BGs and PvP are back

All battlegrounds are fun imho, but thoroughly enjoying the newest to join the Wrath battlegrounds (Strand of the Ancients & Wintergrasp) - Isle of Conquest.

Isle of Conquest

I love Isle of Conquest. It's fun, fast paced and has a bit of everything and you get to pvp!

• Capture the flag
• Defend your keep/leader
• Take and defend resources
• Man siege machines
• Carry bombs to break down gates
• Flying machines that you jump/parachute into the opponents base

What more could you ask for?


Warsong Gulch

Warsong Gulch has the new 20 minute timer which I'm trying to view in a positive light. I definitely approved the time limit in Warhammer scenarios, so good to see Blizzard adopt this for what can often be a turtle-fest in Warsong Gulch. I like this bg, but having been in ones that have gone on literally for a couple of hours - it can be a huge time sink.

The downside, one quick flag cap and excellent defense/turtle will win. I'm hoping that won't be the case, but it could very well be.

I did one Warsong on a mid 20 hunter. The xp gain was between 500-600xp. I don't remember what quest xp goes for at that level, but for 20 minutes and gaining honor/marks it's full of win for me! It was a typical PUG, good/bad/whiners/complainers - but fun.


Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm

The lower resource points needed to win from 2000 to 1600 - I'm not sure I get the need for that. Neither of those two bg's are very long, but I did notice in the couple I did yesterday, alot more running to cap and alot less defending. The map constantly changed in AB. It will be interesting to see how much of a difference that makes. I haven't tried EoTS yet. AB xp gain for around 16K on a lower lever 40's player.


Alteric Valley

The only change here - more people likely to queue for the huge xp gains. Playing this at different levels it's a completely different game. The 50's and 60's can be a slog/back and forth more destroy and defend along the way with a split offense/defense. While the 71-80 seems to be constant zerg to kill the leader. I haven't tried AV at level 80, but level 62 DK the xp gain was close to 57k.


Wintergrasp

I'm admittedly still lost in Wintergrasp, so do alot of random running, killing and dying. But then I've only been in a few so far! Supposedly the lag issue has been fixed. That would be great, but I'm not holding my breath - Dalaran, Wintergrasp and the Tournament Grounds are horrific at times.

It's good to have the change of being able to fly over WG as long as you stay up high as I've been unmounted a couple of times not paying attentin flying about.


Battleground XP

I've not read anywhere online how the xp is being calculated, but I'm glad they've added it! The complaints in the lower brackets of the OP twinks dominating will be gone as the majority of twinks will turn the xp off (10g cost) and will only be facing other xp off opponents. I'm hoping this won't kill the twink brackets (I've only made casual twinks, but it's still fun). I'm assuming many twinks will migrate to a few of the more active battlegroups. Hint, hint - it would be great to offer free transfers for them Bliz!

I'm curious to see though if some will 'twink' a toon for world pvp. As they can turn off xp, gear up and have lots of fun! I can see the level 19 twinks ganking the 20-30 level people - I'm sure the GM's will hear lots of complaints. But it may bring back more world pvp on the pvp servers - yeah!

I can definitely see more people that like pvp leveling in battlegrounds. Maybe not at all times, but a nice way to level in addition to dungeon crawls and questing. As an avid lover of pvp, I'm sure I'll spend time in the different level bgs.

New Spirit Beast ftw

Patch 3.2 was out yesterday.

Everything laggy as can be, so couldn't spend time in Dalaran or the Tournament Grounds - went pet hunting for the rumored new Spirit Beast - Skoll.

Found him.

Tamed him.

LOVE him!

Blue, with crackling lightening, and in Beastial Wrath what a sight - damn gorgeous!

Tada! She's back!

I've finally started playing my Shadow Priest after parking her last June (2008) over Shattrath on her flying mount. I did pull her out and manage to go 1% into level 70 over the past year, but just didn't have any interest in playing her. Now that Sithi is 80, in a raiding guild and is going to try the whole raiding scene, I thought it was time to get Sas out and start leveling her.

She's far far behind on the achievement list, her guild is full of the alts of the people she played with as they've progressed on AND I had to relearn how to play a Shadow Priest after a year.

Having not played her in so long it took about two hours of looking at her talents - trying to remember what and why - setting up keybindings, then finding a rotation that worked but didn't drain mana. We've settled on SW:P, Mind blast, Mind Flay for most single targets, bubble/wand if needed. Rarely using the other DoTs on single target as they're dead much to quickly.

She also needed glyphs, enchants too, so drained what money she had saved! So, lots of catch up!

