TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!!

Well, it would have been tomorrow, if I had finished this post last night. In case you can't read that picture (I can't) it shows that I am currently Revered with the Kalu'ak, and am only 890 reputation points from being Exalted: 20,110 out of 21,000. I will get that with 2 quests this evening.

So I can get my fishing pole: Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole

Though I'm not entirely sure why I want it. Part of me would like to get the "Salty" title, but since I've never even been able to show up for a fishing derby, OR catch either Old Crafty or Old Ironjaw, that may just be a fit of fancy.

And, at roughly 7:30 pm server, my second Mysterious Egg should be hatching. My first one had a cobra hatchling, which is worth maybe 10 gold. (I already have one, so no value there)

BATTLE!!!!

One gripe many people seem to have on our server is that a LOT of people will ask "do we have WG?" or "when can we do VOA?"

The implication being that the folks asking are looking for a benefit (going to the WG vendors, or VOA loot) without even showing up to help fight for WG.

And that is a gripe I can get on board with. Don't whine about not getting VoA, if you aren't willing to help fight to get it. We are constantly outnumbered in WG, and very rarely win it anymore. (at least when I'm on)

A couple of asides.

As I have slowly been accumulating PvP gear, it is becoming apparent that my survivability is increasing, though it isn't consistent. Sometimes, I will go after one guy, get jumped by 2 more, and destroy all three.

Other times, I will go after one lone guy, and NOTHING works: none of my stuns have any effect, my bubble won't cast, and I die in a VERY lopsided 1v1 fight. Even if I blow my CDs and avoid being stunned too much, I do MAYBE 10-15% damage to them, and then I'm wiped. If it matters, I have ~27k health when PvP ready, ~500 resilience and 14k armor. My PvP Gear Score is about 5,560. (HERE'S a link to my current PvP gear progress)

I can understand that a well geared PvPer (like a full arena Wrathful set -ouch!) will be nearly immune to my crits, but none of my stuns rely on that: Hammer of Justice, Repent and Seal/Judge of Justice are all instant cast or effect on hit. (I PvP with Seal of Justice active - it procs a diminishing return stun 3 times) This is a total of 5 stuns I should be getting, and yet there are other players that are 100% immune to them.

WTF?

Overall, I would say the bane of my PvP experience lately are fucking bubble fucking priests. I don't fully understand how they work, but they are 100% immune to my attacks, and yet can still DESTROY me while immune. I'm not a fan of Locks or Rogues, but I'm learning to bubble, trink, cleanse, etc to counter them.

Just in case you think the Pally bubble is "ZOMG! OP!": our bubbles have severe limits:

1 - EITHER it's only a 50% damage reduction OR 100% reduction BUT *our* damage is cut by 50%
2 - only lasts 10 seconds
3 - is dispellable/breakable (Warriors, anyone?).
4 - has forbearance AND a 3 minute cooldown.

From what I can tell, NONE of the above are true for priests. I would welcome some insight into how to fight them, so comment away! (I believe they are "just" standard priest bubbles that absorb X amount of damage, but they are spammable and come off CD much faster than I can burn through them)

I'm not a fan of CC spam either. Seal of Justice has diminishing returns that does NOT reset. Unlike Fear. *cue dramatic sigh*

Now, on to some of the "fun" bits: wading through the enemy and just wiping the floor with them. This is where my asides FINALLY come full circle. Some of the "easy" kills are no doubt due to better gear, but I realized last night what the most likely cause is:

Multiple stacks of Tenacity. It's amazing what a little extra health, healing and damage dealing can do for a plate wearer. (though it does nothing against CC)

Hmmm....

Sitting on the Dock of a bay, in Orgrimmar

Warning: Rambling post is rambling...

I'm not sure why, but I have decided to try to get both Old Crafty and Old Ironjaw for the cross faction fishing achievements. I've spent hours in Ironforge (well over 1,000 casts) and have yet to get Ironjaw, so I gave up on that for the moment and decided to do something a little different.

