A change in profession

I have been doing a good bit of thinking.

What was that? did I hear snickering coming from the back of the room?

Well, I will have you know that contrary to popular belief I am thinking all the time. A veritable font of Ideas that’s me…

Well, as I was saying, I have been doing some thinking. I have been thinking about professions. More specifically I have been wondering which professions are actually worth my time leveling. Lets take my Priest as an example.

Morham is skilled in Tailoring and Enchanting. In the Burning Crusade I had to have maxed or nearly maxed skills in order to access the powerful bind on pickup items such as the Primal Mooncloth set or the ring self – enchants. In Wrath I need tailoring to 405 to make the inexpensive spellthread and enchanting to 400 for my ring enchants.

I could possibly go a bit higher in Tailoring so that I can craft the new specialty cloths, or at least sell my cooldown. Beyond that I see no real reason to level it. With everything being BoE I could simply take the mats I would have had to farm to craft an item myself and have another tailor make the item. I may have to tip, but likely will get it done by someone looking for a skillup.

Similarly Enchanting kinda looks like a black hole to throw money down. Beyond leveling high enough for my ring enchants I can’t really see any reason to continue. Possibly if later game items need 425 or 450 to disenchant them, but that’s about it. With half the mats I would have used to max out the skill I can keep myself in enchants until the next expansion. This assumes of course that Wow is still around, and that I am still playing.

So I think with the Priest I will stop both skills in the low 400’s. If they slowly level up by doing things for myself, friends, and guild mates then so be it. I will not go out of my way to level them though.

My hunter Drupadi, on the other hand, is currently sitting on Skinning and Mining 450/450. While it was a good money maker while leveling, and helped out quite a bit with getting crafted gear, I don’t really see skinning as a profession I plan to keep. Looking at all the professions I decided to go with one that offers some fun, several useful odds and ends, a powerful BoP helm as the light at the end of the very expensive rainbow, and last but not least is still a gathering profession.

Engineering.

With that in mind I set about figuring out exactly how I was going to go about leveling it. So I looked at several different guides (none of which had been updated in some time), poked around on Wowhead (man I love that place), and asked around for advice. In the end I  hammered out something that I think will work from all the different inputs I had gotten.

Since I have spent all that time making my list and checking it twice I figured I could at least post it here where I can find it if I need it in the future.

Oh, an if you like you can use it too.

In fact I’ll both put it on the Profession Guides page and link it HERE.

 

In other news, you folks have a happy and prosperous new year. I am off early today, and fully intend to be too incapacitited to post until at least Friday.

Hindsight is 20/20, at least sometimes

Matticus posted an interesting topic recently. He suggested looking back at 2008 and posting about our favorite posts of the year. Well, I have only been around since May so I will just go back and pick a few favorites from my first eight months.

My December favorite is /headdesk. Not so much for the post itself, but for the memories of having a good laugh with my son.

In November we saw the release of Wrath of the Litch king. My favorite posts from that time both involve it.  I was there looks it the time right before release, as we waited for the 11th to roll around. Random acts of kindness on the other hand looks more towards the kindness of strangers while leveling through the early zones.

October saw “the great boss nerf of ’08”.  Something was missing and it’s predecessor It was a wonderful zombie filled hunter Christmas both look back at how the nerf effected raiding, at least for me.

September saw my blog finding a new home as I moved over from Be Nameless to my new home here at Dechions place. It also saw my main (at the time) swap realities because of a goblinish experiment gone haywire in mirrior mirrior.

August brought the refer a friend program and it’s unfair advantage. I did refer my daughter (who is at the moment still level 33), but only to take advantage of the free month of playtime since she was going to start anyway. I take that back, I also picked up the Zhevera mount for Drupadi. I never used the triple experience to power level her, she needs time on the way up to at least have a clue about her class. Skipping that would have been right up there with buying her toon on Ebay, and in my mind an epic failure.

In July I managed to be just wrong more than once. While I was at it I took a look at where I thought I would spend the final hours of Warcraft in Five hours and counting.

June saw me wondering what are epics worth, as well as admitting that I am casually addicted.

May  saw the creation of this blogs predecessor with Welcome aboard on the 14th. It also watched as I started getting my blogging feet wet talking about how a little help goes a long way.

 

Although this year has had its share of ups and downs, overall it was a good year. I wonder what I will have to say this time next year, looking back at 2009.

Here is wishing all my readers a happy and prosperous new year.

