Pandaren Babies?

I have to say, I love Luo Luo, the little panda cub sitting outside the portal to the Horde starting village in Pandaria. Especially the fact that when you /love at it, it gives you a magical bamboo shoot that turns you into, well, into a baby panda. It turns out, while you can't mount up on your own mounts, you CAN mount up on someone with a Touring Rocket/Sandstone Drake/Obsidian Nightwing. And its the most adorable freaking thing in the world! It added quite a bit of fun to our BWD guild run for the meta guild mount, especially while waiting for our tank's rez sickness to wear off (long story short, don't jump places where your body is not easily retrievable).

When in Doubt, Sacrifice a Panda!

I server/faction transferred my priest, Sunchati, to Wyrmrest Accord recently, and while the getting was good with the anniversary tabard and a full suit of heirloom caster armor, I managed to get the girl to her 80s. Which means one thing...

Sun got to go on her first raid! And what a first raid it was, too. I ran with a group of mostly 90s and one 87 with my Horde guild through ICC. Sun spent most of the raid dead on the floor, sadly, but I got some nice loot for her that carried her through 83. I still even have the necklace that dropped in there! And then there was the big bad himself, the Lich King. After forcing a wipe due to all our ghouls dying from Necrotic Plague, or our off-tank dying (because there's no way you can outheal the million or so damage from twentysomething stacks of that), our intrepid raid leader came to one conclusion. The lowbies had to die. But we were well compensated for being canon fodder to carry the plague to the new ghoul spawns, and I was quite happy with the end results. Even if it did result in looking like a stylish bear throw rug in the throne room the whole fight.

Um, could you please get your left boot off of my head? That plate's kind of heavy!

Kind of makes me wish I had capped my MRP from that night. I changed it from Sunchati Pureblossom to Sacrificial Panda, the Sad Panda. My guild title in the roster still says Sacrificial Panda, which will be our raiding in-joke now.

In other news, having so much more fun Hordeside on an RP server than I ever did Allianceside on my PVE server. So much that I'm thinking of giving my hunter and shaman the same treatment that Sun got. I'd probably keep Hecubah as an elf and change Taiaa back into the Tauren she started life off as. But who knows?

Rectifying a "Stanank" on the Bifaction Thing

I know there hasn't been much of the "bi" in my bifaction blog. I mean, the majority of my posts have been about my alli characters and the pve scene. But now I plan to fix that and start posting a bit about my horde toons!

I've recently started playing on Wyrmrest Accord, and I've been finding the roleplay scene to be so much nicer than pve! There is so little stress to get your toons geared up to raid in a week, like there is on pve servers. I like taking my time, playing with guildies, fine-tuning my toon's backstory, that sort of thing.Wyrmrest has been so welcoming and it doesn't have that creepy Moon Guard vibe that gives that server its bad name. I've only had my horde toon hit on once, and she swiftly threatened to shove her hoof through the poor undead's skull for talking so disrespectfully to her. Tauren warriors, you know? Especially Tauren warriors who are former gladiators. No patience. None.

Because storytime is always awesome. Especially with a Treant!

Meet Bahunada Darkhide, my little level 23 Fury Warrior. She is a former Grimtotem who left her tribe after Magatha's betrayal, which led to the death of Cairne Bloodhoof. Wandering tribeless for a long time and very angry, she was surrounded and almost overwhelmed by Quilboar and trying to fight them off with her bare fists when Alek'togia Ashmane, a Bluffwatcher from Thunder Bluff, found her. She offered to train Bahunada, and she took the guard up on her offer. She still has much to learn about patience and definitely needs to learn how to hold her tongue around the orcs and goblins of Orgrimmar, but she's quickly learning the way of a true warrior. In her early days, she proved herself to the Tauren by cleansing their wells of any Grimtotem corruption (and she may have gleefully slaughtered a few of her former tribe members along the way). She was fully accepted by the Ragetotem tribe when she completed her trials to become a warrior, and she eagerly followed her mentor to Orgrimmar to hone her training. Along the way, she learned how to scout out mineral veins and craft her own armor and weapons, a skill she had wanted ever since her days with the Grimtotem since she had to fight for every piece of armor or sword she used. Recently, she and Alek have joined a revolution of sorts in an attempt to spread the word to others that the Horde is not just full of bloodthirsty killers or crafty, polluting goblins.

