Would you believe it? I’m playing WoW again. Damned game. So, what am I up to?

For one thing, I’m toying with the Mists of Pandaria beta. Cool so far, but anything other then the new Pandaran areas crash on me.

I’m also playing allot of pvp. Recently I’ve had a good run, with (I believe) my first win in Arathi Basin – which  I also happened to film, so I have record – and back-to-back wins in Tol Barad and Wintergrasp. The AB match was one of my best. I was lethal and only died once, and that was from falling off a ledge near the lumber mill to my doom.

I was in Tol Barad the other morning, and with us on defense is wasn’t all that hard. I died three times but we won handily. One of the group called for us all to rush to Wintergrasp, and who am I to say no to that? I love Wintergrasp.

We won that handily, too. There were only about five of us there total but the dumb group leader I was with insisted I had invite privileges (which I didn’t) so I couldn’t group with the rest of the bunch. I died once when I got ganged up on in the fort and another time to a tough Blood Elf pally, but I respawned quickly right nearby so I came back and killed her while she fought an ally.

So, I’m playing WoW now and  again. You can also go to Chaos is Gaming and read an article on me introducing a friend of mine to the game. Later!

Hey everyone. No pictures this article, and it’s a little late, but I wanted to share this little story with everyone. Beta, my anti-WoW editor on e-AAGH.net, was in town for a while and finally relented to my constant nagging a few weeks ago and played WoW again. Unlike the last two times, we played together this time. We both rolled Draenei, I a hunter and she a warrior, and we set off of to level as many levels as possible. Actually she got a head start on me and had a two level lead on me before I got logged in.  I caught up to her eventually since the first few levels go so quick and we started questing together.

My Draenei had a horn on his head, so naturally he was named Hornitoad. My moth pet I named Imabug, since any Mothra references seemed trite. I don’t remember Beta’s avatar’s name, but that’s not important I guess.

I had fun questing with her, but I’m not sure if she enjoyed it or not… she didn’t say either way and other then a few stray positive and negative comments , she kept a damn good poker face the whole time.  Oh well. In the end, that’s likely the last I’ll see of her in the game for some time as she returned to Chicago a few weeks ago and lacks a PC that can run WoW there. I was so tempted to bring Gav up to Azuremyst Isle to harass her and show off. Maybe next time.

If there is a next time.

The other night is I ran a few non-Heroic dungeons with the guild (it was four lvl 85s and a lvl 84). It was all my buds, and we were on vent so that was fun too. Above you can see the lot of us in Stonecore.

Oh no, it’s High Priestess Azil! Whatever will we do??

Kick her ass, of course. The non-Heroic Stonecore was a breeze.

After a protracted process of getting our lvl 84 a high enough item level in Stormwind we headed to Halls of Origination.  Having never been here, I was at a slight disadvantage.

Thankfully vent makes everything easier. It’s so much easier to coordinate over voice then typing everything in the head of the action. The bosses were explained, we blitzed the place, and finally came to the final boss.

He fell with little effort. I learned that, vice Heroics, normal dungeons can be burned through by the tank-and-spank method allot. We rarely had to deviate from that other then to dodge the occasional AOE or floor attack. I wonder what Heroic would be like?

We spent about 15-30 minutes in Stormwind after that just chatting about gear, future dungeons, and how to maximize what we’ve got. One of my buds in the guild pointed me to the Belt of the Ferocious Wolf since I was exalted with the Defenders of Hyjal. He then crafted me an ebonsteel belt buckle for it. That was really nice of ‘im. Thanks dude.

Actually after one of the bosses in Halls, his weapon broke. Of all the things to have happen! It finally allowed me to use Jeeves in a group, who I got while in Ulduar with the same guy. It took me some time to build him, but I was like a proud parent when I did. Yay for engineering!

It’s unfortunate that I don’t have a better picture from my recent Twin Peaks match. I went Holy and holy crap did I have a hell of a time.

I was credited with the third most honorable kills and was a healing beast.I don’t have great gear or skill but for whatever reason I keeping folks ticking throughout the fight. It got to the point where I was the primary target of the Horde. They’d blitz past the DPS and tank to try and kill me. At one point I had over half their team (six total) beating on me in a corner of our base. I didn’t really care since that was six less trying to win the match. I held out for over a minute there before dying. My conclusion? We were up against sucky Horde players. It was as if they died if we so much as sneezed on them. My holy shock was taking sizeable chunks off of their health bars, which was nice. It’s not going to happen very often, but it was nice to see – even just this once.

Best of all, we won the match 2-0 when time ran out. Hell yeah!

This is just a quick note on something that may only interest me. Anyway, for most of the past three years or so, since I started playing, if you searched “Gavelier” on the WoW Armory, you got me. Period. That was it, I was the world’s only Gavelier. Now, for the first time I can recall, there’s a new Gav on the block. Gavelier, a Tauren retribution paladin on another server has come to my attention. I would love to take credit for the name or being their inspiration (what with them being a ret pally as well) I don’t think that’s the case. In any event, the world’s big enough for way more then two Gaveliers. I welcome all namesakes.

As a side note, the new Gavelier is in my battlegroup (Emberstorm) so maybe we’ll meet in a battleground someday. Maybe.

Happy belated 4th of July, everyone. I slept thought most of the holiday because I’m a lazy dumbass, but I got up in time to see some fireworks in Stormwind this morning. Later I saw more fireworks, this time in Tol Barad.

I didn’t do great, as usual, but I got an achievement. We were on defense and were within a second or so of saving the match. The Horde had 2 building and was converting a third (Slagworks) and we were racing to convert Ironclad Garrison. We were literally just on the cusp of pulling control away from them – seriously, mere seconds – and they grabbed Slags and won. Dammit.

