PTR: Interesting Patch for Newbies

I was reading the patch notes for the current PTR build (thanks to wow.com) and have to totally agree that new characters are getting it easy. Not that I mind, of course, as a dedicated altoholic, these changes make me very happy. What really caught my eye, though, was the change to new rogues, as I'm definitely planning on rolling a Worgen rogue when the option finally comes around.

While Blizzard is definitely making it easier in general for new toons, like standardizing stats, handing out basic weaponry (in this case mostly 2-handers, aside from shamans, who get a 1-hander and a shield), and reducing the chance for a newbie to get dazed (From level 1-5, you'll never get dazed; levels 6-10 it's a greatly reduced chance.), there was a change specific to rogues that I totally agree with and love: twin daggers.

New rogues, once this patch goes live, will log in, at level 1, already knowing how to dual wield and will have two daggers equipped. All I can say is: "It's about freaking time, Blizz." The whole point of a rogue, in my opinion, is dual wielding daggers. I mean, it's the class's signature! Yet every rogue I see is dual wielding swords for the most part, until much higher levels. I hope that they also do more to make leveling with daggers more interesting/possible. Early quests nearly never have good daggers as rewards, and most of the early dungeons don't drop them readily. There is the one from the rogue quest, but it's unique eqipped so you can't have two.

If Blizzard developers can make those improvements with Cataclysm/the next patch then I'll be a very happy camper. It might even make me take another look at one of my rogues, like Untainted, while I wait for the next expansion.

Holy. Cow. CATACLYSM

I don't know how I'll focus on life after Blizzard's announcement today.

Check. This. Out: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm

It's beyond all imagining. I thought I'd want to take screenshots/video of the old zones for nostalgic purposes, but now I know I have to. Azeroth as it's currently known will be no more once this hits. Old zones will be completely redone, and I don't mean new skins and an extra hill or two... I mean straight up, full on armageddon. Shattered lands, lava and molten rock everywhere, and giant scars in the land.

Thankfully, we'll get to use our flying mounts in the old (now new) world.

But, God, this is so awesome. I haven't played in about a week, but I'll be jumping online tonight for sure. Leveling up Seona seems to be a must. And I'll hit up Yrovi, too. I'll be rerolling a few toons (Undead Hunter FTW!!), and definitely picking up one of the new races to level to cap. At least. On top of everything else, it appears that there will be other new things, like guild leveling and a new profession. The guild leveling thing interests me... I wonder what it's all about and how it works. Oh! And there's something called the "Path of the Titan" for players. It sounds like a crazy-epic questline or something.

I'm so freaking stoked. :D

Edit: So, Goblins and Worgen will start at level 1, but their opening areas are going to "top the Death Knight starting area" with full on cinematics (like Wrathgate) and the like. This expansion might as well be called World of Warcraft II.

The Big 100 - Cataclysm Spoilers Ahead!

It's a bit funny that my 100th post comes when I haven't been playing WoW. My friends were in town, so instead I hung out with them, did the tour guide thing and partied. All-in-all, WoW hasn't been on my radar much over the last few days, but I'm definitely looking forward to what Blizzcon has in store for us. Don't read if you don't want spoilers. Even if not all of it is true, too much of this is potentially fact.

MMO-Champion has gone into heavy speculation (almost-fact, according to them) about the new expansion. If even half of what they're saying is true, I'm beyond excited. This is starting to go into crazy-awesome territory, where mere words cannot express the emotions I'm feeling. While I won't go into every single thing that Boubouille has posted regarding Cataclysm, I figure I'll touch on the ones that make me giggle with joy. Seriously, stop reading if you want everything to be a surprise... Okay, don't say I didn't warn you.

