Shamanistic Tendencies! Forsooth!

Being the altoholic that I am, and thinking about my more creative side lately, I've decided to roll an alt on a RP server. The Venture Co. server (RP-PvP), to be precise, as going back to a "normal" server might kill me. I've become so accustomed to a PvP server that seeing blue names on the opposite faction would confuse me. Of course, I've confused myself anyway, due to the fact that I've rolled... Alliance. *gasp*

That's right. I've rolled a Draenei Shaman by the name of Lisael. I haven't really played Shaman before (I'm not counting my little level 19 twink; I've hardly played her) and I'm looking forward to a totally new class and the questlines available to me on the other side. I'm hoping it will be unique enough to actually keep me coming back. I think I'll be playing her in the early mornings and on weekends, casually, to level her and potentially join a roleplaying guild.

I've gotten a role-play add-on to flag myself for RP and write a description of my toon and I'm hoping to run into some other role-players soon. Hopefully I don't screw it all up. ;-)

Holy Light on Horseback and Oracles

Mål has finally earned the right to run around Azeroth on the back of a Warhorse. He'll be taking a short break from adventuring to become accustomed to his new companion and to rest up until his next deployment. Once he sets out again, he'll be returning to Tarren Mill. The Battle of Hillsbrad may be finished for him, and Varimathras gave him a very nice sword that Mål assumes is just ceremonial, seeing as his axe is far better. And although he loves his ranseur that he created, he's decided to shelve it as well, except in very special circumstances or for Blood Knight ceremonies.

Yrovi has been hard at work as well in Scholozar Basin. She has switched sides in the ongoing tribal conflicts there. Surprisingly, she was sad to leave the puppy-men, especially right after becoming so very close to them all. Poor Rejek must have been very surprised when someone he thought was a friend turned on him to help a "big-tongue." Nevertheless, she now sits in the middle of the Oracle camp in the Basin, prepared to begin working for them against the Frenzyheart tribe. It is her fervant hope that everything goes as planned and she earns very good rewards from the Oracles quickly, so she can go back to the Frenzyheart again.

I've Walked This Path Before

But never with such ease. I've been revisiting my alts again, specifically Mål, the Blood Knight Adept (pally). It's almost nice to be in the old world again, seeing things I've already done and having such an easy time of it. Honestly, leveling as a protection specc'd warrior was masochistic. Naturally it's far easier to do so now, with the improvements to the way prot. warriors work, but I think if I were to do it all over again, I'd go arms till at least level 40, or even 60.

Mål is doing well. He's currently running errands in Ashenvale until he finds his way back to Tarren Mill to eventually take out a few wanted men, dwarves, and Ogres, as well as find a captured Orc. He recently sent a letter to his lady benefactor along with quite a bit of copper in order to commission a deadly blunderbuss for a very difficult Goblin. Once Lady Ambassador Yrovi sends the gun back (along with a certain gold loan payback), Mål will head off to Booty Bay to pick up some supplies needed by the Lumber Mill in Ashenvale. His travel is easy and the work pays well.

Still, there are drawbacks. As vain as Mål is, he almost wishes that the helm and cape weren't the only things you could hide. His gear is so mis-matched at this point, that it's comical. He recently recieved a very nice bair of blue, chainmail hot pants from a lovely orc on the coast. They clash with his purple chest-piece, though, not to mention his golden boots. Clown-suit aside, he mows down anything in his path with ease, so I can't complain. Plus, the faster he gets to level, the faster he gets to Outland, then Northrend, where the armor is more inclined to match. Mål was supposed to level quickly in order to learn the nice art of healing, but the more he progresses, the less inclined he becomes to wanting to go holy. DPS is just too fun and we already have a couple of paladins in the guild, specifically one excellent Holy pally that "heals like Jesus." lol ;-)

So it looks like my druid may end up being my healer after all... Xyno is still sitting at about level 20, though, so I'm not sure when that's going to happen. I could also go with my twink-in-progress, a level 19 Shaman. I haven't sunk that much gold into her, and leveling would go very well until I replaced my mostly blue gear. In fact, her "twinking" was entirely on accident due to having a very successful free run-through of the Wailing caverns where I nearly got the entire set (stupid belt didn't drop). Resto shamans are excellent healers as well, although the Druid HoT spells (plus the always-adorable tree form) are a godsend. Still, it would be a healer that is a little less popular (at least in my guild and server) and it's not like she's that helpful at that level bracket anyway, although her Purge really knocks the wind out of a few Alliance sails, let me tell you.

Or maybe I don't actually need a healer right now. Maybe I just need to focus on one or two toons rather than constantly trying to balance all my alts. It's not like they're going anywhere. The only reason why I bounce around on them all the time is to accrue extra rested experience. I wonder how long it takes me to fully burn through 100% rested experience? How many alts would I need to play in order to cycle through all my rested XP? Maybe that will be my new experiment. I'll get Mål down to 0% rested experience and park him in the nearest inn or city. Then I'll move to another alt and burn through the full rested XP and park them. Then on to third alt, etc. until Mål is back to 100% rested where I will start it all over again. Of course, this isn't going to be perfect, since I absolutely refuse to (even temporarily) shelve my main and dearest to my heart toon.

Speaking of my dearest darling, Yrovi has been spending much of her free time in Shadowmoon Valley, Outlands. She's also thanking me every day for not rolling a male orc as a warrior because I have to be straight up honest and say they are kind of hideous. It's they way they run, and their proportions, for me. They are too top-heavy (huge freaking shoulders) and look like they are waddling. Still, I'm making very good progress undercover with those red orcs. I've only been seriously working on rep for about three days and I'm at honored. I'll proably be at revered in another 3 or 4 days, depending on how many eggs I can find. From there, it will be a week and a half to Exalted. That's the plan at any rate. In the meantime, I'll do dailies for gold and attempt to run a couple of heroics. Yrovi really needs the badges for a new necklace.