May your bosses drop like Hogger, and all your rolls be high.

Adrift again

As Altaholic Mom posted, I have parted ways with the guild I have been a part of for the last 3 months or so.

My reasons for leaving are much more of a “It’s not you, it’s me” kind of thing. The folks at Mythos truly are a good group of people, and I wish them well. I hold no grudges against any of the folks there. Hell, I look forward to running with them in the future.

Even a great guild is not right for every player, and it was just not a good fit for me.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I am still here

Rumors of my disappearance from the interwebs have been greatly exaggerated. These include, but are not limited to being given away as a Christmas present, being abducted by aliens, and going into a sugar induced coma from the yummy peanut butter cookies I blogged about a few days ago.

I am still here, and still chugging along. 

I have actually been quite busy questing my way through Northrend. I have plenty of rep to grind with the Knights of the Ebon Blade, the Sons if Hodir, and the the Argent Crusade. Rep grinds, oh how I hate them. Not only are they repetitive and boring, but they provide very little in the way of blog fodder.

A post that simply says  “I shot down 20 more dragons today, then burned the same 8 buildings I burned yesterday, and when it was all done I stuck banners into the same 15 guys I have for the last week.” is almost as boring to read as dailies are to do.

I got news for ya, they know you are pissed at them. How could they not? the average lifespan of one of their people is like 30 seconds.

Sorry, I am a tad cranky today. I may go into the reasons for that at a later time, but at the moment I will just keep my peace.

If I do decide on posting about it expect a whole post, not a soundbite.

On a more positive note I am working on a couple more lists of gear. They will be companions to the the questable and craftable gear post I already have up. I plan to do one of reputation rewards and one of drops. Actually I might divide the drops into normal and heroics, we shall see. 

In other news, I got my family got a Wii for Christmas. I may post a bit on a few of those games as well.

My pre-Naxx Hunter gear

A quick note to those that Google has sent my way: This post was originally written in December of ’08 and a few things have changed since then. I have a post up now that is updated for 3.1 (soon to be redone for 3.2). The info here is still good for the most part, but you may want to check out the other as well. It can be found HERE.

 

A bit over a week ago a wrote up a post on what I was wearing when I hit 80. In that article I mentioned that I was going to try to get my hit rating up, my crit rating up, and generally increase my survivability for a raid environment.

As always I looked for ways I could get to where I wanted to be without relying on instance drops. Unless, of course, they are BOE and I can farm the Auction House for them. I also decided on a change in professions, dropping a very profitable Herbalisim in favor of a pretty much equally profitable Mining. Just selling everything I did not need that was mined while leveling my profession allowed me to buy all the dropped BOE’s on my list, and what I did keep was the majority of the mats for the other craftables.

I am not saying that this is for everyone, however it worked for me. I had every piece of this gear minus the cloak (which should be coming in the mail sometime soon) before ever stepping foot into a heroic instance. With a decent shot rotation I was able to put out over 1800 dps per recount in Heroic Violet Hold last night. This was with my farming build and an untested shot rotation, specced for instancing I should be able to put out a good bit more.

This is the gear I currently have equipped.

 

 

Head  Swiftarrow Helm  (crafted Leatherworking)

With an Arcanum of ferocity on it from Cenerion Expedition (34 attack power 16 hit rating)

 

Neck Choker of the Betrayer  (quest reward from Betrayal in Zul’Drak)

Gemmed with a Jagged Forest Emerald

 

Shoulder Virulent spaulders (crafted Leatherworking)

With the 26 attack power glyph from the Aldor

 

Chest Razorstrike Breastplate (crafted Leatherworking)

With +8 to all stats

 

Back  Ice Striker’s Cloak (crafted Leatherworking)

Enchanted with Major Agility (+22 agility) 

 

Wrist Eaglebane Bracers  (crafted Leatherworking)

Enchanted with +38 attack power

 

Hands Rusted-link Spiked Gauntlets (BoE boss drop from Naxx, picked up in the AH)

Enchanted with Precision

Gemmed with a Delicate Scarlet Ruby
 

Waist Belt of Tasseled Lanterns (BoE world drop, got it in the AH)

Equipped with an Eternal Belt Buckle for the extra gem slot.

Gemmed with one Jagged Forest Emerald and one Perfect Jagged Dark Jade . I plan to replace the Perfect Dark Jade with a Vivid Forest Emerald once I get the Ebon Blade head enchant.