One of my guildies, Luciditii invited me to go run a heroic, and I agreed. I’d not run a Cataclysm heroic yet so I didn’t know how I’d fare. Another guild mate, Drannen joined as well so it was officially a guild run. Drannen (an elemental shaman) had pumped his DPS up and was eager to put his 10-14k to use, and I was eager to see it. Luciditii (resto shaman) came as heals, and I was my usual ret spec. It was, as I said, a learning experience to see if I was capable of running a heroic. Let’s see how it went.

Pâmëløt (an arcane mage) and Jaconsus (a prot warrior) rounded out the group. We cruised up to Corborus who wiped us once. I died because I got hit when he resurfaced which made me feel kinda dumb. Anyway, we killed him on try #2. I also died on Slashhide but the group took him out. Yay for teamwork!

This is where it got interesting. We took time to prepare for Ozruk so I read up on his moves in the dungeon journal. We did ok for a while, but back luck got our tank killed, and soon it was down to Drannen and I to kill him. Yup, two DPS against a boss. The funny part is that we were doing pretty well. I kept myself relatively healed, Drannen pitched in, and with me dodging and striking I swear we could have pulled it off if I hadn’t backed into a second group of mobs. That turned out to be too much and I died. Try #2 was a win and we moved on.

Our first assault on Azil didn’t go so well/ Between getting overwhelmed by adds, Luciditii’s  mouse going AWOL, and  those accursed Seismic Shards, we wiped. While waiting for Luciditii to find a new mouse I was back in the dungeon journal. Eventually I got bored and called out, “Luci! Luci, you better get back here, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!” It got a chuckle from Pâmëløt, anyway.

Round two, as in the last post-wipe battles was a rousing success. I ultimately didn’t get what I really wanted (a chaos orb). Jaconsus and I both rolled need and he got it.  Damn. I guess I’ll have to run a few more to make my goggles. In any case it was a good time and I look forward to doing it again sometime. Thanks guys for taking me!

It’s been PvP Mania lately, I guess. I went to Tol Barad but we lost that in record time so we’re not going to discuss that. Instead, let’s talk about my recent Alterac Valley match. I arrived and buffed up, including a Flask of Draconic Mind. After the match started I noticed something I’d not noticed in prior battles here.

Here you can (sort of) see the Horde passing us on the far side of the valley. It was kind of interesting, the symmetry. When my group arrived on the far side, we cleared out around the Horde’s boss’s building while the rest of our team gobbled up capture sites. Finally we began the assault.

I did my job and we won again. Yeah! Thanks to being on the front lines I accrued the most honorable kills on my faction and we dominated the match.

Later on, my guild hit level 19, so now we’ve got Honorable Mention, which should help me in the battlegrounds.  Not a bad night.

The first news from Gav’s recent exploits is that patch 4.2’s new quests and quest hubs are fun. Some are total chaos,

Other then that it’s been PvP for me. I went ret to Twin Peaks and while I died a few times we won, 3-0. That was a nice change.

In contrast, it was a blood bath in Tol Barad, as you can see.

I was obviously a casualty. A repeat casualty. Dammit. We kept getting beat and killed and someone commented that we could really use some heals.

Uh oh. Can it be?

Yup, it’s the rebirth of the holy-s***-adin! I spent over a thousand gold on gear and glyphs, respecced my prot spec, and now I’m ready to heal! First up, this week’s Call to Arms, Alterac Valley.

Did  I know what I was doing? Hell no! Did I let that stop me? Hell no!! I wound up 2nd on our team in heals and we won. Yay! The bad part is that over 50% of my heals were done to myself. In the 2nd half of the battle I got caught fighting a never-ending swarm of NPCs and didn’t have much of a chance to heal anyone else. I caught a Tauren warrior out by himself, and with some help brought him down, too. Not a bad start. We’ll see how it holds up to Tol Barad later.

I’ve been pondering the classes of WoW and I’ve come up with some interesting analogies. I was wondering what would happen if each of the classes was bound by the burdens and responsibilities befitting of their lore? What would playing them be like? Here, in summary, is my take.

• Paladins – You refuse to kill most mobs and bad guys because they’re not pure evil.
• Priests – No questing on Sunday morning for you! You’re needed at the Chapel of the Light.
• Hunters – Forget acquiring Phat Lewts, Orgrimmar is starving. Go kill level six Dire Mottled Boars for hours  to feed the masses.
• Warriors – Rent-a-cops. Your basically hired muscle so you spend your day guarding the auction house.
• Rogues – You get chased by the rent-a-cops for robbing the local auction house.
• Druids – Hippies. That’s all I have to say.
• Shamans – You spend all day filling in the holes you make planting your totems around town, because the rent-a-cop makes you
• Warlocks – The hell with the world. You spend all day playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement of the Blue Recluse with your buddies.
• Death Knights – You kill all of the other classes, because that’s just what you do.

Suffice it to say, I think the Death Knight probably gets the best of the deal.  In any case, I’d love to hear some other thoughts on this. Any takers?

I logged into the game last night for some quick questing and auction-monitoring and my guild asked me to pitch in on a Summer Fire Festival boss run. Ahune was being a pain in the ass so they brought me along for some extra DPS. We did it, but I almost died three times. Twice from overdrawing those water/air elementals and once after getting launched sky-high while badly hurt (thanks, bubble!). However I more then made up for my lack of death there by going to Tol Barad.

Do you notice a trend in the above pictures? Yes, I’m the only one from my side in any of them. I’m not sure why I only caught pictures of me on my own because I spent a good deal of time in large groups and got a good number of kills but ultimately we lost again and I died something like eight times.

Think about this: ever since I said that my server’s Horde sucked at Tol Barad they’ve beat my ass time and again. That’ll teach me to open my mouth!