Patch 3.0.9 and Some Caverns of Time (That Kinda Rhymes)

Apparently, when the servers come back online today, we’ll be playing with patch 3.0.9. Not a whole lot to get excited about here. But something stood out to me:

Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.

As Gnomeaggedon pointed out last week in this post, we’re still without live instance maps four years after the game’s release. Yet the developer’s are devoting resources to correcting an issue being experienced by 1/100th of 1% of the game’s demographic? And a bunch of 3D glasses-wearing noobtards at that. Wow. Just… wow.

Aside from that, our Arcane brethren are about the only members of the Mage community to be affected by the patch. I’ll be interested to read Larisa’s thoughts in a few days. Oddly, Death Knights were completely untouched for the first time since the release of Wrath. Looks like Blizzard might be reaching a comfort zone with their controversial Hero Class.

As minor is it may seem, I’m pretty pumped about this one:

Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

Earlier this week, Drkdmon and I were running Torgath through Escape from Durnholde Keep. None of us had done it on those particular toons, so we needed to knock it out so we could run him through Opening the Dark Portal later that day. Once we freed Thrall and defeated Captain Skarloc, we galloped off to Tarren Mill. As we traveled, Drkdmon kept phasing in and out next to me. His glitchy movements were driving me nuts. Good bug fix, Blizz. You have my stamp of approval.

As an interesting sidenote, we had to run Durnholde two-and-a-half times. The first time, I forgot to accept the quest from Andormu. I talked with him. I opened the quest dialogue box. I even read it, which is a rarity for me. I just didn’t accept it. We figured this out as we attempted to enter the Dark Portal section of CoT and I just galloped in place as the other two entered the instance.

The second time in, we had a couple of setbacks. Drkdmon wiped us as we were setting the Incendiary Bombs in the Internment Lodges. I grabbed aggro from the first group of mobs and pulled them away from the others. I noticed that at some point, Torgath’s heals weren’t coming as frequently. Before I had a chance to figure out why, I had mobs attacking me from behind. I glanced at Torgath’s health as he slumped to the ground dead. It was at that point that I noticed Drkdmon battling the second group of mobs.

“How did you guys pull aggro from a whole different set of mobs?” I asked.

“Steve (Drkdmon) attacked a whole different set of mobs. He didn’t even go after the ones you did,” Torgath replied.

“Nice job, ass hat,” I said.

Corpse run. Second verse, not quite the same as the first. A little bit different, but a little bit worse. After destroying the five Lodges and defeating Lieutenant Drake, I told the guys to hold up in the basement of Durnholde Keep. I was the only one with the quest anyhow. I had a plumber coming over to the house to look at a clogged drain pipe. I knew that it was only going to take a few minutes with a power snake, so I knew the guys would be OK with it. As Torgath and I entered Durnholde Keep, Drkdmon went missing. His little blue party dot was right by us, but he was nowhere to be found. As we knocked out the last few mobs on the main floor, Thrall shot past us and down the hallway to the front door.

“What the f**k?” Torgath asked?

“Who the f**K let Thrall out of the prison?” I demanded.

“Steve,” Torgath answered.

“Jesus Christ! You’re killing me, Steve. I’m the only one with the quest… a quest that I can now no longer turn in,” I barked.

“Let him die,” Torgath offered.

“Steve or Thrall?” I asked.

“Both,” Torgath laughed.

And so we did. Our first run at the Dark Portal wasn’t much better. Torgath trained every Jaguar, Tarantula, and Crocolisk from the entrance to the instance to Medivh. We didn’t actually wipe. We just watched Medivh die as I fought every creature known to man in front of him. Drkdmon compunded the problem by attempting to knock out the Rift Lords and all of their adds by himself without heals. His rationale was that it would prevent the other Infinite-named mobs from spawning. Decent logic, but not exactly what you want to hear when you’ve got fifty spiders and kitty cats all up ons. Lesson learned: kill all of the trash on the way to Medivh. They have no tether point.

Okie-doke, kiddos. Servers should be back up now. I’m off to level Devv a bit.

Update: Maintenance extended by two hours. Why am I not surprised? Maybe they hadn’t worked out all of the kinks on that nVidia 3D glasses bug fix.