• New Class Combinations. Holy Cow. Literally. The next expansion will allow new race/class combinations, including the possibility for a Tauren Paladin. Do want, now. I also find the idea of a human hunter, undead hunter, and dwarven mage flat out giggle worthy, but in a good way. I'd love an undead hunter, especially if I could tame all the diseased-looking beasts for that special look. It also looks like Gnomes will finally get their healing class, and Trolls can potentially become Druids. That's surprising, simply because... well, will they use the Tauren forms or do they get all new ones? I'm not holding my breath for all of the combinations listed, but wow, this could be cool.
• Classic Azeroth Redone. Armageddon. Flooding of certain zones, breaking up the Barrens, reworking Azshara to be a lower-level zone... it's all amazingly cool. With the potential for phasing technology, this could be one of the coolest changes of the entire expansion. Thousand Needles underwater? Yes, please. To be able to fly in the old world? Do want. As much as I love the game as it is, can you imagine how absolutely fantastic it could be with the old world updated as well? Leveling will supposedly be more streamlined as well, making getting to the new level cap of 85 that much faster. And yes, it'll only be 85 instead of 90... interesting, but not unheard of. I'd hate to go another ten levels, as slow as I usually go.
• Thrall's Destiny Revealed. Thrall, leader of the Horde forces and beloved orc of all... will become the Guardian of Tirisfal and hand over leadership to Garrosh. Of all the changes, this one is most interesting to me. I'm not overly fond of Garrosh. He's a hot-head, and not overly intelligent. He'll definitely throw the Horde into full war against the Alliance (which will only be more fun for PvP) and be an overall jerk. Still, it's a change, and it moves the story along, so I can't complain. Varian will finally look better, at any rate, as even he isn't as big of an ass as Garrosh.
• New Races. I've covered them already, not much new here, aside from the potential backstory involved. Apparantly the Goblins will be rebellious slaves of Deathwing and the Worgen will be Gilneans who have found a semi-cure of their Worgen curse, allowing them to keep their head during their transformation. Very "Remus Lupin-esque." Still, cool backstory and huge potential there.

All in all, I'm beyond ready to hear what happens at Blizzcon. I can't go, and I can't buy the live stream, but Wow.com will cover it all, of course, as will every other WoW news site out there.

I just realized... I really need to go visit all the old zones and take screenshots. Can you imagine what the new world will be like? I might want to wax nostalgic later on, so I better go get that explorer title and snap photos. Cataclysm, we're all waiting for you, eager as ever.

99th Post... Onyxia and a Confession

Wow. I've actually talked about stuff nearly 100 times on this blog? Crazy. Honestly, I didn't even think I'd go past maybe a month or two writing, yet here we are. It's because no one reads and it's like leaving an open journal sitting on my desk. If someone came by, they'd see it and maybe read it, but no one does so.

Still, I never did this for others, only for myself. ;)

There's news regarding WoW's 5th anniversary. Onyxia, raid boss known so well for providing the experience that lead to the "DPS VERY, VERY SLOWLY... AND BY SLOW, I MEAN F#*@ING SLOW" video known so well among WoWers, is making a comeback. Blizzard is revamping her raid to be 10/25 man and will drop updated loot, including updated T2 helms and a new flying mount that will look like the queen dragon herself. In addition, anyone who logs on during that time will get a special Onyxia broodling whelp pet (I'm excited about this, actually. Last year it was a baby polar bear, which I love, too.) that may or may not be account bound. The bear last year was account bound, so we'll see.

I have never seen Onyxia, personally. I know that it's currently possible for a decently-geared level 80 to go in a solo her, especially paladins. Interesting, considering she was once a very difficult 40 man boss (Vanilla WoW). Still, it just proves how powerful we've all become in the many years we've traveled the World... of Warcraft. I'd like to go up against her, but Yrovi is not exactly raid-ready. Sure, she's uncrittable, but I've more or less shelved her (obvious, I'd guess, since I haven't written about her, at all, for weeks now), not run anything with her, and her health pool is, thus, still quite low. Plus, I've more or less come to the conclusion that, while tanking can be fun (especially at the lower-levels), the extra responsibility required of a tank makes the game less fun for me. I don't want to lead a group, usually because I have no idea of what's really going on.

Seona, on the other hand, while a completely new character and one that takes time to build up, is tons of fun. DPS is so much more carefree. That's not to say there isn't responsibility involved... I still have to be good at my class to not be carried. And I don't want to be carried. That's, honestly, the last thing I want. But I don't want to have to constantly ensure that every mob is on me, that I have things positioned well, that... well... that I'm the leader.

Here's the Confession: I don't want to lead, I want to play. That means I don't want to tank, possibly ever again. I don't know if I want to try healing. There's responsibility there, too, but it's different. But, I don't think I want to tank. After all the work I put into Yrovi, that's a bit of a harsh realization for me. I spent a lot of gold, and my guildmates (especially Tyra) did a bunch for me to get to uncrittable and theoretically raid-ready. I don't know if it's just a phase, or if this is a real, honest feeling, but tanking just may not be for me.