Namely, running through a few old world dungeons that I never ran. And getting a couple odd pets. And stuff.

First has been my attempt to get the Higher Learning achie, via reading all 8 special books that spawn around Dal. I've been working on it hit & miss for sevral months, and recently got my 7th book. My last is the one downstairs in Dal.

I got bored & tired with THAT, so I decided to get an OOX of my own. I already had the one from Hinterlands, so I spent a couple daysin Tanaris, killing pirates & the like until the quest finally dropped. Thottbot says it has a ~0.1% drop rate, and I think it's right on the money. (I also ran a few low level quests to keep me occupied during my "occupational cleansing" (killing all the pirates, etc, several times over)

During one of my forays over there, I decided to run a one of the instances inside the Caverns of Time; the one to free Thrall (and get that Hat from Don Carlos)

I've also gone and gottent he Keys for Sholomance, run current Stratholme, cleared Gnomeregan, Razerfen Kraul and Downs, and then, finally, ran into Ragefire Chasm. (oh, and I *did* get my own OOX, the last quest dropped quickly in Feralas)

So, I ran Ragefire... and there I was... "safely" inside Orgrimmar, so I decided to make a quick run over to the Valley of Honor (the arrow in the picture at the top) and try to fish up Old Crafty. I made it there without too much trouble (no deaths, and not much trouble from the guards)

I fished there for an hour & a half, tucked in behind the waterfall in the corner. I didn't catch him, but I didn't get ganked either. I called it a night.

Last night, I fished for a half hour, and then it started. *>GANK<* (mind you, I am only quipped with a tabard, fishing pole, hat and PvP trinket) I hang around my corpse for a bit, and I notice that they are camping my corpse. I release, run back a ways, and then switch over to another toon.

Ignomeminy

He was at level 8 when I started the night, (no heirlooms, but plenty of low level enchants on his grey equipment) and ended up the night a couple bars from level 12.

Still without heirlooms, but with a couple green items and a bare twinkling of an idea how to play a mage.

I went back to Balth a couple times, but still got ganked, so just kept playing Iggy. He has no primary professions as of yet, and I'm not sure I will bother. But it is nice to get a little Alt Time, even if I'm not sure I will ever doany more levelling.

Stairway to Heaven at the Ledgerdemaine

I was hanging out in the Ledgerdemain, in the hallway upstairs. Out of nowhere I'm a sheep! It was a 30 second spell, and I was able to click out of it. And it was called something weird like bangmana or something.

A serious "WTF?!?!?" moment.

(BTW, not sure anyone knows this... I sure didn't. Ledgerdemain means "sleight of hand". Who knew? lol)

Then, later in the evening I get this:



Evidently Minigob Manabonk has been around a while, and you get a neat wand.

SWEET!

I tried to cast it on Kattastrophe, but selected the wrong thing, and ended up sheeping the Tree (vendor) right outside the Alliance in...

Ah well, just wait for it to come off CD...

HEY!?!?!?!?!? It's one time use.

Ah well, a neat idea...

A bit earlier, I had run Stratholme with one of Katt's alts, and I got the following:



Too bad there isn't better lewt for the Argent Dawn or the Argent Champion (20 exhalted factions) achies... I wonder how many have tabards... I think I have only worn 10 different tabards thus far.

Random ramblings are... random!

Not so Blinded by the Light

I was driving in to work yesterday morning, with the 40-odd mile drive taking 90 minutes or there abouts, as usual. Traffic sucks, idiots being idots and all the same crap.

I'm westbound on the I-10 freeway, approaching the 710 freeway, where I want to exit. Like a good little prepared driver, I'm in the right hand lane (exit lane for us Yanks, not the bloody fast lane for you wackos "over yonder" ;) )

Anyhow, I see a tractor-trailer (a big assed lorry) trying to do likewise, being careful and even using his blinkers. I slow up a bit to give him room and flash my lights to let him know it's OK to move.

He does so, and blinks his lights back when he gets over to thank me.