Not Yu'jane, but she IS one of my Pandaren Priests. Plus this is an awesome picture.

Then there's Yu'jane Pureblossom, my Pandaren Priest. She started life as a farmgirl on the Dai-Lo Farmstead until she discovered she had the power to heal. She didn't know what the power was or where it came from, but she was offered the chance to hone her craft at Master Shang Xi's academy. While studying, she learned of the Lorewalkers of the Wandering Isle, and she learned how to read and write, along with discovering she had a voracious appetite for stories and history. The Lorewalkers taught her how to mill herbs and make ink, and she became a scribe for them, taking down stories as they were told. When Shen-zin Su was injured by the Allaince Airship, her training in the healing arts was ramped up. She was paired up with a young monk named Fan'jian, and they learned how to work well with each other. He fought and she healed, and together they discovered the Alliance and Horde in the Pei-Wu Forest. After saving Shen-zin Su, she and Fan decided to travel with the Huojin to Orgrimmar. Their arrival to the city was less than a welcome one. To Yu'jane, Garrosh Hellscream was rude, condescending, and just a little too loud for the meek Lorewalker. Then there was his "gift," a battle with three strange and dangerous beasts, and she did her best to protect Ji Firepaw and herself from Gronn, Magnataur, and Ettin.After meeting up with Fan'jian in Thunder Bluff, she realized that the Horde wasn't entirely about the glory of battle. She rather likes the Tauren and their ideals, finding them on par with how she was raised back in Dai-Lo. Perhaps Yu'jane will be coaxed to join this revolution, and maybe it will make her feel better about her choice to join the Huojin and the Horde.

I have a few more RP toons on WA, but I don't have their stories completely fleshed out yet. Especially my insane Forsaken Warlock. All I know is that she's batcrap crazy, has a fierce devotion to the Dark Lady, and was a Mage of the Kirin Tor in life, before Arthas slaughtered most of the city and then Archimonde went all HULK SMASH on it. Plus I don't have screencaps for them all yet.

Minipost: It's Farming Time!

Behold! Songbell plants as far as the eye can see! Those tasty motes will be mine in no time! Seriously, being able to plant seeds that grow motes is the best thing about the tillers as a crafter. My Leatherworker appreciates all the motes. Means more tasty purple gear made for my hunter, shaman, and my girlfriend's resto/feral druid! 50 Spirits of Harmony should come easy now, right?


In other news, got a new computer to play on, game's all patched up, and I'm finally 90. So far, I'm exalted with the Lorewalkers, revered with the Tillers and the Cloud Serpent riders, and honored with the Golden Lotus. Mostly I just want to get to revered with the Golden Lotus so I can start my August Celestial and Shado-Pan dailies.

Minipost: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Bad news everyone! My beloved Toshiba computer, which I have owned for nigh on four years, is shot. Everything I read up on the problem points to a dying hard drive. Needless to say, I am a sad Pandaren, since I know this is a problem beyond my capabilities to repair. Additionally, I know that parts and labor for this endeavor would be far more expensive than buying a new laptop outright. So, guess who gets to go through the ENTIRE 5.0.5 patching process again? This girl! So until my game patches up, no WoW for me. No more modelviewer or mpq reader, either. Luckily for me, I found a laptop that is insanely better than my old one for under $300. So hopefully I'll be back wandering the shores of Pandaria again with you all soon!

The Road to 90, Hunter Edition

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Between Theramore, the pre-expansion lull in gameplay, and some real life stuff, I've gotten back in the game. Right now, my hunter main, Hecubah, is in the wonderful "35% to max level" limbo, but I couldn't be happier about it. There is so much to see and do in Mists of Pandaria, and I'm saddened that I haven't had the time to screenshot it all. Also, I barely played the beta, since I didn't want to ruin the experience of seeing this beautiful land for myself for the very first time, so if this is a rehash of anything that was posted by others months ago in a much more eloquent manner, I apologize.

