelper, it doesn't tell you how to do the quests, just where to go, although you usually don't need evade bugs to get stuff done for a quest that's four levels below you.

If I get some game time tonight I will be checking out the event, probably on both factions, just to see them. I didn't do much with the zombie event. I only got infected once, and the guards killed me before I got a chance to do anything with it. This seems like one of those events you need to see though, as it won't happen again once it's over. I'll have to keep my distance though, because I'm sure any of those mobs would one-shot me.

Seems backwards

2008-11-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

I finally got a chance to play my warrior this weekend, and in almost no time I had gained two levels and run him out of rested XP bonus. Now I'm not sure if it's my lack of skill or just how the class works, but I tended to die a lot more than I do with most characters.

Alright, I only died twice, and both had to do with ambushes from mobs that just happened to respawn as I was fighting, but the warrior class has very few ways of getting out of sticky situations. Actually, the fact that I chose a Tauren saved me more than any of my other skills. That Warstomp ability is very convenient.

I guess with their high armor compared to everyone else they probably shouldn't need to run away so often, and I got stuck in a lot of sticky situations that I ended up surviving. Maybe I just need to get better.

I just found it a little backwards that I would die more playing on the class with the most damage mitigation. I did get some new skills to use as I leveled though, and I think those will help me out a lot in my survivability.

Other than that I had a lot of fun. Running up to enemies and bashing them over the head is a great change of pace from my mage and warlock leveling where I end up just casting the same spell over and over while keeping the mob at a distance.

Until the expansion hits on Thursday I will once again switch over to my mage and get him as far as I can (assuming I get to play this week). Sad thing is I'm going to a hockey game on Thursday, so I probably won't even get to play.

Oh well, hockey is ridiculously fun to watch, and the death knight starting area will probably be the worst on release day anyway. I can't wait to finally get to see it!

Class focus

2008-11-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

The latest post over on Blessing of Kings brought up an interesting topic, and while I won't be taking his suggestion to come up with my own set of class specific tasks to get an achievement, it was actually one of the comments to the post that got me thinking.

Hopefully I'm not overstepping my WoW blogger bounds by talking about a comment from someone else's blog, but here it is:

"What a great idea, but Blizzard seems to be a bit down on providing class specific quests - probably for the good reason that it wants to concentrate it's resources on creating content that's playable by virtually all of it's players - which is hard to fault."

While he does end up saying that it isn't a bad thing that Blizzard decided not to include too much class specific stuff, I think the point is still valid. Would it have been better if there were more class specific content?

It's hard to say at this point, because the game is awesome as it is, but wouldn't it have been cool to face a new class specific quest every 10 levels? At the start it seemed that this was the route they were taking, but then after the level 10 and level 20 quests they decided to spread them out more.

Paladins and Warlocks got the most attention in this area with their epic mount quests at 60. These quest lines required lots of items and help from a group of others to bring down a summoned boss in an instance. Druids now have a similar situation at 70 to get Swift Flight Form. Some other classes had this to an extent, like priests getting Benediction, but that required running MC and so was unavailable to anyone but raiders.

The point is I think it would have been nice to see some more soloable quests for the different classes, maybe getting them a nice blue or a new spell as a reward. These could be ongoing quest lines, requiring you to gain some more levels in order to complete the next one. The quest objectives would require you to use strategies that only your class can use, making you feel more like your class rather than just leveling another character.

Warriors have a pretty good grasp of this with their quests for new armor at 30 and the Whirlwind Axe at 40. If they could make these quests continuous, such as after getting your armor the quest giver sends you to the troll with the quest for the axe, or maybe even throw smaller quests in there that eventually lead you to the troll, it would make for a much more class oriented experience.

With the various ways to get through the game they would have to make any item drops you need for these quests available from mobs in different zones so you wouldn't have to go too far out of your way, but I don't think that would be a problem.

Am I sad they're taking out the epic mount quests? To some extent I am. The sense of achievement won't be there anymore if you can just buy the spell, although it sounds like you'll still have to pay for the riding skill, and that won't be cheap.

The problem is how hard it will be to find groups that are willing to help you on level 60 instances, and with players raiding at level 80 the druids will have trouble with theirs too. I guess it's just the fact of life with MMOs that once they release an expansion and raise the level cap it causes everyone to abandon the previous end game content and makes it too hard to complete any quests having to do with it.

I guess at this point the focus on specific class quests won't change, but I just wonder how the game would have turned out if they had put more in. The new Death Knight starting quests actually seem to go this route, and I'm excited to see what everyone who was in the beta loves so much about it.

Keep moving

2008-11-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

It's been on my mind since I finished college and got a new job. Now that I have much less free time than I used to I have to figure out what is important and what I can do without. Obviously I have to work, otherwise I won't be able to pay for my monthly WoW fee. I also am not giving up on WoW, just in case you thought that is what this post is about.

One other thing I refuse to cut out of my life is exercise. I've seen how we all tend to end up later in life. Exercise becomes less of a priority as you get older. You can't exert as much energy as you used to, and just the thought of it makes you tired. I don't want to end up like that.

I used to only have classes four to five hours a day, leaving a lot of the day free to do anything. It was easy to find an hour to work out, or go on a bike ride, or maybe play some basketball with friends.

Now that I have a full time job, which requires me to sit at a desk in front of a computer most of the day, I find the need to exercise even more important. If I just came home, ate dinner, and played WoW the rest of the night, where is the physical activity?

In order to not gain weight we need to burn off as many calories as we consume, but sitting at a desk all day, then coming home and sitting doesn't burn much. In the past year an a half that I've had this job I've put on 15 pounds, and I'm not happy about it. I try to eat healthy, but it's not enough if you can't burn off those calories.

That's something I think most people don't get. Just because food is healthy doesn't mean you can eat as much of it as you want. I will see people walk into one of the lunch places around where I work with a Jamba Juice in hand and order a full lunch.

What they don't understand is that a Jamba Juice has a meal's worth of calories, so while it might be considered healthy, they end up eating two meals instead of one and then they wonder why they aren't losing weight.

My point is that I think WoW is a great game, one of the best I've played, but we need to play it in moderation and make sure not to put it ahead of more important things. If you notice yourself putting on some extra weight, maybe you should cut back a little and use some of that free time to run, bike, lift weights, or do some kind of physical activity that will get your heart rate up and burn some calories.

I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't let the the shift to the working world cause me to gain weight as I see happen to so many other people. I thought it would be a lot easier, but right now I'm losing the battle.

I usually come home and flop down on the couch for a while to watch TV, but now maybe I'll work out while watching TV instead. I can get two things done at once, and it really doesn't affect how much free time I'd have because I would just be watching TV instead anyway.

Don't let WoW turn you into the stereotypical gamer like the one on that South Park episode I'm sure we all saw. Eat healthy, keep moving, and realize that the key to losing weight is burning more calories than you consume. It's as simple as that, finding the time is the hard part.

Another patch?

2008-11-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

Yes there's a new patch out. For the most part it fixes a lot of mechanics that were introduced in the last patch but weren't quite working how they were supposed to.

Ret pallies got shot in the face with a nerf gun and are now waking up with a suction cup bullet stuck to their forehead.

Most other classes just got some fixes. With the expansion coming out next week it seems this patch was just to hold us over until then, when the real big changes happen.

I haven't gotten to play with the new patch changes yet, but I don't think they're going to affect me much. My pally will be going ret for leveling, but she's only level 13 right now so I never got to see how much damage the OP ret pally could actually do firsthand.

I actually ended up getting home last night after a long session of watching the election coverage at the gf's house and decided to catch up on some anime. I have a lot of episodes of new shows built up to watch, but some of them just haven't caught my interest like most anime does.

I used to start watching a new show, and while it may not be the best, I would stick it out and see if it gets better. I also used to have a lot more free time than I do now.

Right now there are about five new shows I started in on, but I've been putting off three of them because their first episodes didn't really interest me. I think I might end up just forgetting about some of those and stick with the ones I know I want to watch.

It's a matter of time conservation, especially since that time could be better spent playing WoW, and with the new expansion coming I'm going to need all the extra free time I can get.

Make the switch

2008-11-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

I guess there will be a lot more switching between characters than I thought there would be. I'm just blowing through my rested XP bonuses left and right. Last night I finished off the warlock in short order, turned in the quests she had completed, and logged off.

I was all set to log in to my paladin and start some righteous smiting, but I realized that she's in the Ghostlands too, following my warlock. Of course this isn't a bad thing, as I enjoy this zone much more than the other level 10-20 zones for the Horde, but I would pretty much be doing the exact same quests again, right after I just did them on my warlock.

Because of this, I decided it was time to give my warrior a shot and see what he can do. This warrior will be making his way through the Barrens, kickin' it old school like the original lowbie Horde. I decided this because while the Ghostlands is fun, I need to switch it up, and also because I hate Silverpine.

With very little time to actually accomplish anything, I managed to make the run to the Crossroads and turn in a few quests there, which coincidentally got me to level 12, which is perfect for starting the Barrens quests.

I think it will be fun to not have to worry about mana conservation for a little while, just focusing on bashing mobs with a huge mallet (and other weapons as I find them). After leveling all these ranged attack characters (hunter, mage, warlock) it will be nice to get back in there and take it to their faces.

I think it would be nice if I could get all my Hordies up to level 20 by the time WotLK comes out, but I'm not too optimisic about that. I think I can at least get my warlock there though. Then it's time to start up a death knight and see what they're all about.

Warlocks are awesome

2008-11-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

I did manage to get some stuff done this weekend, and I just have to say that I love playing my warlock.

She went up two levels this weekend, putting her at level 17, and she's still got plenty of quests left in the Ghostlands before she gets to move on out of the starting lowbie zones.

I think she's even on par with the hunter for being the easiest class to level so far. I'm having no problem getting through these quests, and even when I run into trouble I manage to get out of it without much damage.

