Maintenance-thoughts on Cataclysm

So it's Tuesday and realms are down. I'm more anxious than normal for realms to come up-my Death Knight will be getting his new Ravasaur mount today! But I also feel like crap with a cold that kept me up half the night-so a nap is forthcoming. So yay for maintenance!

I thought I'd take some time to talk about the things that I learned from watching the different fansites regarding Blizzcon's announcement of the new expansion to come, Cataclysm. It's not like it was a HUGE surprise, since much of the information was leaked awhile back. Hearing everything confirmed-and seeing the trailer- was MASSIVE. I don't remember being quite this surprised during the announcements for Burning Crusade and Wrath. Then again, they weren't tearing the world where I've spent so much time in the past 4 years completely asunder.

The overall face of Azeroth changes...

The bad first: I will miss this place. My favorite zone of Azshara is going a complete change to become the 5-15 zone for the new playable race of Goblins. The Barrens will be, well, it just won't be the Barrens anymore. I think I will spend some time taking lots of screenshots as momentos. I mean, if the local park where you spent years playing was being torn down for a Wal-Mart, you'd probably go take pictures, just to help with the memories.

The good: Well, it means a complete overhaul of the leveling process from 1-58. As a certified altoholic, this really seems like it will be almost a whole new game to play! I can't wait to see the new quests and rewards!

New races:
Goblin: yeah, not so interested in them really, even though I am Horde to the core. I have a reserved name for a female Goblin rogue, and that will probably be the only one I ever roll.

Worgen: Oh I know they are going to be EVERYWHERE, but I just have to roll one or three. I am sort of a wolf fan. Not werewolves so much, just wolves. And the darkness of their zone, reminds me of late 1800s London, which is also really right up my alley. Must try Worgen druid, rogue and one other(not sure yet what).

Old race/new class combos:
As mentioned above, I am a certified altoholic. Let's just say it wasn't really easy finding old alts to delete in order to reserve names for my planned new characters and get in under that 50 character limit. Unfortunately my main realm has no character lower than 53(and that's one, the rest are all over 70), so unless they give us at least 1 new slot, all new characters will be on other realms(which just sucks for me, but oh well).
I will be rolling(and have already reserved names for!):

• Tauren Paladin-oh how could I not? I love Tauren, and I love Paladins!
• Troll Druid-I have never rolled a Troll(that sounds weird...), but this is the best reason to start! Especially if they get some really excellent looking form art
• Human hunter-Aw, I love hunters. He may not make it higher than levl 20, but still seems like it will be a fun character to play
• Dwarf Shaman-I've been wanting to play another Shaman(I have a 72 Tauren shaman), but I just don't want to play Draenei or Trolls and my Orc Shaman hasn't gotten past level 20. I really like playing female Dwarves(have 71 hunter and 70 paladin), so this seems like an excellent combination!
• Undead Hunter-maybe not myself, but my kid is rolling an Undead hunter and I get the feeling that I will play it more than she does!
  

Not interested in Gnome or Tauren Priest(just can't seem to play this class for very long), Blood Elf Warrior(I have too many BElves and don't really like Warrior), Orc and Dwarf and Night Elf Mage(I have 2 high level mages, not really interested in more).

New secondary profession:
Archaeology! I am so glad that this is secondary so that everyone can take it without giving up a main profession. I am really STOKED about this one! I can't wait to learn more about it and honestly, at this point, this sounds like something I will spend the MOST amount of my time doing! I'm sure I will talk more about it later, but this one probably has me the most excited!

New guild leveling:
Not really interested in this. My main realm has all of my characters in the same guild-the ones that my family is in. That means there are a total of 27 characters from 3 accounts. There are 7 level 80s-and 4 of them are mine. I'm not sure our guild will ever level up! Not that it matters I guess(although who wouldn't want more money from all kills, c'mon that helps everybody!). And any high levels I have on other realms are unguilded, though I suppose this will sort of force me into joining one just for the heck of it(or be bugged endlessly to join guilds everytime I log in). Oh well.

