Mine are: dive deeper into video game development. Get my hands dirtier than they already are. And go to GDC, since it’s in my backyard. And turn this blog into a place where I can record my progress.

I feel like that’s small enough. I’ll start there. I have a few other goals that maybe I’ll poke, but for now I’ll only tackle a handful of targeted ones.

Kit hits 80!

Huzzah! Kitenrhea just hit 80 yesterday! And it reminded me of all the questing that still needs to be done after you’ve reached 80. Some 80s only think questing is something you do until you reach 80. Then its pure instancing. Well, to put it bluntly, they’re a bit wrong.

First of all, you will need to head to Storm Peaks. There is a goblin in Dalaran that sends to K3, suggesting that it is a luxurious retreat. It’s actually quite simple to get to; you don’t need no stinkin’ goblin tellin’ ya where to go! So anyway, once you reach K3 you want to talk to a female goblin inside the inn. She offers you a quest called They Took Our Men! Snag that one for sure. This is the start of the Sons of Hodir quest chain. Take the other one she offers for good measure and free money. It’s in the same area you’re headed to.

So, if you’re new to the game – you may be asking, who are the Sons of Hodir and why do I care? The Sons of Hodir are a giant type race that lives in the frosty mountaintops of Storm Peaks. Initially they are hateful towards you, but this quest chain will change that. As you follow the chain, it will dump you off at being honored with the Sons. This allows you to buy shoulder enchants that you will need if you’re interested in instancing or raiding.

Landed in K3 in Storm Peaks

Really, you want to be exalted with the Sons. This allows you access to more powerful shoulder enchants. These are BoA (bind on account) and can be sent to other 80s you may have in the future. Once you finish the quest chain, the Sons of Hodir will offer you dailies you can do for reputation and money (that you can put towards your epic flying training). This will help you reach exalted quickly. You can also turn in any Relic of Ulduar you loot or Everfrost Chips you find on the ground in the surrounding areas for extra reputation.

Once you reach exalted with the Sons of Hodir, unless you love the dailies, you will never ever have to do them again. Yes, you may celebrate in general. But! There are more quests to be done while you’re 80.

The next quest line you should do is freeing the Shadow Vault. In Dalaran, there should be a quest giver for your faction that offers to fly you to your respective skyship in Icecrown. On that ship will be a token Death Knight. Talk to him and he should send you to destroy the Ocular above the Shadow Vault; the quest is called It’s all Fun and Games. Once you do so, this launches you into a quest chain. Follow it until you kill an elite death knight within the Vault itself. This will cause Knights of the Ebon Blade to move into the Shadow Vault and cause the territory to be non-hostile. Snag the flight point and do the quests offered by the death knights until you are friendly and can snag the Knight’s tabard from their quartermaster. You will need this tabard as you instance.

Flying outside the Shadow Vault

Those are the two required quest chains to do after you’ve dinged 80. If you wish to unlock more dailies you can do most of the quests in Icecrown and Storm Peaks. You will find dailies in the strangest of places sometimes. Two other noteworthy places to check out for sure are the Argent Tournament Grounds in Icecrown and River’s Heart in Sholazar Basin. These two places will lead you to a bunch of dailies to make you more money.

Once you have these reputations settled and comfortable, and your daily quests acquired, you should pick up all the tabards that let you gain rep while in heroics. You will have to be friendly with the following reputations to snag their tabard, showing your support. Here’s the order I suggest following if you’re a healer/caster. If not, I will list the perks of each and you can pick which is most important for you.

• Kirin Tor – Based in Dalaran at Violet Citadel – Offer healers and casters important head enchant of spell power and crit at revered.
• Wyrmrest Accord – Based in Dragonblight at Wyrmrest Temple – Offer healers and casters head enchant of spell power and mp5 at revered.
• Argent Crusade – Based in Icecrown at Argent Vanguard – Offer tanks a head enchant with stamina and defense at revered and a healer/caster ring at exalted.
• Knights of the Ebon Blade – Based in Icecrown at Shadow Vault – Offer melee dps a head enchant of attack power and critical strike at revered.
• Argent Vanguard/ Horde Expedition (rep gained by wearing no tabard in instances) – Based in respective faction main starting towns – Offer engineering pattern for Mekgineer’s Chopper and a PvP head enchant with stamina and resilience.

