New Kid on the Block

 

I have cracked 7000 Achievement points. I can has a shedload of new PvP Gears (thank you, saved honor and spare Triumph elbows!) Yesterday, ICC borkedness notwithstanding, was a pretty good day.

New PvP Boss: Drops 2 Frosties, iLevel 264 legs and hands, is worryingly easy if you remember that aoe can kill. He's also a fairly serious Gear Check on 25 Man. Our mage in ICC last night, who was topping the meters with 7k on trash, was refused entry to a PuG on the grounds that his gear 'didn't cut it' It is truly a strange Virtual world in which we inhabit. Oh yeah and the two Occulus achievements have been added to with Chaos Theory since I did the screenie. Heroics are now easier than Normals, it's official :p

Oh, and despite the broken nature of the 10 man, I have another upgrade. This is getting silly ^^

Behold the Bone Warden's Splitter. WTB a second for double 'worn on my back' coolness...

Looking Good!

It's the start of a new week. Time to take a look at how everyone in the Family is doing in Azeroth:

#1: Almost 7000 Achievement Points :D
#2: 'of the Nightfall ' Title. So what if it's two patches ago in terms of cutting edge!
#3: Rotface 0 :: Our Guild 1

It wasn't a clean kill, neither was it particuarly pretty. But it was a kill, after over two hours of people trying their best to remember the sheer number of things required to make it happen. In many respects this reminds me of the Shade of Aran in Karazhan: watch your feet, watch the boss, be ready to move, be ready to run, kite your slime, watch the pools... so much going on. My heart goes out to our Gnome DK Tank last night, who's kiting was nothing short of miraculous considering the utter chaos (and often stupidity) unfolding around him. Needless to say, Execution of Tactic Needs Werk ^^

Hopefully when we start again on Wednesday, we can do 6/12 bosses in a night. Halfway through, and Arthas appears in Europe that day. I'd better make sure I book us an Instance space early then...

All Loot is Hunter Loot

No it's ok, I'm not going to start the Maces and Shields discussion again, we both know it's just a matter of time :D

Last night in ICC 10, the Hunter Mantra paid off in spades. I suspect Festergut will be eating floor come the weekend, and I for one thank the Game Gods for making last night a Hunter Festival thus helping me speed the Abomination's demise. Let's have a look at the old scoreboard...

I will admit there may have been squeeing when this dropped from Deathwhisper. I know how sought after this trinket is: 35% proc rate, a 15 second duration and 45 second internal cooldown. I read that it works extremely well with the Darkmoon Card: Greatness. I already manged to snag the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion from ICC 5 Mans, but last night I couldn't use both because I'd have lost too much hit from unequipping my Mark of Supremacy. Frantic searching of the game database went on as my husband explained the tactics for Saurfang (who we one-shotted for the record) and I was all ready to go buy the Frost Emblem mail belt when the game solved my hit problem for me.

Considering I've not been wearing a tier chest since 25 man ToTC this came as actually only a small upgrade (245 to 251) but looking at the stats on this and the fact that I suddenly found the need for 50 extra Hit... well, it wasn't going to the DE pile. Looking at my stats on the Armoury this morning:

52.73% crit. Blimey Charlie. Nowhere is this more obvious than in my AoE: Volley now hits consistantly for 3100 a tick, and I'm seeing Multi-Shot numbers well over 5500. Raid buffed, I am hoping it shouldn't be long before I can break the 6k barrier. 6000 dps. It's the stuff of legends, at least for this hunter.

I will be doing some dummy tests later, but needless to say last night Pally and I dialed a late night Daily Random, got HoR Heroic, and had it done in 25 minutes, with appropriate achievement to boot. I will be making hay while the sun shines, do not worry, because the last time I had dps this good the dev's came along and nerfed me to the basement. These are wonderful times for P. I will make sure they are lived to the full.

We Interrupt Our Real Life...

...to return to posting here. Explanations will be forthcoming, in the meantime I need to post a small but VERY vital piece of information from the latest PTR push:

Enginein

• Iceblade Arrow has been added to the game - Creates Iceblade Arrow x 1000. / Reagents: Crystallized Shadow x 2
• Shatter Rounds has been added to the game - Creates Shatter Rounds x 1000. / Reagents: Crystallized Earth x 2
  
  

To be honest I didn't think we'd see any new ammo until Cataclysm for Hunters, so two new recipes for Engis is great news both for moneymaking and for Hunters generally. The increase in DPS they bring... let's look at the numbers:

Old Ammo = 67.5 dps New Ammo = 91.5 dps

That's not too shabby, even by my own Dodgy Theorycraft standards.

Better start stocking up on some mats :D

BOOOM!

...was the sound my graphics card made Friday night. It's been poorly sick for a while, if truth be told. Now I have a lovely 1GB Behemoth, and a DV lead for the first time, and frankly Azeroth looks GORGEOUS.

