Children's Week 5/2 - 5/8

Children's Week is upon us again. It is time to grab an Orphan from Stormwind, or Orgrimmar if you're Horde, and Shattrath and show them a good time.

Children's Week in Stormwind and Orgrimmar

One of the things Orphans like to do is go sightseeing. They don't get out much so they really like to take advantage of having you as a sponsor. Some of the places the Stormwind and Orgrimmar Orphans like to go are:

• The bank in Darnassus (Alliance)
• The lighthouse in Westfall (Alliance)
• Jaina Proudmoore in Theramore (Alliance)
• Mor'shan Rampart (Horde)
• Lordaeron Throne Room (Horde)
• Cairne Bloodhoof in Thunder Bluff (Horde)

When you take your Orphan home after seeing all the sights they will offer you one of their most prized possessions, one of their pets to remember them by. Your choices will include:

• Turtle Box which contains Speedy the turtle.
• Rat Cage which contains Whiskers the rat.
• Piglet's Collar which contains Mr. Wiggles the pig.

Or, for those more interested in gold,

• Curmudgeon's Payoff, A bag of 5 gold. For those who like telling children there's no Great Father Winter...

Children's Week in Shattrath

The Orphans of Shattrath are no different than the Orphans of Stormwind and Orgrimmar in their desire to get out and see the world. The Orphans of Shattrath are the victims of the war with the Burning Legion. I remember from last year these Orphans ask a lot of questions so be prepared. The places your Shattrath Orphan will want to go see include:

• The Dark Portal
• The Exodar (Alliance)
• Silvermoon City (Horde)
• Caverns of Time

You will also meet some unexpected people along the way.

Once you have taken your Orphan to see everything they want to see and it is time to go back to the Orphanage they will offer you one of their most prized possesions, one of their pets to remember them by. Your choices will include:

• Egbert's Egg, which contains Egbert the hawkstrider hatchling.
• Elekk Training Collar, which contains Peanut the baby elekk.
• Sleepy Willy, which contains Willy.

Each Orphan you spend some time with will also write you a letter thanking you afterwards.

Children's Week is a good time to take an hour or two and show you have a heart as well as show a less fortunate Orphan a good time, so make sure you get out there and do your part.

Brieonna - Level 63 Holy Priest

Brieonna is level 63 now, 5 levels away from Northrend. I just haven't had the motivation to level her as much lately so it is slowing down.

I have been doing more questing than dungeons lately. I am finding that the people in the dungeons at this low Outlands level are not really geared enough to handle it, they are mostly still wearing Pre-BC gear and it doesn't help. It seems like a lot of these people have waited until Outlands to start doing dungeons too, they don't seem to be very experienced. The dungeons I have been in haven't been too bad though, just a little harder than they should be I think.

I am questing in Terokkar Forest now and getting good XP there. While I am there I will quest in Bone Wastes then move on to Nagrand, which is where I will probably hit 68 and head off to Northrend. It won't be long now.

Brieonna - Level 60 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 60 tonight and got her a Snowy Gryphon flying mount and 225 riding skill so she can fly it. That was a total of 275 gold, 225 gold for 225 riding skill and another 50 gold for the mount itself. That is not bad at all. It used to be 800 gold for the riding skill and another 100 gold for the flying mount. I did some daily's today and will need to keep doing them so I can get the Tome of Cold Weather Flight, so she can learn cold weather flying in Northrend at level 68 instead of 77.

I did a combination of questing and random dungeons to get the 2 levels I needed. I did one run through Lower Blackrock Spire, where she got her Worg Pup, and 2 runs through Ramparts in Hellfire Peninsula, in Outlands. In the Outlands you get really good XP from quests and of course you get good XP from doing random dungeons. I got a couple pieces of new gear and have a quest for Blood Furnace which will give me a nice pair of pants to upgrade the pair I got yesterday, a lot more spellpower.

Brieonna is moving along nicely and will be in Northrend in a few days I think.

Brieonna - Level 58 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 58 tonight and am now in Outlands. The first thing I did when I hit 58 was abandon all my quests in Azeroth, I won't be needing them anymore.

I did some daily's on Brieanna tonight to get some gold together for Brieonna's 225 riding skill and mount. Ever since I got hacked I don't keep a lot of gold on hand, I earn it as I need it. Blizzard restored all my gold, with the exception of 1,500, but if I get hacked again I don't want them getting any gold, or very little.

I grabbed a few quests when I got to Outlands but haven't started to do any yet. I am not sure which dungeons I will be queuing into there, the top end Pre-BC ones or the BC ones. It really doesn't make a difference, there is good XP to be had in both.

I did a few runs in Lower Blackrock Spire tonight. Some were good, one was not. In one of them we had a Pally tank that could not hold aggro. On anything. I came into that one in progress, their healer had left. It didn't take me long to realize why. In the first fight I was the first to die. I threw a HoT (Heal over Time) onto the tank, a very low level, low threat heal, and all the mobs came off him and right over to me. He had no threat, he couldn't hold aggro. Usually in a wipe the tank is the first one to die. I went through 2 wipes with that group, which were only 2 fights, same mobs, before I bailed. In both wipes the tank was the last one to die, what does that tell you? They weren't interested in him at all, the tank, the guy that is supposed to be holding aggro...

I did have a couple good groups though, with good tanks and those were a breeze. We got the instance done and I got my achievement.

Brieonna – Level 56 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 56 tonight. I finished up and turned in a couple quests in Un’Goro crater in Kalimdor then headed to Western Plaguelands to quest, and did a couple quests there. I would much rather quest there as it is a lot closer to the trainers when I have to train and a lot closer when I hearth back to Dalaran. When I was questing in Kalimdor it took me 10 minutes, or more, to get back every time I had to train or hearthed for any reason.

