Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Ah, so much for getting around to posting each day! Anyway, it's the end of June, the weather is great, and even though I have no plan whatsoever to get a tan, I might just go for a walk this afternoon.

WoW-update:

I'm actually starting to get a hang of doing dailies on the hunter - it's fast, and - in spite of the fact that her gear is so much worse than the druid's - there's very little downtime. OK, there have been occasions where her kitty has gotten swarmed by four blood elves, and with all the mobs and people running around, all I could do was feign death and let kitty die. /cry But all in all - I don't think the epic flyer will take too long to get a hold of for this one. Guess I should be saving up to get the druid her's, but that'll come too, eventually.

Yesterday I decided to twink my alliance pally a tiny bit - got her a Gargoyle's Bite, and had the mage put +7 damage on it - and then I dragged her through Arathi up to Southshore, to get flightpaths, and do some bonfire quests. Almost died because of the presence of iron just a few steps off the road - the famous bubble saved her from evil spiders + raptors :)

Other than that - nothing much has happened, it's been a slow weekend, WoW-wise. Went shopping for shoes on Saturday - first time in ages - and found a pair:

These babies gave me chafes on both feet within five minutes after leaving the apartment. Went to the store for eggs and some stuff, and could barely walk on the way home :D They're pretty, though, and I think shoes and feet will adapt before too long.

I'll definitely go online tonight - there should be some quest rewards somewhere that could spice up my huntress - but for now I have to take a shower, make a phone call, and get some lunch.

The Power of the Light Compels You!

Today has been a day of an unusually large amount of posts - I will probably not be able to keep this pace up, but I'll do my best to publish once a day, at least - sometimes you just have a lot to say about nothing. :)

Earlier I finally got a positive response from my professor - phew + yay!

Lately I've been thinking about paladins. I have two of them - one ally, one horde, one level 23, one level 18 - and so far I'm leveling them both. Every once in a while, at least. I'd really like to have a plate-wearing character, and the tanking possibilities are appealing. Better multi-mob tanking, you say? Sounds like something for me.

The alliance one is a human female, and I started her with the intention of going prot some day, and the race was chosen because I'm well aware of the pain rep grinding can be - 10 % extra rep sounds like enough to make a real difference. Since I a lot of the time have the attention span of a goldfish, she's been put on ice until recently. When I started playing her again, I respecced her retribution - prot before level 40 is just too slow for me...

The horde one is obviously a blood elf, and a female. She was started because of this fancy site my husband found: RETLOL - The Guide. Seal of Blood, once you get it, is supposed to be the thing to have when doing PVE as retribution, and the blood elf racials (Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent) are by some people considered to be nice alternatives to the regular Avenger's Shield pulling - I have seen that Captain America-thing go off to mobs you didn't expect it to reach, and maybe Mana Tap can be useful in crowded places? I don't know, really, but since the range is the same it doesn't seem completely useless. And Arcane Torrent should be useful when trying to pull casters. But then again, an 8 yard radius - hmm. As I've said already - haven't gotten any pally past level 23, so I can't really have a qualified opinion. Anyway, the belf was started with the goal set to retribution, and that's were she is.

Now, since I can't decide which one to level - easier rep or fancy schmancy seal - I'm going to try and alter between them. The human will probably go prot somewhere around 40, so there's some kind of variation, while the belf stays retri. And yeah, yeah, I'm aware of the Holy tree, but someone would have to pay me a substantial amount of RL cash if I was to level up as holy!

So, there it is. Hopefully I won't lose interest in this project completely now that I've kind of made it public :D

The Nerd in Me

Instead of making that cup of tea, I made some changes on this blog. I got an Entrecard, and little tooltip-thingies for my links. Don't know if there's any real point having the first one, but now it's there, anyway. The tooltip-thingies, on the other hand, I find most functional. Most of all when it comes to Wowhead-links. It really annoys me when I have to open yet another tab for every piece of equipment, just because I want to see and compare the stats.

Now I'm going to make tea. Really.

On/Off

Suddenly it's raining more violently than it's done for a long time - water is actually pouring down on the bedroom window - it's gone quite dark, and there is even a bit of thunder + lightning. I'm very pleased with the fact that I'm indoors, but a tiny bit worried - I have no lunch. No real lunch, anyway. I'm still planning to go out and buy something, but only if the weather changes quite a bit for the better...

Oh well. I'll make some tea, and see what happens.

Smoother, faster, but a bit weird...

Yesterday I did what one could consider a rather full set of dailies for the first time on my hunter. This includes all of the Shattered Sun Offensive ones, except A'tamal Armaments, the fishing and cooking dailies, and two of the three Midsummer Fire Festival ones (I really have a problem with the torchcatching). (Right now, the neighbour is going crazy, singing "Memories". Oh. My. GOD! That woman must have suffered some kind of brain damage at some point...)

