Dec 30, 2008

Silver Team, Take Three

What was supposed to be a quick, two hour pre-clear for Sunday's longer raid turned into a fun four hour three wing clear, including a new wing clear, the Construct Quarter. All that's left for Sunday is the Military Quarter and then Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. After quickly blowing through the Arachnid Quarter and the Plauge Quarter, we ran into some troubles on Globbulus (more learning the fight than anything) and on our 4th (maybe 5th) attempt we got him down - almost had him on the second to last attempt, but our DPS was just a little behind.

Only one item dropped on my upgrades list, the Tier 7 shoulders, but I lost a roll to the rogue in our group, and I just hope he can use them (I think he may be swapping them in and out on trash/boss fights). I guess we just need more people to realize that not all Tier 7 pieces are better than items found in heroics just because they're Tier 7. So while the rogue might use them on bosses only, it's a significant upgrade for me and with the gloves, which I hope to get soon from Obsidian Sanctum, I'd almost have the 5% increased crit damage, which, since I crit almost 50% of the time, is a huge DPS boost. With a 310% crit modifier on Frostfire Bolts, I'm not sure if the increased 5% goes before or after the 310% crit modifier, but either way, it's a large DPS boost, but I'm still two pieces away.

On another note, man is Loatheb fun. I got in about 25k damage before getting my buff from the spore and I didn't lose the buff for the duration of the fight. What's that mean to me? Oh, just 90% Frostfire Bolt crits. Hot Streak here, Hot Streak there, Hot Streaks everywhere! It's a great fight (though the healers seem to think otherwise).

But all in all, great progress for the Silver Team, we might have a full clear on Sunday should we master Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad which would put our clearing of Naxxramas at three weeks. Not too bad, considering we're still switching people out at times and we don't have a set 10 man group every day yet.

On a final note, yay for mage DPS. The following chart is my damage done for all bosses in Naxx tonight while clearing the three quarters.

AchievementTracker.com

Finally, I've been waiting for a site like Achievement Tracker.com for a long time. I can now see where I stand on my server, in the United States, or in the World (104, 17455, and 36,662 respectively). Of course, it hasn't been updated since December 26th and I now have 4,235 achievement points - which puts me at #80 on the server.

But I'm working my way up. I plan on finishing the Outlands Dungeon Hero and the Northrend Dungeon Hero achievements this weekend and I'm also working on bringing my rep back up with the goblins through Dire Maul runs so I can get back to work on my Loremaster title (there's just too many goblin quests on Kalimdor).

Then, not sure where I head for more achievements. Maybe PvP? It's not my favorite thing to do since I'm really not all that skilled at PvP, but it would be fun to knock out some of the easier achievements for quick points - and even start to work on some of the tougher ones.

And for the curious, here's a quick link to my realm's achievement tracker.

Dec 28, 2008

Silver Team Continued...

We headed back into Naxxramas for a quick run tonight - starting from scratch due to the holidays, and we quickly blew through the Arachnid Wing and then went over to the Plague Quarter where we had to learn Loatheb as most of us had not seen him before. We had one wipe while we quickly learned the fight; the three seconds of healing, the spores, etc. But after one wipe, we quickly got him down and I got to have a lot of fun with the spores:


My Frostfire Bolts crit 70% of the time on the fight and I was able to put up 3929 DPS :) And that was without my Flask of the Frost Wyrm as we had 45 minutes to go in the night and I didn't want to use a 2 hour flask.

But after the Plague Quarter, we once again hit up the Military Quarter and quickly blew through the Instructor and Gothik. Emboldened by our victory over Loatheb, we continued to the Four Horsemen. Again, it was a learning experience, and we wiped twice as we learned the fight, but we easily took them down on our third attempt and we should now be able to clear those three wings without any issues in the future.

Overall, a great night. Two more wings cleared, one more to go before we can hit Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. Plus, the trinket I lusted after dropped for the second week in a row and it is finally mine, Embrace of the Spider. The Grieving Spellblade also dropped, but it went to Eirama who was much deserving of it. Hopefully next week, it or the Blade of Dormant Memories will drop. Then all I'm really looking for is Tier 7 items and loot from the last two bosses.

Sometimes, It's Deserved

Yesterday, after finishing up a Wintergrasp victory, I saw a team forming for 25-man Vault of Archavon. I had done the 10-man earlier in the week, so I figured I could easily do 25-man if we got a good team together. I joined in, waited about 20-30 minutes while they put the rest of the team together, and we took off.

On the single-target trash leading up to Archavon, I averaged 3300 DPS - it's amazing what a full raid group will do for your DPS. Then we got to the boss. It took a bit for the fight to be explained (which I mostly ignored since I knew my job - DPS). And we took off. We had a wipe due to lack of DPS (we were 2 men down) and some other people just couldn't be bothered to watch out for the dust clouds. So we quickly regrouped and tried again. This time, success. On both attempts, I led the DPS charts and was always in the right position and never needed emergency heals.

So when the Valorous Frostfire Leggings dropped, I felt I deserved them. I contributed the most in the way of DPS and felt I should be rewarded even though it was a PUG. However, you know the other 4 mages there didn't share my thoughts on the matter, so it was down to the luck of the dice. And the dice gods smiled upon me with an acceptable roll of 78. None of the other four mages could beat that, and here they are:



And here's the overall DPS chart for our final attempt at the boss (names removed to protect the innocent):



And finally, a breakdown of my damage on the fight. Note: I missed 2 Frostfire Bolts. Luckily the new pants have 43 hit rating on them, so that should help. I'm also carrying around some old shoes with extra hit that I should use on bosses, but I usually forget to do so.

Click image to enlarge.

Dec 26, 2008

Tickbird Hatchling!

Oracles egg #4 has hatched with the Tickbird Hatchling. That's 2 of the 3 pets from the Oracles Egg. Still no mount yet of course, but I'm on my way to go buy another egg.

87 pets and counting...

Dec 25, 2008

Merry Christmas All!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas and has a wonderful day and good company.

Merry Christmas!

Of course, with Christmas comes the presents, so I woke up early to open mine, got my Crashin' Thrashin' Racer, and proceeded to destroy 25 cars to earn my Merrymaker title. 2 down, 10 to go.

Merrymaker Christmas!

Dec 23, 2008

A Good Night

After putting some time into crafting an all-in-one list that outlined the upgrades I needed from Naxxramas (10) and Heroics, I was duly rewarded last night with a drop in heroic Azjol-Nerub of Stone Worn Footwraps (the Rod of the Fallen Monarch continues to elude me (currently the best wand in the game until 25-man content)).

Also, Azjol-Nerub happened to be the heroic daily, so after collecting my three emblems in Azjol, then two for the daily, I was at exactly 80. And that means...new robe! The Heroes' Frostfire Robe is mine. It has been socketed with Runed Scarlet Ruby and a Veiled Monarch Topaz. Basic theorycrafting states that two rubies would have given me the most DPS, but I just lost my Leiah's Footpads and their 43 hit, so I've been a bit lacking. And even though my Frostfire Bolts all hit, I'm missing with Pyroblasts (Hot Streak), Scorches, and Fireblasts (while moving). So it's something I really have to work on bringing back up. Plus, throwing in two rubies would lose me the socket bonus as well, so I'll take that +6 hit there as well.

So right now, I'm sitting pretty. My Naxx (10)/Heroics list only has a few more items that are must-have upgrades. From heroics, I would greatly like the Sash of the Servant (again from Azjol-Nerub) and the Forge Ember from the Halls of Stone is a nice trinket upgrade.

From Naxx (10), I'm looking for a huge helm upgrade from either Sapphiron, Thaddius, or Kel'Thuzad. I'm hoping for the Tier 7 shoulders from Loatheb, and Tier 7 pants from Thaddius. Grand Widow Faerlina, Patchwerk, and Kel'Thuzad all drop huuuuge weapon upgrades, but the one thing I want more than any other is the Embrace of the Spider from Grand Widow Faerlina. It dropped for us last time around and Eirama won the roll (a very nice upgrade for her as well). That about concludes what I am gunning for in the near future. Fingers crossed!

And here's my hastily thrown together Naxx (10)/Heroics gear upgrade list:

Dec 22, 2008

Silver Team Naxx

The Gold Team has apparently been rechristened the Silver Team and last week, we took our first steps inside of Naxxramas. Our goal was to clear the Spider Wing, hit up Patchwerk and then try Grobbulus on Wednesday. We quickly cleared the Spider Wing and took down Patchwerk after a couple tries (we had to learn those hateful strikes) and we went on to Grobbulus. We had just one try on him before our healer had to bail, so we were stuck trying to 9 man the place and it just wouldn't work. So we thought we could go hit up Instructor Razuvious, but we had issues with just two healers and we eventually called it a night.

