Daily Fishing - Blood is Thicker 4/22/10

Today Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, had Blood Is Thicker for the daily fishing quest. This is not one of my favorites because it involves a bit of travel time. Other than that is it easy. I did it on Gomorra and Brieanna.

This had me taking the flight path from Dalaran to Unu'pe in the Borean Tundra. When I landed I flew inland and found a Marsh Caribou to kill. You do that to get covered in blood. Killing any animal in Borean Tundra will get you covered in blood, I just always kill a Marsh Caribou because they are close to the flight point which is close to shore. Once I was covered in blood I flew back to shore and jumped in which washes the blood off me and creates a blood pool. You need the blood pool to catch Bloodtooth Frenzy, which is what the quest is looking for. You need to catch 5 of them. You catch them 2 or 3 at a time so it only takes a couple casts into the blood pool to get them.

When I had my 5 I hearthed back to Dalaran and went to see Marcia. I traded her the 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy for a Bag of Fishing Treasures.

Today Gomorra's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 10g16s96c, 2 Elixirs of Water Walking, 3 Worthless Pieces of White Glass and 4 Deviate Fish. Not the best day of fishing for Gom.

Brieanna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 10g79s75c, 5 Pygmy Oil, a Worthless Piece of Violet Glass and 2 Deviate Fish in it. Not a great day of fishing for her either.

Infused Mushroom Meatloaf - Daily Cooking 4/22/10

The daily cooking quest today was Infused Mushroom Meatloaf. This is a nice one that really takes no time at all. I did it on Gomorra and Brieanna.

For this one you need to head down into the sewers below Dalaran in search of Infused Mushrooms. They are blue and sparkle because they are a quest item, they are not hard to find at all. You need to pick 4 of them and you can easily get that done in under 3 minutes as long as there are not a half dozen people picking them at the same time. I got all mine in a couple minutes.

After that you will need 2 pieces of chilled meat to cook the Infused Mushrooms with to make the meatloaf. I always keep a good supply of all the meats the daily cooking quest calls for so I don't have to run out and farm them every day. So I just hit the bank and grab a couple pieces of chilled meat, then build a fire and cook them up.

Something funny happened the other day, a level 80 asked me how I had just made my fire. I assumed this was someone who had just bought their account through one of those websites or maybe a kid on their parents account. I told them to hit P on their keyboard to open their spellnook, then under the "General" tab they would see an icon that looked like a campfire, just click on that.

Once the meatloaf was cooked I took it to Orton Bennet, upstairs at Curiosities and Moore, and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag.

Today Brieanna's Small Spice Bag had 4 Northern Spices, 4 Old Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it. Not a bad haul for her today.

Gomorra's Small Spice Bag had 3 Northern Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it. Not a bad haul for him today either.

Fail Tanks

I had a couple pretty bad runs today on Brieonna. The main problem was the tank, what's the hurry?

The first one was in Zul'Farrak. I zoned in and the first thing I saw was the tank had typed "I hope you're good at healing and dispelling Brieonna". The next thing I saw, when I looked up, was the tank was at 40% health and nowhere in sight... They had mounted and gathered up the first 3 groups of mobs. Not the first group of 3 mobs but 3 groups of 3, 4 and 3 mobs. That was 10 mobs. I barely made it to them in time to heal them before they died. When those were finally down they said "Do you see why I said that?", to which I replied "Yeah, because you're an idiot. This has fail written all over it, I'm outta here", and I bailed. I don't understand why these tanks think they need to set some kind of new speed record doing these instances. I had another one in Maraudon that was doing something similar, they were running on to the next group before the last group was dead. What do I do, stay and heal the people that are fighting the last group or run ahead and heal the tank that is fighting the new group? I have just been bailing on groups like that.

I had another group in Maraudon where everyone was a tank. The tank was pulling and tanking and so was a Paladin, Warlock and Druid. I was supposed to keep all of them alive... I bailed on that group too. What ends up happening in a group like that is, I end up getting attacked and take a beating or die because the mobs come after me when I heal.