Anyway, it went very smoothly, in spite of the fact that some of her gear is from the early 60's (/shame). Something that did bother me, though, was the feeling that people even more shamelessly than usual were trying to steal my mobs. I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to playing my hunter, especially after that time in the 40's when some rogue was convinced she was a bot, in spite of the fact that I used friggin' stings, had a named, rare-ish pet, and was pretty good at talking back, but I honestly think people get ticked off by just seeing a nelf hunter in nab gear. Like "oh, now I can get payback for that time in the Deadmines when a nelftard ninjaed my staff/mace/ring/whatever". If that is the case: Seriously, get over it. I'm a good person, a decent player, and I'm educated enough to know that Plasma Rat's Hyper-Scythe is crap for me. (I once saw a hunter with that one, with Mongoose on it. Another time it was Singing Crystal Axe, same enchant...)

IRL I'm waiting for a response to an e-mail I sent to my professor, regarding continuing the work on my final paper in the fall. Unfortunately he's on vacation, and he seems to be serious about it - i.e. not checking his inbox...

OK...

... I was wrong... No new patch today, no new level 30 mounts yet. Oh well. I still have a new level 70 to play with, a friggin' BM hunter to do dailies with - yay for me! Also, this gives me some time to try and level that pally up to 30 (she's 22 now) - then I'll have two characters to get mounts for when the new patch arrives. Back to the hunter.

1 more hour...

Wednesday equals patch day in Europe, or, well, maintenance day. Anyway, today they're presenting us with the fancy schmancy patch 2.4.3, and I'm quite excited! In spite of the fact that I haven't been grinding honor at all! My druid has somewhere around 6000, and the rogue a tiny bit more than 2000, so far from enough to buy anything, but there's a whole bunch of other things happening:

• Level 30 mounts - yay!
• New non-combat pet - Nether Ray Fry
• New, roomier herb bags! Time to get Sporeggar rep with the mage, I guess...
• And probably a whole lot of other changes I'll appreciate in time.

While I'm waiting for the extended maintenance to end (usually it ends at 11AM, now it's been pushed forward to 1PM...), I'm typing this, and listening to the neighbour arguing with someone over the phone. She does this quite frequently, and she is impressively loud. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the fact that I don't know her.

Last night my sweet hunter finally reached level 70! First thing I did was go to the trainer, and get that sorted, then a quick trip to the bank, to get the Valano's Longbow I got for almost nothing around level 45, and the Flying Machine Control I bought off the auction house the other day (I couldn't be bothered trying to find someone to make me elemental seaforium charges, and the hunter's rep with Consortium is way too low for me to bother speed grinding it). Then I went back to Shattrath, onward to Shadowmoon Valley, and then I finally got her the new riding skill. Hopefully it wont take too long to grind the 5 K gold for swift flying, 'cause her little aeroplane is slooooooow... At least compared to my rogue's speedy Nether Ray. Luckily, most dailies since some patch aren't built around flying mounts. I love the Shattered Sun Offensive.

My Flaming Friend

I finally (ooh, it was a pain, took from 8-ish last night until about an hour ago... I did get a good night's sleep, though ;) ) got my Captured Flame! Behold:
Yes, it's that orange-pink-thingie next to my sexy huntress. Nvm the quested greens, I'm only hardcore when it comes to small pets ;) Also, she's 67, dammit! All that running all over the world, honouring or putting out fires got her well on the way to 68, though. About 70 % of a level, I believe. And I'm going to keep doing the Midsummer dailies - not only do they give gold, you also get xp - a bit more than 11000 a quest! And with three quests a day, it's not bad at all! Dailies before 70 ftw!

Pre-pizza post

Still having a cold, yes, but took a shower earlier, and even if my throat is still painful, I'm dressed, and planning to go to the store for something edible.

Today is the first day of the Midsummer Fire Festival, and I'm planning to complete as many quests as possible, so I can get at least one character a Captured Flame. And no, I can't ever get enough small pets. 350 Burning Blossoms is a lot, though, and they're soulbound.

Anyway, off to get some food.

Oh, crap.

Woke up about an hour ago, with an annoyingly sore throat. It's past the middle of June, it's Midsummer Eve, the husband's away on a work trip, and I've caught a freakin' cold. "Sucky" is just the beginning of the story. Anyway, I'll make some tea in a bit, and luckily I did my shopping yesterday - I'll be having smoked salmon for dinner, and ice cream with pieces of ginger for dessert.

Last night I managed to get the warrior to level 14, and I love the whole "hey, there goes 75 % of the mob's life in one hit!"-thing! The reason for slow levelling yesterday was a trip to Darnassus, to learn how to use throwing weapons. I really don't like having to carry around bullets or arrows when I'm not playing a hunter, so while levelling she'll be using whatever throwing weapon I can find for pulling.

Right. Painful throat. Time for tea.

Cheaper Traveling :)

So, patch notes for 2.4.3 are here, and I'm kind of loving it. Mounts will be available at level 30, and riding skill will cost a mere 35 gold! Very nice in deed. I do have one character who's in her 30's, so I guess she'll be getting a mount as soon as the next patch is here. Of course, she is a warlock, so she wouldn't have had to pay 90 gold for training, but still - mount at 30 is so wonderful. Desolace and Badlands will probably not be the pains they've always been before. Ah. Hold on. I'll still despise them. Over all, I think this will boost the leveling of alts quite a bit - I usually start to get frustrated by how slow a character is when I get to level 25-26, which has meant 14-15 levels of frustration - now I'll only have 4-5 levels of "ohmyfuckinggodarewethereyet?".