I've mentioned before that Yrovi planned to switch to the Oracles as soon as she had earned epic flying. Obviously she hasn't done so yet, mostly because she hasn't earned exalted status with the puppy-men (I never thought I'd get epic flight before becoming exalted). It should happen very soon (possibly today!), though, so I look forward to seeing if I can solo Altruis. I've grown quite fond of the puppy-men. I'm actually going to miss them when I go, I think. It's possible that deep down, I'm a puppy-men kind of girl and I'll go back to them. I'll just explain that my little excursion to the Oracles was for an undercover mission, to better understand my enemies. Yes, that's it. Undercover mission. The fact that I'll have 4 new pets in tow behind a rather handsome green proto-drake would have little impact on that, I'm sure. ;-)

Total side note: The title of this blog is "Dark Aegis: A Warrior's Diary." I've been thinking about my posts, about how I write them, and I'm wondering if I should start writing them from the point of view of my characters, as if this were actually their diary. I may have mentioned that I don't RP, not because I find it nerdy or geeky (well... ok... maybe a little), but because when I'm telling a story, I tend to be very selfish about it, and don't want to share the spotlight. I believe it's called "god mode" amongst RPers. So, rather than log on to a RP server and perform badly or annoy other players, I keep myself away. It's possible that I could use this blog to let some of my inner-RPer out by letting my toons speak for themselves. You know, let a little creative writing slip in. I've started a seperate blog as well for pure fan-fiction based on my characters, but that would be different. I haven't started it yet, although the skeleton of the story is in my head, even some written down. Well, regardless, if you see a new link here soon for some crazy fan-fiction blog called Ink & Blood, you'll know why.

Netherwing, MacBook Pro, and the Cavalry

I finally got around to pulling out my WotLK disk and updating WoW on my laptop. I'll have to try out all those new add-ons I mentioned in the last post to see if they really take up less space/are lighter in general. I'm also looking at a different action bar called LunarSphere. It looks like HolyHope or Necrosis, but for everybody. It comes with either a blank template or a class template (or one where you can completely start from scratch) but I haven't gotten around to setting it up yet, aside from telling it to use the Warrior template on Yrovi. Messing with it on my laptop first will mean that I'll know exactly how I'll want it on my main computer when 3.1 hits. I still need to figure out how to tell it to hide the Blizzard bars.

I've been working for the Netherwing faction a great deal, and I'm friendly with them now. Hopefully I'll be exalted with them in two weeks. No one else is working on that rep right now on Gul'dan, it seems, so I pretty much have the whole floating island to myself. No competition is great for finding those eggs as well, for extra rep. So far, it looks like I'll average about 2 eggs a day. I need to do the Booterang quest still, to open up that daily. Looks like it will be lots of fun.

Needless to say, I'm doing this quest for the mounts. I love the way they look, even if they do remind me of BC rather than WotLK. Still, I wasn't able to do the grind when you're supposed to, at level 70. I have to admit, I can't imagine trying to do it at the correct level. All the mobs are level 70 and some of them hit pretty hard. The mobs that can see through your disguise would have been instant death at 70 (I'm able to kill them, but not without using a health pot and enraged regen, thanks to their huge health pool). I'm in no danger of dieing, of course, but I can just imagine how much of a pain the opening questline and these dailies were for those who did it at level 70. Props have to go to them, for sure.

I've filled the barn so now I'm trying to lead the cavalry. I'm doing pretty well, too. Gold is no object to me. I don't stockpile it. It's fake currency in a game and I only get it in order to buy up vanity items and other things I want. I'm no in-game millionare, nor do I wish to be. Eventually I'll use it for enchants and raid-related items, although buff foods I can make on my own at this point. I want that albino drake, though, so right now I'm working on getting lots of mounts. I currently have 29 mounts. Once I bought my epic flight training and my first mount, I took a look at how much gold I earned the next day and decided to buy a few more. I farmed and purchased the mats needed to craft my new roflcopter and outright bought two more wind riders. The yellow one is far less interesting, so I'll probably wait on that one. Once I get the Netherwing rep, I'll probably buy one of each of those as well, but my favorite will be the one I earn, just as my favorite wind rider was the one I first purchased and experienced epic flight with. :)

Finally, yet another guild-mate ding'd 80 yesterday (Grats War!) so raiding is coming ever closer on the horizon. I think the guild will probably start with something simple, like the Vault of Archavon or the Obsidian Sanctum. Obviously the Vault is the simplest level 80 raid instance in the game at the moment and might be a good way to get to know our members, how we work together, and our raid composition. Right now I think we have a few too many tanks, so we'll have to see how that will work, although that might just be a moot point with 3.1 and dual specs. The loot from there is all PvP gear, though, so it would really only be useful (in terms of progression) for us to practice together. Still, that's useful in it's own right, especially for me, who has never raided except as a joke. And as much as I hate to say it, I wouldn't want to have to be the one who switches to dps... I leveled prot. I haven't been in any stance other than defensive for about 8 months or so... maybe longer. Hopefully one of the other tank-spec'd folk are willing to switch to dps.

Needless to say, things are looking up. Stuff is about to get interesting. :D

Add-On Overhaul

Blizzard recently changed the rules a little when it came to add-ons. I don't author add-ons, nor do I understand code or any of that stuff. Lots of people are talking about these changes, though, and I understand some of the basics of what has happened. I also understand that a few authors for some of the popular add-ons have more or less thrown in the towel (Outfitter, for example) while others say they will continue to update, but not to the extent they used to, due to the changes set forth by Blizzard. Some of the changes prohibit authors from asking for donations in the add-ons themselves or for charging for the add-on(*cough*Carbonite*cough*).

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about these changes. I'm able to see both sides. Add-on authors put in a ton of time and energy into their code. On the other hand, their product wouldn't exist at all without Blizzard and World of Warcraft. Can they honestly expect to make any kind of profit due to their "piggy-backing" of Blizzard's product? Or how can Blizzard so firmly and bluntly deny these authors any profit from their work? Work that improves Blizzard's game a great deal, even giving the developers ideas for new, integrated features (like the new Gear Manager which theoretically "replaces" Outfitter). It's a difficult situation.