It makes Brewfest Rams look particuarly good. \o/

Normal Service will be resumed when I've sorted out the Alt/Brewfest daily cyle...

...and there it was!

I had planned a spectacular action shot in AV to celebrate the Shammy hitting L80 but the best laid plans... ah well.

Take this shoddy list of statistical increases as a poor alternative ^^

Gear Wise, things are not looking too shabby either. Thanks to a friends generousity (I've not forgotten your armour either :D) I have Zom's Crackling Bulwark and the Titansteel Guardian to act as my healing weapons of choice. I got the PvP Gloves and Shoulders and am nearly 20,000 honor into the next step (probably the legs, possibly a ring or a trinket depending on where I stand) Everything else is blue, with the sad exception of my Relic, which will be my first purchase with Elbows. It almost looks like I did some planning, doesn't it? :p

In Hunter News, last night was scheduled as a Naxx 10 Achievements Run, and all in all it was exactly as advertised.

That's the one I'm particuarly proud of at the top there, but there were loads of others: Patchwerk in WELL under 3 minutes, 10 people alive at Heigan, 18 Abominations at KT. The only two we missed were Shocking and The Undying, and I would confidently perdict both of those to be on notice for the next time we go. And before you say it, yes I KNOW this is old news and all you imba people have already done this like, two patches ago, but it's new to me.

So :p to you!

Oh yeah, and Occulus done, Quests complete, nuff said.

Next step is a bit of long term planning. More to follow.

Shorts

- Further to the Arm Pen grumbles, I now get why Blizz are doing this. If you take a look at the team who completed the World First Heroic Trial of the Crusader, 3 of the top 5 placed DPS-ers are Combat specced Rogues. Check their gear out on the Armoury... Arm pen gems in EVERY SINGLE SLOT. #1 dps in that fight = 10,003.

Now I understand.

Ironically there was one hunter in that group. He was Marks. He has just about every slot gemmed Arm pen as well. He only managed #14 on the meters.

As my US brethren would say, Go Figure.

- I did the Occulus last night in under four hours. I remember how traumatic that place used to be, but with better gear, drake scaling and a sensible game plan it's now no more hassle than any other Heroic. Amazing what a little gear and some time can do to soften the blows. I'll need to do it again when the Proof of Demise quest rolls around but after that, truth be told, I'll be happy never to go there again.

Some places just hold too many bad memories.

- We now present, for your viewing enjoyment, my Hunter's next Project after 40 Exalted Reputations:

So I've decided I'll be aiming for 25,000 acts of well-calculated slaughter in the coming weeks (probably should add months here as well ^^). As it's taken 4 and a bit years to get this far I have no idea how long the remaining 3265 will take to complete, but it should be interesting to watch the counter. This will in turn allow me to completely upgrade all my PvP gear to 213 and beyond via the wonders of Honor, plus I am sure there will be achievings. I could get all the mounts as well I suppose...

- This week will therefore be some PvP, some levelling and quite possibly a fit of mass gathering to restock all my alts with potions, foodbuffs and other sundry gubbins...

Hit it and Hope

So I have finally done some experimentation with the merits of levelling in BG's.

Here's my Shaman's achievement list from yesterday. I managed Damage Control after three AV's, the Grim Reaper and Class kills came from the first. It took me several weeks of play to pick Stormpike Perfection up on my Hunter: that came from the second AV of the day. I was getting invites roughly every 5 minutes: each tower destruction or enemy target awarded 18.5k XP with Rested. Yesterday I did pretty much a level in an afternoon (Rested bonus plus two +10% XP items). In the group there would be 2 or 3 L80's, the rest were 71+, and it was INSANE, but in the best of ways. At one point I was one of fifteen people in Iceblood Tower trying to beat off a particuarly insane L80 Pally. Healing spec really paid off, my regen was pretty good and clearly I could do the big numbers over a reasonable battle. Only when the German server group turned up did I see anything like an epic fight, and that only lasted 35 minutes. The rest of the time it was quick, clean, and pretty much the fastest levelling experience I've seen.

Suffice to say I'd bet this XP level will be nerfed by Blizzard at some point, because I reckon it's giving an advantage to people levelling via this method. If you want to advance using PvP, make the most of it!


So, I've done Koralon in both modes with the Hunter, and even with 25 it's hardly difficult (though saying that I would not want to heal the fight, the potential for stupidity really is very high) We had the dreaded 1% wipe with only my second PuG, and he died next pull. It took a LOT longer to grab the achievement with Emalon. I've seen Rogue loot drop from 10 and 25 man a LOT, and yet again last night there were no rogues around to sweep it up. Where have they all gone? :( Happy though, 226 hunter gloves are now MINE, 3/5 tier also dun. IoC was yesterday's BG daily as well (though still need to complete it) but this did give me a chance to do some Achievement sweepage. Back Door Job ftw! (fnar fnar)

This week I will look at the other BG's with the Shammy, but I'm betting that none will do the job as well as AV for instance XP. Plus, there's the small matter of the 25,000 HK achievement on the Hunter...

