Five Toons Walk Into An Instance …

Image via Wikipedia

It has been awhile since I wrote about my adventures in Azeroth, so I figured now was as good a time as any.  First, let me start off by running down a few things about me and this game known as World of Warcraft.  I have been playing since the release of The Burning Crusade expansion.  I picked up both and jumped into the fantasy world by starting a human warrior.  I played this fine character all the way up to 57 and then deleted him one day because I was not having any fun.

Enter The Hunter.  Right before deleting my warrior, who was named Naheim (rest in peace, brother), I had started a Draenei hunter.  Shavelle, along with her (yes, you read that right) boar Hogg won me over and brought back something I had been missing: fun.  So at this particular moment, I have an 85 hunter, 83 warlock, 80 death knight, 53 priest and a 17 hunter.  I love questing and leveling different class/race combinations.  I’m a glutton for punishment, evidently.

One thing I’ve never done while playing is group up.  I have ran solo for all these years, only grouping with a buddy who no longer plays to get a few pieces of gear.  The experiences I’ve had on the one or two times I have PUG’ed was unpleasant.  I realize this isn’t a sunshine and roses type scenario, but I absolutely hated the couple of times I joined queues with strangers.

This brings me to the here and now.

That level 17 hunter I mentioned above:  he’s my social experiment toon.  Aroben and I are going places at a nice steady pace.  We are going to take things slow and experience level-by-level the joys of the Dungeon Finder.  At level 17 1/2 tonight, I hit the little button for a random to launch my new quest into socializing in WoW.  After 6 minutes, we were wisked away to Wailing Cavers.  Mind you, I’ve never been to Wailing Caverns and I quickly pointed this out to our little 5-man group.

Aroben: “Hello. Just wanted to let you guys know that I’ve never been here before. So if anyone has a problem with a “noob,” just let me know and I’ll drop out.

No one replied, so we went on our way.  The tank, a warrior, and our healer, a pally, fought constantly.  The tank couldn’t hold aggro and didn’t seem to know where he was going.  The paladin stayed on his butt.  The priest eventually dropped and the mage just hung back and kept attracting stray elites that we were no where near.  I tried my best to keep up, when I knew who to follow – eventually just deciding I’d stick with the warrior since he was suppose to be the tank and had came in as group leader.

I’ve never been to Wailing Caverns, as I’ve said, but from what I was seeing, neither had anyone else except the paladin.  He eventually left the dungeon after everyone died except me and the warrior. The warrior went afk and I just started killing random mobs because I figured, well, what the hell? at this point.  Eventually I died and the tank became pissy and asked if I was going to come back.  I said:

Aroben: “Sure, I’m on my way, but I figured you’d just leave, too :P

At which point the tank said: “F*** this!” and logged.

I’d like to thank all four of my dungeon partners for showing my my fears of grouping have always been justified.  I’d also like to say, though, that I’m going to continue jumping in there on this toon.  I want the full experience on my way up the leveling ladder so that when I reach the coveted 85 spot, I’ll be experienced enough to jump in with the best and take down the big guys … right?

Shavelle Achievement Update

Mainly, on Shavelle (my hunter), I’ve been logging in to do dailies.  Specifically, I’ve been focusing on The Shadow Vault, Argent Tournament, Cooking and Fishing.  They all provide rep for their related faction, and along with the “Wrath” feature of earning specific rep in dungeons when wearing a tabard, I’m almost exhaulted with The Knights of the Ebon Blade. 

I’ve gotten a little discouraged after finding out there can be some “noob” haters, even within random dungeons via Dungeon Finder.  Seems that the only way to get better gear is through dungeons, yet if you are in a party with people who have better gear, some of them tend to hate on you for holding them back.  Gotta raid to get gear, but some won’t let you raid without gear.  Hmmmmm … 

Anyways, Shavelle’s recent achievements include:

Cooking with Style

Exhaulted Champion of Ironforge

Champion of Ironforge

100 Dalaran Cooking Awards

25 Dungeon & Raid Emblems

100 Stone Keeper’s Shards

and, Dual Talent Specialization.

Oh yes, I broke down and invested 1,000 G into dual spec.  I checked on the ‘net and found several different marksman and survival builds, tried them both, and am currently working on a 0/18/53 build for Survival.  Meh, without better gear, though, I’m only pulling in 1,500 dps according to the Recount add-on.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.  I may get up enough nerve to venture back into some more dungeons soon.

