To Exalted: the Rep Grind

Yrovi is working her way towards a Netherwing drake. They're quite striking and beautiful, I think, and it's something I didn't do when Burning Crusade was the current content. There are days when I wish I had started playing earlier, or had rerolled earlier, or started playing during beta when I really wanted to... well. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

There are several reasons why we choose to grind reputation in WoW, though it's usually for some kind of reward, like a new mount, or special enchants (Sons of Hodir, anyone?), or for achievements. Regardless, nearly all rep grinds start at Neutral and you move your way through the ranks to Exalted. To get fully Exalted with a faction, you have to accumulate points of reputation (Neutral to Exalted). Neutral is 3,000 points and can often be done in a single day, maybe two; Friendly is 6,000 points; Honored is 12,000 points; Revered is 21,000 points; and Exalted is 999 points. You're considered Exalted by the game the moment you get that 42,001 point, but to do it "properly" you go ahead and the the rest of those points. I mean, since you just grinded out over 42,001 points, what's another 998, right?

For me, the hardest bit is getting through Revered. Neutral and Friendly takes very little time, and Honored just twice as long as that, generally. If I'm really focused on gaining rep with a certain faction, getting through Honored goes fast. It's when I get to Revered that I always plateu. It takes forever! Perhaps it's because the daily quests (or, gods forbid, the total killing grind) are stale by this point and 21,000 points are obviously going to take longer to accrue than the 18,000 I had just gotten. Getting to Revered with some factions is all it takes, depending on their rewards, especially in Northrend, but there are some great vanity items at Exalted that I want at some point.

Like the Netherwing Drakes. In fact, there are no other rewards from this faction, just the drake, at Exalted. It's otherwise a completely pointless grind. It's interesting, though, from a lore perspective. Outland is unique in that it is a seperate planet, completely removed from the Old World of Azeroth. It's a little forgotten, to be honest, especially its lore, except by the countless Death Knights that level through there, not that any of them care about the lore. There are other factions in Outland that give rewards, though they are all outdated at this point, aside from the vanity items, like pets (sporebat baby?) and mounts (Cenarion Hippogryph, something I'll get eventually).

I haven't been playing like I used to, haven't had time to spend hours doing daily quests. Still, I much prefer those to simply a kill grind. Getting a nice chunk of rep all at once is nice, and is more satisfying for me, although the constant, slow increase that a kill grind gains is also easily measured. I think the only drawback is, of course, that it's terribly boring and certain classes with nice damage and AoE capabilities have a distint advantage. Pre patch 3.0, my prot warrior would have been the worst possible toon for a kill grind, although it's much better now with shockwave and thunderstomp and cleave. Having a Fury build as my secondary talent tree is nice, too, with whirlwind. But kill grinds are terrible for me, personally, so I'll stick to daily quests.

According to WoWJuJu.com, a lovely reputation calculator site, I have about 5 days left to get to exalted with the Netherwing. That's only if I do all the dailies each day. Probably not going to happen, just because those dailies are actually quite time-consuming. They require a bit of travel and three of them are underground, where I can't use a mount, so they take quite a bit longer to complete. The rest are just generally time-consuming, requiring travel.

Regardless, I'll be done soon enough, and won't ever have to go back there. I'll get my free drake, buy the rest, and put Outlands behind me again for awhile. At some point, I'll go back for Sporregar and Cenarion Circle reputation, but I'm not ready for those, yet. Those involve kill grinds/instance grinds and I just don't want to do it, not right now. I have rep to gain in Northrend.

Like the Oracles, which I still haven't done, and Argent Crusade, Wyrmrest, Kirin Tor, etc. I've been taking my sweet time with everything, and it's time I either stepped up or shut up, especially when it comes to heroics and badges. I say to myself, "Hey! I want to raid!" but I don't put forth any of the effort to actually prepare for it, like gearing up. Supposedly, I could run it now. I'm defense-capped, after all, and I've been told that 10-man regular Naxx is easy mode. Still, I know for a fact I could still use work, and I hardly have the best entry-level raiding gear available. I don't even have my gun, yet, and that's a major upgrade seeing as it's a BiS item for a tanking warrior who hasn't raided, yet. Heck, maybe it's BiS until Ulduar. I don't know. I haven't raided! :/

Whatever. Like I said, it's time I either put up or shut up. Either I start running 5-mans again, or I don't mention it anymore and rely on reputation gear and other such things. Hell, there's still plenty to do if I don't end up raiding. There's my offset to complete. There's rep to grind, which is what this little post is more or less about, and there's still tons of achievements to get. I won't be bored, I won't be quitting, and I won't get tired. But, really, if I'm going to get stuff done, I need to prioritize. Drake? Or PuGing another Heroic run? Oracles Rep, or farming mats for the tanking gun? Decisions to make, and time to make them while I go poison a few more grunts. I mean, really, with only 5 days worth of dailies left, I might as well do them. ;-)

Get That Groove Back

So patch 3.1 is firmly in place (mostly) and that brings with it all the fun of a new patch and all the diffculties of one, like broken add-ons and funky interfaces. I think about half of the ones I downloaded don't work anymore. D: It's okay, though. I'm sure in the next week or so they'll get updated. Of course, a broken interface is actually the least of my problems, I think.

