Meh

Well, I got to spend some time playing last night -- not much though because most of my time was spent haggling with BarTender4 trying to get it to get all my bars in the right place.

Now that I have more skills to use, I had to set it up so that I have more keys to activate those skills. So now most of my skills (at least the ones that I use) occupy 1-6, SHIFT+1-6, z,x,c,v,b, and f and g on the kb. Crazy! And everytime I got it like I liked, I'd save. But when I saved, my bars moved all around again! Gr. hehe.

But anyway. I lost Starshards, which sort of sucks. I gained Devouring Plague in its place, but that costs mana, and takes 24 seconds to tic all the way out -- most fights don't last 24s when you're questing, so I don't think that's going to become that useful.

I really don't understand the way VT works now as far as giving back mana. Crazy. Imp SF (when faded) reduces spell pushback by 70% (almost entirely) which is nice for those PvP moments. I ended up getting buffed from just over 550 to about 630 spellpower. That's still weak and I need to work on getting that upped. Shouldn't be too difficult though with the spellpower changes.

Additionally, Mind Flay CRITS now. That's one of the most incredible changes in my opinion. MF Crits hit for about 950 dmg, and with around a 12% crit chance, that's about 1 MF crit every 3 MF's.

I put EVERY SINGLE ONE of my talent points into shadow, totally leaving out Imp PW:F (which I kinda wish I hadn't), Meditation (which isn't so needed anymore) and Inner Focus -- which I didn't use too much anyway.

Dispersion -- take 90% less damage, regen around 35% health and mana in 6 seconds -- proved to be quite nice. Between mana pots, 3m shadowfiend, and dispersion, i should never run out of mana. My DPS should theoretically get bumped on the longer fights, but it was sitting round about the same (500 or so) in my encounters in shadowmoon. I can't wait to get into an instance!

Anyway, that's it. :)

New Server, New Patch, New Priest!

Well, if it hasn't been a long ass time since I posted. Things have chaaanged! My guild on my previous (very low pop) server has sort of disbanded. The two people there that I really cared to talk to both joined a different guild interested in raiding. Yeah, I'm interested in raiding, but got tired of the very low pop server.

In addition to that, a good friend of mine (that was also in that guild) transferred off server where a bunch of his other friends went. So! I followed him. Gorgonnash is the new one, and I'm in a guild with more 70's (even though they're more into the PvP aspect than I care to be), on a server with many more people.

I figured, since I was moving, I'd re-spec shadow again and gear up a bit before the coming expansion. That way, it'll make it easier for me to level up to 80 once Wrath comes out. I dropped Primal Mooncloth tailoring and picked up Shadoweave again (which I now realize that I probably shouldn't have done! gr. 150g out the window). Beyond that, I'm loving being shadow again!

Last night, the expansion (to 3.0.1?) came out with all new skills and talents! I respecced in my normal fashion -- took one of the "cookie cutter" builds (as much as they can be on the first day of a new patch) and tweaked it a little bit. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten that much of a chance to play since then. But I need to! I'm down to about zilch gold now that I've re-bought all the skills. Luckily, I can put a hiatus on gearing up, I think, and put on my Primal Mooncloth gear to DPS -- but how to make cash?

The one thing I've really noticed about this new server is that the horde is relentless on the Isle. That's where I do dailies because the're all so concentrated in a small area. I get ganked repeatedly everytime I'm over there. Being a shadowpriest, I was pretty gimped in the PvP area previously as well.. that, and I don't like it so much, so I don't play it that much. I may get more into BG's now that the new spec is out there though.

We'll see how it goes. :)

But, I'm very happy to be on a new server, and very excited to get to tinker with my new spec. :D L8z. More posts coming soon.

Take 2

So, we tried the raid again with a little more success. We downed the first boss with no issues and moved on to Moroes. We couldn't get him down, I don't know if it was what we were doing or what -- It's the boss, and 4 elite adds. Our OT was a friend of mine that had done it before, so he kind of took over the "Raid Leader" position this time. We had a full implement of 10 men, but only 2 healers this time, so we were still a little gimped on healers.

We got to Moroes and had the MT tank Moroes and 3 of his adds while the OT tanked the target we were DPSing and tried to keep second aggro on Moroes for when he stunned the MT. The issue though was that when Moroes stunned the MT, he went pretty much straight for the healers. The healers were the first to die in both of the times we tried. Sucked. I'll have to look up how to take him.

Next up, we left him and tried for Maiden. We tried once and wiped because I (on healing our OT that was tanking her) couldn't get heals off quick enough after the stun to keep the OT from dying. He was a bear druid and not in tanking gear, so between his gear and mine, we just weren't quite geared enough. I'll bet a druid healer in that instance would be amazing.

Anyway, that was about it. I did Heroic SV again the other night as well and got the Serpentcrest Life-Staff which dropped my +heals by about 40 and my mp5 by about 4, but pumped my stamina up a bit. So I'm glad about that.

I also got a sweet glove drop from Midnight in Kara to replace my next to last green item. I still have a green trinket that I need to replace and then I'll be all blue and purple. Like a bruise.

