the right stuff

we haz it! the best part? the [Headless Horseman's Reins] scale with riding skill, so it automatically becomes an epic flying mount once you buy the Artisan Riding skill. /glee

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Hallow's End

it's that time of year again; hallow's end. the time where hordes of 70s make a mad dash for the Scarlet Monastery and lay waste to a certain special someone in the graveyard wing... the Headless Horseman. we kinda feel bad for him, but that didn't stop us from beating him down like the loot pinata he is!

it was like christmas for us... our first run we picked up [The Horseman's Blade] (had to leave it in the bank for a while because we were only lvl 67 at the time) and our second run we nabbed the [Hallowed Helm] and the [Ring of Ghoulish Delight]. around about our fifth run we lucked out and won the roll for [The Horseman's Reins] as well as a [Magic Broom]. on our last run, we picked up [The Horseman's Helm] (thanks again, Bell). the ol' Horseman was generous indeed, this year. the only thing we didn't get from him that we wanted was the [Sinister Squashling] pet, but we lucked out and got one in one of our trick or treat bags.

we hit every single candy bucket in azeroth and outlands, did all the hallow's end quests and have completed all the hallow's end achievements available with the exception of The Mask Task, which we've heard is going to be removed (acquire 20 items based on blind luck? ouch...). now if only there were a t-shirt or something...

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over achiever

patch 3.0.2 introduced the concept of achievements. when we first heard about them we didn't think much of it, but now that they're actually here we find that they're rather addicting. we started small at first (yes, we got this one by accident...), but soon we had to have more and more. after a while we got to the point where we'd do anything for a fix. the gods only know where it will all end...

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Ding!

Daelan hit 70 monday. he marks our 6th entry in the level 70 club. total played was about 9 days, 6 hours. we mentioned previously that we weren't going to follow our usual power-leveling plan and that we'd be taking time out for other things (crafting, in-game holidays, etc.). despite that, it still felt like we leveled pretty fast. the 60-70 part especially so. makes us wonder if blizz quietly tweaked the xp required per level so more people will be 70 when wrath rolls out...

when we first rolled a warrior, we had a protection spec in mind. swords, shields, heavy armor... that's what a warrior was all about, we thought. everything we read said to level as anything but prot, however. leveling prot was like leveling as a healer: slow and painful. so we went arms for a while (2-handed goodness!) and then fury after that (dual wield betterness!), thinking that we'd let prot wait until we were 70 or nearly so. all that changed with the new talents in patch 3.0.2.

we are happy to report that as of the patch, leveling as prot is no longer painful in any way. it's actually a lot of fun! we changed to a full protection build at 60, when the patch came out, and we have been extremely happy with it. our dps actually went *up* by almost 20% when we changed from our old fury build to our new prot build! now, we're sure our dps isn't anywhere near what a true dps build can churn out with the new talents, but we still mow down mobs nice and fast so we're happy. with our stuns, silences, abilities to break roots (the new human racial is a huge bonus here) and overall durability we do fairly well in pvp (rogues especially hate us) even with so-so gear. questing is cake; even soloing 2-man quests is easy now. tanking, of course, is much smoother. it wasn't too bad for us with just a few points in prot, but with a true prot build our threat ceiling is much, much higher; at level 69 we were holding agro on mobs easily even with another 70 warrior pumping out 1200+ dps. and can we just say how much being able to charge, in any stance, in or out of combat, breaking roots, 5 yards further and 20% more often rocks? it does!

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world first!

we were in IF training up (66, woohoo!) and doing some shopping when an urgent call went out in /1 for everyone to come to the military ward. "horde?", we thought? we mounted up and rode over to check it out. the scene we arrived upon was epic. a raid and a half worth of valiant heroes banded together to battle the greatest foe IronForge has ever faced. naturally, we charged right in to do our part. it was a long and hard fight, but in the end the might of the Alliance prevailed and the dreaded Heroic Training Dummy was beaten down. obligatory kill shot below.



world first! you saw it here...

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saved!

a few hours after we submitted our ticket, we were contacted by a GM:



she got us fixed up (plunked Daelan down outside the gates of IF) and then left us with this:



gotta love GMs that role play /grin

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/facepalm

things not to do while instancing:

- do not show up drunk.

