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.

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.

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!

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.