"Waiting for patch"-randomness.

Waiting for the servers to come back up again, I'm feeling a bit too unfocused to write a "real" post, so I'll just list a few things that have been going on:

• Went (semi-)oldschool the other night, and farmed adamantite ore and Kurenai rep in Nagrand. Adamantite is way too expensive to buy in my server's AH, and I really miss the talbuk mounts my old druid has. Paladin is halfway through revered - should be able to get her all the way to exalted in a few more hours of killing ogres, and doing the two group quests I have left there (Durn and Corki's Ransom).

• On a sunny evening last week my sister took me out on their boat. Sister: "It handles like a dream"= me holding on for dear life, making sure my lifejacket's strapped on tight enough. Yes, I know how to swim, I grew up by a lake, and I'm fairly used to boats, but on a windy day, in the middle of the lake, I want to make sure I can stay afloat under all circumstances. She was quite amused.

• I've started re-reading The Sandman, and I've just gotten started on Season of Mists. Such an amazing story, and so, so pretty. I really should try and pick up the final three volumes, though. >.<

• I still haven't gotten around to doing something about the whole "guild thing". I'll get there, I just need to take my time. Or, I just need to do it, and not think so much.

• This morning I had so much fun reading the paper: One of their summer temps is so mindnumbingly bad, and her articles are hilarious. Did I mention I'm a major nitpicker? Whenever she's written a new article it's like Christmas. (Edit: I know my english isn't exactly flawless, and I don't mock just anyone for their bad writing, but being swedish, reading swedish newspapers, I consider myself free to laugh out loud at rubbish written by a paid writer.)
  

• I spent the last few minutes before server shutdown last night (well, 3AM this morning) on my druid, in catform - me and a whole bunch of others were dancing on the steps to the alliance bank in Dalaran, to celebrate the new patch!

• The first character I log on when my server goes online again will probably be a druid. Even though I don't do feral, I'm very, very excited about the new kitty and bear, especially on behalf of feral tauren druids everywhere - the nelf cat was OK, but the orange Richard Simmons-form was... Bad, to say the the least.

• One of my more neglected alts is a level 69 shaman, and one reason for said neglect is the totems. I love totems, and when I play her I want to use totems, but they have been stealing my global cooldowns, and since I haven't gotten along with any of the totem addons I've found, they've been hogging space on my hotbars, and I've had trouble organising the whole thing. Now shamans are getting a major UI boost, and the ability to drop four totems in one GCD, so... Time for shaman action?
  

That's all I can think of at the moment - I know there's a whole lot more, but if I go on, I'll just end up quoting the patchnotes :D I might as well do some laundry and have lunch, since the servers aren't planned to come online until about 3PM (i.e. in about an hour) - then it's time for "ooh" and "aah", and "wth happened to Seal of the Martyr?".

Plans, and how not to stick to them.

I really, really wanted to write a post with the title "Pallies and druids and priests! Oh my!", partly because I love The Wizard of OZ, but mostly because it would mean I had stuck to my unofficial plan to spend fairly equal amounts of time playing those three characters. That, however, has not happened, and it's not that big a deal, after all. So, which character have I been playing? Perhaps not a big surprise, considering what I've been blogging about lately:



There it is - last night my paladin dinged 67, and while she is dual specced ret and prot, I have yet to use her prot spec. Retribution is ridiculously powerful while leveling, and she's gaining XP so fast by questing I have found myself rushing past the whole instance thing in Outland. It's not that I don't like instances - I love dungeons - but I've been soloing so much for so long, the questing/grinding/leveling process is almost running on autopilot, and I don't realise until four levels later that "ooh, maybe I should've done Ramparts", and by that time Northrend feels so close, I just keep on going. The fun I've had in dungeons in the past has been with friends/guildies, and when I'm on a roll with leveling I can't really find the motivation to do a pug.

Anyway, new plan: Getting pally+priest to 70(-ish), and giving the whole "find a casual guild"-project another try. But then again, every now and then the nice weather lures me outside, and I end up reading a book in the shade instead of hanging out online, so we'll see what happens. Summer seems to be having that effect on a lot of people, and it's probably good with a bit of a vacation, even from fun :)

The how and why, and ooh! Shiny lights!

I finally chose to take my alt out of that guild a couple of days ago. Even though it was nice having a guildchat again, it was actually worse than how the trade channel gets past midnight on weekends. Also, I found myself getting whiny about the whole thing, and that's never good, so I left.