Bugger :(

The nerf to armor pen in 3.2.2 is intentional. Compared to the recent buff where we increased the value of armor rating to 125%, this nerf would take it back down to 110%. While we are still evaluating the effects of this change in the 3.2.2 build, we did want to let you know of the possibility in case you were about to spend a lot on armor pen gems.

In fact, this was really the point. Several melee specs (and Marksman hunters) had begun to focus on armor pen at the expense of all other stats. Gear without armor pen was being passed over and gem sockets were increasingly being filled with just this one stat. While every spec has stats that are more valuable than others, this one felt like it was starting to trump everything. Not coincidentally, characters stacking lots of armor pen were starting to do more damage than their peers and more damage than we were comfortable with.

This change is largely for PvE reasons, though we won't cry at all if melee damage in PvP drops a little as a result.

We're letting you know now so that this doesn't feel like a stealth nerf, assuming it goes live. While you might disagree or be frustrated by the change (though I also suspect it won't come as a surprise to many players), we ask that you try and keep your response to something appropriate for these forums.

Oh arse. My hunter FINALLY becomes viable with a Marksman spec, and I start being able to seriously compete with the clever Survival hunters. I can do equal damage in instances. I don't have to spend all my time having to concentrate on stupid shot rotations to be on a similar footing.

I should have known they were going to nerf it :(

Good Things Come...

... to those who are patient. Apologies for absence, but now the kids are back at school I may have more than thirty seconds each day to think about something else for longer than five minutes. I can but hope. Start of the Summer seems a LONG way away... but there has been much fun in the house with the World of Azeroth. My 8 year old now has a L10 with a higher Cookery skill than the vast majority of my alts (400 and rising ^^) while I... well, I went to BWL in a Pirate Hat. Oh yeah, there was other stuff as well...

M the Shaman may not be old enough to play WG but she's there, mining and fishing like there's no tomorrow. She hit 72 last night and is well on her way to 73, thanks to heirlooms and judicious use of Rested Bonus. I hope to get to mid 70 mediocrity by the weekend as there's a shedload of upgrades waiting for her when she does, including a much needed new shield. Early PuG healing indications show I may not be as rubbish as I first thought. There may yet be hope for Shamankind...

In Fishing News, I finally snagged the Tiffany Cartier Original Fishing Rod, just not on the character I'd hoped. This does at least give the Druid the incentive to keep levelling the skill to max. Those of you paying attention will notice the lovely Conquest Elbows Chestpiece... but that's only a part of the awesomeness that the Trial of the Crusader has given. I'll do a gear update at some point, but that's not why I'm here. This is why.

See that? 40 Exalted Reputations. FINALLY. Dinged on Golemagg. NEVER EVER want to see MC EVER again. Well, at least not until they make it 10 man and upgrade the loot, which at this rate could be weeks... Now all I need to do is resist the temptation to convert myself from Dwarf to Tauren... nah, I'll stay as a Dwarf. But I will be having a bit of a rest, and possibly a drink.

Thunderbrew Lager, anyone?

Behind the Curve

The last few days have been, if I'm fair, all about the Guild. There's been a few things that needed sorting, and now they're done, I can hopefully start digesting the TONS of information that fell out of Blizzcon. I should also check my mail for my Marine Murloc Pet...

What I have done as a first exercise is some much-needed account sorting. I've had two accounts since the Recruit a Friend exercise allowed me to level my Shaman at speed (and grab the Zevra mount), and I've now transferred my Druid to the second account. More importantly both are now linked via Battle.Net, a process which is likely to become mandatory at some point in the future. It means only one login password and less than thirty minutes to transfer the Druid between the two accounts (though that may just have been lucky) This now frees me up some space to plan for a Worgen on my main account, and an 80 on both accounts to provide heirlooms for levelling. The Druid immediately converted her useless Emblems of Valor to shoulders and chest for the Shammy, and the next real task for me will be to level her to 80 and to get her Blacksmithing maxxed.

I've also set up a new alt on the secondary account who has access to my main bank alt's bank and Guild Bank, which will hopefully allow me to transfer anything between both accounts with speed, thus circumnavigating the 1 hour mail delay. In the end it is becoming increasingly easy to customise your gaming experience, and it seems sensible for me to take advantage of all this ease.

I ran a Naxx 10 with the Lock last night (and was second on dps on Patchwerk, which I'm very happy about, 3.5k dps is no longer a pipedream) and I'm 3 emblems short of the tier chest. The Hunter picked up the tier hat and also snagged the rather lovely Chestguard of the Ravenous Fiend (moar penetration!!!) from the Heroic 5 man Crusader Event, which is as good as it gets outside 25 man Ulduar...