The only problem I'm having is these soulstones I have to carry around with me. With my lack of bag space I run out of room very quickly, and it's starting to become a nuisance. I just need some bigger bags at this point and the problem should go away.

I did try to level a human warlock a while ago, but for some reason it didn't really get anywhere. I think the biggest problem was that I was getting burnt out on all the low level Alliance quests and needed something different. Going through Westfall starts to get old after the first few times.

I think another reason I wasn't into it before was how the talent trees were set up. I didn't really want to spec affliction, but I really wanted that instant cast Corruption spell. Now that I don't need those 5 point to get it I find it much easier to just got the Destruction route and not worry about that stupid cast time which should have always been instant.

I also went herbalism/alchemy on this warlock, and that gives her a free HoT, which is very nice for a warlock. I can Lifetap to refill my mana, then cast Lifeblood and get all that health back. It's very convenient.

I just can't wait to spec demonology at 50 and get my Felguard, or summon an infernal, or turn into a demon (although I hear it's not all that great).

It's going to get interesting if I manage to get her up into some higher levels.

Scary time

2008-10-31T14:17:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween today, and thus Hallow's Eve will soon end in Azeroth.

I haven't done much for the event, aside from grabbing some candy at the inns. I guess I'm just not motivated. Going after the Headless Horseman requires a group, and though I could try to find a PUG, I'd really rather level my characters.

I guess I just figure I'll get a shot at all those achievements later, and if they're one time only then they're exactly the kind of achievements that I despise and won't be getting anyway.

It would be cool to fly around on the Headless Horseman's mount though.

I've also been pretty busy this week with other stuff, and that has kept me away from playing. By the time I get done with everything and finally get home to relax it's so late that starting up WoW would be pointless. Finding only half an hour here and there in this game really isn't worth it, and with my affinity for losing track of time I know I'd stay up way to late if I started playing so close to bedtime.

Next week shouldn't be so hectic, and since it's supposed to rain this weekend (yes, California does get rain), I should be able to get some quality WoW time in.

Just two more weeks until the expansion. Are you excited yet?

A change of pace

2008-10-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

For the most part I can assume that most readers of this blog have at least one level 70. That being said, I think even if you don't, you probably know enough about the game that you will understand this topic.

Blizzard really has a knack for including well thought out game mechanics, and really thinking through how the game will be played and how to keep the players interested. Even though the level cap seems so far away when you first start out, there is no lack of a means to get there that will keep you motivated.

We start out in our race's starting zone and the levels fly by. On your first character it seemed to take a while, but now you can probably get past level 10 within a couple hours. At this point you also get your first class specific quest and it usually gives you a new ability.

Moving on to the next zone the leveling goes a little slower, but you have a lot more quests to do, and those help keep you occupied. Storylines start developing more, and if the game hadn't sucked you in already it probably is starting to now. This zone lasts roughly another 10 levels and by the time you leave you are around level 20 and many classes get another class specific quest.

Now the game has you. You've spent talent points, learned lots of new skills, and are about to be heading into contested zones (where the other faction can attack you on PvP servers). You also have some options here. You can move to the closest zone, or there are a few other zones in the same level range you can choose from.

There aren't really more quests for you at this point than previously, but with more zones to choose from you can actually quest in multiple zones to make up for it and gain those levels. It's nice to have a change of scenery, and you will be getting them more often as you go.

This tends to be the way it goes through the zones from now on. Some zones are larger than others, and span wider ranges of levels. STV is considered a level 30-45 zone whereas going into the higher levels you run into Silithus which is only for levels 55-60.

Why make the higher level zones span less levels? Easy. That change in scenery I was talking about earlier? Well since the amount of experience needed to reach the next level increases as you go, you will be gaining levels very slowly compared to when you first started. Sure you tend to find more quests to do, but they don't completely make up for the slower leveling rate.

But it doesn't stop there. You also have many more zones to choose from, and the increased speed of your mount makes them feasible options. Finished Winterspring and still need to gain a couple levels? Head over to Silithus and finish those up. On the same token you could also go to the Burning Steppes or EPL, it's your choice.

The Burning Crusade continued this trend with Outland. If you played to 70 you know what I'm talking about. The leveling is much slower. Just look how many quests those zones offer, and instead of the 5 or so levels you would have gained before 60 you only gain 2.

Outland has 7 zones, and you only need to 10 more levels (12 if you went in at 58). This is because it takes so long to gain a level that by the time you tired of the zone you have only gained 2. Luckily, at this point you are ready to move on to the next zone where you can start the process all over again.

Wrath of the Lich King has even more zones, and still only 10 more levels, meaning you still probably spend the same amount of time in each zone, but they will give you even less levels.

This isn't some sort of trickery on the part of Blizzard to keep us into the game. It's about smart game design. What fun would it be if we were still spending 5 levels per zone? That would mean each expansion would only have 2 or 3 new zones, and is that really worth all the waiting?

What I'm really saying is that after seeing how this all works it makes perfect sense, but for me it only makes sense after the fact. I guess that's why I don't work for Blizzard...that and computer programming is much too tedious for me.

When good achievements go bad

2008-10-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Before I say anything, I want you to know that I like the implementation of the achievement system. I think it gives players like me a chance to make some accomplishments in the game that we would otherwise be playing just to play.

Obviously we won't get everything, or even close to everything, but it's the fact that we have something to work towards besides just leveling, and many times it doesn't send us too far out of the way to do it.

There is one problem that I ran into, and that's the achievement that rewards you for getting exalted with all the factions.

I ran into this multiple times recently on my shaman as I made my way through Felwood and EPL. The only thing I really wanted to do in Felwood was get Timbermaw Hold to not attack me on sight. The easy way to do this is to do the two quests that have you kill other furbolgs, one at a southern camp and one right by the entrance to Timbermaw Hold.

Normally this area isn't very busy, especially since the rewards for getting exalted were only worth getting when the level cap was 60. Now with the new achievement I ran into lots of 70s running around the area farming rep. This not only made it hard to complete the few quests that I actually needed to do, but turned the furbolg camps into a war zone.

I didn't get messed with too much, but there was one troll hunter that had it in for me. It was mostly 70s from each side fighting, but I got stuck in the crossfire more than a few times.

On top of that, it was very difficult to find mobs because they were being killed so fast, and when you get to the end and only need a few specific mobs, it gets very frustrating.

Moving on to EPL, I saw a lot of Argent Dawn rep farming going on. That zone is much more spread out in terms of where you can find mobs to give you the items you need for rep, but there are certain areas that are more heavily populated, and thats where everyone goes.

It wasn't so much trouble with being ganked, but having to wait for respawns, or having the mob you need be tagged right before you get there and having to look for another one or wait for a respawn.

Probably the most annoying thing I ran into wasn't even about rep. It was in north EPL at the zombie troll temple where you have to kill a specific unique mob for a quest. I made my way through the mobs to get there and find a blood elf paladin farming items. I assume it was some kind of mojo or something that those trolls drop.

Regardless of what it was, she was rounding up groups of trolls and consecrating them down. I had to wait through about 5 respawns of the one mob I needed to kill because she kept tagging him before me, and the respawn was pretty slow.

He never came after me, just acted like I wasn't there, but he probably knew exactly what I was going after and was probably having fun watching me get frustrated but not able to do anything about it.

It's too bad there really isn't any way around this. It's the same with farming any item. There tends to be a certain place that is the best place to get it and everyone goes there, and then they fight over it, especially on PvP.

On a PvE server they can just keep stealing it from you and you can't do anything about it unless they flag for PvP. It's a similar situation on a PvP server if you are much lower level and they don't attack you. Either way it's frustrating, especially when you are there for a quest and you know they're just farming rep.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and just know that I'm going to be running into this situation more and more now.

Dead broke

2008-10-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

Hit level 30 on my mage last night, got the achievement, yay. I think it's silly to make leveling an achievement. It was basically an achievement before, and adding it to the list isn't going to motivate people any more than it was before. Just seems unnecessary, but I'll take the free achievement.

This also means I can get my mount. Well, I could get my mount if I had enough money. Yes, I know they reduced the cost of the training, but training skills every two levels really takes its toll on your gold supply.

I had about 4g when I hit 30, not nearly enough for the 45g I need to train the riding skill and buy a mount. I figured I'd go to the mage trainer and learn some new spells since I wouldn't be getting my mount anytime soon anyway.

Well, I ended up only getting half the spells I could before I ran out of money. It's very discouraging, and I know it really doesn't help that the mage is a tailor/enchanter. That's right, no gathering professions, and since most cloth armor I make gets disenchanted, I don't really make any money from either professions.

Once I level enchanting enough I should be able to sell off excess enchanting materials that I no longer need to level up my skill. I'm not to that point yet, but I'll probably be leveling inscription/herbalism with one of my other Horde characters so they can send scrolls and I can give all my characters enchants, and then sell the rest, all while leveling up the skill. Will people even buy lower level enchants anymore?

The mage pretty much caught up with his rested XP bonus, so it looks like the warlock will be up again, then I might switch over to the pally.

It looks like the warrior switched places with the pally on who gets leveled last. I don't really know why. It's not that I don't want to go rampaging around the Barrens with my big Tauren warrior. I guess I just find the pally more interesting at the moment, but that doesn't mean I won't change my mind if I decide I was wrong.

Collecting heads

2008-10-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

I managed to hop on my mage for a while this weekend, and he's almost level 30 now, but probably won't have enough money for his mount yet. I was never very good at making money in this game, mainly because I don't go to the AH very often.

Most items I pick up get vendored if I can't use them, unless it's a blue or better. What I might need to do is get an AH addon that will tell me what kind of prices certain items can get. I occasionally sell cloth, but I usually need it to level tailoring or first aid.

