Vonya’s still not quite level 74.

When she entered Northrend, she was wearing mainly badge gear, with a smattering of Zul’Aman and Kara pieces, augmented with a few five-man bits and the shoulders from Gruul.

She was well geared, but certainly not geared out of BC content.

Upgrades vs Sidegrades

As we quest and instance in Northrend, I am still not seeing what I would traditionally term “upgrades”. 

I AM seeing quite a few things that I might call “sidegrades”. Gear that is similar to what I’m currently wearing, with boosts to some stat or another but with some drops in a few other stats.

I’ve been hemming and hawing, dancing from hoof to hoof, trying to decide whether to take the sidegrades. It’s an especially disconcerting decision because in almost every case, I’m looking at significant stam and int boosts with a drop in spellpower and some drop in mana regen.

Ten spellpower here, eight spellpower there, another fifteen spellpower there…it all adds up, and the numbers I’m seeing would make BC-Vonya cringe.

Northrend

But that was BC-Vonya. Northrend is a brand new game. Stats are weighted differently, talent changes mean that traditional strategies are, in some cases (such as downranking) completely thrown out the window.

It’s new. Fresh.

I know that if I just hold off, I’ll start seeing geniuine upgrades and not just sidegrades. The difference will be clear instead of muddy - the benefit obvious without a whole lot of face-squnching and hurried mental math to try and weigh the benefits against the losses.

But I have made a decision, and I thought I’d share it with you.

The Decision

I’m taking the sidegrades.

I’m not taking anything that’s obviously a downgrade, but I’m taking a lot of very shady, iffy sidegrades. From now on, if I spend more than a minute trying to decide whether the Northrend gear is better for me than my Outland gear, I’m going to take the new gear.

Why?

New Game

Partially because of what I said earlier - it’s a new game. The weights are different, the talent changes still have my head spinning, and this gear was developed specifically for Northrend content.

My old gear was developed for Burning Crusade content.

Does that mean the new gear is intrinsically better? No, not necessarily. But if Blizz is throwing items with 20+ more stam on them, and 8 less spellpower, maybe they’re trying to tell me to expect a lot of AOE damage. Maybe they’re telling me that I’ll need my mana pool boosted, with that 15+ int upgrade, even though I lose the MP5 I had on the previous gear.

Blizz would probably be the first to tell you that they aren’t perfect, they don’t know it all.

But they’re practically shouting this to me, and I am going to listen. I will trade, cringing and unhappy, my Outland gear for the new Northrend stuff, and put my character in Blizzard’s hands. 

I’m hoping they don’t drop me.

Elitist

The other reason is a bit more…egotistical of me.

Maybe this gear really is a downgrade. Maybe my old, awesome, shiny, fabulous, glittering gear is better than this stuff.

…what are other priests out there using, kleenex? Hell no! They’re using THIS gear! This gear, that I’m so torn about turning to, they’re gobbling up like the true upgrades they really are.

And then they’re turning around and healing the pants off these instances I’m running.

So what, I’m too good for the gear that other priests are using? Just because I managed to hit more end-game content than they did in BC? 

Why should any of you listen to me prattle on about how to heal in Northrend if I’m not even wearing Northrend gear?!

That’s like a wealthy housewife telling you to save money by firing one of your extra gardeners. Gee, thanks, that’s helpful. Now how about some advice from someone who actually knows what it’s like to pinch some pennies?

How about some advice from a priest who’s doing the same desperate dancing with the Five Second Rule that you are?

Summary

I’m taking the side grades. And I’m going to heal those instances, heal those raids, learn the new rules of this class, and I am going to ROCK at it.

Why? Because priests are the best healing class in this game.

That’s a pretty opinionated statement, but I’m a pretty opinionated person, and when I say it, it’s absolutely true. There might be one or two other healing blogs out there that would disagree, but if Phaelia from Resto4Lifewere to say that druids were the best healing class in the game, I’d nod and raise my glass, one healer to another.

Is my decision the right one? Who knows? It’s the right one for me, I know that. Whether or not it’s the right one for you is your call.

So what about you guys? How are you approaching the gear in Northrend?

Stuck with what you ask? My Rogue. It’s the only class I never tire of. I can play for days on end without even going “man I wonder what this other class is like”. It’s the class that I feel at home on, I just know how to do what and why and when and feel I do so pretty well.

If I do say so.

