Archive for the “General” Category

Reputation Calculator

I came across this beauty by way of Kinless’ Chronicles. It’s a handy dandy reputation calculator that tells you what you can do to reach your next level of reputation with an Outland faction.

http://www.wowreputationcalculator.com

Full of awesome win!

Epic Fail.

At the beginning of the year, I started this blog under the premise of balancing Real Life and Warcraft… somewhat of a New Year Resolution I suppose. Now, almost 6 months later, I can’t say that I have made any progress towards striking a better balance between the two.

It’s pitiful, really.

I will take the compelling advice of Part Time Druid and schedule my play time. I’ve known it is something I should do. Although I prefer to go with the flow of things, a schedule really is more efficient, and not just for myself but also for everyone around me.

I am a grown up, after all.

Earlier this month, on May 9 to be exact, I reached the 5k gold mark. Even after buying this bad boy for The Cheap Hubby.

And now, the story about how that went down!

The Hubby’s Epic Land Mount

One day, I asked The Hubby for the millionth time when he was planning to get an epic land mount for his level 65 rogue. For the millionth time he sighs and blows me off. I asked what he’d do if he logged on and magically had one? He thought it’d be funny.

So I waited a few days.

When he wasn’t home, I sent his gnome the exact amount of gold he’d need for his shiny new mount. I logged on the little fella, who was standing exactly where he is in the above photo (not mounted), and I took him to Dun Morogh to buy his new shiny. Then I switched out his mount icons on this toolbars, returned him exactly where I found him (not mounted) and giggled with glee.

I could hardly contain myself when he came back and logged on. A few minutes went by and then he says something like, “Hey… wh-wh-what’s going on here?” He noticed how much faster he was going… LIKE I’VE BEEN TELLING HIM ALL ALONG! I guess he didn’t believe me that it would so much faster than the level 40 land mount.

That was fun. Very good fun.

But I still haven’t bought the 300 riding skill for Selenyx just yet. Good thing because I…

Dropped Herbing for Shiny Pretties

So now Selenyx has 351 disenchanting and 305 prospecting. The goal is to get at least 325 JC so she can prospect adamantite (sp?). No more yellow dots on my minimap that I must irresistibly make a beeline for. Which also means no hurry for an epic flyer. Although, I could use the Cenarion Expedition rep earned from the quests for the druid epic flight form.

All in good time.

So, yeah… how the heck did I level JC without mining? Let me ’splain…

Dropped Skinning for Mining

I did that on my leatherworking rogue, Ingabritt, whom I have not yet introduced. I love her dearly because she’s so very huggably cute! Wanna know why? She’s a dwarf!! Really, the best kind of rogue to play in my opinion.

Here she is dancing under the influence… of the Noggenfogger.

So I ran her around skilling up mining and sending the goods to Selenyx. Let me tell you, it’s really hard to use mats that can be sold for a big huge fat profit. Which makes me start to wonder, “what the heck am I doing powerleveling JC?” Then I remember it’s because I want to try the profession and for to make monies! But to make monies you got to spend monies!

I ended up spending maybe 100g - at the most - on a few mats here and there.

5,000 Gold and Climbing

I think I’ll continue to sit on it. I need a cushion for my AH flipping activities. Maybe I’ll feel comfortable spending it on the 300 riding skill when I’ve got 6,000 gold.

Besides, I’ve got alts to pay for. Ingabritt will be needing her epic land mount in a few levels. Another alt will be needing their level 40 mount. There’s a twink who needs a few more enchants. And I expect to spend some more on leveling JC to 325.

* gok is a reference to one of the many gold spammer eras. Or, it could have been unique to the server I was playing on at that time. They would spam their wares in the Trade channel like this - [item link] 30 gok. Even when they’d get the spacing right, they were still recognized as gold spammers. Sometimes they would open a trade window with you, while you are checking your mail of course, toss a blue in there and repeatedly say or whisper 30 gok? Very annoying.

As I mentioned in the last post, when I dinged 26 I decided against rushing off to train and instead to continue questing.

Today, I visited the trainer and lo and behold I hadn’t even trained my level 24 skills!

*hangs head in shame*

Then I had a look at Ragga’s gear. She’s almost 10 levels above about half her gear.

I suppose these things can happen when you play a character off and on like I have with Ragga. But still, I’m usually much better about being on top of my training! I’m not sure if having level 22 skills and level 18 gear contributed to the difficulties described in the previous post. It definitely felt like I wasn’t killing the mobs fast enough. The frozen mob would pop before the targeted mob was down, and naturally make a beeline for me. With charge, growl, and gore all on auto cast and using tons of focus, Bam had a heck of a time pulling them off me.