These suggestions are just the basics for a fresh 80. As you travel around Azeroth and Northrend you will find different ways to make money and gather gear. Just keep your eyes open and be logical. Blizzard has tried over the years to make the game helpful and friendly towards fresh 80s. There are also friendly people around. If you have a simple question, just ask. Someone will point you in the right direction.

If you have any questions or comments for me, leave ‘em here! Let me know. I’ll be happy to help. I’m also slowly learning how to blog on WordPress… This post looks a bit more cleaned up than the last one I made. Yay for progress!

Step 1: Do you have a profession that can make gear? Did you level it? Do you have a friend who has one you can use? If so! Gather mats. Hopefully you have some kind of profession. If not – pick up something useful to start out with. You can always re-roll your professions. Clothy? Tailoring. Druid, rogue, hunter, shaman? Leatherworking. Plate wearer? Blacksmithing. Don’t waste your time if this is your first 80 on this server on something like jewelcrafting or enchanting. You can level those later if you really think you need them.

Step 2: Getting mats. If you picked up something that needs a gathering profession – pick it up too. Tailoring is the only exception here. If you are a clothy, and are short money – don’t pick up enchanting. Pick up some other gathering profession. Once you make some money, drop it and pick up enchanting. Once you gather a bunch of mats, replace all your gear lower than required level 77 (iLvl 175 for blues) if you can. You want all your gear to be required level 78 (iLvl 187) or higher. And the more blues you have, the better. Note: For easy leveling, check out http://www.wow-professions.com/ for a great guide and tips on what to craft to level you up the fastest. Using this guide isn’t the cheapest way to level, so you may need a little extra cash on hand, but you can always check it out if you get stuck.

Step 3: Redo your spec!! Your leveling spec is probably not the one you want for running instances and doing top dps. Search around on the internet for tips and suggestions for the spec you’re interested in. You can also run around Dalaran /inspecting people the same class as you with impressive looking gear. If they have good enough gear, they’re probably doing ok for themselves. Also read every talent and ask yourself “Will this actually benefit me”. Sometimes you have to decide between a +crit talent or a mana reduction talent. If you’re low level and find yourself OOMing a lot, snag the mana reduction one. The +crit wont help if you don’t have any mana to cast a spell to crit in the first place. Later on, when you get a larger int pool or higher mana regen, then you can replace the mana reduction talent for the +crit. So don’t go blindly copying someone else’s spec! Think about how it will benefit you at this stage of your gaming career.

Step 3.5: And train! You have no idea how many fresh 80s forget to pick up their level 80 spells because they’re so excited that they’ve reached max rank. Don’t let this be you! Train today!

Step 4: This one’s easy. Take off every single spell with a rank from your bar, and replace it. As you were leveling, especially if you have dual spec, some of your spells will be down ranked and not as effective as the max rank spell. By simply removing the spell and replacing it with the one in your spellbook, it will be correct. Coming from a healer, who was using Rank 2 Flash of Light at level 80 instead of Rank 9 to heal Heroic ToC and losing none on Black Knight, it’s a lot less stressful when you’re using the correct rank of spell. Yes, this will be replaced in Cataclysm, but until then, don’t make your life harder. Even dps! Note: If you don’t want to think hard, and love addons, get RankWatch. It will tell you (or a party member) whenever you used a downranked spell. It has saved me and my party members many times. I highly recommend it until Cataclysm comes out. I will explain this addon more in my List of Addons at the top of the page.

Step 5: Lots and lots and lots of heroics. Queue up for that random! And shake that healthy dps maker! Yes, the queue will be a bit long for a pure dps class, but you can be gathering or doing dailies while you wait. Yaaay money. If you’re a healer, or even better a tank, you will have no wait at all. And remember: need if needed. But also, be kind. If you’re farming Trial of the Champion normal for every piece of gear you can use, and the tank is farming for that black heart trinket… let the tank have it if you’re offspec is tanking. You wont use it right away and once you’re more geared and you can tank ToC Norm, then you will be eligible for that trink. Yes, not everyone thinks like this, and someone may take it from you, but usually if you let everyone know that it’s the only thing you need to complete your tanking set, people usually pass it to you.