The Ups and Downs of Dinging Flagged or: How I Learned to Hate World PvP

Last night, Devv finally dinged 74 in Grizzly Hills. This was no small feat. She spent most of the climb from 73 to 74 flagged for PvP. After completing one of the Venture Bay PvP dailies, her five minute grace period never started. I tried logging out, logging back in, manually flagging PvP, then manually un-flagging. No dice. Open Help Ticket, wait fifteen minutes, Edit Ticket to remove some of the unnecessary cuss words, rinse, repeat.

Along the way, I was ganked by three individuals, all higher level than me, all Tauren. The lesson learned here is that people who roll Tauren Horde toons are the biggest pricks in WoW.

There was a Tauren Druid who insisted upon ganking me whenever my health was low. I alleviated this problem by logging onto Predatore after my third ganking.

I chased my tormentor halfway across Grizzly Hills before unleashing my army of undead on him. Of course, I corpse camped him. Pansy waited the full five minutes to un-flag before he rezzed. No matter, I griefed him into flagging again. This time, he literally ran for the hills. It took his every effort just to get away before logging into a level 1 Draenei and talking smack. Well played, jackass. Well played.

Readjusting to the Mage playstyle has definitely been a challenge. Devv’s corpse runs in Grizzly Hills are exponentially higher in quantity than Predatore’s in the same zone. On the bright side, Frostweave is dropping like mad. Devv is 89 pieces shy of 410 Tailoring. Some people long to get their professions to 450. I’ll be deeply satisfied with 410. That’s when it gets fun and profitable for me again.

Speaking of professions, Predatore’s Inscription has been quite lucrative lately. To this day, I’ve still never sold a single glyph. Every piece of gold he’s ever made has been from Darkmoon Cards of the North. Whenever a Nobles card drops, I immediately list it on AH. I haven’t sold one for less than 1000G yet. When my efforts yield any card of Prisms, Chaos, or Undeath, I throw it in the bank, working to create all eight of each. They don’t sell quite as well as Nobles on their own, so I’m banking on making my profit from compiling full decks.

Oh! One last thing. Someone asked me about Devv’s other profession earlier this week. She’s a Miner, currently at level 420. A Miner, you say? All of Devv’s Mining efforts go straight to the Guild Bank. Darkdmon is a Jewelcrafter so all of my ores are prospected for gems. His main, Darkasm, is a high level Enchanter so all of my extra crafted Tailoring items are disenchanted into dusts and essences. I can then either use them for other Tailoring patterns or for my own enchants.

Well, so much for sporadic posting. As busy as I’ve been, I’ve been dropping a word or two pretty regularly lately. I hope you guys enjoy reading my thoughts. I have some more creative posts in the works. Lately, it seems like I’ve just been giving progress reports. That will all change soon. Thanks for reading, ya’ll.

Devv’s First Northrend Instance

Now that Predatore has dinged 80, most of my playtime with him has been about moneymaking and progressing his Inscription to 450. He made it to 448 last night and pulled in a cool 1600G from an Ace of Nobles. But aside from that, I’ve been focused on leveling Devv again.

With about a month’s worth of rested XP (yeah, yeah… I know you only get credit for ten days), I’ve got double XP coming on the old girl for quite some time. Two nights ago, I pulled her out of the inn and resumed questing in Howling Fjord. At about 10:00 pm, I was wrapping it up and getting ready for bed. As I was about to hearth, I noticed a “LF1M DPS for UK then G2G” message in Trade Chat.

So, I didn’t get as much sleep that night as I had anticipated. But it occurred to me that Devv had never set foot in an instance in Northrend. It was high time to change that. I took a quick glance at the other party members. Since I was the last one in and they were all readied up, I didn’t waste time checking out their specs or stats. All that I knew was that I was heading in with a Priest, a Warrior, a Hunter, and a Paladin.

We tore through the first section at a breakneck pace. Despite taking some mana conservation efforts, I was going OOM and unable to keep up with the group. I was burning Evocation every time it was on cooldown. After knocking out the first boss, we cruised on into the next section. It was at this point that I noticed how low I was on the Omen totem pole. I was rarely seeing High Threat and my DPS was looking pretty pathetic. My target was rarely the same as the tank’s. More often than not, I was playing off-tank to the Priest. I couldn’t figure out how he kept pulling aggro and over-healing. I finally figured it out when I noticed he was 80.