*Deep breath* That being said, my dwarf paladin is coming along really well. Seona is 60, which means a super cool avatar on the forums and potentially flying training (if I can get 650 Gold anytime soon). I'm doing all I can to get my Honor Hold rep up to reduce the price a bit, now that it applies. At this point it's safe to state that Seona will be my new main and I hope to do some raiding with her in the near future. In this case, it'll be the guild helping me along, thanks to lots of members and generally helpful people. Not that we didn't have generally helpful people on the old server, but there are so few of us. *sigh*

I kinda miss my old guildies... :( The Cradle is/was cool. I think I'll have to log on again soon, if nothing else, to say hi. The Kingship is freaking awesome, though, too, and I think I can make some good friends here, especially once I get to level 80. Only 20 levels to go...

Speculation... New Races?

So, I wrote about this some time ago, right when MMO-Champion first talked about it. Boubouille, a member of the MMO-Champion team, did some crazy data-mining and found some interesting halloween masks of Goblins and what looked like Worgen. Based on his findings, he determined that these would be the new races in the next expansion, which people are now calling Cataclysm, a name Blizzard patented recently. Most of the WoW sites are now more or less saying this is true and stating it as almost-fact.

Also, as I mentioned before, all those who are following this train of thought agree at this point that the Goblins will be aligned with the Horde and the Worgen will be aligned with the Alliance. It makes sense. Goblins have always leaned a little towards the Horde side of things, giving them more support with Zeppelins and shredders for tearing down Ashenvale forest and things. Well, I say give, but I guess what I mean is that they have a long-standing business relationship with the Horde, and those Zeppelin Goblins sure don't like the Alliance. Ever get on a Horde zeppelin as an Alliance..? Yeah. Those little green bastards are mean.

I imagine, if I were one of the writers for Blizzard, that the playable Goblins would be from a different merchant group than the current goblins. The Steamwheedle Cartel and the Venture Co. are already in game, one neutral and one hostile. So these playable Goblins would just be another Trading Prince's faction that chooses to join the Horde, perhaps as mercenaries. I would also guess that the classes available to the Goblins would be similar to the ones open to the Gnomes... things like rogue, warrior, warlock... but no healing class. Something tells me they're specifically meant to be the Horde equivalent of the "tiny" race.

I'm actually more excited about the Worgen. My guess is that Blizzard will finally open up the Greymane wall and reveal a totally Worgified Gilneas. While I realize that Arugal was in the vicinity of the wall for a long time, I don't think these Worgen will be of his making. Perhaps the Night Elf who first received the Scythe of Elune entered Gilneas and used it there... maybe they went there on their own... who knows. Regardless, it will be interesting how the writers tie them into the overarching storyline of the World... of Warcraft.

I'd guess they'd have similar classes to humans, though perhaps not a healing class... except maybe shaman. Warrior, rogue, mage... those sound good for Worgen. I doubt they'll be warlocks, as they despise the "Emerald Flame," essentially the Burning Legion. They are well attuned to magics as well. The Worgen from the other dimension are known to be very vicious and territorial, though, so it's still unclear how they tie to the Alliance, aside from Gilneas. Like I said, I'm interested in how Blizz will work them into the story in a believable way.

Regardless, I'll roll at least one of each. Who doesn't want a goblin? "I'VE GOT WHAT YOU NEED!" The worgen are just oozing "cool factor"... maybe I should make place-holder toons to get the names I want. While I'm not totally sure what I'd name a goblin, if I rolled a Worgen on ED, I'd probably name it something like... Aconitum or Vulparia. Or maybe Usiaslau. The first two names come from the plant known colloquially as "monkshood" or "wolfsbane" and the third was the name of a Belarusian prince who lived during the 11th century that was thought to turn into a wolf. Obviously the first and third are male names, while I'd make Vulparia a female. Goblin names tend to be like: Rizzo, Vark, or Guido. They're meant to be funny, seriously. :D

God, I can't wait for Cataclysm. The only drawback? All the new Worgen that will be called:

Xxjacobxblackxx, jacobblack, jaccob, and Lupin. Maybe throw in a Cujo and Lucian for good measure.

