gorilladins? totally awesome

As I mentioned a few days back, my baby hunter got herself a gorilla pet. Last night I had a half hour to test him out. Verdict? Awesome.

We started out slow, going after the level 32-34 Bloodscalp trolls north of Grom'gol. One or two? No problem. By the end of the festivities, Bobo was holding aggro on three or four trolls and I could blast away to my heart's content. The hardest part, honestly, was picking them all up in the first place and keeping my mana up. Good times.

After tearing them up, a questgiver sent me to the Arathi Highlands, with some nice, tasty level 34-36 ogres and raptors. Again, no problem! At one point, Bobo and I tore down a level 33, 34, and 36 rare ogre. We got a nice clothie hat and access to a couple of iron nodes for our troubles. It was a little close with some of the heals, but we felt pretty proud of ourselves by the end.

I need to figure out how to more efficiently use Bobo's energy, because that was probably the rate limiting factor in our adventures last night. Maybe cast the first thunderstomp myself, then set it to autocast? I'll bet the astute BRK has some advice in that direction. Some how-did-I-live-without-this-before macros, perhaps.

a question and a new pet

Is a level 70 epic BOE enough motivation to level a new alt?

Last night Waradwen went on a midbee, early Kara fun run, to pick up a few badges and see the Scourge Invasion boss. It was fun to see a new fight and, admittedly, it was almost fun to clear all the trash on the way to him. I've never been into the scullery in Kara or in the animal boss area, so that was fun to explore. The boss fight itself was more annoying than difficult. Our tank did an awesome job kiting him around in a big circle while we blasted him between Blood Mirrors. Love the new pet, too.

After killing the new boss, we were clearing our way towards the Maiden when [The Night Blade] drops! And I won the roll! But now, what should I do? I don't have a rogue, and this sucker just screams rogue. The melee DPSers I have are a shammy and a paladin, and I don't see the point in either of them equipping this bad boy. And I don't want to just sell it to a random dude at the Auction House. Soooo...yeah. I'm probably going to start a new alt. I mentioned yesterday that the priest wasn't a great fit yet... /stabbystabby!

The last thing I did last night before bed was to hop on my hunter, push her to level 32, and get her a badass gorilla. In complete huntard fashion, I forgot to take the appropriate food for the gorilla after I tamed him. Der. Fortunately, it turns out that gorillas will eat halloween candy. And that will make him happy enough to get him back to the closest town. I'm looking forward to testing him out tonight.

Happy maintenance day!

state of the (horde) toons report

On the eve of the Lich King's re-emergence (and due to my self-resurrection as a poor blogger), I thought I'd give a summary of where my toons are and what they're doing. Yay!

Waradwen - Doin' dailies, makin' money, light raiding. A few months back my Horde guild asploded and, faced with a number of suboptimal options, Wara stepped through a strange portal and found himself on a new server. Same world, just slightly shifted. He's found a really awesome guild and I'm having as much fun with him (and in WoW in general) as I ever have. Wara's primary goals right now are feeding his achievement addiction (Salty Chef Waradwen Jenkins the Hallowed, ftw) and pwning Kara for badges. Moar badges! My guild got together for an rp-inspired tear through Gruul's lair and impromptu Magtheridon raid this weekend which was really fun. I'd seen Gruul's before -- once or twice -- and it was fun to get back. My rolls sucked, or I might have been decked out in complete tier 4 this morning. And Magtheridon was awesome, too. Nerfed to hell, apparently, but a lot of fun to down regardless.

As I'm on a new server, I decided to make new alts rather than spend the money to move below-level-30 dudes. Not worth it, right? So, a new horde of my own. Maybe I can be Thrall when I grow up!

Alt the first: the hunter. My first alt on that brave, new world was a belf hunter. Female, naturally. So hawt! Hahaha. I got her to level 30 this weekend and picked up a purple hawkstrider, which still feels weird. Mounts at 30? Well, I'm not going to walk... She's a miner/engineer, mostly for the fun toys. Right now I'm having an awesome time as a beastmaster, running around with a raptor pet, rocking the crap out of mobs that are much higher than me. This weekend she took down Frostmaw, a level 37 yeti, having just reached 30, to earn a lovely new headdress. Nerf hunters!