It's also made me really look at the add-ons I use and which ones I could probably do without (Bejeweled, I'm kinda looking at you...) and which ones I can't live without. I've narrowed the list down to some categories:

• Action Bars (Buttons): I absolutely must have some kind of action bar add-on. The default actionbars included in the Blizzard UI  are clunky and unorganized, showing up all over the place. Plus, I love being able to easily map keybinds. I'll be using Bartender till the day they shut it down, I think.
• Extra Action Bars (Info): I enjoy having the little bars at the top (and/or bottom) to give me information all in one organized area, like my open bag space, my current gold, my durability percentage, my ammo count, etc. There are several out there, but Titan Panels is what I use.
• Threat Meter: Even if I'm not always looking at it at all times, now that I'm getting into high-end content like heroics, I like knowing where my group is in terms of threat and how I'm holding it. Omen ftw.
• Auction House help: I'm currently using the all-knowing, all-powerful Auctioneer. It does it's job really well, keeps all the info I could ever need... maybe too much info. I love Auctioneer, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is a lighter-weight mod out there as an option. I think I'll try AuctionLite for a bit and see if I like it as much. To be honest, I don't use Auctioneer to its fullest because I don't understand half of what it's doing. :/ StdDev? WTF?
• Gear Management: I've been using Outfitter. No more, now, since the author has thrown in the towel, so I'll try Blizzard's default Gear Manager and see if I can live with it. Honestly, the fewer mods I have to update, the better. If it ends up being really bad, I'll search for a new one then. I just think that with the new dual spec option in 3.1, this is going to be an absolute necessity.
• Raid Help: While I haven't started raiding yet, it's on the horizon, almost in reach, and I'll need all the help I can get. That's why I'll keep Deadly Boss Mods. As far as I know, there isn't anything better out there.
• Cast Bars: I used the default casting bars forever and recently got Quartz and can't look back. These are awesome and make my life easier, as they show cooldowns in a bar format which makes more sense to me, as well as a swing timer. Perfect for me, so it stays.
• Combat Text: I've mentioned how I love Mik's Scrolling Combat Text. I honestly don't know how I played this game before using this mod. It tells me when stuff procs and when my health is getting low (or mana, on my alts).
• Inventory Mod: I've been searching for a good bag/inventory mod, and I think I'm settling for ArkInventory as long as I can get it organized the way I want. I tried Bagnon, but it just wasn't a good fit, although it worked as advertised.
• Quest Help: I leveled my first toon to level 50 or so without any quest-related mod. It was slow-going. My first toon? A hunter. Beast Mastery spec no less. I'll never go without some kind of quest help again, even if it means I'm doing everything on ezmode. I don't care. I must have something, anything, to make it easier. Naturally I've been using QuestHelper for ages, but the author has posted that, while he will keep it updated for now, and possibly the future, he won't be adding any new features due to the change in asking for donations and such in the add-on. Due to this change, I'm going to search for a decent equivalent, just in case. I'm currently thinking of going with TomTom and Lightheaded as a start. Of course, Blizzard is implementing a quest tracker in the new 3.1 update that even allows you to use quest items without opening your bags or putting them on an action bar. That's an improvement for me. Maybe in the end, Blizzard finally fixed how you track quests. We'll see.

The other main reason I've begun thinking through all of this is because my current collection of mods use up a ton of memory when I play. At least, I think they do at over 100MB. I'm guessing that mods like QuestHelper and Auctioneer are big culprits here, as they have large libraries that are accessed often. As much as I'm making a "can't live without" list, I'm also thinking about how heavy these mods are, and how much I can trim off just by making a few choices, or going with Blizzard's default UI in certain places. I think the way I'll test all this is by finally getting my laptop dusted off again (MacBook Pro) and install all of the add-ons I think will be "lightweight" and see if it still runs okay. If so, and I like the add-ons, then maybe I'll use them on my iMac as well.

The Daily Grind

I do many daily quests. I do them for reputation, for profit, and for fun. Some are easier than others. Some take more time than others. All of them have a purpose of some kind. You can do 25 a day and there was a time I thought I'd never ever have so many to do that I'd hit that limit. To be honest, I doubt I have time each day to do all 25, even with my increased travel speed. They take you all over Northrend, helping various factions and earning a nice amount of gold. I think I can get around 350 Gold a day thanks to dailies. Well, maybe not that much, as I often load up the AH and my income per day is increased thanks to the occasional letter from the Auction House. Still, it's no small amount. I'll need it all once I start raiding for enchants, material for my professions, and buff foods and scrolls. So what is my daily grind? Well... Check out a normal day for me below (along with my primary reason for doing the quest).

I usually start in Dalaran, thanks to the fact that my hearthstone is set there. Most days I do the cooking quest (gold), grab the daily PvP quest and then take off from the Landing to K3 in Storm Peaks to do Overstock (gold). Then I fly up into the mountains to talk to Gretta the Arbiter in Brunnhildar Village who will give me a random quest (a chance at a bear mount). I'm still waiting on that polar bear of doom, Gretta. From there, it's a quick flight down the Valley to the Sons of Hodir.

The Sons of Hodir give me several quests, especially now that I'm on decent terms with them. I complete the 5 quests available to me (reputation). My favorite is one that just opened to me, Thrusting Hodir's Spear. Yes, yes, we all get the innuendo. The fight with the Wild Wyrm is just epic, not to mention frantically fun, if occasionally frustrating.

From there I fly to Icecrown to do some regular quests for the Ebon Blade (reputation) along with some dailies. I generally pick up the daily from the Argent Crusade, and a few from the Vanguard, mostly the ones that focus on the central Vrykul village (reputation). When I finish up with those, I locate that little goblin and his mechagnome and jump to the top of the mountain and back down (gold).

My next stop is Scholozar Basin and the Frenzyheart. I do their three quests with Dajik in tow (reputation). I do a quick circut of the basin, mining all the saronite I see as well as vaccuming up the various steam clouds with my extractor. I love farming in the basin. It's very convienient.

Once that's done, I'll fly to the Borean Tundra to hang with the Wyrmrest Accord folk and hunt down a drake and ride another (reputation). The second one is fairly tough and I've eaten rez sickness before thanks to dieing at the top of the Nexus on a platform, so while I don't often skip it, if I'm feeling burnt out by now, I may think twice about it. From there it's a quick hop over to Dragonblight to Defend their temple (reputation).

Now, if my bags are full of worthwile stuff, I often run back to Dalaran at this point to empty them out. That's usually when I get a bit distracted and see if Winterspring is up soon. If not, I'll generally take care of the PvP daily (honor/gold). If Wintergrasp is up, I'll go help out and attempt to complete at least one daily there (gold). I'll often port from there to the old world, specifically Silvermoon City. It's quiet and deserted which makes it perfect for working the Auction House quickly. I've only been annoyed by one gold-begging noob there so far. Once everything is set up on the AH, I'm running to Undercity to take the zepplin or a bat to Stonard to head through the gate to Outlands. I fly directly from Hellfire to Shadowmoon to work on my Netherwing quests (rep). I collect extra ore and such if I have the time to make the next day easier, but by now I've usually been playing for way too long. I hearth back to Dalaran once I'm done and log out, ready to start the cycle again the next day.

