The gang

It's been 15 day +/- since I last wrote anything. I've been reading to many 'blog' how-to's which kind of freezes you in place wondering why do I write and how boring am I?

Anyway the WoW gang -


The Alliance. I'm still playing them the most, much to the dismay of my Horde friends.

Sithi -
Working on the Kurenai rep still. How many ogre's does a night elf have to kill to get a Talbuk? Apparently alot! Argh! At least the drop on the darn necklace has been fairly good, as well as the stacks of netherweave that will help pay for all the talbuk mounts!! As Sithi's just shy of 73 they're still green so some XP too! The albino drake gets closer! I'm really contemplating leveling her to 80 as I want to try the tournament so badly, I can almost taste it!

I've been combining this very boring/tedious task with the daily Fishing and Cooking quests along with a few other Outland dailies. It breaks up the Ogre slaughter.

Sithi is also, only 3 pets shy of the 50 pets achievement too. And only Northrend left for the Explorer title. Finished the 'It's Happy Hour...' one after reading drink 25, didn't mean alcohol. The coffee seller in Lower City was the ding!

I've also with all Sithi's exploring, found an appreciate for Netherstorm. Sassi never went past Area 52 and did no questing there, so it's a totally new area to me. The pink is overwhelming at times, but I love it in general, especially after Blades Edge, which I hate. The sharpness and dead dragons - one of my least favorite places. It makes Hellfire and the dang fel reavers seem fun!

Now the question, quest there to level, or save it for money later after 80 questing? I'll probably quest as it's dead empty! I don't think I've even seen anyone Horde or Alliance in Netherstorm, Blades Edge or Shadowmoon at all. Call me weird, but I'm going to see all those areas before Northrend! It will be there, just full of more 80's waiting to kick my butt out of boredom -lol!!!

The Druids are stalled out at 33/34 as I've been working Miss Sithi. Gifted the RAF levels to Zadril she's almost 33 now and now have a brand new level 17 warrior, Deva wearing starting gear - lol. I've never played a warrior so thought another class to learn.

I've been doing Warsong Gulch with Keg, he's not fully twinked, but close. It's fairly enjoyable, even getting beat by far better hunters, I'm having fun! He's trying to get the Arena Grand Master, but only has one AM now, as it is an achievement now, so Gurubashi is filled with level 80's most of the time. He was opening the chest and received the first two items before the serve shutdown, so no joy on a second AM. I have him living there as all he does otherwise is WG.

Took Frothe in a BG too. I haven't played anything but a hunter or shadow priest in PvP in so long it felt weird. She did okay considering she's only a level 14 LOL!

Had the three Death Knights running thru Hellfire - boy does that go fast with three of them! I do have to say a gnome is a PvP magnet. A Horde DK attacked Greaf, while I was loading Jeall and Landrel. Bad idea as the blood elf went down fast. LOL! She never rezzed either once all three were loaded and standing over her body.

I've also been spending time with various low toons in Wailing Caverns getting gear for them, and collecting deviate scales for Sithi. The belts sell well on the alliance side for twinks.

Finally broke down and bought the Deviate Fish recipe for 500G on the neutral AH. It's been 1-2K on the alliance side. Considering the fish sell for 2g each, it will make $$ long term. Found fishing inside WC she fished up 40-45% deviate fish and no worry about a lvl 80 beating her up while she fishes. For some weird reason, I've actually been enjoying fishing as of late. Maybe it's the changes to fishing up junk versus nothing or travelling all over to level. Although I do love to fish the pools of debris, like finding a chest - lol!

The Horde side -

I have been on there a bit. I even was in vent the other day - lol! I have a hard time just popping in if I'm not playing. Just seems like cheating or something, especially if I'm playing alliance seems wrong to be in the horde vent!

Actually took Sassi out and working on the explorer title for her. A few Azeroth areas left, Outlands is done. She's actually now 6% towards level 71!!! I'm not hating it, but not loving playing her either!

I did work on the hunter gang. Started a new one for the 19's on the horde side. Actually two, a blood elf and an orc, although the orc will likely be the one I'll use. BE's I like to play, but they're a bit weak at that level.