Needless to say, we cleared UK with zero deaths. I got a nice blue helm for my efforts and thoughtful advice from an experienced healer. Last night, my experience wasn’t as enjoyable. This time, a 77 Priest led a rag-tag PuG including Darkdmon and Devv into Nexus and we didn’t make it past the first boss. The first time, I tried to back myself out of AoE range and wound up backing right into the patrolling mobs in the hallway. We wiped and the Priest took the opportunity to give us a good tongue-lashing to ensure we all knew to go after the purple clone first when she splits.

Our second attempt at the ol’ Magus was just as much of a clusterhump as we heard, “Death becomes you” five consecutive times before making our next corpse run. As I re-entered the instance, the Priest made some random negative comment, then left the group. Darkdmon and I decided to work together to wrap up some of our quests in Borean Tundra before calling it a night. I still can’t figure out exactly what screwed us the second time around. I think the Hunter’s pet pulled aggro from Darkdmon, sending the purple clone roaming free. Once the Priest was down, the rest of us were dead in the water.

So, my first experiences in the Northrend instances ended with mixed results. One thing that I do know is that if I have the opportunity to have a patient level 80 healer in a low 70’s instance, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. That guy was a Godsend. I’m looking forward to heading back into Nexus, but this time I’ll be sure everyone involved knows the fights. It’s not an incredibly complex instance, but it’s not exactly Deadmines either. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on your first experiences in the dungeons of Northrend. Leave me some comments on the subject if you have a moment. Take care, ya’ll!

Ding! 80!

That’s right, suckas! Predatore dinged 80 this afternoon. When Devv dinged 70, I wanted to make sure she was in a zone that had some sort of significance to her. Given the amount of time she spent in Nagrand, it only seemed fitting to reach the pinnacle at the time by turning in the repeatable Halaa quest Oshu’gun Crystal Powder.

Predatore… well, he doesn’t really have a strong connection to any particular area. But given the fact that he’s a Death Knight, it seemed appropriate to reach 80 by turning in a quest that garnered rep with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. With that in mind, I wrapped up my journey to endgame by turning in the quest Death’s Gaze.

So, what now? Holy poop, man. I have no idea. Clearly I’d like to get geared up. My mixture of blues and greens won’t do me much good regardless of what path I take. So now I have to decide if I’d like to gear up by chasing down reputation rewards, buying crafted items, PvP’ing my way to some semi-welfare epics, or trying to PuG my path to the purples that I want the most: Tier 7.

One way or another, my professions are yet again taking center stage. I followed the advice of Pugnacious Priest and farmed Frostweave for Devv in the area that she mentioned in this post. Her Tailoring is now up to 400. Darkasm finally got his Enchanting up to 350, so he’s been disenchanting all of my Northrend green drops to Infinite Dust so I can get to work on Bolts of Imbued Frostweave. Ten more points and I’ll be kicking out 20-slot bags for my guildies like a Cambodian sweatshop worker.

Thanks for reading, ya’ll. My personal life has been taking a turn for the difficult, so it’s nice to have this escape. A special thanks to all of my fellow bloggers who inspire me. Take a peek to the right to see who I’m talking about. Rest asssured, I’m not going anywhere. My posts might just become a little sporadic for a while. But like some wicked cross between Frosty the Snowman, The Terminator, and General MacArthur, I shall be back again someday… soon.

Tuesday Downtime Update

So, I’ve barely been writing lately. Real life has a tendency of doing that. I’ve had ideas for posts running through my mind for the last couple weeks, but every time I sit down to write, something else takes precedence. I quickly realized that this bad boy ran the risk of disappearing into obscurity. Not gonna happen, people!

When the servers finally come back up sometime this month, Patch 3.0.8 will be live. My first official act as a 3.0.8 World of Warcrafter will be to buy Devv’s Mechanostriders, eeking closer to the Leading the Calvary achievement. That will take all of five minutes. Then, she’ll be nestled cozily in Ironforge yet again as her big brother Predatore continues his journey to 80. I’m not sure when the paradigm shift occurred, but somewhere along the way, I fell in love with playing a Death Knight.