We reconvened at 4pm on Sunday, ready to go. First things first though, the Obsidian Sanctum had to be cleared. Easy peasy, one shot Sartharion. Maybe next time we can leave a drake up. Who knows?

So after the Sanctum, we headed back to Naxx with an eye on the Military Quarter, Razuvious was a pushover with three healers, and we went on to Gothik. The weekend before, I had joined a quasi-guild/PUG team in Naxx and we were unable to get anywhere on Gothik. This time, with two awesome tanks and amazing healers, we one shot Gothik and had absolutely no issues. We decided to save the Four Horsemen for another time and went back to the Plague Wing.

Noth was pretty damn easy and we made quick work of him and went on to Vetarra's favorite fight in the game, Heigan the Unclean. We took a shot at him to let the team learn the Heigan dance and then had to take another shot at him after losing some healers before we finally got him down. However, we did it in a very unconventional way. After losing two healers to the dance, along with our two hunters, it was just me and a healer up on the platform, a shaman, pally, druid, and warrior down on Heigan. So yeah, we 6 manned him. Not that tough really, the only issue we had was people lagging and getting stuck during the dance. I'm really not sure how that happens, it's a fairly simple dance, but it did happen, though we managed to bring him down.

After that, we lost a couple of players and had to call it a night. We did a quick Utgarde Keep run afterward, and now I stand just 5 emblems short of my Heroes Frostfire Robe. My gloves didn't drop in the Sanctum, but we'll be doing that weekly and hopefully I can pick them up in there. I really need that two piece set bonus, it's just too sweet to not utilize - Improved Mana Gems.

For our first week in Naxxramas, we did pretty well. I believe next week we are not raiding due to the Holidays, but after that, I believe we're getting our DPS Pally and our Death Knight to join in. Then we will be bringing Dylana in for heals and we should have a pretty solid team and we should be getting close to clearing the place sometime soon in the new year. Then it's just a matter of finding another team to join up with for some fun 25 man raids.

All in all, a great start and even though there's really not that much gear in there for me to upgrade to, I love running the place and learning the new fights that I didn't get a chance to run even though I had hit up Naxx a couple of times in the Burning Crusade.

On a side note, Saturday, I hit exalted with both the Argent Crusade and the Oracles. Bringing my exalted factions up to 29 and also earning me the title 'The Argent Champion.' Right now I'm wearing my Wyrmrest Accord tabard in the heroics and I'm looking forward to some Sandals of Crimson Fury and a nice new mount - Reins of the Red Drake.

Dec 16, 2008

QuickArmory

Found a great site today - Quick Armory. The achievement system works like a charm - it utilizes Firefox + GreaseMonkey to grab your stats and then it outputs a couple of graphs along with a day by day calendar of what achievements you have earned. It's actually quite amazing.

So, here's my cumulative points by date (click to enlarge):


And here's my points on each individual date (you can see where I took some time off prior to Wrath as there is a large gap right there):

Dec 11, 2008

Sartharion 10 Man

Last night, after completing a couple dailies, I was asked to go to the 10-man version of Obsisian Sanctum. After completing the 25-man version just two days prior, I said sure, it can't be that hard could it?

So in we go, we easily clear the three drakes and our tank seems surprised at that fact. I guess he underestimated our awesomeness. There were three of us atop the DPS charts (both in overall damage and sustained DPS) - me, a rogue, and a shaman. Over the whole night we fought for the top spot and in the end, all three of us ended up with about 2,000 DPS on the night. Not too shabbby. I ended up atop the damage meters due to the fact that I didn't have to worry about Sartharion's fireballs or his cleave or his tail swipe as ranged, so the rogue dropped off a bit due to deaths.

But back to the fight. Since only two of us had seen the fight before, we had 8 people new to the instance and a couple of people picking up their first badges of Heroism. So the first couple tries were learning experiences - getting people to see the waves, know the gaps, focus DPS on the fire elementals, etc. That's fine, I can deal with those wipes.

However, it was the next 3-4 wipes that bothered me. We had people focusing DPS on Sartharion instead of the fire elementals, we had people getting caught up in the waves, even though they were all being called out on vent, and we had people getting cleaved or tail swiped even though it's really easy to avoid (yes, as a mage I was forced to stand within melee range and a couple of times had to mitigate my threat due to the 110% grab aggro percentage instead of 130%).

But eventually, we figured him out and had a couple of wipes just due to bad luck - bad positioning of the fire elementals during a wave, or a loose fire elemental hitting the tank during a fireball/cleave. And we just couldn't get him down even though we figured the fight out. Our healer told us we had on chance left before she had to call it a night. And we wiped. But, it was a quick wipe and we convinced her to stay around for one more shot and we got him. Finally! We finally took him down.

And wouldn't you know, he drops just one item I need in the 10-man version, the Gloves of the Lost Vanquisher. The first rogue rolls an 83. Drats! I roll...and 86! Yes, I've finally won a piece of T7. Oh wait...another rogue...95. FRICK! So there I sit with three badges, a 20g repair bill, and 10 achievement points, but no new gloves. I guess it's ok since the rogue that won them was not the rogue at 2000 DPS, but rather around 1300-1400 DPS. So she probably could use them the most. Just a frustrating end to a night where I had to constantly remind a few people to DPS adds instead of the dragon, watch out for the waves, and even helped our tank find the correct way to pivot the dragon during different waves.

In the end, I'm happy we got him down and I'm hoping to make this trip weekly, so I'll have more shots at the gloves. And now that we've done him once, future attempts shouldn't be so ugly. And what did I learn? The 10 man is much harder than the 25-man. We breezed through the 25 man with no deaths, quick pulling, and some great players. Even with some not-so-great players in a 25 man, you can down Sartharion without issues. With just 10 players on your team, if one person screws up, there's no room for error. You'll probably wipe. Lose a healer in the 10 man, you're done. Lose one in 25 man, who cares? The rest pick up the slack. So I'm definitely happy we got the 10 man version of Sartharion down and I'm looking forward to future attempts.

If only I had remembered to open my Oracles egg after the raid. It slipped my mind, I was done playing after the raid, and I logged off. Now, my egg is 12 hours overdue, and I've lost all this time that another egg could have been hatching. Drats again!

Dec 10, 2008

A Busy Week

So normally, my day would involve doing my dailies, mining for gold, and then putzing around by fishing in the sewers or farming for pets. But lately, my days have been taken up by running as many dailies as possible before being called into heroics, and even a heroic Obsidian Sanctum run on Monday (both Gauntlets of the Lost Vanquisher and Illustration of the Dragon Soul dropped - both the best in slot in the whole game for me, and I lost both rolls - the gloves went to another mage who already had T7 gloves and didn't need the T7.5 as much as others, but with straight rolls, not much could be done).

But in other news, I've been getting quite lucky in heroic 5-man dungeons. Over the weekend, I went to a quasi-PUG Violet Hold and the Azure Cloth Bindings dropped. I lost the roll to our healer shammy which was fine with me - he did a great job and I got some new pants earlier in the run. But the very next day, we ran it again, they dropped again, and I was the only one who could use them. Currently there's only 3 upgrades for me and they all come from 25 man instances. Oh yeah, along with the bindings, the
Mark of the War Prisoner dropped and I got that as well. I'm now using two trinkets that have spellpower "on use" abilities, so I can't stack them, but for now, they'll work for me. I'm not quite sure what other trinket I'd like to work on (other than the Illustration above). I think the Embrace of the Spider from 25 man Naxxramas is my next big upgrade.

Also, earlier in the weekend, while running heroics, I was sporting my Tabard of the Kirin Tor and I got to revered which rewarded me with the best one handed weapon in the game until 10 or 25 man Naxxramas, the Flameheart Spell Scapel. Combine that with the Ward of the Violet Citadel I purchased last night for 25 badges (the best off-hand in the game until Naxxramas 25) and I'm set for a while. Now I just need to upgrade my wand in Heroic Azjol-Nerub or Heroic Utgarde Keep.

On the crafting side, last night I purchased 4 Dragon's Eyes and had a Titanium Spellshock Necklace crafted. It is absolutely wonderful. There's only one upgrade in game right now and that's a BoE from Naxxramas, so I could watch the AH for it in the future. Also, over the weekend, a friendly gnome mage crafted a Deathchill Cloak for me. It took some gold, just like the Spellshock Necklace, but I'm making 500-1000g an hour farming ore in Icecrown and I could easily afford the mats that I couldn't make myself. Now, there's just one cloak upgrade available to me and that drops from Sartharion in the heroic Obsidian Sanctum with 2 drakes still alive.

So now my focus has shifted towards some more crafted items. Right now I'm looking for the Spellweave Gloves and Spellweave Robe which would both last me until I get my Tier 7 items. So I'm buying Spellweave when it's cheap and I'll have them crafted once I can find enough (only have one Spellweave right now).

