Tuesday, December 27, 2011

the Gear Gap, and Suggestions on Stopgap Solutions

Yet again an alt has run full tilt into the gear gap between Northrend normals and Cataclysm normals.  And rather than rant about it I figured I'd try to be constructive. I know that in the long run Blizz is trying to figure out what to do about gear inflation, but that doesn't help people right now. So here's some stopgap solutions in the meantime.

1. Have crafted gear that fills the gap. My tailor can't make a full set of Cat greens for a level 80, and neither can my blacksmith or leatherworker. Add some patterns and fix this. You could even have them drop from the level 80 Wraith dungeons.  This isn't an ideal newbie solution, but it'd couldn't hurt.

2. Give the heirlooms that scale to 85 an i level (like 282). Heck, if you wanted to be really nice, you could make it a scaling i-level. It'd be nice to be able to queue with my cloak and helm of YAY XP, instead of queueing in greens I am just going to switch out as soon as I get in there.

3. Get rid of the XP gap between Northrend heroics and Cat normals. At least that way I could go farm Northrend stuff for XP (even if gear farming them is pointless). It just makes the gap a bit less painful.

4. Lower the ilevel requirements for the first two Cat normals.

5. Drop Cat greens in level 80 dungeons.

6. Make quest rewards from the level 80 dungeons equivalent to Cat greens.

Now, why am I harping on this? Well, imagine you're a new player. You've decided that you want to tank or heal at end game, so you've leveled through dungeons, or you've leveled through dungeons cause you like them. You're learning how to play, you've kinda got the gear thing down, and then you hit level 80 and lookie, you can't keep progressing the way you have been.  You have to hope that a) you know that Cat greens can be bought on the AH and that you have the gold or that b) it occurs to you to go quest or that c) you have helpful and friendly guildies.

Otherwise, I can see a misinformed newbie thinking "okay, guess I need to run more Wraith normals" never realizing that they will never get to a high enough i level that way.  And that could easily lead to a rage quit. If it's annoying to me (who has the gold and the knowledge to go get what I need from the AH), I can only imagine how frustrating it might be to a new player.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Stuff I've been up to in WoW

Other than transmog? Okay, quite a bit of transmog. Lookie at the newest outfits!
 Monera's new outfit, based around that pretty leather skirt. All pieces except belt and staff are low-level AH stuff. The staff will be replaced, once I find one I like better.

 Garetia's new mail outfit. Not ideal yet, but I like the green theme. Based around the tunic, a dungeon quest reward from Auchenai Crypts. All other bits were either already in bags, purchased on the AH, or crafted.

 And here we see Anput, my rogue. She's also rocking a chest from that same quest as Garetia is, just leather instead of mail. The pants are again AH, found while I was trying to put together Monera's outfit. Otherwise it's a mix of heirlooms, level 60 pvp gear, and the dagger is Fangs of the Father, a dungeon drop (don't ask me which dungeon, she's run 7 in the past few days and they've all run together).

Otherwise, there's been a lot of gearing up Eiunn the shaman, who is now 3/8 DS 10 as elemental and 4/8 DS LFR as resto. I've run a lot of the new 5 mans, and come to some conclusions.
1) caster mail is a myth
2) Echo of Sylvannas stinks
3) Thrall is this expansion's CoT Arthas.

Lyllea's 8/8 in LFR, and 4/8 in DS 10. We're running hard into the DPS check on Ultra (due to 3 healing it in normal Firelands gear), and have developed a great dislike of Warlord Buggy'McBuggyPants. I've gotten some tier from LFR, and while it looks like Lyl's 359 boots are never getting replaced, I did get a new main hand, so I can't complain much.