When I am in a good group, and there were quite a few that were good, I can usually keep the tank healed with HoT's (Heal over Time) and an occasional flash heal. I rarely have to heal anyone else unless we are fighting something that has some kind of AoE (Area of Effect) attack that hits everyone. The other people that might need heals are melee fighters like Warriors, Paladins, some Shamans and Rogues because they are right there fighting full contact. That is the way it works. A Warlock, Mage or Shadow Priest, someone who wears cloth, should not be melee fighting anything. They are wearing cloth, they are not melee fighters, they are ranged fighters that should not come in contact with anything. I end up burning all my mana just trying to keep them alive and don't have time to take care of the people who really should be receiving the healing.

At the first sign of trouble, tank going recklessly fast, people other than the tank pulling, I give them a warning. If it's the tank I tell them to slow down. If someone other than the tank is pulling I tell them we have a tank, let them do their job. If they listen fine, we can continue on. If they continue in the same manner I tell them I am leaving and bail. I never do it during a fight or going into a fight, I wait until we are at a standstill or as much of a standstill as some tanks allow.

I realize that some of these people are on their first characters and don't really know what they are doing, although in the mid forties they should have a better idea than some seem to have, and try to give them some advice. Some take it but some already know everything there is to know. The ones that already know everything there is to know are the ones I usually end up bailing on because they are the ones that will not listen and continue right on doing what they were doing.

You can usually spot someone who has an 80 and is familiar with instances, they move along at a pace everyone is comfortable with, they don't pull anything if they are not the tank, and they seem to know what they are doing, those are the groups I like best.

Brieonna - Level 45 Holy Priest

I have been spending most my time working on my priest, Brieonna lately. I haven't even done the random heroics on any of my other characters in a few days.

I have been doing random dungeons on Brieonna as well as questing and that is leveling me up fast. Lately I have been through Scarlet Monastary Library, Armory and Cathedral as well as Uldaman, Maraudon, and Zul'Farrak. As the dungeon finder usually puts you into the dungeons at the earliest level there is a lot of experience to be had doing them, that helps leveling go quicker.

At level 40 I was able to use the Reins of the Armored Brown Bear, which I had purchased earlier, after training for 150 riding skill. Now that I am on a 100% speed mount questing is going even faster too. I am now 13 levels away from Outlands and once I get there, leveling from questing will go even faster not to mention all the dungeons there are to do there.

Spirit vs Spellpower

I ran into a little trouble on Brieonna when I got carried away stacking spirit. I was focusing on gear that primarily had spirit then intellect. I wasn't keeping an eye on my spellpower while I was doing that.

The end result of that is I found myself having a hard time healing in Dungeons that used to be easy. It seemed like I had to keep hitting the tank with full heals instead of just keeping a HoT on them and hitting them once in awhile with a small heal. When I looked into that I found that my spellpower had dropped almost 60 points. Big mistake.

Spirit is good for you in the fact that it determines how much mana you regenerate. Mana is regenerated every 5 seconds and the more spirit you have the more mana you are going to generate. Eventually you will get to the point where you will actually generate mana while you are casting. Obviously more spirit is good because it will take you longer to run out of mana. More intellect is good as well because the more intellect you have the more mana you will have.

But neither of those are good if you don't have enough spellpower to get the job done, which is what happened to me.

I regeared and got an enchantment on my staff which brought my spellpower up over 70 points. The difference was like night and day. Now I can primarily keep the tank, and everyone else, healed just using my HoT's. Enchanting my staff was tricky. Obviously I wanted to get the highest spellpower enchantment I could on it, but because it is a BoA (Bind on Account) item I was limited to pre-BC "Vanilla WoW" enchantments. I could only put an enchantment on it that had no level restrictions, one that was available pre-BC.

The highest enchantment available was +30 spellpower. There were 2 scrolls for that on the auction house, one for 375 gold and the other for 500 gold. That seemed a little pricy to me. I ended up having all the materials to have it done so I set out to find someone who had the enchantment to do it for me. That proved futile. +30 spellpower is a rare enchantment that only drops in Molten Core, one of the two pre-BC 40 man raids. No one on had it.