I'm not quite sure why, but this simple, pretty much anonymous exchange, gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

It's a silly, polite thing for both of us to do, and SHOULD be pretty much SOP for "normal" folks. Granted it's kind of rare, but it happens a couple/few times a year, so it's not unheard of.

It wasn't some sort of random act of kindness on either of our parts, it was just two people behaving politely.

I'm not sure if I'm just in a soft mood, or if socially and publicly things have gotten become so rude, brash and unpleasant that even the slightest bit of decorum stands out like a beacon.

I know a part of the good feeling was simply being on the same wavelength as another random person; not really "connecting", but maybe more of a shared nod & small smile of acknowledgement.

It's the same sort of thing you'd get when riding a motorcycle, with another coming towards you in oncoming traffic. Both of you will just lift your hand to each other in acknowledgment.

Yeah, an odd day for me today.

All I see is Disorder; Though not Always a Bad Thang...

Lotsa Nada happened this weekend...

I made another few hundred gold, grabbed a few more Champion Seals, a couple more Dalaran Cooking Awards, and got a few of the Valentine's Achievements.

Actually, I started the Valentine's day ordeal a day early. (I played a while on Saturday night on Aman'Thul - Oceanic - they are 19 hours ahead of me) Aussie-wannabe-Balthazario is less than 5 bars away from level 15 and beginning the low level LFG.

As a tank. Kattastrophe suggested I start a low level pallie and learn to tank from low levels, and my server sojourn seems an appropriate place. Katt & I are still sorta considering each loading up a "home" (Velen) toon with heirloom gear, bags and gold and then do a server transfer.

A Gold Farming Hint for the holiday averse:

Even if you have ZERO intention of actually completing the quest, speak to a local questgiver (one in each main city) and get a Lovely Charm Collector's Kit. Once you do, you will collect Lovely Charms from from many of the mobs that you kill in your daily Frost Runs. (unless you are a healer - you need to be killing stuff) Anyhow, collect 10 of thos charms (which are soulbound) and convert them into Lovely Charm Braclets. These are NOT soulbound, and can fetch 10-40 gold each from the Auction house. So, you run a few PuGs, and collect free gold.

In Other News

My pre-LFG routine seems to be helping. (this is where I unequip a bunch of gear to ensure I get into a low/easy dungeon) Every time I have done this prior to entering the LFG queue, I have gotten a low level (aka "easy") heroic.

Why don't I want to run PoS, HoR and FoS? Because it is not uncommon to wipe on them. I despise doing the LFG, and at this point I am ONLY doing them for the Frost emblems. The Frost Emblems I get from Violet Hold are the exact same as the emblems from Halls of Reflection. (In fact, I get more Triumph running VH, if I recall correctly) Not to mention that I have yet to wipe on VH, which means saving 5-10 gold for each wipe that doesn't happen.


I am kind of enjoying the Valentine's activities. Granted, as a Draenei Paladin, I keep getting showered with petals, but it's better than being turned into a turkey. lol (poor rogues) Also, I kind of like the idea of being able to get a freebie pet.

I *did* try to kill the holiday bosses with extreme wipeage resulting. Once was by having a small party (2), once was due to not really getting the fight, and the third was because all the adds swamped the healer. (and here's an odd thing; I looked up a video for it, and it showed maybe 3 or 4 adds all together. During our last wipe, I saw well over a dozen. - odd) And yes, I was trying to tank the last 2 attempts which did not help things. It also didn't help that I didn't realize there were THAT many adds in the first place. I pulled a couple at the start, along with Mister Pink.

Yes, we used the anti perfume potion thingie. *shrug* Oh, as a group, we did ~ 12,000 DPS before we died.

Later!

Mad, Mad World of Warcraft

I thought about linking the Gears of War video instead, but live seems to feel better...

Anyhow, as of late, my time in WoW has been a tad melancholy. I dread queueing for the Sanity Tap ® and have gone about my business on many days without even bothering. I'm barely raiding, and overall, any progression I've made has been really slow.