Right, let's go sort some other things during Maintenance...

Achieving made Simple

So I'm betting that a large number of people have achievement screens not unlike the Hunter's from over the weekend. I'm aware of at least one Guildie who ran literally EVERY heroic instance over the weekend, several times. There were competitions for speed completion too, and late last night I healed a 4 Man VH that took less than 25 minutes. Needless to say it's abundantly clear that people are already outgearing Heroics to the point of them being academic exercises. One assumes that as soon as people have all the available Conquest upgrades they'll just go back to doing the Daily Heroic Quest for the two Emblems of Triumph, or in my case start again on an alt. Gonna make Ulduar a heck of a lot easier, and should facilitate a push into 25 man pretty soon...

What this is doing for the Druid is making very successful use of her Offspec healing abilities. I've been acting as healer #3 in Ulduar 10 for a couple of months now but I've not really done much 5 man work. This weekend I learnt a fair deal about what I can and can't do with a Tree. Don't tell anyone, but I really enjoyed it as well...


The other benefit from all this time out across several characters is the Stone Keeper's Shards I'm racking up. As I'd like to send my mini-rogue through PvP for XP I suspect they may be very well kitted out in the Land of Heirlooms...

The other unsung benefit from all this instancing has been cash and items. This has led to some impulse buys... and got me 4 pets away from the 75 pet achievement late last night. In return for the large pile of Khorium I gave my husband (so he could complete his Jeeves) he rewarded me with the last 2 Alliance Tournament pets I didn't have. A quick rummage around his bankalts also unearthed a Green Winter Helper which got me to 74.... and then it was grind for one more or go to the AH. The simple solution won.


See, I didn't even move from the mailbox... ^^ I suspect with the new slew of Dailies it will take me less than a week to make back the money I spent.

Maybe I'm not as frustrated with the new patch as I first made out...

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

So, the new content. Patch 3.2. Loads of NEW things to do, loads of NEW stuff to earn and win and upgrade. Except, actually, how much of it is really new?

Let's face it. The new dungeon isn't. The new 5 man starts with JOUSTING (*headdesk*) and a boss which recycles old bosses... not with their original abilities, but WITH THE SAME 3 EVERY TIME. Saving a fortune on new boss models as well Blizz. Let's hope nobody else notices.

Yeah, and the Black Knight joke isn't funny. Really.

*sigh*

The only reason most people will run it is the loot at the end. This is NOT good. They won't look at how you're introducing rolling trash as opposed to static groups, they won't appreciate the fact that dungeons are now forcing movement and promoting the use of interrupts and kiting... just like Arenas. They'll miss the fact that you're actively involving people by use of their character names coz the monologues and reaction text is stuffy and takes too long. All the good ideas are going to get lost in the fact YOU HAVE TO JOUST the first boss pack. Even though I can do it now, it's not a good dungeon mechanic, because it depends too much the shields. People like seige vehicles coz they don't have to worry about dying in 10 seconds.

I suspect the only reason anyone will do the new dungeon is for the loot, and that's not good. I'd kinda like the BRK Tribute Gun, I will confess, but we all know how I feel about loot and dungeons. It's a shame, and just like the Isle of Dalies, this place will be a ghost town as soon as Blizz come up with something better.

So, we officially rename 3.2 as The Patch of BG's, PvE for Elbows Only, and we'll be off this weekend to enjoy the Isle of Conquest during it's holiday period, in an attempt to see how many achievements we can rack up in 3 days.

Meanwhile, we bring you updates.

With normal speed mounts now at a bargain 80 silver and epic ground at a modest 8 gold, it would have been rude not to get the achievement last night on P. With the Children's Week Q's done and the Ravasaur bought from the Gnome in Dalaran I'm 3 pets short of the magic 75 as well so I'd expect that to be done soon. The Argent Pony Bridle is officially the BEST THING EVER, and is getting far more use than is healthy.

Right, let's go and do some pottering. Expect a large IoC post over the weekend!

The Giant Bunny of Happiness

Got that? Right, let's recap :D


So, FINALLY the good people of Everlook decided they liked me. Took bloody long enough. I am one MC trip away from 40, or I can just keep doing the Oracles dailies. I am pretty mellow about the entire thing, and although I'd love to drop everything and just get it done, there are better things to be doing right now. It's not going anywhere. I'm going to continue being 'Knight P' for the time being and respect the Old School PvP days.

Having said all that, the weekend was pretty chuffing gorgeous.


So, the Hunter is finally Epic-ed. This was thanks in the main to a hugely enjoyable Naxx weekend, whereby I was lucky enough to snag the upgrades I needed. By far the most beautiful of all now resides in my ranged slot.