Poor old Devv is still 72 as Predatore inches closer to endgame, sitting at 78 as of this writing. The levels really started dinging once all of my toons were successfully transferred to Garrosh. P.S. – all of the links on the Armory page are now updated to reflect my new realm. Anyhow, now that I’m on a lower population server, I’m able to accomplish a lot more in a couple hours than I used to. On Silvermoon, I could usually expect an hour+ queue time only to be thrown into a mosh pit of mob ninjas, hoping to miraculously tap one or six to complete a couple quests before calling it a night. Ahh, serenity.

Making the jump to Garrosh was a lot smoother in the company of friends. Although I never officially joined Creative Anarchy, I know a lot of the guys in real life. So when Darkasm, Horgath, and Lotusdark announced that they were making the jump, I knew the time was right. Initially named The D Bags, our newly-created guild apparently received a complaint about the name very early in our existence. So, we are currently without a name as we wait on Blizzard to approve one of five names that we had to submit to them for their approval. Yeah.

I went through a brief period when I really wasn’t enjoying the game anymore. But now that I’m in the company of talented players around the same level as my main, it’s getting fun again. Despite the fact that Predatore is sitting on 80’s doorstep, I’m sure it will be Devv who sees the most endgame content eventually. Last night, Deathfright and Devv ran Torgath through Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace. Believe it or not, I actually died once. Anyhow, it was exhilarating to be back in an instance with the old girl, even if it was little more than a footrace. What surprised me is how quickly I forgot how to play my class. When my spells grayed out, it took me a moment to realize that I was out of mana. Mana?!? What’s that?

Another thing that’s adding enjoyment to the game for me is leveling professions. I always enjoyed it on my way to 70 and this time is no different. Predatore quickly leveled Herbalism to 450 and Inscription isn’t far behind at 443. Whenever he picks up Frostweave, it’s promptly mailed to Devv. Her Tailoring is only at 393 with Mining just beyond that at 401. But that’s not too bad considering she still hasn’t left the Northrend starting zones. I’m getting kinda pumped to make 20-slot bags and Flying Carpets, so I’ll probably head out and grind some humanoids with her before too long. Professions have always added another dimension to the game for me. Some people see it as a grind. For me, it adds more value for my money.

That’s all for now, kiddos. I’ll be back again soon. I promise. Well, sooner than last time. Maybe next time around, I’ll have a guild name to share. I have a feeling Blizzard will shoot down “First Name Banned” and “Offensive Guild Name,” deferring to one of our three less controversial offerings. We’ll see.

Shoryuken!

Let’s just be honest here. Anytime I pulled off that move in Street Fighter II, it was a complete frickin’ accident. I had no skill at that game whatsoever. While my buddies were effortlessly rattling off combos like they were going out of style, I mashed buttons. If I pulled off some kind of miracle once in a while, inadvertently nailing a combo, it only prolonged my inevitable defeat by about 1.5 seconds.

To a certain extent, Northrend makes me feel like a button-masher all over again. There are elements of confusion, frustration, and a complete lack of control. When I first hit the Borean Tundra, I was questing to beat the band. I just couldn’t wait to ding again. I was probably about 30% of the way to level 71 when it occurred to me that the last time I got repairs was in Stormwind before taking the boat to Northrend. My durability was down to 76%.  I even had to ask where to get repairs in Trade Chat. Ya know what? I’m not above rehashing old material to get a laugh, even if it is only from Vonya and Hannelore. It made me feel like a cow-punching noobtard. There! I said it.

By the time Wrath came out, I finally got a handle on all of the BC factions, their rewards, and how to increase reputation with them. Now, I’m back to being clueless. As Predatore cruises across Northrend, I’m constantly tabbing out to see what my reputation gain just went toward. I’ve spent more time reading WoW Insider than ever before. After reading the Lichborne column Reputation Rewards for Death Knights in Wrath of the Lich King, I decided to start grinding Kalu’ak rep so I’d have a Whalebone Carapace waiting for me at level 76. The item required Honored with The Kalu’ak, so I figured I’d just grind a little bit before moving into Dragonblight. Before researching what quests would make nice with the little tuskarr, I decided to log in to find out where I stood with them. Much to my surprise, I was already Honored. Oh snap!