How is that for a bit of a rambling state of the toons! LOL

Lagging, d/cing and other fun

This week has been horrific in the lag department - 4-1oK ms at various times.  A phone call to ATT - whom I love in a very raging postal way - told me nothing was wrong but that I needed to let my modem rest!  Excuse me?  The new modem needs a nap?

  
According to the ATT tech, in fact my DSL modem does need a 1-2 hour nap for every 8 hours of use.  I told him that was the first I'd heard that, but he should put out a company wide memo to the other reps so they could be as well as informed as he was!  I swear, the last ding-dong told me I had lag as too many people used electricity in he evening.  Huh?  Phone line/electricity are competing now?  I guess the b.s. works on most people.  I'm surprised my ATT file isn't flagged with incoming @#%% on the phone, send to thickskinned rep that actually knows something.

We've tried rebooting PC's, unplugging the modem, resetting it, checking the firewall, removed the WTF files from WoW, deleted extra UI addons - all to know avail.   I'm going to buy two ethernet cables to see if that will make a difference (I don't see how but I'm willing to give it a try!).

I'm truly un-thrilled with this as the only reason I moved to Darrowmere from Wildhammer was to escape the lag and now this!!!  Not that it's a bad server, but the AH is miserable and the population - you can be in most areas and rarely see anyone - except for world events.  It wouldn't have been my choice if I had known the lag would follow.

The D/cing has been awful too.  BG's are unplayable as you never know when you'll d/c, same for any advanced questing/instances - tired of coming back to a corpse!  So, I've been dinking around reorganizing everyone.  I moved Sithi to the second account, so she can now level with two death knights (safety in numbers in Northrend!), use the RAF grant levels to level up Zadril (now 31), Sassii(now 24) and a new warrior Deva (17).  

Nothing funnier than a warrior at level 17 in starting area gear!  Deva was an accident anyway - I thought I clicked on paladin, but with the lovely lag ended up with a warrior at level 17 before I noticed!  Now I have a definite L2P with Deva as I've never played a warrior in WoW.  My two main characters in Eq2 were a Berserker(tank)  and a Monk (meleee dps) so it shouldn't be to difficult, just something new to learn!

I have 10 more day with my RAF bonus xp, etc., so I want to take advantage of that.  Everyone that I solo play will be sitting for a bit while I work on the groups.  Hopefully get the druids into the 40's or higher.  Too many toons so little time.

Achievements

The WoW Achievements when they first came out seemed like a total knock-off of the Warhammer ToK (Tome of Knowledge) - which is awesome in itself. Being able to track your progess through every aspect of the game is fantastic, but I digress. The WoW achievements I've grown to find amusing, fun and irritating at the same time.

Some are funny, some are so 'come on donkey the carrots in front of you' and we all chase that darn carrot! One of the ones I've been lusting after for months is the albino drake from the mount achievement Leading the Cavalry. The next one is the Mountain o' Mounts and the Blue Dragonhawk (Red for Horde).

This is Sithi's newest mount the Swift Zhevra getting her a step closer!

I do want this albino drake, but haven't actually been working that hard to get it. Sithi is sitting right now at 40 mounts. If we grind out rep with the Kurenai and the artisan riding skill we'll make that easily. Now to stop spending money on the alts!

Battlegrounds and twinks

I've finally leveled Keggard to 19 running thru Dead Mines one last time trying to get a drop. No joy, so he's likely done as he's 43% to level 20 and I'm keeping a healthy margin - just in case!

Keggard and Widget his spider

Keg is a semi-twink, as I don't have a level 80 to collect badges for BoA gear, and he missed out on the grandfathered in twink things. I'm really glad we bought some of the things for him back in January before moving to Darrowmere, as some enchants/gear I still haven't seen for sale on this server! The downside his 100 HP chest enchant was nerfed with the last patch, so he's back to a 50 HP. I do need to get an enchant for his hit rating, but I'll confess I barely understand that, sooo we'll see!

So, he's fairly competitive, but still missing some of the key 'twink' gear. Here's his armory profile - Keggard. We're working on the Alliance trinket now.