My DK's next in line for gearing, but it's hard to convince myself to run those 5 mans another 7 times after running them on Lyl (to cap valor if I don't want to deal with the stupid of LFR) and Eiunn (damn you caster mail, DROP!). So instead I've actually been leveling. In fact, at this point all of my alts on Shadow Council have run through all their rested XP. My mage is almost to 80, the rogue's 66, and even the warrior got some love (and a Blackfathoms run of "hit all the buttons because EJ has either failed me on a fury guide or I'm very tired and looking in the wrong place"). I also rolled a lock Horde-side to help Redeemed with Stay Classy. I'm looking forward to getting her into PVP, mostly because a) 7 heirlooms=OP, and b) an undead running around with gnome pigtails just seems extra evil.

Other than that, I've gotten into some achievement runs on various toons, and I'm dabbling my toe into the crafting transmog market. Eiunn's picked up both Ulduar and BT leatherworking and/or tailoring patterns, so I'm planning on making one or two, see if they'll sell. All this transmog is a bit hard on the old gold reserves, after all, and if I don't do something I might have to *GASP!* do dailies.

So that's what I've been up to during this radio silence. Now, off to bed, and before I forget...



HAPPY MIDWINTER HOLIDAY OF YOUR CHOICE!!

Transmogging without a set, how to create an original look

So, I've been doing a lot of trying to figure out how to transmog stuff so I get unique and also nice-looking gear. And I figured I'd write up what I've come up with.

First, and foremost, get a addon that shows you what gear looks like on your toon. I love MogIt, but I'm sure there's plenty out there to choose from.

Second, run old stuff. My server has a lovely channel called achievements, and you can generally find at least one old raid going on at peak times. Look for mount runs, achievement runs, that sort of thing. Personally I don't pick my raid based on what it might drop, I pick it based on how much I like going there. That way any cool drops are just a neat bonus. But it is best to go in without a preconceived notion of what you're going for, so that you're more open to new things. I didn't go into Black Temple thinking I was going to get a shield, but I did. Also, I discovered there's a kick-arse mace in there, so it looks like my DK may be doing some farming.

Third, keep an eye out while leveling alts. I've already found a sword that I want to get on as many toons as possible, simply because it looks cool.

Now, you should hopefully have a good selection of gear at this point. Now comes the hard part, creating a look from this selection. Here's one way (the way I find the easiest) to do it...

Step 1) Find your favorite piece. Ideally you want something that's going to be obvious on your toon, like a chest or shield or staff or shoulders.  This piece is what you're going to build your set around. In the case of Lyl, I started with the current priest tier shoulders.

Step 2) Gather all that gear you've been collecting. Hit the transmog guy and start experimenting. Keep in mind a few simple things, like matching colors and keeping the ornateness/simplicity of the gear more or less equivalent to your favorite piece. Generally you'll want to go with simpler looking gear than your favorite piece so the rest of the set doesn't distract. Also keep in mind that enchants on your gear will still be visible, so you generally don't want to transmog your nice sword with the glowing red enchant to the blue lightsaber.

Step 3) Now hopefully you've got at least the beginnings of a set. Start farming to fill in any slots, and don't forget about hitting the AH. Cheap leveling greens often have a nice look, and your friendly tailor can make some nice things too (like the black mageweave headpiece, or the admiral's hat). Heck, the Fel Iron sword is pretty darn neat-looking too, and that shouldn't be too hard to hunt down from a blacksmith.

Now, to put my money where my mouth is, here's my current looks...
Lyllea, starting with the current priest shoulders, adding a splash of Ulduar, tier 11 (the boots), and even a staff from Scarlet Monastery, which you'll have to actually go to the Armory to see, since I can't figure out how to change her pose to show it. I have no idea which tabard that is, since I don't have one that matches.

Eiunn, who is still a work in progress, first in what she's currently wearing (and yes, I need either a top with green or pants and shield with blue)...

And second, in an earlier version...(yes, that's not the best screencap ever, sorry). Since this cap, I've picked up a shield from Black Temple, cursed my legs for not matching, and gotten rid of the helm. Cool helm, but I didn't have anything else that matched it.