KarOWNED

Not the raid, but us. I’ll preface by saying that we had little to no trouble with trash mobs, but weren’t able to take a boss.

Any boss.

We started off by trying Midnite – we made it to him, but we were going slow, taking our time because it was our FIRST time, and also because we were 9-manning it because one of our ranged DPS dropped and we weren’t able to find another. So! By the time we got there, some of the mobs that we’d killed had respawned. I’ve heard they’re on an hour timer. I call bullshit on that, or either we were bugged. We made it to him in maybe 30 minutes (which, granted, is too long – we could probably do it now in 10-15 knowing what to do). But when we attacked him, all the mobs that we had killed and had respawned came running to his aid and so we wiped.

We all go back and re-enter the instance, killing our way to him again. This time, it did only take about 15 minutes, but the mobs were already respawning again by the time we got to him. Yeah, hour my ass. :P

So we eventually give up on midnight and make our way to Maiden. No problem getting there again. Our MT is a pally and she kept interrupting him (not totally sure how) but that was the call. He wasn’t able to hold agro as well as usual and so we wiped on her twice. By this time, it had been a couple of hours, we’re STILL running with only 9, and we decide to call it a night.

As to our group make-up – Pally MT, Warrior OT, 2 Priest healers, 1 Pally healer (healing the OT), Mage, 2 DPS warriors, and 1 Hunter. The one we lost was another hunter.

Next time? Lose one of the DPS warriors, pick up another hunter, and some other DPS class. Maybe a shadowpriest or a shaman or someone who brings some utility as well. I say “DPS Warriors” but they were really both Arms warriors with PVP gear, so they weren’t the best. The hunter was topping the DPS charts with the mage close behind. I was topping the heal charts (in charge mainly of raid healing and helping with the MT since I had the highest MP5 and had specced Circle of Healing for the occasion). The other priest was right behind with the pally a distant third.

I say distant third – it wasn’t because he was slacking off, he was doing a good job keeping the OT alive and I didn’t see him below 60% mana except on the occasions when we wiped. He wasn’t bad at all. We tried shackling the undead mobs and I had some issues with that, but once I got it down (focus, shackle) it wasn’t too bad.

All in all, I think we would do OK with a little more DPS and a raid leader (no offense to the GM, he did what he could and did get a couple of guides ahead of time) that has been through the instance a few times. You just can’t beat experience, I think. Or even if one of those DPS warriors had been willing/able to throw on a shield and 1h and pick up one of the Adds, it would have made life easier.

I also realize that I need more stamina. A lot. I have 1350 heals and over 200 Mp5, but just under 7k health. I lost some of the +heals to get to about 7,500 h and 1100 or so +heal for some of the encounters but it’s just not enough. QUITE. So I guess I should work on gearing up a little more.

Anyway, that’s my story.

Lack Of Interesting

I really don't have too much to say as the priest front goes. I've come to the conslusion that I'd rather level characters than play end-game content. Although I've never really DONE much endgame stuff. My guild is trying our first Kara run tomorrow night, actually. I'm not very optimistic about how it's going to go, because we're a small guild, and getting enough people to run with us will likely be a challenge.

We're trying it with a Main Tank, an Off Tank (who I'm not sure who is going to be yet). The GM wants to get one of our warriors to do it, but he's trying to ding 70 by Friday -- I'm almost 100% certain that a new 70 can't offtank Kara. I've never even been IN Kara, so I can't say for sure, but it seems a logical conclusion.

Aside from that, we've got a Holy Pally, me, and another holy priest doing the healing. I feel pretty comfortable about that because I have faith in my healing abilities as well as the other holy priest's. He's as good as I am, he has more +heal but not as much mp5. He's mostly in BG healing gear. I don't have a clue about the holy pally but I'd imagine spamming flash of light on the tank isn't too hard. (*poke poke* *jab jab* :P)

I haven't even been ON my priest in a while besides to craft some bags and stuff. I've been tinkering with alts and doing some BG's on the rogue. I also fired up Crysis the other day because I started getting tired of BG grinding. I've almost got the 18k honor for my MH weapon, I guess offhand's next. Then I'm thinking shoulders, bracers, boots.. basically going in the order of what would be the least cost / biggest upgrade. It's going to take me ages I think, even though I have sort of figured out the pattern that works for me. AV = Honor. I intersperse the BG that I need the marks for among my AV games so that I don't get too ridiculously bored of AV.

I've gotten really good at capping GY's and the towers are pretty fun to cap too as a shadowstep rogue. It's entertaining to leap off the top to get followed by horde and then shadowstep back up to the top and finish what I was doing. By the time they get back up there, I've either re-stealthed or healed or something.

It's pretty hard to solo-kill most of the people in there because I just don't do enough damage. I'm hoping the MH and OH weapons will help that, but I'm not the best geared right now.

Anyway, I guess that's it. I'll post after we run Kara to see how it went. lol. I'm HOPING that we can at least down ONE boss. I don't really much care beyond that. That'll be an accomplishment IMHO.

Now What?!