I did some random dungeons, I am up to Dire Maul East now. I did 3 runs through Upper City in Blackrock Depths and 2 through Dire Maul East. Those were good for a lot of XP.

I did a Priest quest in Azshara that was part of a chain. The end reward was, I thought, a nice wand. When I checked it against the wand I recently received, as a drop in BRD, it wasn’t as good. The final quest called for me to go into Sunken Temple, which I am kind of past now, so I dropped it. I would have had to queue specifically for that dungeon and it just wasn’t worth it.

I am now less than 2 levels away from Outlands, I am going to have to start doing daily’s again on my 80’s to get some gold for flying lessons and a mount.

Brieonna - Level 54 Holy Priest

Brieonna is level 54 now and I have done very little questing lately. I have been getting all my experience from doing random dungeons. I got 2 1/2 levels today doing them.

I am only 3 1/2 levels away from Outlands now. I am now pretty much only queuing into Blackrock Depths and Sunken Temple, although my days in Sunken Temple might be over now, I queued into BRD the last 5 times I queued. I stayed with one group through 3 runs in there. The part we are queuing into is the prison. The boss in there is not that far in and you can really get it done in 5 minutes or less. What we were doing after that is going through and killing all the other bosses we could kill at our level, spending another hour to an hour and a half in there each time. The XP is incredible doing that and that's how I got my levels and bars. I also got some enchanting mats from disenchanting items so all in all it was definitely worth it.

There is a scheduled shutdown, so after that I will be back to the dungeons and more levels. I hope to have Brieonna in Outlands within the next day or two.

Brieonna - Level 50 Holy Priest

I have been working on Brieonna and got her to level 50 now. I have been doing a combination of questing and random dungeons, mostly random dungeons. In a dungeon it is my job to heal and keep people alive.

I am up to Sunken Temple and Blackrock Depths now. I still have some good groups and some bad groups. I love the good groups and usually bail on the bad groups. I can not believe how under geared some of the "tanks" are that actually have the guts to click on the tank box in the dungeon finder. It takes more than being a plate wearer, or Druid, to be a tank. You have to have some gear and at least a rudimentary clue what you are doing. If you are grossly under geared don't pull 10 times more than you can handle, and if you can't hold aggro, don't pull large groups of mobs, this isn't rocket science people...

Daily Fishing - Blood is Thicker 4/25/10

Today Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, had Blood Is Thicker for the daily fishing quest, again... I did it on Gomorra.

This had me heading over to the flight point and taking a flight to Unu'pe in the Borean Tundra. Once there I flew inland until I found a Marsh Caribou to kill. The reason I need to kill an animal is to get covered in blood. Killing any animal in the Borean Tundra will do the trick, I just pick these because they are close to the flight point. When I was covered in blood I flew back to the shore and jumped in. This washes the blood off me and also creates a blood pool which will attract the Bloodtooth Frenzy I need for this quest. I fished in the blood pool until I caught 5. That doesn't take long as you catch them 2 or 3 at a time.

When I had my 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy I hearthed back to Dalaran and went to see Marcia. I traded her the 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy for a Bag of Fishing Treasures, which today had 6g49s39c, 2 Elixirs of Water Walking, a Velociraptor Skull and 3 Deviate Fish in it. Not a great day of fishing for Gom and certainly not worth the time it took to fly to Unu'pe, but I was in queue for the random daily heroic dungeon anyway so I needed something to do.

Cheese for Glowergold - Daily Cooking 4/25/10

When I went to see Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome, she had Cheese for Glowergold for me. I did this one on Gomorra today.

This had me running around collecting Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses people had left laying around Dalaran. I only got 2 in A Hero's Welcome today as opposed to the 3 or 4 I usually get. I got the others at the Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly and One More Glass, the wine and cheese shop. I also got the piece of Aged Dalaran Limburger there too.

Once I had all the ingredients I combined them on the platter to make a wine and cheese platter. I took that over to Ranid Glowergold (36,28) at the Leatherworkers in the Magus Commerce Exchange, and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 4 Northern Spices and another Dalaran Cooking Award in it. Not a bad haul for Gom today.

Halls of Reflection (Dungeon)

I did 9 runs through the Halls of Reflection on normal mode tonight, helping a guildie who was trying to get the shield to drop off the second boss. We also did one run through Trial of the Champion due to a mis-queue.

I ended up dying twice in Halls of Reflection mostly due to the healer not being able to keep up. Halls of Reflection is the hardest of the 5 man dungeons. As such, even in normal mode, you need to have a pretty geared group that has an idea what they are doing. In one of the groups we had a rogue with a gearscore under 3,000. He didn't last long. Very few of the people in there were well geared. I was one of the best geared ones on Gomorra with a gearscore around 5100. You don't need a gearscore that high to do normal HoR, that is more the gearscore for heroic HoR.

The way HoR works is, you get 4 waves of 5 or 6 mobs each, then a boss, 4 more waves and a boss. There is no time between waves, one ends the other starts. There is no time between the last wave and the boss. There is 30 or 45 seconds I think between the first boss and the next set of waves. The second boss is the one that drops the shield we were after. He dropped everything but that.

If you make it through the first 2 bosses, there is a mob you need to kill then you have to escape from the Lich King. He moves really slow and sets up 4 barriers as you are running away. He sends out mobs each time he sets up a barrier and when you have defeated them the barrier drops only to be replaced by another one a little farther on.

When you finally make it to the end it turns out to be a dead end and it looks like you are going to have to fight the Lich King. At the last minute an airship appears and fires rockets into the cave you just came out of and collapses it on top of the Lich King. That is it, party over. You board the airship, check the chest for loot and you are done.

All in all I had a pretty good time doing that, it is just too bad the shield didn't drop for the guildie that was after it.

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.