There is something about guns that... frankly it's not healthy. It all goes back to the Dwarven gun racial, of course, and the fact that crossbows or bows just don't seem right on a Dwarf. Their weapon IS a gun: solid, noisy and bloody deadly. No sneaking up behind a target Night-Elf stylee for me, no sir. They are gonna hear me as I shoot a bullet through their skull. As this is the KT drop it's really as good as it gets as well. I'm also NOT dual wielding for the first time in over a year as I also snagged a Cryptfiend's Bite from Heigan in the Plague Wing. Moody screenie of hunter holding said polearm now follows:


Early DPS tests show me doing LOADS more than I was. LOADS! More news as we have it.

The State of the Notion

So, it is with a tear in my eye that I begin this particular update, as I say farewell to not one but two abortive Death Knight projects. I have to be honest, the notion of a Hero Class is great in principle but for me at least, it just didn't work. Should I be utterly wrong about the new races and the new profession next expansion I only hope they bring a Hero Class with a softer side. Having to butcher a friend halfway through my starting quests kinda did it for me. Next time I'd like something that doesn't involve quite so much innocent slaughter, if that's ok.

Anyway, without any more faffage, let us get down to the State of the Alts.


So the Hunter-Formally-Known-As-Main saw a Heroic tour of Naxx across the weekend. What was abundantly apparent from doing Naxx complete (for only the second time) is that the last two bosses are a bloody pushover compared to some of the wing bosses you need to fight to get there. It's great to have done it again, and the guests the Guild took to help us get over the 'it's Summer and we're a bit light on bodies' stage seemed to really enjoy themselves. Rumour has it we'll be in Ulduar 25 on Friday. That's gonna be interesting...


The Alt-That's-Now-A-Main, on the other hand, has had a bit of a rest. Apart from breaking the 250 emblem mark in Ulduar 10 midweek (more on which below) I've been desperately flying around trying to find a Frost Lotus ANYWHERE (did they nerf the drop rate and not tell me?) and stocking up on mats for the 3.2 Jewelcrafting smackdown. I've got to 350 fishing solely via the magic of Marcia Chase (gawd bless her!) and the Lock is close to doing the same. I am asking Greatfather Winter for more cool stuff in fishing bags come December. Deviate Fish and Pygmy Oil are SO last patch...

Talking of Ulduar, we'd like to debut a new feature.


Right, so as a rule I'm not here to blow my own trumpet, except when it's in the cause of spectacular stupidity. Thursday's Ulduar saw a fair bit of that from the Druid Corner. Top of the pile, the incident which demonstrates that Topping the DPS Meters is Dangerous and is to Be Avoided At All Costs...


So, there we are on Holdir, 45 seconds in, with a Toasty Fire to my right, standing in a spotlight and using the Storm Cloud handily provided by the Shaman healer. For a brief, *glorious* moment I'm doing nearly 7000dps. Then I'm dead. One-shotted by Holdir for nearly 30k, coz I pulled aggro from our DK tank. Duh.

Note to Self: leave dps to people who are competant and survive the fight.

Stand by for much more Epic Azerothian FAIL coming soon. It's a certainty.

Mammoth!

So, the aquisition of a new mount would not normally be a source of squee-age. However, this is no ordinary mount. This is a Reins of the Grand Black War Mammoth, which is not only one of those 1% drop rate vehicles, it also allows me to carry two passengers. Needless to say this will make moving around low level toons for my son SO much easier :D

It was also a pretty good night as we managed to clear seven bosses in Ulduar: entire outer area, the entire inner area (save the Iron Council who I suspect will be the warmup act on our next visit) and Holdir of the Keepers. I took P last night (it was SO nice not to have to heal) and got two upgrades and a shed-load of achievements.

Today I will mostly be stocking up on flasks and consumables...

Money Shots.

Oooh, haven't done an update in a bit.

So, this week was more 10 Man Ulduar progress. As you can see, Thorim joined Holdir in the Keepers Team we've helped free from Yoggy's diabolical mindgrasp. I'm especially pleased with the Cheese the Freeze achievement, considering how many people weren't managing to get to the snow piles on earlier tries. Plus we did it with 8 up for the last 40%. DPS last night was rather lovely. Thorim, despite being trailed as Most Complicated Encounter EVAH, was actually far from brain-twisting. I did both the Gauntlet run and the Arena bit and neither were hugely taxing and the fight itself is pretty much the easiest (in my opinion) in the entire instance. I didn't have to move for the whole thing \o/ We finished off with the Iron Council which is now offically on Farm Status. Tier Shoulders went to the Priest (not the same one from last wek) and legs to our stalwart Shaman Healer.

Oh, and Mr Main Tank Husbandadin is now the proud owner of the awesomeness that is Legacy of Thunder, and to say he's pleased is something of an understatement.