Looking for Dungeon

I'm not sure why, but going into here for my daily heroics stresses the crap out of me. I'm putting my tanking project on hold, so this really only relates to me playing DPS, which I seem to be pretty good at. I'm just terribly leary of people taking things the wrong way, me gaffing something up, or just general asshattedness of the randoms. A couple examples:

- I get put into a group starting Pit of Sauron. Nobody is near the entrance area, and the NPCs are already running. I start moving away when I see a flame hooved horse go running by. I run to follow and seem him/her jump a ravine and stand off to the side. Not knowing wtf is going on, I try to jump over and miss. And fall down into a group of mobs. Or, 3 groups.

Someone drops down to help, and we both die. Someone else yells "real pro". Another asks "WTF happened?"

As I am flying back, I try to explain, and I appologize. I can see from the health bars that some are still in combat and taking LOTS of damage. I applogize and upon entering the instance I appologize again and leave group.

- I'm with a guildie, and we get put into one of the appostrophe'd instances. (Zul 'drak, Gur'ub or whatever the fuck it's called. It's the one with the spiral staircase down in the beginning and lots of snakes) We fight a couple trash mobs, and I end up having to Lay on Hands. It's not that I'm taking a lot of damage fast, it's just that the healer is doing NOTHING. The tank isn't marking and is switching targets, so that I'm pretty much guaranteed to be getting some aggro and taking *some* damage.

Shortly after, we have to wait while the tank says brb and goes afk. (not that long, but a couple minutes)

Then the healer gets pissed off that RankWatch whisped him that one of his spells is low rank. I replied "ok, gimme a minute and I'll shut it off". To do this, I have to log off. Normally this isn't a problem, and I don't drop group. I pop back in and get teleported out f the instance. My guildie informs me that I got vote kicked. She drops group and we go elsewhere. My guildie mentions "That healer wasn't healing AT ALL."

So there are my sad, sad tales of woe and misery in the LFG. Honestly, it wasn't THAT bad... especially when compared to some of the crap other bloggers are dealing with. It's just getting to me. Hell, the very next run, my guildie & I got Oculus with a good group, and we ended up getting both the speed and the Amber Void achievements.

This less than ideal LFG/LFD thing just gets compounded when I think about raiding; which I'm not able to do. even though I have access to my guild and Kattastrophe's guild, the amount of 10 man raiding I've done is approaching an asymptote: Zero.

I can't really blame the guilds. After all, there's nothing forcing me to stay associated with them. That said, it's a tad frustrating that both of them only seem to do raiding at 4 pm server time. (weekdays) I guess my guild did some "real" 10 man content this last week, but I was out of town.

Now, I'm not only carping about it. I am trying to be pro-active and try to organize things my self; I've posted in our guild forums and had a whopping *2* views thus far. (and no replies - posted 3 days ago)

Now, since I'm not running any raids (not even the weekly easy one) and I'm not getting all my weekly 14 LFG frost emblems, this pretty much ensures I'm not able to buy any new gear. This in turn leads to:

I'm not progressing.

As I mentioned in my last post, I *did* get a new set of bracers. And yeah, going from i200 to i213 is an upgrade and all the stats ARE better. How much? According to the melee info, I am getting an extra 2.5 DPS. That's not a typo. That is: "two point five damage points per second". And I think I got an extra 50 health points.

*blink*

Heck, I still haven't even hit Honored with the Ashen Verdict yet.

The one upgrade that I know for certain that I *can* get are the Rings of Kirin Tor. The first purchase is the only really big one (6,400 gold) and I'm at nearly 5,000 right now. If I do a *little* bit of grinding, plus my dailies, I should have enough in another 4 days or so. Then it's just another 2-3 days for each upgrade over that.

Then if I'm still feeling badly undergeared, I can farm another 10k-15k gold to buy a couple Titansteel razorscale armor bits.

So what then?