I'm also very much looking forward to the new mini pet, the Nether Ray Fry! MMO-Champion has a picture. Not as cute as the Tiny Spore Bat, but I'm so going to get one, on the druid and on the rogue!

At the moment I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to go grocery shopping today, and get whatever I'll want to eat tomorrow, or tomorrow, when everyone else is there, and the store closes at 3pm. Decisions, decision...

The Habit

So, yesterday, around this time, actually, I - once again - started a new character. Inspired by Incompetent Warrior (yes, we do play on the same server, don't know the guy, though) I rolled a warrior. Human female with red hair, goes by the name Swirly. I don't really know what the main focus will be in the long run, but I do hope I'll get a chance to learn how to tank for real. I did try some tanking on the druid, last year, but Oh. My. God. The chaos. The frustration. First time was alright - Sethekk Halls is easy enough - but my second run as a tank was Arcatraz, with a trigger-happy, pugged enhancement shaman. Enough about that, though.

Point is, I leveled as moonkin, and hadn't really taken the time to grow into my feral abilities until I'd been level 70 for about 6 months. I'm hoping that when one plays a warrior, one more frequently ends up in situations where protection abilities get used. See, if I'm in moonkin form, I don't have access to growl, but I should be able to use taunt even if I'm arms or fury. (Right?)

Now, why was I inspired by Incompetent Warrior? Why will it be different this time? Why will Swirly not be stranded somewhere between level 10 and 15 like all my previous warrior alts? The answer is kind of the following: Stuntyone, or the Incompetent Warrior, has a quality that is quite unusual among people who play warriors, or even World of Warcraft. He seems to actually play for the fun of it. Now you're going "What does she mean? Don't we all play for fun? She's deluded or had way too much pie last night", but I'm serious.

What I mean is: He seems to find a lot of pleasure in the MMO part of the game, which is something I've found to be very rare among warriors who actually express their opinions on the warrior class. People call for nerfs, mock everyone else's talent build, hates the itemisation and yadayadayada... The class forum at wow-europe.com is always more or less depressing, and the moment I've tried to find some info there, has in the past been the moment when my latest attempt at the warrior class has halted. Now I have a new strategy: Don't even go there. I've found some builds, and I have them bookmarked, and I've decided to just go for it, and put some trust into my general knowledge of the game. If I get to some kind of high level, 60+, I'll look up ElitistJerks, but for now, I'll try and have some fun :)

And so, that's what Incompetent Warrior does for me: He makes square 1 a happy place, shows the fun in being a warrior, without whining and calling for nerfs for other classes. Kudos to Stuntyone!

Time for breakfast - bought yoghurt yesterday, when I've had some of it, I'll make tea.

A Week of Vacation (of Sorts)

So, I'm spending the week by myself, since the husband is on a work related trip to Rotterdam until Tuesday next week. When I spoke to my parents a couple of days ago they found out about my being solo for a few days, and insisted that I come to visit them, especially since this Friday/Saturday is Midsummer, which usually means party/fun dinner/general silliness in Sweden, but since we're going to visit them in the beginning of July, and since I feel that celebrating Christmas, new year's and birthdays are enough holidays for me, I'm staying put. Also, I don't really feel like spending a week(!) without internet, and without the freedom to choose to watch anything but nature related TV-shows.

So far I've gotten a lot of sleep, something I believe has helped mending my sore shoulder (silly me, spent last Friday walking around town, not wearing a sweater/coat/jacket, and the wind decided I needed a stiff shoulder - haven't been able to look to the left for days!), and last night I watched a movie, White Nights, starring Michail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines.
I have a soft spot for dancing movies, and for Baryshnikov, so double fun!

Late last night I got around to questing a bit with my hunter - getting ogres drunk and then killing them, what more can one need? She's inching towards level 67, and I'm really looking forward to have her kick ass in Netherstorm. Tonight I may give Area 52 a shot - as I recall it, their quests are fun.
Most of all I'm looking to get Consortium rep, though - I plan to get a Flying Machine Control as soon as she dings 70, and I have yet to see an Elemental Seaforium Charge on the AH - so I guess I'll have to grind a huge amount of ogres in Nagrand, and then a huge amount of ethereals in Netherstorm. There are quite a few quests to do for Consortium rep, but somehow I felt I ended up short when doing them on the druid. I did go about it the wrong way, though - handed all my war beads over to the Kurenai, to get that sweet talbuk... Back then, about a year ago, I had most of the ogres to myself, though - less people had made it to Outland, and even fewer had discovered the "grinding ogres"-thing - but now everyone is there! Hmm. Maybe I should stay up late tonight, to do some serious grinding, when all the kiddies have gone to bed.

My plan for now: Getting some late lunch, probably the two remaining spring rolls I have waiting in the freezer, followed by some well needed washing of dishes (endlessly boring, but necessary). I should also go for a walk some time before it gets dark - probably around the park, 'cause it's so much fun avoiding to step in bird poo.