Archive for June, 2009

I’ve been doing the Sons of Hodir dailies pretty much, well… daily for quite some time, and it’s paid off finally. Sorta. lol I hit Revered with them yesterday, and was able to pick up the Spaulders of the Giant Lords for Gav. They’re not particularly attractive, but whatever, their stats fit me better then my old Tempered Saronite Shoulders.

In other news, Lug dinged both levels 19 and 20 this morning, as did Pig. Now Lug’s got some new toys to play with, plus he qualifies for his mount when patch 3.2 hits. Pig got his fist talent point, which I spent on Charge. I could have upped his stamina or raised his armor, but I wanted him to better engage enemies. He’s, well… kinda slow. lol This makes him engage enemies much quicker to keep them off of me. Plus, it helps his DPS, which is nice. Lug also leveled up his leatherworking skill to 55 and his skinning to 130, so he made himself some new gloves. It’s been a busy night for the ol’ bull.

It’s been an interesting evening so far for Gav. For one, I was test driving the nUI interface overhaul mod, and I disliked it. I actually came to hate it after it got me killed by a Blood Elf paladin in Sholozar Basin when I couldn’t find my powers to save myself after getting jumped. Why was I PvP in the first place? I actually came to the rescue of a Night Elf death knight under attack by said BE paladin. We killed it, but while fishing for the Ghostfish, the BE jumped me and I was unable to fight back. I promptly unloaded the mod.

In other news, I spent the last day or so with Gav in the Outlands, leveling my cooking skill, ultimately to level 350. I took that to Dalaran for a break when I noticed a blue “!” mark that I’d never seen before. I checked it out, and it was Katherine Lee, grand master cooking trainer, and questgiver for the cooking daily. Sweet! I promptly took up Cheese for Glowergold, and had it done in minutes. I can understand how that quest could be a pain in the ass sometimes, with people running all over each other to collect wine glasses that are sitting out, but it was easy this late at night when I was about the only one doing it. I got a bag of spices, as well as my first ever Dalaran Cooking Award. I was stumped as to what I was supposed to do with the award, but I ultimately found out that I could buy more recipes, Northern Spices, and a goofy chef’s hat. Not too exciting, but whatever.

Finally, I did complete the Ghostfish fishing daily, and of all things I got the Strand Crawler vanity pet. Not bad.

Now that Gav has made it to the PTR, I can comment on changes to the Argent Tournament dailies. My opinion? There are very few, at least so far. One, though, stands out as a soon-to-be pain in the neck. Taking the Battle to the Enemy currently can be completed by killing any mobs in the zone, save for in the Bombardment. Come patch 3.2, you will only be able to kill cultists to complete the quest. Oh, you can kill all the Frostblood Whelps and Vyrkul Necrolords you want, but they will do nothing for your quest progress. This is Blizzard finding things that are too easy and making them more… tedious. Not harder, just more tedious. I submitted my opinion on this to Blizzard upon completing the quest through their PTR survey tool. Nothing will likely come of it, but I feel better.

In other news, it’s no longer a pain in the butt to fly my gryphon around, seeing as how it’s gained a 90% speed increase from before (60% to 150%, as discussed last post). I do miss the Bronze Drake, though. I didn’t mention it before, but I flew the drake from Howling Fjord to Dalaran and on to the Argent Tournament grounds, and it was no big deal. I wouldn’t even think of flying Gav’s pre-3.2 econo-mount that far. With the PTR’s speed increase, Gav flew his gryphon to the tournament grounds rather then buy a ride, and it’s not too bad. Not the best, but not bad.

I paid a visit to the new Argent Tournament grounds on the PTR last night, and here is a pic of them. I cruised around and snooped, but not allot got done. I really couldn’t do any quests, since I wasn’t even a Valiant with the Tournament yet. Why? Well…

I’m kinda not playing as Gav on the PTR right now. He’s yet to make the transfer, so I opted to test drive a premade level 80 Draenei Hunter, who came complete with a kick-ass set of gear and a Spirit Beast pet. Oh, and a Bronze Drake. Man, this thing is sweet. It’s really, really fast compared to Gav’s current gryphon (280% speed increase on the Drake versus 60% on the gryphon). The gryphon will be up to 150% once I get Gav into the PTR thanks to included changes, so I’ll be a little over half as fast, rather then just a third as fast. Add my Crusader Aura and it’s 20% speed increase to the equation, and I’ll be just 110% slower, rather then 200%. Yeah… makes it sound all better, doesn’t it?

