You had me at "zug-zug"

Mad and Lyr, ready to kick some ass.

During the holidays, the BF and I enjoy creating new alts and playing them casually. This year, we picked a prot warrior and a resto shaman. Mad wanted to make an Orc warrior, like the one he used to play back in BC. So I decided to create an orc as well, something I've never done before. I must admit I'm starting to grow pretty fond of her. I already have two shamans, but I never get tired of leveling new ones. It's my favourite class to level, and I lost count of all the shamans I rolled throughout my WoW career. This is my first orc one, though.

Since I have no room left on our main server for new characters, I had to create her over on Rexxar, since all my heirlooms are there. (This might be the only useful thing about CRZ's, being able to quest with people from different servers.) Apparently though, when I shipped my heirlooms over, I didn't think I'd roll a resto shamy, because the mail caster items are the only ones I didn't send. Which is why my poor orc lady has to wear leather heirlooms. Oh, the shame.

Please disregard the leather heirloom pants.

After three days of playing on and off, our little duo is now level 43. Mad likes to tank by aggroing huge groups of mobs and keep running to get more like his life depended on it. Fortunately, I'm the one healing him, and most of the times, all I have to do is keep Earth Shield up on him and throw a couple Riptides from time to time. It makes for pretty smooth, quick dungeon runs, and lots of fast xp. It's been a lot of fun, but playing with my boyfriend always is!

Mad and Lyr morphed into gnomes,
being naughty by the Christmas tree.

Quick Post : Paladin buffs are hard

I've been doing lots of dungeons lately while leveling my alts, and 90% of the time, something like this happens: There is a druid (or a monk) and a pally in the group. The pally gives kings. The druid/monk looks around, with a "what is this I don't even" look on his face. 

Now, in all fairness, I know it doesn't really matter. It's not a raid. We don't need every possible buff. But every bit helps when you have a clueless bunch of noobs new players in the group. More buffs usually means the mobs die a little faster, the healer gets OOM a little slower, and we just might make it out of there all in one piece. Just maybe.

There's only two paladin buffs now for crying out loud. There used to be a lot more of those, and they didn't last half as long as they do now. And you had to buff every single player individually. You guys don't know how easy you have it nowadays.

So for the love of God, please, pallies. Learn to buff.

Mage's first Panda raid

The mage hit revered with the Tillers today, so she started planting some Songbell Seeds to harvest Motes of Harmony! This is my third character farming Motes, which means I can get more Golden Lotus for transmutes, and that maybe I can start getting some Trilium ore and (re)start using my Living Steel cooldown every day. Not that I really need Living Steel at the moment, but it will come handy at some point to be able to craft Belt Buckles if I ever start raiding again.

Speaking of which, I have taken the mage in Mogu'shan Vaults over the weekend (the Raid Finder version)  and I still don't really enjoy it all that much. The Spirit King is kinda fun, with all the shit there is to dodge, and Will of the Emperor is chaotic enough to keep me on my toes. But the other bosses aren't exactly exciting. To me, anyway. Your mileage may vary. My dps was meh, but some of her gear isn't reforged or properly gemmed/enchanted. I know, this is terrible, and I would never go into an actual raid like this, but like they all say: "It's LFR, no one cares." But I didn't do as bad as I thought, even as frost. I tried to go fire but hated it with a passion. I've never been a big fan of fire, and while I did go fire for the better part of Dragon Soul, I didn't like it. Frost is a lot more fun, even more fun than arcane that I used to love like crazy. I picked Invocation as my last tier's talent point, and I run out of mana so fast, it's not even funny. Since it makes Evocation's cooldown only 10 seconds, it's not all that bad, but I don't like having to stop and use it 4 or 5 times in a raid fight.Then again, Rune of Power probably wouldn't be that much better, since I'd have to recast it everytime I have to move. I remember in Dragon Soul, especially on Madness of Deathwing, I had to use my mana gems and Evocation on cooldown, but it feels even worse now, on every fight. It seems it's just a thing we have to deal with now. Until we get better gear, I suppose.

I do enjoy playing my mage though, and the both groups I got in LFR this weekend were relatively good. In total, we've wiped only once on the last boss, Will of the Emperor, because the tank died early and lots of dps died before we could get him back up. I got some gloves I didn't need, and only got gold for every other boss. I have everything I need to craft an epic robe, but I'm waiting until I run MSV again tomorrow after the reset. I would really hate to craft something and replace it the same day. If it can last me at least a week, it's a bit more worth the mats.

A month later

It's been a little more than a month now that the Pandas have arrived. I thought it was time for a little recap of what I've been up to and how my characters are doing.

Death Knight - 86  

After Motes of Harmony to finish maxing Engineering. Also farming raw meats for cooking. Lately, mostly Raw crocolisk meat and Raw crab meat. Does some fishing on the side when there are pools nearby.

Druid - 86 

Pet battles! Doing daily inscription research to get all the glyphs. 8 to go.

Hunter - 90 

Tillers dailies. Enchanting and JC is maxed. Doing daily JC research for gem cuts. Doing some heroics and Raid Finder from time to time, but not focused on any particular end game activities.

Mage - 87 

Dedicated cook. Maxed out all six ways so she can make all available foods for all the family. Also maxed archaeology, but I'm waiting to be able to fly to work on it more. Maxed alchemy and tailoring. Didn't even start her daily cd's like Living Steel or Imperial Silk. Does some fishing on the side when there are pools nearby.

Baby Mage (Alliance) and Monk (Horde) - Both 47

Dungeon Finder. 

Paladin - 87 

Recently maxed Blacksmithing. Needs to hit 89 to start rep with the Klaxxi so she can get the Belt Buckle recipe.