- do not proclaim to the group, loudly and repeatedly, how drunk you are. also, see above.

- do not get out-dps'd by a tank who's 3 levels lower than you (yes mr. 65 warrior, we're looking at you).

- do not turn party chat into a cyber session. if you must cyber, confine it to whispers. bonus points for amusing mis-tells. btw, that "hot" female drae priest is most likely played by a guy...

- do not whirlwind next to the sapped/repentanced mob.

- if the tank tells you not to stand in the green shit, do not stand in the green shit.

- if the tank tells you he's going to corner pull, do not stand in the doorway and swing at every mob that passes you.

- if the pull goes bad, take it like a man and DI the healer. do not bubble and run like the sissy we all know you are.

- if you see a land mine, do not feel compelled to step on it.

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new (old) content

Daelan reached 55 seasons last night, but it was not a pretty process. we found a quest line in the blast lands that we'd never done before. we'd seen it, but back in the day it was a group quest (parts of it, at least) and since we hardly ever travel with a group we'd never bothered to do it. however, since patch 2.3 a lot of former "group" quests are now solo-able content (elites aren't elite anymore, etc.). so, we decided to give it a whirl this time. besides, it fit in nicely with the 2nd stage of our lvl 50 warrior quest (killing mobs in the same area).

so, we go around merrily killing mobs... and get ganked by a warlock (70; in full merciless glad gear, naturally). ok, fair enough. we were close to the road leading to the dark portal and it was an opportunity gank. meh. we rez and get back to killing and a short while later get ganked again. belf hunter this time. we had two mobs on us when she walked up, watched us work the mobs for a bit and then decided that we weren't dying fast enough or something. in goes the pet, we give the hunter a couple of token whacks and we're back having tea with the spirit healer. wonder if there's a frequent dier program we could sign up for... once again, rez and get back to killing (lots of mobs to kill) and we get a visit from a lvl 63 prot warrior. death by devastate spam. curse you cruel world! at this point we're just happy that the blasted lands is a fairly small zone; makes for shorter corpse runs.

we finally wrapped up that quest line only to learn that there's another one right after it (and one after that, too, according to wowhead). so we accepted, 'cause it was new content for us, and that's where the real fun began. back to where we were killing mobs, only now we had to carve a path right through the middle of them and into a cave they've taken up residence in. hmm, this is going to hurt. we make it about 1/2 way into the cave and then get an unlucky 3-pull (one was hiding behind a rock). we almost get things under control when a patrol catches us in the arse, we run out of health potions and we go down. meh, bad luck. run back, rez and clear the rest of the way into the cave and we find our quest mob and 2 guards. switch over to tanking gear and in we go! ... and down we go. quest mob has a 75% armor pierce ability and we picked up an add. ok, crappy start but we can do this. we run back, find a safe spot to rez and try focusing on the guards first this time instead of our quest mob (most of the damage seemed to come from them last time). our plan didn't quite go down the way we'd hoped and we took another visit to dead-ville. run back, rez and ZOMG RESPAWNS ON TOP OF U... dead. crap. we needed a break (and health potions), so we spirit rez and hop over to IF to train (we'd hit 54 earlier). quick stop in the AH for health potions and to look for gear upgrades (why in the name of all that's unholy is plate so gods-forsaken expensive on our server?! 150g for a green, level 50 chest piece?! ugh.) and we're back on the bird to the blasted lands.

we battle our way back into the cave, slice and dice the patrols (yes, we see you mr. I'm-hiding-behind-a-rock-waiting-to-eat-your-face-when-you-turn-around mob) and get to our quest mob; our decomposing skeletons still on the ground as a reminder of our less-then-stellar earlier attempts. tanking gear... check. defensive stance... check. houston, we are go! we go for the guards first and ignore the boss, use a health potion half way through the 2nd guard and then it's just us and ugly. it got hairy towards the end and we were down to 5% life with 1 minute to go on our health potion cooldown, so we popped our intimidating shout/bandage macro and prayed... "oh crap, he's immune to fear! ... but we're still bandaging ourself... ?!" we got a lucky break; ugly decided to try to repeatedly cast mana burn on us instead of ripping our head off and we got a full bandage in. smacked him around a bit more and VICTORY... and that was step one of that quest line. next few steps have us running off to azshara to go swimming or something. we're not sure if it was worth the aggravation and 1.5g repair bill, but it is new content for us and we got a war story out of it.