Everything else:
I haven't even read the info on the new dungeons or raids or pvp-I just don't do those things so they don't really affect me. Although the news that the new daily hub will be in a PvP zone(even on PvE realms) REALLY ticks me off. At least I will have alts to level rather than having to worry about dailies.

More detailed info about each point will be coming as soon as I learn more about them! To sum it up though-I am VERY excited about the news!

SilverDragon

I just wanted to reiterate from a post I made a few weeks ago how much I LOVE this new add-on, SilverDragon. The photo above shows how you can get the raid warning when a rare is spotted, as well as a warning noise and the pop-up. I've found SO many rares since I installed this. It even stopped me once from logging out on an alt that I had parked in Dustwallow waiting for Dart, as he popped just as I was watching that 20 seconds countdown-I probably would not have noticed him normally! A guaranteed green quality item(or something even rarer, like the new raptor pets) is always a bonus.

SilverDragon-highly recommended!

I love my daughter :)

I couldn't believe it. I have spent so many hours fishing the Highland pools of Terrokar, thousands of crawdads caught. And no Mr Pinchy.

A few weeks ago, my kid says "hey I think I'm gonna try to fish up Mr Pinchy"-pretty much the first time she has ever bothered trying. Five minutes later..."I got him!!" Let's just say I was a little peeved.

So what does she do? Over the next week, when I go to fix dinner or watch the afternoon news, she sneaks onto my druid and goes fishing. And I'll be a monkey's uncle if she didn't catch the blasted thing! And got the Magical Crawdad pet on the first wish!(so did she on hers) This is my druid with her new little Magical Crawdad, thanks to my wonderful daughter!

Note: I've since tried to fish it up with my level 80 human mage(who is in need of pets as well) and have no luck with him. Guess I need to get her to work her magic for me again! :)

Some luck FINALLY!

Finally...FINALLY!! I still almost can't believe it really happened today! Finally the blue lady gave in and gave me the Polar Bear mount!! I kid you not...this is how it happened:

Blue Lady: Quest today is Back to the Pit
Me: Lovely. At least it isn't Abberations again. Hate that one.
Blue Lady: Just go do it. :/
Me: Fine.
Me runs off to fight bears. For some reason I was really getting ganged-up on by lots of bears. Had to jump off twice to heal myself!

Me, finish quest. Rather than jumping off bear and flying back to Blue Lady, I rode bear over to her. I stood there. I said...
Me: LOOK!! Look how cool I look on this cool Polar Bear! This bear LOOOOOOVES me! You really, REALLY need to give me this bear to ride. Seriously.
Blue Lady: Just shutup and turn the quest in and open the bag already.
Me: (opens bag) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Smoochies, Blue Lady! Sorry about throwing all those snowballs at you before! :D

Working on rep, solo

In addition to leveling up lots of new characters(my latest Paladin is now 68 and in Northrend!), I've decided to go back and work on as many reputations as possible with my main Druid. She is currently sitting at 22 exalted, the latest being Cenarion Circle(I'll be happy to not see Silithus ever again!). I will never be able to raise certain reps to exalted, such as the ones that require numerous dungeon runs, or the ones that are flat out crazy(Steamwheedle or Shen'dralar!). These are the ones I've worked on or will work on solo:

AZEROTH/CLASSIC:

• Timbermaw- I had this to exalted well before Wrath. The only bonus at exalted is a cute trinket that summons a Timbermaw to fight with you, but he really doesn't do much except look cute!
• Argent Dawn- Got this to exalted by running Stratholme over and over at level 80. Also finishing every single quest I could find in both Plaguelands. Only good thing about being exalted is a title IF you are also exalted with the Wrath version, Argent Crusade.
  
• Cenarion Circle- Just got this today. Basically finishing as many quests as possible in Silithus, and then grinding the Twilight Cultists. They give 10 rep per kill. They also drop Twilight Texts which turn in 10 for 500 rep-this is your best bet for rep here. You can also collect the three piece Twilight outfit and fight the elementals at the windstones. They drop an Abyssal Crest, 3 of those give 150 rep. I'd guess that going from just honored to exalted took me about 4-5 hours total, and I bought no texts from the AH though this is an option.
  