Fun While It Lasted

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Yes, there for awhile, I was a daily-running fool.  I even discovered a section of Icecrown I hadn’t been to before: Death’s Rise, with dailies to help raise your Ebon Blade reputation. 

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  I broke my streak because it became an issue to run everything I wanted to run in one night, and impossible to finish it up in the daylight hours of the week.  There is family and chores to be attended to, you know.  And as far as my nightly ventures, I decided to focus mainly on my cooking and Argent Tournament dailies.  Of course, I have been trimming my time down there as it is, doing select dailies to earn badges and marks.  It impairs my growth, but it isn’t going to kill me, I mean, hell, it took me two hears to reach 80 on a single toon. 

But, yeah, I just wanted to complain about my laziness.  Plus, while leveling my death knight, I’m reminded of all the other daily quests I passed up the first time through that can raise my reps with various factions (Wyrmrest Accord, I’m looking at you!). 

And now, it’s back to folding clothes.

Mogathorn Update: Level 73

While I didn’t get as much WoW time in as I’d originally planned, I did manage to take my Dwarf Death Knight from 71 1/2 to 73.  It’s not as big a leap as I’d hoped for, but it’ll do in the long run. 

The hardest part, right now, is finding quests.  It seems I’m in an awkward spot where there are alot of silver question marks and group dungeon quests.  I’m not a big grouping person, as I leveled my 80 hunter main pretty much solo the entire way. 

My main points of questing is in Dragonblight, around Wyrmrest Temple and Winterguard Keep.  Borean Tundra, around the Coldarra questlines, which is where all of the dungeon quests come from, within the Nexus.  I’m sure there are some odd n’ end quests around in the area, but I’ve already gotten the “Nothing Boring About Borean” achievement for completing “X” number of quests as well as the “Explore Borean Tundra” achivement, so I’ve pretty much seen the entire area.

I may venture back down to the Howling Fjord just to try and push out another level and start earning quests down there as well, since I’m at a crawl, for now.

Super Win Mode

If you want to breeze through World of Warcraft, then I’ve got a quick news flash for you. Level a hunter class. Doesn’t really matter what race, but once you get to level 10 and train your faithful pet, you’ll be a leveling fool!

My Orc hunter is level 12 already, with my little bit of play time, and if I could sit down for a whole day, uninterrupted, I would be probably be able to reach at least 22.

Other than a hunter, I’d say your next best bet to quickly zoom through the leveling process would be a death knight. Especially if you went with enough points to get you a full-time ghoul pet. Aside from the DK’s ability to generate health out of damage dealt and honor/experience kills, they’re pretty unstoppable. No down time on either a dk or a hunter, as your pet does most of your damage while you stand back and auto fire with a bow/gun for the most part.

If you want to get into WoW, or just give it a try, go for the easy Win. Of course, dk’s are only available once you get a character up to level 55, but if you level a hunter, it’ll still fly by.

It Was So Fun, I’m Doing It Again

I enjoyed playing a hunter-class so much, that I’ve decided to roll another.  There is a slight change, though.  My main character is a Draenei hunter, level 80 on the Stormrage server and in the guild Clockwork.  Look me up sometime, it’s cool.  This particular server has been dedicated to the Alliance. 

Another server, however, is what I refer to as my Horde server.  I’ve got a 32 warlock (which inspired me to create my Human warlock on the Alliance side that is now up to level 72), and of course a nice Troll death knight.  My hunter, this time around, though, is a nice rugged Orc male.  He’s rough and tumble, doesn’t get along with humanoids very well, but has a soft spot for animals, hence his career as a hunter.

So, we’ll see how this goes.  I’m actually enjoying leveling a hunter, yet again.  Maybe it just requires some time off to experience new again.  Anyways, I haven’t forgotten my Alliance toons, nor my plan to level the warlock to level 80.  But, while I am working on this it is building up some nice rested xp on my other toons. 

Stay tuned, true believers.