I’m very thankful for Lunch’s tip to turn gore off unless in an instance (with growl off, of course). Since training myself up to level 26 skills, things have gone more smoothly and I noticed Bam is holding/grabbing aggro much better.

I also spent those 5 talent points, in the survival tree. I’m simply filling it out as I go, putting talents where I feel they will best help me. Part of my reason for leveling Ragga is to do so as a survival hunter. I am committed to following through with my intentions and sharing my experience here.

A huge thank you to Lunch for checking in to see how things are coming along and for his awesome tips!

I’ll take this experience as my Level 26 Lesson: As a survival hunter, I must be more diligent about being fully trained & well geared and I cannot be sloppy about how I’m utilizing my pet.

So I’m 25 and questing in Duskwood. I ding 26 while I’m killing wolves and spiders (doing a bit of quest catching up). Instead of stopping what I’m doing and rushing off to Stormwind to train, I keep going. I wanted to clear my quest log.

After turning in the wolf quest, I check my log to see if there’s anything else I can get done while I’m out here.

Fiends

Kill 15 Fiends. No problem, they are around my level… should be easy. There were more Horrors than Fiends, so I killed them too as they were in the way. They weren’t too happy about it as they feared Bam a few times, picking up adds. It got a little chaotic at one point and when I had an opporunity to rest, there were 5 lootable bodies laying around.

Not bad. I noticed when I got aggro, Bam didn’t peel it off me as quickly as I would have liked.

Ogres

Checking the log again, I see that I need to retrieve an Ogre’s monacle from Zzarc’Vul, a level 30 ogre who resides in a cave somewhat across the way. Outside the cave are ogres at my level and I know a few are 30 or 31. Okay, I’ll give it a go.

I had no problems getting in the cave, but once inside I died pretty quickly. I aggroed too many - my fault for not being aware of my surroundings. Ressed and headed straight for Zzarc’Vul (wonder what that means). The brute type ogres were a bit more difficult to kill, what with a few resists here and there. I ended up using my Scorpid Sting on them. The casters went down much faster, but hurt us badly!

Anyhow, on the way out, I sent Bambaataa on a 28, aggroed a 30 and 31… frost trapped one, almost died… had trouble with Bam picking up aggro… bandaged once Bam did pick it up… and was very surprised to find both of us left standing over their sparkling corpses.

Very surprised.

Having obtained the monacle, and ready to head back to town for turnins, I checked the quest log once more to see what I could do on my way back.

Worgen

Ah yes, I had yet to start the Worgen in the Woods series. I found one up a hill off the main road and sent Bam to attack. It was a level 28, and once again I wasn’t entirely aware of my surroundings and aggroed more mobs - another 28 and 27. I froze one of the adds while the other wailed on me and Bam and I took down the first target. We took down the second target while the frozen one, who was no longer frozen, wailed on me and then a 26 joined in on the fun!

I froze somebody, had aggro and was running back and forth through the mob, concussive shooting them, and yelling at Bam to get them off me. My health was dangerously low and I was expecting to die. I seriously couldn’t have had more than 10 health when Bam finally picked up aggro and I was able to bandage myself and we finished the last one off.

Thoughts

I’m not sure what to make of these encounters. I was frustrated by Bam’s difficulty with pulling mobs off me when I gained aggro, but thrilled that we survived them.

I really can’t say a Beast or Marks spec would have had an easier time. They might have. I suppose I could respec to Beast or Marks and try to replay these encounters, giving me the opportunity to see how it would have happened differently. But I won’t.

There are variables other than my spec to consider:

• poor awareness of surroundings, i.e. turn mine tracking off and appropriate tracking on like a good hunter should!
• equipped with lvl 24 skills, Rapid Fire may have helped
• lacking 5 talent points (ok, that has something to do with my spec)
• low weapon skill, making wing clips hard to land
• recent changes to the Boar’s charge ability
• Bam’s Gore and Charge are not skilled up - doh!

I’m more inclined to blame Bam’s lower levels of Gore and Charge instead of a survival spec for his difficulties with pulling aggro off me.

When it’s all said and done, and despite my frustration with the aggro issue, these encounters were thrillingly exhilirating. I was on my toes every second! What a sight to see Ragga and Bam, each with a sliver of life left, standing amongst a pile of corpses. Or, in the case of the ogres, two corpses; one 4 and the other 5 levels higher than myself.

We survived, the both of us.

One more 70

The brother-in-law transferred. He’s our first, and only, 70 wearing gear with purple colored names. He and I quested in Netherstorm a bit… completing a bunch of quests relatively quickly, and even downing some elites.