BURNING CRUSADE:

• Shat'ari Skyguard- I got this exalted not long after the quests opened up for me. It's a matter of just dailies(in Terrokar, and Ogrila, Blades Edge once you open the Ogrila dailies) or grinding the Skettis for rep per kill and shadow dust to turn in.
  
• Shattered Sun- daillies, dailies, dailies. I did this with 5 characters-not sure I could do it ever again though!
• Scryers/Aldor- I am still only revered with Scryers(12k/21k). This one will simply takes either buying the Sunfury Signets or Arcane Tomes from the AH or farming them in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley.
  
• Ogrila- It took a group to open these dailies. It wasn't fun(especially being bossed around by a 12 year old), but it did take a 5man group back at level 70 to kill the 3 elites needed. I'm not certain if these can be soloed at level 80. And then again, it just took daily after daily to finally hit exalted.
  
• Netherwing- another Awesome rep grind, but also took a group to open at level 70(possibly soloable at 80, not sure). Well worth it if you can get past the big group quest, and have epic flying(required for starting the dailies).
  
• Sporeggar- Pretty much only done for the mini-pet. Two different ways to gain exalted-repeatable quest to kill a number of Naga that are nearby, or turn in Sanguine Hibiscus. I went the turn in route, and I had a rogue stealth farm these back at 70(and farmed enough for himself, my druid, and my kid's mage-that is A LOT of hibiscus!!)
• Mag'har/Kurenai -Simply a matter of doing all quests in Nagrand and then farming Ogres in Nagrand for rep per kill and beads to turn in. At exalted you can buy the very cool Talbuk mounts!
• Consortium- Quests in Nagrand and Netherstorm, farming Zaxxis Insignias in Netherstorm or Ogre beads in Nagrand(the same from the other rep grind there). There are no mobs with rep per kill. I am still just over Revered with these guys, it will be one of my next grinds.
  
• Cenarion Expedition- Quests in Zangarmarsh and Blades Edge, a turn in up until honored. This is one isn't easy. Luckily they added a few more quests in Borean Tundra with Wrath, and a repeatable quest to turn in ears from the Nesingwary lackies running around the zone. I'm just over revered (5k/21k) and this is my next grind. There is another repeatable quest back in Zangarmarsh, but it requires dungeon runs or buying from the AH. The ear quest gives much more rep per time than that one. It is 15 ears per turn in for 150 rep. The best place I found to grind them is the Minions of Kaw. They respawn fast and have a good drop rate. The bonus at exalted, the Cenarion Hypogryph mount and title if exalted with both Cenarion reps!

Wrath reputations in another post coming soon!

Another new add-on

Ok, so the patch broke most of my add-ons, especially the ones I REALLY sort of rely on.

#1 Fubar -I like having certain things known at a glance rather than having to hunt around for them, such as gold amount, number of quests in log, and XP time to level. And not having QuestFu, not having that "Job's done" voice when I complete a quest, geez I almost don't know when to stop now!

#2 Xperl -The default settings aren't horrible, but they are TINY compared to how you can set them with Xperl. It's just the character XP/mana bars that I need to change. My eyes are terrible and I like those bars to be sort of big and easy to read. The default ones are so small, and with the numbers covering most of the bar(just can't play without those numbers there), it's hard to tell when you are getting low on health or mana. That can be bad! I'm trying out a different one until I know Xperl is bug-free, but I just don't like it's flexibility.

That being said, I did manage to find a new add-on that I wish I would have had ALL THE TIME for the past 4 years...

It's called SilverDragon. It is a rare mob spotter. Yes, it will probably help grab those rare raptors(and I hesitated in writing this, the thought of my competition having this add-on scares me!), but I love ALL rares! I actually made a notebook listing rare mobs about 3 years ago, well before Burning Crusade came out. I listed mobs by zone, with coords and descriptions, and I used to spend hours running around with my druid killing every single one I could find. And not just for the fact that they always drop at least a green quality item(sometimes something unique to that mob), but it was the hunter in me I guess.