My other major items that need upgrading are my hat, my shoulders (especially my shoulders), my feet (Wyrmrest Exalted is the next goal), and my wand. But all in all, gear wise, I've been doing pretty good. Right now, I think all I have left for
the Superior achievement is my shoulders, my wand, my feet, and my gloves (the gloves are the first Spellweave item I will have crafted). So hopefully I can get some Heroic Nexus, Azjol-Nerub, Gundrak, or Halls of Lightning this coming week and weekend.

Oh yeah...yesterday I got my Ice Mammoth. Yay! I also got my 30th Northrend cooking recipe and thought I would receive the Chef title when I achieved Northrend Gourmet. But apparently I need the 45 recipe Northrend Gourmet for my Chef title and that is currently unobtainable. With the four Northrend recipes that are not properly taught when you complete the quest, there is no way to obtain Hail to the Chef or Chef de Cuisine. Hopefully these will be fixed soon so I can be Chef Tiddlywinks
.

Dec 3, 2008

Chef Soon

Looking over my achievements, I have just 3 more recipes to cook up to become Chef Tiddlywinks. I have one Dalaran Cooking Award on me, which means I need 5 more. At one per day (hopefully I get 2 one of these days), Sunday I will have what it takes to be called Chef! Counting down the days...

Some Updates

It's been a while since I updated anything here, but some big news last night. I finally obtained my Pengu and my Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole. I'm now done running dailies for the Kalu'ak, as they were my 25th Exalted Reputation. Pretty happy to be done with them as their dailies awarded just 3-5g each. Now I can do more dailies in Icecrown and get rewarded properly.

I also spent all my money last night. I bought the Signet of the Kirin Tor for 7649g, and combined it with my Annhylde's Ring which gives me no ring upgrades until Wrath. I also completely updated my upgrades list which I will post about later and I now know every instance I need to run or every crafted Item I need to get ready for the end-game.

On a side note, last week, after picking up Lil' Smoky, I dropped Engineering and took up Mining. I hit 450 last night (hit 375 on Sunday) and now can mine anything I run across which is awesome. Just this morning, a quick run around Icecrown netted me 50 Saronite and 8 Titanium. I quickly smelted a Titansteel Bar and threw it up on the auction house, undercutting all others at 330g. It should sell today and I'll be back on my saving money for more outrageous purchases.

I've been running heroics on and off and slowly I'm getting my Kirin Tor rep up. I'm getting 150 rep daily from the cooking (and hit 25 Dalaran Cooking Awards
last night). I'm also working on Sons of Hodir rep and the lovely Vetarra pointed out some places to find Frostfire Chips last night which should help my rep grind.

Dec 2, 2008

My Upgrades Spreadsheet

And now a quick break for some Excel fun!


This is a spreadsheet I have put together to quickly compare two items and plot my upgrade path. It's a bit complicated, but could be used by anyone so I'm making it available here. A quick overview first:

There are three sheets to the whole workbook. The first is multi-colored (named: List) and looks up all the information from the second sheet (named: Lookup). The third sheet is not really used that much, but can be helpful to figure out which crafted items give you the most bang for the buck (named: Crafted).

Basically, you enter all the information on the Lookup sheet. You fill out the name of the item, where it drops, and all the stats. It takes some time, but isn't too tough once you get the hang of it. Then, on the List sheet, you can quickly toggle between items from the Lookup sheet and compare them and see where gains and losses come from. For example, right now I'm looking at The Argent Skullcap and Heroes' Frostfire Circlet. I can quickly see that the Circlet grants me 2 STA, 20 INT, 60 SPI, 72 CRIT, and 35 DMG at the cost of 61 HIT. Using numbers provided by MaxDPS.com, I gain 70.96 DPS by upgrading to the Tier 7 headpiece. I'm also alerted in Red that there is a set bonus to the Tier 7 piece which I need to look out for. I also know that it drops in Naxxramas 10-man from Kel'Thuzad.

So we'll take a quick look at the Lookup sheet first.



This is the top-left most area of the Lookup sheet. The first row is simply the column number and should not be touched. The second row contains some information further over and should not be touched. The third row is a descriptor row that tells you what you are entering into the spreadsheet. Below that, you can see all the head items I have input into the sheet and all the neck pieces I have put in.

Column 1 is the row number and should not be changed and column 2 is the Slot position and should not be changed. All items should be grouped by Slot position. Also notice row 4 and row 14. These are small spacer rows. They should be left alone. If you need fewer rows for Head Slot items, delete any of the rows from 6-12. You should always leave the first and last rows in a grouping alone. If you need to insert rows, copy any row from 6-12 and insert it between 6-12 and go from there. Following these rules will keep the spreadsheet running as it should.

From there, you just need to enter all the information. The item name should just be the item name, but as you can see, I added a T7 to the end of some items to keep me cognizant of their rarity. "Dropped In" should just be the instance where it is dropped. If it is a crafted item, just enter "Crafted" and if it is from badges, just enter "Badges" (see the examples of Hat of Wintry Doom and Lattice Choker of Light above. In the "Dropped By" column, you can put where it is dropped, for crafted items, I kept track of what skill level is needed for them, but for Badges, you must put the number of badges required, and only that.



Now on to the stats. Here you just enter the relevant stats for each item. So you can see I've entered Armor, Stamina, Intellect, and so on. Damage is obviously Spell Power now, but I've left it as Damage. The problem here is I don't have AGI or STR or Dodge or other stats built in that could be useful for some. I am pretty sure you can change the descriptor in row 3, but the abbreviations in row 2 cannot be changed.



In these columns we have some additional information. The Proc is some sort of "on effect" type proc. So for example, the Sundial of the Exiled has a Proc of 590 and a Proc Type of "Damage". Sockets 1-3 are just filled in using one letter abbreviations, Meta = M, Red = R, and so on. Socket Bonus Number is the number of stat points you receive as a bonus. And Socket Bonus Type is the type of stat you gain a bonus to. So you can see in the first item, I gain a bonus of 9 DMG (or damage/spell power) if I correctly socket a Meta and a Yellow gem.



Here in these last few columns, we have some random information. Set Bonus can be set to Yes or No. If it's set to Yes, then it will highlight the item on the Listing page. If "Own" is set to yes, it will also highlight it on the main page and help you to distinguish it from other upgrade items. The MaxDPS column represents the DPS each item grants as determined by MaxDPS.com. This is just for reference and to compare items that may seem close in stats. DPS Gain per Badge relies on column E (Dropped By) if Column D says "Badges". So you have to make sure to follow the instructions above for Badge purposes. Cost of Crafting is a rough guestimate that comes from the "Crafting" page. This relies on Column D correctly being identified as a "Crafted" item. The DPS Gain per 100g relies on the Cost of Crafting. So here we see I'd go from 120.78 DPS to 152.63 DPS for just 373g, which is 8.54 DPS per 100g spent.

Here's a full-size image of the Lookup Page: Clicky

So once you have input all the information on the Lookup sheet, it flows through to the "List" sheet. This colorful sheet allows you to quickly compare two items for upgrades and also plot out where your next upgrades will come from.



Here we see in Column A we have the Slot position, column B has the item, and columns C & D show where it is dropped. The orange colored line indicates that the item is currently in our possession. The white colored lines are upgrades and the green colored lines compare the items to the one we own. Each slot position allows for the comparison of two items to the one we own which should go in the top slot. If you just want to compare one item to another, you can throw any item you want in row 3 and 4 and compare the two. But line 4 will always compare against line 3 and line 6 will always compare against line 3.

To compare items, you just use the pull down boxes in each section:



These pull down boxes come from the Lookup page, which is why it's important to leave the first and last lines of each item slot table alone. You can insert lines or delete lines between the first and last items, but the first and last items should always remain there. You can change all the info in them, but the should never be deleted and you should not add additional lines outside of these rows.



Here we just list the different stats for the items and the enchants that are available to that item. Enchants come from the bottom of the lookup page. All it shows here is the different stats for each item.



Here we get socketed stats added to the total. Nothing to do here.



Here we get the totals. This adds up all of the "On Item" stats, all the "Enchant" stats and all the "Sockets" stats. The fist line shows the item we own, the second line shows the first item we're comparing against and the fourth line compares the second item to the item we own. In this example, going from The Argent Skullcap to the Hat of Wintry Doom, we gain 17 STA, 10 INT, 21 CRIT and 1 DMG and lose 17 HIT.



These are the final four columns. Delta Unbalanced shows the total number of stat points that change. So going from the Argent Skullcap to the Hat of Wintry Doom has us go from 278 to 310 skill points. The reason it says unbalanced is because it considers Spirit equal to Spell Damage, which we know is not the case. But using the MaxDPS numbers, we can see a gain of 31.85 DPS. You can also see that the fourth line is colored red because it has a set bonus associated with it. It's just a bright red color to remind you to factor in the set bonus before tossing it aside if it has weaker stats.