*sigh*

3.2 Has Arrived (And a Wedding)

So, anyone who plays knows now that 3.2 is here and ready to go, as soon as Tuesday maintenance is done. Before I go into that, though, Seona attended a beautiful wedding last night between two guildies.

The wedding took place in idyllic Elwynn Forest, high up in the hills, by a waterfall. Even more beautiful, the entire ceremony took place over the water. Thanks to a few water-walking spells and potions, we were able to stand out on the lake, the waterfall cascading down behind, and witness a beautiful ceremony. It was really quite touching and an amazing RP experience. I dressed Seona up in a very nice blue-green robe that matched her eyes and enjoyed the refreshments afterwards. It's just too bad I couldn't stay longer. The ceremony started around 10 pm and didn't finish till nearly 11... and getting up for work was going to be difficult enough as it was.

So, congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Fost! Best wishes to you both!

Okay, so, 3.2...

First thing I'm gonig to do is log onto Ziir and send out some Gold to Seona. She's getting an upgrade to Caliburn. She managed to level to 58 right before the wedding last night and has already reported for duty in Honor Hold. The demons are no problem, so the "old world" is going to become a pretty distant memory, at least for the time being. I'm also very keen on doing all the quests I can for Honor Hold, to get to exalted as quickly as possible.

Flying training was quite expensive and had no discounts. Now, thanks to the trainers moving to Honor Hold/Thrallmar, you can get reputation discounts and they've made it cheaper. The PvP daily you can grind out there gives reputation, plus tokens and 70 silver. I'm also hoping to finally run a few instances, although with all the Death Knights out there, I'm not so sure I'll get any drops as Retribution. More than likely, I'll throw on some spell power/+int gear and keep those undead buggers alive for experience and fun times... although Hellreaver would be really, really nice. *sigh*

I always intended to make Seona dual spec into healing, however, so this might give me good practice. Regardless, any chance of running instances is good for me, and I actually like some of the BC dungeons.

Wanting a Rogue

Today I woke up and really wanted to play a rogue. I'm certain it's just a minor issue with my altoholism, it will pass, but I find it funny. I have a warrior at 80, a Paladin well on her way to 80 (especially once I get my nice internet this weekend... I'm excited!) and a slew of alts. Far more alts than I'll ever be able to play, or want to play. The new Armory app for my iPhone has made that exceptionally clear.

I have two rogues, though, that I've created and actually played in the last 6 months or so: Loem, a male human rogue on ED, and Untainted, a female Belf on Gul'dan. Loem is only just over level 10 or so and is Leodry's brother (RPlol). Untainted is sitting pretty at level 39 and I've run a few battlegrounds with her, but I'm not sure how I want to work her. Patch 3.2 will bring battleground leveling, but something tells me it won't be nearly as efficient as regular leveling. Honorable kills don't count towards the experience, for example, so it makes me wonder just what does.

I'd love to level at least one of them in the battlegrounds, just to see how it would be done. Instead of dungeon drop blues, I'd get some nice PvP rewards. Instead of questing, which requires tons of travel, I could just stick in a major city at all times (thanks to queuing from anywhere now). That would mean lots of rested experience. If I could get some BoA shoulders, too, it would help. I hope this battleground experience thing works out. It would be a really interesting way to level up a toon and I'd be able to focus entirely on PvP for once.

Rumor: New Races

Apparently MMO Champion is claiming/strongly suggesting that Goblins and Worgen will be the new races in the next expansion.

As if it hasn't been posted a million times before... still, I find it interesting.

I know that Pandaren will never become a playable race, so that really only leaves a few races that are already in the game as options. The other thing that Blizzard could do is introduce something else entirely, although that didn't go as smoothly as they liked when they crash landed the Draenei on Azuremyst the last time.

MMO is making the claim based on four Hallow's Eve masks they discovered: male and female versions of Goblin and what looks like new Worgen faces. This is significant (according to them) because all of the current masks are playable races. They make a good argument, honestly. I'm one of those that believe that, if this is actually true, Goblins will be aligned with the Horde and the Worgen with the Alliance. Goblins already appear to be more buddy-buddy with the Horde anyway, and the Worgen were once the Human nation of Gilneas, so it makes sense. Also, less important, but should be taken into account, it would give a small race to the Horde and a bigger/furry race to the Alliance.