I also find myself more dependant on Thottbot lately. I’ve never hidden the fact that I use QuestHelper. As I’ve acknowledged a number of times, I am, in fact, a noob. But even after reading the quest text and galloping off to QuestHelper’s little dummy marker, sometimes I still don’t know what’s expected of me. Again, I tab out and do a little reading. Like a complete moron, I frequently forget to relocate to a safe place before doing so. I’m usually welcomed by an ass-whuppin’ already in progress or a corpse run when I return to gameplay. Doh!

OK. So figure out how to complete the quest. Check. Figure out what the associated reputation does for me. Check. About half the time, there’s some type of reward other than gold and XP that comes with the turn-in. But what are these new stats and why have the ones that I’ve come to love  become so… random? Equipping the right combination of items is like hoping for a button-mashed Shoryuken. Well, it was at first. I quickly accepted the fact that Blizzard hates Mages. Why? Stamina + Spirit? You bet. Intellect + Spirit? Of course. But Stamina + Intellect? No way in Hell. Why, Blizz? Why?!? Predatore had slightly better luck with Strength and Stamina-rich plate items dropping like snow in Northrend. That’s probably the biggest reason I’ve chosen to level Predatore over Devv.

Every time I log in, I learn a little bit more about the subtle nuances of Northrend. It’s a good feeling to answer questions for fellow players going through the same growing pains that I experienced. But I’ve got a long way to go before I reach the comfort level I enjoyed in Outlands. When I finally ding 80 and enter my first endgame raid, I won’t be surprised if The Archlich Kel’Thuzad busts out a Sonic Boom!

Ambassador Devv

Screenshot or it didn’t happen. Devv with her new title and her old friend in Ironforge.

Patch 3.0.8, Nothing Cool Rhymes With That

In the short time that I’ve maintained this blog, the most popular post in terms of views has been Patch 3.0.3, Find Out What it Means to Me. With the official PTR patch notes dropping for 3.0.8 earlier this week, I figured we’d return to the same format. But this time around, I’m interested in more than just the Mage-lovins. Without further delay, the patch notes that interest me the most.

Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostrider? Tauren on raptor? You’re not seeing things.

Oh… snap! I’ve gotta get Raulduke to level 30 with a quickness. I can’t imagine anything funnier than a male Draenei on a Mechanostrider. Hells yes! On a serious note, this will make it easier for Devv to get the Leading the Calvary achievement and the Albino Drake reward. That’s six additional mounts that I didn’t have access to before. I’m already halfway there without some of the home faction mounts and none of the PvP mounts. This is gonna be cake! Onto the Death Knight goodies.

All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.

I treat my runic power like a mana pool. There’s nothing cooler than seeing Death Coil light up when the ol’ runic power battery gets recharged.

Blood Presence now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.

Predatore barely dies as it is. I thought this was supposed to be the great DK nerf that everybody was whining about. So far, so good.

Dark Command: Range increased to 30 yards.

Well, this will certainly make pulls a little easier. I just recently acquired this skill, so I’m still learning how to use it effectively. Sounds good to me though.

Death Knights have access to unique death-knight only facial textures and skin tones. These can be selected at the character creation screen.

Uh… OK. I was pretty sure that Death Knight facial features and skin tones were unique to them to begin with. I guess we’ll see what this means soon enough. But it seems a little late to implement this feature at this point. With millions of DK’s already created, the character creation screen is well into the rear view mirror.

Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 30 sec cooldown.

So far, nothing but good news on the DK front. I could care less about the CD. Zero cost plus additional runic power equals badass!

Pestilence no longer has a 10 seconds cooldown.

That one never made sense to me to begin with. This seems more like a correction to an oversight rather than an adjustment to gameplay.

Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:

• Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
• Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul  and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes. 

I hate to say it, but I’m really looking forward to seeing a party member die after 3.0.8 is released just to see the new Raise Ally spell. I’m just curious what the implications will be on that party member’s ability to release and rez. In other words, will raising your ally as a ghoul prevent him from releasing until the effect is over? If you’re standing right next to a GY, will it be possible for your ally to release, rez, and fight right alongside the ghoul created from his corpse? This could be interesting. Onto the limited Mage changes.

Evocation: Cooldown reduced to 4 min.