Here's an overview of the full listing: Clicky

The last page is the Crafted page. Here we can set prices for crafted items which will factor into the DPS gain per 100g statistic.



Note that Row 1 is hidden. In Row 1, we have the column number. So if you have to add columns, make sure you unhide Row 1, fill in the column number and hide it up again. Row 2 has the cost of the material. These costs are pretty far off as I found Ebonweave and Spellweave are going for almost double the prices I guessed. All of these prices are changeable - so just switch out different prices for the different materials you have in row 3. Then, just enter your item name (it has to match the name on the Lookup sheet or the DPS gain per 100g won't work. Then just enter the quantities for each item and at the end, a total cost will be calculated.

Here's the full page:Clicky

I know it's complicated, but it works for me and it will be pretty complicated to adjust to your own stats (e.g. STR or AGI). While I am willing to answer some questions about the spreadsheet (leave comments on the blog), I can't customize it for you or enter items for you.

Also realize that the spreadsheet could easily break if you do something you shouldn't. Just be careful when deleting or adding rows or columns. Also remember you should not touch the "List" sheet other than using the drop downs to pick different items. And though the "List" sheet might seem to break at times, remember, if you select an item and then delete it from the Lookup, it won't work. So just select another item.

Also, I have manual calculation on for this spreadsheet. You need to hit F9 to calc the spreadsheet. Or you can go into Tools > Options > Calculation and turn automatic calcs back on.

Here's the latest spreadsheet for you to play around with (EXCEL FILE): Clicky

Nov 28, 2008

The Daily Circuit

Every day starts in Dalaran. I do the daily cooking quest and then venture out to find more dailies to do. My circuit starts at Moa'ki Harbor in Dragonblight where I do the Kalu'ak daily quest. I then fly over to Kamagua and help two sea cows find true love for more Kalu'ak reputation.

A quick trip up to The Argent Stand in Zul'Drak for Troll Patrol, and 900-1000 reputation, is next. And then a quick flight from there to Dun Niffelem to do the Sons of Hodir dailies. There's currently 5 for me to do since hitting honored which yields 1600 rep. From there I have a choice - either go to Icecrown for dailies or port back to Dalarn.

Usually, I'll port back to Dalaran to do the other leg of quests. I fly to Unu'pe for the last of the three daily Kalu'ak quests, and then fly up to Sholazar Basin to do my three Oracles quests. Once done there, then it's on to Icecrown for more dailies.

Upon arriving in Icecrown, I have 7 dailies left to do. I haven't quite figured out the dailies that I'm going to do on a regular basis, but there's plenty scattered throughout Icecrown to keep me busy. Also, in just 4 days, I'll be fully exalted with the Kalu'ak which will leave me with 10 dailies to do in Icecrown or, the alternative...

Wyrmrest Accord reputation. I figure on my way down to Moa'ki Harbor to start the day, I can stop in at the Wyrmrest Temple for a quick daily and then I after completing my loop, I'd port back to Dalaran and instead of going to Unu'pe, I can go over to Coldarra and do the Wyrmest daily there and then up to Sholazar Basin.

Either way, I'll be staying busy for quite a while. After my loop, without counting Icecrown dailies, I receive the following rep on average:

Argent Crusade: 900-1100 based on different Troll Patrol dailies.
Kirin Tor: 150 from the daily cooking quest.
The Kalu'ak: 1500 with just 4 days left until max exalted.
The Sons of Hodir: 1600 with quite a ways to go, but these are fun dailies.
The Oracles: 1700 with 12 days left until max exalted. I won't be switching to Frenzyheart though until I have all the pets that can be obtained from the Mysterious Egg

Nov 21, 2008

Old Crafty & Chuck

This morning, I woke up early and did my daily Dalaran cooking quest only to be whispered by a fellow guild mate that today's fishing quest was Crocs in the City (my guild knows I need to get my pets from that so they are looking out for me which is awesome). So I quickly ported to Shatt, got the daily quest and then ported to Theramore. Took a flight to Ratchet, hoofed it to Orgrimmar and easily made it past the guards, hit invisibility, and arrived at my fishing spot with nary a nick.

After about 10 casts, Old Crafty was mine! I ported to Ironforge, looking now for Old Ironjaw, but couldn't catch him in about 15 casts, so I took the Crocolisk, ported back to Shattrath and turned in the quest. Perhaps Old Man Barlo is in a better mood with fewer people visiting him, or he's lonely and wants me to visit more because not only did he reward me with Chuck's Bucket for returning the crocolisk to him, he also gave me Spun Truesilver Fishing Line. I'm going to save it for when I obtain my Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole from the Tuskarr (currently at 5,000/21,000 revered).

So it was quite a nice morning for me with both cooking and fishing done. Last night I was finally able to get the Oracles to start giving me daily quests. The final quest in the line was bugged as the lich just stood there and refused to let us attack. After a couple of hours, a GM finally reset her for us and my pick up group quickly took her down twice as the first time the other four people wanted to help the Frenzyhearts out. Luckily they all stuck around and helped me complete her again as I wanted to get on good terms with the Oracles. So now my dailies consist of the Kalu'ak and the Oracles. I'm also just getting somewhere with Sons of Hodir, so they'll probably be on my daily sweep as they have the really nice new shoulder enchants.

Nov 20, 2008

Level 80 and More!

Quite a busy day yesterday. First and foremost, ding 80!


It all started yesterday as I cleaned up the final quests in the Sholazar Basin. I had only about 30 more to do and quickly earned my Into the Basin achievement. But while completing my Sholazar Quests, another achievement I had been traking for a while finally popped up - I am now Tiddlywinks the Seeker! 3,000 quests completed (which also pushed me over 3,000 achievement points). After 3,000 quests and the Basin complete, I headed for the Storm Peaks. K3 was my next destination and after questing there for a while, earning the vaunted Mine Sweeper achievement, and having some fun up in the sky and the mountains, I hit 80.

So what to do next? Well continue questing of course. I'm going to finish off the Storm Peaks and then move to Ice Crown to get my Loremaster of Northrend achievement (unfortunately, Kalimdor remains unconquered). But after questing a little longer, I decided to go explore, and earned the title of The Explorer!


So now what? Well bright and early this morning, I earned my 10th Dalaran Cooking Award, and I have much reputation to grind with certain factions that reward pets. I also need just one more reputation at exalted to earn 25 Exalted Reputations
and of course, I'm fishing for my Giant Sewer Rat and also for the coins in the fountain.

I also put of leveling engineering this whole time, but with stacks of cobalt going for 100g each right now, getting my engineering up will take quite a while when I finally decide the market has stabilized. However, I did raise First Aid to 450. Enchanting sits at 410, cooking at 415ish, and fishing at around 395. Last night with my Tabard of the Explorer, I also received my Tabard of the Achiever for having 25 Tabards.

There's so much more to do, so many more quests to complete, so many more achievements to seek out. I think I'll head back to the Storm Peaks tonight, fish a bit, and try and finish up the Oracles questline so I can start earning rep with them.

Nov 18, 2008

Some Mounts Worth Aiming For

The fine folks at MMO-Champion posted a list of all the new mounts in Wrath and here are a few I think I'll be shooting for:

#1: Reins of the White Polar Bear - These drop from a reward you get for completing daily quests in the Storm Peaks. It appears the quests are level 79-80, so I might be able to go hunt them down tonight if I have some time to see what's going on out there.

#2: Reins of the Red Drake - An exalted reward from the Wyrmrest Accord. I'm pretty sure my rep isn't that high with them as I left Dragonblight soon after completing most quests. The drake is cool, but I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get to exalted with them.

#3 & #4: Reins of the Ice Mammoth and Reins of the Grand Ice Mammoth
- Both available from the Sons of Hodir - a faction I have not yet encountered. One is available at revered for 2,500g, the grand ice mammoth is available at exalted for 10,000g.

Speaking of gold, when I ventured into Northrend, I left Shattrath with 3,200g. Upon hitting 71, I went to Dalaran and bought the brown bear for 700g. I was down for a little bit, but worked my way back up. Training First Aid, Cooking, Enchanting, and Engineering cost a few hundred gold. And then at 77, I trained Cold Weather Flying for 1,000g. And right now, I'm at about 3,400g. Yes, after spending well over 2,000g, I've made it back from questing and selling grey items. All green and blue quest rewards have been disenchanted (except for a couple weapons that sold for 10-15g each). So while leveling, don't leave anything behind, and just quest, quest, quest. You'll have plenty of gold for whatever you need. I'm hoping to have upwards of 5,000g by the time I hit 80 and then I can splurge a little on an Ice Mammoth.