I'm just about to a point again now where I'm not overly excited about playing the priest. I guess there's nothing really that's causing it. But, I feel like I have pretty solid gear. Sure, it could use upgrading, but I'd really need to BG to upgrade it easily. Other than that, it's either dungeons, heroics, or Kara. That's what I want to do, run some stuff like that. Thing is, I have to wait til this weekend!!

It's okay though. I don't even know whether I'm geared properly enough to heal a heroic, but I feel like I should be fine. I think I'm a very good healer, and I have a strong enough gearset to back me up in most cases. Sitting at around 1200 +heals and 150 or so MP5. So I'm hoping saturday we have enough people on that we can run heroic ramps or BF or steam vaults or something.

That's about all. I've been playing the rogue waiting for a good chunk of time. Once I do, then maybe I can get a good chance to run some instances, but I think until then, it's alt time! I'll have another 70 in no time. :D That'll be sweet.

Gruul Down!

So, as I've said time and time again, I'm a very casual player. Sure, I enjoy instancing and BGing and just about everything else the game has to offer, but rarely do I have a solid chunk of 3 hours to devote to playing the game at a time.

Last Night, I was tweaking around on my rogue (63 now), and the wife had gone out, and a guild mate asks me if I wanted to join a raid to go after Gruul. I actually (literally) laughed, not thinking that I would have time and/or stand a chance of healing the raid. After talking to the raid leader, him telling me that there were going to be 5-7 healers (with me included) and that the run (if successful) typically took 45 minutes, I said "Sure, what the hey."

So off we go, in to kill some trash. I'm not having the slightest idea what we're doing. The raid leader tries to explain on Vent, and does a good job of marking. It was another guild organizing it mainly but there were a good number of folks that I knew in the raid group -- a couple of our players had left to join a couple of other guilds, and several others I'd grouped up with. Four of the guys from ours guild were included as well (70 mage, 70 pally tanking, 70 hunter, and myself, the 70 priest). Normally a very solid group, but c'mon. It's Gruul. The rest of the group compisition .. I can't even tell you. There was a lot of ranged DPS, and only 2 other priests.. and one of them was shadow. I figured I had a pretty good shot of getting SOMETHING. (I'll forget later .. my highest "roll" out of about 7 of them was a 25. Not my night)

So anyway, not having a clue what to do, I'm clicking on healbot to heal the tanks where I feel like I need to. The issue is that I'm slow. My heals kept landing a half second after someone else's heal and not healing for anything but a good chunk of overheal. So, I give up on the tanks and start healing the occasional random damage as it pops up. Goes fine, we get to the first set of bosses.

It's 5 "bosses" in a room. A Priest, a Shaman, a Lock, a Mage, and the "main boss." Some king or something. (I'll look up more detail later I'm sure) We've got our guild pally tanking the priest because he doesn't hit very hard. A few people interrupting the priest, and I'm assigned "Raid Healing, and help out with the mage tanking the mage." Yep, that's right, mage tank. Some wierd trick where the mage spell-steals the mage boss's spellshield that absorbs something like 70% of spell damage, makes the mage an ideal tank. Yeah ok sure.

Well, we wiped a couple of times, but on the third try, blew through. I was third of 5 on the healing charts after that because of the AOE damage I was healing -- most of my heals landed good and solid and healed for their full amount, or close.

So anyway, I didn't get any drops, but our tank and our mage both did, so they ported out to shatt to get their new gear, got summoned back, and headed on our way. BTW, this is about an hour and a half after we'd started that we headed on in to Gruul.

Some overeager shammy pulled him accidentally and that led to another wipe. We got him down to 50% that fight though so at least the group got a pretty good idea of what the fight was like. I got killed pretty early because of the stone shatter thing he does. He basically turns everyone in the raid into an AOE bomb, and if you're near anyone (specially 5 of your group members), you take like 2k damage from everyone you're near. I have 7.5k health. Let's see, 2k * 5 > 7.5k. Yeah, painful.

Anyway, second time around, tanks pulled him and all the groups got into position. Everytime we got "stoned" i got a shield up on myself for that extra 2k or so health boost which helped drastically -- as did not standing near 5 group members, I got far enough away from most of the others that I didn't take their damage as well as mine. ALMOST died the first time but after that, everyone sorta got their position down. Sorta a shame that he tosses you randomly into the air before turning you to a bomb, so it takes a bit to reposition. ANYWAY.

Everytime the raid took AOE damage I took to healing them up, helping on the tank when there wasn't anyone else low -- I got into the mode of stopcasting -- you cast a heal, and before it "finishes", if the tank isn't down on health, you "stop" the cast and immediately begin re-castin. You can do this by jumping, moving, or whatever.. or you can macro it in. I've got it macro'd into my downranked GHeal (rank 2) and my main GHeal, so I just stand there clicking on the tank on healbot -- when the heal's about done, I click on him again to cancel, or let it go if he needs a heal. That worked out MUCH better for me than my "click on him when he needs it" approach.

