Mar 29, 2008

A Day of Firsts

Wow! What a day. I awaken from my slumber to run daily quests and I get a whisper from Nefernetcher that he needs my Soulfrost Enchant as he is off to Mount Hyjal. Of course, having never seen the place, I express desire to go, and lo and behold, there's a spot for me! So off to Mount Hyjal we went. We battled valiantly against wave upon wave of mobs and we were able to reach Rage Winterchill. Even though it was the first time in Hyjal for almost all 25 of us, we took Winterchill down to 33%. After a few more attempts at the waves, we reached Winterchill a couple more times and almost defeated (it?), taking it down to 8%.

Here's some wonderful pictures I took inside Mt. Hyjal (Coming Soon...)

After Hyjal, I took off to do more dailies to raise my reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive. While on Quel'Danas, the lovely Vetarra asked me if I would like to see inside the Magisters' Terrace. Of course I would! I replied. So off we went, Aracely, Nefernetcher, Mercreus, and Vetarra. We had a couple of interesting fights, but made it through without any major problems. Kael'thas refused to drop the pet I would love to have (the Phoenix Hatchling) and all the bosses refused to drop the enchant I am looking for (Steelweave). But it was fun in there and it gave me just enough reputation after I completed my quests to reach friendly! Hello Void Shatter and Enchant Chest: Defense.

But the best part of the night was the acquisition of my new shoulders. After contacting the guild leader of Fruit of Elune multiple times without a response, I gave up on trying to buy the Hearts of Darkness. But during the aforementioned Mt. Hyjal run, 7 or 8 hearts dropped from the trash we killed. It appeared that no one in the raid had a pattern that required them, so I was very kindly given two of the hearts and now I have my Mantle of Nimble Thought. Combined with my Shadowcaster's Drape, I have 63 haste which gives me 4% faster casts. My fireball already has dropped from 3.0 to 2.9 seconds (2.88 exactly), and my global cooldown is all that much shorter. So I'm quite happy with these two items and seriously considering picking up the Runed Spell-Cuffs.

So right now, I'm an extremely happy gnome. Though Kael'thas didn't drop his phoenix pet last night or this morning, I will get it at some point and my reputation with factions continues to rise - and my gear is even better than ever!

Mar 27, 2008

The Mini Hulk

Yesterday, it arrived. It came wrapped in the mail, but still oozing out of the package, yes...it's my very own Disgusting Oozeling. He turns me a shade of green not unlike the Incredible Hulk, just a very, very small one. Here he is at my side (bonus points if you can guess the instance - click on the image to see the full shot and reveal the instance):



So yes, I was late yesterday, but there was still room for me in the "instance" and we once again tore through the place, I earned 22 badges I wasn't expecting and now have 201 - yes, two stacks now.

After that, I hurried to do as many Shattered Sun Offensive quests as possible. I did the three now available in Shattrath - went from Nagrand to Blade's Edge to Netherstorm (stopping briefly in Nagrand to do the daily cooking quest). I ported back to Shatt, turned them in and then went over to Ironforge where I took the gryphon north and quickly completed three new quests in Quel'Danas. There was one quest I didn't complete which required bombing the Dead Scar - there were just too many people flying right in front of me or right behind me.

So I briefly considered going over to Hellfire Peninsula to complete the two dailies there, but time had run out on my stay in Azeroth, so I fell asleep inside a nice inn in Shattrath and tonight I shall reach friendly with the Offensive. And maybe I'll be able to see inside the Magisters' Terrace as well.

Mar 26, 2008

A Few Planned Upgrades

With 2.4 hitting, and a new Badge of Justice vendor opening soon, I plan on purchasing two new items. Along side those items, I'm hoping the daily quests can quickly fund the purchase of a couple Hearts of Darkness for a craftable item. Once I receive those upgrade, I also plan on switching out my cloak for additional haste rating. When all is said and done, I should be able to hold off Nefernetcher who almost beat me in damage last night on Gruul.

Upgrade #1: Nathrezim Mindblade (with +40 damage enchant) --> Scryer's Blade of Focus (with Sunfire enchant)

Gain of: 24 stamina, 10 intellect, 54 damage. Loss of: 23 crit.

Upgrade #2: Signet of Ancient Magics (+15 Stam Gem, +12 damage enchant) --> Fused Nethergon Band (+12 damage enchant)

Gain of: 2 intellect, 28 hit rating, 4 damage. Loss of: 10 MP/5.

Upgrade #3: Pauldrons of the Aldor --> Mantle of Nimble Thought

Gain of: 12 stamina, 38 haste. Loss of: 16 spirit, 15 crit, 4 hit, 1 damage.

Swap #1: Collar of the Aldor --> Spellstrike Hood

Gain of: 16 hit, 22 damage. Loss of: 14 stamina, 23 intellect, 17 spirit, 15 crit. Trade of: +3% increased crit damage for +92 damage for 10 seconds with Spellstrike Set

Swaw #2: Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi --> Shadowcaster's Drape

Gain of: 4 stamina, 25 haste. Loss of: 23 crit, 1 damage.

Total gains/losses over all five changes:

Gain of: 26 stamina, 40 hit, 63 haste, 78 damage.
Loss of: 11 intellect, 33 spirit, 76 crit, 10 MP/5.