It also comes down to time restraints. I'd rather just vendor stuff when my bag fills up rather than take the time to go to the AH, and since my bags at this level aren't very big I tend to run out of room very quickly so I really can't just hold onto something until the next time I end up in a major city.

But enough talk about money troubles.

I finished up Stonetalon pretty quickly and decided to go to Hillsbrad next to get some of the easier stuff done there. I went to the farms and killed lots of peasants, plus the various other NPCs they wanted me to kill. Not only that, but I was supposed to collect their heads as proof. I would expect nothing less from the Horde.

All that got me pretty close to level 30, then I was on my way to the southeast when I realized it was late, so I logged. Next time I will attempt to finish off a couple more quests, then head back to Ashenvale and see about getting some lingering quests out of the way there.

I just love being able to teleport myself to any major city. It's so convenient. I don't have to worry about where my hearthstone is anymore. I left it in Ashenvale and just ported from Stonetalon to Undercity, then flew to Hillsbrad. No long flight to Orgrimmar followed by a zeppelin trip across the sea. Now I'm gonna miss being able to do that on my other characters.

I did manage to get turned into a zombie as well when I visited Thunderbluff, but I was quickly killed by the guards. That's about the only experience I've had so far with this pre-expansion event.

More Horde news to come as my Alliance characters are all parked until the expansion hits.

Dings all around

2008-10-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

Shammy hit 60 last night, making her my fifth to get over that hump, and it finishes off my Alliance characters for now. I'll be waiting to send my new 60's to Outland until after the expansion and the new faster leveling is put in place.

Now it's time to go over to the Horde side of things and get some work done over there. These guys are all at a fairly low level, the highest being level 28 and the rest in their teens. That being the case, it's hard to keep their rested XP bonuses up all the time. They gain levels so fast that the lower level ones can run out within a couple hours.

I'm actually excited to see what my paladin can do. Ever since the patch came out all the paladins have been gushing about how much damage the retribution tree does, and all the other classes have been complaining about how fast ret pallies kill them. I was planning on leveling my pally last, but that might change now.

Of course my priorities all change as soon as the expansion hits and I roll a Death Knight, but I'm thinking that once I get out of the starting area I'll probably want to park him and build up some rested bonus before continuing on to Outland.

It feels sort of like cheating because my DK will be Horde, but I won't have actually leveled a Horde character to level 55 yet. That means right off the bat it will be my highest level character on the Horde side.

Sure it's not like I haven't leveled a character that high before, but those were all Alliance. Now I'll have to learn where everything is all over again, because I know there will be some differences between the two that I didn't even expect.

Things are going to get even more interesting in a few weeks.

Soon, very soon

2008-10-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

The shammy is only a few bars away from hitting 60. Now all I have to do is turn in a few lingering quests that I've been putting off, mainly because they require a fair amount of traveling.

This will be easier said than done. First I have to make my way through zones I haven't been to yet, meaning I can't just use flight paths.

I also need to go to Winterspring, and not only have I not been there on this particular character, but I haven't done any of the quests for Timbermaw Hold, meaning I would be attacked on sight if I tried to run through there.

It looks like at this point I will have to run from Ashenvale to Felwood, do the initial Timbermaw quests, grab the flight paths, and make my way to Winterspring. Sure the quests are below my level and won't take too long, but I'm getting anxious to get to 60.

I'm rather proud of myself that I set such a lofty goal for myself and I will manage to accomplish it, with time to spare. This is really a game that you need to keep yourself motivated for, and setting goals like this helps a lot in sticking with it.

I remember when I first said I would get my hunter and shaman to 60 before the expansion, and at the time I didn't think I'd have a chance of making it. Now I'm getting over that last hump before I get there, and there are a still a few weeks left.

Actually it seems like everyone sets goals for themselves in this game. From raiders trying to collect badges or take down bosses, to PvPers trying to get their Arena rating up to the level they want.

The only advice I can give is don't set your goals so high as to be out of your reach. Sure it's good to strive to be better, but you have to make sure your goals are realistic. Going after a goal that you have very little chance of accomplishing can make you frustrated, and that isn't what you want, especially from playing a game.

On the other hand, picking something to easy isn't as rewarding. Pick something you have a chance of doing, but not something you know you can do.

In my case all I had to do was add a stipulation. Sure I could have gotten those characters to 60 eventually, but I set a time limit on myself which made it that much harder to accomplish. Now I will be getting there sometime in the next couple days and it feels great.

It's new to me

2008-10-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

As I get close to finishing up the plaguelands, I'm noticing some quests that I never bothered with, or had never seen. There are also some quests I remember doing that I can't seem to find.

First there are a couple quests that send you into Hearthglen, the Scarlet Crusade keep in northern WPL. Those guys used to be elites, and on past characters I skipped those quests in favor of stuff I could solo. Now I find there are some follow ups that I never saw before, and it's sort of interesting to continue on the storylines.

I also remember doing some sort of quests in EPL that had something to do with the two Scourge areas (the one north of Light's Hope Chapel and the one just north of the Crown Guard Tower). I don't really remember what the quest involved doing, just that I went to those places at some point.

I did get one to collect skulls from those guys, and used a crystal on them to see if they were the kind I needed. This is a quest I don't remember doing, but it might be the aforementioned quest and maybe it was changed slightly. I don't know.

I noticed this as my hunter made her way through Silithus. All those quests that sent you into the bug holes were pretty much off limits to me. Whenever I saw a quest that involved elites I abandoned it. Now with the faster leveling and subsequent nerf to those elite quests all that stuff is available to me and I get to see what I was missing out on before.

I finally go Questhelper to work too. It hadn't worked since the patch, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. There was no error listed, it just said it was refusing to run so it wouldn't corrupt my data files. Finally I checked yesterday and they had posted a new fix for that situation.

Apparently computers running Vista decided to move the WoW addon folder to a different directory. It was strange, because all the addons show up in both directories, even if I update only the one in the new directory. I guess this is for computers with multiple users as it means you don't have to update the addons for each user.

Luckily in the time I didn't have Questhelper I was doing quests I had done before, and pretty much already knew what to do. Strange how you become so dependent on this stuff, even though you were doing just fine before.

I remember contemplating whether to get this addon because it didn't seem necessary, I could find stuff. Now I need to have it. Having to minimize WoW every time you get stuck to check out the info on quests seems primitive when you've used Questhelper.

Right now I can't think of any other addons I need besides what I already have, but I'm sure it will come up at some point, and then I will become dependent on yet another addon that right now I am able to function just fine without.

Is that considered an addiction or just rational thinking that we should use tools that make things easier on ourselves. I'm going with the latter to make myself feel OK about it.

It gets better

2008-10-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

You know, when I first started this blog I was very skeptical about how it would turn out. I basically figured that writing about WoW would cause me to burn out a lot faster than if I just played the game. I thought that if I had to think about the game any more than while just playing it I would get tired of it real fast.

Well, just the opposite has happened it seems. I think I'm actually more into the game now than I was before. Not that I really play more than I did, I just enjoy it more.

There is so much left for me to do in the game. At this point I have leveled 4 characters to level 60 or above, and one more will be to that point before the next expansion. That's quite a bit for someone who averages less than 10 hours a week on the game.

But I have four more characters to get leveled up, not to mention the level cap is going to be even further away.

The best part is that each character poses a different challenge. Sure you get into autopilot mode on those item collection or mob killing quests, but there are a lot of quests out there that require some thought.

Soloing an elite mob with a druid is much different than with with a priest. Crowd control is different. Druids and rogues can stealth through a lot of stuff while everyone else has to fight their way in. Many characters can't take much of a beating and have to keep mobs at a distance, while plate wearers can just charge in and take the hits.

I had a buddy to talk about WoW with at one time, but he quit the game a while ago, and between then and starting this blog I felt myself burning out. I think getting these thoughts out there, and knowing that at least a few people read them, are what has kept me from burnout.

It's not that I need approval or something like that, I just get to the point where I have these thoughts floating around in my head and need to get them out there.

By the way, the shaman is level 59 now and halfway to 60. Won't be long now. And I should have just enough rested XP to make it before I run out. I'm hoping to push through in my next session.

Shaman is back

2008-10-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

I got to try out my shaman this weekend for the first time since the patch and the new talent trees. Let me just say that she is a killing machine now. Not only that, but there is almost no downtime. Remember when I complained about running out of mana? That never happens now.

Lets go over some of the talents and spells that make this possible. First is Shamanistic Focus. This talent now doesn't require a melee crit to proc, it is just a constant 45% reduction in the mana cost of your shocks. Not as big as the 60% it used to be, but being able to use cheaper shocks without waiting for crits is well worth it.

Next up is Water Shield. This is the mana saver. It not only increases MP5, but gives you a chunk of mana on each attack that hits you, using up one of its three charges on each hit. Not only that, but it doesn't cost anything to cast, so once your charges run out, just reapply. It takes a little getting used to keeping this applied, but even if I run out of mana in the middle of a fight I can apply it and get some back while I'm getting hit.

Lava Lash is a neat little talent. It gives you an extra little fire attack. Not a lot by itself, but it doesn't seem to interrup auto attack, and if you have Flametongue Weapon on your off-hand it will do a little extra damage. Every little bit of damage helps, and at only one talent point I'll take it.

Maelstrom Weapon is just awesome. You basically build up charges on each hit, each one reducing your spell cast time by 20%, and once you get 5 charges built up your next spell is instant (100% reduced). This applies to Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, and any healing spell. Wanna put out some extra damage? Throw an instant Lightning Bolt. Getting low on health and a normal heal would take too long? Now you can heal instantly.

I can't tell you how much help this new stuff has been. I'm blowing through the quest that would have taken me forever a week ago. I'm getting beat on by multiple mobs and manage to survive with instant heals and ridiculously fast mana regen. I can't wait to hit 60 and try out some spirit wolf pets.