As if the glyph that added health regeneration to Evocation wasn’t cool enough, we now get this gem. This will be the change that affects me the most. As it stands, I no longer conjure food and water when I log on. Ever since applying the glyph, I’ve survived on the food and water that I’ve acquired from drops and the Evocation spell. I may never conjure food and water in a solo PvE setting again!

Slow Fall is now castable on others.

Yet another spell made even cooler with a glyph. This would have come in quite handy last week. I wonder if your target needs to be friendly. If not, it might be worth installing Fraps again if I could cast Slow Fall on an unsuspecting mob, then Blast Wave them off the edge of a cliff. Speaking of Blast Wave…

 Glyph of Blast Wave — The mana cost of your Blast Wave spell is reduced by 15%, but it no longer knocks enemies back.

Both parts of this new glyph seem to benefit raiders. It grants a reduced mana cost and adds more control over a decent AoE. PvP and solo PvE players will have to consider the trade-off. What’s more important? The impact on your mana pool or the separation that the knockback gives you?

Players can now open clams while riding a vehicle, sitting, mounted, stealthed, and invisible.

As dumb as this “improvement” sounds, it’s actually very cool. It says to me that nothing is too mundane for Blizzard to correct. I’m sure it’s only a couple lines of code, but it’s good to see they’re willing to make tiny little adjustments like this to satisfy their player base.

All in all, it sounds like a pretty solid patch. It’s not as game-altering as 3.0.3, but there are still some golden nuggets to be had. Evocation continues to become more and more useful to the Mage class and Death Knights haven’t been nerfed to the ground… yet. I think a lot of people might be disappointed that we’re not getting dual-spec yet, but I’m not. Why? Because there’s a lot of kinks to work out before this miracle of modern science becomes part of our daily lives. Will our action bars and key-bindings automatically switch when we toggle between specs? Will we be able to swap out armor sets as quickly as we can switch specs? How much will re-specs cost given the ability to carry two? There’s a lot to consider and I’d rather Blizzard get it right than get it done quickly. And rest assured, it’s coming.

Familiar Faces, Familiar Places

Let me start by saying F Northrend. That’s right! Screw that place. While the graphics are certainly better and the quests are superior, I’ve had enough of the latency on the technical side and the mob ninjas on the human side. I’m not in any huge rush to get to 80, so Northrend doesn’t hold any magical key for me at the moment. Our GM is only at level 74, so I’m not feeling any real pressure. Yeah, by the way, I made my way into a new guild. I guess that’s as good a place to start as any.

I rarely respond to guild recruitment messages unless I’m on an alt who happens to be without a guild at the time. But there was something a little different about a message that Stormblaze posted. His description of his guild was exactly what I was looking for: mature, fun, and casual. More importantly, no words were misspelled and all of his capitalization and punctuation were correct. I knew this was the guild for me. After a couple weeks of membership, I’d have to agree that the guild is exactly as advertised. In my short time playing WoW, my multiple toons have been in many guilds. Sadly, in most guilds that I’ve been in, gchat is usually little more than fart and dick jokes, noob-calling, and QQ accusations. Who the hell invented “QQ” anyhow? That got played out with a quickness. Anyhow, Devv and Arpeggio have found a happy home in the Stormwind Guardians. If I miss the fart and dick jokes or want to be called a noob or told to QQ more, I log into Predatore. His guild will remain nameless… and in the rear view mirror soon.

Where was I? Ah, yes… familiarity. In lieu of questing in Northrend, I’ve been spending some quality time in Outlands. And for the record, I don’t care if you call it “Outland” or “Outlands.” Even Blizzard employees have referred to it as both, so take a sedative and leave my “s” alone. Anyhow, Predatore is dinging like a grandfather clock at midnight, cruising to level 66 since his creation one month ago today. That’s right, folks. Wrath has been out for exactly one month today. When Devv was leveling through Outlands, she required help from at least one other toon to take down the various elites along the way. Predatore, on the other hand, has soloed every single elite that he’s encountered. Even elites that are a level higher have posed few problems once I worked out the proper attack rotation. Along the way, my Human DK has leveled Herbalism to 375/375 and Inscription to 360/375.