That may seem like a lot of work, and not fun, but the daily quests are interesting enough to keep my interest. And if they don't... it's no big deal. They're just dailies. They'll be there again tomorrow. You may have noticed that I don't list the daily instance quests... I usually don't try for those except on the weekends. Weeknights are hard for me to get into a group and go through an instance reliably. Weekends have those included though, when I can get a group. :)

The Time Came!

I was giggling like a little schoolgirl last night as I finally hit my goal of 5200 Gold for my epic flying and mount. I had done some farming, specifically for ore and crystallized elements. My zapthrottle mote extractor is one of the best inventions ever. I emptied my bank, vowed to stop being such a pack rat, and dumped all my valuables on the AH over the weekend. Just about everything sold and I was a very happy panda.

I got the last mails from the Auction House as I was exploring Outlands for the achievement (which I got) and promptly flew to Shadowmoon Valley to train up and buy my new Green Windrider. He's gorgeous, and so much faster than my old flying mounts that it's absolutely no contest. While I'll no doubt start missing my roflcopter in a few weeks, right now the speed increase more than makes up for it. I started the Netherwing faction grind up to Neutral on Friday evening, so I'll start going to outlands each day to continue that grind. Zoya will be mine!

I'll be able to recoup my gold fairly quickly as well. Faster speed means faster dailies, faster farming, and faster quests. Doing all my dailies used to take hours. Hopefully I can cut that time in half now, especially since I'll be doing some Outlands stuff as well.

And speaking of dailies: I was able to get my cooking and fishing up to Grand Master level this weekend so I'm eligible for the cooking dailies in Dalaran (and theoretically the new Fishing dailies that are coming in 3.1). That opened up a whole slew of new achievements as well. I think the one I never thought I'd get this quickly was "Skills to Pay the Bills." My fishing is up to Northrend standards, but only barely. I'll have to use lots of lures at first until I get it higher or just wait for 3.1 where leveling fishing will be easier than ever. According to the patch notes, you'll be able to fish anywhere,  you just may fish up junk rather than a fish. Still, every catch (even junk) will count towards skill-ups. Regardless, I'm excited. More and more of the "endgame" is open to me as I continue playing, and only good can come from that. ;)

And as a last little note: we're a stone's throw away from raiding as a group. Several guildmates leveled up to 80 last week and this weekend, and we have another about to hit 80. This is awesome just because I've been having a really hard time with the heroic instances. I'm discovering (unfortunately) that my tanking skills are maybe a little sub-par. With more guildies hitting 80, though, I imagine the need to run heroics to gear up will be increased, giving me more opportunities to practice and improve. That said, I ran Halls of Lightning again on regular with one of our new 80s and finally got my coveted Seal. It's about freaking time, I'm telling you. I'll use it mostly to stay uncrittable at this point, but it's nice to have. I'm starting to stack more stamina now... maybe I'll actually see 30k raid buffed which would be nice. Also thanks to that run, I got Revered with the Wyrmrest Accord so I bought the boots and breastplate I've been wanting. Needless to say, I've upgraded. And it's a nice feeling.

Wintergrasp

Yrovi entered Wintergrasp yesterday. While it wasn't the first time I had done this, it was the first time I had managed to enter, stay connected, and really, REALLY enjoy myself. This was epic. This was fantastic in every way. I'm still not exactly sure what was going on (although I've done a little reading up on it now, and I think I'll be a lot more helpful next time around). This is what PvP should be in my opinion. A huge battlefield, lots of my Horde bretheren nearby, and a chance to really make a difference, even though I'm a tank (yay for siege engines!).

Also, as an engineer (and a Goblin engineer no less), I have access to two kinds of bombs that do siege damage. Next time I go to Wintergrasp I'll be sure to be well stocked with them. What can I say, explosions are fun. ;-)

Thanks to my joining on a whim, I was able to get two achievements as well: the obvious "Wintergrasp Victory" and the more surprising "Within Our Grasp." In the case last night, the Horde were on the attacking side and easily took the keep from the puny Alliance. It makes me feel really good inside knowing that I helped gain us the right to Stone Keepers Shards and opening up the raid instance inside the keep for our side. I might even work on getting all the Wintergrasp quests and work on them too. I even have half a mind to create a PvP spec when 3.1 hits with Dual Specs. Before now, I never thought about PvP very much, certainly not enough to get a spec or gear specifically for it, but with Wintergrasp it may be worthwhile.

For When the Time Comes

I want to be ready, for when the time comes that I finally get epic flying. I'm currently sitting with about 2800 Gold, which means I need at least 2200 to go, plus 200 for my initial mount, the Swift Green Wind Rider. I'm getting there, slowly but surely, thanks to working on quests I passed over (for example, I earned the questing achievement for Grizzly Hills last night and netted quite a bit of gold in the process from the quests). I'm also doing dailies, of course. I imagine I'll have the gold in a month or so. Once I do, I'll be aiming for all of these, not necessarily in this order:

I'm planning on doing the Netherwing quests so that I can fly around on Zoya in Northrend (he's the green one, pictured). There are a few other colors that I plan on purchasing as well, eventually, but Zoya will be my free one, the "earned" one.

I want to farm the mats rather than buying them all, so once I can fly fast I'll probably spend a few days farming in Outland to craft my Turbo-Charged Flying Machine. What engineer doesn't have one of these babies? ;-)

I've always planned to switch to the Oracles when I managed to get epic flying. Hopefully I get lucky and get the proto-drake from them fairly quickly. He's green (my favorite color, if you hadn't figured it out yet) and purple which makes him quite striking. Plus, all the proto-drakes evoke a sort of *Squeal!* "He's adorable!" reaction from me. I'd love to get the mini-pet as well, for a matched pair.

I'll get exalted with Wyrmrest Accord at some point, and the red drake is quite striking. Pity he's 2000 Gold, as I can't imagine collecting all that gold again, but maybe after getting a flyer that can really move farming won't be such an issue.

I already have the Blue Wind Rider, so I'd love to get the armored one from Mei Francis and pretend that he just "got faster with that fancy armor" but he's also 2000 Gold, so he's lower on my list.