One thing I'm having trouble with still though is figuring out how to deal with a bunch of mobs. Stoneclaw Totem helps, but it only lasts 15 seconds, and sometimes that isn't even enough time to kill one of the mobs, let alone the other three or four.

Lots of classes get some kind of fear spell, or a way to keep mobs at a distance so you can focus on one. Shamans don't have much other than the short distraction of stoneclaw totem. Any other totems that could cause a distraction are taken out in one hit.

This is giving me trouble on the Tirion Fordring quest chain. After killing all those beasts in EPL he sends you to get an item from a grave. While searching the grave some graverobbers show up, one unique (who you have to kill and loot) and his four cohorts. They never get far enough away from eachother to not aggro the whole group, so you have to figure out a way to deal with all of them.

On my priest it was easy, just Psychic Scream and burn down the unique while they're running around, loot him and run. The shaman has lots of trouble on this one though. I haven't tried it since before the patch, and I have gained a level since then as well.

I'm hoping my new burst damage, along with the other new stuff I mentioned will be enough to take down the unique and loot him while the others are still distracted with the totem. This is going to wait until the rest of the plaguelands are finished up though.

I'm still not sure I'll get all the way to 60 here though, I'm almost to 59 now, but I know there are only a few more quests left to do here before all thats left are Strat and Scholo quests. Along with a few old quests that require some traveling to turn in I'm hoping to get there though. I may just turn 60 this week at this rate.

I've also noticed that Ebon Hold is now on the map in EPL. It's on the other side of Tyr's Hand, and that's still guarded by elites, but I may attempt to run through and check it out anyway.

Clarified

2008-10-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

In my post about getting my new core hound I think I mentioned the trouble I had finding a boat to Darkshore (actually looking back it doesn't look like I mentioned it at all, but I was thinking about it while writing that post).

Of course, this is because I was under the impression that the boat that took you there still left from Menethil. Apparently they changed it to leave from Stormwind Harbor now. Not a bad change, but a little announcement would have been nice.

And why is there still no boat going to Steamwheedle Port? It seems pretty obvious, and would be very convenient for lots of people. I think the only problem is they have three neutral ports, and ships only go between two. We'd need a second ship to leave from Booty Bay, and that would require another docking point, which there isn't one. I'm sure they could find a way to put one in if they really tried though.

On that note, I think a neutral zeppelin from Everlook to Gadgetzan would be a great idea. I mean, there's a boat between the two neutral port towns, why not some mode of transportation between the other two that are land locked. Using flight points to get across the continents is brutal.

I didn't have much time to play yesterday, so I decided it was a good time to send my shaman in for some training. I got my Water Shield and ranked up my Flametongue Weapon so my off-hand will be up to par. I still haven't gotten to test it out yet, but I'm excited to see what she can do with all her new talents.

I also took this opportunity to travel to various places and turn in random quests that have been sitting in my quest log. I thought they were just going to give a little XP as the previous quests in the chains had given me a good amount already. I was pleasantly surprised when I got twice what I was expecting. I think the shammy is in a good position to hit 60 by just doing Plaguelands quests from now on.

I'm also contemplating what to do about hunter pets. Right now I have my cat still, and while she probably won't be used anymore, I still want to hang on to her. I have my core hound, which will probably become my main, and I have a turtle that I tamed a while ago. That makes a couple ferocity pets and a tenacity pet.

I'm thinking I might need different pets for different situations. The core hound will be for normal questing, but what about going up against an elite? Sure he'll do more damage, but will he be able to outlast?

I will be trying out some different things, but I'm thinking the turtle might come into play in some of the tough one-on-one situations. These guys are built for damage mitigation, and I don't mind a fight taking a little longer if I win.

As for multiple mob tanking, I don't think I'll run into it much unless I decide to go back to some low level instances for achievements. In which case I'll just tame a gorilla and take him in.

I'm not sure about cunning pets yet. It seems like they are more built for PvP, and I don't do much of that. Maybe if I get to that point I'll try one, but for now the other two types seem to fit my playstyle a lot better.

Now it's time for the weekend. We'll see if I can make some more progress.

Talent time

2008-10-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

I usually do some research before putting points into my talent trees on new characters. I like to know where I'm going to end up and spend them accordingly, but it's a little different when you are already at a high level and your points get refunded.

My hunter went all BM up to the 51 point talent, and being level 60 that was the last talent. I also specced out the core hound (yet to be named), and hoping I made some good choices on that one. I went for stamina over armor, not sure how that's going to pan out, and pretty much spent the points in places that I think will complement the way I use my pet.

All the new spells I can use with her are going to change the way I play a lot.

The priest went shadow again. I ended up getting Dispersion, even though I'm not sure how often I'll use it for the damage reduction, but the mana regen intrigued me. I originally wanted to skip it and throw the rest into discipline, ending up with Divine Spirit, boosting my spellpower even more since I took the second to last shadow talent which I don't remember the name of right now. Actually I saw that Improved Divine Spirit adds spellpower as well, and I'm not sure how they compare. Truth be told, I'm not sure either talent is worth the points. Anybody have a better idea?

This patch also took away priest race specific spells. We all have Devouring Plague now, no more Starshards for me, and I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it. Holy Nova is now trainable, along with a few other new holy spells. I don't use holy much, so I doubt those will make a big difference for me, but Devouring Plague will replace Starshards in my rotation as an extra DoT.

The shaman is sticking with enhancement, and while I won't be able to summon spirit wolves for another few levels, I think she has a pretty good build that will fit into my play style quite nicely. I will be putting Windfury on my main hand and Flametongue on the off-hand from now on. That seems to be the way enhancement shammys are headed, and I never really liked Windfury proccing on my off-hand since it has a cooldown before it can proc again, meaning you could be losing a main hand proc.

Haven't respecced the druid or rogue yet. Druid will be feral of course, and I'm happy he's getting an out of battle rez, that cooldown was annoying. Rogue is up in the air as I don't play him much anyway, but I'm thinking he'll go back to combat. I haven't put much research into it yet though, and at this point I'm in no hurry to do so.

On the horde side I actually spent most of my time yesterday playing my warlock. She's now level 15 (up from 13) and will be speccing destruction until she hits level 50 and can spec for a Felguard, at which time I will switch it up. Leveling is so fast at these lower levels. It took less than two hours to gain those two levels and run her out of rested bonus.

I haven't respecced the rest of the hordies yet, but I have plans for them already. The mage will stick with frost, and I'm excited to see what all the excitement is about frost mages and how great they are now. The pally will go ret of course, and I will be looking to Blessing of Kings for some insight into talent builds since paladin trees confuse the hell out of me. The warrior will go fury, and I am looking to dual wield some two-handers, assuming it's better than one-handers.

I also plan on my death knight going unholy. I loved playing a necromancer in Diablo 2, and this seems to be the most similar to that. Somehow the couple names I wanted for him were already taken, so I'm still not sure about his name. Apparently lots of other WoW players also read obscure fantasy books. Who knew? I'll have to put some more thought into it.

I think my shaman is ready to make her way up to 60 now. I don't think her rest bonus is all the way to maximum yet as I don't think it's been 10 days since I last played her, but it's enough now that I can work with it. I better go make sure my ranks of Flametongue Weapon are up to speed first though, I think I skipped it last time I was at the trainer since I didn't use it.

Subtle changes

2008-10-16T09:52:00.001-07:00

Everyone is discussing all the big changes in the new patch, but while I've been playing I've noticed some little things that I'm liking.

First, boat crews are back! Ever since they introduced this, and then took it away soon after, I've wanted this to come back, and I think I actually mentioned it in an earlier post. It was always weird being on a boat with no crew. Who was steering? Now they're back, and you can buy stuff from a few of them. I like it.

Let's see how many people noticed this. You know how when you jump underwater, you actually jump...underwater. Well not anymore. Now you will swim up, same as when you hit spacebar (or whatever your jump button is) while flying. It's a small change, but makes sense, and I like the fact that they went into so much detail as to make that change.

One I'm not sure about yet is pets in defensive mode attacking as soon as you do. When you fire a shot at something your pet will automatically rush forward to attack. Same goes for warlock pets, no matter what spell you cast. The problem is that sometimes you want the mob to come to you. I like having the pet in defensive for when I get ambushed, but I might have to think about going passive now.

There are also a bunch of new spell animations. Warlocks' Drain Soul comes to mind. I never really like that it looked exactly the same as Mind Flay, and now they don't. I'm sure there are a bunch more out there, and I'll find them eventually, I just haven't had enough time to play around with them yet.

Oh, I also noticed that flying between Tranquillien and Silvermoon you fly on dragonhawks now instead of bats. Bats are used for Forsaken flight masters, and it makes sense that Blood Elves would have something different. Do Draenei have something different too? And what about the Goblins in neutral towns? I'll have to check it out.

Hunters go crazy

2008-10-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

As we all know, patch 3.0.2 came out yesterday, and with it came the ability for BM hunters to tame some very cool pets. It also means everyone will be fighting over those special pets that can only be found in certain places.

In my case it was the Kerken, the white core hound that lives on Azuremyst Isle. He's in a cave full of owlkins, and is only level 12, so any hunter able to get the final BM talent that lets you tame exotic pets will have no problem with him.

The problem is how many people have the same idea, and while it may be on the Draenei starting zone, there were a bunch of Horde there as well looking to grab their new pet. One Tauren hunter in particular showed up, but he had something different in mind.

This guy went by the name of LenzBenz (the B is a lowercase beta), and he proceeded to make sure that no one could tame the Kurken. How did he do this? Every time it respawned he killed it, and being level 70 on a level 12 it was a one-shot every time.

Oh sure we got some help killing the guy from some other 70s, and I think he was even pissing off the other Horde guys that were there for the pet too. This didn't seem to do anything but encourage him though because after being killed he would wait until respawn, rez, and kill it again in one hit.