 

Legs  Giantmaim Leggards (crafted Leatherworking)

With a Icyscale armor kit equipped

 

Feet Dragonstompers (crafted Leatherworking)

Enchanted with Icewalker

 

Trinket 1 Fezzik’s Pocketwatch (quest reward from The Last Line of Defense in Icecrown)

 

Trinket 2 First Mates Pocketwatch  (quest reward from The jig is up in Howling Fjiord)

 

Ring 1   Signet of Bridenbrad (quest reward from Light within the darkness in Icecrown)

Gemmed with a Perfect Deadly Citrine that I picked up dirt cheap in the AH.

 

Ring 2 Ring of Indignant rage (quest reward from The assassination of Herold Lane in Borean Tundra)

 

Ranged Nesingwary 4000 (crafted Engineering, expensive but worth it)

Gemmed with a Rigid Autumn’s Glow  

Equipped with a Heartseeker scope

 

Melee  I am dual wielding Savage Cobalt Slicers

Both are enchanted with Greater Potency (+50 attack power)

 

My gear, like everyone elses, is a work in progress. 

I am still working on rep with the Knights of the Ebon Blade for my Dps head enchant, they also have some shoulders at revered that I would like.

I am also working on rep with the Argent Crusade. Originally for the Zombie Sweeper Shotgun at revered, I am now working on the Polished Regimental Hauberk at exalted.

While I am at it I might as well work on Sons of Hodir (I need to start that one) for my shoulder enchant.

Then possibly work on Kirin tor for a set of boots, unless something drops for me before that.

That helm the oracles have a at revered would be a bit of an upgrade.

After I am done with all that…….. yeah, you get the idea.

Tag, I’m it

Actually nobody tagged me on this one, but I like it so here it goes.

An interesting meme has been floating about lately, originally started  on the blog One among Many. It goes something like this.

Go back to your first few posts. Who was the first person to EVER comment on your blog? Call them out, link that post and thank them! Then tag a few folks to see who they call out.

On May the 14th of this year I first sat down in front of a shiny new empty blog and typed out a hello to the blogosphere post called Welcome Aboard. I did not expect much, after all I am still a complete and utter noob when it comes to this whole blogging thing. I knew even less back then!

Imagine my surprise when I checked in the next day to find that none other than Ratshag had stopped in to say hello, Or the following day when Kestrel stopped by.

This got me to thinking, I never actually sat down and actually said thanks to my readers.

I started this blog as a place to store my notes. To collect my thoughts in a way I could come back to later (sometimes wondering what the hell I was thinking). I kept it going because I found I enjoyed the conversation. Many thanks, both to the commenters and the lurkers, for coming along for the ride.

Now I suppose I should tag a few folks myself,

Altaholic Mom from Altoholic’s Are Us who has been a longtime guidmate, and a friend both in game and out.

Larisa from The Pink Pigtail Inn who may not even realize that a few kind words once kept me from retiring the blog.

Breana from The Gun Loving Dwarf Chick who was one of my inspirations for starting this thing up in the first place.

Big Bear Butt of (you guessed it) Big Bear Butt who’s writing showed me that you can be both informative and funny together.  Somehow I can only manage one at a time, but I am working on it.

And last but not least Gevlon of the Greedy Goblin. I may not always agree with what he has to say, but it makes me think. That alone makes it worth reading.

Once again, thanks

Come to the dark side, we have cookies

Ever have one of those days where you just can’t seem to focus on one thing long enough to actually accomplish anything?

Well, I am having one of those weeks.

I could try to put together a concise post on pre-raid hunter gear, but Big Bear Butt already has a pretty good one listed HERE. While my personal “shopping list” of gear is just a bit different you certainly could not go wrong with this one.

I changed my mind on leveling my second hunter right away, and this had me change Drupadi from Skinning/Herbing to Skinning/Mining. I still would like to level Engineering on Dechion at some point, and I could do that while he is still 64 if I wanted too. I suppose in that case I should come up with a guide to leveling Engineering, but not today.

I could talk about finally being hit capped, relatively well geared (thanks to Fimlys crafting me a bunch of stuff), and ready to roll for heroics or Naxx 10, only to not be able to find a group for anything. Oddly the first I usually hear about running something is watching the achievements scroll by as others finish. I guess I will make my shopping list of drops that I want and start running with pugs.

I could be like Andrea over at Altaholics are us and craft a funny post wishing everyone a happy nondenominational winter holiday. Come to think of it, this is a wow blog after all. I could just say “Happy Winter Veil everyone!”