Of course, Burning Crusade came out and to my delight(and dismay), the rares out there were even rarer and ALWAYS dropped a BLUE quality item! Very nice, but it made them much harder to find. On my server, Alliance side, it seemed like one person had them all covered and were the only ones who would find them-because you could find dozens of the blue items on the AH, all being sold by the same person. It's the same now with Wrath. The blue items are even better, and this same person seems to be able to have them all, all the time.

And with the addition of Wrath came the achievements for killing rare mobs(but only in Outland and Northrend). Now even more people are hunting these mobs that I spent hours on so long ago.

So to this new add-on, SilverDragon. It scans the area you are in for rare mobs, scanning your mouseovers or nearby nameplates, and alerts you when a rare is found. Without messing too much with the setttings, currently what happens when I find a rare is I get a screen flash(similiar to a low health flash), a loud sound(sort of a whammy sound), and a box pops up noting the name of the rare. The box can be clicked to auto-target the mob. You still will have to look around and figure out where they are though. It isn't much different than using a /target macro, except that it checks that for you!

On the surface, it almost seems like cheating. Almost. However, I'm not a raider, and from reading forum posts every now and then from people who raid, it seems to me that there are add-ons that let them know when someone is low on health or needs a disease/curse removed. That sort of sounds similar to what this add-on does. It still doesn't point me to the mob and won't automatically cast a spell on it, but it does let me know one is in the area.

After downloading this, I took a trip around Outland and found 3 rares that I was missing for the Bloody Rare achievement! I only have 3 left to find there.

Just a note, there is another add-on that is supposed to do something similar to this, called Bloody Rare. I downloaded that one first and it won't work for me. It is supposed to create a zone-specific macro that can be used to find the rares, however mine won't update itself at all, so I got rid of it. And SilverDragon is MUCH MUCH better!

So for you rare mob hunters out there, this add-on is a MUST!

Let's see how that's gone after one week

Looking back at last week's post for patch 3.2 and how things have gone for my characters...

• Mounts: this has been incredible! I LOVE the new Undead horse. My druid finished buying up enough mounts to get the Albino Drake(reward for 50 mounts achievement). Flying around Outland on several characters have made some quests so it's easy that were previously a pain in the neck. And my few characters that can now fly around Northrend at lower levels, it is amazing. And of course, the non-epic flyer going so much faster, really makes it not as painful if you don't have epic.
  
• Children's Week: This was so much fun! I had a blast carting the two orphans around on all of my characters. I had around 10 characters doing this quest, and I probably split with half getting the Curious Oracle and half getting the Curious Wolvar. They are both adorable!
• Baby Raptors: Yes, they are adorable. But these have just given me a GIANT headache. It took 35 runs with my druid to get the one from Wailing Caverns(at around 30 raptors per run, well over 1000 raptors). After 7 runs, my mage still hasn't gotten one. And the rare raptors are massively camped-but they are showing up on the auction house for upwards of 8k gold. STUPID money grubbers, let the REAL pet collectors get these mobs!! (insert extreme mad face here)
• Ravasaur Trainer: This has been fun! I didn't go out the first day because I knew it would be crazy. So my druid started on day #2 and my DK on day #3. I love the DK horse, but frankly I'm a little sick of that scream when you summon him. My UD DK bought the new Ochre Undead horse. But my level 80 DK is a Blood Elf and I refuse to ride the chicken things, so he will be getting a Ravasaur. :)
• Potions stacking to 20: This is cool, saves some room here and there but I guess I didn't have as much of them in my banks as I thought I had. Heh.
  
• Epic Gems: Yes, I bought some recipes and made some gems. I've sold maybe 4 gems at around 400g each. Not a huge amount really. It seems that MOST people are either getting their gems from some other means and simply asking in trade for a JC to cut them. I bought some of the more maybe 'un-standard' recipes as well as a couple of the more popular(Solid blue and the agility red one). The ones I sold were the ones with good stats(The Regal with +10 defense and +15 stamina) and no competition for on the AH. I also transmuted enough to finish the quest on my mage for the transmute:red gem. I know I can look and SEE what is on the AH, but it's really hard to say what will SELL on the AH. I made a yellow gem right off the bat and placed it on the AH for several days, thinking all the engineers wanting to make Jeeves would need them. Either there aren't many engineers, or they got their gems somewhere else. I ended up cutting the yellow one and giving it to my kid for her new PvP shoulders.
  