I think uch of my time for the forseeable future may be just grinding out some achievements. Big Bear Butt mentioned a grindable pet that would get me a bit closer to the Salt Lick and would occupy my time.

I'm not sure, but I think I have about 60 Champion Seals, so I plan on getting more and using them to buy some Argent pets. (BTW, the Argent Crusader Tabard KICKS ASS! A free teleport for the win!)

I recently got my Eastern Kingdoms explorer achi, and will probably spend time running around Kalimdor to finish everything off.

I think I'll start gathering honor points and marks so I can put together a set of PvP gear. Not that I really care to PvP, but having the gear should certainly make it less painful to do it.

I have about 500 stone keeper shards, so I can also get a bit more Heirloom gear for my alts. I'm not sure I really feel like running them, but getting the gear should at least make things easier.

And, I hope that I get out of this funk, maybe get one or two raids in, and, if all goes south, maybe look for a new guild. Alas, my needs are pretty specific (casual, friendly, active mainly weekdays between 8pm and 11pm server time, familiar with EJ, and related sites enough to know what they're doing, but not so much that they suck the fun out of the game)

Oh, and I need to watch Donnie Darko one of these days.

Ramble On, Cuz I do it Often

Sorry about this post being so "all over the place", but much of what's happened lately has been of that sort. Back to my monotone babbling later...

I don't mind GearScore (GS) or Elitist Group (EG) They have small use for me in that it helps me look back at a heroic and try to understand why things went the wasy they did. Or, it lets me stroke my ePeen (not because my number is so high) but because when I am lower geared than someone, and I *still* out DPS them. And they are a Mage or Warlock.

And honestly, I can never remember what mine is. And, given how little I raid and how slowly I am accumulating Frost & Triumph badges, it stays the same for pretty long periods. *shrug*

[EDIT] - and... and... and... yes I know, my grammer sucks as of late. [/EDIT]
~~~~~~~

I *did* buy a Triumph badge upgrade for my Tank spec. I think it was shoulders (I honestly suck at remembering some crap. LET ALONE try remembering the item name) The neat thing is that I can finally start gemming for stats other than Defense. I'm still sitting at exactly 540 (capped) but am slowly increasing my stamina.

A few guildies let me tank through Utgarde Keep. I didn't do very well. The healer is a sweetheart and was quite patient. The others were... less so, but not rude or anything. But when they re-grouped for another random, I wasn't asked to tank. (I really need to get Vuhdo set up and learn it)

~~~~~~~

Kattastrophe left our guild a couple weeks ago. The guild I'm still in has some *slightly* more hardcore players in it. They tend to perform a bit better than your average guys. (not uber-leet hardcore by ANY stretch, but some pretty knowledgable and skilled players)

If you aren't in the "in group" you will get left out and not really invited to much of anything. And that's if they are runnning anything in the first place. It's not a super cold guild, but if you aren't close to the core members, it's not always super friendly either. (There are some GREAT folks there, which is why I've stayed)

Anyhow... Katt had ended up runnning with another guild for a bit over a week. They were just doing rep runs into ICC 10 man. They appreciated Katt, and as a group, they hit it off. Since they could use another good healer (they only have 1 tree - he's good, but he's only 1 guy) they asked her to join.

She was on the fence until she got asked to come along & bring me in for DPS. We're sitting at the summoning stone, and up trots a couple of our current guildies sommoning folks for a guild run for OUR guild. Never a peep or anything from our own guild asking us if we were interested. The worst part? They Pugged 2-3 spots.

This was the last straw, and Katt g/quit. It was uncomfortable for a while, but things have settled down. She's in her guild, I'm still in mine. They keep asking me to join, but I'm still not willing to jump ship on the folks I am friends with over there.