Here's my DK, Llonya. She's my only toon in a precreated set, and that is her original DK greens (never getting rid of stuff finally came in handy)

And here's MogIt in action, showing me what that offhand (in Black Temple) looks like on my toon.

And I have no idea why all my space goats look so grumpy! Didn't there used to be a way to customize the pose of your toons in the Armory? Did they get rid of that or am I just too tired to see it?

I hope this makes transmogging a bit less ACK! and a bit more fun for you. Sure, there's tons of great sets (I saw a lvl 60 dressed as a SW guard tonight), but I think half the fun's making your own, plus there's loads of resources on sets.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Slightly Disappointed

So this is how I feel about 4.3...
http://youtu.be/3hgcy6bsg4g

Has it lived up to that? Well, I'm waiting for my decision after the Darkmoon Faire hits, but so far...

Really reusing the Eye of Eternity?  Awesome setting, you know I love it (it's my blog's backdrop for goodness sake) but fail on something new and shiny.  Sadness.  Naxx at the beginning of Wraith? You failed there, you're kinda failing here...

Here's hoping the Darkmoon Faire is F-ing awesome, cause if not, well, watching Quills on Netflix (or South Park or Mad Men or random documentaries) is more appealing. At least with that, I get knitting done (and therefore have something tangible to show for it). But Blizzard, PLEASE! I don't want to give up the game that has led to so many incredible friends, please! I want to keep playing, give me a reason to (besides the horse and Diablo 3 for the year-long, cause I ran through Diablo 2 in a summer with pain meds (ankle-reconstruction, owie)).

But for something positive, my run with the raid finder was relatively painless. I want to figure out how to hit an idiot through the internet (my blue bar = your red bar, idiot, if I have no blue, then you have no red), but it was relatively promising. I'm just not sure it will remain so (or be so if I hadn't que'd for heals. Yes, I queue for new raids as heals, and new dungeons as DPS.) I blame the begininng of Cat, which made me doubt (and still doubt) my 5 man healing skills.

I did get tier (but am not sure if I want to break my 4 piece) and did see 2 fights. But that isn't enough on it's own to keep me playing. The awesome friends and guilds I have gotten to know do that, and I have yet to see something to keep me playing over the long-term outside of those. Blizz, I want to keep giving you my money, please please please be worthy of it!!!!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Yup, once again I am fail blogger

WoW just hasn't been interesting to me lately. I've gotten my DK to 85, discovered that Frost dual-wielding is ridiculous fun, and been happy that both my first guild and my Horde guild are full of awesome people.

There's just been more to rant about than celebrate. Like the tier 4-piece for healing priests. "Dude, we heard you like fire, so here's some healing fire so you can heal while trying to stay out of fire!" I mean, really? Oh, and Ragnaros. Really starting to loathe that fight.

Ooh, and the new expansion. Pandas, well, okay, I'm willing to go with that. Pet battles, okay, could be fun. But, completely changing the basis of classes, AGAIN? GRRRRR!
I feel like there's no overarching plan for WoW anymore, and that we're being used as an experimental ground for Titan.

So, yeah, rather than rant about WoW, I've just not blogged. Sorry.

Instead, I've been trying new things, knitting, and now I've picked up a "sorta" new to me MMO. City of Heroes was my first MMO, I played right at launch, my computer didn't quite support it, and I quit after my free month. But with it going F2P and with a month's sub costing 0.99 (black friday sale), I said "Why not?"

The character creator alone is worth trying this game for. So many ways to customize your character! Here's 3 I've made.

First, we have Greensleeves Djinn, an amoral, profit-hungry villain who uses a bow, heals herself with green fire, and summons ninjas to do her bidding. Yup, ninjas. Originally I wanted to make a pirate queen (with pirate henchmen) and a battle cry of "Men, they stole our rum! GET THEM!" but no pirate henchmen are available.

Then we have Ilviena, a mutated (and slightly bitter) young hero who's making the world a better place by throwing enemies around and summoning random stuff to hit them with.
Here's a pic of her in action. She's currently my highest toon (at lvl 10), and a blast to play.