Fortunately she doesn't have any difficult professions to level (mining/herbing were both maxed, fishing still low, but doable), the worst has been getting her cooking caught up. This dictated a side trip out to Silithus and Felwood to grind out those last levels killing and cooking worms and bears until the Outland recipes came up. Fishing/hunting in Outlands was short and sweet, so she's caught up to Northrend cooking already - yeah!


As this was one of my favorite PvP characters (maxed honor two and half times before level 70), I'm looking forward to diving back into that once she's hit 80. (I tried Winter Grasp and Strand of the Ancients - those are fun!) I've always enjoyed the battlegrounds in WoW - actually glad they keep adding them.


I'm actually trying a new leveling process - following Jame's leveling guide over at Wow-pro.com . So far it's working fantastic! The directions are clear, the circuits may seem odd, but saves lots of back and forth running and the xp has been rolling along. He's really got the kinks out of the process. I've read many of his instance guides (and other contibutors on wow-pro), it really helps make sure you have all the quests and don't miss out on xp/loot. I know some people are against guides, but you still have to do the work, it's not automatic, just simplifies the routes.

In three sessions (this includes the run to Silithus and Outlands recipe chasing) we knocked out Howling Fjord, started our Kal'uak rep dailies (I have a lust for their Mastercrafted Kal'uak Fishing Pole!) and have made our way to Warsong Hold in Borean Tundra.

Fighting the Scourge, and seeing Kel'Thuzad (he's that freaky model I've run into in Northrend - just creeps me out!) while flying on a magic carpet - full of win!

It seems to me that Shadow Priests are either much easier to play than I remember or else playing all the other characters has made me a tad more confident and - dare I say it - a better player, as we're having no trouble in chain pulling or handling multiple mobs (3-4 same level), something I never tried in the past.

Lil' Game Hunter Achievement will be easier

The upcoming addition of more companion pets with patch 3.2 will make getting the Lil'Game Hunter (75 pets) achievement easier. I'm not overly thrilled with Little Fawn - definitely not on my 'oh gotta get it list' but I'm sure I'll work at getting that achievement too!

The complete list of all pets - wowvault.ign.com

These 3.2 world drop mobs (taken from wowvault list) all seem appealing, and will have the rest of the 'gotta get that pet' crowd running around Azeroth. Heads up PvP servers!

• Darting Hatchling from Dart, Rare spawn in Dustwallow Marsh.
• Leaping Hatchling from Tak the Leaper, Rare spawn in the Barrens
• Razormaw Hatchling from Razormaw Matriarch, Rare spawn in the Wetlands
• Ravasaur Hatchling from Ravasaur Matriarch, Rare spawn in Un'goro Crater
• Razzashi Hatchling from Razzashi Raptors in Zul'Gurub
• Deviate Hatchling from Raptors in Wailing Caverns
• Gundrak Hatchling from Raptors in Zul'Drak near Gundrak

While checking out the Vault list, I found a few vendor purchasable ones, that I've overlooked while waiting for the next patch.

Plus a few quest ones that I need to grab -
I never have had the Outland daily fishing quest drop a pet and the darn OOX mechanical chicken has been borked for me as well. I know I've done at least one part of that, but after an hour or so killing low level guys I can't get the other two parts to drop. Maybe try it again.

Also need to get an engineer make a mechanical yeti and . . . I'm wondering if I'm a bit OCD about pets and mounts!

Track your collection - WarcraftPets.com

Age of Conan

I did go back and try AoC.

After the hideously long patch process, I finally left it for overnight download.

I logged onto the characters I'd made two years ago (I'd actually forgot what I had until I did!). Unfortunately I had no sense of nostalgia. I had logged the Barbarian out on the side of a hill! Definitely not my usual 'log out in town' in any game way, especially on a PvP server!

So ran the two highest level ones (Barbarian 32, Priest of Mitra28) around a bit trying to get a feel for playing. I still like the more involved fighting with the shield indicators on npcs - more than continued key spamming at least!

Realized the Priest (or Priestess) of Mitra was as easy as I remember to play, but I didn't have a great feel for all the spells nor any oh joy I want to play you feelings.

Logged out and rerolled a new toon, a Necromancer, dinged level 5 before leaving the jungle and logged out.

Pretty game, interesting fighting style, very scenic ... so why doesn't this game hold my interest?
I really don't know.

There has been rumors of this going to a Free to Play game. If it does I would likely keep it updated and pop in on occasion, but not up for the monthly fees on what would be very random play.