The Path to 77

Last night, I reached 77 seasons thanks to some fun in the wonderful Sholazar Basin. A wonderful region of Northrend that is lush and green. A huge step up from the closest zone I could compare it to - the Un'goro Crater. I had made it my mission last night to take revenge on D.E.H.T.A. for making me go love all those mammoths in the Tundra, so I teamed up with Hemet Nesingwary to destroy some beasts.

Upon arriving at the Nesingwary base camp, I was surprised to see there was no flight path, despite hearing there was. Luckily after fetching a motor and some other parts, I was able to rebuild the flight path and could use it for an easy escape from the basin back to Zul'drak for leveling. Of course, first I had to kill a bunch of rhinos, sabers, snakes, crocs, and whelps. They all succumbed to my awesome power and I easily breezed through all the quests I was given. The reward wasn't quite worth it, however the achievements were: The Snows of Northrend and Hemet Nesingwary: The Completed Quests.

So then I returned to Zul'drak for some leveling and found an absolutely amazing group for the Amphitheater of Anguish. Not only did we quickly blow through everything they could throw at us, but we also had hordies trying to steal our kills and kill us while we were fighting. We quickly dispatched them, even destroying them when they outnumbered us 7-5 and we were fighting the finall boss of the Amphitheater. It was great fun and I finally have a new weapon: the
Chilly Slobberknocker! What a name! But it was without an enchant! For shame, young Tiddlywinks, for shame! So I gave out a bunch of free enchants to my buddies Weser and Ryshat, got Enchanting up to 400, and gave myself a nice enchant of Enchant Weapon: Exceptional Spellpower. Oh yeah, I also got the achievement, Of Blood and Anguish.

And now for some updates on skills and achievements:
Enchanting: 400
Cooking: 410
Engineering: 381
First Aid: 441
Fishing: 389

2,851 quests out of 3,000
414 dailies out of 500
6,170g out of 10,000g

Nov 17, 2008

3 Days to 76

((Quite an interesting weekend. Thursday Amazon delivered Wrath, I installed it, got to run around a bit and then went to see Quantum of Solace midnight showing. This is what happened over the next three days...))

I started in the Howling Fjord. An absolutely gorgeous landscape greeted me with an assortment of quests like I had not seen before. I thoroughly enjoyed the opening quests and once I was out of Valgarde Keep, I loved the Fjord even more. The explorer's camp was fun to quest of of and the Kalu'ak are great to work with. The Fjord was just amazing with the lush landscapes, the varying greenness, and just the overall scope of the Fjord amazed me. I quickly worked my way through over 130 quests, earning the achievement, I've Toured the Fjord. Of course, while doing that, I also Explored the Fjord. I am quite certain that I gained two levels in the Fjord, if I wasn't at 72, I hit 72 quickly after moving to the Tundra.


After I completed all the Howling Fjord quests I could find, I started making my way towards the Borean Tundra. To do this, I took a turtle to Moa'ki Harbor. There I quested as I am working on Kalu'ak reputation for my little penguin pet. After finishing their quests, I took another turtle to the Tundra as I arrived in Taunka'le Village. They didn't have many quests to do there as I hadn't been properly introduced to them, so I made my way to Valiance Keep. On the way to Valiance Keep though, I met up with D.E.H.T.A. I did their quests, though I do not agree to their standards and completed D.E.H.T.A's Little P.I.T.A. If you ask me, DEHTA is the PITA. More on that later.


I hit up Valiance Keep, and quested from there before exploring the rest of the Tundra. Except for Coldarra, I was not a fan of the Tundra - I found it bland and boring. The terrain was just dry and uninteresting for me. I had a little fun out at Fizzcrank Airstrip, but in the end, I found the Tundra vastly inferior to the Fjord. That didn't deter me though as I earned both Nothing Boring about Borean and Explore Borean Tundra. While questing in the Tundra, I do believe I hit 74.

On a side note, when I hit 71, I made a quick trip to Star's Rest to pick up my Teleport: Dalaran spell. I quickly ported there and fell in love with the city. It is gorgeous! Of course, being one of only a handful of people there made it even more brilliant. It was peaceful, quiet, and seemingly, all mine. I explored all over, found a rat mentoring four turtles in the sewers, and bought a
Glowing Skull. Along with Frosty, I now have 81 pets.

So...after the Tundra, I went to Dragonblight. Having already visited Star's End for my portal, I returned there to quest again. Dragonblight is interesting, but in the end, empty. I guess it's a blight for a reason. Wrymrest Temple does nothing for me, though the quests at Wintergarde Keep are epic. The Wrathgate event is nothing short of downright amazing. For completing the epic questline, I was rewarded with Veteran of the Wrathgate. In the end, I powered through Dragonblight and just did the quests required of me for Might of Dragonblight and Explore Dragonblight. Here I am with King Varian and Lady Jaina as we battle through the Undercity:


Prior to entering the Dragonblight, at the young age of 71, I grouped with some old friends and we ran Azjol-Nerub which was amazing - short, sweet, and fun (though a little creepy) - so far my favorite instance (though I haven't run the Nexus yet). After we ran Azjol-Nerub twice back-to-back, we hit up Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. That was a little more difficult as we had one 72 and 4 71's. We powered through though and basked in our glory. The next day I ran Utgarde Keep. It's a fun, quick instance, but a bit simplistic. A nice introduction to dungeons for some though.

As for the fun stuff I did while powering through three zones completely, once I hit Dalaran, I did the daily cooking quest and achieved Dalaran Cooking Award. I've now done three daily cooking quests, have 5 cooking awards, and with my first three, I immediately bought
Critter Bits. I cooked up 40 critter bites right away, returned to where I was questing (Amber Ledge I believe) and used 10 critters to achieve Critter Gitter (this actually was my 15th cooked food earning me The Northrend Gourmet. Here I am with the critters:


So, with three zones down, I have moved on to Zul'Drak. This is quite an interesting zone. There's two distinct parts it seems. When you first enter, you encounter the Argent Crusade fighting out of little outposts against the scourge. You then move on to The Argent Stand where they have made a permanent base, though you continue fighting the scourge. I completed the full Betrayal questline, made a quick visit to the Grizzly Hills (which I am in love with) and I have only to Cleanse Drak'Tharon to achieve Guru of Drakuru. I forgot to mention that I had visited Zul'Drak prior to my "official" arrival as I was searching for
Manual: Heavy Frostweave Bandage. I had already risen my First Aid skill to 410 via regular Frostweave Bandages and they turned grey to me and I had Frostweave to spare. I quickly killed some trolls at about level 73 (they were level 75) and found the manual, allowing me to achieve Ultimate Triage. I also earned The Keymaster when I hit level 73 (or maybe 74) and I picked up the quest to go into the Violet Hold in Dalaran.

I currently sit at 2,895 achievement points (working hard towards 3,000 - though leveling comes first). I have not earned any more titles, though I believe Chef isn't too far away, nor Argent Champion. I am almost to 435 first aid, while engineering and enchanting have fallen by the wayside. Though I'm currently working to clear Zul'Drak, one other quest line has called me away from there tonight. Tonight, I will exact my revenge on D.E.H.T.A. by working for my guy, Hemet Nesingwary. As you can see, I'm ready to go blow stuff up!

Nov 11, 2008

Northrend Pets

Trying to consolidate Northrend pet information...

Albino Snapjaw, Hawksbill Snapjaw, Leatherbill Snapjaw, Loggerhead Snapjaw: No one really knows where these snapjaws come from, but a logical guess would be to assume they come from the Northrend fishing daily (probably have to catch a snapjaw for a daily fishing quest).

Baby Blizzard Bear: The Big Blizzard Bear came from Blizzcon and is a mount. No information on the baby.

Baby Shark: Sold for 60s in Lake Wintergrasp by Morgan Day.

Chilly the Penguin, Mr. Chilly: A reward for creating a Blizzard.com account, presumably only in the Beta, not in Northrend.

Cobra Hatchling, Proto-Drake Whelp, Tickbird Hatchling, White Tickbird Hatchling: Hatch from a Mysterious Egg which requires revered status with The Oracles. Each egg takes 7 days to hatch and can be any of the for pets above or Aged Yolk - basically a failure. Note, if you gain reputation with The Oracles, you lose reputation with the Frenzyheart. The Frenzyheart sell a Disgusting Jar at revered. So far no pets have been found in the jar, so I would probably go for Oracles reputation at the start of Wrath. However, the developers have stated that they want to make it easy to switch rep between the Oracles and Frenzyheart, so it most likely won't be an insane grind like switching from Scryer to Aldor.

Ghostly Skull: Skull that follows you around. Sold for 40g in Dalaran Sewers by Darahir.