And then we have the first toon I made, a ice blaster. I've been having way more fun with Ilviena, so she's neglected, but I love her look.


I've also made Kudzu the Devourer, Antonia Drake, Moneri, and a lot of others. The character creator is SO MUCH FUN! I can change not only a character's costume, body shape, and colors, but also change how their powers look, and with the way their classes work, the power sets I choose can really alter how the class plays. Yes, I've spent several hours just making characters, and that's my one complaint about the free version. Two slots. TWO! But but but altaholic here! So I ponied up the 99 cents for a month of VIP time, just so I can experiment and fiddle. I figure by the time the month is up I should have a decently good idea of what I like playing.

I don't expect CoX to hold my interest long-term, but for right now, I'm having a blast. If you, like me, are suffering from WoW ennui, give CoX a look. Me, I'm going back to Paragon City, I have heads to bash in. See you on Virtue (the unofficial RP server, and my server of choice)

Monday, October 10, 2011

Look, RP Stuff!

I was working on my baby priest (now 22 and hitting Hillsbrad, and Silverpine was epic, if troubling), and was inspired. She's on an RP server, and I do want to find an RP guild for her at some point. So here, the first entry of Ameldia's Journal.


Entry the first (though why I'm writing this is beyond me. I suppose it will be interesting to look back on my early days.)


I got asked the other day why I adventure. I suppose they were expecting me to say that I wanted to destroy the living, or serve the Dark Lady. I guess "well, it's something to do" isn't a common answer.

But there I go again, dropping into the middle of things. Sorry, when your unlife (or whatever you want to call it) starts that way, you try to ignore the importance of beginnings. When you don't have one, it stings a bit. Okay, a lot.

I'm Ameldia. Or at least I think I am. But does thinking I am actually make me so? It's questions like these that would keep me up at night if I slept. Am I supposed to sleep? You'd think they'd have a course or something when they raise you, but no, it's go get this and go kill that. Not so helpful.

I'm forsaken, or that's what they tell me. I know I'm a corpse, brought back by some unholy thing. I know the Light burns, but it's a good burn. I rather like the pain, it's nice to feel things. I don't remember anything, really, from life, but I miss feeling things and tasting things.

Physical description, in case you might care what I look like. I'm a bit taller than average, though I tend to slump (something about decay of the structures of the spine, I think). My hair is clean, if oddly-colored (I really doubt I had blue hair in life). My elbow and knee joints show, a common affliction, but other than that I'm quite well-preserved. I also have a baby lich thing that follows me around and occasionally frosts things. He gives me the creeps but I can't seem to get rid of him. My fingers are generally stained with ink, as are my robes. I suppose I'm decent-enough looking, for a decaying corpse. What are the beauty standards for us, anyway?

I have no idea who I was in life, so I'm trying to figure out who I am in death. It's as good a way as any to pass eternity, I suppose.

Friday, October 7, 2011

3 Things I Think Blizz Should do to Make Leveling Better...

3 Things I Think Blizz Should do to Make Leveling Better...
1) stop trying to force us to Northrend, Outlands, or Vash/Hyjal with better XP. Quests and kills should give you the same XP whether you're in Borean Tundra or Netherstorm. It's all old content, and let's face it, most Wraith babies have done Northrend to death but may not have ever set foot in Shadowmoon Valley.

2) Following on from 1, BC heroics should give about the same XP for a run as Nexus or UK. Wraith heroics should give about the same XP as a Cat normal. Again, it's all old content, and doing this would allow for more variety in the 70-75 dungeon range. I was doing BC heroics with my mage, but given that at level 70 a BC heroic gives me less than half the XP of a UK run, it makes more sense to run UK for the 4th time, sadly.