Instead, I'm continuing to look into a few of the "casual, mature and relaxed" guilds on my server - the only thing left to do would be to pick 1-3 characters to apply with (I couldn't possibly - and wouldn't want to - bring all my alts into a new guild, but just one... That'd feel like a betrayal to the ones left behind!), and hope for the best. I do think the odds for a good guild/player-match improve a lot if the guild has its own website, and requires an application to join. Even though the kind of guild I'm after wouldn't be a very "professional" one, chances are you spend as much time with your guildies as you would with your colleagues at a part-time job, and most jobs require you to apply - not only to see that you're qualified, but also to make sure you fit in personality-wise. I very much doubt that the friendliest workplaces recruit random, unemployed people off the street, figuring that they can always give them the boot, if and when they're caught stealing from the cash register.

Right now, though, I'm going to be a lolret for a tiny bit, before it's time for lunch. Leveling is more than fast these days, even without heirlooms, and with a retribution specced paladin it's just crazy! You're wearing plate, you have the bestest bubble in all the world, and if you play your cards right, you never have any downtime! She's almost level 54 - the highest I've managed to get a plate wearer so far - and becoming more fun every time she dings. Leveling is easy, though - I'm quite convinced I'll have my work cut out for me if I am to try and play her in a more organized environment (like, you know, in dungeons and all that). I have, however, managed to keybind - and use - nifty stuff like Righteous Defense, so I'm not entirely clueless :D

Nerf paladins! Or no, wait a minute...

I've been checking out paladin stuff a bit - the reason being a new-ish alt, was featured in the screenshot of the Alliance tauren - and as Outland comes quicker than one might expect while leveling an alt these days, I wanted to check out what librams will be available through quests and the like. The three "classic" relic wearing classes - paladins, druids and shamans - all get one BoE relic each, and every now and then one might find them on the AH. Druids get Idol of the Moon, shamans get Totem of the Storm, and paladins get... Wait for it, wait for it... Libram of Fervor.

OK, so maybe the spellpower bonus on Moonfire isn't mindblowing, and neither is the bonus to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, but still, it's a small (teeny, tiny) bonus every time you use a certain spell, and since the spells in question are used quite often, as part of rotations and all that, the difference is there. You'll have to look really, really hard to see it, but it's there.

Then we have the pally relic. There used to be a time when a paladin's seal was consumed by her/his judgement, and he had to reapply the seal all the time in combat, in order to be able to judge his foe. The seal cost mana - it still does - and hence this libram must have been a buff for the paladin who got her/his hands on it back in the day. Now, however, times have changed, and so has the whole seal-judgement business. Seals last for 30 minutes, and are not consumed by judgements. Hence, you usually cast a seal every 30 minutes, and huzzah! You save a mighty 22 mana every time if you're carrying this baby! Well, I think it's safe to say that I won't be buying it.

While reading the comments regarding this item over at Wowhead, I found this and this as examples of amazingly useless epics, and a small part of me wants to make a "posing-by-the-bank"-set, including those two trinkets, the fabulous libram, and some other outdated/useless from the start (vanilla) high-level items.

Now I'm about to log on to my guilded alt, to try and gain a few levels. I've played her a bit lately, and I've seen a bit more of the guild, mostly through the gchat, though, since most of the active players are level 80, doing level 80-stuff. There does seem to be a steady stream of players coming in, and a fairly steady stream - albeit a smaller one - of players leaving. The guild has grown from about 360 members (when I joined) to about 390 in a week. Haven't logged in yet today, though, so it may have changed. Am I the only one who thinks it's a questionable idea for running a guild? Invite everyone you can find, let them stay until they misbehave? The "misbehave"-part has so far been the cause of a slightly uncomfortable gchat, and frankly, I have a rather forgiving sense of humour, even when it comes to what people say/do on the internet. Then again, several people seem really nice and intelligent, so I'm giving it a few more days, and I'll see how it goes.

Monday, Monday.

Meh. I haven't been down in the basement to look for that CD - yet - so my WoW-graphics are still slightly fucked. But it doesn't have any real impact on my gameplay, other than the fact that I'll be endlessly delighted the day I actually get it to work, or get a new computer, and get to see all the fancy colours I know are there.

In a few minutes I plan to go out for something to eat. I had a fancy McDonald's lunch earlier, and I'm still a bit full, so I'll probably just get something small. Fruit, maybe? While waiting for the rain to stop (it won't, though, so I'll have to go out anyway) I'm camping a vendor in Aerie Peak, so I can get these blacksmithing plans for my paladin. She's at 225, and those plans are supposedly the cheapest way to get to 235. They're apparently "limited supply", so I have to camp for them /yawn. Anyway, I think I'll check a couple more times, and then I'll head out.

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