/end transmission
/begin Flailing

Little Break Again

/Jessrage

I am annoyed as hell with the Argent Tournament dailies these days. The thought of doing them makes me not even want to log in. And you KNOW that’s saying something considering there are five pets available and I’ve only gotten Jessmyn ONE of them. That’s right. I hate the dailies more than I love collecting pets.  And don’t tell me how fast they can be done, I know. Nor do I need to know how easy they are because that’s a subjective matter. No, this is NOT an “I can’t joust!!!” thing either, I can, and I do it well. It’s just a rant.

1. Adding a group daily. Chillmaw has always annoyed me. Just on principle.  I don’t care what class can solo it, there shouldn’t BE group requirements for a daily outside the normal and heroic daily dungeons.

2. Commanders. First off, this is a phased area. How hard would it seriously be to have the stupid commanders NOT appear when you aren’t on the quest that requires them.  Second, when you DO require them, you shouldn’t border on NEEDING a group. Oh yes I can solo it, but only in the perfect conditions. Those being:

A: When there’s not another group rounding up EVERYTHING for themselves.

B:  When someone doesn’t steal the mob.

C: When noone aggros everything, dies, and leaves me with a bunch of mobs and a repair bill.

D: When there are enough people there that adds aren’t a  problem, and none of those people are doing any of the above.

Other than that, the best way to get it done is in a group. Or skip it completely, and lose seals.

3. The NEW changes in 3.2 annoy me the most. Requiring exalted with the Sunreavers or Windrunners. Ok thats not bad but…wait, what’s this?

Argent Crusader Dailies and Rewards
A new line of dailies and rewards for players who have earned the title of Crusader will be available with two random seal-awarding dailies.

• New Heirlooms
• New Argent Crusade Banner
• New Argent Crusade Tabard: Ports you directly to the Tournament grounds.
• An Upgraded Squire: As any good squire should, this upgraded squire now has a mount.
• New Mount: A new Argent Crusade paladin-only charger will be available.

That is the part that sears my bacon, right there. But it’s only a title right? wrong. It actually requires TWO titles. You don’t get “Crusader” until you are exalted with Argent Crusade and ALL of your faction cities (Ambassador title).  Ok, there are baby zone quests I could do to get that, cloth turn ins of course. Or…the Tourney, at 1k rep for valiant dailies and a potential 1k more from Writs, plus the gold that so nicely adds up. Which brings me back to wanting to GAG every time I think of doing them.

So the patch I thought would make for more variety in the doldrums of my dailies…well only if I get “popular” enough.  Meanwhile my Pally needs to do all of this to get 25 sels to  get her Axe of Epic Irony. My druid is the closest to exalted with everyone, so I try like hell to WANT to do them with her. So far I’ve failed. My rogue gets that handy rep bonus, but is further away with rep. And my pally…she’s only honored with the entire Alliance.  Clearly ‘m not little miss popular. Of course that’s nothing new. I’ve always been too geeky to be a cool kid and not geeky enough to hang with the geeks. Thanks for the nightmares from Highschool blizz!

/end Jessrage

Agrent Temper Tantrum

From trade chat:

player1: OMG A female dwarf just rolled past me…a pally one!
player 2: Impossible, there are none!
Player 3: Screenshots or it didn’t happen lolz

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, AND Female Dwarf pallies.

And some of them even TANK!

Special thanks to my guildies for being  such willing guinea pigs, and telling me I could do it even when I thought I couldn’t.

They DO Exist!

Big Bear asked today “how’s your enthusiasm?”. And my reply, formed as I was taking a break from WoW to cook dinner ended up too long for a comment.  So, I guess I can thank him for giving me a blog post. It’s fairly obvious enthusiasm levels for WoW and WoW blogging vary by large degrees. You see people either blogging more than ever, (or in the case of Matt branching out and forming an empire! ), you see some remain steady as she goes, others give it all up. And some give up playing, and blogging about the game, but continue to blog about life in general.  And there are people like me, who blog less when they’re playing, more when they aren’t.  Bloggers and players are about as varied as you can get. But this isn’t about them. It’s about me.

My relationship with blogging and WoW is like that of a happily married couple. Having been married for just over 16 years, I feel I can safely compare the two accurately.

When I first tried WoW, I fell head over heels. I was lovestruck and giddy as a schoolgirl. That was almost 3 years ago now.  In that time, I leveled my first toon to 80, and 2 others. I’ve leveled a few alts to their 30’s. I’ve raided, PvP’ed, collected pets, farmed til my eyes bled, and cursed the day I ever met the game. But I don’t love it  any less.