3)The gear gap at 80. I've run into this twice now. Cata normals require better gear than you get questing in Northrend or running dungeons to 80.  That needs to be fixed, it's really stupid to run dungeons to 80 because you'd rather run around Dal looking for Higher Learning books than quest, then suddenly be unable to run the new dungeons that are the only ones that will give you decent XP. I'm hoping that the new 80 gear sets are to help with this.

I know why these things exist, they're to force us into the new content. But the content isn't new anymore, so why keep the rails? Yes, when Cat came out it was a good idea to nerf Wraith heroic XP, but Cat's been out for almost a year now. Give us a bit more freedom, Blizz!

Monday, October 3, 2011

One Amazing Night

Horde-side is turning out well for me. Last night just ended up being an AMAZING night and I have screencaps to share! (the day started off horribly, so last night was extra awesome as a result)

First off, I'd signed up for a Light of Dawn run (LK 25 heroic) that had been advertised in the achievements channel.  We actually had 25 people, and lost more people to the elevator boss than any other boss before LK. One wipe on LK, and a new title (and a bunch of achieves) was mine!


Then the same raid leader (who was awesome and if you can go on a run Creacher's running, do IT!) said he was doing an Ulduar 10 drake run. We all know I've been lusting after that drake forever, so I was in. It was a spectacular group, and we ended up doing Yogg+0...

Razorscale's achieve (which we saved for last since it's really painful at 85)

And then went to say hi to the Observer

I won the quest thing and got to make the Dal skies all pretty!

And got my new buddy to top it all off! Oh, and some ulduar tier. I will defn be going on these runs again, it was a lot of fun and SQUEEE MOUNT OF SHINY!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Old Lyl, New Lyl

Old Lyl...


New Lyl

I'm not overly thrilled with the tightly pulled back braid, but it was the only nelf hairstyle available and it didn't  feel right for Lyl to go through a transporter/orb accident and turn into a belf and completely leave her old self behind. Yup, that's my IC explanation for how she became a belf. Right now, she's oscillating between trying desperately to hang on to her old life and working out how to embrace this new life.

I did go to TB on her, and was only focus-fired once! And my new guild does pvp nights, so I'll be healing in BGs more. I like doing that, provided my face doesn't get melted repeatedly and quickly, which more actual pvp gear should help with.

So we'll see how it goes. But is it just me or is it way easier to navigate Orgrimmar by flying mount than on foot?

Friday, September 16, 2011

Firelands Nerf

So, the nerf to Firelands. I haven't talked about it because we've seen so little info on what exactly they're planning to do. I'm also trying to sort my own feelings out on the matter. But there is one major point I've seen that I agree with.

TOO SOON
Summer's never a good time for raiding guilds, or at least it's not for the ones I've been in. People go on vacation, do more family stuff, and generally aren't as available. This means less raiding. My former raid group actually went on hiatus for a couple weeks because not enough people were around. So, patch 4.2 comes out to now, that's 11 weeks more or less. Now, we raided 2 days a week, so that's 22 days minus 4 days which equals 18. 18 days and 2.5 hours of raiding per day, that ends up being 45 hours. That's a rough estimate of how much time I've spent in Firelands, and it doesn't seem like that much.

In that 45 hours, I've helped kill (in the order I killed them) Rhyolith, Shannox, Beth'tilac, Baleroc, and this week we downed Alysrazor. That averages out to about 9 hours per boss. Does that seem right to you? Now, most of that time was spent working on Rhyolith and Alysrazor, not because they were hard but because my old raid team died and I ended up in the other one which raids for longer periods of time and had started with the "easier" bosses.

9 hours per boss. 9! And it's important to remember that Lyllea is not well-geared. I hit Firelands in almost entirely 359s, but I don't farm valor and she's still mostly wearing that same gear (yes, I'm lazy). I remember struggling for a long time on Magmaw (my date for his achieve is early Feb, and I believe we started on him in early Jan).  I know we struggled on a couple of the other bosses as well (Halfus and Council of Wind, I still hate your RNG), and I very, very much doubt that if you averaged out all my raid time over the previous tier, stopping when Firelands came out (and I was fairly well-progressed at that point, with every boss but the end ones down), that you would come up with 9 hours per boss. In fact, let's do some back of the envelope math on that...
Jan 1 (we didn't start raiding till after Christmas)- June 28 is 27 weeks.  Roughly 135 hours of raiding. The average ends up being 16.8 hours per boss. That still seems short, but until I did the math I wouldn't have said that. Plus, that's still over 4 raiding days per boss.