I was running around on a Ret Paladin before the expansion playing Mana Battery again. The first weeks of OP were fun but got boring fast and felt like it took virtually no skill to play in PvE content, again this is my personal feeling. Oh, I know not everyone will agree with that, but when your rotation is “First Come, First Serve” it seems a little bit silly. (FCFS means as soon as an ability comes off cooldown you use it.) And if you’ve taken offense to that I’m sorry just remember it’s my opinion, and not anyone elses. People were kind enough to let me switch back to my Rogue. For that I’m grateful.

I’ll be focusing more and more on the Rogue, trying to find that niche of a money making scheme in Northrend. Much like the days of Mana Tombs in Buring Crusade or further back yet farming the Arcanite Reaper Pattern in Blackrock Spire in the Vanilla WoW days…Oh yes I will makes me some cash!

Last time I found the cash cow (Mana Tombs) before I even stumbled across the idea of farming on the internet (yay me!). While everyone else was doing the Mechanar Chest Farming which Blizzard eventually fixed, I was in Mana Tombs having a blast. Once I find the new cash cow, I’ll be sure to share. And from the taste of the expansion so far, these past 6 days, it looks like we’ll need it.

Of the dailies I have seen or bothered to do this far, the max gold I’ve seen rewarded is 4g and 40s. Even the old Outland dalies have been fixed to that amount. Even the lovely “Gather Nether Residue” I could do via mining nodes which gave 18g and some odd silver has been removed completly from what I can tell. Maybe it’s bugged?

I dropped my Rogues Leatherworking in favor of Skinning. At first this was to make some cash off the AH, but it turned into funding my guilds Off Tank’s Leatherworking. He’s of course sharing the benifits with me and often tells me how awesome I am. I’ve also been dontating all my ore to fund Ego’s Jewelcrafting as she doesn’t have a miner either and threatened me with doom if I didn’t do it.(Mostly kidding, but not really. No kidding, but seriously. I need HALP, she’s after my SOUL!.)

I am now kicking myself in my ass for not doing my dailies on all 3 of my 70s like a diligent person and having close to 20,000g by the time expansion hit. While it would have been nice, I just didn’t feel like doing it at the time. To busy hanging out and goofing of to bother. Now I know I’m only 74 and things may change at level 80, but I haven’t seen anything about it. We shall see. Gold has never really been a problem for me, but I usually have a plot already started by now.

I will add that I have been mining Thorium in my free time. Seems as if a lot of people need the ore and are more than happy to pay the 40g a stack on the AH. And until they stop doing so I will gladly go to Silithus in my free time and continue to supply. Pro-Tip!:if you have a miner and are bored or leveling with friends and don’t wish to get to far ahead or just need the cash for those freaking expensive skills, go bum around in Silithus for a while. Assuming your server is like mine and Thorium is the most expensive ore on the AH, regardless it will sell.

My Rogue is 74 and as to my first impressions about the expansion? It sure is pretty. I can “see” why they didn’t want us flying past everything untill later in the levels, cause you’d miss a lot of cool looking stuff. And man oh man some of those instances are just stellar. My personal favorite, going of the whole instance would prolly be Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. If I was just to pick a room it would have to be where you fight Grand Magus Telestra in The Nexus. All those Runes are sooo cool.

I give mad props to the Art Team this time around, I actually spend time looking at my surroundings rather then running past them at top speed. The armor so far has some pretty cool models but as usual soooo many of the new models are reused over and over agian. I know it’s not easy to make everything unique but they could mix it up a little bit.

So far I’m enjoying this expansion. I hope everyone else is too.

See ya next week.

I promise otherwise Ego has permission to “punish” me.

P.S. - Kwane pointed out all Rogues should be steller dancers as all we ever do is count “One, Two, Three. Four, Five, Finisher.” And for this I hate him, mostly because I can’t argue agianst it.

I suppose I could do an insightful look at talent points (eGADs don’t look at my current spec. I’m…uh…experimenting. And by ‘experimenting’, I mean ‘too lazy to do the research yet’.).

Maybe I could do a comparison of holy versus disc healing? How holy will still play footsies with the FSR, but disc will scorn spirit on gear?

Or maybe I could do an in-depth review of stats at higher levels! I could discuss how spirit is getting nerfed but isn’t useless by a long shot. Or how int is actually one of our major regen stats now if we can depend on replenishment in our raids?

Nope.

No, today, I am going to talk about yarn balls.