Over time, the giggling school girl has calmed a little, but never for long. Why? Because much like a relationship you’ve had for 16 years, those feelings, are always just under the surface. Sure things may seem commonplace now, predictable and comfortable. BUT just like my husband, every single day WoW never ceases to do SOMETHING to make me fall in love with it again.

For example, I was on my warlock awaiting a boat to Ratchet on my trusty Felsteed. And I was looking at this mount, and marveling over the details of his skin. The stunning job they did in his texture. Like you could reach out and run your hands over the rippling muscles and accented veins, and burn yourself on the flames coming off of his muzzle.  It was in that moment, my heart skipped a beat, and I smiled, reminded of how much I do still love this game. Much like when I’m annoyed with my man, and he looks at me with a grin and winks a wink only he can wink, and makes me smile and my heart tumble in my chest.

Blogging about WoW is a container for me enthusiasm. For when I’m overflowing with stuff I want to talk about that noone but WoW players would understand.  As long as I love the game, I love this blog. Should that ever change however, I’ll continue blogging. I have been blogging since 2001, when the husband joined the army. I maintain a seperate blog for real life. Though it’s seldom updated alot of the time, it’s there, awaiting an overflow of thoughts and feelings I need to spew into it. That’s how I blog. I don’t do it every day. I do it when I have something to say. That’s a long stretch from how I started, blogging about every day…what I cooked, what I cleaned.

My level of enthusiasm for both blogging and the game remains unchanged. There is always something there. Sometimes, when things are annoying, or changes freak me out, or it does something to piss me off, I do have to look a little harder for what it is I love, why it is I still play…but it’s never failed to give me a wink and remind me.

Measuring Enthusiasm

I did not FEAR him. He ran on his own accord…and just how was I supposed to loot that?? Next time, curse of recklessness dammit.

Apparently the Theramore guards are REALLY devoted to their duty.

Sometimes a girl just needs a good stiff drink

Screensies!

I’m Still Here

“I’m done with alts”

“I am notleveling again!”

“Seenah was my LAST EVER ALT!!”

I just had alphabet soup for dinner, and those are the sentences it spelled.

Then I missed playing with hubby, as a team. So, I brought my shammy over to play with his gnome warrior. Just to see how far we can level before he deploys. Shammy and Gnome warrior tank are 30 now.

That led to thinking about my level 27 mage as a water machine. And bonus, she’s an enchanter. She can dust crap. No plans to level her much past 50-60 however.

Then Nibuca posted a video on Affliction Warlocks rotation. That led me to looking at the talents. That led me to realizing that the affliction tree, one I’ve never tried, was remarkably similar to shadow priesting before 3.0 hit. I LOVED shadow priesting before 3.0. So, now my level 30 warlock with ZERO professions is En Route to my server. What? You didn’t think I was going to reroll and suffer through those pet quests again did you?? Besides, I have a flaming pony of doom and my succy has a cool name.

I’m not done with alts. Maybe this is a good thing.

Making a Liar Out of Myself

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve focused on Jessmyn for so long almost exclusively, or what. But I seem to have lost my will to play her. Don’t get me wrong. I have loved every minute I’ve played with her. And maybe someday I’ll get that urge again.  But right now, I’m completely uninspired. Even with a change in spec available via dual talents. Today’s patch notes only made it worse.

Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.

To say I’m not impressed is an understatement. But I’m not flailing wildly either. I’ve reached surrender.  Clearly they are never going to leave this spell alone. As if lifebloom hasn’t been nerfed and changed enough over the last year. I’ve lost count at this point. They’ve nerfed the HoT and boosted the bloom. We adjusted.  They’ve increased the mana cost by double, but they made the bloom bigger depending on how many stacks were up, and it refunded a portion of the mana cost. We adjusted.  Now, here we go again.  I give up. Why not just take it way all together if they can’t make it do what they want?

As for me, well I’m having a ball on my rogue, and the shammy is looking promising.  I miss wanting to play Jess as wierd as that may sound. I really want to WANT to play her. But…all things in time I guess.

The Druid Blahs

Wednesday. Your weekly “Over the hump day”. Well we hurdled that hump, and left a few hills in the dust in the process. I think I might have even gotten my “Blahs” shaken off in the after shocks. Well, mostly anyhow. But that’s a blog entry for another day. The first thing we did tonight, was to go pay Sartharion and his little friends a visit. We even left one drake up, just to see if we could. Well, we couldn’t (YET!!) but we ended the drakes life, and killed his boss too.  Woot! Badges towards Sara’s Heirloom mace. Then…the fun really kicked into high gear!