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"Daelan died"

we saw that message a lot on sunday. more times than we can count, really. first, there were the gankers in swamp of sorrows... the 70 mage near the green whelpings, then the 70 warrior, then the 70 warlock and finally an entire horde kara raid. then there was another 70 warlock on the way into blasted lands. then there was that 70 priest in stv... now, we expect to take our licks living on a pvp server and all, but great googly moogly! that was a bit much.

between all the gankings and deaths caused by silly mistakes, bad luck and learning the fine art of playing a warrior, we may well have set a new personal record.

in the past we've taken great pride in our ability to avoid death while questing, even when soloing content that many players would find difficult. looking back on it, we realize that a large part of our past longevity was due to taking full advantage of the survival abilities of whatever class we were playing at the time. warriors, though... yeesh. no pets to sacrifice, no haul-yer-ass-outta-dodge abilities, no insta-hide or play-dead skills, no healing abilities (draenei aside) and no real crowd control other than a short fear that requires 1/4 of your rage bar. you pretty much just have to sit there and take it or run like a sissy and pray you don't get dazed before the mobs leash. or at least that's how we've been rolling so far... we're pretty sure we have a lot to learn, though.

in other news, we hit 45 and finally had enough arms talents to pick up mortal strike. wow. we're sure it's due in large part to the big axe were swinging, but mortal strike crits are just... juicy! 700+ on a soft target (poor imp). mmm, mmm, good!

speaking of big axes, we're also about to replace ours. being human (racial bonus to swords and maces) and also having talent points in sword specialization, we've been waiting to get our hands on a good two-handed sword to replace our axe. one more level (47) and the wait is over... we just finished crafting a [Truesilver Champion]. it's not as slow as we'd like, but it's good enough and it allows us to start taking full advantage of our spec and racial bonuses. we also cooked up a [Light Earthforged Blade] for when we have to go sword & board. the only downside to all this sharp-edged, shiny goodness is that our weapon skill with any kind of sword blows right now. we'll be spending a lot of time laying waste to deadmines in our to work on that.

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updates and such

apologies for the slow updates; we've been a wee bit busy of late. despite that, Daelan has now reached the ripe old age of 37 seasons. after giving it some thought, we've decided we're going to go with an arms/fury build and become a master swordsmith rather than a prot build and armorsmithing. prot's fun and all, but it really boils down to the fact that we like killing things. while fury is arguably the highest individual dps spec, it didn't appeal to us on an aesthetic level because it just seemed a little too rogue-ish (and we've already done that before). so, an arms/fury build and a (very big and scary) two-handed weapon is in our future.

since our last post we've become an official, card-carry goblin engineer. we've done gnomish engineering a couple times before, so thought we'd give goblin a try this time 'round. besides, the [Goblin Rocket Launcher] is just too much fun to pass up. though we may lack some of the toys that our gnomish engineering brethren enjoy we will be very, very good at blowing things up (see above re: killing things). and yes, we fully realize that one of those "things" may well be us. such is the life of a goblin engineer.

we are now mounted! words cannot describe what a pleasure it is to ride through all the lvl 30-40 quest zones that we used to run through. that initial foray into STV, trekking from one end of duskwood to the other (again and again and... well, you get the point), running from the bank to the forge... all faster now. /glee!

speaking of being mounted (no, not like that)... let it be known that riding a ram in a straight line while smashed is really hard.

one of the things we've been enjoying about the warrior class are the class-specific quests, which are all new to us. Bell was kind enough to help us with part of our whirlwind quest (two words: big. axe.) and with that completed, we switched over from our early fury build to an arms-heavy build. we're still trying to get used to the whole slam rotation thing. we're also trying to figure out the whole "stance dance" thing... as in, when and why to do it, how to do it efficiently, etc. we experimented a bit with berserker stance once we first got it, but battle stance seems a better choice for us at the moment. a chat with a certain orc may be in order; we have much to learn...

another thing bell helped us with was a quick run-through of SM, where we had the great pleasure of meeting Bellezza. she's new to the blogging scene and we're looking forward to seeing what's she got. go over and say hi; she's very sweet.

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