Nov 4th - Picking Up The Pieces

I finally logged back in today, after downloading and installing a huge patch, and checked out the changes from the patch.

There were a lot of changes. Not only did they restore all the talent points they changed the talent trees, removing a lot of things. We also only have 36 talent points now and you must put 31 into a tree before you can split into another tree. The first couple hours were spent restoring my talents on a few characters and then hitting the trainer for additional training that became available.

Hunters seemed to have gotten hit pretty hard, what else is new? I lost a lot of my good stuff but don't seem to have any problem killing things. I didn't have my damage meter loaded so I am not sure what kind of DPS I was doing. One thing we did get was the ability to carry 5 pets with us and have another 20 in the stable. We can still only use one at a time. I think that is going a little overboard myself.

Warlocks had some changes too. I reloaded all the talents for my Lock and then got the training that was available. I can now summon a DoomGuard. That was trainable so I am not sure if it is because I am a Demon Lock or if everyone gets the ability to summon one.

I respec'd my Priest too, but didn't really spend any time on her. I heard that I don't need reagents any more for a lot of my spells on her.

I did my daily's for The Sons of Hodir on Gomorra and Brieanna and did some of the Knights of the Ebon Blade on Gom. I didn't have any flight points North of K3 for some reason, could be tying in with the expansion, not sure. They are still there and I can fly out of them, I just can't fly into them. They don't show up on my map when I talk to the flight master.

Another interesting thing I noticed is Ironforge seems to be falling apart. While I was there, there was a lot of trembling and dust falling from the ceiling.

They also did away with ammo in the game. That was just great as I had about 50,000 Iceblade arrows in stock. I got 30 silver a thousand at the vendor instead of the 5 gold a thousand I paid for them. That also means no more ammo pouch, I guess I should have seen that coming, people that use ammo have been crying about having to take up a bag space with an ammo pouch for awhile. My 28 slot ammo bag was reduced to a 20 slot and it is useless anyway. No more soul shards either. My 32 slot soul bag was reduced to 24 slot and also useless. There is some weird thing going with soul shards or whatever now, not sure what it is, still trying to figure it out.

They have prime glyphs now too. These are 3 more glyphs you can have. Once you buy a glyph, you learn it so you never have to buy it again on that character. That took me a minute to figure out after I learned one but it didn't show up. It was in the list and I needed to install it from there. I am sure there are a whole slew of things I haven't come across yet that I will stumble upon in the next week or two.

Anyway I figure it is going to take me at least a week to get everyone back in shape and figure out how to play them again. I guess it's not any worse than a lot of previous patches and better than some, there were some good things to come out of it.

Cataclysm - December 7th Release Date

Cataclysm is set to be released, according to Blizzard, on December 7th. I was told by GameStop that the release date was November 1st, obviously they lied about that unless the date was moved up. I told them at the time that a release date wasn't even set yet and they assured me that Blizzard had indeed set the date for November 1st, so I pre-ordered my copy based on that...

I haven't been playing WoW lately because I am just so bored with the content they have now. Previously I was leveling new characters to relieve the boredom but even that wasn't enough in the end, although I did end up with 5 level 80's.

Believe it or not I have been playing Diablo II Lord of Destruction lately. I really like the Diablo series and that was all I played before starting WoW back in the vanilla days. I misplaced my Diablo CD but would like to find that and play some straight up Diablo. I liked the first Diablo better than Diablo II and Diablo II LoD even though the whole thing took place in that one church. Diablo II & LoD had better graphics, better animation and there was a lot more to see but regular (the first) Diablo is still my favorite.

The only thing I don't really like about Diablo II and Diablo II LoD is that you complete the game and you are around level 33. Then you have to complete it 2 more times, once on Nightmare and then again on Hell difficulty to get to 99. It is the same content on both, just harder each time. Also you must keep logging into your characters or they disappear if you are playing on battlenet.

Gundrak - Random Daily Dungeon 9/19/10

I got on Breeonna for a little while today and did a couple dungeons. The first one I was in was Utgarde Pinnacle.

We were doing great until we got to Skadi the Ruthless. We took him down no problem but 3 of the people there must have been after the mount he drops. One of them was the healer. They left as soon as we attacked the next set of mobs, so there were only 2 of us left. Needless to say that didn't go well. I hate assholes like that, ones that leave in the middle of a fight with no warning. Anyway the group broke up and we didn't finish that one.