In all, it's a great trade off. Hit and crit are traded at a 1:1 ratio through sockets so I lose 36 hit/crit. But with 1 Haste > 1 Damage, and both Haste and Damage > Hit and Crit, it's some huge damage gains (141 haste+damage is much better for damage than 76 crit (though I'm really only losing 36 in the tradeoff)). The intellect I lose isn't nice as a larger mana pool is always nice, but only 11 lost isn't too bad. I never liked the MP/5 in the ring, so I'm glad to get rid of that. And though spirit now factors into mana regen, it hurts a little to lose that, but it's not a big deal as I was able to make it through Gruul last night without potions and with a mana emerald still in my bags.

With these changes, I should be able to hold off Nefernetcher for just a little while longer. I just haven't seen any Hearts of Darkness on the auction house for a while, but hopefully spamming trade channel with requests will get me the two I need for my shoulders.

Of course, this also factors in the Sunfire enchant which I have a bit of farming to do, but I think with some concerted effort this weekend I can either farm up the mats or earn enough through 50 daily quests to purchase the mats.

The spell haste rating I will be achieving with 63 points grants me a 4.01% faster cast time which translates essentially to 4.01% more damage. With these haste items now also affecting the global cooldown, it'll be pretty nice if I can stack some more haste. Perhaps with the additional hit rating gained through gear changes I can put some epic haste gems in some slots previously reserved for +hit and if I amass enough badges, I can think about swapping out Fury of the Ursine for Runed Spell-Cuffs giving my total haste rating a boost of 1.59% for a total of 5.6% faster casts.

Once Again, Left in the Dust

Yesterday while completing the quests for the Shattered Sun Offensive, there was one quest I was not able to complete - Gaining the Advantage. Once again, similar to the Netherwing quests, there's a daily quest just for gatherers. So Tailor/Enchanters like myself get left out on a daily quest, left out on reputation gains, and just left out again. Why not have us turn in a special bolt of imbued netherweave that only tailors could create? Or enchant an item that the Offensive could use as they battle against Kael'thas?

Assuming all things equal, I'm sitting at 1,600/3,000 reputation on my way to friendly and someone who can mine/herb/skin is sitting at 1,850/3,000. I can only get 1,350 rep today, someone who can gather can get 1,600. They will be friendly and I'll be a day behind. Maybe two days behind when they get to Honored. So any enchanter/gatherers will be able to create Large Prismatic Shards from Void Crystals all that much sooner.

I guess it's just a minor gripe, but I don't see the point in having daily quests that can be completed by a minority of characters out there. Why not just add another one that can be completed by all?

Mar 25, 2008

20 Quests and Counting

After all was said and done tonight, I'm halfway towards friendly with the Shattered Sun Offensive, the Gold Team killed Gruul, and I completed 20 of the 25 daily quests.

Did the cooking quest, the fishing quest, the quests in Nagrand and Netherstorm, the Ogri'la quests, the Skettis quests, and a majority of the Netherwing quests. I did one PvP quest in Hellfire Peninsula and I also was able to turn in one of each of my PvP tokens for even more gold. After all the quests, minus the gold spent on large prismatic shards, I think I made over 200g tonight and it was all quite easy.

I should find out tomorrow if I won my Oozling and at this rate, I should be able to purchase a couple Hearts of Darkness for my Mantle of Nimble Thought sometime soon.

No New Dagger...

Well, I had forgotten that the new badge vendor isn't available during the first part of the siege on the Sunwell Terrace. So even after buying 5 prismatic shards for my enchant, I cannot buy my new dagger. But that's ok, I had fun over on the Terrace, did some extra daily quests, gained 1600 rep with the Shattered Sun Offensive (yay, already over halfway to friendly) and did even more daily quests.

I did the fishing quest, but did not receive a pet today - but I'm sure I will soon. I then did the Nagrand and Netherstorm dailies, did the cooking daily, went back to Shadowmoon to do more dailies there and as of right now, I have done 13 of 25 possible daily quests. We're getting ready for Gruul's now, so I probably won't do many more, but it sure is nice to be able to buy 5 large prismatic shards and make 60g on top of that with daily questing.

2.4 Today

2.4 came out today and while I haven't had the chance to play around with the patch, it will be relatively uneventful. I have the patch downloaded and burned, ready to install, and I've got my 150 badges sitting in the bank for my new dagger - the Scryer's Blade of Focus. I was swamped at work the last two weeks and didn't make it to Karazhan, so I didn't get the 60 badges for the Fused Nethergon Band.

Hopefully I can make it over to the Sunwell to pick up the dagger before Zul'Aman or Gruul's tonight and hopefully Large Prismatic Shards aren't too expensive on the auction house becuase I stupidly didn't buy enough yesterday and I would like to enchant it before I go.

Either way, the patch should provide a lot of fun over the next few days as we explore new areas, participate in new daily quests, and amass even more new pets! Speaking of which, I have a bid in on a beautiful Disgusting Oozling. If I don't win it, I'm tempted to bid on a Captured Firefly. There's one cheap on the Auction house now and even though I wanted to find him myself, I can't pass up a great deal.