• Argent Tournament: This has gone well. I love the new quests-they are incredibly easy and fun! I got the Argent Tabard right off the bat, and the time it saves me is unbelievable! If you plan on doing these dailies, this tabard is a MUST! And I am now 30 tokens closer to the Argent Warhorse. The new dailies include 2 from the Argent folks and 3 from the Sunreavers. (the Sunreaver tabard is HOT! I'll be going for that after the horse!) The dailies usually rotate each day, so there are more available than there are given. One of the Sunreavers(the Alliance version is Silver Covenant-not sure if they get the same dailies each day or not) dailies will involve doing something for the new dungeon mobs-gather followers at K3 for one or hunt Jormunger eggs to feed another. They take you to Storm Peaks, and while I'm there I can knock out the Blue Lady daily in fervent hopes of getting a cute polar bear mount. When done, I use the Argent tabard to teleport back and I'm done! Oh and the old Argent quest to kill 15 Scourge is changed to one that has you kill the same mobs you need to kill for one of the Sunreavers quests-works out quite nice!

All in all I do love this patch. It's only the massive over-camping of the rare spawns by money grubbers that is ticking me off. I really don't think my luck is going to be on my side for quite some time in this one. My luck sucks anyway, so it certainly isn't going to be any better there.

In the meantime, I've leveled two paladins last week. Both were level 60 when the patch hit. My Dwarf is now almost 64 and my Blood Elf is 65. Yay! So much fun!

Hope the patch was good for you!

Back from vacation just in time!

Spent a few weeks over in the Smoky Mountains with family. Was nice, but boy did I miss WoW!

What is in Patch 3.2 for a soloer like me? I'll start with things that aren't class-related.

• Mounts at lower levels and prices! Ode to Joy! I have at least 6 characters between 40 and 60 that will benefit from this, and many more that I bumped to 20 just in time for them to get their first mount. I also have a few characters that will benefit from the new book available for alts that gives Cold Weather Flying as low as 68.
  
• Children's Week!! I'm so stoked about this! Getting a new little minipet(probably the little Oracle for most of my characters) is awesome, they are both so cute. Children's Week, I think, is my favorite in-game holiday. Maybe it is because I am a mom. :)
• EIGHT new Baby Raptor pets! Buy one easy from Breanni in Dalaran. The rest either come from rare raptor mobs or raptors in instances(I think I will farm the Deviate one from Wailing Caverns first).
  
• Ravasaur Trainer in Un'Goro! Finally my Horde characters can get their own unique Raptor mounts! Oh well, I've started the Wintersaber quests with my 80 mage, but I got bored with them halfway through Friendly(hopefully I'll get back to him someday!)
• Potions stacking to 20! I know it isn't a huge change, but boy is this going to create bag space for some characters and tons of space in my personal guild banks!
• Epic Gems! Well, yeah, I have no interest in using any of them, but with a 450 Alchemist and 450 Jewelcrafter, I hope to make a little money off of them. I don't have a ton of Titanium saved up, but I've got quite a few blue gems that my alch can transmute(and hope for those transmute procs!)
• Argent Tournament daily quests and items. While I've only gotten one character, my druid, to Crusader, she's the only one I want all the cool stuff on anyway. Five new dailies for Seals. New mounts and tabards and pets to save for! I think I will get the Argent Tabard(free teleport to Argent grounds!), then the Argent Warhorse, and then work on the other faction tabards. Only need 6 more for the Tabard achievement. Oh and the Sunreaver tabard looks awesome too!

Of course, my main is a druid and I am STOKED to see the new forms! And to match up the right fur color with the kitty color I want. But of course, realms are down at least until 5pm *my time*, so all I can do is wait and anticipate!