Giant Sewer Rat: Caught by fishing in the Dalaran Sewers. Reportedly takes hundreds of casts.

Kirin Tor Familiar: Reward from Higher Learning achievement (sort of). To get access to Archmage Vargoth, you must have the Higher Learning achievement and it is presumed you will learn it from him or he will sell it to you.

Pengu: Requires exalt with The Kalu'ak. I would guess you either just buy it or it is a random reward from the Nurtured Egg.

Tiny Green Dragon, Tiny Red Dragon: No information yet.

White Tiger Cub: No information yet.

In addition to these pets, Wowhead also lists a lot of "Summon" spells that could turn out to be pets of some sort - no real information on any of these.

Summon Baby Murloc (Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple), Summon Baby Pink Elekk, Summon Blue Racer (snake?), Summon Bronze Whelpling, Summon Cockatoo, Summon Cottaintail Rabbit, Summon Dart Frog, Summon Eagle Owl, Summon Elven Wisp, Summon Faeling, Summon Green Water Snake, Summon Island Frog, Summon Ribbon Snake, Summon Scarlet Snake, Summon Snowy Owl, Summon Spotted Rabbit, Summon White Plymouth Rock (??).

Hopefully I can keep this updated as I get more information.
Most information was culled from WowHead, a little came from the great site, WarcraftPets.com.

Nov 7, 2008

Shall I Switch?

Currently I'm a 375 Enchanter/Tailor. I picked them initially because they offered the greatest bonus to me as a mage. I could enchant my rings and I could tailor the Spellfire set. As we go into Wrath, I hear more and more about how there won't be as many reasons to continue with the professions I've chosen. Almost all high-level items made via crafting will be Bind on Equip (BoE) in Wrath. So no more Spellfire sets, no more high-end blacksmithing weapons. Instead, each profession gets it's own little perks.

Blacksmiths can add sockets, leatherworkers get furs for their bracers, tailors get embroiders for their cloaks, enchanters keep ring enchants, scribes get shoulder enchants better than the faction enchants, alchemists get increased effect and durtion from flasks and elixirs, jewelcrafters get BoPickup gems and trinkets, and engineers get their own aresenal of fun. (Most of this was culled from this great WowInsider Post)

Now, to break it down for me, as a mage.

Blacksmithing - add two sockets, one to bracers, one to gloves. Socket with 2xRuned Scarlet Ruby = +38 spell power.

Leatherworking - add "fur" to bracers. Add Fur Lining - Spell Power = +67 spell power. Minus out a bracer enchant = +37 spell power.

Tailoring - Early theorycrafting puts the gained DPS at about 24.4 for Lightweave Embroidery. And you have to give up a nice cloak enchant such as Greater Speed. As of now, this profession seems to be the weakest.

Incription - Enchanting the shoulders with Master's Inscription of the Storm adds 61 spellpower and 15 crit. Subtracting out
Greater Inscription of the Storm, we get a net gain of +37 spell power.

Alchemists get increased effect and duration of flasks and elixirs along with Mercurial Alchemist Stone, +50 haste, +59 spell power, +40% effect from potions (however, you lose a trinket spot, so net effect is yet to be seen) - it is quite powerful when you hit level 75 though.

Jewelcrafters get their BoP gems and trinkets. Three Runed Dragon's Eyes gives you three +13 (after subtracting out rare quality gems), or +36 spell power (plus BoP trinkets - like this sweet Twilight Serpent, which not only increases hit by a great amount, but it has an on use effect and two sockets, which have a bonus of +7 spellpower. Not too shabby.

Engineering gets their sweet Visage Liquification Goggles which have consistently been upgradeable to the latest tier equivalent in Burning Crusade via v2 or v3. These liquification goggles are amazing and probably wouldn't go out of style for a long time and would probably only be replaced if there were a tier set that surpassed it with set bonuses.

So right now, I'm seriously considering dropping Tailoring and leveling Engineering. I won't miss the cloak enchant as I am currently in love with haste and while not having a flying carpet will be tough to deal with, I will be able to craft an amazing pair of goggles and my own flying and riding vehicles. Add to that the availability of another pet that has eluded me thus far, and I'd be sitting pretty. It'll be very tough to drop tailoring after all that I've spent on rare recipes, but I feel that Engineering will be more beneficial to me in Wrath and now is the time to start working on it.

Nov 6, 2008

Tiddly's Titles

I added a box over to the right there that shows my titles earned thus far. I'm up to 8 now, but have mostly been sticking with Bloodsail Admiral Tiddlywinks. Every once in a while I switch it up to Ambassador or Diplomat, but it's fun to have a bunch of titles to play with. I'm working on Salty right now, trying to get all the pre-Wrath achievements completed there. Chef is done until Wrath and Explorer should be easy when Wrath comes out. The Loremaster title is still going to give me some issues as I'm still not on good terms with the goblins (was working on it two nights ago before being pulled into Molten Core) and the Seeker should come with Wrath (and closely with The Loremaster).

Nov 5, 2008

Bah, Hydraxian Rep

I joined a group for a quick clear on Molten Core last night and just barely edged my reputation with the Hydraxian Waterlords up to Honored. Now I can pick up the quest Hands of the Enemy and from there I will be able to provide a Aqual Quintessence for future Molten Core runs. It'll be about four to five full clears to get to Revered and from there, exalted will take a good 20 runs. Not fun. I might never be able to hit Exalted, but it's worth going every so often when a group forms. Maybe some day I'll get lucky and get that darn Exalted status.

Nov 4, 2008

OT: Good News

Received the following today from Amazon.com:
We are writing to you today because you purchased a pre-order copy of 'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition.'

We are now able to offer Release-Date Delivery for this video game. This special delivery option is available to you for no additional charge and has been automatically applied to your order. Your copy of 'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition' will arrive on Thursday, November 13th.

We realize that many of our customers are huge World of Warcraft fans, and we're happy to offer Release-Date Delivery to get this title to you even faster.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

Nov 2, 2008

Finally!

Bloodsail Admiral Tiddlywinks



Pet #79, now #29 (as of this posting) on the Top 50.

Oct 28, 2008

Well Read

Just completed Well Read which gives me all my General achievements complete until November. I also completed To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before with the exception of the Steam and Borean Frogs (Wrath) and I also have The Keymaster complete with the exception of the Violet Hold Key (Wrath).

With regards to Quests, I'm at 179/200 daily quests complete (should get that done tomorrow) and I'm up to 2,037g out of 10,000g from The Bread Winner. For my Classic Quests, I'm sitting at 565/730 for the Loremaster of Kalimdor. The Burning Crusade quests are complete.

All my exploration is complete with the exception of Medium Rare. Not quite sure when I'll be able to complete that one. It's a pretty tough one to do as some of the mobs don't spawn for days.

Left for the Classic Dungeons & Raids - LBRS, Dire Maul, Onyxia, AQ40.
Left for Burning Crusade Dungeons & Raids - Heroic Slave Pens, Heroic Underbog, Heroic Mana-Tombs, Heroic Auchenai Crypts, Heroic Durnholde, Heroic Sethekk Halls, Heroic Black Morass, Heroic Mechanar, Heroic Botanica, Heroic Magister's Terrace, Tempest Keep, Hyjal, Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau.

Cooking Profession is done until Wrath. Fishing I still need to win the Booty Bay contest (but can't do so until I'm on good terms with them again), catch the rare fish, find Old Ironjaw, and fish up Gahz'ranka and the Lurker Below. First Aid is done until Wrath.

Working my way to 25 exalted reputations now. For classic reputations I need Zandalar, Hydraxian and Brood of Nozdormu. For Burning Crusade I need Keepers of Time, Lower City, Ashtongue Deathsworn, Scale of the Sands, and I need to defeat Capt. Skyshatter.

I won't even go into what I need for PvP because it's a lot!

Total achievement points: 2625

Oct 27, 2008

What a Weekend

Wow, quite an action packed weekend in the world of Azeroth. The scourge invasion has been taken to another level with the appearance of floating Necropoli and Phosphorex and I had a great time battling back the invaders and looking for our Undead Slaughtering gear (unfortunately no cloth drops of the 6 we've seen). The best part of the Scourge invasion is the return of the Argent Dawn Quartermasters. And with those quartermasters returns the Tabard of the Argent Dawn. This puts me at 16 tabards, quite a nice count on my way towards 25.

Also this weekend, Tenris Mirkblood popped up in Karazhan so the Gold Team quickly assembled to bring him down. What a surprise to find a cute little Vampiric Batling on him! I had no idea he would give me pet #78, but I'm not complaining. I love the little guy.