Naturally any of the dropped (and therefor free!) flying mounts would be awesome. I have bad luck with such things, though, so we'll see. Most of them come from either extremely rare mobs that spawn in crazy, out of the way places, or from some Heroic dungeon or another.

Of course, all of these mounts being added to my collection get me closer and closer to the Albino Drake from the achievement. I've been wanting him for ages as well. In fact, if I had been smarter about all this mount collecting, I'd have had epic flying a great deal sooner. I purchased so many ground mounts as I hit exalted with the various factions without thinking about how much gold I'd need to finish training up my riding skill. Silly me. /sigh

Still, all of these things keep me playing and questing, and having fun in general. I've yet to get well and truly bored with this game and I can only imagine that Blizzard will continue to keep my interest with each new patch. It isn't (affectionatly) called Warcrack for no reason. ;D

Patch 3.1: Do Want Now Plz

The latest patch notes are out. I'm not going to list all the changes. Plenty of other sites on the net do that, like mmo-champion.com and wowhead.com among others. I'm very excited about it, though.

When I logged off this morning to go to work, I noticed that we were already getting part of 3.1 downloaded, which gives me giggles of anticipation. I may not be raiding, but there are plenty of things in the patch notes that give me joy nonetheless. The Argent Tournament, for example, is going to probably become my new favorite thing to do when 3.1 goes live. Something tells me Yrovi will be spending a great deal of time in Icecrown on Arthas's doorstep, trampling on his lawn with all the other members of the Horde and Alliance.

It almost makes me wish I was on a roleplaying server. Almost. ;-) The idea of fighting in a tournament to earn the respect of the other members of the Horde and the Argent Crusade is so awesome, I have a hard time coming up with the words to describe my feelings. :D Plus, the PTR has revealed that when you become a Champion of the Tournament, you get a new vanity pet. A squire. He'll even show a pennant of one of the factions you are exalted with, if you like. I'm guessing this can change whenever you wish. If there were no other rewards but this little squire, I'd still do the Tournament. That alone is worth it. Thankfully, though, there are plenty of other rewards to get, and I plan to have a ton of fun getting them all.

I'm still working on leveling my fishing and cooking on Yrovi. There are some great new dailies and such on the PTR regarding fishing, and it looks like Blizzard is going to make leveling fishing easier when 3.1 goes live. I've half a mind to just wait till then to level it, but I'd almost rather have it leveled enough to fish in Northrend so I can start on the dailies right away. Also, nearly every lower-level cooking recipie has had the spices removed as ingredients. This is a huge change for cooking, and I'm honestly not sure it's one for the better. You don't need flint and tinder to create fires anymore, either, when 3.1 goes live. While I'm glad they are making it easier to level these secondary professions (especially fishing), I must admit that part of me is wondering if they are nerfing it too much. I mean, taking away the flint and tinder? They had already gotten rid of our need to have wood, which I appreciated, but this just seems... over the top. I'm starting to understand some of the "cater to casuals" QQ on the forums and the web, at any rate. It isn't game-breaking. I'm not quitting over it, and I won't throw a tantrum. But part of me thinks that Blizz is starting to dumb it down a bit more than I'd like. Funny that I would start to feel this way over something as simple as flint and tinder and spices.

Epic Purples

Yrovi got two new purples yesterday and this morning, plus a new companion pet.

She's now exalted with the Kalu'ak (finally!) and was able to purchase the epic fishing rod and a new friend, Pengu the penguin. He's very cute and evil looking with those red eyes. The rod is nice, with a +30 to fishing skill as well as underwater breathing while equipped. Plus, you know, it's a purple. Hopefully I'll get my fishing and cooking skill leveled up to Northrend levels soon enough. It takes time, though. Right now, it takes something like 10 fish to get one skill point. That's a lot of fish, and a lot of time to take. I'll do it, though, for the gold. Fishing can be very lucrative. Right now I'm fishing in the Barrens, for example, for Deviate fish. It's a pity I don't have the recipe to cook them, as they are worth even more that way, but I sell a stack of 20 deviate fish for about 17-20 Gold on my server right now, so it's not bad. I figure I have to level the skill anyway, why not make some gold while I'm at it?

The other purple came from completing the exploration achievement for Northrend. I was mailed a very brown tabard as soon as I finished it. Pity it isn't more interesting looking, as I'd love to have an epic tabard on all the time, but it doesn't really match my armor. ;)

No Moar Facerolling?

So last weekend I ran Heroic Utgarde Keep and part of Heroic Nexus.

I've learned that you don't get to faceroll through content anymore, once you're in Heroics. What's really strange was, I didn't think I was facerolling through the regular isntances, but I was. Oh, I was so totally facerolling on e-z mode. Now I miss it, almost.

My run of Heroic Utgarde Keep didn't go very smoothly, which was partially due to me being nervous as hell, and partially due to me being a moron, and partially due to the fact that I had PuG'd it (mostly - healer was Tyra, from the guild), and PuGs are inherently evil as we all know. We had a Shaman who didn't get away from bad things, and stuff on floor and what have you, so he died often (Tyra was less than pleased about that, as she was constantly having to ressurect him). I had to remember how all the boss fights went. I also had to remember to turn the dragons so they didn't spew fire all over my group (yeah, I forgot a few times). I once was completely lost in thought or had my head up my peekoo, or something, and pulled when Tyra was afk. Apparently that was the straw that broke the Ret paladin's back (they left right after that and I can't honestly blame them; it wasn't my best, shining moment). The Shaman that was giving us issues used this time to just DC and not come back, too, which meant we were down two DPS at the same time. Luckily the warlock who was with us stuck it out and helped us summon two more DPS into the instance. They were great (a hunter and fury warrior, plus that warlock) and we finished the instance without too much issue after that (I think I only got hit with one dark smash, right at the end; I died at the exact same time that the boss did). The fury warrior then asked if any of us wanted to go along to the Nexus where he only needed to take down two more bosses. I agreed, thinking it would be a good way to see the instance, as I never had. It ended up being an interesting run.