As of now, kind of the best of both worlds. We both have access to folks in both guilds.

~~~~~~~

Last night I was finishing up some stuff for cooking (more on this in a later post) and I see one of my guild officers promoting some folks up from recruit to member.

I whisped the guy, asking when I would get promoted up from "Raider" to "Active Raider".

"Hold on, let me check your gear... you were really close last time I looked." (referring to my Gear Score)

Now, this has been my only negative run-in with GS. And yeah, it's made a bit more annoying, because I HAVE done a couple 5 mans with him and other officers, I can *do* my job as DPS prety well.

A couple minutes later I was promoted. What does this mean? As far as I can tell, it really only changes my bank/repair access. (I never use the guild bank, so I'm making an assumption about that, but I did notice I now have a guild allowance for repair)

~~~~~~~~

So with Katt's guild, I ran a number of Rep runs into ICC 10 man last week. I didn't make it to friendly, at least not that time. They were interesting, and it's neat to actually be a part (even a non-guilded part) of a team.

The only downside is that they are not obssessed with getting the most out of their gear & stuff as the top guys in my current guild. Don't get me wrong, they DO work on their gear and they DO try to learn. BUT, the majority of them are not spending hours a week reading EJ, tinkering and beating on test dummies for hours to optimize their rotation. (although a couple of them certainly do though) They play to spend time together and have fun.

(Also, one mage there isn't a fan of Omen -or any- aggro meter)

Then on Saturday, they decided to make a run for Marrowgar. We went in semi-cold. A few of us knew his abilities, but there was no pre-arranged strategy. we went in, cleared the trash Then?

Multi-wipe.

We all watched the tankspot vid and prepped for a Sunday attempt. After clearing the trash (and got my ring for being friendly with Ashen Verdict), we stood around outside Marrow's room discussing strat. We did a dry run there, using a DK's Death & Decay (D&D) to simulate Marrow's hitbox and try to get our placements. We then went in.

Multi-wipe.

We understood the fight a LOT better, but still didn't do a whole lot better. The fire was just kicking our asses. Especially when it gets dropped right on top of someone that is spiked, and you're trying to rescue. Nasty, and it happened several times.

One note about tankspot's video: I think that staying underneath Marrow while he's doing his spinning thing is not the best idea. He's moving around pretty quickly, and dropping a TON of his fire. Often multiple "shots" (each shot goes in 4 directions) right next to each other. With him focussed on everyone in the center of the room, the fire becomes so dense you can't avoid it, and "head for the hills" seems like it may be a better tactic. This also gives the tanks time to regain aggro after the phase re-starts.

~~~~~~~

When I am doing random PuGs for my emblems (as opposed to guild/friend runs) I have started removing gear prior to selecting "join queue". Every time I have done so I have gotten low level/fast/easy runs. (barring one Malygos/Oculus fiasco) I'm not 100% convinced that it isn't simple RNG giving me these runs, and not my reduced "visible gear score", but I'll take fast, easy runs for my badges, athankuverymuch!

I want to run Forge of Souls (FoS), Pit of Saron (PoS) and Halls of Reflection(HoR) but I don't care to run them in randoms (PoS & HoR in particular) They are just tough enough that they will likely cost you more in repair bills than you will get out of them. The "Follow Arthas" trick in HoR has made it much more manageable, but it still requires some really good DPS and tanking to make it, and PuGs seem to fail too much (no badges, BUT a hefty repair bill)

~~~~~~

Later!

Wheels in the Sky, and Mountains Too!

I've been mulling a couple posts "in process", and they're all a bit grim/frustrated, so considering the season, they will likely never see the light of day, so here are a couple random bits:


Go see Avatar, if for no other reason than to get to see Zangarmarsh & Nagrand "for real". Somebody on James Cameron's design team HAS to be a Wow player... (as a movie/plot snob, I give the movie an 8 (as if you care) - But Kattastrophe gave it a 10+)

I learned something that I had "rubbed up against", but never really put together: right before a fight/pull, target your tank. As he runs in, hit "F". So simple, so helpful. (it makes you target the same mob as the tank)

Even though I getting better, I still end up taking a stupid number of dirt naps.(yes, even using the "F" tip I mentioned above) Some of them are the result of less than ideal tanking, but many are still me standing in the stupid. (not necessarily fire/voids, I'm actually ok avoiding that, it's just other stupid shit)

A red flashing screen (when you have Omen) is bad, m-kay? Learning this (I asked a guildie the other night) and the "F" bit have definitely been helpful, and have reduced my time spent sniffing pavement, but haven't stopped it.