So, based on my back of the envelope math, I don't think Firelands needs a nerf, at least for me. I've progressed further in less time than I did last tier, and certainly don't feel like I've stalled. It also worries me a  bit. I do NOT want Firelands (or the next raid) to be a repeat of ICC in terms of content spacing. I'd be a bit less worried if heroic modes in Firelands were more like they were in Ulduar, or if heroic mode tier 11 dropped gear as good as Firelands normal. That way we could have options! Get bored with Firelands normal, go try tier 11 heroics!  Plus, helm and shoulder tokens. Of course, they'd still look like urinals (stupid tier 11 shoulders for priests), but I suppose I can put up with them for a bit longer.

Now, I'm not against nerfing content to allow more people to see it, I just don't like the timing of this nerf.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

DragonCon Pictures

I took pictures at DragonCon, and here you go. Think of it as a RL screencap post... I worked for most of the con, so not as many pictures as I might like.
A toddler running away from a shark. It was a robotic blimp shark, very cool.


Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast. The clock guy was also there, but I didn't get a picture of him

Me with Lucius Malfoy. If you're wondering why I look hot, well, that outfit's made of upholstery fabric.


Bob and Carl, Sci-fi janitors. If you've never seen their video shorts, go check them out. Hysterical.

A female Captain Jack Harkness in a GREAT coat.

Worgen

Spacegoat

Kick-arse Horde bracers

Human, but still a great costume

Great tabard

Troll

Alice in Wonderland set

Bearded Disney Princesses. Because I need to share the HORROR....

Malcolm Reynolds being awesomely overdramatic with a friend of mine. We may have spent a good chunk of one night searching out Doctors for him to hug. It was surprisingly fun.

female Iron Man.

Rogue and Gambit

Captain Jack and me

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Priest Plan

I do have a plan for my new Forsaken priest. You see, I never really leveled a priest properly. Lyl was leveled via Recruit-a-Friend to 60 in combination with Monera. It was fun, and at the time it was the right thing to do, since I had massive issues leveling a priest normally. Lots of horrible, horrible death, going oom, and generally not enjoying it.

I know they've vastly improved the leveling in Cat, and I've had a blast exploring bits and pieces of it Alliance-side. Hence, my priest plan rules...
1. Must get loremaster achieve/finish the zone story for every zone I do until I hit Outlands.
2. Must try leveling as disc and/or holy. Probably going Atonement smite. I'm thinking once I get dualspec I'll go disc smite/holy. In the long term getting more familiar with holy can only improve my healing skills.
3. No heirlooms. This is not a hardship since I'm on a different server from my heirlooms anyway.
4. No dungeons till 60. Then I can go dungeon-crazy if I want.
5. Occasional PVP is fine, but I must remember the point is to see the new questing content.
6. Only one gathering profession, since again, questing!

This toon isn't completely on her own, since I have a DK and a troll druid over there, but that's more to avoid the pain of not enough gold to train than anything else. I ended up with a Forsaken because a) I keep hearing how awesome the new Forsaken experience is, and b) I haven't really played one before.

Now, if you want to play along at home, here's a more general set of rules. The goal is TRY NEW STUFF!
1. Must level primarily in a way you haven't done before or in zones you haven't done since Cat hit.
2. Must level as a spec and/or class you haven't leveled before, or haven't leveled in a long time.
3. No heirlooms with XP gain.
4. Only one gathering profession.

See, simple enough, right?