In Dalaran, there is a little building with a bunch of new mounts displayed outside. It’s a pet store. Go inside and talk to the little gnome who runs the joint. She sells stuff for your vanity pets. Something to make it sparkle, something to make it happy (complete with little heart bubble of joy), a leash that’s more irritating than not….

….and yarn balls.

That’s right.

You can play fetch with your vanity pets.

And let me be the first to say that the smolderweb spider hatchling pet looks incredibly adorable chasing after a ball of yarn and bringing it back to you in its mandibles. All it’s missing is a cute little jump and spin excitement combo.

…what? There’ll be plenty of time for insightful and useful posts on playing a healing priest. Later. For now, I’m still giddy over the sea cows. And the walrus people. And my obsession with getting a little baby penguin pet. Have you SEEN the anvils for blacksmithing in the walrus villages? They look like sushi! They ride turtles! WE ride turtles - boats back and forth from their villages. Their moustaches twitch when they’re preparing to fight.

I swear, that entire race and faction was created just for me. Naxx will have to wait. There are walruses to save!!

(Right, so maybe the quest where you toss wolvar puppies into a sack and hand them over every day is a smiiiiiidge on the creepy side. And maybe killing the leader of the wolvar and then bathing in his blood is closer to psychotic than adorable. Seriously. That stain’s never going to come out of my robe. Just think of the penguin, just think of the penguin….)

Oh well, I’ll spare you my shattered rosey glasses view on Outland.  Instead, lets discuss our new friends, recently turned traitor again.  See, they turned traitor by joining the Scourge and getting all these nifty powers.  Then they turned traitor again by giving the Scourge the finger and coming back to us.  I’m sure they will be very trustworthy from here on…

Anyway.

I have a hypothesis.(That means “i c wut u did thar”)

I believe every rouge, loladin, fury warrior, and those enhancement shamans and mages that were always ticked off whenever a warlock beat them on the meters, all got together and rolled death knights.

In the spirit of continuing to differentiate between those people and the ones that have evolved beyond slime mold into a player that learns about the class and is willing to work in a group situation, we shall now be calling them DoucheKnights.

DoucheKnights can tank, no matter what tree the majority of their talent points are invested in. From experience, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter if the points are mostly in ice, blood, or undead - they can tank. Just as the druids’ feral tree is not ‘just’ cat, or ‘just’ bear, it depends on where the points are placed within that tree; so too are the trees of the new hero class.

The problem is how LONG they can tank.

DK’s are inherently squishier than warriors or bears or paladins. In their defense, they have a lot of abilities that heal themselves through damage. In a regular, non-spike fight, a DK could get by with no external healing. It is possible, as was called out many times in general chat across Hellfire Peninsula, that a group of 5 DKs could do fine through an instance. No healer needed, no healer wanted. Who wants someone in your party that can’t take hits when everyone else is focused on one target? Who wants to wait for mana after that last battle knocked everyone down to about 20% health? And no one wants to hear some blood elf priestess in the back going “Will you f-ers decide which one of you is going to f-ing tank?!”

“lawl were all tanks”

I don’t know much about the names of DK titles. Most of the DKs I worked with were not the communicating type. There was a lot of whining about needing a better weapon, but otherwise the conversations revolved around arguments about which tree was ‘good for tanking’ (see above). Otherwise, they were telling me not to worry about it when I told them to wait for mana. I imagine this allegory to my situation.

“Excuse me, sir, but your horse just stepped on my head.”
“Oh don’t worry about it, he is fine!”

Whatever the names of the spells, I could easily tell which groups held one or more DoucheKnights. They were the ones making liberal use of what I came to call “Yank and Spank”. This is some bizarre purple beam which shoots out, grabs the monster by the face, and yanks them through the air towards the knight for spankies. This is a wonderful spell to force a caster into melee range. This is a terrible spell when used by the knight who just woke up from a coma, standing beside me, and yanks a monster away from the group being beaten by the tank far ahead of us. Suddenly I have two tanks. Now another one does the same trick, and I have three tanks.

There are now three knights, spread out from each other, fighting one or two monsters. When called on it?

“I was helping CC that mob. I saw DK#1 taking damage. Geeze, it’s fine.”

Fine indeed. Rofl, good sir, rofl.

Another fine ability is the “I’m bored, lets make some friends” ability. It comes in the shape of a gargoyle. Every time this ability is used, some friendly gargoyle comes out of nowhere and proceeds to hover above us and shoot things. It is fairly epic, and I’m sure it is very fun for the knight who wields such power. Inevitably, however, things die. The gargoyle, lonely and looking for something else to play with, lazily wafts away on the breeze.