So, we down'ed Gruul on that second attempt. Wicked. Pretty decent gear, I got an epic neck piece that actually had less heal than my previous piece, but a lot more MP5. The Teeth of Gruul! The hunter in our group got an epic leather piece too -- it was an upgrade in stats, but still only leather. So anyway, good times! I didn't think I'd ever SEE Gruul, much less be involved in taking him down. And I feel like I was partially "carried" due to the rest of the group, but I was #2 of 7 healers in that fight against gruul -- JUST behind the lead healer.. I was almost TOP of the healing charts. Which feels excellent to me since I'd never done the fight, never raid healed, and I'm NOT epic geared (much) at all. I had something like 1200 +heal and 175 mp5 casting during the fight. So anyway. Sweeeet. That's my story.

May give it a shot again sometime to see if I can win s'more gear out of the deal. And, it did take us close to 3 hours (which made the wife less than happy) but that's mostly because of the wipes. I think if I got in a solid group that could 1 or 2-shot the bosses then it would go a lot quicker. 45 minutes is probably pushing it, but an hour and a half or so shouldn't be unreasonable. It's a very short instance, other than the 15 minute long fights. hehe.

Holy, Continued

Eesh, so it’s been a while since I’ve putten anything to paper. Or digital media, or whatever. I’ve been a busy little priest, in the hour or so here and there that I get to play. I’m still specced holy (and loving it). I did suck it up and drop Spirit Tap to spec into the normal 23/38 Raid Healing spec. Improved Divine Spirit is nice, and keeps my MP5 up a bit higher while I’m casting as well as why I’m not with Meditation thrown in there. So it works out. I can still grind pretty much non-stop using my shadowfiend when he becomes available. There’s some wand action thrown in and it’s a bit slower (because my damage is pretty lacking) but I don’t die. Which, in it’s own way, keeps the speed up.

We’ve done a few runs through some of the instances, but most of them have been the easier, LOWER than 70 ones. We did run Shattered Halls the other day. It was pretty impressive, none of us had ever run it before, and we did wipe twice, but we managed to clear it without any real difficulty. We wiped one time when we pulled one group, got feared into another group, and then before we could take them out, a pat came up and aggro’d to me (our healer). By this time, I was throwing a lot of healing out and so our pally tank had a bit of difficulty keeping the pat off of me, and as such, I bit the dust. Kicked the bucket. Etc.

The second time was on the last boss. He has some weird “aoe” type attack that deals 1200-2200 damage to everyone in the party a few times (every 30 seconds, I think) and then there are a bunch of adds too. Anyway, the mage and I died about 30 seconds into the fight the first time. The remaining 3 (Pally Tank, Pally and Warrior DPS) managed to get the boss down to about 35% without a healer.. I got prayer of mending and renew on each of them in SoR, which helped at first. The pally DPS dropped back and dropped some heals, but he ran OOM pretty quick. At least they stayed alive long enough that we got a pretty good taste for the fight though. So we took him down the next time. When the boss started doing his AOE thing, I got a shield up on myself, and a renew on the mage, and dropped out a prayer of mending. Between all that, none of us died, and a quick prayer of healing afterwards topped us back up enough. He did that 2 more times in the fight but it wasn’t too bad after learning how to deal with it. I went a little overboard the first time, actually and so held back a little the second time. Yeah, his attacks were stronger that time and so the mage almost died. He did kick the bucket the third time, actually. Got crit for like 3.6. Anyway! Good times.

That brings me to another point. I <3 pally tank. I’ve run with a good warrior tank before as well and I liked him too, but he was totally epicced out. Our “MT” is a pally and he can hold agro from large groups with little difficulty. His Def. rating is up around 490 and he’s got over 10k health buffed, and I don’t really have much trouble keeping him alive unless the group he’s holding is either really tough, or there’s a boss mixed in. We did, however, have some issues with getting feared during shattered halls the other day though, and I dunno if a warrior tank would be able to handle that any better or not.

Let’s see, as to my gear. I’m up to 3 epics now, and some good sweet blues. I’m still running some +spelldamage blues from the shadow days, but I’m hoping to have those replaced soon. I so wish I could get my cenarion rep the rest of the way up to revered so I could buy the blue healing hood from the quartermaster there. But, I’ve managed to get 2 pieces (belt and shoulders) of the primal mooncloth set. I put the lower level +heal Aldor shoulder inscription on the shoulders. I’ve gotten Pants of the Naaru +77 heals and some mp5) and embroidered them with Silver Spellthread (something like 43 or so more +heals). I got the epiccy BG bracers with +53 or so heal, and enchanted those with +30 (or is it +20?) heal. So I’m sitting at around 1090 +healing and 128 or so mp5 casting. Next on the list is the Cenarion Rep Hood (with the Honor Hold Rep +Heals piece) and the RING from the BG’s. I’m really praying for the Serpentcrest Life Staff drop from Steam Vaults (that I’m going to have to run at least twice anyway to get my Cenarion Rep up.) That’s another +227 healing. I’m wielding either a +85 dmg/heal staff or a +95 heal dagger (with no offhand yet) depending on the situation. I will probably stick with the staff, it has better stats.

