Yrovi Says Hi

Managed to jump on WoW this weekend for a few hours, including my recently ignored main. Yrovi worked on some Argent Tourney stuff, then tried to hop over to Outlands to fly to Shadowmoon valley and see those Netherwing dragons. Unfortunately, she didn't actually get that far. I was interrupted on the way, having to stop in Terrokar, so that was a little unfortunate.

Still, she's on her way, so when I log on her again, I'll head to Shadowmoon to do more undercover work. I figure I have a week's worth of dailies to still do to get exalted. I may try to do the cannon questline in order to speed it up a touch, but the mats needed are a pain the behind to get, I think. We'll see. I need those dragons for the 50 mount achievement (bought the white skeletal warhorse from the Argent Tourney, so I think I still need 19 more... it's sexy). I need to speed it up anyway, seeing as patch 3.2 is going to expand the tourney again. I'm always falling behind with this stuff.

Forgot just how much gold I have thanks to dailies on Yrovi. I've been playing on ED, which has more or less been a complete re-roll for me, trying to figure out the market and such, and it's shocking to realize I have around 2k gold available, suddenly. I've also been trying to get enough materials to craft a sweet tanking gun using my neutered profession, as it's something I could really use for stats and such. Too bad the mats are crazy expensive or I'd farm more in order to sell the guns for profit. It'll require a farming run in Wintergrasp for eternals, though, soon. I need water and air (15 of each, damn) for the gun. I have the titanium (10 bars needed) thanks to a good price on the AH, as well as the saronite (easy to farm, had tons of that, needed 20 bars), and just need to snag a frozen orb (either from a heroic run or from the AH). The final part is a vendor item, so that'll be that.

I'll get a nice, big Stamina gem for the gun once it's done (would love a Stormjewel, but too expensive and I'm not that lucky). I've got to increase my health pool somehow, as I'm still terribly lacking in that department. I'm also tempted to buy the Troll axe from the tournament as an upgrade to my current one. The Red Sword is obviously better, but that relies on a drop and one from a Heroic I don't think I'm ready for, seeing as I haven't run any 5-man content in awhile. I practically need to start over again and run the basic heroics for badges and such before I do anything else. Something like Utgarde Keep and the Nexus, easy stuff to get back in the groove, with nice, easy badges. There are still plenty of upgrades in these instances, too, when it comes to drops, especially if I want to flesh out my off-set, as it's comprised of mostly quest stuff atm. At least the Sen'jin axe would look freaking sweet. ;-)

I think I even have the tokens for it, even with my mount purchase. If I don't I will in a couple days of work, no problem. One day, if I manage to get a group for the [Threat From Above] quest. The one good thing about taking a long break from Yrovi is that the Tourney quests are still interesting and fun. They were getting stale earlier.

Seona also leveled and is sitting at 37, nearly 38, in Theramore. Keeping her rested, I think I'll make 40 by the weekend. Hopefully then I can take an hour or so to speak with the recruiter and make my way into my dream guild. :) All my other toons are taking a break till this happens, I think, aside from Opalandra. She also leveled this weekend. I think bouncing between these toons will keep the two leveling ones rested well enough to make their journey short and sweet. Also, short quests I can complete in the morning before work? Yes, please, give more.

Gold in Game, and How I View It

You may notice in my "What I Read" column on the side, I have a link to one Greedy Goblin called Gevlon. He's someone who enjoys making Gold in World of Warcraft, through the AH (which is by far the best way to do so), and has a certain philosophy about the game itself and the players in it. He's reached the gold cap before, though he's recently transferred to a new server to start again, and the transfer cap is 20,000 Gold, so he's back down again.

While I don't always agree with his views, I always enjoy reading his posts, both for his gold-making theories and ideas that he shares and for his thoughts on the game in general. In fact, he's recently joind a raiding guild, something I thought he'd never do, on his terms, as a raider and "banker," and it's gotten me thinking about how I make my own gold in game.

Unlike Gevlon, I thoroughly enjoy the vanity items in the game, especially mounts (he believes, and perhaps rightfully so, that they're not only a waste of gold, but of time and such, too). I know they don't add to my tanking abilities, or dps, or any other gameplay mechanic, but they're fun to collect. They also cost gold, and quite a bit of it once you get higher up the skill ladder. My very first toon I ever had was terrible, because I didn't understand the game mechanics as a newbie, and because I didn't know how to make gold or keep it on hand for things that were important, like repairs, training, and respeccing, as I spent it all on shiny things I saw.