*Sigh*

In other PTR news, there seems to be a little glitch at the Tournament.

Fordring! What the hell happened to ya, man?!

It’s Midsummer Festival time, and I’m downtrodden. I loved this festival last year, but I’m just not getting up for it again this year for whatever reason. I – as Gav, of course – have however had a couple of interesting events occur in correlation with the occasion.

One quest, Unusual Activity, took me to Zoram Stand in Ashenvale, near Blackfathom Deeps. I’d never run the dungeon before, so I saw no reason not to run in and kill Aku’mai while I was there. No problems encountered, and I completed that particular Midsummer Festival mini-questline to boot.

I also hung around in Stormwind for about an hour last night, protecting our fire. I helped kill an Orc death knight, a Tauren warrior, and – most interestingly – a Blood Elf paladin. This paladin was being chased through the canals by a Dwarven hunter, but the hunter couldn’t finish him, mostly because of us pally’s legendary survivability. I joined in and chased him through the canals until he hit a dead end between the trade district and Old Town, where I cornered him and killed him. I got some congrats for my perseverance, and another human paladin and I grouped to hunt down hordies in the city. We found none, but it was good to make a sweep in case.

Am I being corrupted by PvP, or was this just an act of justice, with me doing my duty as part of the Alliance? I’m not sure. Maybe both.

Well, here’s a happy tale. I did my usual Argent Tournament dailies (Taking the Battle to the Enemy and Among the Champions) yesterday evening, bringing my champion’s seal total up to 22, and I needed 25 for my Claymore of the Prophet. Doing the dailies again this morning was quick, but still… I was going to be one short. What to do? How about rolling the dice on getting a champions seal in one of the Champion’s Purses I was going to get? Yeah! I was due!

No luck. I got my gold and that was that. That left me with two options: wait until tomorrow, or do that ‘other’ daily. I dreaded the thought of going through Battle Before the Citadel, because I didn’t like it’s Valiant variant, At the Enemy’s Gates. The flight to the fight was bad enough for me on my slow, non-epic flyer, but the thought of having to kill a Boneguard Commander made me cringe. I had been killed by them a few times doing At the Enemy’s Gates, so I was scared of them. But, if it was between that and waiting ‘till tomorrow… I was going to chance it. I flew down to the quest area, and promptly got swamped by every mob in the area. Yup, this was going to be fun.

I managed to outrun the mobs until only the commander was chasing me. I turned to fight, but I was already down to 19% health. Still, I got him down to 36% HP from max health before he killed my mount. I then whittled him further, down to under 10% on foot before I finally fell. “Huh,” I thought to myself, “These guys don’t hit any harder then the Champions I fight everyday!” Once that thought had occurred to me, it was on.

I saved one challenger from a commander, but since he had tagged him I didn’t get credit for it. Dammit. Next, I managed to pick off and kill a commander on my own with relative ease. As I was mopping up Boneguard Lieutenants, another aggro’d on me. I was down to 49% health at the time, but after learning of their comparability to Argent Champions, I just slowly backed off, led him to a quiet corner of the area and killed him. They may have massive range to chase you down (you really can’t run from them, which is mostly what got me killed all the other times), but they aren’t real tough. Getting one alone, however, can be.

Well, as you can see in my pic, I obviously completed the quest, got my 25th champion’s seal, and purchased my fancy new sword. I’m dying to try it out on something now. lol

Here are the patch notes for 3.2, along with my notes and opinions. First, my thoughts.

