An Odd Thing To Make Me Reflect

I have not yet wandered away!  I was soooo sick last week.  I never got around to writing my first post, but this Friday my first feature column goes up and I’ve got some plans and some notes already ready to go already!  But in the mean time, I give you something I posted to my guild forums a few weeks back because it made me think quite a bit.  I thought a wider audience might appreciate it!

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So I was out fishing on my druid the other night when I fished up a Ephemeral Fishing Pole. I looked at it in my inventory and realized this would be the first new pole I would use on my main in a long long time. My trusty Mastercraft Kalu’ak Fishing Pole with the +30 fishing has been my go to fishing pole for quite a while. (I never have been able to quite get my hands on Arcanite Fishing Pole, so other poles have shown up, but I never saw a reason to switch because they were just as good.) I went to my achievement tab and looked up Tuskarrmageddon, it was dated 12/9/08. I’m sure I bought that pole as soon as I hit exalted, so that pole has spent most of it’s time in my backpack for over six years.

This lead me to another odd thought. That fishing pole has probably seen more use and been through more things with my character than any other single in game item. It’s a hassle to fetch it out of the bank every time I want to fish, so I keep it on me. Its been whacked against countless mobs heads when I forgot to unequip it. (It’s hard to tell you have the wrong weapon when you’re in bear or kitty!)  Granted, I don’t know if that’s quiet whacking, the mechanics of druid weapons are funky. It was probably was in my bag for the fall of the Lich King and when my guild got Realm First Level 25. It has been there for countless battlegrounds, quests, (Including most of pre-Cata Loremaster) and dungeons, basically all the usual WoW things I’ve done over the years.  It has been with this toon when she was a Tauren, a Night Elf, and now as a Troll.

Academically, I knew the Ephemeral Fishing Pole was waaay better, but there was a degree of the familiar to my trusty fishing companion with its High Test Eternium Fishing Line, even if it is just a bunch of pixels, which are ephemeral in their own way.  I was going to be a little sad to retire it.

Then I looked up to see if maybe I had missed a better pole along the way, other than the Arcanite, since the Ephemeral was sooo much better than any other pole I had seen, and in my research I realized the Ephemeral Fishing Pole, really is ephemeral and after 24 hours logged into game it would be gone.  Well good thing I didn’t hasty with the sell button!

It’s odd to think, that in all that has come and gone, in a game with gear that we know will obsolete every few months, a fishing pole is something that’s been stable. One day, I’ll have a better fishing pole, and like so many other pieces of gear with memories, my Mastercraft Kalu’ak will be tucked away in the bank or void storage. But I’m kinda glad the Ephemeral is going to disappear, but glad it appeared as well.

This is a weird world we play in.

Press Conference: Talbukgate!

I called this press meeting today to say one thing to my readers. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have relations with that Talbuk.

~brief interruption from offstage~

What do you mean there are photos?!?!

I’m sorry folks, that’s all the time we have today. Unfortunately, I am quite busy and will be unable to answer any questions!

Thank you for your time!

A Tribute to TripleB!

I had originally planned a very different post, with my first major post since I came back going up today.  But it didn’t seem right, as this is the last day for someone who gave me one hell of a jumpstart when I first started blogging.

Way back in Jan 2010 Big Bear Butt linked this blog and I had a traffic explosion.  I was just starting out at the time and I was amazed at all the people reading all of a sudden.  Unfortunately, like the kitty I am, I got distracted by something shiny multiple times and lost quite a bit of traffic over the years.  But I never forgot about that help he gave me when first starting out.

But not just that TripleB is a great guy.  I remember a slow night during MoP when I needed help summoning my wife and he was the only one on my f-list playing Ally side at the time and he popped over to help me out, even though we don’t talk a lot.

While you have moved on from your theorycrafting ways when I first started reading, I have really enjoyed your humor over the years and seen so many reflections of my own life as I raise my two geeklings.  (One is already a Geek-teen.)  You made us laugh.  You tugged at our heartstrings in tender moments.  And you made me want want a goldfish hunter pet.

I don’t know why you are ending you blog, but thank you.