I'm still trying to figure out what his motivation was. Did someone earlier on kill him during taming and he was taking revenge? Did he not want anyone else getting the pet? Was he just being a huge douchebag?

Whatever his reason, he was there for over 2 hours, just killing the Kurken every time it respawned. Actually I'm not sure how long he was there. He was there when I got there, and I stood around for a while until I realized he wasn't going to leave anytime soon, so I logged onto my other characters to see if I could figure out some new talent specs.

When I logged back in an hour and a half later he was still there. At one point we decided to let him tame the thing, hoping that maybe he just wanted it himself and thought he was entitled to it before everyone else.

No dice. He tamed it, told it to stay, and put it on aggressive, then walked away, but not too far. Now he just had to leave it there and it would kill the Kurken on its own. Sometimes he would run around the cave to make us think he left, then come in from a different direction when it respawned and kill it again.

We had about 10 people standing around at one point, Alliance and Horde, and one of them said they reported him, but I'm not sure it would do any good. I sure wish I could understand what he was talking out with the other Horde that were there. I know they were pissed too, but it would have been nice to at least know what idiotic reasoning he was giving them for why he was there.

I eventually gave up, as it was already way past my bedtime, and it's not like I needed it that second. I woke up this morning and logged in to a cave empty of players and the Kurken standing there waiting for me. I tamed it, logged out, and came to work.

Why must we be tormented by people like this? There was absolutely no way to stop him from doing it, and I'm sure it's nothing the GM's are going to bother doing anything about.

It's not even about how mad I was, but more that I just don't understand how you could spend hours of your Tuesday night just doing something to frustrate the hell out of people. That kind of mindset just seems foreign to me.

Well I tamed it anyway, although now I have to wait to try it out, but I'm hoping the frustration was worth it.

The time as come...

2008-10-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

THE PATCH IS HERE!!!

OK, enough excitement, I haven't gotten to play it yet, and I can only imagine how long it's going to take to install it once I get home today. I'm so glad they let us download it ahead of time. I'm going to be struggling with my patience as it is, but if I had to wait to download it today too I don't think I'd make it.

I guess I can't really say anything about the patch yet, so I'll save that for tomorrow, or sometime later if for some reason I don't get to play tonight.

In other news, lets talk about talent specs, and more specifically being able to switch between two different specs. Sounds interesting to me, and is definitely something I would love to have on some of my characters, but given what stage of the game some of them are at right now it won't help them out much.

I think my druid gets the most benefit from this. I have always wanted to try out a boomkin, but I love being feral so much that I don't want to spend the gold just to try it out because I know I will be switching back.

There are more than a few concerns that I have about this being implemented though. I'm not saying I wouldn't welcome this change with open arms, but there are some things that would need to be looked at in detail to make it work seamlessly.

First, it may not happen to everyone, but different specs require different gear sets, and with my playstyle I really don't have time to go hunting for another set of gear. I'm hoping they can make this leveling friendly by giving more variety in quest rewards, giving us a chance to fill gear slots for many more builds. Other than that, maybe a higher drop rate on greens.

Next, what happens when you level up? I guess that brings into question how the spec switching mechanic actually works. If you just hit a button and it changes, then I guess you spend the talent point in one spec, switch and spend it in the other spec and you're done.

Along those same lines is, what happens to your action bars when you change specs? Some of those skills come from talents, and we all know that when you respec those certain skills disappear from your action bar. It would get pretty annoying having to rearrange your action bars every time you respecced.

Right now they have a mechanic built in that changes your main action bar depending what form you're in. This applies to switching to shadow form on priests, shapeshifting on druids, and changing stances on warriors.

I guess I'm just hoping they use this same mechanic when you change specs, as your main skills are probably going to change depending on which spec you're using, and hopefully your talent only skills will come back without having to drag them back on again.

I'm also hearing that they will make this spec change unavailable in arenas. Seems like a pretty obvious choice, as it would basically be changing your team composition in the middle of a fight.

I think the biggest impact will be for instances and raiding. No longer will your spec determine whether you get a spot. You can just say "oh we don't need more DPS but we need a healer? Let me get my healing gear then!" Even easier for shamans or priests since spell power affects damage and healing spells. I might even try out some instances myself at some point if I can just switch my spec to fill out a group.

I look forward to seeing how this works in the future, and I think it will make a huge difference, not only for me, but for people with any playstyle that want some extra freedom in the way they play their character. I just don't look forward to carrying around a second set of gear, my bags are full as it is.

Almost there...

2008-10-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

New patch comes out tomorrow, and everyone seems to be buzzing about it. I've pretty much been talking about my plans for it over the past couple weeks, so I'm sure you're all tired of hearing me talk about it.

Well you're in luck. I won't be talking about that today. Instead I want to give my thoughts on some Blizzcon stuff, like D3 and SC2. Plus I got a lot done in WoW this weekend, so I think that deserves some discussion too.

First, Diablo 3 introduced a new class, the Wizard. This is not to be confused with the Sorceress from D2. Apparently this is more of an upstart magic user, who has gained power quickly and is very arrogant about it, abusing her powers with no regard to what others think about it.

Anyway, the Wizards looks pretty cool, the spell effects are awesome, and I'm so glad they stuck with the same Diablo mechanics of blasting through hordes of mobs rather than the MMO version of going one on one. I'm even more excited about this game now, but I assume we still have a while to wait.

Starcraft 2 had some big news about their development. It looks like they will be splitting the game up into three separate releases, one for each race, which will have a huge campaign (about 30 missions) for the corresponding race. It looks like in order to do this the releases could be as much as a year apart.

I guess they decided creating an epic storyline was more important than getting the game out quickly. The only question is how multiplayer will work. Usually the campaigns are sort of like training on each of the races, but when only one race has a campaign, will we still be able to use the others on Battle.net?

I'm thinking yes, because it would be a huge deal if you could only play one race until the next release. Many people will buy the game solely for the multiplayer aspect, and I'm sure Blizzard knows this already. I'm looking forward to how this will all come together.

Lastly, I made some real progress this weekend on my shaman. She made it to level 57, and after getting a few bars into it she was out of rested XP bonus. Well, I decided it was time to give her a break while she builds it back up again, so I traded all my cloth to my priest and made the final push to break 300 tailoring.

In the end I had to buy a few things at the AH that I would rather have gathered on my own, but I did manage to make it to 300, and then came time to make bolts of netherweave, and lots of them. By the time I was done I was at 323, and that was with some really bad luck at the end. I mean I know once it turns green you don't gain levels often, but I seriously made the last 15 bolts without going up a level. It was ridiculous.

It was at that point I realized I could make Netherweave Bags, and the recipe was still yellow so I would gain a few levels on them. Not only that, but my alts were still stuck with mostly runecloth bags and could use the upgrade. I ended up making 13 in all to go around to everybody that needed one, then I mailed them off. Now they're all outfitted with 16-slotters.

Having done all I wanted to do at the moment on my Alliance characters, I switched on over to Horde, specifically my mage. He's been sitting over in Ashenvale for a long time, and needed some change of scenery. Unfortunately he didn't get any as I had a lot of quests to get done there, but I managed to get almost all of them done and get him up to level 28.

I ended up saving a few of the higher level quests for later and moved on to Stonetalon, but in getting through Ashenvale I had managed to burn up his rested XP bonus as well, so I had to log him out. It was time to do some other stuff by then anyway, so it was a good stopping point.

I think I'll be spending some time on my warlock next time I play while I wait for my shammy to get her rested bonus filled back up, then I will be pushing her to 60.

Oh yeah, and after tomorrow I will have to respec everyone and get a new pet for my hunter. It's going to get interesting.

Patch soon

2008-10-10T11:27:00.000-07:00

Next week the long awaited patch 3.0.2 will be here, and I'm looking forward to having some fun with it. I know this is not exactly a good thing for some people, but I think it's going to make my leveling a little easier from here on out.

First, my shammy gets to summon ghost wolves. How sweet is that? I never got to similar talents with other classes. In order for a druid to summon trees he has to go down the balance tree, but I stuck with feral. I never got a mage up to a high enough level to summon a water elemental and the shaman won't be high enough to summon her elementals for a while either.

I was a little worried about leveling a pally with the only good leveling tree being retribution, and even that wasn't that good. Well from what I've read it looks like it might not be so bad now. I'm not sure if it will still be boring compared to other classes, but I'm hoping it will at least make things go a little faster.

The warlock being able to turn into a demon sounds pretty cool. Only problem for me is my warlock hasn't graduated from the Ghostlands, and with the death knight coming soon it may be a while before I even get close to the level I need to get that talent.

First order of business for my hunter is to get a new pet. I will keep the cat around still, but it looks like I have some much better options now. I always wanted to try out a turtle, but I really do like killing things fast more than being able to outlast them.

I was sort of hoping that more pet families would be made available, but with each family having its own special skill, I think it leaves hunters more able to set themselves apart from other hunters.

I'm not too excited about the rest of the class changes. I really don't see anything jump out at me from them. I guess the mage getting Frostfire Bolt is interesting, and the druids getting specific feral talents for cats and bears will change things up a bit. Those seem like pretty small changes compared to some of the others though.

I guess it just seems like the rest of the class changes and talents are meant to streamline the classes and their corresponding builds. Blizzard knows what the most popular talents are, and it looks like they are starting to figure out which talents are really useless and are looking to change that to get some more unique builds.

For anyone who has done any research into talents and which ones to choose we come across many different reasons why a talent looks good, but may not be worth getting over others.

Many times they require too many points. A talent can be good in theory, but if it requires 5 points you really have to think about whether it's actually worth using 5 points on. In some of these cases the new talents have been lowered to only 2 or 3 points, maybe making them more viable.

Other talents would be very good except that they just don't give enough of a boost. In this case there are a lot of talents that have had their numbers increased, usually the ones that have to do with increasing by a certain percentage.