I have watched this thing go through walls, ceilings, and all-girl school dorms overseen by massive women with more testosterone than Grom Hellscream. These are things that would be impenetrable by mere mortals. Not only do these gargoyles easily slip through these barriers, but they find friends, then tell them where to find me and my party.

And then there is death. Always, death. In the form of nearly every monster in the dungeon, piled up on top of each other, and charging around the corner as though Jaina Proudmoore had just announced her debut strip tease right behind us. It is an ugly sight. I have seen it in my sleep…

Anyway.

DoucheKnights - all the people that cried when they weren’t top of the damage meter, and were tired of having to constantly wait for a tank, and were irritated by a pushy healer, now have all the tools available that allow them to completely ignore any of the things previously holding them back. If the tank is taking too long, bam, now DoucheKnight gets to tank! Healer is up to 30% mana, that should be enough, BAM, DoucheKnight is tanking. Oh no, you’re number 2 in the dps meter! BAM, bring in more mobs so your AOE racks up the points!

And then when BAM everyone is dead, all four DoucheKnights have to go do something else while the priestess runs her ghostly tush off to get back to the dungeon.

“rez plz”

/stab

Yes, well. At any rate. DeathKnights! Woo. At least some of you backstabbing, weak hearted, scourge-loving miscreants are useful for something. I’ve reached level 66 in the past week by being the one NON scourge-lover in the party. Questing is useless, because nothing out there survives long enough for me to get credit for the kill, because eight doucheknights just jumped on it. So all the dungeons got to see my pretty face, twisted in rage and impotent hate at the back of my party members. At least the guards in Orgrimmar have apples to throw. I should have joined the beer of the month club, just so I’d have a bottle every once in a while…

Alright alright, not all DeathKnights are DoucheKnights. Some made healing a joy, and it was a cinch even through places I’d never visited before. I’d get agro, and before I had a chance to fade, the thing would get yank-an-spanked. I still had to fade a lot, simply because of the nature of how squishy they are, and the amount of big heals I kept having to throw. Prayer of Healing always gets a workout when everyone else is a DK.

So. Quick recap.

Things I learned this week:

There are way too many doucheknights.
Healing in dungeons is fun again.
All three DK trees can be used for tanking.
DKs are squishy tanks.
I hate proximity bombs and the people that run over them after a fight.
Leveling up tailoring really really sucks when you’re starting from scratch.
Leveling up herbalism is very relaxing, which is a nice counter.
There are way too many doucheknights.

Your Questions!

Khol asks: I bring you an offering of burnt grain!
– I accept.

Weta wonders: Why do people still want 20 slot bags?
– Because they, and the larger ones, are still blasted expensive, and will be for months.  Big bags hold MORE STUFF and MORE STUFF is always better than less.

Tomo ponders the worth of the discipline tree.
– I have the stamina and mana to survive in a pug, even when things are nuts.  My favorite part is the completely worthless spell at the very end.  Didn’t a spell by this name use to do something useful?  Like stun or interrupt a target?  What the crap is this weak channeled orc poo spell doing in my discipline tree?

Axethrower is still curious about BRD.
– About 3 hours.  It’s a hellacious dungeon that, according to legend, was once going to have wings like the Monastery.  Then the dwarves got lazy and it’s one big, long, slogfest of dwarf killing.  Don’t wipe.

Phaedor asks: Why are some people so poor?
– Some people are poor and fat, and walking is good for them.  The rest of us require speed to go with our svelte appearance, and hot girls on fast rides are better than scrubs walking from The Great Lift to Gadgetzan.  If you feel bad, start a fund for ugly girls who walk too much.  Or something.  Sheesh, what kinds of questions were these?!