The next one I was in was Gundrak. We had a good group and had no problems although the Priest did get killed by the fish while swimming over to the center island. We rezzed him and finished without any problems. That got my random daily heroic out of the way. I am going to try to play more going forward.

Shealin - Level 52 Fire Mage - 9/19/10

I got on Shealin for a little bit today and got her to level 52. I did some questing in Un'Goro Crater and one dungeon, Blackrock Depths Prison.

I was having some problems with lag while we were in the dungeon but I made it through and that is where I leveled to 52. I did a couple quests you get when you first go into Un'Goro from Tanaris and made my way to the flight point and grabbed a bunch of quests there. I am still a long way from 80 and I only have a month and a half to get there before the expansion comes out.

I ported myself to Ironforge after I leveled and got my training done. I hit the auction house to see if there was anything I could upgrade but the only thing that was better than what I had, the person wanted five times what it was worth so I passed. It is really not worth spending too much gold on stuff when you are leveling because you outgrow it so fast.

Hopefully going forward I will have more time to play and will get Shealin to 80 before the expansion comes out. If not, it is not the end of the world, I still have 5 more I will have to level up to 85 and regear.

Daily Fishing - Jewel of the Sewers 9/18/10

Wow, it has been over a month since I last played. When I went to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, to pick up the daily fishing quest, she gave me Jewel Of The Sewers for my daily fishing quest. I like this one as you don't even have to leave Dalaran to do it.

This had me heading down into the sewers in the Underbelly below Dalaran to fish up a piece of Corroded Jewelry. It went really fast today, I got it on the 4th cast. Then I was off to see Marcia, who I traded the piece of Corroded Jewelry for a Bag of Fishing Treasures.

Today my Bag of Fishing Treasures had 10g91s19c, 4 Pygmy Oil, 2 Pieces of Worthless Green Glass and 2 Deviate Fish in it. Not the best haul but I have had worse. Still no Jeweled Fishing Pole but I will keep plugging away at it until I get it. I still have to raise my fishing skill another 39 points before I will be able to use it but I just look at that as added incentive. As boring as fishing is I would just level the 39 points anyway to be able to use it.

Shealin - Level 51 Fire Mage - 8/14/10

I haven't been getting on much lately and if I don't watch it I'm not going to have my Mage, Shealin, to 80 before the expansion comes out.

I am not too worried tho, it is going to start getting cold here soon so I will be sticking to the indoors more which will give me more time to play :).

I did two dungeon runs through Temple of Atal'Hakkar, A.K.A. Sunken Temple, on Shealin Saturday. That got me to level 51. We had a couple nice runs. The first group I got into was already in progress, they were about half way through. We finished up without any mishaps, then the next group I got into had the same Druid Tank and Pally in it. That run went really smooth too. I got a nice pair of gloves out of there on the second run.

The Tank in both those runs was great. The Druid was Tanking and the Pally was off-tanking and I didn't pull anything off them, they were holding aggro really well. I was running about 200 DPS more than the next highest person and finished the second run over 80K DPS ahead of the next highest overall. That is the BoA gear tho, that and a lot of AoE's which really add up to some nice DPS because you are hitting and damaging so many mobs at once.

I did a little bit of questing in Tanaris too while I was on. I have the rest of level 51 rested and who knows how much of level 52. Add the double XP to the 20% XP gain I get from killing mobs while wearing my BoA gear and it doesn't take long to level.

I am going to try and get on during the week more, there are people I used to talk to every night that I haven't talked to in awhile.

Shealin - Level 50 Fire Mage 8/7/10

I got on Shealin for a little while this afternoon and got her to level 50. It has been a couple weeks since I last logged on, I have been pretty busy.

I did a run through Blackrock Depths Prison and that got me leveled to 50. Me and another person from my server leveled to 50 at the exact same instant and everyone thought we were doing "Recruit A Friend" but we didn't even know each other, it was just a coincidence. Anyway that got me to level 50 and I teleported to Darnassus to learn to make a portal to Darnassus, then teleported to Ironforge to get my Mage training.

I did part of a quest in Tanaris while I was on too but didn't get to finish it in the time I had. I talked to a few people who were wondering where I had been. I had a lot more time on my hands before and was on all the time, now I am lucky to get on for a few hours every weekend. I am planning to get on tomorrow and get a few more hours in, I have a lot of rested XP and might be able to get to level 52.