I ended up getting +29 spellpower, which I guess is a common enough enchantment, and had that done with my mats. I had to go out and farm one of the mats but that didn't take me long. I tipped the enchanter 20 gold to put it on Brieonna's staff and another 20 gold to put it on Breeonna's mace so she would have it too.

Now they are both performing better than ever :).

Brieonna - Level 38 Holy Priest

I have been working on my priest Brieonna lately and got her to level 38. I have been healing in dungeons, as well as questing, and that is going pretty well for the most part. I still get the occasional groups where the tank thinks they are better than they are and pull too much, or everyone thinks they are a tank, but not as often any more.

I have no problem bailing on those groups now. I bailed on a couple today in Scarlet Monastary Cathedral. In the last one the tank, who was a poorly geared Druid, pulled half the Cathedral. He really wasn't geared to take on more than 4 mobs at once. He pulled 15+ mobs. There is no use sticking around in a group like that because it will just keep failing, so I bailed. There was another group where I told the tank to slow down or he was going to wipe us. I told him I was out of mana so I was going to drink, then I was going to go back and loot all the stuff I didn't have time to loot because he was moving too fast. He told me not to worry about looting, it was all junk. I told him I was worried about it because I needed the cloth for First Aid. He decided to go ahead and pull another group while I was drinking so I bailed.

I am up to, and have completed the achievement for, Uldaman. I don't really like this one, too many corners for a tank that is in too much of a hurry to run around. I guess I will be stuck with this one for the next 4 or 5 random dungeons though. This one is pretty high for me so I get really good XP out of it.

Only 2 more levels and I can ride my Armored Brown Bear. I already have Reins of the Armored Brown Bear and am just waiting until level 40 so I can train 150 riding and ride it.

Brieonna - Level 31 Holy Priest

I have been working on Brieonna and she is coming along nicely. She is level 31 now. I have been doing my usual combination of Dungeons and quests to level her faster. I think I might stick with the healing, at least for now. I had some more bad groups but that is gonna happen, especially at this level.

I had one exceptionally bad group in Scarlet Monastary Graveyard tonight. It was basically a free for all. Everyone was doing their own thing, there was no teamwork and it was almost impossible to heal. There was a Warlock that was rounding up everything in sight, then using Hellfire to try and burn them down. Hellfire is one of the worst Warlock spells as far as I am concerned. Basically it creates bursts of fire around the Warlock, but it also damages the Warlock and everyone in the group that is in range. Try healing through that while everyone is being attacked by everything he aggroed on top of it. That is the first group I left before completion. It was by far the worst group I have ever been in, ever.

I think I have at least the rest of this level in SMGY before I get into the library, that will be nice. I always thought the graveyard was a nice easy place, but some of these groups have shown me how wrong I was about that.

I can't wait to get to level 40 now and get my 100% mount. As usual I will get the Armored Brown bear for her so I have to start thinking about how I am going to get to Dalaran. I paid a Mage to port Breeonna and will probably do the same with Brieonna.

Molten Core (Dungeon)

I did a Molten Core run on Gomorra tonight. I had never done it before and it turned out to be a really fun run. Molten Core is one of the original 40 man level 60 raids in World of Warcraft.

A couple days ago someone was looking for an attuned Warlock for Molten Core. Gomorra was not attuned so I decided to do the attunement on him. That took me all of about 10 minutes at level 80. Today someone was again looking for people to do Molten Core so I signed up.

The people in our group ranged in level from 64 to 80. Needless to say we didn't have 40 people in our raid, we started off with 9 and finished up with 5. We had no problem at all.

As usual people had to leave or just left for various reasons and our group got whittled down to 5 people by the time we faced Ragnaros, the last boss in Molten Core. He is a huge, Fire Elemental I guess you would call him, and it was a really fun fight. I can see how tough this instance would be in a 40 man raid where everyone was level 60. I won a robe just so I would have a momento of my trip through there. I also won 16 Void Shards that other stuff was DE'd into when we rolled for them at the end. That will come in handy for Brieonna's enchanting later on.

Here are some screen shots I took while I was in there.