1. Penguins on ice floes! *squee*
2. Holy crap, could the boats be any slower?
3. Comparing the population of players at the Menethil destination versus the Stormwind destination is like comparing the mall in February to the mall in December. If you’re Alliance, I highly recommend taking the boat from Menethil.
4. I did not get to do the Nexus instance - we spent too much time fighting people for mobs needed for the prereq quests on that side. Seriously, random male belf warlock, was it necessary to come up on our full group, set your pet on aggressive, and start AOEing the spawn point? Seriously? Your mother would be ashamed.
5. I am sadly not going to be getting one of the new wolves on my hunter. Their front legs look…odd.
6. I LOVE the mage-hunter frost demon dogs. Very cool.
7. Dragons as flight paths? Awesome.
8. For anyone who is a little grumpy about how they don’t have superawesome gear that’s going to last forever, let me be the first person to debunk that. Vonya has TWO upgrades already - a ring and (shocking, to me) a hat. The ring was from an instance quest turnin and the hat was a drop from the dual-boss in Utgarde Keep. The hat I was wearing was from Zul’Aman and was fully gemmed and enchanted. Granted, the new one looks like something a whip-weilding prison guard might wear, but it’s a definite upgrade. (The old one looked like I was being attacked by a dislexic face-hugger, so I can’t complain too much about a bit of bondage gear) And I’ve had more than one quest reward that was pretty gosh darned close to what I was wearing already.
9. For tips on healing Utgarde Keep, check out GLDC’s Guide. I used it. It works.  Notes from healing it myself would be - tell your tank to pull a bunch or make sure you’ve got your damage spells handy. It’s boring if you pull it one group at a time. Also, your meleers are going to HATE the last boss. He does a series of AOEs, and one of them is almost a guaranteed death for anyone nearby. It has a long cast time, but it’s still distressingly easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ranged players don’t need to worry. Ah, Blizz loves the meleers.
10. Check out my quick post from yesterday for what I believe to be the first time you can see the Lich King. If it weren’t so gosh-darned well done, I’d be tempted to shout “Aha! I caught you monologuing!”
11. Did I mention the penguins yet? Egads, that much cute shouldn’t be allowed.
12. The frost whelpling from the collector’s edition is giant. And by “giant”, I mean that mass-wise, he’s bigger than Vonya. If you rolled her up into a ball, she’d be smaller than him. (No, he’s not mine, but a guildie did get him. Very cute, in an “I can see your ribcage” sorta way.
13. It’s beautiful. So much attention to detail, the new models look fantastic, the world is gorgeous (and I need to get my zoom in and out fixed so I can start taking screenshots again). They really and truly did a fantastic job on it. Remember walking into Hellfire Peninsula and going “ugh, this is nasty” and then hitting Zangarmarsh and feeling like you’d been given a gift? Northrend is a gift from the start.
14. Seriously though, fix the boats. Add another boat on the rotation if needs be. Sightseeing is all well and good the first time, but I’m having serious issues trying to swap between Northrend and Classic continents. And by ’serious issues’, I mean falling asleep waiting. Get me some kind of albatross flight path that can just fly it. A portal. Anything, so long as this fifteen minute wait stuff is curtailed. (Yes, yes, I know Dalaran will have portals. I want my fix NOW! *stomps hoof*)
15. PENGUINS!

I recommend completing that, and then committing suicide.

Out in the big central area, you’ll find…The Lich King.

He grabs you, slaps you in a bubble, then monologues fabulously and kills you.

It’s worth dying, just to watch him wax poetic about killing you.

Ho-hum, no big deal, right?

Oh, right, there’s that…*waves hand vaguely*…expansion. thingy.

…

Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Northrend by now?

Tech Support

On a side note, you know you’ve got the right web hosting company when you put in a ticket about your site being down and the tech that responds asks you why you’re watching your site when you should be out getting the WOTLK expansion!!

*waves to SJ, Tech Support Extraordinaire*

That’s What You Call A Post?

I do not know if there will be a “real” post later today or not. If there is, it may just be a long series of incomprehensible squees and flailing. You know…assuming the servers are up, which is about a fifty/fifty chance at this point, I know. (Edit : Zasp very kindly informed me that the servers are stable and he’s been having a lot of fun playing. *sticks her tongue out at him and blows a raspberry*)

Hopefully I will come home to a shiny, perfectly patched computer with the login screen already up.

Looking Forward

There is a possibility that our guild will be recruiting VERY LIGHTLY moving forward in the expansion. We are a small guild, we will stay a small guild, we are picky, egotistical, demanding, crude, and we’re damn good at what we do. Delicate flowers need not apply. This is NOT a call for applications (because we’re going to be playing the expansion and so should you be!) but it IS a notification that the call may come in the next month or so. Think about whether or not you might be interested. It’s not for everyone - it’s not even for most people.

Still Here?

That probably means you, like me, don’t have the expansion in front of you right now. You have my sympathy.

