310% Flight Speed

I have been looking into this 310% flight speed you can now purchase. Previously the only way to get 310% flight speed was to have a 310% mount. Now anyone can purchase 310% for a mere 5,000 gold. Yeah.... It just keeps getting better.

According to MMO-Champion, people that already have a 310% flying mount will not be required to pay for this new skill. So if you don’t have a 310% mount, there's still time to get one. Here are some of the mounts available:

• Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake — If you didn’t finish What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been for the achievement points, then you can do it for the guaranteed mount. Big time investment, but big reward.

• Reins of the Rusted Proto-Drake — Your reward for completing Glory of the Ulduar Raider (10-man). Still in-game, but may eventually be removed like the original Glory of the Raider mounts. Blue Posts indicate that if it is removed, players will be given a 1-month notice.

• Reins of the Ironbound Proto-Drake — Same as above, but for the 25-man version of Glory of the Ulduar Raider.

• Reins of the Onyxian Drake — About a 1% drop rate off 10/25 man Onyxia – if you can get the groups together, that means you have two shots per week. It’s the rarest item yours truly has ever won in a roll, and I can testify to her beauty.

• Ashes of Al’ar — Another rare mount, but perhaps THE coolest looking one currently in-game. About a 1.7% drop rate of Kael’thas Sunstrider in The Eye of Tempest Keep, and you can only farm once per week. Good luck on this one, it’ll be a tough ride.

• Invincible’s Reins — For the hardcore raiders, get your 25M heroic Lich King on. Defeat him, and get a guaranteed mount drop per week.

• Mimiron’s Head — Not quite up for LK? Go for Yogg-Saron on 25M, with no keepers, for a shot at a flying head, instead.

• Reins of the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher — Your reward for completing Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10-man).

• Reins of the Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher — Same as above, but for the 25-man version of Glory of the Icecrown Raider.

This list doesn’t include mounts that scale to 310% — since you already have to have a 310% mount for it to scale that high. If you already have a 310% mount that isn’t listed, you’re still ok.

There is still time, about 3 weeks, to get out there and get a 310% mount and save yourself 5,000 gold. Another option is to just stay with the 280% flight speed that already cost you 5,000 gold. I think that is what I am going to do, the extra 30% speed while flying just doesn't mean that much to me, certainly not enough to pay 5,000 gold for it.

I have a poll going in the right hand column of this blog where you can vote on whether or not you will be anteing up 5,000 gold to fly at 310% speed. I know I won't, at least not now. Maybe in the future if I have a lot of gold lying around I might think about it, but how often does that happen?

I will be coughing up the 250 gold for a Flight Masters License so I can fly in Azeroth. I have been waiting a long time to be able to fly in Azeroth and there are a lot of places I want to check out that you can only get to with a flying mount.

Infused Mushroom Meatloaf - Daily Cooking Quest 11/16/10

Today when I went to see what Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome, had for me I ended up with Infused Mushroom Meatloaf. I did this one on Gomorra and Brieanna today.

This had me heading down into the Underbelly to pick some Infused Mushrooms. There didn't seem to be anyone doing it today so it went pretty quick, the mushrooms were everywhere. After I gathered up the 4 I needed I headed up to the bank to get some Chilled Meat, this recipe calls for 2. When I had all the ingredients I cooked them up in the Meatloaf Pan, I was given when I got the quest, and delivered it to Orton Bennet, upstairs at Curiosities and Moore. He gave me 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag.

Today Gomorra's Small Spice Bag had 5 Northern Spices in it. Not a bad haul for him.

Brieanna's Small Spice Bag had 3 Northern Spices in it. An ok haul for her too.

Jewel of the Sewers - Daily Fishing Quest 11/16/10

Today Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran had Jewel Of The Sewers for my daily fishing quest. I did this one on Brieonna, Gomorra and Brieanna.

This one had me heading down into the sewers below Dalaran to fish up a piece of Corroded Jewelry. I have my spot I go to in the Black Market where there is hardly ever anyone else fishing. I usually get my piece of Corroded Jewelry in 10 casts or less and today was no exception. When this quest first came out I tried fishing all over the place down there but only had luck in the Black Market. I know people catch it elsewhere down there but the Black Market works for me.

Once I had my piece of Corroded Jewelry in hand I headed back up top to see Marcia. I traded her the Corroded Jewelry for a Bag of Fishing Treasures.

Today Brieanna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 10g70s67c, 3 Pygmy Oil and a piece of Worthless Red Glass. Not a great haul for Brieanna today.

Brieonna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 6g60s68c, a Glow Worm, a piece of Worthless Green Glass and 3 Deviate Fish. Nothing worth writing home about there either.

Gomorra's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 10g41s57c, 2 Elixirs of Water Walking, 2 Solid Gold Coins and 4 Deviate Fish. Not a great day for Gom either.

Disarmed - Daily Fishing Quest 11/15/10

Today Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran had Disarmed for my daily fishing quest. I did this one on Brieonna, Gomorra and Brieanna.