When Phosphorex and I had a lull in our scourge killing, we quickly hit up Heroic Ramparts and Blood Furnace. With the help of a couple Honor Hold Favors, I have reached exalted with my 23rd faction and I was able to pick up a new enchanting recipe and a new tabard. Now I just need some more Lower City and Keepers of Time rep to achieve The Burning Crusader and 25 Exalted Reputations in one fell swoop.

The weekend also took me to Kalimdor as I work on the Loremaster achievement. Some work was also put in on fishing in Ironforge for Old Ironjaw. This evening, back to Kalimdor after doing my dailies and fight back the scourge when they appear.

Oct 24, 2008

Raider Tiddlywinks?

Last night was pretty fun. After clearing the four bosses in Zul'Aman on Wednesday, it was a nice change of pace to head into Ahn'Qiraj with the guild to earn the achievement Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. I was also hoping to pick up my Band of Vaulted Secrets and Drape of Vaulted Secrets to go along with the Blade of Vaulted Secrets I already have in my bank with a wonderful glow from Potency on it.

After quickly blowing through AQ and getting Flamehelix his blacksmithing recipes, I took some time to do the Outlands dailies, earned a bit of gold, and then was summoned to finish Zul'Aman from the night before. We quickly annihilated Malacrass and Zul'Jin and I got the achievement, Zul'Aman. Two of the tougher raiding achievements down, quite a few more to go. I just have AQ40 and Ony to complete Classic Raider.

Tonight, I will get 1,000 Fish as I went to bed last night sitting at 999/1000. Still no Ironjaw for me though after well over 1,000 casts in Ironforge. Going to keep working on it though. I'm also at about 600g and plan on achieving My Sack is "Gigantique" once I have 1200g for the bag. I also hope to be able to complete Loremaster of the Eastern Kingdoms at some point this weekend after I run Uldaman and BRD (where I have about 10 quests through chains to complete). Then I'm not sure what I'll be doing - there's a couple low level dungeons to explore, and then some level 60 dungeons that Phosphorex and I want to conquer. Also, the drop rate on the Deathcharger's Reins
have been increased, so Phos and I might be in Scholo quite a bit this weekend.

Oct 21, 2008

Great Achievements

Last night, I got two awesome achievements done. The first will result in me getting my Hallowed title. Right when I awoke, Xenoxa wanted to run the Horseman - and of course I was ready to go. We quickly found a tank, assembled some other DPS and went to the Monastery.

Four of us made it there quickly and while we waited for the fifth to arrive, Xenoxa and I decided to raise our unarmed skill a little with some Spirit Boxing.


After our fifth arrived, we had five shots at the boss, and on the fifth...he dropped...the one...the only...the Sinister Squashling!

We all rolled for it and wouldn't you know, I rolled a 1. Luckily, the great people of the greatest guild in the land, even though they rolled higher, gave the pet to me! I love you guys. DarkLight Resolution is the greatest bunch of people I've had the pleasure to group with. So we ported out (bonus points if you can tell where I ported to) and I took some pictures with my new pet:



He's just so amazing as he collapses into a jack-o-lantern if you're not moving for a while, and his short legs have to work overtime to keep up with you while you're on a mount. This addition brings me to 77 of 88 pets! And I love them all.

Following the Horseman runs, I got back into my regular schedule and went off and did my dailies. Utilizing money made from the dailies, I bought mounts #47, #48, #49, and #50 giving me the awesome achievement, Leading the Cavalry. My new Albino Drake is amazing, but he was unwilling to pose for any photos last night, so hopefully I'll get those up soon. The guild was quite impressed with my latest achievement and I'm working my way up on the Loremaster achievements.

I now have 2 quests to do in BRD, 4 to do in Uldaman, and a couple of those are chains, so hopefully I'll get much closer to the 700 (I'm currently stuck at 686/700 quests). I might have some time to complete those quests tonight providing the instances cooperate. After I complete the Eastern Kingdoms, I might head to Kalimdor, but there are other achievements I'd like to complete - most notably Old Ironjaw.

Oct 20, 2008

Darn You Squashling!

I got nine more attempts at the Headless Horseman yesterday (bringing my total to 24), and still no Squashling. Have seen the Hallowed Helm drop twice (I already had it from last year), so I keep going telling everyone I pass on EVERYTHING except the squashling. Then yesterday, right as I woke up, I see my friend Phosphorex complete the Sinister Calling achievement. DARN YOU!

So once I got my Horseman runs out of the way, it was back to achievements. I'm up over 2,400 points now and working towards the Loremaster achievements. Right now I stand at 668/700 on the Eastern Kingdoms with a few more areas to explore. I have some chains to finish up in Uldaman and other random quests I've been finding with the Low Level Quest tracking option. However, I fear I'm going to run out of quests to do just short of 700. I'm trying to think of lesser known quest locations, but haven't thought of any yet (though I did find a nice one in Loch Modan during my explorations).

After the Eastern Kingdoms, I'll head to Kalimdor and scrounge for quests there. I know there's still a lot I didn't do on Azuremyst and the Night Elf starting zone. I did quite a few while working my rep up to exalted with those factions, but never did all of them. I'm also doing about 20 dailies a day as I work to buy more and more mounts. I believe I'm at 43 or so with only expensive mounts to buy from here on out.

After those achievements, I'll probably get back to fishing towards 1,000 fish and keep trying to get Old Ironjaw - can't believe I haven't found him yet in over 700 casts. I was able to complete Outland Gourmet and have done all the cooking quests available to me until Northrend.

On a side note, I wish there were a way to look up leaders in achievement points on servers, or at least know where you stand with respects to others on the server. I keep on comparing achievements to those around me and see 600, 900, some up around 1500, even some near 2000, but I haven't really seen anyone near 2500 yet. Phosphorex said he saw someone over 2500, so I know I still have some work to do - and if I can quickly get some heroics out of the way, I'll blow by 2,500. But it's just annoying at the present time to not really know how well you're doing. I imagine I'm probably near the top on the server with all of my grinding pre-achievements. However, I still have quite a few achievements to work on that I'm certain others easily picked up if they were dedicated to rep and grinds like I was pre-patch. So now I'm working towards 3,000 achievement points and 300/750 total achievements. Up up and away!

Oct 18, 2008

All Hallow's Eve

I woke up today and started fishing in Ironforge for Old Ironjaw - and then I saw it - Trick or Treat! And so it begins. I quickly set off and found the treats in the Ironforge in and started to get a group going for the Headless Horseman. We traveled to Goldshire, picked up the quest and then trekked up to the Scarlet Monastery. All told, after completing the quest and switching people out for others, we had 13 tries on him (he bugged out on one). In the 13 tries, we of course got a ton of rings, three brooms, one Hallowed Helm, and no squashlings.

I shall try again tomorrow I guess, but with the achievement Sinister Calling, I fear there will be more competition than usual for my pet. Luckily, as long as I run with the guild, I might get lucky as people there know I'm a pet collector, but I don't want to deprive them of their achievements, so it's a fine line to walk. They really need to increase the drop rate if they want people to get the Hallowed title.

After fighting the Horseman, I plan on traveling the world to trick and treat and also do whatever other achievements pop up for me.

Oct 16, 2008

Explorer...

Finished up all the exploration achievements tonight. Also did a couple of the fishing ones. Lastly, I ended the night with Captain Rumsey's Lager. That got me to 200/750 achievements and 2,095 points. Lots to do this weekend!

I also got most, but not all of my pets back in the mail after they got lost in the nether. I'll figure out which ones are missing and request them tomorrow.

Pets & Mounts

Along with my fun with achievements last night, I also earned my 11th "Feat of Strength" - Big Blizzard Bear. And boy is he big. I can't get through any doors with him and that murloc on the front just needs to be punted away. I have to say though, despite the murloc, he looks pretty darn cool.


A couple of nights ago, I also put all of my pets into my own personal zoo and was rewarded by Breanni, my favorite gnome vendor, with Stinker. Unfortunately, I forgot to pose with him, but here's the wonderful letter Breanni wrote to me.

Oct 15, 2008

Achievements Galore!

Ok, notwithstanding the exploration achievements, I was able to get quite a few done tonight. I was able to cross off Razorfen Kraul, Razorfen Downs, Wailing Caverns, Ragefire Chasm, and I completed Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeroy!

While working on Ragefire Chasm, I was also able to quickly fish in Orgrimmar, port to Stormwind, and complete the Fishing Diplomat. I had just one quest left for the Terror of Terokkar and with that one quest, I earned my Loremaster of Outland achievement.

I now stand at 1930 achievement points, 300+ since logging in on patch day.

I am at 609/700 of Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and a measly 476/730 of Loremaster of Kalimdor. I finished Exploring Kalimdor and had Outland done when I started. Tomorrow I will finish the Eastern Kingdoms.

Finally, I have to work on my Lower City, Honor Hold, and Keepers of Time rep for the Burning Crusader and that will also get me to 25 exalted factions. Lastly, I picked up my Blizzcon mount
today and now have 11 feats of strength.