I've learned that the AH is your friend, although it can also be a terrible temptation. I bought many of my upgrades when I hit 80, which is a good thing, even though at the time I didn't have epic flying, which I also wanted very badly. In fact, the flying skill was what drove me to discover better ways to make gold in game (thus finding the Goblin to start with). His views, though, have certainly made me stop and think about what I spend gold on and why I do so in the first place.

Yrovi spends gold on gear (when it's appropriate), gems and enchants, mounts and pets, and very occasionally on something for an achievement, if possible. I've recently rerolled on a new server, wanting to start over again to experience the game and story from the Alliance point of view. From what I've learned, both from experience and the Goblin, I knew I'd need a banking toon, an initial investment, and a certain mindset to keep myself from spending any gold I get on frivolus things (which has been the hardest of the three, to be honest). It's one thing to buy ten mounts in one day when you're at level cap with nothing better to do than dailies and working the AH. It's another thing entirely to "waste" gold while leveling, especially if the new toon is going to be a second "Main".

Seona, as a paladin, has certain perks. Her first mount, for example, was a trained ability, and it came with the initial riding skill free of charge. That's a huge boost right there, as the faster I move around, the better off I'll be (faster leveling/farming for mats/etc.). Even better, though, is my Death Knight banker. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned all the great reasons why a DK is one of the best banking toons ever in a previous post, so I won't do it again. I also mentioned that my DK, Ziir, will become a "farmer" going after plants and minerals/ores for my other toons. I'll take some time this week to level Seona further and begin his farming and skill-ups in the hopes that I can make some gold. Seona is going to become a jewelcrafter after all, now, so she'll need ore and gems.

Thanks to her mining and affinity for finding and getting to treasure chests, she has a small stockpile of low-level gems already. I'll follow a powerleveling guide to jewelcrafting to get her started as most of the low-level goods aren't worth keeping around. She'll drop Skinning, of course, as I have a hunter and a rogue with the same skill, and the hunter isn't that far behind on skinning. Once I have my two farmers ready to go (DK and Hunter), I'll spend a bit of time each day stockpiling goods for Seona.

I've even thought about having her get two crafting professions (blacksmithing and jewelcrafting), but that's probably too much strain this early in the game, though not if I can manage to find a niche market and stick with it. Of course, I don't even have 100G all together on this server, and I really need to start somewhere. Maybe I'll read over Gevlon's posts again to see what he did when he was challenged to start on a new server as a young toon for inspiration.

Alts, Their Jobs, and a Banker Gone

I am an altoholic. I've fessed up to it before, heck, I'm pretty okay with it, even proud. I love all my little toons, even if I don't get to play them often. I should say, though, that I make my alts work.

That's right. Every toon has at least one job, most have two. They may not be the best cooks, or know where the good fishing spots are, or be versed in field medicine, but they do have jobs. I try to match their skills to something that makes sense, something they will enjoy, but in the end all of them have to work for themselves and for the others, including Yrovi. Usually Yrovi supplies them materials, and they work diligently, doing their best to become masters of their crafts. Some of them are doing quite well at this. Others are lagging, but they have their reasons.

My former banking alt has thrown in the towel, though. She is a troll priest and demands the chance to get out of Orgrimmar once in a while. So not too long ago, she revolted, dropped everything she was doing, and ran to the Alchemist and Engineering trainers. She is now somewhere in the Barrens, possibly fighting quillboar, I'm honestly not sure. If you're there, and see a troll priest by the name of Eruza cackling maniacally with explosives and strange elixers, keep your distance... she's not quite herself.

My other toons tend to fall in line, though. Purah, my death knight, is a Scribe (something he did when he still lived, you know) and he is very good at finding plants with pigments he can use. Mål, the paladin adept, comes from a fairly well-to-do background, and knows how to craft jewelery as well as procure the precious stones and metals he needs to fashion his beautiful and useful pieces of shiny art. Untainted the rogue can skin just about any beast she comes across and is fairly deft at fashioning armor from their hides. My mage, Xapha, is an enchanter and tailor, creating her own robes and magical wands, as well as helping out the other toons with disposing of unneeded magical items. Her bags come in handy as well. A druid in my employ, Xyno, can also skin animals and knows where to find many rare plants for milling and potions. She's one of my suppliers. In fact, all of my toons can do just about anything, except blacksmithing. I leave that to professionals.