What remains to be seen, of course, is whether or not Blizzard will confirm this information at Blizzcon. I'm actually hoping they do. I have one level 80, and another toon on the way towards 80. One is of the Horde, the other of the Alliance. Rerolling doesn't bother me much. I'm a dedicated altaholic. Expect to see me roll at least one of each of these to play around with them if they come true.

Whoa... Level 51 Already?

Yep. Seona is at level 51 already. I can't imagine how fast I would have leveled if she would have heirloom shoulders. Can you imagine? It's no wonder you can level an alt in no time, especially with Recruit-a-Friend, if you have access to it.

The Thorium Brotherhood got her very close to 50. With a shipment of silk cloth from her Estate Manager (read: Bank Alt), she was able to help a dwarf who was stuck in an outhouse in the Burning Steppes. Also, at some point in her travels, she had looted a key from one of the Dark Iron Dwarves' corpses. The key just happened to be for the outhouse, thus, she was able to free the poor dwarf from the little shack, earning her level 50.

Yep, that's right. Seona got to level 50 from an Outhouse quest. I feel dirty. D:

Still, level 50 meant a trip to the Plaguelands. So, off she went (after killing some spiders for their legs... some goblin wanted them, and she was there, you know?). The gryphon landed in Chillwind Camp and her first tasks for the Argent Dawn were started.

She's equipped with her Commision trinket, now, and killing undead goes quickly, provided they're only 2 or 3 levels above her. I've quickly come to realize that anything over that, with a red number, takes forever to kill due to missing. Regardless, she was able to knock out several quests, including the first two cauldron quests, which managed to bump her all the way to the next level. So, sitting pretty at level 51, she's well on her way to getting ready for Outlands.

Oh, and yes, she's picked up the Redpath questline. I've heard it's a bit of a tearjerker, so I'm ready for that. The other thing I've noticed? Now that I'm over that hump and in an area so steeped in Paladin lore (Uther's Tomb, anyone?), I've slowed down again. I read the quest text (most of the time) and do my best to be all "Paladiny" and glowy.

One last little note: Patch 3.2 is still on the PTR, and they appear to be having a few issues with it. Since that's the case, Seona will probably hit level 59/60 before it goes live. Because of the mount changes, any new Paladins will never do the quest for their epic mount, but, luckily, I think I'll be able to do so with Seona. In fact, it'll probably be one of those instances where I'll just be squeaking by before the patch hits live. How cool that my RP pally will be able to do the quest as was intended? It'll be worth it, I think, for the Feat of Strength alone.

Of course, if I don't get to 60 before the patch then it's all moot. The questline requires expensive, rare mats, and at least 350 gold. If the patch hits first then it's 50G for the training and maybe 20G for the spell. RP opportunity or no, I'm not going to spend the 350 if I can get it for 70.

OH EM GEE

OMGWTFBBQROFLMAO!

They listened. :D

They actually listened, and we are finally given what we've asked for! Thank you Blizzard! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Zarhym, you are my star upon the earth! You come bearing such amazingly good news. I had Yrovi keep engineering, not wanting to drop, not wanting to relevel something like Jewelcrafting or Blacksmithing. It would be tedious, expensive, awful in every way. I spent so much time and gold getting to 450 engineering and now you come and make my day! You get a muffin. A fancy, internet muffin. Also a virtual hug. Just for this news.

Of the new stuff, the Dalaran AH is spectacular, Jeeves looks super-cool (though I'll probably never get him...), and all the improvements to regular stuff has made my day, totally.

This Will Bring Me Back

Holy. Crap. o.O

Huge change posted by the floating skull of doom on the general forums. This is what I get for stepping away for a bit and not paying attention to the forums.

So, mounts are going to be revamped yet again to allow quicker travel at lower levels. Exciting stuff here, for sure. This means I actually have several alts that could get mounts when this goes live instead of much later. That could make a huge difference in how fast I level these toons. A very tiny part of me is crying, outraged that they'd make it so easy for the newcomers and super-causuals (conviently fogetting that I'm one of them) and demanding a refund, but I beat it back into its dark corner and go back to cheering for all my alts.

