Archive for January, 2010

Anybody recognize this handsome devil? It’s Budman of Gavelier’s World of Warcraft fame! I haven’t played him in ages so he was still a lowly level 16 when I signed in on him the other day. Now, he’s level 20 and is playing with his teleportation spells and blinking all over the place.

He’s now a frost mage vice an arcane mage, and has become more and more so as I’ve played him. I was going to put my 19th and 20th talent points into Improved Fireball 2 and 3 (I already had one point in it), but I was getting such use out of my one point in Frostbite so I opted to max it out instead.

I’ve learned a few things while playing him the last day or two. For one, arcane missiles is a mana-killer. I used to love it but now I avoid casting it to save mana. Secondly, I do want to max Improved Fireball at some point because the spell Fireball takes forever to cast. Lastly, I love teleporting because it means I can set my hearthstone to minor settlements and still have access to the capital cities.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed my time as Budman. So much so, actually, that I haven’t played Gav for a few days. Oops!

It’s time for another edition of Path of the Paladin. Like usual, I have no goals, and am just going to wing it. We’ll see if anything of worth occurs (like anything ever has). At any rate, here we go!

• 11:23 – Logging in as we speak. Gav reached exalted with the Kirin Tor recently, so I’m not going to be doing my profession dailies today. I think I’ll head to Storm Peaks and check on the Sons of Hodir and their dailies.
• 11:26 – Logging can take forever some days! Ah, in!
• 11:27 – Oh, I have mail! My dream shard finally sold, for 22g. I’ve been trying to sell that thing forever.
• 11:28 – Crap, my bags are full as hell from earlier escapades. Lemme clear some space. Oh, guildies are on. I said hi to them.
• 11:30 – On my way to Storm Peaks now. About time, huh?
• 11:31 – Changed my mind. I need Ebon Hold rep, so I’m off to Icecrown.
• 11:32 – WTF? I just got accosted by a librarian while stopping for Saronite in Storm Peaks.
• 11:33 – Finally entering Icecrown above the Argent Tournament grounds.
• 11:35 – Guildie got Working Day and Night achievement while I was flying to the Ebon Hold folks. GJ, dude.
• 11:37 – Well, I’m not the only one doing certain Ebon Hold dailies; I’m finding all the Vrykul killed with swords sticking out of ‘em.
• 11:40 – Ok, 15 drake riders shot down; now I’m off to perform arson.
• 11:43 – Arson complete. Now, to stab some of these Vrykul that still stand.
• 11:46 – Lotsa live ones near the southern end of the village.
• 11:47 – Well, there used to be. lol
• 11:48 – Man, now all the ones near the drake pen are dead too. One minute their alive, the next their dead. I wonder what could be killing them? Maybe these big swords in their backs? Hmm…
• 11:50 – And just like that, I’m out of swords to play with. This is freaky. Hey, my claymore’s dented. How did that happen?
• 11:51 – FYI: Any one who didn’t see the sarcasm dripping off of those last couple posts needs help.
• 11:52 – Over a thousand more Ebon Hold rep for me, and I’m off, back to Dalaran to wrap this up.
• 11:54 – Well, I suppose that’s that. Again, not dramatic, but it’s a read into my play style and mindset. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m off.

Updated 1/25/10 for typos, clarification and links

This is just a quick update on current events. Gav ran two random heroics yesterday with some guildies, the first one (Utgarde Keep) with two guildies and the second one (The Nexus) with three. The random healer in our second group had to feel left out. In any case, we cleared both in no time, and I never died. I got some disenchanted gear’s regents, which I promptly put on the auction block.

On another note, I went and bought the XP-bonus shoulders for Gleave, my death knight. With a gryphon and XP shoulders, he’s about as happy at 63 as a death knight can be.

Later, all.

I entered my first random heroic dungeon tonight with a true pick-up group. I signed into the Dungeon Finder, and ended up with a cross-server crew in the Halls of Lightning. Well, if it was lightning, we were thunder. Our tank (a death knight) knew just what the hell he was doing, and we effin’ blitzed the place. We nabbed the Shatter Resistant and Timely Death achievements as we cleared it. We steered clear of unnecessary fights, thanks to our tank’s know-how. The sad part is that I died twice. Dammit! It amounted to 16g in repairs back in Dalaran. I only got The General’s Steel Girdle for my trouble. I saw the Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver drop before me, but I didn’t get it. Damn. Oh well, I did get two more frost emblems. Yay!

