Well, the priest is now 61, and has healed both Blood Furnace and Underbog. It was an interesting experience. Blood Furnace started as 2 DKs, a pally tank, a mage, and me, and ended up with just the mage, pally, and me. We did really well, and I learned that it is much easier to deal with one designated (and obvious) tank than one tank and two DKs who stink at the Omen game.
Underbog wasn't too bad. It was a mostly guild run (with me as the only PUG), and while once again there were two dks, there was also a tank telling them what not to do. He did have some problems holding aggro, but I think that was as much being way overgeared by the DKs as anything else. They were a bit surprised when I got one shotted by the hunter boss, but I wasn't. I was level 60, after all, and a clothie. I did get a level out of it, so I can't complain much.

Also, Lyllea has a hat that makes beer. This is possibly the most awesome hat ever!

In other, more huntery and end-game news, Garetia was finally able to replace her Tier 7 helm thanks to Onyxia. Then I got into a VOA pug, we one-shotted everything, and I got new gloves (twice). This embarrassment of riches almost makes up for my having no idea where helm enchants come from, and upon doing the research, discovering that the one I need comes from the faction I hadn't unlocked yet. Well, that's fixed and now Ebon Blade knows who I am. They're not overly fond of me, but at least they know who I am.

And I have 3 level 60s!

So after a weekend of power-leveling (I got the druid and priest from lvl 51 to 60 in two days), I've been trying to figure out a few things.

1) How to play each one separately.
2) Why my pally now stinks (gear+having no idea what I'm doing is my best guess)
3) If power-leveling mining on two more characters will drive me insane.
4) Why my DK has no talents and how to spec her This was the answer

Well, I've found some answers to number 1, and figured I should share them with you.
First, disc leveling. This is a great forum post that gives you specs, rotations, glyph choices, and gear. I haven't followed the spec exactly, but the rotation is quite effective, and a lot of fun. All I want to do now is play the priest. But she has no rested XP, so I must wait. Grr.

The druid's going feral kitty, and here are two nice guides for leveling feral.

And last, but not least, a slightly outdated guide for leveling as an aoe paladin.

And just for kicks, my favorite profession leveling site is here. The druid's herbalism and inscription are both at around 270, but the pally's still in iron, and well, the less said about the priest's mining and jewelcrafting the better.

Power Auras Classic, a basic primer

I am no expert on Power Auras Classic, but I can make it do a few simple things. Mostly I've figured out how to make it tell me when I do or do not have a buff.
So, here's how you set it up to tell you you're missing a buff...
Type /powa to get the first config menu. It should look something like...



Now, there are no auras, so you want to hit new. Now you get a window that looks like...

Now, first you can customize what your aura looks like. Change texture and color to something you like (and that will make you think of the buff). In the above case I used red to tell me something's wrong. Basically all the options on the top half of the window are to do with visual customization, so play around till you get something you think will work.

Now for the important stuff, the bottom half. In the above picture I've...
Filled out the name of the buff I want the aura to use (Trueshot Aura)
And told it to tell me when it isn't active.

Here's another example...


Pretty similar, except I've used a different texture and color, and it tells me when Inner Fire isn't active.

Now, Power Auras Classic can do much, much more than just tell you if you're missing class buffs. It can tell you if say, you're missing a particular pally buff in raid, if Lock and Load (or any other action) is ready, if an item is ready, and a ton of other things. Check out these options...



On Garetia it tells me when I'm in Aspect of the Viper, when Furious Howl procs, when I'm in Rapid Fire, and when I've got certain combat buffs (mostly related to the pet). On my priest, it reminds me to buff, and does the same for my druid. On my mage, it tells me when my armor spell needs to be reapplied. And that's just barely scratching the surface. Honestly, this addon just makes life a bit easier.

(and yes, these screenshots switch between my bank toon, Garetia, and Lyllea, just in case you were wondering).

UI Addons (or what does base WoW look like again)?

I figured it's been a while since I've done an addon post, and what I'm using has changed substantially since the last time I talked about UIs.
First, a screenshot of Garetia's UI. It won't win any pretty awards, but it's functional (if a bit overcrowded). All addons are available on Curse, unless otherwise specified.

So, starting at upper left and going counter-clockwise, we have...
Shadowed Unit Frames. I switched from XPerl to save some memory.
Below that we have Vuhdo, which I installed for the leveling priest and druid for healing purposes. But since I try to keep my ui fairly consistent, it's showing here. I did fiddle with it a bit so that it only shows the group I'm not in, and it's nice for knowing if it's a wipe or not.