Last week also saw the Druid FINALLY snag the 'Champion of the Frozen Wastes' title. Having done the Eye of Eternity I'm still not convinced the 'gimmick' of the vehicle is an enjoyable one (though it seems I'm going to be forced to use mounts in the Crusader's Colluseum whether I like it or not :( , which is a bit bleh) but what was very apparent is that Malygos is not a boss to be fought if you're not 100% focussed. I'm pleased I've done it, but I'm not seized with an overriding enthusiasm to do it again, and that's not good.


The Hunter got taken out for a Naxx on Friday, for the first time in a fair few months, and we snagged a nice slew of achievements. I'm especially proud of the Patchwerk one considering this is the only toon I hold it on. We had only two deaths up until KT, I think had we started earlier The Undying would have been a distinct possibility. The pressure though is as much as a factor as anything else. It makes for an interesting extra dimension, and it shows for me why some of these Hard Modes may, in their own way, be just as challenging as doing instances with 39 other people in tow.


I should also take this opportunity to introduce F, my new project. She's my first Human to make it past L20 (23 at the moment) and as you can see is not only shamelessly exploiting Engineering, but is dealing out Holy Justice as a Retribution Paladin in the prerequsite Polished Spaulders of Valor (for 10% extra XP and pwnage^^) She's also the proud owner of a Reforged Truesilver Champion (with a Crusader enchant) which frankly, when it procs, is the stuff of legends. +100 Strength at L20 is a joy to behold, and the proc rate means I shouldn't be taking too long to level her. She takes her place on the character list and I'd expect here to see Dalaran well before any of my other pre-80 toons.



So, my realm is one of those listed to be unavailable until 3pm Central: this is God's way of telling me to go kick-start my new fitness regime at the Gym. Failing that there's Scrabble on Facebook or trying to beat my high score on Bejewelled... ^^

It Runs in the Family

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a player in possession of a good hunter must be in want of many more.

B was, as is happens, my first ever hunter. Back in the day he was then a she, and started their life on a PvP Server (which gave them the Private title) Once paid server transfers appeared she was called over and made over and now he's been called into service as a way of collecting more Northern Spices, of having a 450 engineer for bullet making and as part of my Hunter Bankalt Team. I run three bankalts: a L27 Hunter Banking Supremo out of Exodar (who is the dump for all my current mats and who serves as my main Auctioneer), a L51 Hunter Banking Assistant in Booty Bay (who is liason for my Son's small army of L1-10 Horde alts and who keeps an eye out on the Neutral AH for pet bargains) and now B. Yes, this means I have FOUR hunters.

Why are you all running away...???

A great deal of my non-raiding enjoyment comes from the AH and from crafting. I enjoy playing with hunters at various stages of development. I find myself wondering how many people do this the same way.

Lordy!

It's been quite a weekend. No, really it has. It's been HUGE.


See that there? Phear the Heroic Ulduar Achievements!!! Have been talking for a few weeks with someone from another Guild with guys at about the same level of progress as us, and last night they had some spots in a 25. So we went (myself, 5 others) and concluded that our Guild ROCKS. It was a good night, but given the choice I'd far rather be doing any content with the Homies. I am not complaining however for I have Boots of Hasty Revival and some Emblems of Conquest, which I reckon will be useful at some point in the future.

In Hunter News, 3 of the 4 Steamweedle factions are now done. I still have a chunk of Everlook rep to knock off, but it just needs me to apply myself and it's done. I'm 600 rep short of Exalted with the Scale of the Sands after an impromptu Hyjal on Saturday. And with a couple more trips to MC, I will be done. I'll have Flame Keeper as a title before that however, despite the screwup Blizz made with the Midsummer achievement. After that I have a vague plan that involes 75 pets and 50 mounts. I will be changing my name to Noah shortly afterwards.

There is more, but I need to prep myself for a Sunwell Run tonight as we attempt to finish off the Dungeonmaster Quest. To the bank!

They Don't Like it Up'em!

It's a Wednesday, and I've been a bit lax on the updating again. There are a number of very good reasons for this as well, at least one I'm not going to go into here. Needless to say with the steady trickle of 3.2 updates from Blizzard, there will be a renewal in updatery interest, especially as I am more than a little excited at the prospect of a new 40 man BG.

I have of late been doing a large amount of PvP.

My primary objective has been to Epic P the Hunter, in a PvP stylee. Yesterday I picked up the Honor cloak which means, with the exception of 1 ring and a belt, I now have a totally purple set of PvP gear. I've been running 25 and 10 man WG instances as soon after reset each week in the hope of snagging gears, making sure I've done every WG I'm available for, but of late I've been combining the Steamweedle grind (almost there!!!1!!1!1!!!111) with AV trips (do a run, pick up a spare key, dial a BG) to rack up honor. To give you an idea, I've picked up

• Legs (Hateful Gladiator's Chain Leggings)
  
• Cloak (Deadly Gladiator's Cloak of Victory)
• Ring (Deadly Gladiator's Band of Victory)
  
• Necklace (Deadly Gladiator's Pendant of Triumph)
• Shoulders (Hateful Gladiator's Chain Spaulders)
  

all whilst I've been slogging away in Dire Maul. It's a PHENOMENAL amount of honor, but it does show that with a bit of thought and some application, you can gear yourself to an epic standard without the need for ever being part of a Guild.