I'd like to get the AGM (Arena Grand Master) trinket and the Fishing Tournament gear, but doubt this will happen! This was my first attempt at a twink, I'm happy - he's a hunter (I LOVE that class) and I'm having fun so its all good!

This is what he did the first two days playing at level 19 -

Ir's a bit embarrassing but I actually had to run the flag - not my favorite - but the healer didn't want to so I did. I'd rather defend the base or go on O to support the flag runner, than actually run a flag. Just not my thing!

I did get an invite to a twink guild, but don't see any reason to at this point. Although I do want to make more twinks - hunters definitely, but also thinking of a 'lock, or warrior or shaman for the 19's. I'm not sure I'd be good at any of those classes but it could prove to be fun!

As for the actual battlegrounds, it's been an experience. You get the gambit from the passing through 'I hate twinks', to the twinks that scream at everyone and how horrible they all are, to the rest of us that are trying to have fun!

I do feel bad for people leveling thru with the twinks, as some get really upset that twinks exist. But from all I've read/know they're not interested in those players, you want the competition of the other twinks, otherwise its a slaughterfest. Nothing is more enjoyable to me than trying to burn down the hard to kill rogue or other hunter or paladin. There are some awesomely geared players that really know their class - lol - half the time I want to stop and watch them!

I rememeber my first BGS on my mage and shadow priest - they were so painful - but I had that L2P learning curve, I'm still a horrid mage (why she's at 22 after two years!), but have learned some strategy in playing. The only bad side is playing both Horde/Alliance some times you forget which side your on - lol! Good times!

DKS

I'll admit it - I have a serious love/hate relationships with Death Knights!

They have proven to be fun to play (finally realize why so many people have Paladins!), but ZOMG learning a good strategy to kill them with different classes.

My poor hunter was a ping pong ball in many battlegrounds until I developed a strategy.  If there is more than one run or prepare to die!  If there is only one and we can get the jump on

 him, trapping, staying at range, a good tanking pet, shot rotation and luck and we stand a chance!  Even if we die, I want that DK to think twice about trying to kill a hunter!

This is about Death Knights though.  

Blizzard (IMHO) did a great job with the DK's start area.  I love how the environment changes as the world progresses.  I don't know how they do that as you're not alone in an instanced environment like Tortage in AoC the night versus day setting.  The quest chain is linear but progresses quickly - nothing is difficult to accomplish.  The worst part I've had is too many DK's trying to complete certain parts so you have to wait.  

The ending cinematic - I found interesting and fun, especially the first time - I lie I liked it so well I deleted a DK to do it again just to show someone else the mini-drama.

As is my way, alt-aholic that I am,  I have a number of DK's.  They're all spec'd unholy as I did try Blood but it was not a comfortable fit at all.  I'm enjoying the AoE killing, although admittedly Blood kills single targets faster.  As for Frost haven't even attempted that.

Currently, I am two-boxing a pair of Blood Elves and a Human/Gnome pair.  I originally made them to run the some of the lower toons to gear them up with no intent of leveling, but they're proving to be fun to play on their own, so I've been spending some time on them.

The BElves have progessed a bit further along, completing Hellfire Pennisula, while the Alliance pair have mostly been running instances, collecting achievements and enjoying the recent World Events.  The speed which the two can get through content is amazing.  As I'm still new to multi-boxing, I'm still working out macros/keybindings but with DK's in general things die so fast it's hardly a worry.  Another nice thing, other than a level 80, they're fairly immune to attack traveling together - what a difference from the constant worry of a Shadow Priest or Hunter soloing content!

Here are the ladies - Biya and Greaf with their favorite trainer

This is Greaf post new hairdo's - had to get that achievement completed!  Landrel's photo didn't turn out, just an explosion of light with the achievement.

Death Knight armor ????

How is this for a happy Death Knight Blood Elf. Flowers and baskets just not her thing - lol. 

Or could it be the armor?

Children's week

It's running of the children time again.  Tell me, why is it they stay out and run behind our mounts like a companion pet.  It's soo funny yet seems to wrong.