First of all, the quests. Oh my god, the quests. The intro for Alliance side was, for lack  of better words, INTENSE. It starts with a brief cinematic of Varian Wrynn losing it when he finds out his son is missing after being attacked by the Horde. He orders an elite strike force of SI:7 agents and you to board the Skyfire and try and locate Anduin at the place he was last seen, a mysterious continent to the south. As a player, you fly to Pandaria and from the Skyfire, board a Gyrocopter to gun down Horde forces, blow up their ships, then play Paratrooper and parachute to the ground to engage in ground assault. All in all, it felt a bit like the Call of Duty franchise to me, but since I like putting myself in my character's head while I play, it felt even more intense than any first person shooter I've ever played. For Hecubah, she HAD to find Anduin, regardless of the cost. A little payback for the Theramore incident is just the icing on the mission cake. So I ran around and decimated the Horde forces, still feeling that rage I felt from the loss of Theramore, until our Admiral ordered us to open fire on Horde troops surrendering to us, trying to swim to safety after we blew up their ships. From there, the player loses all control and a brief cutscene happens where Alliance forces slaughter the Horde troops attempting to survive. Then our ground commander, an SI:7 operative, is possessed by something and starts transforming into a nasty beastie when all of a sudden, Taran-zhu, the leader of the Shadow-Pan Monastary, arrives to exorcise him. This Pandaren Monk is no-nonsense. He won't have outsiders on his land, and he won't take any part in our war against the Horde. Then he makes us clean up the mess we made, telling us that our negative emotions have led to the reemergence of the Sha, big bad beasties who are the physical manifestations of all our negative emotions. And we have to kill the ones who have taken up residence in the Horde camp we had trashed.

Later into the quest cycle in the Jade Forest, when the Sha of Doubt emerged during an Alliance/Horde conflict at the Temple of the Jade Serpent and corrupted the land surrounding Yu'lon's destroyed shrine, I actually cried. This beautiful, kind August Celestial would be forced to put her rebirth on hold in her advanced age because our factions couldn't stop fighting like a pair of petulant children. After finding that jade to complete her shrine to facilitate her rebirth, I felt a sense of pride, knowing I had helped these people and a power as close to a deity that we would find on this continent. To see that destroyed by my own allies because they just had to spilll Horde blood was heart-wrenching,

This is what really stuck with me, regarding this expansion. Instead of the "Big Bad" we must kill to save the world, it's OUR fault that this is happening to the world and WE are the "Big Bad," or at least our hate, fear, anger, and doubt are. There are only a handful of "faction only" zones in the entire continent; Paw-Don Village (Alliance starting area), a few Jinyu villages, an Alliance base camp in Kun-Lai Summit, and the Shrine of the Seven Stars. Every other camp, village, or city is neutral, meaning Horde and Alliance can mingle. Does this mean we'll all join hands around a campfire singing Kumbayah? Probably not, but if we, as two separate factions, can work on shedding our negative emotions and hate for each other, then perhaps we'll have the combined might for the day we will eventually take down Sargeras himself.


Then I quested in the Valley of the Four Winds. The tone of the game lightened, and in this simple farming province I felt like I was at home (and I'm not talking about all the dead beasts left behind for me to farm their delicious skins for my leatherworking). The entire zone has such a peaceful feel to it. Perhaps it's because I'm a country girl who has grown up surrounded by farmland, but I like the slow pace that life seems to take there compared to Stormwind. If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting Halfhill, the zone's central city, I really suggest you check it out. Not only are all the cooking specialization trainers there, but there's also your personal farm! The quests to start building your farm are a wonderful homage to the Harvest Moon series of games by Nintendo, and I swear the elders telling off poor Farmer Yoon are taken word for word from the start of that game. Hecubah is becoming quite the carrot farmer, although I'll probably start growing scallions soon enough for the agility feasts. Plus the Valley (re)introduces us to the best series of NPCs in the game; Chen Stormstout, his niece Li Li, and Mudmug the homebrewer. The quests tie in with what is, in my opinion, one of the best dungeons I've encountered in the game. The Stormstout Brewery was the most fun dungeon I've ever run, and it was the first dungeon I ran in MoP. Where else do you get to ride kegs of beer into drunken Hozen, beat Virmin with a giant Donkey Kong hammer, or fight beer elementals and fly with carbonation bubbles?