Instead I think today you  get stuck with this most excellent recipe. After all, we need our snacks.

Can't you almost smell 'em cooling off?

 

Peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses

Ingredients:

• 1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk (evaporated milk won’t work, trust me) 
• 3/4 cup of creamy peanut butter
• 2 cups all purpose biscuit baking mix (I use Bisquick, your mileage may vary)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• approximately 1/4 cup sugar
• approximately 48 chocolate kisses (I prefer Hershey’s, but it’s up to you I suppose)

 

Process

• Preheat oven to 350 F.
• Beat the sweetened condensed milk and the peanut butter in a large bowl till smooth.
• Add in the all purpose biscuit baking mix and the vanilla, blend well.
• Shape into 1 inch balls, roll in the sugar, and place about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
• Count the number of balls you ended up with so you can unwrap the right number of kisses while they bake.
• Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until they start to lightly brown, remove from oven.
• Right away while still hot press a chocolate kiss into the center of each cookie.
• Remove from cookie sheet to a cooling rack, cool completely before eating or storing.
• Makes about 4 dozen cookies, and man are they yummy.

We has Skillz!

What are those weapon skills for if you don’t take the time to max them out?

After all, you just never know when a fight will break out at the tavern.

I am sure that most, if not all, of my readers already know this, but leveling weapon skills is probably the easiest thing in the game. Certainly it is the most boring. I am actually leveling crossbows as I write this.

For ranged leveling head to Area 52 in Netherstorm and run over to Dr. Boom (he sits at 35.60). Just to his right (your left) there are some barrels. Jump up on them, put your pet on passive, use aspect of the viper if you have it, and commence auto shooting. At this point I recommend making a sandwich, or perhaps catching up on reruns of the TV show of your choice. I prefer Mythbusters while leveling skills, what with them liking to blow things up. Your mileage may vary.

For leveling Melee skills the place to be is Shadowmoon valley. Run your butt over to 69.50 an look for the big banished mob named Azaloth. Clear out one or more of the warlock dudes and commence to swinging. If you have a pet simply put it on defensive and it will clear the mobs when they respawn. If not they have about an 8 minute respawn timer, just clear one or two out when they repop. As far as I know this is the last of the banished mobs you can still skill up on.

In actual news, rumors of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated. I am simply swamped with both real life stuff going on over the holidays, what with folks coming to visit, 15 inch snowstorms dumping on my house, coal to buy for the kids, you know the drill.

Never mind that the gear post I am working on is getting a bit more involved than I had originally planned.

You folks have a good weekend, I will be back with a post or two this coming week. Who knows, they might even be worth reading.

I think I can do this

Yesterday while mindlessly rambling on about things in a caffeine free state of mind I discovered something.

I am sick to death of leveling.

The first time it’s fun, reading all the quests, seeing new things.

The second, and maybe even the third time, it’s more of a contest to see how fast or efficiently it can be done.

After that it just becomes a chore.

 

 

Dechion is planned to be my main instancing character. We all know everything is different in a group. Different talent choices, different glyphs, different gear, even different professions.

Drupadi was always intended to be a solo farming character. With that comes a whole different set of priorities when it comes to everything from what food she carries to which pet she will tame.

My headache started as I pondered the new character re-customization program yesterday. My thought was to take Dechion who at the time was 63 and Drupadi who is 80 already and switch them.  I was so sick of leveling that I was willing to pay the $30 just to trade everything between the two. Name, appearance, literally everything. 

I called Blizzard, they burst my bubble. There is a 30 day cooldown on name changes made with this, even if the toons are on the same account. The representative stated that there was only one way to free up either of the names right away, the deletion of the character with that name.

Bouncing this around off the folks in BA chat, a few on Twitter, and a couple of folks I know in the real world I ended up with five different scenarios that would get the end result I wanted (Dechion at 80).

• I can abandon the names I want to keep, then go ahead do the re-customization. I could then mark my calendar for the 30 day cooldown, hoping to get the names back.
• Total cost $50 plus a risk of losing one or both names.

 

• I can delete Dechion as he is the lower level, then Immediately do re-customization on Drupadi to turn her into Dechion.  Once I get the customization and name change done I could petition for a character restore. Assuming they grant it I could then do a second re-customization on that character. I would also be marking my calendar again hoping to get Drupadi’s name back in 30 days.
• Total cost $40, the risk of losing one of my characters completely, and the risk of losing Drupadi’s name.