A Year Later, And Death Knights Still Rule

Blizzard released the second “World of Warcraft” expansion, “Wrath of the Lich King,” on November 13th, 2008.  Now, almost a year later, the Death Knight hero class is still kicking butt and taking names.  Despite balancing issues in the beginning, and even now seeming to be a little OP (over powered), the DK is (in my opinion) one of the more fun and fast characters to play in the “World of Warcraft.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Hunter man, myself.  I do play other classes, as well, so I’m not a strict Death Knight aficionado.  I have an 80 hunter, 72 warlock, 61 paladin and, of course, my 63 death knight.  So, I’m no stranger to other classes, but when I just want to tear through a zone, kicking butt and taking names with practically no down-time, I can log in to my death knight and go to town. 

Of course, if you look at my other, higher level characters, you’ll see I have a love for “pet classes.”  The hunter has a pet, the warlock has a demon, and … for my death knight, I spec’d Unholy so I could have a full-time ghoul running by my side.    I’m a sucker for companions during my solo quests through Azeroth. 

This isn’t a long post, I won’t bore you with the same statistics, lore or mechanics as to what a death knight is, his/her roles and how best to play them.  Simply, I just wanted to comment on how much fun they still are.  I realize that some people still refuse to play a death knight for their own personal reasons.  Maybe it’s because they start out at a higher level, it doesn’t fit their story (for those rp folk), or maybe they have a problem with the kinks in the lore.  Those people are out there, and all I have to say to them is: you’re missing out on half the fun, brother!

Death Knights, be it an alt or a main, should be tried by everyone at least once.  Heck, it took me three tries to get one I was happy with!  I finally settled on Mogathorn.

Mogathorn Armory Link

I’d Like To Thank All The Little People

I never thought I’d achieve level 63 this soon after starting my warlock.  Sure enough, though, as of 12:29 am, he ding’d level 63 turning in a quest in Terokkar Forest.  With a /played time of 6 days 21 hours 42 minutes, I’m kicking my own butt on time compared to how long it took me to level my hunter, back in the day.

Partially, thanks goes to the latest patch 3.2 that was just released.  Right after, I hit level 58 and was ready to go into Outlands.  I quickly picked up my flying mount at 60 and now have to wonder how I ever leveled through these zones without one to begin with!  On top of that, I’m not sure if it’s something Blizzard went back and fixed, but the gear I gained from quests as I leveled up, actually matched pretty well together.  I didn’t look like a flaired pimp walking around killing helboars. 

As it stands right now, I’m an 11/43/0 Demonology build.  I did put that one point in to gain a Felguard, but really, my Voidwalker still handles mobs much better, in my personal opinion.

When I earn enough money to dual spec, I may try out Affliction, as another warlock in Hellfire was selling me on the finer points.  My hat off to Bloodwave for the information he shared.

Right now, I’m off to see if I can work my way to 64 tonight before bedtime comes calling. 

My WoW Alt Updates

I have been thinking, today, about how I had big plans for Hadox.  Hadox is my human warlock alt in the ever-popular MMO game, World of Warcraft.  In the beginning, my plans were to level him from 1 to 80, from start to finish, stopping only when he needed to regain rested xp.  Since starting a part time job, though, I’ve fallen to the wayside on those plans. 

Is it possible to catch up now?  Hadox just hit level 55 this evening, and I’m thrilled.  Considering how little time I have to play now, I believe it’s ground breaking!  It took my hunter main nearly a year and a half to max level, then Wrath came out and I achieved 80 in about 2 weeks or so.

So my goal with this post is to jump start a project that is well underway.  I want to begin detailed posts on my journey to level this fine warlock class.  It’s been done before, with better detail and information, better stories and much, much better players.  But it hasn’t been done by me.  I’m an average Joe, a “casual” player as far as actually being a casual player goes.

Happy Independence Day ‘09

It’s been a long time since I last posted anything not WoW related, and even though this will have a bit of that, too, I’ll try to limit it a bit.  But, it’s good to be back and writting a little something.  Most of my time, these days, is spent working many hours at both Parthenon (full time) and Lowes (part time).  The hours, which are usually about 70-75 a week total, aren’t really that bad.  As long as I’m schedule for both jobs on the same day, I’m good, but it’s the lull in the day when I only have to work at one or the other that throws me off track.  Seriously, it’s better for me to have a full day of work than a half one.