Unfortunately, having all these professions means that many materials are needed. Yes, some of them can gather their own, but most materials are very expensive and take a great deal of time to gather together. I find that I have less and less time to put forward to simply leveling professions, especially when they are able to progress along their chosen paths so very quickly. For example, Mål is already level 35, well on his way up the ladder, and so busy working for the Blood Knights (or anyone else willing to pay for his time and services) that he has had little time to focus on making rings or amulets. The fact that they only get broken down into their magical components for Xapha to use in her enchanting doesn't help his ego, either. And this is just one example. All of my little workers are having difficulty keeping their jobs up to date.

The worst part? There isn't really a solution, other than to make more time: time to gather ore, herbs, and skins; time to do dailies for gold to pay for all the little things you can't get elsewhere, like thread for Xapha; time to take Yrovi through old dungeons to get random green gear and cloth... and since Eruza went crazy and left her all-important post of distribution hub, I need to choose a new banker, and preferably one who won't go insane in the next few months.

Of course, once I do, I'll need to stock them with gold, buy them extra slots in the bank, buy big bags (or get xapha up to snuff and make big bags), and get them familiar with the auction house. That's more gold needed, as an investment this time. *sigh*

I can honestly say, at least, that the major purchases I needed to make on Yrovi are taken care of. She's got everything any adventurer could want: the best flight training, for Outland and the cold Northrend, an expanded mind (dual spec), and good-sized bags to hold all her needed items. So if I'm going to create a new banker, now is the time. Perhaps my gatherer druid would be good? Or my shaman twink who I only occasionally send into battle? Or maybe my hunter, who hasn't done much but slack off in Ratchet with the goblins? Tough decision, but one that needs to be made, since having to constantly go back and forth myself is getting old. We'll just have to wait to see what the future holds, though.

The Terrace Two-Man and Level 35

I had a great deal of fun tonight, running a two-manned Magister's Terrace with our resident holy paladin, Tyra. That's right, just the two of us. I had never gotten a chance to see it before, so it was a unique experience. I have to admit, I've become just a bit burned out on end-game type stuff, so running something just for fun, without any reward other than seeing something I hadn't seen before and being able to take part in some lore (i.e. seeing Kael'thas, even in the poor shape he's in within the Terrace). Too bad the little pet didn't drop, but that's probably asking too much anyway. Regardless, I learned a thing or two, enjoyed myself, and earned two achievements tonight: Magister's Terrace and Got My Mind on My Money.

Speaking of old content, I've also been running Scholomance for Dark Runes and Argent Dawn rep (and jumping over to Stratholme for a chance at the mount) with Yrovi and that has it's own brand of fun. Pwning these instances is easy at level 80, but I had never done Scholomance before, so it was totally new to me. I've also figured out how to get to the Baron in Stratholme, but it still bugs out so that I can't get out of the instance. I have to port. My runs for the mount will be limited to one, or maybe two a day due to this if I ever get serious about it. I probably won't, though, seeing as I'm a Forsaken and our mounts look just like his already. Still, it's a cool instance and I need to be as familiar with it as possible. For later, when I have to run through on my Pally.

I'm farming those Dark Runes for a reason, you know. ;-) When Mål, my little ret pally, is level 60, I plan to go ahead and do the epic mount questline, rather than try to buy the summon Charger spell from the trainer. I have my reasons, the least of which is that it should be cheaper overall that way, plus you earn your Blood Knight tabard with the quest and it is the only way to get that particular tabard. Mål must have it! He just ding'd level 35 this evening, so there is still a great deal of time left before I need all these things, but better to have it sitting in the bank, ready to go, than to have to put him on hold at level 59 or so. I get about a level a day when I log on to him at the moment, so he's well on his way to starting that questline.

The questline requires various items of different qualities, and most of it is farmable, so Yrovi has been hard at work preparing. The added bonus of Argent Dawn rep is just icing on the cake, seeing as there is a title involved if you get exalted with both Argent factions. Yrovi must have it! Too bad the Argent Tournament in 3.1 will essentially make the cloth turn-in quests for city reputation obsolete, because farming Scholomance for runecloth is so easy. Just running the first three rooms a few times yielded over ten full stacks of runecloth. Tailors, if you're in need of runecloth, get a high-level run through part of Scholo and you'll have all you could want. I kept about half of them for my tailoring alt and dumped the rest.