Regular land mounts are to be trained at level 20 and even cheaper. Epic land mounts are trainable at 40. Now wait, now wait! 40? Really? Jeebus, that's huge. Does this mean my epic Paladin mount for Seona is a quick learn at 40 for about 60 gold? This is mind-boggling. Flight is now learned at 60, and epic at 70, as usual. Crazy, truly crazy.

I definitely didn't expect this change, especially out of nowhere like this. It feels like something in from left field, but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Of course, this doesn't come around until the next major content patch (3.2), so there's still time before it goes into effect, but this is a really big change.

With that patch, many of my toons will be eligible for mounts:

Purah, my death knight, will be able to get flying. I might even get him the skele-chicken all DKs can get. Untainted and Mål are a stone's throw away from 40, meaning they'd be able to get epic ground mounts. I have at least 5-6 toons in the mid-20's and they'd all be eligible for regular training... the gold I'm going to need!!! Oh, man!

What I've just noticed, though, is that this means no low-level toons will be getting exalted with a second faction before hitting the appropriate level for training. You're stuck with your faction's mounts. Interesting. I know quite a few Belfs, for example, that despise the "cocks colored like rainbows," to quote Nyhm. Still, I'm not going to complain. This is huge.

Yrovi will be farming a bit to earn extra gold. Most of those 20-somethings are on Gul'dan and might actually get me to play those toons. I haven't played my warlock in awhile... and now I'll have a whole new reason to push to 40 on Seona. Wow. There's work to do.

New Bears!

Yeah, so, wow!

Blizzard has finally shown a preview of the new druid skins/art they've been working on. This first installment is for Tauren druids, which might actually bring my druids out of retirement.

I have one of each, you know. Opalandra, my very first character I ever created for WoW, is a Nelf Druid on the Gilneas server. I'm tempted to move her to one of my other servers, like ED, but not yet. I mean, she's only around level 25 at the moment, it doesn't seem worth it to spend the $25. Xyno is my tauren druid on Gul'dan. She's awesome as well, and these current skins they've shown apply to her. Xyno is all black, of course, so she'd look like the one in the picture, I think.

They've mentioned that they'd love to be able to change the bear's image as you level up/get better gear (maybe through an average iLevel?) which would be very cool. Still, these are a huge improvement to the forms, since that old bear looked terribad. They should be showing the new Nelf skins later this week/next week, and then the cat forms for each after that. I've loving the changes, even if some of the die-hard druid community still isn't sure. I think a few of them were expecting something a little better, although I look at this as a nice start.

So, now I have two new alts to think about. Great! lol I'll never get anything done. ;-)

EDIT (5/28): They've updated the page to include the Nelf bears now. They look good as well. I'm excited for all those druids out there that they're finally getting some love from Blizzard. Opalandra has been resting for so long, I don't remember what her hair color is, but I think it's white, so she may be a polar bear! :D

3.1 Has Arrived! Icecrown, Here I Come!

Today is Tuesday. Today is the day that we have extended maintenance for Patch 3.1, and, boy, has it been long in coming. Ulduar, dual specs, the Argent Tournament, tons of new items including armor, weapons, pets, and mounts, and plenty of class changes are all included in this patch. Also, everyone gets a free respec! Hooray for free respecs. It's a chance to clean up that spec if you made a minor mistake and couldn't be bothered to spend the 50G to fix it.

As evidenced by earlier posts I've made, my focus will be on the Argent Tourney, at least at first. I'm no raider, not yet ayway, and there are plenty of rewards I want from the Tournament, like the tanking axe from the trolls, a little squire gruntling, and the ever-so-beautiful white skeletal warhorse from the Forsaken, not to mention all the various non-combat pets available from each racial faction.

Since I haven't even stepped foot in the Vault, Naxx, or the Obsidian Sanctum, Ulduar seems a million years away, although all of the lore associated with it has my interest. Check out the trailer if you haven't already, just for kicks if nothing else. Varian is being a total ass again, as is Garrosh (not that this is unusual behavior for either one of them); Thrall and Jaina still have that total vibe going (I still haven't decided if it's adorable or creepy as hell); and the Kirin Tor are all pretty much just sitting there going "WTF? Get your sh!t together, morons, or we're all gonna die." It's fun. I giggled a bit. I also have a pretty sick sense of humor.