It will take another year to finish this achievement anyway, just to collect the pets with Sithi and Sassi.

I know they pushed back Noblegarden with the big patch, but aren't these overlapping a bit?  

Noblegarden was interesting this year, fairly easy acheivements in comparision to the other World Event achievements at times.  We'll see how close we get! 

I will say though the random drop rate, argh!  The last day of  Noblegarden I finally had two of the pet rabbits drop, after having collected a few hundred eggs and buying it a a couple days ago.  It would be nice if some of the pets, etc., were bind on account.

Sithi still needs to find a few of the rarist of the rares though - Orc and Troll females.  I've heard this achievement does not have to be completed by the end Noblegarden, so bunny ears on an Orc will be funny mid-summer!  

* BTW - the last day of the Noblegarden two pet bunnies dropped while completing the daily . . . the randomness of it 

Chocolate-fest is on!

The first two to get hit with Shake Your Bunny-Maker.

Noblegarden is in full swing as everyone is flooding the start areas in search of Brightly Colored Eggs.  The achievements seem much easier than the nearly impossible Hallow's End ones.  

Running around as a cute bunny with a speed basket - too funny!  The two quests have been easy as well - collect eggs - open to see what's inside and turn in your shells/chocolates for a nice bit of XP.

I have noticed that 'drop' rate of the fun stuff i.e. the BoP pet seems to be truly random.  My Horde received two in the first twenty eggs collected, while two of my Alliance characters (in three different zones) have collected over 300 eggs and only had one drop.  Of course the one that is trying to collect the 50 companion pets for the skunk has NOT had it drop!  Is that karma or what?  Fortunately there is still plenty of time left.

Sithi has completed four of the achievements so far - now to get the darn pet - may end up buying it for 100 chocolate eggs if it won't drop!  The rest should be fairly easy to knock out this week on at least the higher level characters.

I figure Wednesday will be a good day to do many of the achievments the level 80's will be done and back to raiding so planting flowers in the desert should be less risky!  The joys of a PvP server . . .

All in all though Noblegarden is a nice diversion, easy for almost any level and features the usual quirky, tongue-in-cheek humor:

-  Shake Your Bunny-Maker use only on over 18 females

-  Spring Fling - find your pet bunny some love (they make lots of cute baby bunnies!!!!

Horde cast of characters

Life has been a bit busy but squeezing in some WoW time, but not blogging time!

State of the cast of characters -  I haven't been on my Alliance at all, so they're all gaining rested xp (and I'm losing the accelerated gain from the RaF program).  I have been back on BWL (Black Wing Lair) after an extended absence.  I couldn't figure out why (or forgot), I stopped playing on BWL, but this week reminded me - the lag!  

For some reason I have the worst lag spikes on that server.  But I have missed the guys I've played with on and off the past year or so (they're all level 80 now and consumate raiders) while I'm still dinking around with the level 40-70 toons as I'm not committed to one character (toon ADD?).   They're hilariously funny in vent though and I thoroughly enjoy listening to them.   I've always appreciated that they work hard at raiding and other aspects of this game, but all with a sense of humor and in a non-stressful way.  They're all very versed in WoW lore and game play so I always am learning!

On to what's been up!

Sassi - Shadow Priest

 I dusted Sassi off, after almost 10 months of not playing (I'd get her out fly around SC and log out) and had to face the realization that I haven't a clue how to now!  Not that I was ever that good as I've had a huge learning curve on the roll of a SP other than a mana battery pre Wrath.   

So, I found her still in her PvP set that I worked so very hard to get (call it welfare epics all you want - that was hundreds of BGs to earn them - maxing 75K honor more than twice - so not a freebie set!) 

I've, spec'd her what I think will work (shadow/disc) and realize she still needs glyphs, new macros, lots of practice and the player (me!) to remember her spell rotation!  I'm going to level her to 80, some what unwillingly, but I will - I say that but it could be 2010 before I do as much as I'm not wanting to.  I'll dread giving up her matched set to wear better gear that will make her look clownish - thank goodness for shadowform!

Right now she's in Desolace to level fishing as I thought her cooking skill was higher but it's not, so she cant' cook for herself or the DK's.  Fishing and cooking is in order while the DKs level.