When Predatore is accumulating rested XP in one of the many fine inns of Outlands, Devv is grinding rep with Sporeggar. I had initially decided to wait until level 80 to go back and grind out the Naga slaughter. But then I remembered that the pattern for Mycah’s Botanical Bag only required Revered with the funny-looking little swamp-dwellers. Since Predatore’s bags are constantly filled to capacity with herbs, the reward more than justifies the investment in time.  The old girl is at about 5500/12000 through Honored and the Naga bodies keep dropping. While she’s grinding it out, she’s also killing the cooldown for Primal Mooncloth. The four pieces required to make the massive Herbalism bag will take just shy of two weeks. By then, Predatore should have dinged 70. As he is also boycotting Northrend until at least the new year, he’ll be sent back to the mainland to gather lower level herbs for profit. With students from elementary school through college off for most of the tail end of December, many will be power-leveling Inscription. It seems like the ideal time to take advantage of the market and make a little gold for a flying mount for ol’ blue eyes.

So, we’ve covered the familiar places. But the more exciting part for me is the familiar faces, one in particular. I’ve gotten to a point where I pay very little attention to my chat box. It sits nestled in the lower left hand corner of my screen and I rarely look at it. So, I apparently missed the “Kotasky has come online” message when I was cleaning out some bank slots. The first indication that she was online was a whispered, “Boo!” If you’re playing along at home, Kotasky and Devv were two-thirds of the founding members of my former guild, Cool Kids. A fellow female Draenei Mage, K and Devv did about a third of their leveling to 60 together. Last month, K went into semi-retirement. When her paid time expired, she didn’t renew. She said she would be back when she could get a new computer, but nobody knew for sure when that would be. I was pleasantly surprised that she was back sooner than I had expected. I was also happy to discover that she had created a Death Knight, cleverly named Kotaski. The old duo could finally do some questing together again.

The time that I’ve spent questing with K this past week has reminded me that the social aspect of WoW was a huge part of my attraction to the game in the first place. I’ll never forget following Kotasky through Tanaris on our Elekks. She always trotted in a straight line to her destination, oblivious to the mobs gathering around her. By the time we got back to Gadgetzan to turn in our quests, she had trained half of the population of Tanaris across the desert. Somewhere, I have some screenshots of the mayhem. I had always carefully weaved my way through the minefields of mobs before meeting Kotasky. Ever since then, I’ve plowed right through just like my fearless friend. I’ve gotta say, in general, it’s a much more efficient way to travel. There will be those times when a mob stuns you off your mount and a corpse run becomes inevitable. But by and large, she had the right idea.

So, Wrath of the Lich King has definitely renewed my interest in the game. And I’ve barely spent any time in Northrend. How weird is that? I’m sure that I’ll fall in love with the continent when things calm down a bit. But for now, I’m happy in Outlands. Part of it is the newness of slaughtering mobs en masse in a way that I never could do as a clothie. I think Devv is living vicariously through Predatore. But the other part is the human aspect. Between a guild that I truly enjoy and the ability to spend time with an old friend, nothing seems like a grind anymore. This game has made me realize that I’m a very goal-oriented person. I love leveling professions to the max. I get excited as I close in on Exalted with different factions. And I can’t go to bed if I’m five bubbles or less from the next level. I’m always after that dangling carrot. Blizzard might do a lot of things wrong, but they get how to make this game addictive. For all of the server down time, screwed up mail system, and frustrating nerfs, we keep coming back for more, money in hand. I’m sure other realms are slightly different, but experiences are probably pretty similar across the board. For me, the familiar faces and places of Silvermoon-US more than justify my monthly investment. And if you’re reading this, K…. welcome back!

How to Level to 80 Quickly in World of Warcraft

Don’t do what I’m doing. Seriously. OK, I’ll admit it. The title was a cheap trick to see how much search engine traffic I could grab from people too lazy to download QuestHelper or Carbonite, which is technically lazy to begin with. By now, I’m sure most of those poor misled individuals have stopped reading, so back to my small group of dedicated readers.

Devv is only halfway through level 71. Predatore is still stuck at 58. And Arpeggio is up to level 10 now. Wait. Who? Yeah. I know. Of all the things I could have done to make best use of the forty bucks I dropped on Wrath, I’m leveling a new alt; a Dwarf Hunter, to be exact. Arpeggio has been stuck at level 5 ever since Kaddisfly prompted me to create a Hunter to level. I knocked out the quick quests to get from level 1 to 5, then let him sit in Coldridge Valley for several weeks.