Brieonna - Level 20 Holy Priest

I decided to roll a Priest and give healing a try, so I created Brieonna. I had a little opportunity to heal on my Shaman Breeonna on occasion and thought it might be something I liked. Whether or not I like it is still being decided... I started Brieonna Wednesday night and by tonight, Thursday night, I had her to level 20. I got her the 75 riding skill and got her a mount which is going to make leveling go even faster.

I have healed in a few instances so far and have not done too bad. Oh, there were some bad times, like in the Deadmines tonight when we had a tank that thought he was better than he really was. Actually that happened twice. They would pull way more than they could actually tank and hold aggro on which would cause mobs to break away from them and attack other players. One of them was so poorly geared, which caused his health to drop so fast, while he was making a pull of a dozen or so mobs (generally 8 or 9 more than he had to), that I had to spam him with full heals instead of HoT's (Heal over Time) and that was causing me to generate more threat than he was so half the mobs would break away and attack me. I couldn't heal him, or anyone else, while I was busy just trying to stay alive.

The majority of the groups I was in did have good tanks though and there was no problem at all. They did not pull more mobs than they could handle and I had no problem healing them and anyone else that needed it. People who wear cloth should not need much healing, they are not melee fighters. People who wear cloth are generally casters who stand back from the mobs and cast. With a good tank they can do that and not take any damage, or very little damage, if the tank is doing his job. If the tank is full of himself and wearing gear 10 or more levels below his level because "why upgrade gear when you level so fast?", and pulling way more mobs than he can hold aggro on, then you're gonna have a bad time.

So the jury is still out on whether or not I will stay Holy and heal or switch to Shadow and DPS.

Currently, in Holy spec, when I did DPS I was at the top of the damage list... I am wearing Heirloom gear, similar to what Breeonna is wearing, and it makes a huge difference. My Gearscore right now is around 1250. The Gearscore of most of the people I was in the dungeons with was in the 60-120 range. At level 1 I had a Gearscore of 1179. I am using 5 pieces of Heirloom gear, shoulders, chest, staff and two trinkets. It is called Heirloom gear because instead of being soulbound (bound to whatever character you equip it to) it is bound to your account. That means you can send it to any character on your account and keep passing it along after you reach 80 and don't need it anymore. As a matter of fact Brieonna and Breeonna are sharing the two trinkets because I couldn't see spending the emblems to get 2 sets of identical trinkets.

I will continue to heal and see if the majority of groups end up being better than some of the ones I was in tonight. I only healed for one night so it is too soon to make a decision.

WoW Account Phishing

I received an e-mail yesterday, allegedly from Blizzard Entertainment. It said that I was receiving a 3 hour ban on my account, this was my final notice. Not having done anything to warrant a suspension and not having EVER received a warning I was a bit suspicious. There were links in the e-mail and I was told to click on a link and verify my account information. Blizzard has all my account information, they don't need me to verify it. This is one of the many Phishing Scams going on to try and get your account information.

What these people are after is your gold. They will log into your account, steal all your gold and sell all your items for gold. These are the gold sellers. This is why it is very important to NEVER BUY GOLD. This is where the gold you are buying comes from, someone's hacked account. They will also message other players, from your account, with "Special Deals" or tell them they are "Lucky Winner" in an effort to get them to log into a website using their credentials so they can hack their account.

Make the game better for everyone, don't buy gold and never go to one of the sites that you receive in a message, in game e-mail, or any e-mail that is not from Blizzard Entertainment, you will end up with a key logger and a stolen account. E-mails from Blizzard will always end in blizzard.com or battle.net, accept no substitutes.

Blizzard will NEVER put "hot" links into their e-mails with instructions to click on it to verify your account information. Blizzard will NEVER ask you for your account information in an e-mail, in game e-mail or in game message, they already have your account information. And finally Blizzard will NEVER ask you for your password, EVER.

Here is the e-mail I received, you will notice a couple typo's, formatting issues and mis-wording. I am sure all Blizzards e-mails are proofed before they are sent out. I have removed the links for your safety. I highlighted the formatting, grammar and spelling issues in Yellow and the part where they are asking for my password in Red.