Kun-Lai was next according to my map, and while the zone was dark, it had its lighthearted moments (yak wash, anyone?). My most memorable moment in Kun-Lai were the quests leading up to the opening of the Celestial Gate to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Xuen, the White Tiger Celestial, forced us to confront our inner demons to cleanse us of them and prove ourselves worthy of opening the gates. The opening ceremony itself was beautiful, even with the Sha of Anger spawning in the zone and shouting some VERY nasty things over Yu'lon and Xuen's speech.

The Towlong Steppes were a dark place as well, and the Dread Wastes are darker still. I kind of breezed through the quests in Towlong due to the negativity and darkness and I've yet to complete the Dread Wastes quests with the Klaxxi, but the overall feel of those zones just makes me want to permanently reset my hearth to Halfhill and stay there. The quests in the Dread Wastes, where Chang attempts to find more of the Stormstout clan, had me in tears again, when he found one cousin killed by the Sha-corrupted Mantid and another entombed in amber. I stopped for the night on the questline in the wood sprite village. It seemed like a good stopping point. I mean, they're wood sprites. What could be sad about them?

As a lore nerd, I love the little shrines Blizzard has put into the game on Pandaria with scrolls of lore on them. Plus there's wonderful achievements for finding all the scrolls of a specific kind, and even more wonderful quest rewards for finding all the scrolls in a set - Lore cutscenes narrated by Lorewalker Cho! I give Blizzard props again for finding an amazing voice actor for Lorewalker Cho, Jim Cummings. He also voices Shen-zin Su, the turtle carrying the Wandering Isle on his back (although he might be better known as the current voice actor for Winnie the Pooh and Tigger). This makes me wish that something like this could be implemented on the other continents in the game. From what I saw on youtube, the rewards are beautiful and give tons of background information on everything about Pandaria. I can't wait to find all the shrines and see these cutscenes first hand.

Now, as far as professions, my hunter is my skinner/leatherworker, and I have been enjoying the way that the professions were redesigned in MoP. I found that not only do I only need two types of leather for all of the patterns I've learned so far, they provide double skill-ups when they're red! It was so fast and so easy! The only hard part was finding my leatherworking trainer, who was way out at the Grummle Base Camp in Kun-Lai. What I learned from him carried me to about 590-ish, then I spent one hard-earned Spirit of Harmony to buy one of the pvp patterns in the Temple of the Seven Stars, which pushed me over to 600. My skinning leveled so much faster than my leatherworking, mostly due to the fact that everyone was killing things and leaving their beautiful looted corpses behind for me to skin. And who am I to turn down a free skin? And now the mobs you skin drop Plump Intestines, something similar to the Strangely Bloated Stomach from the Cata days. Only instead of Motes of Harmony, these drop gold and the occasional and oddly valuable gray items. It's like getting paid to farm for those precious skins without sacrificing any to the Auction House! Cooking is also completely redesigned from what it once was. It's been broken up into different "ways" that provide different benefits to stats. As a hunter, I'm working on the Way of the Wok, which provides agility bonuses, but I'm learning them all for my other toons, since Hecubah has the highest level in cooking out of all my toons.

What sort of blog post would this be if I didn't talk about the new hunter pets that are available to us hunters in MoP? I have yet to come across any of the rare challenge-tames, although I did find one's prints while questing in Towlong Steppes. I am actually using my Beast Mastery offspec now, since BM is apparently the best spec for hunters as of right now. Plus, you know, PETS! GLORIOUS PETS! I tamed a few tigers in the Jade Forest, and I have to say my Skarr is quite happy to have a pretty jade kitty lady friend now. Then I ventured out and tamed a Porcupine, aptly named Porcuswine (mega props and an e-cookie if you get that reference). This little guy, I swear. While farming skins in the Towlong Steppes, I would AoE a pack of Mushan that like roaming around the Shadow-Pan base camp out there, and little Porky would take them all down with relative ease. We only died once doing this, and that's because I misfired and hit a turtle, then one of the Mushan Bulls came up and aggroed on us before I had a chance to pop off a Last Stand and Mend Pet on Porky. You'd never think of a hunter being able to successfully AoE down mob packs, but Lynx Rush, Dire Beast, and Stampede, along with liberal use of traps and multishot, make it a breeze. Then I ventured into Mogu'shan Palace with my girlfriend with the intent to tame a Quilen. It took a couple attempts, but in the end, it was so worth it! Quilen are exotics that only Beast Mastery hunters can tame, and after seeing what the Quilen can do, I'm not surprised. They are the only pet I know of that comes with a battle rez ability. I am excited for this. So far, my Quilen is nameless, but I think I'll call him Chowder if no one else can think up a good name for him. I don't know why, but he just looks like a Chowder to me.