The Hunter class is at its most boring from levels 5 to 10. Up to level 5, you almost level just from walking into a new zone. After level 10, you have a pet to keep you company and to do most of the grunt work for you. But the grind from 5 to 10 is unbearably slow and boring. For starters, you’re knee-deep in melee combat. Beyond level 10, a Hunter should never be getting involved in melee combat unless they’re getting themselves out of a bad situation. Oh sure, you can open with a Viper Sting, throw in an Arcane Shot and try to kite Auto-Shot until the mob drops. But the sad reality is that at some point, you’ll be face-to-face with any mob that’s within a level or two of your own. Even Raptor Strike seems to be more about Blizzard showcasing a cool little animation than the damage it actually deals. It’s not until you acquire Concussive Shot that you can finish an entire one-on-one fight ranged. But the key words here are “one-on-one” If you get adds, you’re still playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots with the cuddly critters and humanoids of *Insert Starting Zone Name Here*.

But I digress. Actually, this entire blog is a digression. Never mind the man behind the curtain. The point to be made here is that I’m really not getting my money’s worth out of the expansion. If I spent a lot of time with Devv out in Northrend, my investment would be justified. Death Knights can’t be created without purchasing the add-on. Leveling Predatore would make sense. What am I doing? Leveling a character who I could be playing even if I didn’t own Burning Crusade. That makes sense. So what started this whole mess? I decided that I was… wait! It seems like I should start a new paragraph.

Cool. I decided that I wanted to level Ellyza so I could get her Enchanting up to the point where I could disenchant the drops that Devv was picking up right before Northrend. Enchantress (bank alt #2) is sitting on full bank tab and two 16-slot bags full of goodies that require Enchanting level 275 to DE. When I logged into the old girl, she had 11 talent points free and a clean slate. I decided to ditch my Disc leveling idea and throw all of the points into Shadow. I took her out to Redridge Mountains to finish up the quests that she still had open before sending her off to Auberdine. It took me all of about five minutes for me to realize that leveling a Priest sucks. Sure, they can melt faces later on in life. And if you manage your health and mana accordingly, you can survive long fights. But at level 20, Priests just seem like underpowered Mages with the ability to Rez and Heal. I really hope I didn’t offend any Priests out there. It’s not that the class sucks. It’s that I suck at playing the class. I think I’m gonna need some advice from Pugnacious Priest on this one.

So, back to Arpeggio. I quickly got frustrated with Ellyza, had no interest in enduring low framerates in Northrend, and wanted nothing to do with jockeying for position for my turn to kill mobs in Eastern Plaguelands. So I logged out to the character select screen and noticed my old pal Arpeggio chillin’ at cinco. It took me just shy of two hours to get to level 10. After the pet taming questline, I decided to pick my first pet. I made the conscious decision to pick a pet that appealed to me personally. At the highest levels, pet selection can make a massive difference. In PvP, your pet can make or break you. But as a “just for fun” leveling alt, I decided to bypass the Petopia research and just go with something fun. With that in mind, I tamed a wolf just north of Kharanos. Sticking with the musical theme, I named him Allegro. OK, OK. Here’s the story. Shot rotation is half the fun of being a Hunter. The distinction between the different flavors of shots is much like an arpeggiated chord. Allegro, on the other hand, likes to go rushing in to whup some ace.

When I went to bed last night, Arpeggio and Allegro were nestled snugly in their beds in Ironforge. The former learned a little Mining and Engineering before calling it a night. His pet made it clear that he is notgonna eat bread before getting some shuteye himself. So, yet another distraction enters the fold. If I can stay focused enough to actually level Arpeggio beyond 20, I’m sure I’ll become even more addicted to reading Pike‘s thoughts than I already am. Even if you’re not a Hunter, her blog is one of the better ones out there. Do yourself a favor and check it out. As for me, I’ll get the Armory listings for Arpeggio and Predatore added when I get home later tonight. If anybody on my roster makes it to 80, it’s gonna be a frickin’ miracle!