If only it weren’t NaNoWriMo…

I would write a post answering Tomo’s excellent emails regarding what the new “no stacking” rules will do to the viability of the Divine Spirit buff. I’d give examples of the other spells that buff spell power, and show which ones are going to overwrite the DS buff. I’d give my opinion on how the dual speccing will lead to some priests speccing just for DS, and then swapping into a deep holy build for actual healing.

Or Tomo’s OTHER excellent email, wanting to discuss the details of the new talent trees, and the viability for certain builds depending on situation. I’d finish the post I started on how awesome Serendipity is as a Holy talent and why I believe it’s one of the best new priest talents available.

I’d give a shout out to the author of the Spot the Cat and Cuddles the Ravager Saga emails that I’ve been getting, because I’ve been incredibly amused by every single one of them even though I don’t have time to properly respond to them.

I’d talk about preparing for Wrath, making sure people knew that there were TWO starting zones - one accessible from Stormwind and one from Menethil (you’ll have to talk to someone else for the horde starters, but I’m guessing there’s one from Orgrimmar and one from Undercity) and how the one from Menethil will probably be less populated than the Stormwind one.

I’d talk about how excited I am to start new five mans, and how I’m at least a little bit disappointed that I’ll miss out on the fun of getting all new gear right off the bat (and how I realize that if the only thing I have to QQ about is that my current gear is too shiny, I should just shut up and play).

I’d talk about how Hanners has been changing the alt text on the sidebar image every week and nobody’s noticed yet.

I’d talk about rhinos and how irritating I think the knockback will be for me as a player, but how I’m going to try it anyway. I’d talk about how much I hate the gorilla butt-scratching animation. I’d talk about how I want them to put the flying vanity pets back at a higher flight path so my moth isn’t skittering willy-nilly across the floor like a slowly exploding cockroach.

BUT

But it IS November, and it is NaNoWriMo, and I don’t have time to do the research necessary for those posts. Instead, you get a big long list of post topics that I may or may not ever get around to writing, and I’m going to go try and knock out a few more sprints with Bre from GLDC to get my NaNoWriMo word count up.

*Bweeeem* *Fwooosh*
Achievement Accomplished!

You have reached level 60!
Fast and Furious! (Epic mount)
Stalkers from the Blog!

I was accosted, this weekend. Not once, but TWICE, by people that recognized me from my writings. Adrexis, Nasmin, you crazy people. And no, if anyone else decides to harass me, you will not get a callout. These two just surprised me so much they have to get recognition for making me basically spaz out. It’s rare to throw me off my game that much, but this has never happened before, so I had no idea how to respond to the whispers.

Adrexis caught me in Undercity, trying to figure out what I was going to do with a bunch of quest items from - oh, about the time I started writing here. It’s pretty bad when you upgrade your gear and go “Oh, hi, I’m replacing this belt from Maraudon.” Palmface. So, yes, I was flustered. And then, out in Brill, Nasmin is poking at the mailbox when I run by, half asleep and being poked with people asking me to come heal for them in SM or something. I wasn’t even looking for a group! I was just checking the prices of the dead horses, and then it was crash - into the inn for sleeptimes. Nasmin was very polite, though, even if she DID think I was Vonya in disguise.

Hrmph. I would like to point out that there is no WAY that space goat could fit in these pants. …they look like they were sprayed on, anyway.

MOVING ON.

I did get the Big Girl Pony, finally. Purple Warhorse is MINE! I’m so happy. It’s … purple. And - yeah, I suppose describing it any further just lends itself to way too many innuendos. We’ll stick with ‘Epic Dead Horse’, then. Glee!! Put a serious dent in the guild coffer, though. I may have to do something about that, now that I’m actually in Outlands.

I was doing some quests for the orcs out there, who had me go and kill a bunch of orcs (confused much?), and I was very excited to see the upgrades for my pants and robe. I got the pants upgrade first, so I didn’t really see what they looked like. Doesn’t matter! I have a ROBE! And then I get a very nice, very svelte vest to wear. And then I realize what I was wearing under my robe will be quite visible to all the world.

I had heard legends of this effect, but I thought it was just alliance mages, or troll trollops that had this issue. No. One of the first pants upgrades you get, once you’re through the Dark Portal and are battling for your survival against the Burning Legion and the terrors they’ve created in Helfire Penninsula, are whore pants. Panties and thigh-high stockings.
REALLY!?