The most fun has been with the German groups I've faced. Since we got a BG merge with a bunch of other servers the entire face of AV has changed. I will always check when I'm prepping to see if it's a German group because I know what's going to happen if it is:

1. They all wait for us outside Garv. ALL of them.. well except for the three who always go and take Winterax and then force us to rez at Stonehearth. They camp at Iceblood and use the bottle neck and refuse to let us pass.
   
2. They farm kills mercilessly and with ruthless Germanic efficiency whilst sending stealth teams North to pick off the bunkers.
   
3. They NEVER kill Balinda coz she's a waste of time.

This then results with a BG that annoys the zergers to Hell, but that I always LOVE. It forces a team into defense, who effectively rides North and recaps every Bunker and GY and as they head south the stealth teams head North again and the entire process repeats, whilst in the meantime we will have forced the main bulk of the force back to the Frostwolf GY. There'll be a team in the Horde base of course, trying to take the towers but the Germans will exploit any lack of defence inside by instantly recapping. So, a zerg is impossible, and most people don't want to zerg by now anyway because of the huge amount of honor they're racking up...

This is the best thing that's happened to my battlegroup for a VERY long time. I am VERY interested to see how these guys approach the new Battleground... gief PTR!

So today, if I hold my nerve and the keys drop my way, I should be 38/40 to the Exalted.

Wish me Luck!

Priorities

So, it would be fair to say that at present Azeroth is not particuarly high on my list of priorities. I'm not one to sit here and contemplate my own navel, so you'll be pleased to know there's gonna be no deep and insightful commentary as a result. However, even if I'm not playing as much I still need to keep myself up to date.

I used WoWMatrix before the big fallout with Curse et al and it's only this morning when I manually spent an hour going through my addons and updating them that I realised just how simpler the all-in-one downloader made that process. I have read a lot about what happened there and how priorities for one party came in to direct conflict with another, and it occurs to me that sometimes contemplating one's navel (metaphorically) does have it's benefits. Certainly if peeople had talked to each other a lot sooner I suspect I'd still be using WoWMatrix without all the blocked addons. Odd that when all these people are doing the same thing there's so much trouble finding a path that everyone enjoys. I reckon that's a metaphor for life if ever you needed one.


The measured walk to The Exalted continues, with Timbermaw Rep FINALLY dealt with forever (I don't care if they made it easier, it still sucks) giving me 34/40. The Silver Covenant will roll over to Exalted tomorrow if I have the opportunity to do dailies today, after which it's Oracles. After that it's instance rep or 21,000 pirates. Okay so it's not THAT bad but it's still not an easy job with the time available. Ho hum. We will get there, just not very fast.

However it's likely today I'll end up with this achievement. That's commitment, that is.

Moving Forward

Half Term again, and this time with added ill kids with new and exciting illnesses. I've also managed to screw up comments here as well and stuff has disappeared :( Some days, try as you might, nothing goes right.

So, the plan for The Exalted is going well, albeit a bit slowly. Next on the list of easily achievables is the Timbermaw (10k's worth of feathers I knocked off in a nap phase for the wee girl) and after that it will be the Oracles. In a burst of 'honest it's not me competing' from the Hubby he's off doing the Wintersaber Trainers (all that for a purple cat? hmmmmm) which looks like an awful lot of hard work. The better bet is trying to find people to help with Scale of the Sands rep (Archimonde would have been ace to do back in the day, can see how the fight would have been a problem, as is also the case with Vashj, all those Tainted Core macros finally make sense) and try and knock off some of the instance-based ones over time. I need the Waterlords, the Scale and the Ashtongue. BT defeated us when we tried to casual it, gonna need more bodies and brains if it's gonna get knocked off the list.

This is actually harder than it looks.


Another thing that is easily achievable in short bursts is Honor. In an attempt to score Epic on my non-raiding Hunter I've been going through the BG's. There's a definite pattern in my Battle Group: huge long periods of totally rubbish playing and then a Group of Genius. Take this group of Achievements for instance: all in the same five minute period. This one also let me complete the 'do all 4 Daily PvP Quests' Achievement at the same time. The day before I also managed a WSG in under 7 minutes. Go me!


It's also been the time to pick off some of the more annying Achievements from my To Do list. The critters I did with my daughter who was considerably better at spotting them than I was, and we did all three of the set. The PvP Quests in Venture Bay I've never really taken the time to look at, but it's also a place to get Steamweedle rep (albeit not very many mobs^^) but does give me the idea to go see if I still get rep from killing the Pirates in Tanaris. I also ought to see what I can buy with Venture Coins coz if it's anything of any use I might stick those Dailies into my routine. I'm 60 quests away from completing 1000 Dailies. Erk.