I like the new expanded Argent Tournament, including a paladin-exclusive mount (yes, I’m greedy that way). New druid form art will be nice, and acts as another step towards overall graphic improvement. Wintergrasp is becoming more and more like a mere battleground, with queue lines, a 100 player per side limit, and battlemasters in capital towns. Lastly, paladins (my focus, obviously) are getting overhauled to the tune of removing my key seal (Seal of the Martyr), and making Exorcism usable on other players again while adding a casting time. Anyway, click Read More… for the patch notes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Doing fishing dailies isn’t the key to riches, but it can be fun. It can also net you some neat fishing-related loot, like my new Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat. I’m able to use it for a fishing skill buff rather then having to lug around Bright Baubles or Aquadynamic Fish Attractors. This saves me a good bit of bag space.

In other news, Gav is now a Champion of Gnomeregan. Not an Exalted Champion (yet), just a champion. I’m five Champions Seals away from my sword now, too, so it’s within – at most – three days reach (I only do the Taking the Battle to the Enemy and Among the Champions Argent Champion dailies). Compare that new sword with my current club, and it’s a no-brainer, especially since I prefer swords, anyway.

In over  500 hours of playing Gavelier, I’ve spent maybe 30 minutes in Silithus, and for good reason. There’s nothing there for me. It’s a dead, barren land with tons of bugs, nothing exciting to do, lots of bugs, only one place to stop (the Cenarion Hold), and nothing I want. Did I mention there’s a whole slew of bugs? Yeah. So why go there? I got to level 80 without it, so I figured Gav would never see it again.

Never say never, Gavelier.

I’m making a concerted effort to level up my cooking, and when I hit 285 or so last night, I looked to Wowhead.com to see what to learn to cook next. The answer? Smoked Desert Dumplings, and both the recipe and the ingredients are only available in Silithus. So, I fired up my Gadgetzan Transporter to get to Tanaris and took a flight from there to the Cenarion Hold. I must say that this place hasn’t improved much in the 30+ levels since I last saw it, with the only perk being that nothing would attack me. It took me over an hour to get the recipe, find and kill enough Dredge Stikers and Crushers to get the needed 10 pieces of Sandworm Meat and complete the follow-up quest. While there, I rode through and explored the entire zone with the expressed purpose of never having to come back here again.

You may notice in the pic that my goggles have changed colors. That’s just because the blue light bulb died in my Furious Gizmatic Goggles and a yellow bulb was cheaper.

…

Ok, that’s a lie. I finally leveled up my engineering skill enough to make myself some Charged Titanium Specs. Yay! I’m currently at 446 in Engineering, so I’ve nearly maxed it out. I hope to make myself a Mekgineer’s Chopper once I hit 450. Of course, that requires me to reach Exalted with the Alliance Vangard, and so far I’m just Honored. Dammit.

Ok, I’m more then a little miffed now. There’s a huge change in the upcoming patch 3.2 that I don’t agree with. Mount training levels are being altered. Here’s a rundown.

• Regular land mounts will be trainable at level 20 instead of 30
• Epic land mounts will be available at level 40 instead of 60
• Regular flying mounts will be available at level 60 instead of 70
• Regular flying mounts speed has been buffed from 60% to 150%

This irritates me on a number of levels. I understand the concept: help people level their alts faster and remove tedium from the early game, getting people to the new content faster. However, I dislike this concept. Mounts being trainable at 20 is a little early. I thought level 30 was perfect; halfway to the Outlands, you get your mount. I also think that level 70 was ideal for a flying mount. I don’t see how anyone can enjoy the Outlands when they’re just flying from point A to point B, skipping all of the sights and sounds below.

I can hear people crying now; “I’ve done all this before, and I don’t want to have to slog my alt through all of the old content again! This is a great change that will speed this up!” However, it takes out of account those who are just beginning. What of those for whom this would be how they would first experience the Outlands? As much as I love flying, I think having to go by land for your first time through content is paramount to getting the most out of it.

Here’s my compromise. Make these level changes something akin to the Death Knight. For example, once you hit a certain level, say level 70, you trigger a flag that allows you to enable the rushed mount level changes. Prior to getting your first avatar to that level, you have to go the old way. I think that this solves both problems. It’s probably not perfect, but it’s a start. Does anyone have a better idea?