Greetings,

World of Warcraft -> Legal -> End User License Agreement
and Section 8 of the Terms of Use:
Blizzard Entertainment -> Legal -> Terms of Use

A 3-hour probationary suspension is pending on this account, awaiting confirmation from a specialist. A final warning has been issued. The investigation will be continued by the Account Administration team to determine the any further suspensions. If the account in question is found in violation of the EULA and Terms of Use, further action will be taken. Be aware that any additional inappropriate actions may result in the permanent closure of the account.

Thank you for respecting our position on this matter.
======================================================================================================================================================================
** We request that you verify your legitimate ownership of the account here:

***Link Removed***

Blizzard staff will verify your account information submitted in two days, please do not modify your account information during this time . It will not affect your game uptime.If you are unable to successfully verify your password . using the automated system, please contact Billing & Account Services at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499) Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm Pacific Time or at ***Link Removed***.Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

The World of Warcraft Support Team Blizzard Entertainment

Daily Fishing - Blood is Thicker 4/13/10

Today when I went to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, for the daily fishing quest, she had Blood Is Thicker for us. I did this one on Gomorra and Brieanna today.

This had me taking the flight path from Dalaran to Unu'pe in the Borean Tundra. Once I landed I flew straight inland until I spotted a Marsh Caribou. You need to kill one of the animals that gets you covered in blood. Once I was covered in blood I flew back to the shore and jumped in. What that does is wash the blood off you and also creates a blood pool which you need to fish from. Bloodtooth Frenzy love blood and all come to the blood pool so catching the 5 you need is pretty easy. That and the fact you catch them 2 or 3 at a time makes it pretty quick to get your limit.

When I had the 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy I needed I hearthed back to Dalaran and went to see Marcia. I traded her the 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy for a Bag of Fishing Treasures. A Bag of Fishing Treasures can have all kinds of good things in it plus gold, or just junk plus gold. You always get some gold out of the deal.

Today Brieanna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 6g67s9c, 4 Pygmy Oil, 3 Worthless Pieces of Red Glass and 3 Deviate Fish. Pretty much a bag full of junk.

Gomorra's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 7g73s86c, 3 Pygmy Oil and 3 Worthless Pieces of Green Glass. Another bag of junk.

Like the daily cooking, you take the good with the bad. I have gotten some great stuff from this daily and there is still a lot of great stuff I need to get so I will keep plugging away at it.

Sewer Stew - Daily Cooking 4/13/10

Today Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome, had Sewer Stew for the daily cooking quest again. I am not surprised, the daily's never change after a shutdown. I did it on Gomorra and Brieanna today.

This had me taking the Violet Gate down to Crystalsong Forest to pick Crystalsong Carrots. The recipe calls for 4 and I got them pretty quick on both today, there was no one there as usual. That is one of the benefits of being on an Oceanic server while in the US, everyone is asleep or at work when I do my daily's. Anyway, once I had my Carrots I headed back up to Dalaran and hit the bank for the 4 pieces of Chilled Meat this calls for. I built a fire right in the middle of the bank and cooked up my Vegetable Stew.

Stew in hand, I headed down to deliver it to Ajay Green at the Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly, in exchange for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag.

Today Gomorra's Small Spice Bag had 2 Northern Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it.

Brieanna's had 4 Northern Spices, 4 Old Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it.

They both made out pretty well from this one today. Brieanna still needs thirty something Dalaran Cooking Awards before she can get her Chef's Hat, so she is still working on that.

Sewer Stew - Daily Cooking 4/12/10

Today when Brieanna went to see Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome for her daily cooking quest, she got Sewer Stew.

This one had me taking the Violet Gate down to Crystalsong Forest. From there I headed over to the ruins directly beneath Dalaran to pick some Crystalsong Carrots. I love the way quest items sparkle now, it wasn't always like that. I got the 4 I needed pretty quick and took the gate back up to Dalaran. I hit the bank for 4 pieces of chilled meat then made a fire and cooked up my Vegetable Stew.

I took that down into the sewers, below Dalaran, to Ajay Green at the Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly, and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 4 Northern Spices in it. Not a bad day on this one.