Becuase I'm so very behind the curve, even when it comes to casual players in general since the consensus is that you can PuG the entry-level raids, I'll be taking Yrovi to Icecrown to participate in the tournament. She recently (while helping prepare the way for Mål's eventual move up in the Blood Knight ranks) achieved exalted status with the Argent Dawn. One of my first goals with the new patch is to do dailies for the Argent Crusade. Once Yrovi is exalted with them as well, she'll get a nifty new title: "The Argent Champion" Nice, huh? I find it amusing, seeing as she was theoretically once a member of the Scourge. It's appropriate, though, since the Forsaken hate the Scourge and Arthas so thoroughly.

The tournament holds lots of rewards. Most of them are more vanity items than anything else, like shirts, tabards, banners, minipets, and mounts. There are, however, both rare and epic-level weapons available provided you have enough Champion's Seals. Now, as much as I love me some minipets and mounts, I feel a touch obligated to do all I can to upgrade my gear, especially if it is easy. All it takes is a small rep grind over maybe 10 days or so to get enough seals for a very nice tanking axe that actually looks pretty sweet. It is better than my current weapon in just about every way, and will help me on my way to preparing for raiding or even just running more heroics, since I'm woefully behind in that department as well (*cries* I only have 6 heroic badges so far, how sad is that? The resident Holy Pally just got the achievement for 500! *cries again*). Of course, that's entirely my fault for not wanting to PuG Heroics due to being nervous and not being familiar with instances. It's all a catch 22, though, so I'll stop there. I've qq'd about all this before anyway.

So, I guess my goals are as follows for 3.1:

1. Begin the Argent Tournament and work my way up the ranks, earning Seals.

Results in more reputation as well as opening up more rewards, like mounts.

2. Do Argent Crusade daily quests to reach exalted as quickly as possible.

Results in gold and a very nice title: Yrovi The Argent Champion

3. Purchase my Second Spec from my warrior trainer.

Results in a chance to play as DPS instead of the more intense tanking role.

3. Earn enough Champion Seals to purchase a sweet axe.

Results in a better weapon to aid in tanking, thus preparing me for harder content.

4. Run more heroics... for real, this time.

Results in badges to purchase gear upgrades, thus preparing me for harder content.

5. Eventually become a champion of all of the Horde factions in the Tourney.

Results in cool achievements, rewards, and another cool title: Crusader Yrovi

So, provided everything goes well, I'll see some nice upgrades soon as well as an entirely new way to play the game. I've been really lax in running heroics. I need to quit talking and start doing, but I really do feel uncomfortable running heroics when I haven't been in an instance before. There are days when I wish that I hadn't rolled a tank because playing as DPS is so much more fun, hence all the time I've spent on Mål. Thankfully, dual specs can help with that. It'll be interesting to run instances as dps, if I can manage to find a group. Notice I said "instances" not "heroics." I've been saving up all the plate gear I get from quests and such that is geared toward a warrior dps build, but they aren't heroics standard stuff. I've been in enough bad PuGs to know better than to think I can just switch specs and jump right into heroics.

I'm wanting to go Fury, of course, dual-wielding Two-Handers with Titan's Grip. It looks like a ton of fun. The only real drawback at the moment is that I'm going to have to level up all my two-handed weapon skills, seeing as I haven't touched any since around level 62 or so. I think I played around with the Hellboar Carver in Zangermarsh a bit, but once 3.1 hit and prot could actually do some damage, all my two handed weapons got vendored.

As for heroics, more and more members of the guild are hitting 80 and gearing up. That's good news for me, because it means I can tank for them. In fact, one of our mages who hit 80 about two weeks ago, is ready to start running heroics and I think he's tired of all the PuGs, too. He set up an event on the guild's calendar to run heroic Utgarde Keep later this week. He has the unfortunate circumstance of being unable to play weekends easily due to work. That means he can really only run stuff through the week. Fine by me, as long as we don't play too terribly late. I'll run heroics with my guild anytime, because they have to love me, even if I screw up. lol ;-)

And hey, over the next few weeks, maybe I'll just run all the instances on normal, to get a feel for them. It's a normal thing to do, and I feel that it's sort of my job to at least have a basic idea of each of the Northrend instances. In the end, I eventually want to be able to say, "Hi, my name is Yrovi and I'm one of the Main Tanks of Cradle of Filth." I think that would be really cool. :)

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.