Some of the current talents just aren't good. They may have started out as a good idea when the game was made, but given how we have come to play the game, there are talents that just don't apply. Sometimes they would try to improve these talents by making them do what they do better, but given that they were useless in the first place it didn't really matter.

I'm noticing some changes to these talents again in the upcoming patch, but this time they are changing them altogether, and they might actually be worth taking now.

I'm being pretty vague here, but that's mainly because I am blocked from most WoW sites here at work and I can't think of the names of any specific talents, otherwise I would give some examples. Either way I'm looking forward to seeing what these new talents can do.

EPL slaughter

2008-10-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

After turning in some leftover quests in WPL and killing some diseased animals I checked my quest log to see what I had left to do. Well, everything left was listed as a level 57 or higher quest, so I decided it was time to head over to EPL and get down to business.

I remembered this ethereal guy to the north of the bridge connected the two zones together, right outside the cave. He has a few quests, and since I need all the XP I can get, I headed up there. His name is Tirion Fordring, and he's basically the plaguelands version of Nesingwary.

I didn't pay too much attention to his story, but he basically wanted me to kill lots and lots of plaguehounds and bats. He also needs worm meat from those giant grub things. I don't ask questions, as long as I get some good XP out of it.

I managed to kill all the bats, and most of the plaguehounds I needed before it was time to log off. I basically left a path of death and destruction in my wake, but it's OK because they were just demon dogs and giant bats.

Those worms don't drop meat much, I'm thinking I'll have to take on some of the higher level ones as I seem to remember them dropping the stuff more often. I have to kill higher level plaguehounds anyway, and they should be close to each other.

Not very eventful, but with all the mobs I killed I did get a good amount of XP, plus I will get even more when I turn the quests in. Next time I will try to finish it up, then make my way to the Light's Hope Chapel to build up some rested bonus.

I'm getting pretty close to being out of the blue, and I don't want to level at the normal XP rate. I think if that happens I will switch over to a Hordie for a while to build it back up. I should still have plenty of time to hit 60 before the expansion. I don't see it taking more than a couple weeks, and I still have over a month left.

I also have some work to do getting my professions of to speed. I have some cloth to give my priest, and I think it will be enough to put her over the 300 mark. She has so much netherweave it's ridiculous, and when she can finally use it she will blow through the levels.

My druid is a little behind on leatherworking too, but I have been collecting leather with my hunter, and he should be good to go pretty soon.

I'm a little worried about my shaman's mining skill though. She still hasn't even hit the 225 mark so I'm stuck going for mithril until I get there. It's frustrating that you used to be able to go up a level every time you successfully mined a node, and now it's only once per node. It's becoming very difficult to get myself up to the level I should at be to enter Outland and begin mining right away.

Looks like I still have quite a bit of work to do, even after I get my characters to the level I want.

Midweek intermission

2008-10-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Haven't gotten anything done in WoW since this weekend, so I will be going a little off topic today. If you don't care about my other interests then don't read on, I understand.

First off, new anime is on the way. It's the time of the year that new shows are coming out in Japan, which means time for me to check out a few of them. It's pretty hit or miss, but I've come accross a few good shows this way (Law of Ueki, D. Gray Man and Claymore to name a few).

This year I will be checking out Kuroshitsuji and Casshern SINS. I don't really know what to expect from the first one, but I have seen the Casshern movie, although I'm not sure if it's even related. The movie was long and crazy, just what you expect from the Japanese, but the action scenes were pretty cool. I'll give it a shot.

I've been stuck in a rut in anime for a while, just haven't had time for more than my regular shows, but if these new ones turn out to be any good they might be added on. Also, the guys that sub One Piece have become sort of erratic on when they release episodes, so I don't even get to see a weekly episode of that one.

Aside from that, one of the softball leagues I'm in ended this week, and it won't be starting up again until next March, so that's one more free night a week for me. I was hoping this would mean another day a week I could work out, but last week I pulled a muscle in my neck and any sort of lifting makes it hurt.

This means I will have more time to do other stuff. The new Fall lineup of primetime shows just started, and I am getting into quite a few. This year the new shows I am adding are Fringe and Kath & Kim.

This is added to my already extensive list, which also includes The Office, Lost, 24, Scrubs, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and Heroes. Oh, and my girlfriend has to record her shows on my DVR, so I end up with Project Runway, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, and Gossip Girl (although I only watch them when I'm forced to).

Yes, it's a busy week of TV watching, but with a DVR I get to skip the commercials, otherwise I don't think I'd make it.

Oh yeah, and I guess my extra free time will give me more time for WoW also.

Why still buggy?

2008-10-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

It's strange, but I don't think Blizzard was able to fully get NPCs to attack each other correctly before TBC, and they don't seem to have bothered fixing it.

I'm not necessarily talking about those escort quests where the NPC you're protecting won't attack unless they are attacked (although that is very annoying too). Specifically I'm talking about the Scarlet mobs that hang out in WPL at the farms and attack the undead guys.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It just seems completely random, and there are a few mobs they attack that just seem to keep bugging out and resetting. I was literally attacked by the same mob 4 times in a row.

I got into his aggro radius and he came running at me, so I did what any normal player would do, I started wailing on him. Well once I got him down to 10% he bugged out, evaded and ran back to where he started, but since I hadn't moved I was still in his aggro radius and he came back at me, with full health.

This happened 4 times, as I hoped to kill him one of the times, but I was never able to. By that time everything else had respawned around me and I couldn't move without aggroing something else so I just ran away and worked my way back in again. Needless to say I was getting annoyed.

I don't think it was a bad decision for them to leave that stuff in there even if it doesn't work right. I like the idea of the holier than thou Scarlet Crusade taking it upon themselves to bring the fight to the Scourge, it's just one of those things that Blizz could probably fix if they wanted to, but it isn't high on the priority list.

Another thing I have been wanting to see, and is finally being implemented from what I hear, is quests that actually change the world for you, which they are calling 'phasing'. Like you escort someone and if you go back he isn't there anymore, at least for your character.

Will they do the same for the old quests? Of course not, but it would be nice. I look forward to seeing how this turns out. I always thought it was a little weird to rescue some NPC just go back and see them back there again.

I guess we really can't expect any gameplay upgrades to old content until they are done making new stuff. The only times I've seen this happen is if a patch comes out and it makes something unplayable. I remember after one patch the furbolgs in Ashenvale would all spawn on top of each other, making any quest involving them impossible.

For the moment we're stuck with what we have until they get tired of making expansions. Luckily it's a great game anyway, and the new stuff they're doing makes it even better.

Continuing the flurry

2008-10-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

Leveling seems slow on the shammy for some reason. I'm not sure if it's that the hunter has such an easy time killing things because of the pet, or if it's the fact that most of the quests I'm doing are at the same level or higher.

I usually try to do quests where I am a couple levels higher, thus making them easier and more quickly accomplished. In the case of my shammy, she's at a point where all the quests are at her level, or some of them even above. It's still much faster than my first time getting to 60, but the hunter just seemed to be able to blow through quests very quickly in comparison.

I pretty much finished up the Burning Steppes. There really isn't much to do there, and the orcs dropped medallions a lot more readily than I remember. I was getting stacks of 7-9 on each drop whereas on previous characters they seemed to drop very infrequently, and in stacks of 5 or less.

I also killed the big ogre and put his head on top of their hill. The dragon killing is so easy now that those big guys aren't elite anymore, and that was pretty much it. I headed over to Ironforge to turn in a couple older quests, then flew up to WPL.

The whole point of doing Burning Steppes first was to get a few levels so I could start WPL with the quests being pretty easy. Well I only made it a few bars into level 55 by the time I was done there, so while that was true for the first one or two quests in WPL, after those first two cauldrons I had caught up.

You can tell when they came up with some of these quests they expected a lot more exploration out of people. Did you know that each house at the farms where the cauldrons are located has a quest inside? I didn't on my first two characters, then they started showing the exclamation points on the minimap and I discovered quests that I didn't know existed. Gave me some extra XP, so I'll take it.

By the time I logged off last night I had completed the first three cauldrons, along with their respective farm house quests, set signal flares in Andorhal, and taken out the first set of Scarlet Crusade mobs.

On that note, that quests to kill that first set of Scarlet Crusade mobs is probably one of my most hated quests. This quest requires you to kill two each of four different Scarlet mobs, which includes Medics, Hunters, Mages, and Knights.

The mages and knights are no problem, you can find them at a barricade blocking the patch to Hearthglen. The hunters and medics are the problem. They are at a camp off to the side of the barricade so they are no problem to find, but they are placed so closely together that it is pretty much impossible to pull one at a time. The problem gets worse with the hunters because they have a pet as well, so most of the time you are fighting 3 on 1.

I have never figured out a good way to solo this quest. In the end you just have to figure out how to fight multiple mobs, and die a lot, or run away. With my Stoneclaw Totem I managed to make it through the quest, but I remember it being ridiculous on my rogue.

After all the quests where you can pull one mob at a time I'm not sure why this one was set up that way, or maybe it was a just something that ended up that way by accident. Either way I despise this quest, but since it's a chain that leads to a couple more, and I need XP, I had to do it.

I also managed to get ganked more than a few times. I'm not sure what level 70s are doing running around WPL, but this warlock had no idea DOTing me up and running off while I slowly died. Rather annoying, but I died close to the graveyard.

I'm getting close to level 56, and EPL will be next up. Now I'm a little worried about making it to 60 without questing in Kalimdor, but I think it might turn out that way. If it comes to that I'll probably do the furbolg quests in Felwood until I can go through the tunnel unharmed, then get through Winterspring and hopefully be 60 before done there. We'll see how it goes.

Announcements

2008-10-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

First, all our honor points are not getting taken away with the release of the expansion. This does pretty much nothing for me since I don't have time for that stuff, but it's a relief for most of you out there who have been saving up. Hopefully not too many of you freaked out at the announcement that they would be taken away and used them all on stuff you didn't need.