I know the leveling experience won't be horribly different for my Shaman, but I do look forward to going through those zones again. I think this expac has so much more in terms of replay value with alt leveling than Cata did, and it's quickly becoming my favorite.

Theramore, I Hardly Knew Ye (spoileriffic for the Fall of Theramore scenario)

Yesterday launched an event that was very traumatic to many Alliance players and possibly awesome for many Horde players. Yes, I'm talking about the infamous Fall of Theramore pre-expansion event. I didn't have the luck of running it on both sides to see how it differs, but my girlfriend did. As a diehard unbiased and proud bifaction player, I was curious to see just how much they were different from each other. And oh, were they different.

The Horde event was pure military offense. Upon entry, players had to blow up six ships stationed at the docks, kill and 85 elite and his gryphons, destroy all the siege engines lining the southern entry to the city, and finally free a Blood Elf spy who had been in Theramore for quite some time, probably gathering intelligence for this particular operation, who quickly ports the players out right before the Azerothian equivalent of a nuke completely levels the city. The Alliance event, on the other hand, is an attempt to retake the ruins of the city and protect Jaina as she tries to get to the Focusing Iris in an attempt to claim it before the Horde does. Players have to kill a group of Orc fighters, then set fire to Horde ships, battle their way to Jaina at the impact zone, steal back three Theramore battle standards, destroy one of the Horde's siege engines, and fight the warlock who controls the ruins while protecting Jaina from his lackeys.

Upon completion of the scenario for the first time, players get a glimpse of what will be the new normal in MoP. A ruined Theramore, barely recognizable from the city we all once knew and loved. All that remains is rubble. And the stables and blacksmith shop, although both are on fire.

Oddly enough, the boat still works.

Bye-bye inn. So many logouts there, so many visits to Stablemaster Michael.

Another chilling part of the phased zone is the expanded graveyard full of fresh graves. It's a stark reminder of the cost of war, and I won't lie. I teared up when I saw all the little touches the developers put into this graveyard. There were little personal items and flowers on the graves, and one even has a little bottle of liquor next to it.

Toolboxes, swords, shields, even a fishing pole for "Dirty" Michael Crowe.

Two very completely different scenarios, and even though I am very much bifaction, I think I would feel incredibly disgusted by destroying Theramore. So many good memories from questing there on my first toon, and I don't think I could be responsible for the deaths of some of the NPCs I had grown attached to. Especially Smiling Jim.

It's all in his cheerful song, really.

I found out a most wondrous fact from a guildie. He said that if you hadn't completed the scenario, you could still visit un-exploded Theramore. So, I hopped on my lowbie mage and teleported myself there to bid a fond farewell to all of the NPCs I had grown to know and love during my time questing there on Heucbah. The guildie in question, my girlfriend, and I even had a little gathering for Smiling Jim, giving him a proper sendoff. True, he doesn't do anything "special" as far as NPCs go, and he's not a merchant. He's just a happy man who loves to make others happy and sing a song about bringing people booze in a "dry" city. Seriously. The bartender in Theramore only sells mana juice!

 

Probably shouldn't have gotten drunk before taking this cap. D'oh!

After our little improptu party, my girlfriend and I retreated to the Inn and mulled over what was to become of our fabulous NPC buddy.

Rest in peace, you magnificent man!