Now if you want to make it more complicated, you can
1) run with a different UI layout from your main
2) see how far you can get leveling in only whites/greys
3) have the toon be completely self-sufficient, no influxes of cash from DKs or the like
4) go for ambassador!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Stuff, more stuff, and shiny screensaps

Well, Lyllea's becoming a belf, once I figure out the cash situation, and I'm already starting to stock up on cross-faction pets. White kittens, moths, the argent tournament pets, ect...

Sadly my liquidity's a bit low right now, due to my maxing of leatherworking, tailoring, enchanting, and blacksmithing, but on the other hand my alts have nice gear! Monera's now better geared than Lyl was when she started healing tier 11, so I think she's in a good spot to take over Lyl's place in Ars' raid. Plus, two disc priests is less than optimal. I just need to get the hang of resto druid healing, is all. I did two-heal a Halfus run, but my gear isn't quite good enough for that yet. I am having fun with boomkin, and my dps is decent. Still working on figuring out that gaming eclipse thing, but I do have the "DOT ALL THE THINGS, MUSHROOM!" aoe mostly down.

It'll be weird losing my stable of professions, but on the other hand, all they're doing for Lyl right now is making spellthread (and I've got a stockpile of that). I am leveling the DK (and mage) so I have a miner, and I guess one of them will become a JCr. Speaking of leveling, the DK's 78, and the mage is 68. The mage hasn't seen an Outlands quest in 8ish levels, due mostly to the fast queue times in Outlands and also my desire to keep her mining leveled.

So, where toons stand...
Lyl(priest)->still tier 11ish geared, with a couple nicer pieces. 4/7 firelands. And I've found her belf look...

Monera(druid)->ilevel 359. Has killed Halfus. Has also gotten the Patient title, and made love, not warcraft


Adowa (pally)->the much-neglected has a purple chest and maxed professions. I need to start Molten Front stuff with her to get the patterns. Since she's never set foot in Hyjal, this may take a bit.

Eiunn(shaman)->I honestly don't remember what her gear's like, but her leatherworking and tailoring are max'd and once the gold crunch settles down, I'll be making her some gear.


Garetia->same old, same old. Been neglected of late in favor of one of the other 85s. But she now has 50 mounts!


Levelers:
Llonya(DK)->max'd enchanting, and just learned the magic lamp pattern. She's 78, alternating doing dungeons and questing in Icecrown, and will be heading to Vash once she hits 80. Also, she has random honor points. Apparently before you hit 80, you get honor for killing bosses in dungeons and Justice for completing a dungeon. I did not know that.

Angetia(mage)->WHEE FROST! Having a great deal of fun with her.


I also have a priest project going on another server, but there's not much to talk about yet there. But see...

Monday, August 29, 2011

Not dead, just brain-dead

So, job search. Lots and lots of internet surfing, revamping my resume for the millionth time, filling out applications, and all that other fun stuff. Yup, my job search has totally sapped my will to write and is now life-draining it. Stupid lock.

I'm hoping for good heals soon, but in the meantime, there has been wow. Lots of wow.

A shaman hit 85, and I discovered Elemental is awesome.
A hunter went a'raiding. She also got a rare Wraith bird and a lava spider.
A priest healed some people killing stuff in Firelands. (spider and steer by damaging feet guy)
A paladin continued to be ignored.
A druid started gearing, got really stupid purple shorts, and will be raid-healing on tuesday for trash. In fact, the dtuid may become my new main (there was raid team falling apart, but the other team in the guild needed another healer and ideally would like a druid. They're fine with Lyl if I don't like druid raid healing)

A mage wandered into Outlands and never has to see Blackrock again.
A rogue snuck into Outlands and is busily slaughtering and skinning everything in Hellfire.
A DK actually went up a level (yay dungeon-running at 2 am)

And I now have every profession above 500. Much gold was spent, but yay.

Oh, and I found my trans shadow set. See? Yup, hideous colors, but man, that silhouette will be kick-arse when Lyl's in shadowform.  The shaman may end up in lvl 70 pvp enhance gear, mostly cause I think the shoulders are cool-looking, and the jury's out on the others. Haven't really seen a set that grabs me for them yet.

and here, a pretty picture....