Also, with Arena season 4 ending on Oct. 14th, it looks like that will be patch day as well. If you didn't read the 50 other times I said it, I'm excited for this patch. It will be almost as good as having a beta key...well not really, but at least I can finally play around with some of the new stuff.

Actually I think I figured out why I don't have a beta key, and why I will probably never get one. I don't play enough.

While Blizzard makes beta keys seem random, I'm sure it has something to do with how often the player actually plays the game. Why would you give a beta key to someone who rarely plays? They wouldn't provide much feedback, and that really doesn't help them get out all the bugs, it just clogs up the test servers with more players that aren't even there to help them out.

So for now I'll just have to be happy leveling my shaman. She's hanging out in the Burning Steppes right now, where I will hopefully get her to 56 before sending her up to WPL, then EPL to beat up on some undead.

Progress is slower for her than for my hunter, probably because I tend to use a lot of mana healing myself after fights, and eventually run out, and since I always forget to buy water I end up having to just sit there letting it regen. I can't just go from mob to mob all in a row without needing a little downtime every so often, I just need to make sure I have plenty of water with me to reduce that.

If an enhancement shammy is this mana intensive, I don't even want to know how an elemental shammy does it. I guess in that case you wouldn't be going for melee gear though, so you would end up with a bigger mana pool to get you through it.

Still, I rarely use anything other than shocks in fights, and only when the reduced cost buff procs. All my mana use comes from healing, so maybe I just have to suck it up and buy some water, because that mana spring totem doesn't regen that fast in comparison.

I sure don't do a very good job of sticking with the same topic for a hole post.

What to expect

2008-10-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder what people expect to read when they come here. I can definitely see how my blog name can be misleading. I'm not in a progressive guild as many may assume, or have even progressed very far into the game. Actually, the progression I'm referring to doing is leveling my characters.

I write this blog mainly to get my thoughts out there. I have no friends that play the game anymore, and thus no one to discuss it with. When I hear exciting news about it I can't wait to tell someone, but who am I gonna tell? So I talk about it in this blog and a few people read it.

I also don't put a lot of effort into finding out every detail about WoW. I don't know anything about being in a raid besides what I've read from other people. For me that stuff doesn't matter, I have fun just going through the quests on my way up the levels, and when I get bored of one character or meet a goal I set for myself, I switch to a different character.

I know a lot of people reading WoW blogs are looking for insight into the game, and I do provide that, but maybe from a different perspective. I provide insight from a very casual player, who tends to have little time to play, and even less time to do any research into the game.

I like to think I give a different outlook on the game. While most bloggers are talking about raiding, PvP strategies, and how to optimize your talents, I tend to give some pointers on how to keep the game fun, update you on my progress with all my characters, and hopefully keep you as interested in the game as I am without actually going into all the detail I see from other bloggers.

Not to say I'm taking a better approach, just different. I enjoy reading all the theorycrafting once in a while, or all the new updates to talents that just went into the beta. I just don't have time to do any of that stuff, so I stick with what I do have time for.

If you like reading this blog then thanks for your support, and if you don't, well, you don't have to read it. Just don't expect me to do much more than I've been doing, although I'm not saying it couldn't happen.

Not much

2008-09-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

Nothing new today really. I was hoping the patch would be out, but they might be waiting until we get closer to the expansion before they do that.

From what I've heard, the patch will pretty much ruin raiding. Every class gets all these new talents to work with, but we don't really know how they all work yet. Plus it seems the stats we are all used to stacking may change for certain classes and it's going to take some time to adjust.

I'm not really sure how they PTR's are going, but I'm thinking this patch won't be released until a week or two before the expansion, giving everyone as much time as possible to do everything they want to do in TBC before everything is changed again.

Once the expansion comes out it won't seem like such a big deal. Everyone who is in end-game now will be on their way to 80, learning all their new talents on the way, and by the time the get into end-game content again they will have a good idea of how to play they character again.

I eagerly await this new patch, as I have some big plans on how I will redistribute talent points on my characters, but until then I will have to be patient. I'm sure on whatever date Blizzard has decided to release the patch, they have taken everything into account and will make the least people unhappy.

One down...

2008-09-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

...one to go. Yeah, I managed to get my hunter to 60 this weekend, and managed to do it all on Kalimdor.

I guess I forgot how much grind questing takes place in Silithus. I fully expected the XP from the quests there wouldn't be enough to get me to 60, but since the drop rates are so bad on all of them, I had to kill a lot of stuff in the process. Oh how I hate trying to collect 10 Encrypted Twilight Text pages, and the fact that there are two quests that require you to do so; luckily I didn't even need to do the second one.

So now my hunter's quest log is almost empty, except the few quest I have to turn in on the other continent. I saved those for turn in after I hit 60 just to have a little extra XP going into Outland.

This leaves just my shaman that needs to be leveled to 60, and it's looking to be very doable before the expansion comes out. I may even have to add some new goals to my list, such as leveling some Hordies. I'm also going to have to pick up some new pets for my hunter when the new patch hits, or at least grab my new core hound if nothing else.

This brings me to my current dilemma, and that is who I should focus on leveling next. Out of all the Hordies, the mage is the furthest along, and I will probably go with him first, but rested XP bonus gets used up quickly at those levels, and I need a gameplan for who to switch to.

I have big plans for my warlock, but she will have to get to a higher level first, so she will be up next. That leaves me with a choice between the warrior and paladin. Both are pretty gear dependent, with the warrior being more so.

The problem I have with classes being so gear dependent is that I end up having trouble playing them. Warriors just can't survive without constantly upgrading their gear. They rely so much on their high damage mitigation that if you don't get new armor every couple levels you will start having a tough time surviving fights.

This is the main reason I left these classes until the end. I've played a warrior before, and I know they have a few class specific quests that gets you some good equipment upgrades, but they just take so long to complete. They have you running all over the world, grabbing items that have terrible drop rates, and by the time you finish it you are already a few levels above the item.

The pally, on the other hand, is a little more lenient in it's dependence for gear. With their healing abilities, plus being able to bubble, you can get away with more. For them it's more about the weapon, but the depend on it more than most other classes do. In my case I will be going Retribution, so a big, slow hitting two-hander is the way to go. I hope those are easy to come by.

Most of the reason I waited to level these guys until last was gear dependence for the warrior, and just the fact that I was told pally leveling is really boring. This won't stop me from doing it, but I will still save them for last.

I guess I should get my shammy to level 60 before I start worrying too much about all this, but hopefully she will be there sometime in the next couple weeks and I will get to move on to some new territory.

It ain't easy

2008-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Altoholism isn't something to laugh at folks. Sure, we may not be the absolute best players, but there is a big difference between playing one or two characters all the time and switching between 5 or more. In my case it's 9, soon to be 10, although the Hordies haven't been getting much love recently.

See, when you switch characters you may be switching to one you haven't played in a while. Maybe you had been working on one particular character for a while, or maybe you just switched to one that had been at the bottom of the rotation for a while. Either way, you will find yourself having to relearn to play that character all over again.

My most recent experience with this was on my hunter running around killing things in Silithus. I'm used to melee characters and just hacking away at things, then going back to town and repairing my equipment. It wasn't until I was in the middle of a fight and I had stopped shooting that I realized I was out of ammo.

Now if I regularly played a hunter and was in the habit of checking my ammo every time I was in town, this probably wouldn't have happened. Luckily the mob was almost dead and it didn't take long for my pet to finish it off, plus I was right next to town so a quick visit to the vendor solved my problem.

The point is, it's not always little things like forgetting to buy ammo, or runes of teleportation, etc. It's forgetting about skills that you don't use often, but then would have come in handy in that last fight, except that you didn't remember until after making the corpse run. Sure you get more experience with all the classes, but you it's no the same as if that was the only character you played.

I guess it's a trade-off. On the one hand you can be extremely good at playing your class of choice, but maybe not so knowledgeable about other classes. On the other hand you can have good knowledge of all the classes, but you probably won't be at the same skill level on them as the players that don't play alts.

Luckily for me, to solo through content you really don't need to know everything about your character. I find what works and stick with it, and then if something arises where a skill I forgot I had could have gotten me out of a bad situation, I file that away and hope I remember it later if it happens again.

I really don't think I could stick to this game if I had to only choose one class. In the beginning I was a rogue, and it was fun at first, but I started to get antsy about trying other classes. It's not that rogues aren't fun to play, but they can't throw fireballs, or tame pets, or turn into bears.

I had to try them out for myself, and while some may think it got out of hand, I think I'm where I want to be. I have one character of each class, half Alliance, half Horde. Some of them aren't as advanced as others, but I will just continue to work on them.

There is still a lot I want to do in this game, and some of it is specific to a certain class, but may require a certain skill or level to complete. So I will keep leveling everyone and hopefully accomplish those goals if I don't burn out first.

Oh, and soon I will have a bunch of achievements to do as well. They always find new ways of keeping people addicted.

To achieve or...

2008-09-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Oh achievements, how I love and despise you. Like many of the other altoholics out there, I'm a completionist, and while I may set fairly modest goals for myself, my overall goal is the same:

Do everything in the game.

Will I ever reach that goal? Nope, but I would if I could, and I'm going to try to come as close as I can. Of course that will probably end up being just a small fraction of what there is to do, but I'll still aim high.

So now they decide to put achievements in the game, and most players like me are complaining. No, not that we'll never get them all, we know that already. We're complaining about achievements that can only be accomplished in a limited amount of time, and then are no longer achievable.

So far this would include the 2008 Summer Olympics and Brewfest achievements, but I assume if they are going to stick with this method it will apply to other in-game holidays too.

Actually, since most of these holidays happen every year, they can still make achievements that have something to do with participating, but those achievements should be very generic and apply to that holiday every year.