All I need is a blasted bikini and I could look like a paladin. I switched from shadow to deep discipline and I wear THIS!?

Unacceptable!

I did a quick check, found a decent upgrade could be found right next door in that castle with all the other nice orcs in it. I finally gathered up four compatriots from the lowest dregs, and off we went. Let’s just say that the shaman spent more time telling everyone else what to do than he did putting down totems. Since he was very adamant that the prot paladin was the tank, and the prot warrior should be helping him, and that the hunter should dps, and I needed to heal - I made sure that the two protection fellows got priority on heals. If he decided to pull agro most of the time, and then happened to die, well at least it wasn’t a wipe, because our tanks lived. Oddly, he kept popping back up after dying, so I can only assume he did that self-resurrection thing that shamans do right in the middle of a fight. Very odd tactics for someone who was meleeing. Without totems. Shamans are the ones that put down totems, right? It’s been a while since I’ve seen them used properly.

As it was, I got my pants, killed the Ramparts bosses and got another achievement (you can get those things from sneezing, apparently), and now have to keep an eye out for gems to make my pants super special.

In other news, I’m sure you’re all very excited to know that I’ve hired a troll rogue to do my dirty work back on Azeroth. He is an engineer, and has grand plans to someday build a motorcycle. I also use him to keep tabs on how the pugging situation is while I’m off on another planet. From what he says about his forays into Razorfen Krawl and Razorfen Downs, and even the SM Library, it’s not much different from a rogue perspective. Being able to hide while the rest of the group implodes, though, seems to have its perks. He giggles a lot when relating the stories to me. Maybe I’ll share some of his adventures, sometime. No, I have no idea what his real name is. He’s a rogue, they tend to not be very outgoing with stuff like that. But he goes by Thomas.

Yeah. Thomas the Troll.

I laughed, he didn’t. So I don’t know.

Yay dead horsey!

*cough* Sorry.

So you had questions. I guess I can answer a couple.  There weren’t any GREAT ones, but these will suffice.  It’s my first time requiring anything of you, so I suppose some hesitation should be expected.  The free ride is over, though.  I expect higher quality from people who have been absorbing my goodness for this long.

Weta asks: I need help killing a dwarf who is so inept that he wound up accidentally summoning an Elemental Lord that blew the snot out of his kingdom and has now enslaved his people.
–Rather than simply say something cynical like “Wait for him to try another brilliant plan, he’ll take himself out for you”, I suppose I could point you in some direction.  Wowwiki, really, may be your best bet.  It has all the details on what gear you can steal from the old munchkin’s battered body, and gives a few suggestions for tactics on how to get to him and how to make sure his body is sufficiently battered.  Wowhead and thottbot are there, too, but they’re more focused on making sure the old man is naked of all his loot, rather than how to get him to hold still long enough.  Weirdos.

Vendric wants to know: How come life is unfair and the fights are so easy/hard in the battlegrounds?
–Life is tough, you silly boomkin.  For one thing, you are a Prime Target.  Imagine being the guy out there that can transform into an Ogre.  YOU WILL BE SHOT AT.  I imagine if you remain ‘just another tauren’ (or something), then you can launch a few more volleys before anyone figures you out.  Starfire and Moonfire are good, too, because they don’t see where the pain’s coming from.  As for what’s being done to equalize the battlegroups?  Are you serious?  My people joined the Horde mostly because we were both desperate.  We allied with DEAD PEOPLE because we are so bad off.  There is no equalisation, we are Horde, we must overrun them with sheer numbers and stubborness and the elitist belief that only kids play Alliance.  Glory to the Sin’dorei!  …I may have lost track.  What was the question?

Weta says: Nevermind, I killed him without your help, now I want to know why I should be friendly with my own faction!
–Bah! *fistshake*

Axethrower asks: Hanners where aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrre yoooooooou?
–Uh, I think we’re done here.  BETTER QUESTIONS THIS TIME.  *hides from stalkers*

But this book - The Art of the Trading Card Game - is incredible.

If you are at all interested in Warcraft art, this is for you. The art is simply gorgeous, and it’s absolutely massive. SO much art, so much to look at, to see, to notice a third time.

The quality of the book is very nice. Not shoddy or cheap. The pages are thick and glossy, the art is beautifully displayed.

It was $50 at the local Barnes & Noble, or $30 with free shipping from Amazon.

An early Christmas present to myself, I don’t regret it at all, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the art of this game as much as I do.