Tonight, I engaged in a dramatic defense of Wintergrasp that was allot of fun and too awesome for words. Suffice to say, I had a great time. This post isn’t really about that though (I just had to talk about it anyway).

I did the fishing daily, Jewel of the Sewers prior to the WG battle, and got a Tiny Titanium Lockbox. When I got back from Wintergrasp, a guildie opened it for me, and boy was I in for a treat! Inside was:

• Six gold and change
• A Sky Sapphire
• A Monarch Topaz
• A Spur Ring of Agility
• A Solid Stormjewel
• And some vendor trash

Nice haul, huh? The Solid Stormjewel alone goes for about 600g on my server’s auction house. All told, this was a huge pick-up for me. I’m happy now.

Oh, and I’m at a crossroads with Gleave (my lvl 63 human death knight) and Crane (my lvl 23 human warlock). I can buy one of the –just one –an xp-bonus heirloom (either Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle for Crane or Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons for Gleave) from Wintergrasp now, but I’m not sure who I want to buy for (meaning: who I’ll actually play and level). I’ll have to think on it.

As is already old news, the official WoW Armory has been updated with 3D models and character activity RSS lists. I prefer these new 3D models to Wowhead’s because they actually use my characters’ faces, skins, and hair. I’ve been so moved that I’ve added a new link to our menu bar so you can see in-blog copies of my avatars. I’ve also included a new readout of the left of the page to cover what major events have happened in my WoW life. Enjoy!

Hey look, kids! It’s Minigob Manabonk, that li’l prick who Manabonked me a while back. I was ready to unleash my new Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket on his ass if he sheeped me again, but thankfully, he had a Tauren druid in his sites.

Stupid gnome.

I forgot to mention this last post, but it was so obvious I doubt anyone missed it; I’ve redone to look of the blog. The gold and black version was designed to be timeless, but it turned out to be charmless. I’ve gone back to a ‘written on parchment’ look from long, long ago. It may need a few minor tweaks, but for now it works. Hopefully you like this better then what I had before.

I spent a good hour-plus in Nagrand last night, grinding out the last thousand or two rep I needed with the Kurenai faction. I love Nagrand, the appearance and the layout… but I hate that damned rep grind. As I was winding it up, I had conflicting emotions. I would no longer have a reason to come to Nagrand, one of my favorite zones in the game, but at the same time, I would be done with those stupid ogres.

Well, I finally got it. After buying up a couple of their mounts, I got something else, too.

Yay! My very own Albino Drake! This made allot of that grinding worth it. Actually, this was why I was doing this in the first place; I was about four mounts short of my goal. and this – believe it or not – was the fastest way to get those last few mounts. I now have a handful of Talbuks, as well. Nice.

By the way, this is the only known pic of Beta’s Tauren druid. I’m not going to spill her name right now, because of privacy concerns, but I will say that Beta got it outright on her first try. Yes, it’s an odd one.

She’s not played since, but she’s also not been home much since. We’ll see if she ever tries the game again.

I saw something I thought I’d never see; something more rare then Bigfoot hopping on the moon:

Betasim played World of Warcraft last night.

For those of you out of the loop, Beta swears disdain towards the ‘life killer’ that is WoW. She says some of her friends paid more attention to it then her and the rest of a group, trying to play Dungeons and Dragons (that, my friends, is overload to me. WoW and D&D at the same time? Holy crap).

Well, for whatever reason she opted to give it a go last night. She rolled up a Tauren druid and off she went. At first she didn’t use her spells, but that didn’t last long. She wanted to forgo the quest to learn to train, deciding instead to ‘figure it out herself.’ I told her there was a little XP to be gotten from the quest, and she reluctantly went back for it. Beta disliked the downtime between swings on her staff. I remember that feeling; Gav had a sword around level 50 that was abysmally slow.

She eventually sauntered out of the newbie area around level 5, and was set upon by her first aggroable mob; a wolf. She killed it, and quickly developed an awareness to wandering creatures. Once in Bloodhoof village she got another quest to nab some bits and bobs from critters, but died some four times trying to get them. She opted to hearth back to Bloodhoof, except… she thought Red Cloud Mesa was Bloodhoof, and she had her hearthstone set there still. Thus, she had to wander all the way back (griping about her slow run speed the whole way).

Beta could be a good player if she put the time in, but with school, teaching and work, she doesn’t have allot of free time. Here’s hoping she enjoyed herself enough to start playing once in a while!