This had me heading over to the water right outside the entrance to Violet Hold in Dalaran. There I need to fish up a Bloated eel. This one always takes me a while for some reason. It took me a lot of casts today to finally get the Bloated Eel and the Severed Arm that's inside it.

Once I had my Severed Arm in hand I headed to see Olisarra the Kind, (36,37) the Grand Master First Aid Trainer in the Magus Commerce Exchange in Dalaran. I traded her the Severed Arm for a Bag of Fishing Treasures.

Today Brieanna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 8g16s35c, 2 Elixir of Water Walking, a New Age Painting signed by Marcia Chase that I sold to a vendor for 25 gold, and 2 Runic Mana Potions. Not a great haul for Brieanna today.

Brieonna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 6g68s5c, 3 Elixirs of Water Walking and a Tower Key that I sold to a vendor for 16g66s66c. Nothing worth writing home about there either.

Gomorra's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 7g99s9c, 5 Pygmy Oil, a Diamond-tipped Cane and 2 Deviate Fish. Not a great day for Gom either.

Cheese for Glowergold - Daily Cooking Quest 11/15/10

Today when I went to see Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome, for the daily cooking quest, she gave me Cheese for Glowergold. I did it on Gomorra and Brieanna.

This used to be my least favorite because the Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses are so small and hard to target. Plus when everyone is doing this daily there is not enough to go around. Anyway this had me running around Dalaran looking for Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses. It really didn't take me long today to get the 6 I needed, I got 3 on each toon before I even left A Hero's Welcome. I got the rest at Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly. Once I had all the wine I needed I headed over to One More Glass, the wine and cheese shop in Dalaran, to get a piece of Aged Dalaran Limburger to complete the ingredients for this quest. Once I had everything I combined them on the wine and cheese platter, supplied to me when I accepted the quest, to make a Wine and Cheese Platter.

I took the Wine and Cheese Platter and delivered it to Ranid Glowergold (36,28) at the Leatherworkers in the Magus Commerce Exchange. He gave me a Dalaran Cooking Award, 9g93s and a Small Spice Bag for my trouble.

Today Gomorra's Small Spice Bag had 4 Northern Spices and 3 Old Spices in it. Not a bad haul, there is so little left to be had from this daily anything is good really.

Brieanna's Small Spice Bag had 3 Northern Spices in it. Not a bad haul for her either.

Random Daily's 11/15/10

I did my daily's on Breeonna, Gomorra and Brieanna today. I am starting to get some gold together now to handle whatever Cata throws at me.

As usual I did the The Sons of Hodir and Knights of the Ebon Blade daily's. The ones I do for the Sons of Hodir are Blowing Hodir's Horn, Hot and Cold, Polishing the Helm, Spy Hunter and Feeding Arngrim. All in all these take me about 25 minutes per character. The ones I do for the Knights of the Ebon Blade are Leave Our Mark, Vile Like Fire!, Shoot 'Em Up, From Their Corpses, Rise!, No Fly Zone and Intelligence Gathering.

Intelligence Gathering seems to be going back to the way it was, it took me forever to find my 5 documents today. It took me forever just to find the first chest today. But I finally did get the 5 I needed and turned it in.

Mustard Dogs! - Daily Cooking Quest 11/14/10

Today when I went to see Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome, for the daily cooking quest, she handed me Mustard Dogs!

I did it on Gomorra and Brieanna today.

This had me running around the grassy areas of Dalaran picking Wild Mustard. The first place I checked was out behind A Hero's Welcome, that is usually good for 2 and today was no exception. Once I had the 4 Wild Mustard I needed I headed to the bank to grab some Rhino Meat to make the Rhino Dogs. I combined the 4 Rhino Dogs with the 4 Wild Mustard in the Empty Picnic Basket to make a Mustard Dog Basket! I took that and delivered it to Archmage Pentarus (68,41) at Krasus' Landing in exchange for 9g93s, 2 Dalaran Cooking Awards and a Small Spice Bag.

Today Gomorra's Small Spice Bag had 5 Northern Spices in it. Not a bad haul.

Brieanna's Small Spice Bag had 4 Northern Spices and 5 Old Spices in it. Not a bad haul for her either.

Blood is Thicker - Daily Fishing Quest 11/14/10

Today when I went to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, she had Blood Is Thicker for my daily fishing quest.

I did this one on Brieonna, Gomorra and Brieanna today.

This one had me taking the flight point out of Dalaran to Unu'pe in the Borean Tundra. Once there I flew inland until I found a Marsh Caribou to kill. Killing any animal in Borean Tundra that is under the protection of the Druids will get you covered in blood. Stay away from the Druids when you are covered in blood though, for a bunch of tree huggers they can be pretty violent. Anyway, once I was covered in blood I flew back to the shore and jumped in, washing the blood off me and creating a blood pool. The blood pool is what I need to fish in to catch the 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy this quest is calling for. It only took me a couple casts to get the 5 I needed, you catch them 2 or 3 at a time. You have to fish in the blood pool to catch them.