Parthenon is still an iffy deal.  We were busy right before the one week of shut down.  I attribute the bustle to a few customers wanting to build up stock before the holiday, but we’ll see come next week.  As far as any more layoff’s go … pardon me, the term for 2009 is Riff … so as far as any more riffs go, I’d dare say things still aren’t on stable ground.  I still worry for my job.  I say MY job because it has gotten to the point where it is every man for himself.  I hate to say that, but yeah.  If someone else gets the boot, that means I’m more likely to stay, you know?  That may be bad karma or whatever, but it is the truth, my friends.

At Lowes, my part time seasonal job seems to have been expanded.  I was promoted from Loader to Building Materials (Lumber) and now have been moved on to the sales floor as an OPE (Outdoor Power Equipment) team member.  The HR director assures me that she’s received nothing but awesome reports, so I’m a tad bit happy about that.  I’m just there to do a job, you know?  And if I happen to make some friends along the way, all the more the merrier.  The only downside of the job is the early hours and the 2 week pay periods.  I’m a little spoiled by the weekly pay at Parthenon, but it’s all good.  At least, at Lowes, I get pretty much straight pay – no insurance or other unnecessary items get deducted.

Of course, there is always a downside to everything, and the part time job is no exception.  This particular downside is: my son misses me.  He asks me how much longer I’ll have to work two jobs, when I’ll be able to quit and come home.  I explain and he seems to understand the reason why I’m working two jobs, he just doesn’t like it (any more than I do, I’ll admit).  Even though I’m worn out and tired, I try to make the most of my days / half days off and spend time with him.  Sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way, though, as there are chores to be done around the house.  My wife is doing a pretty good job of keeping things tied down here while I’m at work, but even she can’t do it all and babysit, too.  Yes, she does work from home, and as such much of her attention during the day is focused on that and keeping our son entertained.  So, it’s not like either one of us is out busting our chops expecting the other will hold down the home front.  In todays times, I still say that, while I’d be proud to have my wife stay at home and take care of our children, it does still require pretty much two incomes (two and a half) to make a middle-class lifestyle work.  We could rely on only my income, but we’d have to make alot of cuts in our expenses, and not even my wife would want to do that unless it was necessary.  We’re spoiled that way – use to our car payments, cell phones and cable television.

And finally … in my small attempts to keep some sanity in my little world, I seek entertainment and gameplay.  As I like to say, videogames are my hobby.  Working two jobs and maintaining a family is no small task, so the few wee hours I have left that aren’t spent sleeping, are spent relaxing with a good game.  True, I do need to catch up on my reading, but I already own the videogames and they aren’t taking up any more room.  Ahem … now if I had a Kindle, perhaps I’d find a little more time to read <wink,wink>

I’m still playing the same two games … aren’t I always?  Fallout 3 on the 360, which I’ve downloaded the Broken Steel expansion for.  Broken Steel sort of eliminates the end of the game so that you can continue to play after completing the main storyline.  I’m still enjoying the Fallout 3 world and badly want the other expansions.  And of course, on the PC, I’m playing World of Warcraft.  I’m doing a fairly decent job of sticking to my guns and leveling only my warlock.  With this week off from Parthenon, I’ve managed to work him up to 50 (almost 51) and upgraded my gear a bit.  I’m wanting to find some nice spellpower enchants to boost my damage, but haven’t felt like bartering with the various folk.  Actually, I’m waiting for my pal to come online and hook me up for a small fee.  B, if you’re reading this, get your butt online!  I’ve also been playing my hunter main, working on some dailies, here and there, and doing alot of Icecrown quests I skipped over leveling up.  Making some decent money on there, and that makes me a happy camper since I’m 80 and still don’t have my epic flying skill. 

Movie-wise, I’ve broken down and actually been to a few movies this Summer.  First was Star Trek, which I reviewed awhile back.  We went to see Disney/Pixar’s UP, which was a fantastic movie.  The best Pixar movie to date.  I can’t wait to get that one on bluray when it comes out.  And last but not least, I saw Transformers 2 this past Thursday.  I’ll try to talk more about it later in a different post, but yeah, it was typical Michael Bay action.

So that’s it.  That is my life in a nutshell of the past few weeks/months.  Not much to tell, not much to share … but there you go.  I’m a working fool who dreams great things in the common threads of the now.  Maybe I will be able to pick back up my blogging again, too.  I need to get those fingers banging out some text every now and then. 

Til next time chiiiiiiiiildren … This is Three Dog …