I didn't tank. I was a prot warrior and three of the fury warrior's guild mates ran him through and let me tag along. I wasn't about to turn down the free emblems, but it was strange not being the one to get in the mobs face and smash away with my sword and board. His guildies were all terribly overgeard for the instance in Naxx gear (although I don't know if it was 10 or 25 man stuff) and we blew through it without any problems. Good tank, too, as I had stayed in Defensive stance, seeing as I had no dps gear or two-handed weapons, and hadn't changed stances in about 6 months. I wouldn't know what to do in another stance. Probably wouldn't know which end to hold on a 2-handed sword. Regardless, he held aggro, no problem, and it was fun, lighthearted, and for once I wasn't having to shoulder the responsibility of leading a group through an instance. It almost made me want to respec to DPS.

Almost. I do enjoy tanking, and I've spent way too much time gearing up to do so for my guild. I need to just suck it up and run more heroics and get used to the increased difficulty. Once I get accustomed to it, I'll have less misgivings, I think. I'm definitely leveling some other classes to the cap, though, so I can DPS in groups. It looks like fun, and since my main is a tank, I'll know not to over-aggro and steal threat. I'll be a good DPS. I promise. I won't stand in fire or black shit, and I'll watch Omen, and I'll not blame the healer or the tank when it wasn't their fault. I Pinky-swear. ;)

Speaking of leveling a DPSer... I'm using Altaholic (as I mentioned before) to cycle through my alts who have the most rested experience/least experience left for a level to "powerlevel" through content. I managed to get Purah, my Blood Death Knight to level 63 last night (from just into 61) thanks to rested experience and the fact that Death Knights are still so overpowered for Outland content. He'll probably see Northrend sooner than I thought, which is cool. I doubt I'll buy him flying until level 77. Hopefully by then Yrovi will have her epic flying skill and I'll have a bit of gold left over for other things. Mål is coming along as well (he's having no issue with gold thanks to some really lucky world blue drops; found a Sentry Cloak, which is a major twinking item, and I'm hoping it sells this weekend!), although I'm now waiting for him to rest up for another push. Untainted the Rogue is also resting again after questing a bunch in the Arathi Highlands. I've even touched on Eruza this morning, my little troll SPriest, who's been patiently waiting in the Barrens for ages. If I can get her to 20, I can continue her Enchanting training (she's sitting at 150/150 due to level cap).

All-in-all, I'm having fun which is the point. I think today, though, I'll get back to Yrovi for a bit, if for no other reason to do dailies for gold. I think I'll leave running instances for the weekends, so I won't be pressured or ever have to drop a group. I've decided I really don't like it when that happens to me, so I'll endeavor to never do it to others without really good reason.

Altoholic and Why I Need It

I have many toons. Far too many, really. For example, I've filled the 10 slots on my main server with one of every type of class, just so I could try them all out:

Yrovi, my main, a Forsaken warrior; Untainted, Blood Elf rogue; Eruza, Troll priest; Xapha, Blood Elf mage; Mål, Blood Elf paladin; Dahr, Orc hunter; Phedré, Forsaken warlock; Purah, Blood Elf death knight; Xyno, Tauren druid; and Whitestone, Tauren shaman (19 twink at the moment, although not a great twink)

I love each and every one, even if I don't currently play them all. I change my focus about every two months, I guess, usually choosing a pair of alts to play when I need to step away from Yrovi. Lately it's been Mål a great deal, with a bit of my rogue thrown in now that he has no rested experience, as she's just starting the Arathi Highlands area. Not my favorite place to level, but not terrible, either, and I haven't been there in ages.

Because I have all 10 slots filled (plus more toons on other servers), and only one of them is at the level cap, I find it hard to figure out what's going on with each of them at any given time. That's why I have Altoholic, an alt management add-on. It's pretty fantastic. It allows you to see each character's professions, auctions, bag contents, gold, etc. It also shows you how much rested experience each toon has, and what amount of experience they are at before the next level. That's got to be my favorite feature right now. I like the boost to my experience as leveling goes super fast when you're rested up, and knowing which toons are closest to leveling makes choosing which to play a little easier.

It's great for professions as well. If a profession recipe drops on one toon, I can tell very quickly if any of my alts can use that recipe and then mail it to them. If I have a toon that isn't high enough level to use it, the tooltip on the item will let me know how many skill-ups away until they can. I'm able to manage their professions very well, now, and I'm actually able to level them without having to buy too many mats as I can shift things around when I get random items from chests and such. For example, Mål has jewelcrafting. He is currently needing silver, a fairly rare metal, and it is pricy on the AH. I popped on Altoholic, and used the search feature to find Silver. It looked in all my alts bags and just happened to find a large stack of Silver bars in Yrovi's bank. I had forgotten about them, and they've been rotting there. Perfect. He got them and leveled further in Jewelcrafting. Yrovi opened a bank slot. Win-win.

Basically, it's very informative. If you have a ton of extra characters, go get this add-on. It will save you some grief.

Sin'dorei: Mål the Blood Knight Initiate

I ended up going with the paladin.

Mål turned out to be tons of fun to level. Self healing, with heavy armor, and fun lore behind him. What more can you ask for? I spent the weekend leveling him and exploring the mechanics of a Retadin.

He was sitting at level 11 when I first logged on to him. He was in Fairbreeze Village, happy as a lark, with full rested experience. I blew through the quests, taking care of the spire, and the trolls, looking at the pretty chocobos (that I won't get for him) and ran off to the Ghostlands. He doesn't have rested experience now, but leveling still seems pretty fast.

Let me start by saying that I love the Ghostlands. In fact, one reason why I may have so many darn Blood Elves is because I adore their starting area and quests. It's a great story, and Tranquillien is a pretty cool town, with the Sin'dorei and the Forsaken working together. The quests explain that the Blood Elves of Silvermoon are having a hard time convincing the Horde to let them join the club. You see, how can they help the Horde, when they are having problems dealing with a Scourge problem on their very doorstep? Dar'Kahn Drathir is an undead Blood Elf who leads the Scourge out of Deatholm, in the Ghostlands. The Farstriders and the people of Tranquillien are fighting the Scourge and trying to take Deatholm down. And you are needed.

As a Paladin, it was especially fun. Most of the mobs are undead, which means Exorcism is a huge boon (once you get it, of course). I really felt like I was helping out, more than any other time I've done these quests (and this is the 5th time I've done them). The only drawback was that most of the area was deserted by other players, which meant that certain quests were harder to do. A lovely Orc Warrior helped me take down Knucklerot and Luzran, so thanks to you. I soloed the rest.