Once I had my 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy in hand I went back to Dalaran to see Marcia. I traded her the Bloodtooth Frenzy for a Bag of Fishing Treasures.

Gomorra's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 7g97s48c, a Glow Worm, a Blank Slate and 4 Deviate Fish. Not a great day of fishing for Gom.

Brieanna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 8g51s92c, 3 Pygmy Oil, 2 Worthless Pieces of Orange Glass and 4 Deviate Fish in it. Not a great day of fishing for Brieanna.

Brieonna's Bag of Fishing Treasures had 9g5s52c, a Glow Worm, a piece of Worthless Green Glass and 3 Deviate Fish in it. It is safe to say no one had a really good day of fishing.

More Daily's 11/12/10

I got on today and did all my daily's on Brieanna and Breeonna. I was going to do them on Gomorra too but ran out of steam.

I did all the The Sons of Hodir and Knights of the Ebon Blade daily's. The ones I do for the Sons of Hodir are Blowing Hodir's Horn, Hot and Cold, Polishing the Helm, Spy Hunter and Feeding Arngrim. The only one I don't do for Sons of Hodir is Thrusting Hodir's Spear. I tried it a few times and could never do it so I just gave up, seems like a lot more hassle than it is worth.

For the Knights of the Ebon Blade I do Leave Our Mark, Vile Like Fire!, Shoot 'Em Up, From Their Corpses, Rise!, No Fly Zone and Intelligence Gathering. I have been doing Intelligence Gathering every day. It seems like the keys and documents are dropping a lot better now. I can usually get that done while doing the other quests without having to hang around to finish it up.

Today when I went to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, she had Jewel Of The Sewers for me. The object of this daily is to go into the Underbelly, below Dalaran, and fish up a piece of Corroded Jewelry. I did it on Brieanna, Gomorra and Brieonna today. I am still hoping to get the Jeweled Fishing Pole for Brieonna but no luck yet on that. I didn't get anything worth mentioning from this daily today.

I did the daily cooking too which I got from Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome. Today she gave me Cheese for Glowergold. I used to skip this daily a lot when it came up because it took forever to get the 6 Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses you need and I find them hard to target. But I decided to do it today on Brieanna and Gomorra. It didn't take me long at all to find the 6 Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses I needed, then it was off to One More Glass, the Wine and Cheese shop in Dalaran, for the piece of Aged Dalaran Limburger I needed. I found that as soon as I got there on both toons. I combined the wine and cheese on the platter, supplied when I picked up the quest, to make a Wine and Cheese Platter. I delivered that to Ranid Glowergold (36,28) at the Leatherworkers in the Magus Commerce Exchange but didn't get anything worth mentioning from this one either.

I did a few Cata quests too. I got them in Ironforge. They explain a little about what is going to happen when Cata hits and what we can look forward to. They are a quest chain that have you going to Stormwind and the Outlands. All in all I made about 120 gold doing these. I have done them on all my 80's but Gomorra and Wranngar so far.

Daily's 11/11/10

I did all my daily's on Breeonna, Gomorra and Brieanna today.

I did the daily cooking on Brieanna and Gomorra and the The Sons of Hodir and the Knights of the Ebon Blade daily's on all three. That got me some decent gold for the day. I also make out pretty good on drops, I loot everything (Shift + Right Click) and make pretty good gold off drops too.

I didn't get anything exciting from any of the daily's. Even the daily cooking seems to be getting cheap, most the time I only get 2 Northern Spices in my Small Spice Bag. I have been doing the daily fishing most days too, not today, but haven't gotten anything worth mentioning from that either. I am trying to get some gold together for the expansion.

I did the Random Daily Heroic Dungeon today, it was Halls of Stone. We had no problem and I didn't see any good drops. We didn't do all the bosses, it was kind of a quick run.

The Last Few Days

The last few days I have been getting reacquainted with my characters. These new talent trees they came up with removed a lot of spells I used to have on some of them. Now I am getting used to playing with the new modified spec's.

I have been doing daily's for the last few days. I have been doing them on Brieanna, Breeonna, Brieonna and Gomorra. Really all I am doing on Brieonna is the daily fishing, still trying to get her that Jeweled Fishing Pole. She still can't use it, fishing is only 271, but she is getting closer every day.

On Brieanna, Breeonna and Gomorra I have been doing the The Sons of Hodir and Knights of the Ebon Blade daily's. I have also been doing the cooking and fishing on Brieanna and Gomorra. I have gotten nothing worth mentioning from the daily cooking and fishing, just the usual stuff.

I want to get used to playing with the new talents and also make some gold so I am not broke when Cataclysm comes out. They now have a learned flying skill that will increase your flight speed to 310% on fast flying mounts and another learned skill to be able to fly in Azeroth. I am sure that these will not only not be free they will be quite expensive like everything else in this game.

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.