I got a couple of healing pieces from some of the instances we ran too on my back and feet and hands. They can be upgraded, but they are suitable for now. Also the +55 heal neck piece is wicked. J

So anyway. It’s coming along. Slowly but surely.

Holy -- Take 2!

So, our guild's up to round about 8 level 70's now. The guild leader was originally going to be our main tank healer -- he's a Paladin. He's since then leveled a mage up to around 66 and fallen in love with that char. I had actually started another priest to lvl up to heal because I've enjoyed healing as well.

So, the way things are going now, I've respecced Holy (ONCE AGAIN), and he's working to get his mage up to lvl 70 to DPS with us. A mage utility is definitely not the same as a Shadow Priest utility, but the DPS is round about in the same category.. Spell Damage out the arse.

So, that leaves me as the main (and as far as I can tell, only) healer. We've got an Enhancement Shaman that has spoken of going Resto now that he's level 70, but I don't know how well that will work because he's never BEEN Resto. He may like it, he may not. I don't know.

I'm sort of glad that I've gotten shifted to the healer role (for the time being) because that way I can work on my alt that's already lvl 61 -- my rogue. Much less work to get him to level 70 than it would be to start a character from scratch.

I didn't go pure heal because I still want to be able to daily and make some cold hard cash. I'm sort of a good (I think) mix between a Smite build and a Healing build, with 5 points still (and probably always will be) in Spirit Tap. Spirit tap (Particularly with Divine Spirit in the Disc Tree) allows for almost non-stop grinding. I can't imagine a reason that I would ever want to get rid of that. Sure, it wouldn't be useful in the least in a healing role, but most of my time is spent soloing anyway. Or, for now at least.

So anyway, that's where I stand. Playing the rogue again whilst running dailies on the priest. The guild leader asked that we all layout a good time, 2 days a week, when we can all get together and start running instances. I think that's a fantastic idea, and I can't wait. Now, to get healing gear. +500 healing isn't going to cut it for very long, I don't think. hehe.

What to do, what to do?

I don't much know, really. I've been finishing up some netherstorm quests, and doing dailies where I can to make money. I haven't maxed out tailoring yet so I still need to do that. I don't really know where my cash has gone, because I've only got 200g. Crazy.

I've bought up some mats to make shadowcloth so that I can start crafting my Frozen Shadoweave set. The next piece MAY come this weekend, but I'm not sure. I haven't PvP'd much anymore. I've been helping the guildies out with runs through instances and such... well, RUNS as much as a shadowpriest can. I get 3 or 4 of them together and basically just say "GO CRAZY." They DPS everything and I just don't let them die. That's about all I can do since spirit tap doesn't proc unless I get exp. It seems to work though. And I think they enjoy it because they're still doing most of the work.

Though I did find it amusing, I "RAN" ZF last night with a group of lvl 43-49 or so, and my wand did as much DPS as their going full out. Hehe.

Anyway. That's about it for now. Back to Dailying and questing. And alting more. hehe.

Ding, 70!

Woohoo! Finally!

I know, I skipped 69.

But it just went by so fast. I saw that only ONE MORE LEVEL and just BLEW through it. I'd say about 8-10 hours or so. In about 3 days. I spent the first half or 2/3 of the level finishing up some Blade's Edge Mountain quests and then just grinded out the last third or so of the level. I hit 70, proceeded to SMV to get the flying mount, and began flying around! I didn't accomplish much the remainder of the weekend, I did a few daily's and quested a little more. Of course, all of this was just to pay back my guild leader for being so nice as to lend me the last 300g for my flying mount.

I feel pretty poor that I couldn't afford it, but it was all because I spent so much time leveling up my tailoring. And, after all that, I can't even make myself any of the FSW kit yet. I actually made my first 2 shadoweave cloth last night. Only two more and I'll be able to craft the shoulders. Woo, shoulders. Hey, can't complain, it's an upgrade. I think next on the list is actually the S1 wand, the Gladiator's Touch of Defeat. It's only 8,000 honor and 10 Eye of the Storm marks. I'm about half way there. I can't wait just because it'll be my first level 70 purple. Well, unless I can get 10 Primal Water and make my shoulders first. Either way. I'm excited. hehe. I can't wait until I can get the spellblade or the staff or something but they're significantly more "expensive", honor wise.

SO! Now that I'm 70, it's time to gear up. Slowly. That's the plan now. I respecced a little, so that I should still be viable at PvP (mass, PvP, not so much arenas) and I should be viable in a group (with around 500 spell dmg, 8kh and 7k mana). Just time to work on getting better!

Tailoring -- Take 2

So I’ve spent some good time grinding for mats (on my rogue mostly – leveled him up to almost 61 getting all the runecloth that I needed). I bought some cloth but ended up grinding most of it just because the prices on my server for anything other than Netherweave is outrageous. I’ve gotten my tailoring up to about 367 now (even though it did cost me around 300g!) Stupid Arcane Dust was expensive. I can make armor up to my level now, and even some of the lvl 70 stuff. I can make all the types of bags available (Linen, Wool, Silk, Mageweave, Runecloth, Netherweave, and Imbued Netherweave), which I feel should help out my guild some in the long run.