I am working on her achievements too - very slowly.  I'm really thinking to see how she plays with one of the DK's - I'm not sure how I'd set up the keybindings, but it could be fine - or a total wipe - lol!

Sithi, Hunter

The last one I'm working on on BWL is Sithi (another hunter).  She's at level 40 right now and when I logged on one of my friends found me in Orgrimmar.  I asked how he found me so quickly and he said because of the funny clothes my characters are always wearing! Hey I don't design this stuff and it looks hysterical on blood elves!

Death Knights - Biya and Greaf

This past week I decide to work on the Death Knights as they've been sitting at 58/59 since creation other than running a couple of the lower levels through instances to get them geared up. I've been working on them this week and they're at 62/63 - I'm not a fast leveler as I tend to stop for so many things on the way and I read quests - even the ones I've done a few times before.  (I truly appreciate the effort the designers/developers/writers have put into the details!)

The ladies took the flight to Swamp of Sorrows, rode down and through the portal to Outlands (I always go the old fashioned way - silly but I do!),  flew to Thrallmar, then rode (yea for those fast mounts) to Falcon Watch to Swamprat and finally to Shattrath City to set their hearthstone with the Scryers.  I know Aldor is easier but Horde I do Scyer.

They had the Khadgar tour of Shattrath.  I think this is a bit fun - you feel so noobish on this tour.  It's so out of date now, but I get a kick out of it anyway.

Death Knights really feel OP even post patch, as I've only died to either an epic boss or to a lag spike (very irritating) or by going in the wrong BG - that was really stupid!  I forgot they'd dinged over to the next tier and they were getting slaughtered!  Painful slog that one.

Biya did get her achievment for 100 quests - surprising as I didn't think she'd done that many.  

They've almost completed Hellfire, so on to Zangermarsh.  I think we have three-four things left in Hellfire - all the hard quests.  I'm going to try and see if they can two man Cruel's Intention as I've always found that the hardest quest in Hellfire.  If they cant' and getting a group won't work it will save for level 70!

The biggest problem I'm facing with the DK's is earning enough $$ before 70 for flying mounts!  I've always made money easily in WoW, but haven't been trying on this server so, need to knuckle down and get some cash flowing again!!  

BTW - I don't just play blood elves - I have a legion of orcs, taurens, and undead too.  The only thing I'm missing is trolls.  Love the racials but that's about it for me!!!

3.1 . . .

Do I do the 3.1 patch day complaint post?  LOL!!!  We all knew this was coming and the next two weeks will probably be crashes and off line fun as things get worked out.

I've been at 54% downloaded with 9 minutes left for the past half hour.  Oh progress its up to 16 minutes to download - the fun begins!

Oh well. 

The nerf to hunter pets (all equal stats) is a bit of a sore spot with me, but only time will tell how it shakes out.  I guess if we can spec them differently, but if complete balance is what WoW developers are seeking - good luck!  I often wonder if they factor in the human factor when making these decisions.  You get the hunter that never uses his pet (some MM hunters), the one that only uses his pet while they nap and everyone in between - 

• I'm sentimental its the first pet I tamed so I have to have it with me always
  
• the best dps or else to the curb, I must top the charts!!!
  
• only cats
  
• only boars
  
• it's pretty
  
• it's ugly and why I call it stinkytoes  (I saw a guy with the moniker smellmypits . . . not his pet either . . . /sigh)
  
• I had a pet - what do you mean we feed them?

As I definitely have enough hunters (the number will never be revealed as it seems weird) with enough pets to test the differences thoroughly!!!

As for the duel spec?  Is it really going to be worth it for hunters?  

Unless you're an avid raider and pvper, I can't see the spec changes being worth the 1K gold unless you just want to because its something new to do.  I can see the duel spec for healers or tanks that want to change stances, but the dps classes?  I mean as a hunter I can pvp and pve solo/group with the same spec.  Maybe there are new instances coming that will require the different specced hunters?

I'm sure there is a reason, but I'm sure this will all get beat around with the nerf bat before its said and done!