So Incredibly Annoying

((Worked hard all day, greatly anticipating the patch when I got home. Got home, patch had already downloaded in the background, let's install! So I started installation and it was going slow despite my speedy computer specs, so I went outside to do some work. Checked after install and tried to get into the game, couldn't get past "Handshaking..."

Went back outside, did more yard work, came back in, connection Success! Select my server, waiting for characters. Nope. No characters. Select my server, waiting for characters. Rinse and repeat x20.

So then the server goes offline. Finally, I think. They're fixing it. It comes back and we get characters to appear. Then the blue bar of doom. Loading World of Warcraft...full blue bar. And we're stuck. Only way out, manually kill WoW.exe. Rinse and repeat.

So, I go back to watching House, return a while later and what's this!? I'm in! Quick, learn pets and mounts from bags full of pets and mounts. Sweet, I've got 50 pets. I've got Stinky waiting in my bank! Yay, it's all working now. Go outside, try and mount. Nope. Sorry - you didn't think you'd be able to go anywhere did you? Try and cast a spell. Nope. Sorry, you didn't think you'd be able to do anything did you?

Oh wait, server crash.

So back to TV. Wait for server to come back online. Blue bar of loading death. Kill WoW.exe. Wait a little longer, get in game. Yay! Maybe everything's fixed now. Hotkey for mount pressed, nope. You have no mounts. WHAT?! All my mounts and pets (except for 4 pets) are gone. Stinky is still waiting in my mailbox (I can't get him out!).

Screw it. Off to bed for me. Sick of this crap. I knew there would be some problems, but not problems on such a grand scale.

Wake up early, shower, shave, etc. Turn on computer just to see if pets and mounts are back. WORLD SERVER DOWN.

Oh what a wonderful start to a beautiful day. Off to work for me. I left early to get home to have fun with patch. I'll probably work late just to save myself some frustration upon returning home to another borked patch.

I did get my point total for achievements though - 1620 with 10 feats of strength (soon to be 11 after getting Polar Bear mount). I probably should have spent more time getting my rep up with Lower City, Keepers of Time, and Honor Hold. Probably another good 100-150 rep there I missed out on. However, I am now known as Tiddlywinks the Diplomat.))

Oct 14, 2008

Initial Achievement Points

I'm just curious how many achievement points you have right when you log in (including learning any pets or mounts you might have in your bank). Post the number in comments.

Total after just learning pets and mounts: 1620 :)

10 Feats of Strength.

Oct 3, 2008

Ragnaros Vanquished

Two nights ago, the Gold Team ventured into Zul'Aman once again determined to get three timed chests. Due to some oddities that I'm not even sure I can explain, we got none. Due to a prior commitment, I had to leave the raid early, but they continued on and fought valiantly.

Last night though, it was Darknight Resolution guild night and we were determined to tackle Molten Core. We started strong and were able to basically kill anything and everything without any problems whatsoever. Our goal for the night was to down Ragnaros as Kaldais was trying to obtain the Sulfuron Hammer. To do that, we of course had to get good and drunk. I started with some Autumnal Ale from my Brew of the Month club and quickly found I had an admirer, all the way down in Molten Core:


He followed me around for a while, but it was killing time, so we quickly marched forward. We had very little troubles with any boss and our DPS and AOE damage far outweighed anything any of the mobs could heal through. And before we knew it, we were standing before Majordomo himself.


He surrendered after we downed all of his protectors and after a quick jaunt down into the belly of the Core, we found him waiting there for us again! We challenged him to a fight, and he pulled out a new card on us and summoned the massive Ragnaros!



We fought our hardest to bring him down, and though I was crippled because I couldn't use my most powerful fire spells against him, we quickly succeeded and cleared all of Molten Core.



We quickly looted the body and, lo and behold, he dropped my Netherwind Pants! That now gives me three pieces of Tier 2 in under a week. Not too shabby. However, I now have no bag space and eagerly await the ability to stable all my pets.

After we looted, we all gathered up and took one last picture in the Core:


All in all, we had a great time, got some nice loots for some of our younger members, and Ryshat, a fellow pet collector I brought into the guild experienced his first raid ever! I also was able to earn a bit more Hydraxian Waterlords Reputation and I completed the Molten Core quest. One more clear and I'll be honored and be even closer to obtaining my Eternal Quintessence and douse the flames myself!

Sep 30, 2008

A New Mount

Last night, after my friendly rogue ally finished his Shattered Sun daily quests and finally reached exalted, he sent me a large sum of money. With this new influx of cash - I had two choices - buy a Gigantique Bag or a Cenarion War Hippogryph. I chose the latter. The bag can wait, but the new mount cannot! I love my new mount and wish I had purchased it earlier. The drakes are so common these days and the Nether Rays are too bumpy and the gryphons are just too old. So I'm quite pleased with my purchase and the Cenarion War Hippogryph achievement is complete.


On Thursday our guild is venturing into Molten Core and I'm hoping we can get Ragnaros down so I can complete the Molte Core Achievement. To make sure I complete the achievement, I need a piece of loot from him, so hopefully I can get lucky on one of the rolls or bribe the raid to give me an item. It would be great to get the Netherwind Pants to give me a third item in the set.

On another note, I returned four books to the Shen'dralar last night. After running Heliox through Stratholme a couple times, I had a few Frayed Abomination Stitchings to turn in with the Librams of Protection. I also ventured into the Plaguelands for some Blood of Heroes to use with Librams of Rapidity. Now I have 5 arcanums to return to the trolls in Zul'Gurub for 2,500 reputation with them. With those turn-ins, I'll be halfway through honored with them. With one more book return, I'll be halfway through friendly with the Shen'dralar. I also think I need to recruit the friendly rogue Tockett to hunt down Heavy Junkboxes for me so I can start working on my Ravenholdt reputation.

Sep 29, 2008

A Trip to Blackwing

It all started innocently enough, I had awoken from a nice nap and I asked some guildmates what they were up to. Some were fighting Coren Direbrew, others were doing their dailies on Quel D'anas, but then...Flamehelix spoke up, "I'm in Blackwing Lair." Always one for adventure, I quickly asked him if there was room in the forty person raid and, lo and behold, there was! After quickly exiting the Scryer in and talking to the friendly wand vendor about repairing my items, I was whisked through space via a warlock's portal and I was in!



There were these strange levers all over and a rogue was trying to disarm them. I inquisitively clicked on one and was unable to move at my regular speed for a while! There were whelps all around and the whole place was quite dark and foreboding. Unfortunately, prior to the run, I was unable to pester our wonderful banker, Moneyclip for a Onyxia Scale Cloak, so when we went up against Ebonroc, I died quite quickly. I thought I was in the correct position, but I was not. I also found out quite quickly that my fire-based spells would be nothing against these behemoths. I still can't figure out what was going on here though...



With Ebonroc down, we looted and I won the Netherwind Gloves! My first piece of Tier 2. Now that I have a piece, perhaps I need to find the rest...



Immediately after Ebonroc, there was another dragon to be had, Flamegor. Again, I was without my cloak, but was able to effectively hid behind a wall until the debuffs went away and able to actually participate in his death. Flamegor dropped the Netherwind Gloves again which I'm glad went to another mage in the group as I had just stepped in and swiped the gloves on the first boss kill. After Flamegor, another monstrous beast awaited us, Chromaggus.



Once we had taken down Chromaggus, we continued on, fighting our way through the massive dragonking on our way up to the throne room. Once we got there, it was quite an impressive sight to see Lord Victor Nefarius awaiting our arrival.



We quickly introduced ourselves and he didn't seem to enjoy our being there. He started firing shadowbolts at our party and summoned bone constructs to defeat us. We gathered up on his throne, destroyed the bone constructs and then he shifted...into the great black dragon Nefarian!



After he landed, he proceeded to beat on our tank for a while and we did our best to avoid his flame breaths as we hurled everything we had at him.



After a while though, he got quite sick of us hurting him and resummoned all of his bone constructs that we had killed earlier. Not knowing this was coming, I was standing a bit too close and the constructs absolutely destroyed me. Luckily there were others to pick them up and we were able to dispatch them for a second time.



After a lengthy fight, Nefarian went down. At first you feel a twinge of remorse for killing such a beautiful and grand creature, but then, after you realize he was trying to destroy you the whole time, it feels a bit better. There were many items to be had, including his head which we transported to Stormwind so all could revel in our victory, but again, my luck was high as I won the Netherwind Robe. I now have two pieces of the eight parts of Tier 2.



This Thursday, Darklight Resolution will venture into Molten Core and this weekend I might be able to go into AQ40, another far away place I have yet to visit. It certainly was a fun weekend and visiting Blackwing was quite amazing.