I so very much love the druid class. I kittied and beared with him. His little shadow priest expends large amounts of mana, so I had the opportunity to innervate him a few times and toss out heals here and there. Boy, we killed things ridiculously fast. I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with my cat form’s dps and everything to do with his purple gear dps.

However, bear form tanking is incredible. I loves it! I tank when The Hubby and I farm Strat and stuff, but tanking against elites that are yellow to you is just a bit different. We did the giant rock elite who breaks off into smaller rock guys. It got a little nuts because we didn’t clear the area before hitting the guy, so we got a few adds. But we whittled them all away, both of us with fractions of hp left at the end.

It was awesome.

Oh, and one of the quest rewards was a green Cloak of the Valiant Defender, replacing the blue Perfectly Balanced Cape in my tank set. The nice armor increase jumped my bear armor up to 18k-something and the +15 def gives me a total of 401 defense. Not bad for a green item! I slapped a +12 agility enchant on it for some yummy yumminess.

Our first 5-man

We did The Underbog. Our 5-man group is:

65 rogue, The Hubby
70 BM hunter, friend
70 moonkin, friend’s Hubby (stayed out of Moonkin 95% of the time)
70 shadow priest, their brother-in-law
70 feral tank, me!

This was my first time tanking an Outland instance. There weren’t any wipes, just a few deaths here and there. One beautiful encounter that makes me love the druid class so very much was at that spot where the insects and rays are grouped real close together, making it a difficult pull. I tried my very best to pull just one group, but it didn’t happen and we got both groups, plus the pat decided to join in on the fun. We used sleep and traps for cc, but it got pretty hectic. I was running all around trying to pull mobs off my guildies. I’m not sure in which order they went down, but the moonkin, hunter, and shadow priest were all dead at some point. I barkskinned, battle ressed the shadow priest, and continued tanking my big arse away. The Hubby used vanish at some point to bandage himself and then the two of them, with some bear claws (ouch! or yummy?), dpsed the remaining mobs down.

It was awesome.

I love being able to do things no other class can. Paladin tanking is like that too.

I also love target of target.

Next

Hopefully Zuluhed.

I’ve been reading the lastest WotLK news here, here, and here.

The Death Knight actually sounds pretty interesting, interesting enough to try. The reports say that if your account has a level 55 you can create one. But it’s not clear if the character you choose has to be at least level 55. It’s probably safe to assume it does. I’ve also read that they’ll start in a new starting area. An entire zone jam packed with the same class running every which way, waiting for mob respawns, should be quite the sight!

For some, it will suck to think about facing not another 10 levels to obtain, but 25. I’m sure this will deter them from creating a Death Knight. At least not until after they’ve leveled a character from 70 to 80. Personally, I think it’s a good idea to provide players with some time to learn the new class. But is it really necessary to start 25 levels behind the new cap? Hopefully the new starting area will last long enough to avoid regrinding Outlands.

Having everyone start their Death Knight with exactly the same arsenal of spells seems cheap to me. Everyone and their Mom will be making them. What if the desire to create a Death Knight, already minimized by facing 25 levels to the cap, were lessened even more? What if your Death Knight retained some of its previous class abilities corresponding with its character level at creation? Talented abilities would be included and a level 55 mage would have fewer options than a level 70 mage. So if you wanted to be a really powerful Death Knight, you would use a level 70 character to create one.

There’s a variety of ways to retain former class abilities. We could choose an ability from each one of the three schools. Or we could choose a single 31st and/or 41st talent. If I were a Druid or Shaman and wanted to carry over Nature’s Swiftness, it would become a Death Knight version of the spell. It would still provide an instant cast, but instead of affecting a nature spell, as I’m sure Death Knights have absolutely nothing natural about them, their rune system or a spell from one of their schools would be affected.

Admittedly, even if everyone and their Mom creates one, I’ll be right there in the mix trying the newest Blizz candy.

BIG FAT HAIRY EDIT

So it seems I’m wrong and you don’t use a current character to create your Death Knight. Everyone and their Mom will be running around as Death Knights making it nothing special for a freaking Hero Class.

This will present a challenge to us altoholics. If I want to create a Death Knight, I guess I’ll have to delete my bank characters.

/sigh

Welp, here’s The Ragga at level 24. If you peek at her gear, please don’t laugh at her melee weapon. I’m not going out of my way to equip Ragga, which means I refuse to spend gold on low level greens or farm for gear. She simply levels too fast and it would be a waste of my gold and time. Quest rewards, gear crafted by my leatherworker, and whatever my other characters come across in their travels will do just nicely for her.