In the case of the olympics, I think the little dragon pet is enough to show you participated, they really don't need an achievement to accompany that. If you want to show off, pull out your pet, you won't need to take up inventory space with them soon anyway so you can always have it around.

I guess I'm hoping they put a little more thought into whether or not to include achievement that can't be accomplished at a later date, mainly because every time I see that I wasn't able to do it and that I won't even have a chance at it I will be pissed off.

On the bright side, this will give me even more stuff to do. I usually make a point of exploring every zone, so the world traveler achievement should be pretty easy for me. I'm just wondering if you need to actually go everywhere, or just uncover the map. Sometimes it will tell you "discovered (insert area in zone here)" but it doesn't actually uncover any more of your map. Do we need these too or just the map filled in?

I guess we'll find out all the details when the achievements are actually implemented. For now I anticipate they will be a good addition to the game, even if some of the details are not to my liking.

Still no patch

2008-09-24T09:43:00.001-07:00

It seems more and more like I'm the one of the few bloggers left that doesn't get a beta key. I'm wondering if maybe it's because the email address I use for my blog isn't the same as the one on my WoW account. Maybe they want to send me one but can't figure out my account name. Or maybe they're just mean and want me to suffer.

So in the meantime I'm patiently waiting for the patch, because at least then I get to try out the new skills and changes, even if Northrend and the Death Knight won't be available. We all thought they would put it out before Warhammer, but that didn't happen, and now it's been another week and still nothing. I'm getting anxious.

I'm a little sad that my hunter's cat will be nerfed so badly that there will be no reason to use her. Oh I'll keep her around just because she's been with me since the beginning, but with all the other pet skills overshadowing the fact that all a cat gets is prowl, I'll have to make a change.

Right now it's between the devilsaur and the core hound. I don't need a tanking pet, I need something that can deal damage, and these two seem to be made just for that. I remember first hearing devilsaurs could be tamed, and I knew I needed one. Then they said core hounds could also be tamed, and then came the dilemma, which one should I go with?

From what I've been hearing, devilsaurs sound like they do more damage overall, but how much more? Is it really that significant for someone who won't be raiding anytime soon? Probably not.

That leaves the question of which one looks cooler, because that is of course the only other factor I'm considering. Well, they both look cool, but in my opinion the core hound takes the cake on this one. Plus they get Lava Breath as a special ability, how sweet is that? So it looks like I will be going with a core hound.

Now, there are three different core hounds at this point, a red glowing one like what you see in MC, a green glowing one like Uvuros, and a white one like Omen (who appears in Moonglade during the Lunar Festival I believe).

Being a female character, and wanting to keep up the facade that I am actually a female (which I am not), I think I'll be going with the white one. I think that pretty much everyone else will have the others because they look sweet with their glowing neon colors, but I actually thought Omen would be a cool pet to have the first time I saw him.

Of course Lunar festival isn't going on right now, but there just so happens to be an Omen look-alike called the Kurken on Azuremyst Isle. Of course that means it will be low level, but with the new patch that won't matter as newly tamed pets will be automatically brought up to 5 levels below your character.

I managed to hop on my hunter again last night and finish up Winterspring, which got me halfway through level 57. I'm starting to wonder if she will hit 60 in Silithus, or if I will have to go somewhere else after to get there. With 2 1/2 levels still to go, I'm not sure the few quests in Silithus will be able to do it, but I guess I'll figure it out when I get there.

For now I'm happy with where I'm at and edging closer to my goal each time I play. I haven't even started thinking about what my goals will be when WotLK comes out, but I do know they will include a Death Knight.

Back and forth

2008-09-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

Switched back over to the hunter again and working my way through Winterspring, after which I plan on heading over to Silithus to complete my trek to 60 with her.

When I first logged in I found her sitting in Southshore, which is where I park characters that will be questing in WPL since it's the closest inn. After thinking about it, I went up and did the first quest of clearing out skeletons and ghouls, but decided that since she was already at level 56 (close to 57) I'd just leter her get to 60 using Kalimdor zones. I figure between Winterspring and Silithus there should be plenty of XP.

On the way I also turned in some quests in Darnassus that I had been putting off, then made my way to Felwood and Moonglade to drop off some stray quests before heading to Winterspring. At this point I didn't have too much time for quests, but I did manage to kill Ursius (who isn't elite anymore) and finish off the Winterfall furbolg quests before I had to go to bed.

I think I stumbled across someone doing the Winterspring trainer quests. There was a level 70 priest that came into the fubolg village, massacred everything, and left, only to come back later and do the same thing. I only wish she had left me some stuff to kill, so I ended up spending most of my time there waiting for respawns.

I also had a run in with a Horde mage, and would have had no trouble with him, except that I was in the middle of killing the last furbolg I needed when he sheeped me from behind and proceeded to pyroblast me away. Can you use Bestial Wrath while you're sheeped? I think I could have taken him out since he just let my pet beat away on him, and the extra damage from BW would have done it.

He knew how to fight a hunter because he kept me close and just used all his instants on me. I did the corpse run back, and was all set to take him out before going to turn in the quest when the priest came back and melted his face. Oh well, I didn't feel like sticking around anymore because I was getting tired, so I went back to town and logged out.

I find it kinda funny when I think about how it would be different if I had decided to play on a PvE server. Actually, it really wouldn't be that much different, as far as my experience goes. Sure I wouldn't be constantly looking over my back, but for the most part I don't run into much of the opposing faction as it is.

Sure there are times when you get ganked and subsequently camped, but you learn how to avoid it as you go. You learn how to rez out of LoS and use trees and other obstacles as cover while you escape. The only players this doesn't work on is hunters because they will be tracking you, but other than that I don't have much trouble hiding from gankers.

You also learn how to find alternate methods of getting quests done. STV was notorious for ganking, but for all those Nesingwary quests that involve killing beasts, those beasts are usually found in multiple places. It's not a big deal to travel another 30 seconds to avoid the risk of being ganked. Sometimes you may have to move on to something else and come back later too, but even then you aren't wasting too much time.

Just the other day I was following two mages around. They were about my level, and usually when players see they have a 2 on 1 advantage they will attack. Well I was going the same direction as them, so I just stayed back and followed until they went past my destination, then finished my quest, and since they cleared the way I didn't have to fight anything either.

The only difference that I see as a negative coming from playing on a PvP server is that you may level slower because of the interruptions caused by world PvP. It's not really that significant most of the time, but it would make your overall leveling time slightly slower.

I don't see getting ganked as a negative, but learning experience. Usually whether you get ganked or not depends on whether you are paying attention or not. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but usually if you don't go picking a fight, you won't run into one either. I now have skills in PvP that many players won't get until they decide to try some BGs or Arena.

After leveling 3 characters past 60 and 2 more past 50 on a PvP server, I think I have become so used the world PvP that it isn't even an issue anymore, I just take it as part of the game, and I don't think I could play any other way now.

It's looking more and more like I will meet my goal of getting my hunter and shaman to 60 before the expansion with time to spare. If that happens I think it will be time to work on the Horde characters and see what they can do. I've never gotten a Horde character past 30, and I'm excited to see what the quests in the later zones are like when you're on the other side.

Day of rest?

2008-09-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

More like day of WoW marathon. My entire Sunday was pretty much taken up by playing WoW. The gf was gone for the day because of family stuff that came up last minute, and since we had made originally made plans for that day I had already told my friends I would be busy. That meant I could spend all day playing WoW with football on in the background.

I got a lot done. And I mean a lot. I had previously made my way to Thorium Point and logged out so I would be ready to start questing in Searing Gorge. From previous visits I have gotten pretty familiar with that zone and know how to go about getting the quests done in the fastest way.

The only quest chain I messed this up on was the escort quest in the east where you get the guy almost to the gate, but he gets shot before you make it. I did this after going through the Dark Iron cave, so I ended up having to go in there like 3 times before finishing everything I needed to do. Luckily theres that hanging block you can drop onto from the surface, so it could have been worse.

I also decided to get the Key to the Searing Gorge. Sure it's not that necessary now since you can fly there, but I remember coming to that gate as a lowly level 12 gnome rogue just exploring in Loch Modan and wondering just what that gate was protecting me from. I even managed to sneak in next to a high level player and make my way through, but when I got to the other side I got scared and turned back.

So I finished up that zone, and headed off to turn in some quests in Darnassus, which sent me to Feralas. I wasn't really planning on going there, but my hearthstone was still set there so I figured I'd go ahead.

Once there I realized I hadn't done any of the quests in the north, killing yetis, saving the girl from harpies and charging the magic staff. So why not do them now? It didn't take long before I was making my way back to Feathermoon Stronghold and getting some easy XP.

I made my way to Tanaris to turn in some leftover quests that I had completed, then headed back over to the other continent. I decided the shaman would take that route to 60 rather than follow in the footsteps of my hunter and go to Un'Goro next.

This brought me to the Blasted Lands, and it was time to kill lots of beasts, and I mean lots. The drop rates for these quests are terrible, and most of them combine items, meaning I needed to keep track of not only how many of each item I needed for each quests, but how many I needed total so that I could just turn them in all at once.

Needless to say I counted wrong a few times and had to make my way back to the quest giver more than once. I finished eventually though, and all the fighting got me some good XP, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Towards the end I flew up to WPL, did the first quest there of killing the mobs in the nearby graveyard, but I'll save the next quests until I have a few more levels on me.

At the end of the day I had hit level 54, and I started the day at 50, so not bad considering all the time I spent flying around to turn in random quests. I also was close to using up my rested XP bonus, and that means it's time to switch characters again. I sure hope my hunter has her bonus filled back up again.

Anybody download the new patch yet? It's huge at over 800mb, but I know it's up to download early so we don't have to do it on patch day. I'm just wondering if anybody finished yet. Mine has been downloading for the past 4 days between my WoW playing and its only 25% done. Is anybody else going that slow or is it just me? It just seems like something is wrong if it's going that slow.