Cataclysm - November 1st

I pre-ordered my copy of Cataclysm today at the local Game Stop. It is scheduled to be released on November 1st. As November 1st is a Monday and I will be working that day I will not be there at midnight to pick it up, I will pick it up after work.

This gives me 3 months to get my Mage, Shealin, to level 80, that will not be a problem. I am pretty sure Shealin is the last toon I will make but I am not ruling out a Worgen. I will have to see what they have to offer. It won't be as bad as the Deathknights because the Worgen and Goblin will be starting at level 1, so you won't have a lot of people that can't level a character 1 to 80 in their lifetime making one on their daddy's, or mommy's, account. I am so sick of DK tanks that can't tank. It takes more than plate armor to be a tank.

I am pretty excited about flying in Azeroth, that will be pretty nice. That means they will have to open up the entire map. There are some places you see while you are flying on public transportation that you just can't get to. I want to check some of those places out.

Shealin

I didn't get a chance to get on at all during the week, but I finally had some time to get on this weekend for a couple hours.

I did a couple dungeons on Shealin and some questing in Tanaris and got her to level 49.

I did 2 runs through Maraudon Yellow and a run through Blackrock Depths. The run through BRD was a lot of fun and we kept on going after we completed the Prison so I got a lot of good XP out of it. I also had lag so bad towards the end I couldn't move most the time and ended up disconnecting a couple times before I finally gave up.

The farther we went into BRD the lower my DPS got. The reason for that was the farther in we went the higher the level of the mobs got. The higher level the mobs got the more casts I missed, resulting in lower DPS. My hit rating is pretty low even though I drink a potion to raise it by 10 for an hour. There is just not a lot of cloth gear with hit on it. I have +5 hit enchanted onto my boots and an amulet for my neck with +11 hit but that is only 16. With the potion it is 26, still not great. When I get to level 80, the gear I will be getting will have hit on it as well as some trinkets I can get. Hit cap for a caster is 17%, right now my hit rating is about 2.5%. I have a long way to go. I was missing about 1 out of 3 casts towards the end of my run through BRD on mobs that were 4 to 5 levels higher than me.

Like I have said before, I am in no hurry to get to level 80 on this one, I am going to take my time and enjoy leveling it. My job now keeps me away from WoW during the week for the most part but I get on when I can and make sure I get some time in on the weekends. I will get to 80 eventually :).

Shealin - Level 48 Fire Mage - 7/18/10

I didn't have time to play much at all this week. I got on for a half hour here, an hour there but didn't really get much done on Shealin.

I did have a few hours between last night and this morning though, and got her to level 48. I did only dungeons this morning as the wait time was really low so I could get in fast. I did dungeons and some questing last night.

I am still stuck in Maraudon for the most part. I did 3 runs through Orange and one through Yellow last night along with one run through Zul'Farrak, which we queued into, and one run through Blackrock Depths, which we queued into. I was with a pretty good group last night and we stuck together, running dungeon after dungeon. I got a lot of XP from that. I hit 48 last night.

Today I did one and a half runs though Maraudon Yellow. About half way through the first run I started getting bad lag and really high latency, around 1200ms. I stuck it out even though I thought I was going to disconnect a couple times I was lagging so bad. After I got out I logged out and back in and my latency was good again, around 300ms. I queued for another dungeon, got Maraudon Yellow again and made it about half way though that before the lag hit me again. It got so bad I would freeze up for a full minute and when I unfroze everyone would be gone, onto the next mobs. I finally made it though that one too though. When I got out my latency was normal and the lag was gone.

I decided to try one more and got Temple of Atal'Hakkar, a.k.a. Sunken Temple. That went pretty well until we got down into the middle area, then the lag hit worse than ever. After 5 minutes of that I finally disconnected and didn't bother logging in again. I might try to log on for a while again tonight, I'm not sure.

Shealin - Level 46 Fire Mage - 7/11/10

I did some more questing and some more dungeons on Shealin and managed to get her to level 46. She is moving along nicely. As usual I was in queue for a random dungeon the whole time I was playing, except when I was in a dungeon, and I did quests while I waited. I got caught in a sandstorm in Tanaris while I was questing, it wasn't too bad, I have been in worse.

I finally got out of Maraudon Purple and into Maraudon Orange. I also had one run through Zul'Farrak that I got a lot of XP and a level out of. Then it was back to Maraudon Purple again. The speed at which I am leveling I should be done with these soon tho.