I need to assign Hand of Salvation to a hotkey.

One other observation, that relates to my dirt naps: even with time time spent face down, I am usually at the top for both damage and DPS. Even when in groups with folks 500-1,000 gear score higher. I've had one Warlock, and one Ele Shammie beat me out, but that's all I recall. And I'm still doing this while I'm either: a) throttling my DPS down to lose aggro and b) standing there confused because [tab] won't target and I'm struggling to click on one c) too focused on my rotation and didn't notice that the tank pulled the mobs away from me. (doh)

I wanted to thank Amber (Forthebubbles)for posting the meme-du-jour: "5 Things you PUG [insert class] wants you to know" and posting the links for Tank, DPS, Mage and DK. I learned a LOT reading these posts, as well as the comments below. THANK YOU!!!!!

Oh, and I had never thought about the fact that Prot Warriors needed to chain pull to keep rage. It's very nice to know. It doesn't make uber-fast chain pulls less annoying, but it's nice to know there's a legit reason for it :)

I've Finally Made it to the House of Fun! It's Madness!

Yep, I dinged 80.

I did so on the pentultimate (I think) quest with Thorim (poor guy!)

And now comes the long slow progression for better gear. (or should I say grind?)

Yeah, maybe grind is a better word, since getting the gear necessitates a fair bit of grinding:

- for stone keeper shards
- for emblems (heroic, valiant, etc)
- more rep (Hodir, Oracles, etc)
- Argent tourney factions and emblems (btw, do all factions offer the same gear?)
- ToC
- ToC
- ToC
- other raids that I'm geared well enough for
- mats for crafting a couple more pieces of armor (1 titansteel bar per day - ick)

I know for a HUGE portion of WoW players, dinging 80 is the START of the game. Me? Well, let's say I'm a bit ambivalent about it. From an "achievement" point of view (the real meaning, not the little pop-ups you get in-game) I'm VERY happy I made it. It's been a loooong long road.

The downside? For the last couple months, WoW has been a LOT of grinding. Rep for Kurenai (for the mounts), rep for sporregar (for that shield, AND the pet) for the Netherwing (yep, more mounts) Now, it looks like I will have to do.... more grinding! And not just for cool mounts (that netherdrak is frikkin awesome!) but to get decent/good gear.

The good side? Katt & I have found a guild that seems to be a pretty close fit. We're still very much the outsiders, but seems really nice. We;ve run a few small raids with them, Pugs and friends and it seems fun. (does everybody treat a raid like it's a race?!?!? lol)

I've already started to collect (and gem & enchant) some better gear, though I have a LOOONG way to go to even be "adequate".

The majority of the dailies aren't too bad, since they're pretty quick, though a couple (Argent and Hodir) ones can be a bit slow. And the gold you get from doing them is pretty nice (I've been getting 200 gold an evening, including the profit from any items sold)

I'll post more of a sit-rep later, since this is getting a tad long...

One last topic before I wrap this up: the Thanksgiving quests.

I DID complete my mission impossible, though not without further incident. (NOT of the Horde kind). While hiding inside a Furlbog disguise is cool, it can also hide the fact that you are (or are not) in the proper Pilgrim outfit. Needless to say, it was after I finished stopping by all 4 Horde cities (and didn't get the achie) that I realized that I had been improperly garbed in 3 of them (DOH!)

I eventually got my Turkey (and my Title) in a pretty fun holiday celebration. *golf clap for Blizzard*

Oh, and I got a letter back from my Undercity killer. (she?) was VERY nice about it and even appologized. Evidently she had just gotten ganked herself and had the urge for payback. I responded back with a "not a prob, I *was* flagged after all. lol"