Technical Stuff

Ragga has 3 unspent talent points. I’m not sure where to put them yet. I absolutely love love love the increased range with Hawk Eye. My current sequence of button clicks are send pet, hit my hotkey for attack, and simultaneously cast Hunter’s Mark. If I’m at max range, Bambaataa usually gets to the mob before my first arrow. If I crit and pull aggro, I have enough room to slow the mob down with concussive and whittle away their hp until they are either almost or completely dead before reaching me. It’s pretty awesome!

So I’m thinking if I want to BG a bit in my 20s, I might want some points in Improved Concussive Shot. Combined with Hawk Eye, it’d be a great help to slowing down enemy flag carriers and/or their healing support.

Until I’ve made that decision, I won’t be spending any more talent points.

Fun Stuff

Ragga has another pet!

Mama Druid sent her a little gift she came across in the Outlands. It’s a colorful little companion that has what looks like little sparkles trailing behind it.

So cute, and such vibrant colors!

Speaking of pets, I don’t think Ragga’s going to be able to tame any others besides her trusty boar. Bambaataa is just too awesome. He’s almost ready to get his armor.

I just realized something.

When I feel as if I don’t have a good handle on things in RL, I seem to react by attempting to organize my ingame goals and objectives.

I break out spreadsheets, map out professions, specs, character names, the works!

Sadly, it’s a temporary fix.

Every couple months or more I go through a “phase” where I try to plan what my characters should be doing. I have been referring to them as projects, but that’s not what they really are. It seems I’ve come full circle with it. The first time I did this my project was to create a character of each race and class, which I did. However, months later, and after several deletions and recreations I lost sight of the “one of each” project. Another time I was going to create a hunter of each race in an attempt to try all the different pets I wanted. Heh - I’m still working on that one. In fact, spinning my wheels on it as somehow the highest level hunter for this project is a mere 15 when I started it almost a year ago.

Once again, I’m thinking of sorting my characters so that I have one of each class and race.

Except now, I’m seeing it for what it truly is - a very strange way of responding to RL disorganization.

Hmmm… gonna have to mull this one over a bit.

So my baby lock dings 10 and I run her little legs to the trainer in Kharanos to see about getting my blue guy.

Hmmm… nobody has a quest for me.

They should. Maybe it’s a bug. Unlikely. Maybe there’s another trainer around town? Unlikely, but I ask anyway.

Hmmm… the Mountainer tells me:

Warlocks… I don’t care for their lot. Like that Grimrizz who’s set up shop outside the Thunderbrew Distillery. The ale will probably go flat there because of him! Warlocks… bah!

Ok.

Grimrizz had nothing to say to me about learning how to summon my blue guy and you, Mr. Mountaineer can die in a fire thank you very much! I’ll show you flat ale!!

Since nobody around here seems to know anything about summoning my blue guy, I figure someone in Ironforge should.

I run my little legs up to the big city and ask a guard where I might find the warlock trainer.

A warlock, eh… Well, if you’ve got a mind to be doing that sort of thing around here then ye best keep yer demons on a leash girlie.

Girlie? GIRLIE?

I don’t like demons, but a love putting mah axe to them. Ye get me?

Oh boy mister, do I ever get you! I’ll melt that axe right outta your pudgy fingers!

Stinky dwarf!!

At least he told me where I could find a trainer. And guess what? Turns out even the trainer in Ironforge won’t speak to me about learning how to summon my blue guy. Luckily, there’s a gnome warlock, one can only assume, by the name of Lago Blackwrench who just happens to be standing around with an explanation.

Hmph. Times past, all warlocks in Khaz Modan were trained under the auspices of the masters of Gnomeregan, but now that we’ve all been forced to relocate into this rat’s hole in Ironforge, and Magni’s decided to keep a careful watch on us, we’re forced to send our novices to Stormwind for training.

Luckily, Gakin’s no slouch, so you’ll still learn what you need to know, but it burns my blood!

Anyways, you’ll find Gakin in the basement of the Slaughtered Lamb in Stormwind.

Oy yoy yoy! All this running around is wearing out my little legs!

So I hop the tram to Stormwind and find this Gakin.

Sent by Blackwrench, were you? Damn warlocks in Ironforge need to get things sorted out. There’s only so much room and so many teachers in Stormwind. With all the increased traffic, we’re sure to attract attention sooner or later.

That’s unfortunate for you Gakin. Now can you please teach me how to summon my blue guy? What?! You want me to kill a girl for a stupid necklace? You have got to be kidding me.

After all the trouble I’ve been through, Mr. Blue Guy had better be so worth it.