Yep. I soloed everything else, including the final quest, the Traitor's Destruction. Dar'Kahn Drathir himself. I buffed up with what I had, and went after him. He killed me once, fearing me into some mobs that had respawned, but I learned from it and tried again. It was a thrilling battle. :D I temporarily switched to sword and board for the fight to use the quest sword to take him down a bit faster right at the start, used a health pot, my jewelcrafting healing statues, and my own healing, of course. I used the Tranquillien rep sword for my earlier leveling, but since I managed to take him down, even with his fears, I got a gorgeous sword that fits my look perfectly and a chance to visit Undercity and Orgrimmar and gain us full membership into the Horde (yeah, I know, lorelol). I felt like I had truly accomplished something, both for my character, and for my faction.

The Paladin quest chains are fantastic as well. I've done one and a half already, and am working on the next part of the second one. The first major one, at level 12, tests you against a surprise attack to see if you are ready to become a true Blood Knight initiate. You go to a cave in the Ghostlands, light a pyre, and fight another Adept, killing him. When you return, you discover the source of the Blood Knight's power. They had captured a Naaru, draining it by force, but had lost it when they were attacked. They now attempt to make up for the transgression. You are able to siphon some power that is left in the jailors and ressurect the Adept who had fallen to your blade earlier. You get the Redemption spell at the end. It's cool. :D

The second Trial deals again with your fighting prowess, this time against 4 different opponents. They come at you one after the other with no break. It was fun to do as well, but simpler in my mind. Unfortunately I had trained fully before doing this quest. The reward was supposed to be the Sense Undead ability, but I had it from training. It's too bad that Blizzard decided to do that.

Finishing that opened up the next step, which is the start of becoming an Adept and earning the Blood Knight weapon: A blood-tempered ranseur (nice looking polearm!). There are 4 rare items I have to collect. I have one already and only have to get the other three. They require some travel and some minor dungeon-diving, specifically Ragefire Chasm under Orgrimmar and Shadowfang Keep. No problem for me, I love both those instances, and I think if I'm careful I can solo my way through Ragefire. Shadowfang Keep happens to be my favorite Instance (so far, anyway) so as long as I don't have a terribad PuG, it will be fun.

Well, wish my little Light-wielding Retadin some luck, as I'll be messing about with getting those supplies for the Pally Polearm and questing some more today.

Cat Durid Is 4 Fite! (Or RetLOL)

I'm thinking of dusting off my druid, Xyno. She's currently sitting in the Barrens, I think, at level 22. I think leveling as Feral is fun, and it would be a DPS class that I could respec as a healer later. As per Alamo, "Cat Durid is 4 Fite!"

I'm probably going to work towards this build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxGGsfrd0xRchzAo0Eczb

My other option for leveling as DPS to potentially change to a healer would be a Paladin. I have one created already named Mål. He's a possiblity as well, as I love my warrior and the paladin also wears plate and such, so it may be more familiar. Also, getting a cheaper mount(s) is a nice bonus. He's a miner and jewelcrafter by trade, which might also be interesting, as I've never leveled a jewelcrafter before. I would follow the RetLOL guide, as I have no idea how Retribution pallies work.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm abandoning Yrovi. I still haven't run any heriocs. I'm planning to run Heroic Utgarde Keep this weekend for the first time. It will be my first Heroic ever. :D I'm excited.

I'm also seriously looking at ways to make more gold as well. I'm really tired of having only basic flying skill in Northrend, especially while doing my dailies. The way I do them now, they take forever to do. I've tried to be more efficient by making a huge round of Northrend, taking care of each daily in a zone before moving on. Since the main point is for reputation, I don't mind doing the ones that take a lot of time (Aces High! I'm looking at you here... ProTip: Don't die. If you die on a platform way up there, you have to eat a Spirit Healer Rez complete with Rez Sickness and gear repairs). If I were doing it for just the gold I would weed out the dailies that take ages in favor of the ones that are quick and easy. Still, I'm currently sitting at just over 2000G. I've estimated that it would take me about a month of dailies to make the needed 5000G. That's doing them every day. I don't know about you, but when doing my round of dailies takes upwards of 3 and a half hours to complete, doing them every day seems like too much to ask.

My dailies in my rotation now: All 3 Kalu'ak dailies, all 3 Wyrmrest Accord Dailies, 1 Argent Crusade daily, all 3 Frenzyheart dailies

I'll switch to the Oracles when I get my epic flight skill. 'Till then, I'm a happy Frenzyheart. I never thought those little were-bear-coons would grow on me. ;-)

Glyphs and Mik Do a Warrior Good

How on earth did I function before Mik's Scrolling Battle Text? This Add-on is freaking awesome. :D It lets me know everything that is going on. I think the only other thing I need now is a way to easily see my rage and health in the center of my screen and I may never need to look anywhere else but the center of the screen ever again. Maybe Satrina's Digits (from TankSpot).

I've also glyphed up recently, and I'm noticing a definite difference in how quickly and efficiently I can take down mobs now. I'm running with:

Majors:

• Glyph of Blocking
• Glyph of Cleaving
• Glyph of Revenge

Minors:

• Glyph of Bloodrage
• Glyph of Thunder Clap
• Glyph of Charge

This combination is pretty sweet, I find. My major glyphs allow me to keep the bonus from Blocking up nearly 100% of the time, thanks to all my Sword-and-Board procs, and I've macroed Revenge and Heroic Strike together so that I don't really have to think about it. Of course, that being said, there is the occasional mix up with the macro, where it will attempt to que the Heroic Strike right as my auto attack happens or before the buff is actually applied. Still, it's working well so far and I've noticed the increase in DPS. I'm using PowerAuras to help me know what buffs/debuffs I've got on me at any given time, but it isn't perfect as you have to set everything up yourself, manually. Still, it's helpful. The Cleave glyph hasn't gotten a workout, yet, but I'm planning on running some instances this weekend, so it should get some use then.

I've already noticed the change to Charge. It feels like I can be miles away from a mob and still run right for it at top speed. Very fun, but I'll need to keep a better eye out for other players so I don't accidently tag a mob they are obviously going for. I find it frustrating when someone does it to me, so I attempt not to do it to others. Since CC isn't really used anymore in instances, I feel like the change to Thunder Clap will be beneficial, especially in fights like Violet Hold and such. We'll see how it works. I didn't use Bloodrage very often before, simply because I thought of better ways to gain some rage (Charge?), but now I can get some before a fight, maybe for buffing up party-mates. In terms of the other minors that are available to Warriors, this was my best bet after the other two I have.