One final note: Always thank your healers. They probably have the most stressful job in the game. Dps are dps and are usually expendable, no offence meant. Tanks are tanks, and if they’re holding aggro, that’s their job. Healers are responsive for every single other person’s health, and their greater wellbeing. Dying can be frustrating, and people usually take it out on the healers. Most of them really are trying their damnedest. They just might be under geared or in experienced. But someday, I’m sure you will find a healer that is amazing. Remember, they were under geared and inexperienced at some point or another. They were frustrated and upset for a while as they geared up and learned what to do in different situations. So, after each heroic, if there were minimal deaths, just say “Thanks healer!” and you will make someone’s day.

Feel free to comment if you’ve think I’ve missed anything or if you have something to add! :D Also updated List of Addons.

• attempt to teach healers about better healing techniques
• entertain you with stories that hopefully aren’t annoying
• and give you, as the listener, an inside look at my life.

My real name is Katie Murphy, middle initial D. According to the internet, my name is Seto Sora. Two names I pulled from two of my favorite video games at the time. First, Seto, from Final Fantatsy VII. Seto is Nanaki’s father who *spoiler alert* dies defending his home city from invaders. A brave soul. Yes, I realize it’s a male name, so shush. I’ve made it female. Second, Sora, I took from not Kingdom Hearts but Digimon. Sora was not my favorite character, but she did use bird type digimon, which are at the top of my list. I’m a gamer girl, a story teller, an adventurer, and try to be a fun person. Some say I smile too much, I say no such thing. Haha. Click to read more about me and my blog!

My video game habits are very diverse. I mainly enjoy playing RPGs, but have many other video games under my belt. Currently I play WoW. I’m a huge fan. I am also in the middle of Final Fantasy XIII and Pokemon SoulSilver. I just recently downloaded the demo for Fat Princess and am eagerly waiting the arrival of Steam for Mac so I can jump into Team Fortress 2 with both feet. Another thing is, I type the way I talk. I’m a very conversational person, also very excitable, so usually my typing is very … emotive. XD

So! First things first! Again, welcome to my blog. If you’re on my main page, you’ve noticed the lay out. At the very top are some links to other pages. Directly above all the posts are my post categories. These make it easier for people following my blog for a particular reason to find just those posts about those topics. You can see the posts, and to the right of them, there lies Seto’s Tweets. This is what happens when my character, a level 80 Holy Paladin who has been though a lot, gets a hold of a twitter account. At the very bottom, you can contact me though email, Facebook, or my own personal twitter. I’ve also listed a few links that may be helpful or interesting, so check those out every so often, as they probably will be changing.

A brief summary of the topics:
• A Spaz – Kind of like twitter, but even more random. Records deep thoughts or spastic happenings.
• Nature2Light – Since this was going to be a healing blog, and it’s what I do best in WoW, here are my thoughts on ways healers can improve their healing. Also some tips and tricks to ponder.
• Setosora IRL – In Real Life events revolving around me. I’m not a complainer, so don’t think it will be the emo section of my blog. Exciting events that are more relavant appear here.
• Story Time – Because I love stories, I’ll place stories I write in this category. Not sure if you will like them or not, but we shall see!
• WoW in General – Everything else related to WoW, whether it’s guilds, making money, or just squeeing over new content.

Eventually, I plan to start producing Podcasts of my blog. Not sure what it will have in it from story to WoW tips and tricks, but there will be one, and all you wonderful people get to listen to my lovely voice. :D

In the upcoming days I will produce my first real post! Not counting this one and the ones previous… those don’t count at all… They’re just placeholders! And the topic of choice will be Addon discussion! Exciting? Yes/no?

Anyway, thanks for finding my blog. I welcome all feedback, positive and negative, so comment away! I really appreciate it.

Take it from the dps!

Take it from the tanks!

They know what’s best!

…not.

Use it!

Or even just look into it. So you know what it is! In case others use it around you.

This is a test.

No need to be alarmed.

This is a test.

The stories behind my adventures have been swimming around in my head since, well, they happened. From the days of my youth, growing up on a ship, playing with fire, to respecting the Light, dealing with dragons, and now studying the ways of nature.

This journal is going to attempt to record my thoughts and events as I see them. Attached is some history of my family, aquantances, and a handful of my life. I hope it reveals some information behind the Seto who wrote these words. The Legend.