When I turned in all the quests I completed in Zul'Farrak and a couple I didn't have time to turn in before I went in there I leveled again to 46. Only 34 more levels to go.

Really Bad Pit of Saron Run 7/10/10

I did a run through Heroic Pit of Saron today on my Shaman, Breeonna, and it was a pretty bad run.

First off we went from the entrance right to Forgemaster Garfrost, skipping all the trash mobs which have a chance to drop Battered Hilt. Battered Hilt goes for around 10,000 gold on my server or you can keep it and do the quest to get a nice weapon. Either way, it is worth killing a few trash mobs on the chance it could drop. Anyway we went right to Forgemaster Garfrost and that was where we had our first wipe. We did manage to bring him down on our second attempt. That was wipe number 1.

Did I mention we had 3 Deathknights in the group? One was the Tank. Don't even get me going on DK Tanks. We managed to kill all the mobs up to Krick and Ick then wiped again on him. Wipe number 2. I used up my resurrect on that one so we didn't have to run all the way back. We got him down on our second attempt after kicking the Healer from our group. I personally didn't think he was doing too bad, it is a hard instance to heal.

We had our next wipe on the mobs on the way up to the tunnel. The DK "Tank" made the decision we were going to run up there and get by the first 2 sets of mobs, that hardly ever works and it didn't work this time either. Usually what ends up happening is you have at least 2 sets of mobs attacking you instead of fighting just one. This time was no exception. That was wipe number 3.

We finally made it up to the tunnel and started the run to the mid point. We rounded up all the mobs in the first half, dodged the falling ice and got to mid point. That was when the Healer DC'd. Wipe number 4.

We got another healer, a Paladin, and he thought it was pretty funny we wiped in the tunnel. We made the run to mid tunnel again, rounding up all the mobs and dodging the falling ice. The Tank almost died at that point but we managed to kill everything and started the run to the end of the tunnel, rounding up all the mobs and dodging the falling ice. The Tank died before we got there. The Paladin said "I can't heal you when you're running, you have to stop". You DO NOT stop in the tunnel because of the falling ice and the fact you have mobs attacking you. Fail Healer combined with a DK "Tank" = wipe number 5.

At that point the Healer left, the Tank left and one of the DPS left, leaving me and another DPS. He said he knew a Tank so we invited him and requeued. It only took a few seconds to get another healer and DPS and we were on our way through the tunnel again. We ran up to the mid point, rounding up all the mobs and dodging the falling ice. We killed all the mobs there, then ran to the end, rounding up the rest of the mobs and dodging the falling ice, and killed those too.

After that all we had to do was kill Scourgelord Tyrannus which, believe it or not, went pretty smooth. Of course we only had 2 people from the original group and a Warrior Tank so we basically had a much better group. The DPS that was in it from the start got the Axe he was after so it worked out well for him which was good. All I was doing was running a dungeon, there was nothing in there I needed and the only thing I wanted was a chance at a Battered Hilt.

That was my last dungeon of the day needless to say. It wasn't even my random daily dungeon, I did that earlier, it was just a random for me.

Shealin - Level 42 Fire Mage - 7/8/10

I haven't been able to get much play time in over the last few days but I did get some time today. Shealin is now level 42 and has a lot of rested XP so the rest of this level should go by pretty fast.

I was questing in Tanaris and doing dungeons. The dungeon I am stuck in now is Maraudon Purple. Maraudon is so huge they broke it into, I believe, 3 parts, Purple, Orange and Yellow. You get credit for each part and get the achievement when you have completed all 3. I have run Purple 4 or 5 times now. I can remember doing this when it was all one part, which you still can if you want to, and it used to take hours on end. I am happy they broke it up.

I got Shealin her Armored Brown Bear as soon as she hit 40. The price on that went down, maybe because it is the 6th one I have bought? I don't know but I doubt that is the reason. It is more likely they just lowered the price. It cost me 750 gold each for the first 5 but this one only cost me 712 gold. That is with no Kirin Tor rep, the more rep you have with them the lower the price gets. Because I get them at level 40 it is impossible for me to have any rep with Kirin Tor as they are in Dalaran in Northrend, a place I am not supposed to be until level 68.

As I have said before I am in no hurry to level this one, I am just going to work on it when I feel like it and get to 80 when I get to 80. I did what I set out to do with Breeonna and that was level a character 1 to 80 in less than 10 days /played. I got her to 80 in 8 days 14 hours /played. I don't even know how much time I have /played on Shealin, I haven't even looked.