The Perils and Pitfalls of 5.0.4

(As I am still in the process of patch downloading, this is currently being posted from my phone. Hence the lack of pictures from one of the more...amusing bugs)

Oh Patch 5.0.4. The pre-expac patch. Since this is my first pre-expac patch, I thought it would be exciting. Oh how wrong I was. I've slowly become accustomed to life without my melee weapon on my hunter, and I really haven't missed my relic on my DK or shammy. My hunter abilities make up for through loss of my weapons. Seeing my girlfriend go "WTF WAS THAT?!?" when Dire Beast summoned a massive spider on her druid during a duel caused plenty of giggles. Mostly because of how unexpected the result was! Finding out my shaman healer only had 100k mana was a bit alarming at first, but I can burn through my entire healbot rotation and only burn through 10% of my mana? And that's with the inclusion of Healing Rain into my rotation.

Out of all the toons I've checked out this far into the new patch, I have to say that the hunters finally got some really fun toys to play with. The aforementioned Dire Beast is so much fun to play with at a target dummy, and Fireworks is a cool vanity glyph. Every time I use it, all I can picture is something out of Mythbusters involving a compound bow and some sort of high explosives. Fetch would be a spiffy glyph to have as well. My druid comes in second for "NEW TOYS!" fun. I love stag form so much, and it suits him far better than the old cheetah form. The fact that he can carry people around on it after it's glyphed is a bonus. Plus Tree of Life now has a permanent Treant glyph. Despite being a Cata-baby, I can see what was so fun about running around as this crazy old man tree. And Blizz finally did something about that godawful seal form. The second I can get back on without crashing, Glyph of Orca will be my first purchase on my druid.

Then there's my shammy. Poor girl. If her totems weren't taken away, they were beaten beyond recognition by the Nerf Bat. Now my old buff totems function like auras, my utility totems are reduced to raid cooldowns, and I feel like I don't know who I am without them. Totems made us shaman unique in the vast pool of healers in the game. Yes, we had our situational CD totems in Mana Tide and Spirit Link. Now even my beloved Healing Stream is a situational CD, and no amount of totem catapults will make that better. At least our spells seem to cost less mana, to coincide with the new mana cap.

All the account-wide stuff is pretty nice too. My shaman can go around with the "Astral Walker" title, which feels like a far better match for her than "Destroyer's End." And once my DK hits 80, he will proudly wear his "of the Ashen Verdict" title as he flies around on his Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher.

But this patch isn't without its glitches. And this one seems to have them in spades, if the tech forums are to be believed. I've only witnessed two of these glitches. One is more hilarious than game-breaking, but I do hope they're fixed soon. The hilarious glitch causes all player characters to have no armor on their backsides. Needless to say, I've been seeing a lot more than I ever cared to. If I see one more saggy gnome butt, I will probably cry. I have attempted everything to fix this glitch, but no luck. Maybe it'll get itself sorted out soon. If not, I guess I'll have to learn to live with saggy gnome butt.

The second glitch I've had the dubious honor of encountering is the dreaded error 134. It causes random game crashing due to some sort of corruption an unlucky mpq file. Luckily for me, mine is more a case of my OS getting confused when my game tries to load something from the textures.mpq file, since my game is still patching. Basically, data is still being downloaded into these compressed mpq files, but Windows will read them as being complete. In attempting to bring up data that isn't there, the OS gets confused, can't figure out what to do, and a fatal error occurs in the form of error 134. I can only hope that this error won't affect my gameplay after the patch finishes downloading, since quite a few players are experiencing the same error with their world.mpq files. Scuttlebutt is that it could have something to do with these new cross-realm zones they're creating for the lower population servers, but that's just hearsay until there are new Blue Posts on the tech forums.


Obvious edit on 9/1/12 to include the insane glitchy fun of the nakedness!

My game hadn't quite caught up with my girlfriend's Vial of the Sands cast here, leading to this interesting pose.

 Yeah, I don't know what went wrong here. But EVERYTHING was exposed there. This happened after one too many Error 134 crashes.

Farewell, Old Friend. A Retrospective on My Melee Weapons.

With the release of the pre-expansion patch tomorrow, there will be many, many changes. You can read up on them here, since I'll be musing on the changes to my hunter. First off, the general change that I'm looking forward to is the AoE looting. Which means lots more skinning! One can only hope that AoE skinning will be implemented one day for those of us who kill everything that drops leather JUST so we can clear an area, loot and skin, and move on. Saves time, speeds up farming. And all the account-wide stuff is just really nice. Means that as a mount-whore, my hunter will finally have the mounts I managed to rep-grind for on my druid that I never did for her (I had never set foot in an instance prior to level 30 or so on Hecubah), and vice versa for all the mounts my hunter won/went through hellgrinds.