Alt number two: a troll mage. Magey is a special toon (no, not that sort of special), running in a static group approximately once a week. He can bring some awesome dps to the instances we're running, although I'm still trying to figure out mana and threat management. He started out as an herbalist/alchemist, but I found I really wasn't spending time farming with him and he dropped herbalism for inscription with the last patch. Very fun. He hit level 21 last week and loves the crap out of blink and teleport. So awesome.

Alt number three: a Tauren shaman. Goddamn I love the Tauren and love adventuring in Mulgore. I'm still getting the hang of playing a shaman. He's specced enhancement at the moment, which feels a lot like leveling a pre-boomkin druid. Pull with lightning bolt, dot with flame shock, then pound to death with a big staff. I really like having a spell interrupt for fighting casters and the totems are useful for emergency situations or for fighting big mobs. By and large, I'm moving around too much to spend the mana setting up the totems on a regular basis. I haven't had a chance to run any instances, yet, but I think that's where the totems will really shine. As of this weekend, he's up to level 18. He's my primary farmer at the moment, an herbalist/miner, gathering herbs for the mage's potions and inks and ore for the engineer and the jewelcrafter and the future blacksmith and... A brief note about herbalism. I *love* the new HoT spell. It has already saved his steak-y butt a few times from the fire.

Alt number four: a Forsaken priest. This guy is probably my worst fit so far, but it's still early. Actually, let me qualify that a little. Soloing with this guy is the worst fit. I ran around with a friend leveling a warrior a few weeks ago and had a serious blast. Since then I've downloaded HealBot, which is pretty groovy. No instances, yet, but about ready to push into the WC range. He's still low enough that fights are generally smite-smite-shadow word:pain-wand to death. Hopefully groups and getting further into the talent trees will help. As for professions, he's a tailor/(dis)enchanter.

Alt number five: a paladin. Another hawt belf chica, with a big sword. Pretty fun. Looking forward to consecrate. She's a miner/jewelcrafter. The mining is fine, helping to feed engineering and provide mats for jewelcrafting, but I'm not overwhelmed with JC. Any gem I want for Wara I can either get on the AH or cut by a friend... The self-healing statues are nice (and easy skill points!) and it is nice to provide low-level rings and necklaces for the new family of alts.

Alt number six (coming soon!): a Tauren death knight. I've got the name I want reserved with an unplayed alt and am just waiting until November. My plan is for him to be a miner/blacksmith, probably making cool swords and axes for himself. I'm trying to bank a bunch of copper and tin ore prior to the expansion so I can ease his mining leveling through smelting. Exploration will be fun, but I don't really want to do have to spend a lot of time mining copper in Durotar as an uberl33t death knight. Hehe.

Alt number seven: the former Poxic warlock. Waradwenne is still hanging around on Anvilmar, but at some point soon I'd like to consolidate her with the rest of the army. I've played her for maybe half an hour since the Purples broke up (/cry) so there hasn't been much progress on that front. She's still a tailor, but she dropped engineering and isn't sure what to pick up. Herbalism, probably, so she can funnel higher-level herbs to the mage. In general, she's on hold until I have a little more disposable income.

So there you go. Lots of little alts who will, someday, be fearsome fighters. By endgame, I'll have a couple of tanks, a couple healers, and a bunch of fearsome DPS to make with the pew pew! Pew! Pew! /cast Starfall

in which our hero blathers on...

...about his new main guild, Kiss My Murlock.

You guys are seriously awesome. Congrats on the first ever full clear of Kara! I wish I could have been around more this weekend but I'm so proud of you. I hear the drums calling us from ZA and I'm looking forward to spending more time with you guys.

...about his new alliance alt and associated guild.

I'm a total follower sometimes and have joined BBB and Cassieann's new guild, Sidhe Devils, on Kael'thas. Having always rolled Horde, I've been feeling an itch to explore the Alliance side of the game. I've recently learned about how important the social aspects of the game are to me, so when I read the announcement it really scratched my itch nicely. I've rolled a dwarf warrior named Rotaan (there's a story, naturally, but probably not one worth sharing). It's really odd talking in guild chat and seeing this "other," non-Wara-prefixed name speaking in my voice. I'm starting to get used to it, but it's still a little disconcerting. "Who is this guy, and why is he saying what I'm saying?"