Hope everyone's having fun. Now back to the job search, and DragonCon prep!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Weird Things I am Currently Pondering Doing

Leveling the mage from 61-85 via BGs and dungeons (mostly PVP). This was inspired by Gnomeggedon's posts on mage pvp, plus I'd kinda like to have the cloth heirlooms free to roll a warlock if I can ever manage to free up a character slot

Tanking on the belf DK (obviously I'm insane but on the plus side my fail tanking couldn't be tracked back to me). Of course I should probably get her professions leveled first. Leveling mining, again, oh joy....

Leveling the space goat DK via BGs (I hate melee PVP, why am I even considering this?)

Grinding up two whelplings, a ooze, and a fox kit

Skyguard rep, Netherwing rep, Cenarion Expedition rep, and farming Magister's

oh and then there's 4? 5? quest chain minipets to get, one fishing daily croc left from BC, the Magical Crawdad, the Strand Crawler, and leveling archaeology to get those pets and mounts

Why am I pondering doing any of the above? Because...
a)raiding's been cut back till fall and I really miss it. Stupid summer doldrums.
b) they're all more appealing than finishing Deepholm on the shaman or Garetia. Seriously, I'd rather spend 8 hours farming for a 1/1000 drop.
c) the idea of running more Cat dungeons (especially troll ones) makes my brain try to escape through my ears
d) grad school apps scare me

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Well, gearing's certainly gotten easier

Finally, Garetia is (sort of) ready for raiding. She lacks shoulder enchants because I REALLY don't want to spend a few hours in Deepholm AGAIN, but I'm saving up honor for the pvp ones. Blizz, can the shoulder enchants be boa soon? Please?

In fact, having ready access to season 10 PVP gear's made gearing so much easier.  Sure, it's got resiliance, which is pretty much useless for raiding, but on the other hand, it's ilevel 371 and has loads and loads of shiny shiny agility. Plus, I can fill in those pesky head and shoulder slots without having to pug to endbosses.

Speaking of which, that's how Lyl got those hideous shoulders. Pugged Al'Akir and BoT up to Chogall. Wow, the nerf.

In other news, I am sitting in Starbucks, waiting impatiently for HP7 part 2!!!!!!! Yes, I am going to a late-night showing and I am ridiculously excited. So, in honor of HP, I give you some random videos....



I love this song. I even started it in an elevator at DragonCon one year. Hysterical.




Because I am a Malfoy fangirl. Yup, I'll be in my bunk...

Um, urinals, really?


Yup, those are the Tier 10 priest shoulders. WTF?

Monday, July 4, 2011

Lotro: My conclusions must wait, but I'm having fun!

Well, it's been a monthish. I've been playing on and off, got my warden (who is ridiculously fun) to 19, and did some stuff....
There's a holiday going on, so I did a very fun quest that involved being REALLY drunk. My hobbit sings when she's drunk, it's very cute. Basically you had to run all over the Shire and drink 6 beers at each inn. When you finished, you got a title.






I bought a house. Then I was broke. But I have a house and isn't it cute!
Inside my really empty house.
Eventually I will be able to afford furniture. Until then, Syrana's sleeping on the bear rug.


But see, there's loads of options and you can change the floors and walls and even the music. Not that I'll be doing that any time soon, because, well, broke.
I'm waiting to give this game a full review (at least of the free-to-play bit) until after I get the warden to 20. That unlocks skirmishes, which I think are a big deal.  But I am willing to say the following...

If you're looking for a quest-heavy MMORPG with an unlimited free trial of the first 20ish levels, you could do far worse than LotRO. Explorers, questers, and crafters will like this game. That said, if you enjoy the game you will end up spending money on it. The quest zones beyond 20ish are not free-to-play, though you could probably stretch the Breelands content to 25ish or so.