At the bottom, we have bartender 4, and button facade:Caith to make it look all pretty.
Then at the bottom right, those gears are SatrinaBuffFrames (installed again for priest and druid) and ButtonFacade: Gears so that they look like that. I don't really use this on the hunter (except for knowing how much time is left on my ram racing buff), but I do like the look. I also like the fact that it puts debuffs in their own column and colors them red.

Then we have recount (cause I like to know how I'm doing on dps) and if I were in combat, you'd see Omen in the same spot.

At the top is Titan Bar. It's the first addon I ever got and I still love it.

Last but not least, the bars around Garetia are MetaHud.

And if Blizzard didn't reset my "enable out-of-date addons" with every patch, you'd also see...
SexyMap because it's pretty
Power Auras Classic because it's insanely powerful and I have no idea how I lived without it. Expect a post on it next because honestly, it's an addon I think everyone should have.
Autotrack and Viper Notify (great hunter addons)
Quest Helper
Deadly Boss Mods

And these are my new weapons. Bask in their awesomeness...

Brewfest Tips

Yay Brewfest. Boo server lag. Double boo lag ending my keg runs for the day.
Yay YAY YAY volley buff!
So, some useful things for Brewfest...
1. When doing the Coren Direbrew, it's a good idea to have everyone pick up the daily before you start and then make sure that you see 4 next to the quest in your quest log. Prevents people lying about having summons.

2. /target Wild Wolpertinger
/use net
(Or whatever the item is that you catch the Wolpertingers with). The macro makes it much easier (and they show up on tame beasts as well).

3. Jumping off the Shat bridge will get you the failing achievement.

4. You can sell the clothing back for an hour after you get it. So you can get the gear, hearth to Dal, get the achievement, then head back to IF and sell it all back.

Into Ulduar (again)

The weekly runs of Ulduar continue. We've managed to get through crazy cat lady and beat our heads against the Council of Iron and Freya trash. Tomorrow, we attempt more Ulduar and 10 man TOC. I really dislike 5 man TOC, so this could be really interesting in a bad way.

I've installed Ensidia Fails (after managing to waste two battle rezes last week on Razor), and learned that it is automatically set to post in raid. Not good. I just want it to tell me when I fail (which isn't too often). Did manage to do that, eventually. It's helpful, especially on bosses I haven't seen before. I don't think I'd want to use it as a raid leader, since it's really easy to fail on some things (stupid Kologarn eyebeams for one), but for personal feedback it's great.

I'm also now running Old World Fun Runs every Sunday, and this week it's Blackwing. The plan is to get attunement for Molten Core at the same time, so that next week I can try some extreme soloing. I played with the BM build a bit while getting the Dragonblight Loremaster achievement, and it's pretty solid. I took it from there and am looking forward to trying a few things. Like Heroic MT, because I want the pet and mount. I'm at 68 pets out of 75, and I'm slowly slogging through the Skyguard rep grind for another pet. Then I'll start grinding Kurenai rep for the mounts, and if I ever manage to get enough gold for epic flying, hello Netherwing faction.

Now I just need to sit down, get the priest and druid to 60, and then figure out what I want to do about professions. The druid will need to have her herbalism boosted a bit (since it is very difficult keeping up with her leveling speed) and I need to decide what I want the priest to be. Right now she's a tailor/miner, and I could either a) not change that, or b) make her a jewelcrafter since having a high level jewelcrafter would be really nice.

And last but not least, a group shot. We had a birthday party for the raid leader in the Beer Garden...

And the leveling continues...

My RAF pair have now hit 48, and I took a bit of a time-out to go play in Arathi Basin with the priest. It was interesting, and rather entertaining in a "Oh god, WTF, what the heck is going on!" sort of way. I did learn that shield is my friend, and um, I got some shiny achievements. The XP wasn't really worth it, sadly, but it was a good experience.

In other news, my hunter wanders back into Ulduar later this week, and I'm hoping that we do as well as we did last time. We one shotted the first three bosses and got Undying on two of them. For a new group, we did so well!

I also went to DragonCon, and won shinies. I have yet to redeem them (mostly because I have yet to unpack), but yay shinies to play with. I also got to be a quest giver for a bit, and even got a screenshot!