That’s me…the rogue, in leather, on the bike. Hawt!! Oh, did I mention this was in Ulduar? We tried it last week and got pretty close, so we went for it again this week, with some knowledge and alot of “RAWR!”.  This week I chose to be in the chopper as opposed to the demolisher. Holy Shit batman was that chopper a fun ride. No, seriously, you don’t understand. I HATE vehicle fights. I refuse to do Occulus, and don’t care if I ever see Maly. I’ve hated every. single. vehicle quest.  But these choppers? squealing tire around everything dropping oil slicks and being a bigger pain in the ass than a wasp at a pinic? Oh hell yeah!  The only thing more epic than that…was one shotting that big old tin can.

Yeah, not so tough now is he? Big old steaming pile of scrap metal. HA! And yes, I forgot to back up and zoom past my toon for the screenshot. Fail. Of course, tonight was epic fail for me anyhow, I’ll share THAT embarassing moment later.  Oh!! and between OS and Ulduar, we dropped in and spent a minute destroying Archavon. One of our druids, even got the Grand War Mammoth. Taxi! How awesome is that?? Oh, I got a pretty new shiny too. No more dagger wielding rogue (well, except in stealth for those yummy ambushes).  I think I mentioned a few posts ago, that Greed dropped in a Heroic CoS run? Well tonight, I won… Kinetic Ripper. I think I possibly broke my husband’s eardrum with my Squee-ing. Seriously. Awesome! And again, more importantly…an emblem of valor…which is now an emblem of heroism, and closer to that heirloom.

BUT! The night wasn’t over. Oh no. What came next is what makes SD awesome. Not the loot, not the raids, the people. When someone asked on vent about maybe running a heroic, I was about to say “I’m in!” when one of our tanks piped up that I was desperately wanting badges, and let’s see how many we can get! THAT is what makes them awesome. When these guys know someone is working on something, and they can help…they rally up and get to it.  Do you know how many heroics we ran? Three. That’s right, after 3 raid runs, we did three heroics. Even my hubby came along on the last one. On the rogue he hasn’t played since he turned 80.  We ran Nexus, then Utgarde Pinnacle, then hey, Utgarde Keep is right here…oops we need a dps! Cue me making puppy eyes at the hubby and off we go. I went from needing 38 badges…to needing 14.  That is awesome.

It was also awesome watching Hubby play his rogue again. Though at one point I could have lived without the vent/living room stereo effect of “what do you need stealth for?”…lol! Ok, I’m a combat rogue, I can in fact just go smack stuff in the face…err back. Even though my rogue is better geared, and does more damage now, he still beats me at coordination. While I still struggle with getting in position, he’s there from the start.  The student has not yet become the master. If he had my gear, he’d kick my ass. I miss him playing that rogue. I do love to watch him work.

Oh, I promised I’d share my embarassing moment. It was just pointed out during heroic Nexus, that Draenei have a tattoo on their foreheads. I mentioned if I had one, it would say “DUH”. That was good for a chuckle.

Not five minutes later, I proved myself right. That’s when I realized, that all through OS, and Archavon, and all the way through the 3rd boss of Nexus, I was happily stabbing things with my UNPOISONED weapons.  Here’s your sign Jess! DUH!!

And…to finish up, some achievements!

somehow multishot missed my “Heroic: Utgarde Pinnacle” achievement, but hey…C’est La Vie! And my next project after Sara has her weapon? Get Me To The Choppa!! I gotta have one. It looks damned good on me.

That was a BIG Hump!

So, I’ve gotten alot done…and I’m in a slump. Both gamewise, and bloggingwise. It happens. I hope it goes away soon.

Seenah- Rogue

• Caught up with Jess gearwise for the most part.
• Exalted with the Alliance Vanguard
• Has learned the chopper schematic
• Exalted with Argent Crusade

Alt I said I’d never level, Sara the Shammy..

• Lvl 30
• has mount
• professions all expert level

Things I have to bitch about

• Lack of Elemental shammy gear in Azeroth. Seriously Blizz, I see drops in atlasloot that say mail (yay!) and have stam and intellect (ohh I’m getting excited!!)…and ATTACK POWER (Blast you!!). Seriously, it gets old. You pick a toon. Blizz says “look, here are three distinct playing styles, find one you love and play it. Whoops! Sorry wrong choice! sorry bout the lack of gear!” Wtf. And I accept that I’ll be wearing cloth. I’ve leveled a moonkin for pete’s sake. But Where are the decent caster stat ONE HANDED weapons?? Oh, that’s right I have to grind heroics for badges for that.  Oh, and badges of course aren’t BoA, so I have to make sure I do ALL my heroics on ONE toon. Because if I get tokens on another one, they’re useless towards my weapon goal.

I had something else to bitch about, but I forget what it is at the moment.

Slumpity Slump