UI and 1000 Fish

I have, over the course of the last few weeks, been working on gearing up for Heroics and Raiding. Everything is going quite well, and I'm steadily working my way to some of the best gear I can get (and the best I've ever done with any toon, period). It's all very exciting and very rewarding.

I am, however, woefully behind when it comes to upgrading my UI. I stand before you and very shamefully admit that I don't have any of the core add-ons that so very many other players (especially tanks) have. I'm probably the only level 80 tank in the world that doesn't have Omen. I mean, what tank doesn't have a threat meter?!? It's awful. So, since I'm so focused now on getting geared up, I've decided it's time to gear up my UI as well. Today I'll be downloading Omen Threat Meter, Deadly Boss Mod, Mik's Scrolling Battle Text, Quartz, and something to make my (eventual) raid UI look nice, like X-Perl or PitBull. I haven't decided on one of those yet. Grid is also on my mind, because, really, how much do I, as the tank, need to see?

I already use Bartender for my action bars and I like it a great deal. I use Outfitter for my gear-swapping needs. I'm still searching for a good bag mod (I might try Bagnon). I use SexyMap for my Mini-map modding needs. As a fan of Project Marmot and Ciderhelm's UI, I'm going to get CBH Viewport to see if I can't clean up my screen a little by adding some space above and below. We'll see. It may interfere with how TitanBar works.

I'm also going to have to really sit down and look at my action bar set up and my keybindings. I need to be able to spam Heroic Strike easily as Rage is no issue with most fights now. The way I have it now, I usually click-spam it and this should really be a no-no.

Regardless, I'm really looking forward to all these changes, as it means I'm finally seeing end-game content I never thought I'd see. :)

Oh, and as for 1000 fish... I got the achievement last night while fishing in Feralas to level up fishing and cooking together. I'm using El's Guide, and slowly trudging onward to get these professions skilled to max. Currently, Yrovi is hanging out in the Wailing Caverns catching Deviate Fish until I reach 350 or so. Unfortunately I don't have the recipie to do anything with them, but I should be able to sell the fish alone for a pretty penny. I hope, anyway. :)

My Reputation Precedes Me

As a tank, there are certain factions in Northrend that grabbed my attention very quickly, due to the wonderful rewards they offered to those who championed their cause. For me, there were three that I knew I would have to work with in order to earn the right to purchase and wear their goods: The Wyrmrest Accord, the Argent Crusade, and the Sons of Hodir.

The Wyrmrest Accord offers three pieces of gear that are veritable must haves for a tank. A cloak at Honored, and a chestpiece and boots at Revered. I have the cloak and am working now on earning those other two peices. If you wish to go all the way to Exalted with them, you are allowed to purchase a wonderful Red Drake to carry you high over the snows of Northrend. Do keep in mind that it requires 300 riding skill, though, something I'm actually still working on.

The Argent Crusade offers some great pants at Honored (pants I earned just yesterday). They even have a red socket, which was especially wonderful as it allowed me to activate the meta gem in my new goggles I crafted for myself yesterday (I'm very proud of them. I shouldn't have to replace them until we really get into raiding). At Revered, they offer a nice head enchant for tanks, so I'm looking forward to that as well. Unfortunately they don't offer anything for a warrior at Exalted (unless you're a tailor, I guess), so I'll probably stop at Revered for now.

The Sons of Hodir offer shoulder enchants at Honored, mammoth mounts at Revered, and even better, improved shoulder enchants at Revered (along with 3-person, improved mammoth mounts). I'll be working on this reputation grind last, although I'm looking forward to the enchants.

I mentioned my goggles and such earlier, and yes, I'm finally uncrittable, even for raiding (540+ defense). That said, of course, I don't think I could just jump into the first 10-man I came across. My health pool still seems very low to me and I want to start stacking some more stamina. Part of it will come from gems, and part of it will come from enchants. Thank goodness our guild has a maxed out enchanter. Although I'm definitely ready to start Heroics, even according to Be.Imba, so I'll be looking for a Heroic Utgarde Keep group here soon. :)

Tank LFG for Reg HoL

I've been running regular Hall of Lightning for the Seal of Pantheon. I think I ran it about 7 times this weekend and only saw the seal drop once, where I promptly lost the roll to a tank-specced Death Knight. He was a really good guy, though, and ran the instance with me about two more times after he had gotten the drop, but no luck for me. In all those runs, I didn't see the sword at all, so we'll just have to keep going. I desperately need that trinket. I think at least one run a day should get it for me eventually, especially if I put together groups where I'm the only tank from now on... The upside? I'm getting really familiar with this instance and can clear it relatively quickly with a decent group. If I ever run this in Heroic, I'll have the mechanics down pat.

Yrovi did reach Honored with the Wyrmrest Accord, with all that running HoL while wearing her tabard, so I got a very nice, new cloak to cheer me up. I'm hoping to get to Revered with them soon for the chest and boots. After that, it's on to working for the Argent Crusade to get the legs. Gotta love items with sockets. :)

I've also been working on Yrovi's engineering skills and have managed to get over 435. I'm so close to the goggles, I can practically see them already. I've already decided which gems I'm going to get for it, so today I'm probably going to check the AH for them and the extra mats I'll need to craft it. A great deal of help came yet again from my guildie, Tyra, while I was crafting. I swear, that Paladin is making sure I get geared if it's the last thing they do.

With all of this happening, I've managed to finally hit the uncrittable minimum for Heroics (535 defense). I'm thinking about trying heroic Utgarde Keep, but we'll see. I wouldn't feel comfortable just yet, just because I need more stamina. I've been so focused on getting uncrittable that I've really lost out on my healthpool (I'm hovering around 20200 or so, thanks to my Sonic Booster). If I'm going to seriously consider getting into Heroics, I'm going to have to increase that. I refuse to be a bad pugger and come unprepared or be a burden to my healer. Be.imba.hu says I can perform well in high-level regular instances (like HoL, for example...) so I'll stick to it for a bit longer. Maybe I'll change it up a little and try Oculus and Pinnacle, too, but not till I get that darn trinket. I desperately need it. Seriously.