I sold most everything I made over level 45 or so to the vendor. I have an enchanting alt that I was able to DE the lvl 20-45ish stuff with, but beyond that, I was pretty screwed. Although most of the stuff usually sold back (over that level) for more than the mats cost anyway, so it wasn’t too bad. DEing stuff netted me around 100g or so, which recouped some of the cost. If it weren’t for that stupid Arcane Dust!! I would have been fine. Or if I’d had a higher level enchanter, it probably wouldn’t have been as bad either. But it’s fine. I’m down to about 300g now, level 68, and I need about 600g more before I can get my flying mount when I hit 70.

But who cares? Now, I can make SWEET ARMOR! Hehe. And BAGS! If only it hadn’t cost so much.

367 Tailor LFW.

Ding, 68!

So I’ve hit 68 now. I’m actually about half way through 68 to 69 at this point. I guess I was slow writing up a post. L Sorry. I did a bunch more of the Nagrand quests (I’ve almost finished most of them) and spent some time grinding on the Ogres in the south-east of the zone. There’s a cave up there that’s rarely visited by anyone else on my server. There are mostly melee mobs (which are my bitches) up in there, so the grinding isn’t bad.

I also got a bunch of netherweave drops, which is mostly what I was going for trying to lvl tailoring as well. I probably ground out the last 175,000 exp of 67 to get to 68. But it was flying. I was averaging 105,000 – 110,000 experience per hour, topping the charts at around 120,000 or so for a little while. Just grinding. It was amazing. Until two (66 and 67) druids decided it would be fun to stalk the grinding priest. That ended that little adventure for the night. I managed to kill them a couple of times, but it just was no longer worth my time. So off to other things.

Next day though, I finished up the last 75k or so in the same spot.

This really made me curious about the grinding vs questing argument. 120k xp/h is amazing. Really amazing. But then I was questing the other day in Nagrand a bit more, doing a handful of quests around the big open field area off to the west side. They were kill xx yy mob quests, and collect xx of zz thing quests. Upon turning them in after about 40 minutes or so of play, my XP/h spiked to around 132k/h. So, it’s a tough call. It seems that both work well given ideal circumstances.

I enjoy questing more, but when I don’t know how long I’m going to be on, I’ll typically just grind for a little while. I guess that’s why I’m slow getting through Nagrand. Not that I mind – more quests left for lvl 70 that way. I was actually a bit worried about that since I started outland at 58, but definitely not a worry now. Cool Beans! Can’t wait for 70!!

AV ROCKS

So, I decided that since I figured that I would PVP more than PvE once I hit 70, I should give it a shot. I sucked it up, picked up an AV quest or two in Shatt and talked to the battle master. “First Available, please.”

Less than 5 seconds, and *poof*. My first time EVER in AV. The match had already started and I was joining mid-way through. I had never been in Alterac Valley before (if you’ve never been, I highly recommend it – particularly at level 67-69 range). I’m in this cave with one exit, so I head on out. There’s fighting going on all around me.

Well, my “Healbot” addon is taking up my whole screen at this point, I’d never been in a 40-man raid group before. So, tweak that a bit and get that set back up and where I can see everyone.

Then off again. I mount up, ride around a corner, and immediately dismount. There’s a battle raging. I’d say 10-15 of my teammates are fighting off a party of some 20-25 horde. Looks like a no-win. But I throw in where I can – tossing heals around, dotting up the enemies, Mindblast à Shadow Word:Deathing when the cooldown is up. I got a good number of killing blows to keep my spirit tap procced as much as I could to try to keep my mana up. But definitely not like in PvE. I had to stop and drink several times. Skidaddle back around the corner where no one will see me, have some water, and back into the fray.

This battle raged for what seemed like ages, but was actually probably around 10 minutes. The BG ended and I checked my honor. I had something like 600 Honor Points for around 6-10 minutes of being in a battle ground. I only got about 4 killing blows. It was great.

So I started right back up in another game and played through, following the mass of people leaving the tunnel. I got a bit more of a feel for the BG this time, capturing towers, killing NPC’s, etc. There are a bunch of quests in there, so I picked some up, but wasn’t able to finish any. This one went on for about 30 minutes, and we actually won this one. Two Thousand Honor?! For 40 minutes of play. Amazing.

Maybe the PvP gear won’t be that hard to get after all. I don’t even have my first PvP trinket (Insignia of the Alliance) yet. That’s first on my list. Well, maybe I’ll hit 70 first. I asked a guildy about 70 AV and he said it was just about the same as the 60-69 bracket, if just a little more “intense.” I can handle that. I’m really looking forward to it now, it was a very good time. Maybe I could be a PvPer after all.

What is this "holy" tree you speak of?

Yes, I know. I’m a priest. I should heal. Right?