 

• I could change  names now and mark my calendar for the 30 day window. With any luck I would be able to make a pair of level 1 alts with the names at that time. I could then do re-customization on both toons and delete the level 1 placeholders.
• Total cost $50 plus the risk of losing one or both names.

 

• I could change my mind, making Drupadi my instancing character and leave the farming to Dechion.
• Total cost $0 and no risk of losing anything. Mild nuisance at swapping professions from one to the other.

 

• Lastly, I could just force  myself to take the time to quest my way through the next 4 levels on Dechion. Knowing that once I hit 68 and leave Outlands I could actually start running some instances with him while still leveling up.
• Total cost $0, no risk, greatest reward (having both at 80).

After a good chunk of time thinking about it I decided to bite the bullet and level up the old fashioned way. I logged into Dechion, abandoned every quest I still had for Hellfire (I hate the place) and left the zone, hopefully never to return. I hoped a change up in my environment would get me back interested in questing so I elected to do my two favorite zones in outlands, Zangermarsh followed by Negrand.

The change of scenery did me well as I rounded up the flight points and gathered up quests. I ran around for a few hours in one of my favorite zones just questing away. Somewhere along the way I managed to get from about a third of the way to 64 to over halfway to 65.

I think I can do this.

Thirteen Tidbits

Fair warning, I have not yet had my morning coffee. I am sick, grumpy, and stuck going to work anyway because calling in this time of year, while technically allowed, is not really a good option.

Since I can’t seem to string two coherent thoughts together long enough to write a post about any one of them. I think I will just post a few little tidbits this morning. These are just random thoughts right as they came off the top of my head. Don’t believe me? Well look here *points* there is a bald spot where they took off.

“It’s not a bald spot, it’s a launching pad for thoughts!” Not bad, it might make a decent T-shirt when it grows up.

So here are my incoherent ramblings, in no particular order.

1.Just in case anyone was wondering, yesterdays post on what gear I had when I dinged 80 is far from a recommended gearing guide. It just represents what I had on when I got there.

2. The gear guide is coming, but it takes more time to write it than I want to think about right this second. Think sometime in the next day or three I’ll get the first post up. I plan to do it as a per-slot breakdown.

3. I really think Blizzard made a mistake with professions. They made it into nothing more than another grind. It always was a tad expensive in both time and money to level one to the cap, there should be a reward there. Now there is no reward for maxing anything out, and honestly no real reason to.

4. I had every intention of leveling both my hunters to 80, now I am kinda failing to see a reason. Since all professions are pretty much equal the old “one for farming and one for raiding” plan is kinda out the window.

5.Totally random thought…. both my hunters are Dreanei and on the same server, I wonder if I can just swap names and appearances between the two. I planned to make Dechion my main on Draenor, that way he could be 80 already while Drupadi went back and finished leveling again.

6.Getting Dechion to 80 that way just seems wrong, but is probably doable.  *jots note on post-it* remind myself to call Blizz when I get home. Not sure if I want to do it yet, but definitely certain that I am curious.

7. Don’t look at me like that. Everyone knows Curiosity was framed…. Stupidity killed the cat.

8.Actually the cat hit disengage while his back was to a cliff, but that’s another story. The moral of that story? If at first you don’t succeed cliff diving is not for you.

9. Other than leveling a Death Knight (or other alt) what reason does anyone have to go to Outlands anymore? I was in Shattrah yesterday and it felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone. There was literally no one there. I kept waiting for the zombies to come out of hiding or something. It was creepy.

10.The Slowmaster 9000 coffee pot has finally seen fit to be done making coffee. Not quite sure why it takes 25 minutes to brew a pot, but at least it tastes good.

11.Winter veil started yesterday, and after reading up on it I decided to abandon both this holiday and the meta achievement “What a long strange trip its been”. I despise being forced to PvP for things like this. *Happy holidays, put on festive clothing and go kill people*

12. Worse than forced PvP is a holiday rep grind. These characters are re-rolls, they never did the Og’rilla prequests or early rep grind to open up the “Bomb them again” quest. New players will have a heck of a time getting a group for this, as will Death Knights. Yet another fail on Blizzards part in my opinion.

13.The final reason to abandon it is the last title I would be able to get. Brewmaster is required, yet I did not join the brew of the month club last year. Even if I did every other achievement between now and then I would be left waiting for a year to pass, checking my mailbox once a month for my brew. I would finally complete the achievement in September 2010.