PTR = 3.1 on this Maintenance Tuesday

Yep. 3.1 is on the Public Test Realm. I'd love to check it out, but I think Blizzard is messing around with the account log-in pages because it absolutely refuses to recognize my log-in name. Very frustrating, as I desperately want to download the PTR client and the new patch to test out all the new content. And I'm not even talking about Ulduar. I'll just cover the stuff I'm interested in... although this will still be a big post... you want to see the full notes? Check this out. Now, on to the patch notes (oh, and I'm paraphrasing this stuff hardcore):

General

• Ground mounts won't bolt when they get wet.

It's about time. Our mounts will stick around and swim with us, it seems. I think that's cool, although the only time their disappearing act bothered me was when I was fording a river. Having to mount up again, just because I hit one little spot of deep water would frustrate me. Well, no more! I can't wait to take my mounts swimming.

• Level 80 toons can pay a one-time fee to activate the dual spec feature.

I want to see how the new dual spec system works out, as well as how much it will cost. I'm really itching to try out a fury build that I've been toying with, as I've been diligently putting together a decent set of fury gear from quest greens. Plus, sometimes it's just fun to really see the big numbers and burn something down so fast, it doesn't know what hit it. Maybe that's why I've been loving my mage so much lately. At any rate, this is something that we've been waiting for, and I'm practically humming in anticipation.

• A new Gear Manager is being implemented to aid in switching gear fast.

Interesting. I already use Outfitter, so this may be entirely moot for me, but I'll at least try it out to see how it works. If it's anything at all like Outfitter, I may just end up using this due to the fact that I have way too many add-ons... it's starting to bog me down, I think. I really like the automatic switch that Outfitter brings, though, and they've already said that this Gear Manager won't do anything automatically. We'll just have to see.

Classes - General

• Various damage bonuses from different class talents no longer stack.

Things like Enrage, Tricks of the Trade, Wrecking Crew, etc. no longer stack. I haven't been raiding or grouping at all, really, so this hasn't affected me, but I bet raiders are interested in this change and how it might change dps.

Death Knight

• Looks like Blood got a dps buff, which is nice for me

Purah will always going to be Blood, no matter what. It's the principle of the thing. So the buff to blood makes me happy. Blood boil now does damage to all enemies, even if they don't have a disease on them, and more damage to those that do feel under the weather. Bloody strikes increase blood boil damage as well, instead of pestilence. It almost looks like they are making diseases less important for Blood spec. Blood worms heal for more, that's cool. Scent of Blood will now proc more often, as they changed it to also potentially proc on dodges and parries, plus the internal cooldown is lower. And the icing on the cake? Sudden doom now just procs a free Death Coil. Automatically. No pushing the button or missing the proc. Nice. There are enough changes that it looks like Death Knights will probably get a free talent respec.

Mage

• Change to Water Elemental

I am looking forward to getting my water elemental on my mage in the future, so the changes are interesting to me. Improved water elemental has completely changed to Enduring Winter, a talent that has a 33/66/100% chance on a frostbolt cast to increase mana regen for up to 10 people your group/raid.

Rogue

• Combat got some buffs

Reduced cooldown on Adrenaline rush, increased damage for Killing Spree and Savage Combat, and only 3 ranks for Lightning Reflexes. My rogue isn't quite there yet, but these changes make me happy.

Warrior

• Heroic Throw missile speed increased

Yay! Faster pulls!

Professions

• Damn. No love for Engineering.

Heh. I don't know what I was expecting, but nothing for engineering. Blacksmithing has been rebalanced to be more useful from 1-300, though. Too bad NONE of my toons have Blacksmithing.

User Interface

• New Advanced quest tracking

Looks like they are trying to make the basic quest tracker not suck. I have no idea what this is all about or what they've changed. I doubt it will make me stop using QuestHelper.

Items

• White Tickbird Hatchling is now considered a pet

Um... I don't have one, but plan to do so in the future. What the heck was it considered before?

So, those are the changes I'm really focusing on. Can't wait till Blizz fixes the log-in so I can get this stuff downloaded. :D