But the heart and soul of this post lies with my hunter and my melee weapon. Nowadays, it's just a stat-stick. But I've been told that Survival hunters were actually able to competently melee fight back in the day. I won't mourn the loss of my relic on my DK, shaman, or druid, since those were just to give us something to fill a slot with with free stats. But I will miss my melee weapon on my hunter. We've gone through good times and bad times together, like when I was a complete noob at the game and thought I could slash and hack at the bears in Darkshore. And I will forever miss my disengage/wing clip macro for pvp. True, having no "Dead Zone" where I lose the ability to shoot things will be nice. But there's just something so...fun about bashing the brains out of the DK or Rogue trying to kill me with a beatstick so I can shoot them from a safe distance. Plus now I actually have to worry about Expertise? I have no idea what that is or what it does for me. I've only even done ranged dps, tanking, and healing.

Currently, my Staff of Coagulated Globules is transmoged to look like the Stanchion of Primal Instinct off of the Eredar Twins in Sunwell. It goes very well with my "Green Sentinel" look on my hunter.

Then there were the Dreambinder days. Oh, how I'll miss that look as well.

(Yay for whale shark kill shots!)



Of course, not all were good times. Like the time my only pve pieces were my weapons and slowly had to build up my set piece by piece (accidentally sold my agi mail instead of the int mail drops on my hunter). I still think that polearm is pretty and I regret selling it because I NEVER run Lost City of the Tol'Vir anymore.

And for the record, Val'kyr are bitches.




Then was my most Huntardy moment in the game. Even more huntard than trying to kill bears at melee range with only raptor strike and no pet (I said I was a noob back then). I'm talking about single-wielding a one handed weapon.

Yeah...that I have no excuse for. But it all got fixed in the end. And thank god that the staff from the Well of Eternity dungeon dropped for me.

Farewell, melee weapons. Stat-stick or not, you were a vital part of my game plan for a long time, and it'll be interesting to learn how to function without you.

On a More Serious Note...

Last night was my weekly Dragon Soul run. It's normally two other guildies and whoever we can PuG from trade chat. Last night, we decided to try something a little different and ask other guild members to come along with us. All went well for Morchok and the trash in Zon'ozz's room. But we encountered problems during the actual fight. Due to insufficient heals and Zon'ozz spawning the Void of Unmaking at a wonky angle, we wiped. Normally we have trouble with Zon'ozz at first anyway, but it was the healing numbers that worried our raid leaders. Our Pally healer was fine, and so was I. Our other guild healer, a resto druid, was not. Upon inspection, her gear was hardly gemmed, she only had her leatherworking enchantment for her bracers, and she had absolutely no reforges. This resulted in her only having 125k mana, which is a major problem after the Hagara fight and would be absolutely hellish if we had proceeded to the Spine fight.

Our leaders discussed some things which I was not privy to, but the decision was reached to kick the guildie druid healer because her gear wasn't up to non-LFR standards. The Pally healer, an officer in our guild, abruptly left after saying it was childish and petty to kick someone whose gear wasn't up to normal raiding standards. I jumped up to our Vent's lobby and heard the Pally healer just raging about what had happened in the raid and how we had been petty and cruel to a fellow guild member.

This only raises one question with me. Is it fair to kick a guild member whose gear isn't up to the DS10 normal minimum? Extending on that, was it also fair for said officer to all but bully a fellow guild member and one of our strongest tanks out of the guild?

When I ran DS for the first time last week on my shaman, my gear was a combination of Firelands and Hour of Twilight gear, and my gear wasn't the best for what we were attempting, but it was fully gemmed, enchanted, and reforged. I know my responsibilities as a healer and I wouldn't let myself go raid without my gear being as optimized as possible. I could make up for my lack of gear and I managed to heal successfully. Our guildie Druid was in LFR and Valor gear, and I didn't feel horribly comfortable healing with her in the first place. It goes without saying that I'm now left with feelings of awkwardness regarding my guild and all of the drama that went down last night. I even refused to go on my main and help them with an ICC achievement run and spent the rest of the night on my lowbie DK tank. So what is a player to do when disillusioned with their guild?