./wanders off to look up Venture Coin on Wowhead...

Honor Amongst Thieves

So then. Epic Achievement. Nope, didn't get an Ulduar trinket (though last night I did pick up the rather gorgeous Vest of the Glowing Crescent) I cheated. Well, that's possibly the wrong word, but it did feel a tad sneaky. Let me explain why.

M picked up a lot of WG honor a while back, when she didn't have a decent hat and decided to grind for the WG Marks one. Yesterday I took P out for some PvP action, and to spend the 72300 HP I had before I hit the 75000 ceiling. I bought myself a Medallion of the Alliance and then started looking about for other possible upgrades... and then realised that the Battlemasters trinkets have an i213 level (hooray for addons that tell me this :D) So, I logged M, checked whether she had enough honor, and went and bought a Battlemaster's Bravery. I equipped it in both trinket slots and... DING!

Then I sold it back and got an honor refund ^^

M has no real intention of doing PvP seriously but P does. It does mean that Epic is doable on any of my alts with a bit of effort.

However, it really does feel like cheating.

All in a Night's Work

Ooh, it's been almost a week. In my defense I have a girl ill with Tonsillitus and slept about five hours in total over the whole weekend. So, bearing that in mind there's actually a heck of a lot to catch up with...


Ignis fell at the weekend, thus granting M with the 'first four Ulduar bosses' points. The new tactic Mr Chief Pally gave us worked a treat (tank all the adds, no sticking them in the water to shatter, Boss by a pool so the Scorch gets swallowed by the water) worked an absolute treat. Next up will be The Iron Council, but it does mean that the first 4 bosses are effectively on Farm Status.

Yesterday, after having finally got my daughter to sleep after an emergency trip to the Doctors (she has medicine!) I decided I'd finally do some work on my AQ40 Questline.


The last thing I did (apart from go get lightly toasted by a Green Dragon in Darkshire) was pick up Chapter VI of 'Draconic for Dummies' from Onyxia. Chapter IV was causing me some problems, what with it being located above (in the Undercity) However, a bit of a scouting trip revealed a reasonably pain-free route to pick it up via the Sewers. As it transpired I only had to kill three Patchwerk guards to get to the book. Of all the parts to secure, what I thought would be one of the hardest ended up as the simplest.

That left two chapters: VII from Ragnaros and I from Dr Weavil on Alcaz Island. Last night we started with a full MC clear (four of us, three of whom benefited from Hydraxian rep, one who is working on Thorium Brotherhood rep and so was gifted all the cores and Core Leather I skinned) The Druid Tank landed four pieces of T1 (including the chest, M is jealous) and I picked up both the Major Rejuve and Flarecore Wraps patterns for altage. The Force Reactive Disk also dropped... had this been Vanilla that would have been one of the best MC's I'd seen in terms of craftable drops. Once Raggy bit the dust (T2 Hunter legs!!!!!!!) we popped over to Duskwallow and eradicated Ony *again* before strolling over to the Lair of Weavil.

The Good Doctor owned us the first two tries, it must be said. His MC ability reduced our tank to a 2-shot killing machine (much to his and our amusement) and it took a moment of genius from Mr Pally to give us a decent shot at him. Getting our Retri Pally to engage alone and then pop a bubble at the MC we got 90 seconds to grind the Good Doctor to the ground. Needless to say, it all worked out just fine.

Those 8 Tablets? WEEKS worth of Work, I tells you!

So, I freed up six bank slots (five tablets, one book binding) last night and picked up the rather lovely Gnomish Turban of Psychic Might for my troubles. It's really rather satisfying to have finished this step, especially as it's involved so much Old World entertainment along the way.

Next step's a bit of a pig, though ^^

The MC trip was notable for one drop, which after four years I FINALLY won without having to worry about rogues or DKP.

I remember how much I wanted this when we ran MC in 40 man. I dreamed about it (no really I did ^^) and I always made sure I kept enough DKP *just in case* (on many occasions in detriment to other upgrades) Now I have it as part of my Old Skool Set, with Crul'shorukh, Edge of Chaos as my Dual Wield weapons of choice...

So, while we're here, there's summat else from the weekend worth reporting: this was the time when I finally sorted That Jousting Thing at the Argent Tournament:

Look! SEVEN Champions! I even picked up Lance a Lot as part of a fabulous sweep that included 22 Dailies (I'm back on the Netherwing Bandwagon for even more rep!) I'm halfway to Champion with the Darnassians and then it's just Exodar to do and I'm sorted. Plus it will mean Exalted with the Silver Covenant to boot, which is likely to become Exalted Faction #32 purely by happy accident.

I sense a great deal of factional faffing in the week to come...