Thank you for helping out this little blog so many years ago.

Thank you for helping me out when I need to summon my wife.

Thank you for the joy your writing has brought to me over the years and I’m sure there are many others who feel the same way.

If you are still playing, one of these nights I’m actually going to have the free time to take you up on a run you’re putting up in Battle.net.

My best of wishes wherever this journey takes you and thank you for letting us ride along for a while.

~salutes~

 

A Kitty/Bear, A Plan, A Blog, Feral Instincts

Alrighty all, so after mulling it around through the weekend, I decided for a plan for the blog.  I am going to try and have big article on Fridays along with other randomness interspersed.  I also thing I am going to mull on a weekly achievement article, but let me get the Friday Druid one rolling first and see how I fit it in.  Welcome to all the new folks!  I hope you enjoy!

A Heads Up For Leveling Alts

For any of you that don’t mind an old school XP grind, this week the perfect time for it.  The in game event Love is In the Air, is currently running.  The daily quest, Crushing the Crown, has you going out killing five mobs and blowing up their chemical wagon.  The thing to note is these mobs respawn really really rapidly.  So you can chain pull these over and over.  (Also good if you are in need of cloth.)  This alone makes for a great place to XP grind.

However, what makes this even better is tomorrow is the start of the Darkmoon Faire!  This means you can hop on the carousel and get the buff WHEE!  This buff gives you an extra 10% XP, it starts out at 5 mins, but the longer you ride the carousel, the longer the buff lasts up to 1 hour.

If you have already completed Crushing the Crown, WoWHead has a great list of the various zones where the daily will take you on their Love is in The Air Guide found here, using that list you can find where the level appropriate zones are if you get to high for the one the daily gives you.  Unfortunately, the event hasn’t added areas for MoP and WoD, so once you get to the one in Uldum, that’s as high as it goes.

Happy Leveling and May the XP be with you!

The Time Has Come for a Regeneration!

The most amazing thing has happened in the last week, we saw the end of a WoW icon over at WoW Insider.  It was one of the first sites with WoW content I regularly followed.  I was saddened by this, as was much of the community.  But the wonderful folks there decided that they didn’t want to give up what they love and have created BlizzardWatch.  BlizzardWatch is a crowd funded project, if you’d like to be a supporter, you can set up a recurring donation here.

But this post isn’t an ad for BlizzardWatch.  After watching the community come together for something that meant so much to them, I realized how much I miss writing about WoW.  I’ve decided after yet another extended absence from the blog, I’m going to resurrect it…again.

But unlike previously, I’m going to set myself a schedule.  I will post that schedule when I figure out what the heck it is going to be, so hopefully ya’ll will give me a hard time if I’m slacking again.  I need to definitely work on some admin stuff on the site.  I think my plan is going to be a weekly feature along with random posts when they come to mind.

As always, I would love to create a conversation here, so don’t be afraid to comment.  We need more content and engagement for the only spec that “Complains when they get a buff!”  But as you continue your journeys through the World of Warcraft, always remember these wise words:

“CAT DURID IS 4 FITE!” – ALAMO

For Great Honor…

Two PvP-ish notes:

Just an FYI, although the Battle Standard of Coordination(Horde/Alliance) does not work for Rep or XP gained from questing, it does work for honor gained from questing.  So any quests that award honor, make sure to throw this sucker down.

A change that I just found out about, that others might want to know about as well, PvP stats no longer count towards an items ilevel budget.  So if you get an ilevel 522 item with honor it would have the same amount of primary and secondary stats as a PvE ilevel 522 item, plus some PvP Power.  So, if you end up with your hands on a PvP item for some reason, if it is an upgrade to a PvE piece, it will be an upgrade in to that piece in PvE content as well.

I’m sure some folks knew these, but I thought I would spread the wealth. 🙂

 

 

The Argent Tournament and Faction Change

So, back in Wrath, I faction changed from Horde to Alliance to play with some friends.  I had, being the achievement escort I am, finished the Argent Tournament.  Oh, so it reset, well, I am too hard headed so I did it all over again.