DS 10 Normal from a Restoration Shaman's Perspective

So, last weekend, my Shaman was finally geared enough to make the weekly guild DS run. I was a little apprehensive at first, but I knew the fights well from a DPS perspective. My girlfriend, who has a DK tank and a Druid healerkitty, talked me through the healing. Let me just say, making the jump from healing HoT Heroics to DS is a HUGE leap. At the time I hopped into the raid, my item level was 381, lower than what our raid leader usually felt comfortable with, but he knew my GF would talk me through it all in Vent.

First fight of the night? Heroic Morchok. I don't care if the Aspect buff was up to 30% at the time, as a newbie raid healer, the fight still seemed daunting. I hadn't even successfully completed it on my hunter! So we dive right in, and we wiped on our first attempt. This was normal, since we normally attempt Heroic Morchok a few times before everyone gets fed up with the fight. But our second attempt? Flawless victory. I was stationed on the main tank, riptiding, healing waving, and chain-healing my little Draenei butt off. But we did it! Zonn'oz and Yor'sahj went as expected, as did Hagara.

Ultraxion...how I loathe thee. We made some good attempts at his heroic version, but it didn't go so well. He would cast his wonderful Twilight Eruption spell far earlier than the Raid Journal's six minute timer. So we decided to forget Heroic Ultraxion after our sixth wipe on him and downed him normally. One thing I found I didn't have to worry about as a healer that I normally do as DPS was the Fading Light debuff. Plus I got to use the Ysera crystal to maximize my healing (I have such a soft spot for The Dreamer, it's not even funny). My poor girlfriend though kept incurring the wrath of Ultraxion, who kept glitching and killing her in one hit, which is not good at all when she's our off-tank. Funny thing after that Ultraxion fight. The Belt of Shattered Elementium dropped, my best in slot belt. Nothing had dropped for me that I desperately needed so far, so I need-rolled on it with no opposition (quite a change from what I'm used to). Blackhorn even went smoothly that night! It seemed like I was on top of the world that night. Until the dreaded Spine fight.

Funny thing about the Spine of Deathwing fight, he's got that lovely little debuff his blood likes to put on people, absorbing all their delicious heals and whatnot. I thought I'd figure that a stronger healer would help me out, but we were all low on mana about halfway through the fight. Mana Tide Totem to the rescue, though! I swear, that is the best little totem in my arsenal of totems for DS. We recovered enough mana to get all of those plates off, and the next thing I know I'm on a little rock in the Maelstrom. We wiped once on Madness due to poor platform choices. We tried again, using the LFR platform rotation, downed Deathwing once and for all, and then this little beauty dropped. Reins of the Blazing Drake. I've seen it drop once before on my hunter, and my girlfriend won it on her druid. We have open need roll, and I won! I've never won a need roll on a mount in a raid before! So now I get to cruise around on this pretty dragon.

All in all, I'd say it was a good raid night.

Well, we all have to start somewhere, right?

Hi! I'm Hecubah, level 85 Survival Hunter/85 Resto Shaman/everything else under the great big WoW sun. I don't know how much of a following this little blog will get, but I figured this would be a great way to share my experiences wandering around the crazy world of Warcraft. As my blog says, Bifaction is sexy! I have no real faction preference, considering I'd like to punch both Garrosh and Varian in the berries for being oblivious meat-headed idiots. I mainly choose my class based on the race, since I'll be staring at my toon for quite a bit of time. My preferences are the elves, the hooved and horned races, trolls, and undead (although I'd love to roll a crazy dwarven fury warrior one of these days).

Since I've played my hunter pretty much from day one, that's the class I have the most expertise in, along with my resto shammy. I will admit, I am a Cata baby, but I've known about the game since BC and would watch friends and cousins play it. I won't make the claim to being the BEST hunter out there, but I do know my class. My main server is Uldaman, so if anyone does wind up reading this blog, feel free to whisper me on Hecubah or Dennissee (pronounced Denise). Hopefully I'll have something fun for you guys in a while.