Well, no. All edumacated people that have ever played a priest know that a decent shadow priest can be plenty of help to a group. The issue, though, is that my server is a ridiculously low-pop server. I like the guild that I’m in, but I’m the 3^rd highest level in it. The other 2 are a tanking pally, and a hunter. The hunter gives good CC, the pally can tank it if we need it, and then there’s me. I always sorta get grouped in the “heal” spot because it’s much easier to find 2 DPS than a healer. Dime a dozen, I tell ya.

A few levels ago, I ran BF with a like-level PUG and healed it. We didn’t do so hot. It convinced me to re-spec holy. This was around level 62. I threw together a hybrid smite/heal Holy/Disc build. It worked OK. My healing was great, I could still grind without drinking too much (though I still had to after about 6-8 pulls typically). It could have just been because I didn’t have a good casting order, but anyway. I Re-ran BF with another like-level PUG, and TORE IT UP. I had NO trouble whatsoever healing the group. There was ONE wipe on that annoying second boss where you have to fight off 4 groups of mobs, immediately followed by the boss. I was the first one to die, and Improved Death only lasts for 15 seconds. The fight’s quite a bit longer than that.

Anyway, it was nice. I leveled up to about 66 specced holy and ran more instances than I had since Scarlet Monestary. (Man, I LOVED SM. No trouble healing THAT as a shadow spec..) But I missed the Damage! I started Nagrand at level 66 or so, and was killin some orcs. There were a bunch of 2-pulls instead of the single mob pulls that I usually go for. I couldn’t mana burn well, couldn’t silence-pull the casters. I’d throw fear, but then the mobs would run off to God knows where because I couldn’t slow them with Mindflay.

That’s what I missed most of all, really. Mindflay. I love that spell.

So anyway, I specced back to shadow. It cost me 20g, but it was worth it. I’ve actually only been back to shadow for a bout a level now. I ran BF again, but I was 66 at the time, so I didn’t have any trouble healing that. Hell, I renew + Vamp Embrace healed most of it. We lost our tank after the first boss, and never got one back. We made it from the 1^st to the 2^nd boss with no tank at all. We didn’t get past the second boss, but that was more due to a lack of a tank than a lack of decent healing. Even with Pots, Shadowfiend, Vamp. Touch, and Vamp. Embrace, I couldn’t keep mana up long enough to get through the entire fight. I was healing a lock, a 60 rogue, 60 hunter, and a mage. So they were taking heavy damage. It just didn’t work.

So, I’ve been there, done that (for all of 4 levels) in the holy tree. I tend to solo more than instance, and generally enjoy solo-questing. I like grouping too, but it’s not as much my thing. What did I learn? I’m much more of a shadow type of guy. Or night elf chick, as the case may be.

Whippin up on the Evil Mage...

So I was working on leveling my tailoring up the other night and a guildmate that I hang out with a bit was playing his alt – a 22 mage. He was in the Redridge mountains and commented that it was tough to quest because a couple of horde kept killing him. I was in Stormwind, which is a single flightpoint away, so I figured I’d swing by and help him.

Got there and found a 48 pally bugging him. Mana burned the pally down, threw a couple of dots on him, and feared him away. He’d knocked me down to about 85% or so, but I didn’t think anything of it. Threw a mindblast at him and it finished him off.

Right about this time, I get the crap (about 1,700 health worth of it) knocked out of me by a frostbolt from the rear. Remember, I’m level 67, and I’ve got around 6,200h. Definitely not PvP specced at all. So that frostbolt hurt. I turn in time to see a mage casting again, and I did manage to get a silence off on him before he got it off. I tried a Mana Burn on him as well, but it didn’t take out much of his mana at all. He must have a ton. Well. He IS a mage. So I threw a mindblast, SW:P, starshards, and vamp embrace on him. Of course, he’s beatin on me again at this point. I shield and get a couple of flash heals off. But my mana’s about shot by this time. He got a couple more crits on me, I got another mind blast off, but I kicked the bucket. Damn. Pretty close too, he was at about 40%.

Release, run back to my body, and see that his pally buddy has JUST spawned, and they’re both sittin down for a drink. Right next to each other. Mmm, I couldn’t resist. I ressed, feared, and off they go. Mindblast, sw:p, Mindflay, mindflay, Mindblast and the mage is dead. Sweet. I just killed a 70! That’s an ego booster, regardless of how you look at it.

I got a starshards off on his pally buddy, but he shields up as he’s coming out of fear and starts healing. I pop a mana pot and wait it out. Once his shield goes down, he’s up to around 70% health, but just about out of mana. A mindblast and SW:D takes him down.

Sweet! I just killed a 70 mage AND a 48 pally. I sit down to drink and shadowmeld. My mage buddy has ressed by this time and is drinking up. The 70 and the 48 spawn back round about the same time, and the pally instantly goes after my friend, the 22 mage. I hop up and go at him again. Of course this draws the 70’s attention as well, but the 48 drops like a rock. I then immediately face off the 70 again. He’s at around 70/80% health and mana, and I’m pretty much full. Seems like it should be a close fight to me.

Nope. 15 seconds or so. He’s dead, I’m at 70% health and 30% mana or so. He was a terrible mage. I got off a couple more flash heals during the fight. Couldn’t he counterspell me or something?