So far, I'm really enjoying the dwarf story. I like the snowy wilderness that we start in and I think Ironforge is really cool. I'm totally lost, still, but have gotten good about flipping between the map and where I'm running. QuestHelper has been a blessing, too.

A few more words about the guild, before I forget. It's awesome. I'm still a little starstruck when BBB or Cassieann are on but they've been nothing but kind and friendly and funny. In fact, BBB made one of the worst puns I've heard in a long time the other day. There's another guild member with the exact same first name as me (a rarity, at least in these parts) and the same first half of his last name, and we were chatting about how to translate our names. "Hegge" roughly translates to "rocky" and I thought that "stad" roughly translated to "land" -- so my last name would mean rocky land, which is quite appropriate for the town we came from -- but my alter ego informed me that "stad" actually means "city" from the old Norwegian. So, rocky city. After which BBB interjects, "Philadelphia." Huh? Oh. Rocky city. Not rocky, Rocky. /golfclap, sir. You win this round, but I'll get you yet.

There are also a bunch of Poxers in the guild and I'm having a blast spending time with them. One of my regrets about the way the Pox Arcanum project is going is that we've become a little insular in our groups and we don't get a chance to spend a lot of time with the other groups. I know it's mostly due to the innate difficulties with scheduling but it make me a little sad. And now, here's a chance to hang out with them! Hurray!

...about the new dailies.

Honestly, I'm split. I like the diversity of the dailies and really like that there are some that benefit gatherers and fishermen, rather than just kill-10-of-these-dudes, but they're not very stimulating. Especially when you do them day after day after day. Consequently, I'm not. I'm doing enough of them to keep me supplied for raids and keep all of my armor sets well-repaired, but that's about it. If there's a little extra I might try to upgrade a gem or two, but I'm not doing enough dailies for there to be much extra.

My typical routine is to do the Outland quests three or four days a week, then go to the Isle of QQ once or twice a week. This seems to work okay. The Outland dailies are enough to meet my monetary demands easily, so the rest is gravy. I tend to do the Nether Residue quest by skinning clefthoofs in Nagrand, so I've built up a few nice stacks of Thick Clefthoof Leather and Heavy Knothide Leather which will be useful for either myself or other crafters.

As for the Isle, phooey. I do them occasionally, but find them very boring. I'm not in a huge hurry to build my Shattered Sun rep but am already at Revered, even with my casual play. I picked up [K'iru's Presage] to replace my current healy mace ([The Essence Focuser]) and love the [Naaru Rations], but otherwise...*shrug*.

...about his gear.

Nothing terribly exciting to report. I grabbed an [Ember Skyfire Diamond] for my beautiful new helmet. I also got my bracers enchanted (Greater Intellect) and have the mats for most of what else I want.

screenshot-y goodness + alts

So here's that screenshot showing off how nice the [Skywitch's Drape] coordinates with our current guild tabard. I still like the looks of the [Spell-Slinger's Protector] best, but this isn't too terrible.

I'd like to also take some time to introduce you to my current horde (sorry) of alts. I realized over the weekend that Wara's done with almost all of his solo content (at least for the moment), so I'm going to decide who's coming up next. Recommendations?

First, my eldest alt, Waradwock. He's a 25 Tauren hunter with Echeyakee as a pet. I love his look and am having fun with the pet, but I don't think I can do the Tauren storyline immediately again. There's just so much more to explore, right?

Next comes Morningwar (sense a theme in my names?), a 13 Orc warrior. I'd like to learn how to be able to tank with Wara but don't want to, you know, learn at level 70. Seems like that'd be frustrating. I do like the bloodlust and violence available through Orcs and warriors, so this seemed like a really nice combination.

Last on Arathor is Waradwenne, a level 8 Blood Elf mage. A girl, of course, 'cause I think male belfs look hella-stupid. New story, new lore, new gameplay (and fun pew pew!) but I also started a Belf warlock on another server to play with some other friends (Waradin, on Steamwheedle Cartel), so there could be a lot of repetition.

So there's the family. No Forsaken, but not for any particular reason. No rogues, no pallys, no shamans. I'm not terribly interested in learning another hybrid class at the moment. I think I'll bring 'em all up to at least 20 (or maybe 30) to decide. Nobody fits quite as well as Wara yet, but maybe that'll come with time. Lots of fun stuff to explore! Maybe I'll even try those pinko Alliance at some point, too...