Hunter Changes 3.2

click for PTR 3.2 Patch Notes

Hunters

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16. Good for 10-19BGs
  
• Deterrence: This ability now allows the hunter to parry spells and attacks from behind as well as in front. Now has a new visual spell effect. Cool. I know I don't use this enough, but likely will now.
  
• The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
• Frost Trap: Will no longer "fizzle" on targets immune to snare effects, however Lock and Load will not succeed when using Frost Trap if the target is immune to snare effects.
• Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
• Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time. Trapping should prove interesting as they don't last as long but we can put different ones down at one time. So not quite a chain but kind of? The problem is trap duration time. So you won't be able to freeze trap in a chain, but damage, snake then freeze? Hmm.
  
• Talents
• Beast Mastery
• Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds. Using Kill Command more - yeah!
  
• Survival
• Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
• Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.
• Pets
• Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown is now 1 minute, up from 30 seconds. Keep the healers (or others) up in groups/raids by taking 20% damage that's a nice ability.
  

Classes: General

• All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums. Not really sure how/if this affects hunters?
  
• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
• Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3-second Interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects. Great for MM hunters on NPCs.

Bug Fixes

• Hunters
• All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
• Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered significantly.
• Furious Howl: Ranks 1-5 will no longer give slightly more attack power than is listed in their tooltips.
• Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
• Roar of Sacrifice: Damage transferred to pet is now considered Nature damage.
• The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage as well.
• T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black Arrow

Items: General

• Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.
  
• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
• Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.
• Item Buy Back Feature Revised
• The Item Buy Back time will now expire if the player enchants or sockets an item. Players will see a confirmation dialog box now when they attempt to enchant or add gems to an item giving them a last chance to reconsider.
• Items with Triggered Effects: These items generally have cooldowns on how often they can be triggered. Those cooldowns are now triggered each time the item is equipped (example: A trinket has a 45-second cooldown on an effect triggered by player attacks; when a player equips that item, the effect will be unable to be triggered for the first 45 seconds it is worn).
• Mounts
• The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
• Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.
• Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.
• Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from 60%.
• Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde).
• In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.
• Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
• Parry Rating: The amount of parry rating required per percentage of parry has been reduced by 8%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply. Parry still diminishes more quickly than dodge.
• Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance, critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.

Tome of Cold Weather Flight: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68 While not hunter specific, this is going to be nice for those with alts heading to Northrend.


click for Hunter Q&A with Ghostcrawler -

I'm not sure I buy the complete difficulty of endless arrows from Bliz! Even if the vendor available ones were endless - like thrown weapons. The vendored ones do have levels attached so ? Add more rep grind ones along with new recipes for alchemists/enchanters/engineers/blacksmith to 'buff up' arrows with frost, fire, poison, armor penetration, mana regeneration. Heck include as random world drops from chests, mobs, etc. Make it that you can't 'switch' arrows during combat if that would make it to op. There are ways to do this!

Seriously grinds me to spend 30g+ for Saronite Razerheads arrows per stack of 1000 AND have repair bills from group/raid wipes. Lowering the cost to make it doesn't mean the sellers will lower their cost just as easily or quickly!

Current arrow selection by type/level.


Why do hunters use mana? We don't benefit from +spell power, mail gear post level 40 with +intelligence is hard to come by, so why do we use mana?

We have Aspect of Mana - love it/hate it. Love it that we have it. Hate being in it so much as leveling on a PvP server it is - imho - safer to kill slowly and have mana while leveling than run out and get killed by another player because I'm a 'caster' that is oom and going to die!

How about some new armor patch/spell thread/enchants for intelligence would be a quick fix and give all the crafters new things to make.


Pet slots, being greedy about pets of course I want more, but really think 5 is pretty decent unless they start to add new tameable ones! I mean if you have a tenacity, cunning, ferocity, the last two are usually sentimental or the 'I tamed it' types. Especially now that we do not have to train pets by taming others to learn the skills. (Although I admit I did like that aspect of the game and thought the difficulty added to the fun of being a hunter.)


BM - I do hope they'll make it viable for raiding without making it OP. Can't theorycraft worth a darn, but do believe BM pets should provide more buff to the hunter/group/raid than not and definitely bring something that MM/SV do not. Not necessarily more damage, but choosing BM should really bring something to the table for raiding. I think this is truly hard to balance as what you want viable for raids would be op for pvp.

Fishing the Daily Quests

Today, while doing the daily fishing quest (The Ghostfish), I arrived with much trepidation at Sholazar Basin, as I've never been through Sholazar without being killed - generally by paladins usually waiting at the flight path at River's Heart. (What's with the blood elf angst against night elves? Still pissed from getting /kicked from the night elf community many milennia ago?)