Speaking of tailoring alt, I really need to look at the professions I have. All of my toons have their professions slots filled. I think I've covered everything, aside from Blacksmithing. I've been wondering about some of my less-played alts, and while the main reason I don't log on to them often is because of time constraints, I think their professions may have a bit to do with it as well. My priest, for example, was the second character I rolled on my main server after Yrovi. I intended to level her so that our guild would have a healing priest for end-game. Yeah, that never happened. I want to make her viable again, though, so I've thought about dropping her professions (tailoring/enchanting; my mage happens to have the exact same professions and she's much more fun to play) and replacing them with something a little more fun: Engineering. The profession has plenty of issues. I personally agree with many other engineers out there, and have to say that at end-game, engineering is lacking. Still, while leveling, this predominantly PvP-slanted profession could be a real boon for a priest, with bombs for dps, target dummies to hold aggro for a few seconds, and gadgets and gear to improve stats. Heck, I have engineering on my main, I know how to level it, and I know how to use it to my advantage. It just may make my priest playable. I'll keep tailoring and enchanting on my mage, which makes more sense, lore-wise, anyway, and get my priest rocking the Engineering.

The only thing is, what do I pair with it? I already have two miners, ore won't be an issue. I have an herbalist and a skinner, but I may still go with one of those. Several engineering recipies require leather. I could go with another crafting profession, but what would it be? Alchemy? Or maybe I keep enchanting? This is going to take some thought, I think. I'll let you know. ;-)

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.

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. :)

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.

79, Helmet, Helicopter, and Fish

Busy weekend for Yrovi: I hit level 79, upgraded some gear, and decided to work on… fishing. Gah! It’s like watching paint dry, I swear. If only it didn’t make leveling cooking that much faster…

So, I was diligently working on dailies in Sholozar Basin (I should even get the Simple Request achievement this evening), and decided to finish up the questline featuring the Avatar of Freya while I was hanging out with the puppy-men. Figuring out the second fight took the longest (funny, you should walk away from Urgreth when he’s casting shadow barrage to get out of range… why on earth didn’t that occur to me right at the beginning!) and after taking him down, Hailscorn was really easy with just blasting away the adds. Regardless, I finished the quest and got myself a Greathelm of the Titan Protectorate. As much as I didn’t want to replace my Tankatronic Goggles (with my nice meta gem), these were far too great an upgrade to ignore. Bye-bye engineering goggles! I hardly knew you.

Because my engineering goggles were gone, I needed to craft some way to see track gas clouds on my map. Practically free gold ftw! So, that meant either crafting goggles that I would switch out whenever I was flying around, or a belt tinker. A wonderful frost mage in my guild pointed out a plate belt that he had placed in there a week ago. It was a decent upgrade over my old one, so I grabbed it from the guild bank, put in some gold (I’m trying to put gold in each month), and tinkered it right away. Great, I can see far distances again and I can still see those gas clouds. Two upgrades and everything is still working. Check and check. (Speaking of engineering, I finally managed to snag some Elemental Seaforium off of the AH so I was able to craft my Flying Machine! Yay! YAY! I'm really excited. :D I love this thing.)

I ran Halls of Stone this weekend as well, which was fun. It was a guild run with some PuG mixed in, so it wasn’t as perfect as I would have liked, but it went pretty well nevertheless. Our guild’s holy Pally extraordinaire, Tyra, healed as I tanked and DPS was rounded out with the aforementioned plate-belt-depositing frost mage, Car, a Shammy and a Retadin. It was going well, although I really wish that I had had more time to read up on the instance before going in, as I had never seen it before or researched the boss fights. The Shammy and Tyra were very helpful, explaining the fights, although the Retadin wanted to speed things up as we were moving too slow for his tastes. Poor Car bit the dust right after the Retadin suggested we go faster thanks to a poor pull on my part. Sorry Car! Also, I was using a new mouse-over macro for Devastate during this run, and I think I’m still having to get used to the mechanics. I occasionally still use my mouse to click on more situational abilities, which means it isn’t moused-over a target… *sigh* Something tells me I may need to rearrange my UI.

I also loved the buff food that Tyra had on her during the run, so I decided I should really work on leveling up my cooking. And the best way to level up cooking is to level up fishing. So I’m fishing, and using El’s Guide to do so. I’ve just gotten the quest from Nat Pagle himself to find those four very rare fish, so I’m off to explore the far reaches of old-world Azeroth and get those fish. In the meantime, I’ll gather up the supplies I’ll need for the cooking quest, as I’m ready for that as well. I have the cheese and the clam meat (thanks to that quick quest in the Raventusk village in the Hinterlands, which also netted me a better fishing pole), and when I log in tonight I’ll run up the hill into the Hinterlands proper to take down some Owlbeasts for the giant eggs. All-in-all I’m doing well. I think I’ll even hit 80 by the end of the week.

Level 79, a new Helm and belt, a fancy-pants helicopter that I adore, and lots (and lots) of fish. Busy weekend for Yrovi. Lets hope the week is just as busy.