Basically, I didn’t corpse camp them, but they spawned back and went after my 22 bud again about 3 more times. I killed them both 3 more times. A couple of those times, it was from full health. Both of them. It was awesome. Totally made my night. And I guess my next couple of days too, because I’m still thinking about it. Haha. Eventually, a 70 human rogue happened by too, and that scared scared them away. Neither my guildmate nor I heard anything else from them.

So yeah. Spriest PvP FTW! I’m pretty sure now I’m going to PvP more at 70. And not some heavy Disc, “I’m going to sit here and stay alive while you beat on me for 3 minutes” PvP, but some hardcore, “I’m gonna melt your face, please don’t hurt me” PvP.

Or, at least, that’s the goal. For now.

Tailoring

I probably shouldn’t have, but I dropped alchemy the other day and picked up tailoring. I had my alchemy up to around 350 and was just recently able to start transmuting primals. But that doesn’t really help ME out much, other than the money situation. Which is nice, but I’ve never really had that much money anyway. I typically barely scrape by when time comes to buy my mount. In fact, I was level 62 before I got my epic mount. I felt left behind. I’ve only got around 550g now, and I believe that’s about half enough to afford my flyer in 3 more levels.

All this leads to the fact that I’ve always found it easier to make my own armor than it is to buy it. At least if you’re going for decent gear. I am on a PvP server, but I don’t PvP much. And having the schedule that I do, I doubt I’ll ever do a raid. Maybe something small like Kara, but that’s probably about the extent of it. The longest time I get to play (at a time) is typically about 2 hours – 3 if I push my luck. So I’ll probably end up PvPing more in the end, but I don’t think I could really start level 70 PvP with outland greens and blues. That’d make me little more than a small distraction. A gnat to be swatted away.

So anyway, I ran through Stockades and Deadmines with my 60 Rogue and got all the Linen / Wool that I needed to level up to 125. I’m following a guide online to minimize the cost / mats that I need to level up my tailoring. It’s going to be a nightmare once I get to runecloth and Netherweave though because I don’t really have any good runecloth farming characters. I think the rogue can run SM to get some silk, and maybe find a good place to farm the Mageweave. The runecloth farming may even level him up a little.

Or I could spend my last 500g buying mats, and forget about the mount. I don’t wanna do that though. I want to fly! J So I’m at about 125 now, running SM later today if I can to get some silk, and we’ll see how much higher we can get it then. Soon, I should be able to at least start making some stuff that’ll be helpful to the guildies.

Introduction

I’m almost there. I can feel it. The smell of it is in the air. It’s the elusive level 70. I started on this server (Jaedenar) back when the server was new. I created a gnome rogue, having never leveled any character over 23 or so. I thought it would be fun. And it was.

Round about 45 or so, I decided I was getting bored roguing things and figured I’d try something else. I started a priest. I had a level 20 Monk in Guild Wars (20 was as high as you could go in that one) and I’d enjoyed it, so I figured I’d give a priest a try.

The priest passed the rogue round about level 55. The rogue’s still sitting at 60, and my priest is now a level 67 toon. I’m specced almost completely shadow with some Mana talents in the Disc tree. And I can smell the end. Only 3 more levels to go, and I’m half way through one of them. It’s taken me AGES to get this far. Some people think “Why? It’s so easy to level a char from 1-70 in a few weeks.”

Hell, a friend of mine that I got started playing this game when I was about 40 or so on the rogue now has about 4 of his own level 70 characters.

But I don’t play as much as a lot of people. I work 9-5 every day, I’m married, and the wife refuses to play the game. So I’m stuck huddled down infront of the PC at night after she’s gone to sleep or playing an hour or two here and there after work. It doesn’t lend itself to doing the higher level quests. Or, at least that’s what I tell myself.

That also leads to the fact that I’m a terrible Altaholic. I have created and deleted a vast number of characters. I’ve just recently convinced myself to stop deleting them and keeping them for when I wish I still had them. That way, I don’t have to re-create them and level 1-20 again. That seems to be the “stopping point” for me. I love the level 1-20ish areas.

But not my Shadow Priest. Once I hit 20 on him and got mindflay, and got my casting sequence down and “set in stone”, even grinding was fun. I put out the same damage (or at least it seems like it) as I did with my rogue at a similar level, I don’t take NEARLY as much damage, and I can heal myself if I do. Hell, at 40 I’d picked up Vamp. Embrace and Shadowform – I take LESS damage, and heal myself just by DOING damage. What more can you ask for?

Add spirit tap to that, and it’s almost more non-stop than it was with a rogue. I rarely drink. Specially now that I got shadowfiend. I played for about 2 hours last night, I think I used 2 waters. It’s great.

So that’s me, where I am, what I’m doing. I hope to keep this updated pretty regularly because it’s always fun to go back and read what was going on in the life of a wow character at any given time. Also I’ve had more time to play lately (read: been neglecting the wife more lately) and I’ve blown through the 50’s and 60’s so far. So it won’t be long now.