I used to have this great system down and my time on WoW was pretty organized. Not in a "too-uptight" way, just an efficient way, that let me get the most done in the shortest amount of time. That system has fallen by the wayside completely. I realized last night, totally exhausted from allergy medication, that my perfect little system had more or less imploded over the last few days in anticipation of the Ulduar patch.

I was all over the place, doing the Argent Tournament dailies, then trying to head back to Dalaran to try the new fishing dailies (and, man, those take you all over Northrend, don't they?) back to the tourney, then getting sidetracked in Storm Peaks... basically, I was like a chicken with my head cut off. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but I've noticed other things about my playstyle that has really started to bug me.

For one, I'm a tank that doesn't really tank. Isn't that the dumbest thing ever? I haven't run any instance in well over a week. The good thing is that I'll be running Heroic Utgarde Keep tonight more or less for sure. If it goes well, maybe our group will run a couple others. I mean, I've been level 80 now for weeks and have less than 10 heroic badges. So that makes, what... 2 Heroic dungeon runs total? Sad. Just pathetically sad. I should be getting geared up and ready! I mean, eventually we're going to raid, right? ...right?

I purchased the dual spec ability, so I can go fury when I don't want to tank, but, honestly, I have no clue how to play a fury warrior. That's going to take time to research and get down. I can at least say that my gear I have for my dps set isn't too terrible, for a starter set. Most of it is at least blue in quality. For me, it will be more a matter of figuring out a rotation, and not starving myself of rage. Something tells me the fury spec I went with isn't the most efficient, either, so that may have to change.

Of course, the system still has a few kinks to work out as I realized this morning during a Wintergrasp fight. I switched to Fury, then noticed how low my hp got and decided to go back to prot. Imagine my surprise when I didn't have devastate or shockwave in my arsenal? Last night, one of the guild's death knights complained about it, too, but since it had worked fine when I first got the ability I thought he was just missing something, you know, on his end. Turns out he was right. When I switched, it didn't redistribute some of my talent points, specifically at Devastate and below in the Prot tree. Of course, I didn't figure this out until after I ported back to Undercity to go relearn those abilities, thinking I'd have to buy them off my trainer. Still, having two specs at my disposal is a cool new feature and I'm sure Blizz will get it worked out soon.

I'm tempted to work on fury by staying in that secondary spec during my dailies, at least in the lower zones, like Scholozar Basin. Yeah, I'm woefully behind on my Oracles rep, not to mention any other rep. I'm going to have to map out all my dailies again and try to figure out the order in which to do them. I used QuestHelper for so long that I don't think I know how to play without it. Lightheaded and TomTom might help me out, but honestly QuestHelper did what those two do automatically AND tell me the most efficient way to go about them. Thankfully, Outfitter is back, so gear swapping isn't an issue. I don't know about QuestHelper. I really liked automatic waypoints.

In any case, I have time. Our guild still isn't ready to raid and we won't be until we start getting the newer 80's all geared up with heroics. If this run tonight goes well, maybe we can play around with doing a weekly thing. That would be nice, and get us used to a schedule that may evolve into a raiding schedule. In the meantime, maybe I'll PuG the Northrend instances I've never seen, not as a tank, but as a fury warrior on regular to get even better gear. That would be nice. :)

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. :)

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

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. :)

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

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. :)

Ding! 80

That's right. Yrovi is officially at the level cap! Just hit 80 today and had a great time training up those last skills and buying new gear to attempt to come at least a little closer to the defense cap of 540 (535 for heroics). I purchased some gear with the gold I had saved up for my epic mount. I figured that getting to the defense cap is more important than running heroics/increasing rep with various groups in order to begin raiding. It was emotionally difficult until I actually got my new shield out of the bank. That thing is beautiful... all glowy and shiny. :D It's worth it, as my defense is now at 500-plus and on it's way higher.

As soon as I hit 80, I went back to Zul'Drak to take on Ragemane again. That dumb seal had killed me before when I attempted to solo it, but at 80 all it took was a health pot and burning my enraged regeneration and bickity-bam, he was dead, and I was able to pick out this very nice axe to slice and dice mobs with. I did have to work on my axe skill for just a little while, but everything worked out okay. I hearthed back to Dalaran and finally took the Orc that's been standing in Krasus Landing for ages up on his offer of heading to Icecrown and did some quests there for the Argent Crusade. They're decent enough folks, I guess.

Finally, I did a quick run through regular Halls of Lightning with Tyra (damn, you're such a good healer) and three other players in a PuG. I died on Ionar thanks to a freak crit and then the stupid shocking debuff, but our DPS druid shifted to bear and took him down. Most excellent playing, thanks for being a good PuG group. Unfortunately, neither one of the tanking items dropped. I guess I'll just have to keep trying. Now that I've been inside once, I feel more comfortable PuGging it and not feeling like an idiot, so I may run it more often now when I have the time. As a tank I should be able to get groups often. Oh, and I was wearing my Wyrmrest Accord Tabard, so I earned a bit of rep with them for the run. That was groovy. :) I have shamelessly stolen a very good gear wishlist that I'm following thanks to Kadomi's blog, and I'm working my way towards getting each slot filled with something on that list.

Oh, and from what I hear, we're in talks with another guild leader to eventually get together to raid. Sounds cool. Hopefully that all works out, because Naxx is calling, and I wants it, precious. I wants it all.