Well, when here it is several years later and I’m was looking at going back to the dark side, I scoured the web for information on whether or not I’d have to complete the tournament for a 3rd time.

I honestly could find no information in regards to it, other than sometimes after a faction change people cannot seem to get the Argent Tournament quests at all.  And there might have been one forum post that said I would have to do it all over again.  I figured it was easy enough in raid gear at 80, it should be a piece of cake now, if I have to do it a 3rd time, so be it.

So, I faction changed.  And low and behold…I didn’t have to do it again.

I cannot say in the modern world that a faction change will allow you to keep the Argent Tournament achievements.  I can’t even say, “If you faction change and don’t do them on one side and faction change back if you keep them.”

But for those of you who are curios, if you complete the Argent Tournament achievements both on Horde and Alliance, you will keep your achievements after a faction change.

The only bug I saw in the whole thing was Thunder Bluff was offering me their Valiant quests.  I’m guessing that’s because I went from Cow to Nelf to Troll, thus when I completed them the first time, TB was my base faction and now they weren’t.  I didn’t do them though, I’m already an Exalted champion of TB.

I figured someday someone else may be scouring the web for how a dual faction change affects the Argent Tournament and hopefully this helps them out a little.

The Thrill of…Archaeology?

I always kinda thought of Archaeology as land fishing. And like fishing, I tended to enjoy it a bit more than most players. It was an amusing way to pass some time brainlessly until I decided to work on some other activity. (Or perhaps work on some non-WoW related activity while I did so.)

But today, today was different. For the first time in my WoW history, I have been giving alts some attention. I’ve been mostlty leveling them for tradeskills, primarily through the Cooking & Fishing Dalies and the Darkmoon profession quests, just because.

I’ve been making sure one alt at a time gets through all the profession quests. And the last one I needed on the first sub-30 alt was Archaeology.

Well, it has been fascinating. Low 20s hunter, roaming through huge archeology sites. Cutting her way through dense groups of monsters to put her surveying equipment down again. Hoping that you don’t acidentally get teamed up on.

When you are near the levels of the monsters around you, this is no mere land fishing. As you collect each piece, you don’t know how many more things you might have to fight to get to the next. You push forward though, wanting to see what prize your hard work might bring and knowing you are putting yourself at risk each and every time…

 

Teaching a Geekling to Tank…

Well, four gnomes between 15 and 18 queued up for LFG yesterday and we hit the deadmines.

In our party we had:

Warrior Tank – Age 11 – New to Dungeons that don’t involve a 80+ toon carrying them along. (Youngest Daughter)
Priest Healer – 30-something Playing since Wrath. (Me)
‘Lock DPS – 30-something Playing since Vanilla
Mage DPS – Age 13 – Quiet possibly her first time in a dungeon ever. (Older Daughter)

First of all, next time we queue, I’m going to let whoever joins the four of us know:

“Hey, welcome! Just to give you advance warning, our tank and our mage are both kids and are still learning to play. We plan on teaching them as we go through, but we ask you be a little patient with us as they are learning.”

I thought of this halfway through. Our random rogue, who ironically wore the title “the Patient,” kept running ahead and killing things before we even got there and killed all the trash to one boss while we waited for our Mage to reboot due to PC issues.

I figure from now on, if I let folks know up front, at least they know what they are in for and if they want to drop, so be it.

That said, I’m having difficulty figuring out how to teach my young tank how to tank. She knows she needs to hold onto everything. I’m trying to figure out how to teach her how to pay attention to everything around her. Quite often I would mention other MoBs involved and she would be like “Huh? Where?”

If I tried to get her to mark things and establish a kill order, would any random 5th actually follow it?

More frustrating is the lack of skills at our level:

Hey, there are like 5 mobs right there, all clumped together and we have no AoE and she has no way to establish AoE threat.

It was an easy run, with no wipes, but I’m struggling to figure out how to teach her to tank…

Heh, I almost wish there was a nice “invincible” group of mobs that she could gather up and then I would actively try and pull threat off of her.  Granted, I guess threat isn’t the main mechanic for tanks in this brave new Azeroth, but still “Don’t let things attack your group” is still a pretty core concept.

Thoughts?