So...I land on the public bird - five Horde fishing and milling about. Great. The lone Alliance is a druid and he's playing duke-nukem with a Horde druid in all their varied forms - it's a bird! It's a bear! It's a cat! No a tree!

Definitely time to fly away! Pull out the slow mount and away I go! Hovering just out of sight of River's Heart, I looked on Wowhead.com, hoping there were other options as far as fishing up this Ghostfish -

Yes!

I can fish at water leading into the River's Hearth! Found a quiet spot (50,57 approx.) and within 10 casts fished up Mr. Ghostfish and hearthed out!


Daily Fishing Quests in Dalaran are from Marcia Chase and include:

1. The Ghostfish
2. Dangerously Delicious (I've never had this one come up yet)
3. Jewel of the Sewers
4. Monsterbelly Appetite
5. Blood is Thicker

Complete all five quests for the achievement Chasing Marcia.


Daily Fishing Quests in Outlands are from Old Man Barlow:

1. Crocolisk in the City
2. Bait Bandits
3. The One That Got Away
4. Felblood Filet
5. Shrimpin' Aint Easy

Complete all five quests for the achievment Old Man Barlowned

Finally - Drake time!

We finally have the Albino Drake!!!! The acheivement reward for Leading the Cavalry. 50 mounts isn't impossible to achieve, and is definitely easier for those that are collecting now with the Tournament mounts available and more dungeon drops that have been added, but it's not a cake walk!


Next stop Mountain of Mounts - 100 mount achievement!

** List of all currently available mounts and Patch 3.2 changes - Wowwiki/mounts or warcraftmounts.com

Finally the big Ding!

Finally in a very un-climactic way Sithi dinged level 80 turning in a daily quest. I had planned to take a 'good' ding photo, but not paying attention resulted in another typical butt shot with the glowing 'you win' colors! This was such a déjà vu of Sassi dinging 70 last year – killing ogres, yakking in vent and missed the whole photo op!

Oh well at least Sith’s 80 and can start running with the big boys! Which she did with her level 75 wolf, no respec, no level 80 spells and in my crap PvP-I’m still leveling-gear! The guild wanted to run Obsidian Sanctum – which by the way they had a hilarious roar about afterwards when I asked where we had just been! No clue what instance we were in, I was just following along! (Hey I was confusing the name with the Sanctum of the Scaleborn from EQ2!)

Now that Sithi is no longer a raiding virgin even though she was pretty much carried by everyone else as my low dps was /cring worthy. The good points from the first time - the wolf only died twice, I didn’t personally overtax the healers, stayed out out of the flames and avoided spining circles! When the Recount was posted - I did out DPS the healers - lol!!!

It was a bit mortifying knowing the two ‘non-guildies’ were inspecting me and I’m sure whispering some of the guildies why is the nooblet in quest blues-greens/pvp gear here? But they’re “stand strong” on guild support over pick-up people which I like!

They kept telling me, it’s the only way you’re going to learn, you're part of the guild, etc. I told them well if you're going to laugh, do it in whispers to each other or when I'm not in Vent! Not to feel good at someone else's expense, but it was a bit of a relief to listen in Vent to our guild healer questioning his performance against the pick-up healer that out healed him. I know topping DPS isn’t going to happen for me anytime soon, but please oh please let me always beat the healers – lol!

After that, Sithi did blow some savings on dual-specing MM (can't let go of BM), picked up a few gear enchants, glyph upgrades, gems, so hopefully tonight she’ll do a bit better.

The hardest part with the new spec - learning to play MM. The killing is quick - which is great - but pulling aggro off my gorilla, argh! We died so many times last night trying to solo as MM, Omen threat meters screaming at me (me screaming to myself waaa what do I do!!!), something we've never experienced in almost 50 levels! Last night was seriously pathetic.

So, lots of MM practice in the future. I finally switched back to BM to complete the solo quests. It was so nice and familiar, like putting on comfy shoes after wearing the not quite broken in ones!

The experiment in MM spec resulted in an 18g repair bill, almost a stack of Frostweave bandages used, a stack of the gorilla's favorite fruit, all the 'extra' food I had gone. So not having an actual account, we had to have died 5-15 times. That would be more than the last 10 levels combined.

How embarrassing - LOL

Colecting Keys

The other day the GM & Co-GM of our guild were discussing getting the Karazhan and Arcatraz keys so more guildies would have them, and they were also completing the Key Master Achievement. Lusting after achievements and keys myself, I waiting for an opportunity to see if others could get in on this too, without whining or begging!

As they were already through most everything short of the Caverns of Time instances, I assumed I would be out of luck, but then mentioned they wanted to take any of the guild this week to get keys too! W00t!! Me! Me! Me!

The GM said as long as I did all the pre-quests up to the first instances they’d include me! Oh yeah! Now mind you, this is 2 a.m. and I really need to go to bed...but I want this DONE! So, off I go to bang through those quests. Shat-SW-Kara-Dalaran-Shat, Netherstorm and all the prequesting accomplished! Love my gorilladin tank!

Last night I log in, the guild is in a funk. Bad Nax 10 raid, that is on the verge of breaking up. I sit quietly in vent, going about my dailies (working for $$ still). The raid finally is called. Moods are not very good and a few people log off. (I found out later one of the raiders was having more fun with Peggle then raiding! : O) Not good!!

The guys are discussing what they're going to do - ah ha opportunity - I mention “I got the pre-quests done whenever you guys go this week.” Now hold breathe.

Not a terribly enthusiastic response. The Co-GM who's normally very jovial in a M-rated way is dead silent, but the GM said we’ll run you through the instances and then continue on the CoT. Yeah! I do make the token, we can do it another time, if you'd like while crossing fingers they'll still want to go!

The GM says no, we'll go! Yippee! They invite another guildie that will get xp (lvl 70) so he can practice healing. Off we go to burn through those instances, two shaman, a druid and my hunter.

Shadow Labs is first up. Fairly smooth - I get turned into a frog by Blackheart the Inciter which was better than when he turned the tank against the dps and healer - lol!

Fortunately he's down fast and we’re breezing through it, except for the healer (lvl 70) that keeps pulling aggro as he’s jumping around. Finally I asked him,

“Do you have ADD?”

“No! But I can’t just stand here, nothing to heal.”

I’m thinking I don’t care if you jump but jump AWAY from the mobs that are so attracted to your level 70 goodness! Fortunately I'm watching him and keep the wolf pulling mobs off him.

We had one wipe, when he uses one of his AoE spells. I feigned, but accidently ‘moved’ (I need to practice when feigned hands OFF mouse and keyboard!) so died.

We ran back, killed Murmur and on to Steam Vaults and then to Netherstorm to Arcatraz. We blew through those too. A couple of remarks by me to the two draenei shammy's on the welcome home /sigh - they didn't get it! We were in out of there so quickly, it literally took longer to get there than the time spent in each instance!

Now to Caverns of Time.

Segue here –I must admit CoT is one of my favorite places to go. I’m a bit of a WoW lore junkie! The more I learn about the ‘whys’ of what we’re doing the more I enjoy questing, visiting areas and listening/reading NPC dialog. I particularly love going to Southshore in Old Hillsbrad just to watch the NPC’s interact. Freeing Thrall from Durnholde is fun for me. The whole story of Thrall, the slave, and Taretha, his only friend, bridging the human/orc hatred. It make questing alive to me and explains more of the whole Thrall/Jaine relationship - although I've wondered at times about those two ... I mean, Horde players go to Tarren Mills and do the Durnholde quests, but I doubt many realize why it’s rubble, and why you’re collecting Taretha’s necklace. Interesting stuff!

Back to our adventure - so, the Co-GM’s brother joins our group for more firepower, so the group is Druid tank, two Shaman dps, Shaman heals and my Hunter/wolf. Needless to say this went very quickly, as the ‘new shaman’ is 22K health unbuffed – scary hits! Everything died so fast and there were so many totems strewn around it looked like a party! The druid tank couldn’t build rage effectively it went that fast! But it was fun. The healer had no healing to do so more jumping and totem tossing was his role.

Off to Black Morass. At first I thought we were in the Swamp of Sorrows as I’ve never been in the Black Morass instance, so didn’t know exactly what to expect. Surprise, we get to meet Medivh at the Dark Portal and found out this was the Blasted Lands before they were blasted, dried out and ugly!

From a strictly lore basis, you have to question why we’d want to help Medivh open the Portal, but the Keepers of Time hint at it being the lesser of two evils. The orcs wouldn’t have arrived on Azeroth, but would the Burning Legion have arrived anyway? Hmmmm…

Good times! Kara key in hand, Arcatraz key later this week!

GM has his KeyMaster achievement, so he’s happy too. They want to see how fast we can run through Kara this week too. I’m willing, as I’m still new to this guild, they’re fun in a casual/relaxed way so it makes WoW so much more enjoyable.

I may actually enjoy raiding – won’t that be a kick?