Priest - 85 

Still in Orgrimmar. Occasionally goes to Pandaria to mine and pick flowers.

Rogue - 86 

Currently in Krasarang Wilds to finish Loremaster of Pandaria. Herbing and stabbing people right in the face.

Shaman - 90 

Harvesting Motes of Harmony every day. (The DK secretly hates her.) Does some fishing on the side when there are pools nearby. Skins every corpse she can get her hands on. Working on getting all the farmers to be her best friends.

Warlock - 85 

Bank alt still in Orgrimmar. Has a bunch of old mats in her bags and bank which I'm too lazy to sort and put on the AH.

Warrior - 85

Still in Orgrimmar, looking pretty. Disenchants some greens from time to time, when it's convenient.

So I didn't get all that much done since the game was released. I've been mostly doing Tillers dailies, doing pet battles (and working on pet battle achivements. Gotta have them all!) and slowly leveling multiple characters instead of focusing on one at a time. I've rarely been this slow at getting my characters to max level. At the beginning of Cataclysm, it took me about two weeks to get five or six toons to 85. I'm really slacking off this time around. I'm also thinking about transferring a character over to Rexxar so my poor alliance mage can get some heirlooms, which will slow me down even more in the "get all the toons to 90" process, but that's fine. For the first time in years, I'm not rushing to be ready to raid, and it feels good. I can afford to slack off. I don't miss raiding all that much so far, and my trips in the Raid Finder haven't exactly been exciting. I'm not in love with the Mogu'shan Vaults, but I look forward to trying out other raids as they become available.

When you're ready, there's nothing left to do but wait

All I've been thinking about, ever since I saw those posts over at the Godmother's blog, was getting ready for the pandas. I've never done that before, for any other expansions. Back in BC, I managed to get two max level characters by the time WotLK came out, but I didn't have a plan. I wanted to play my mage, and that's what I did. I had almost no gold to my name, because I'd spend it all on professions and pets.

But in WotLK, I leveled a shitload of alts. I gave them professions, and today, I have all of them. On a single server. Which means I can farm for gems, enchants, and everything I need instead of buying it. It makes a huge difference. When Cata was released, I didn't stockpile gold. I didn't farm until my fingers bled. I just waited. And blew all my gold on obsidium ores to level Jewelcrafting when the expansion launched. But this time, I'm pretty much ready. All thanks to the Godmother and her precious advices.

Most of my characters's professions are maxxed, and they have enough mats to gain five skill points from both their primary professions when MoP launches. Except the gathering ones. They all have a nice little nest of gold, plus some more stashed on my banker alt. They all did 21 dailies from Tol Barad plus the cooking and fishing dailies from Orgrimmar, for a total of 23 dailies to be turned-in as soon we can get xp again.

I've cleaned all my character's banks and bags in order to make room for all the new stuff, and dumped everything in the AH, making some decent profit in the process. My personnal guildbank was full to capacity with herbs and ores and leathers and enchanting mats until recently. I had planned on putting it all on the AH next week, in the hopes that some pandas might need it for their professions, but I used most of the ores I had to level engineering on my death knight, and my boyfriend suddenly decided he wanted an enchanter/tailor warlock, so there went most of my cloth and enchanting mats. Which is fine. More professions, the better!

I did have a moment of panic a couple weeks back when I realized that patch 5.0.4 meant cross-realm zones were becoming a reality. No more farming for hours alone in a lowbie zone. Which is a shame, because I really enjoyed that. So I did what I had been putting off for weeks and I finished all the farming I wanted to get done before the patch hit.

I had a lot of fun preparing for the big day, and I feel as ready as I can be to welcome the pandas and explore their world. It's really exhilarating for me to feel so connected, so focused on a precise goal. I used to just let things go, and even though I was excited for previous expansions, this time it feels different. It's even better. I just hope I'm not getting my hopes up, with expectations so high that they can't possibly be met.

I'm anxious to work on my professions again and craft new items, pick new flowers, cook new foods and kill new enemies. There are five days left before the gates open. And it's getting harder and harder to be patient.

Luckily, I still have Tides of War to read before Tuesday.

Rant incoming : read at your own risk

Back when I raided, there was a thing that really annoyed the hell outta me.

There was this guy, whenever he got an upgrade, he'd hearthstone to Orgrimmar to gem, enchant and reforge. Talk about wasting time. Then we'd have to summon him back. And run back to wherever we were. At some point, our Raid Leader threw a fit. "We have an hour left to the raid, you can do all that shit later. For now, keep your old piece and get your ass back here." It worked, but the guy was way too grumpy after that.

That was before. Now that we can have access to a mount which provides a portable reforger, I'm worried this will become the norm. Everyone who gets a new item will want to use the mount to reforge. Of course, no one will have to HS back to Org or SW. Now, they can just mount up and reforge. 

But how much time will be wasted on this between pulls, making wipe recoveries last that much longer. Reforging is not like repairing. You don't just click on a button and it's done. Sometimes one piece changes some other pieces' reforging as well. There's always one dude taking his sweet time making the rest of the raid wait. Don't be that guy. Wait for a break, or for the end of the raid.

That said, the Yak really is cool. I don't think I'll buy it simply because I'm too greedy and don't want to spend my whole "fortune" on one mount, but I can't deny it's usefulness. I think it's nice you can reforge in whichever zone you are. If there are no reforgers in Pandaria, then it's awesome to be able to carry one around with you.

Let's see what happens

After joining SiB last week, I seriously considered transferring some characters over to their server. I've started a draenei mage over there, and it's slow as hell without heirlooms. But since it was a faction change plus a server transfer, I decided against it. Also, I was stressing a bit over the fact that I couldn't possibly take all my family of alts on the new server, so I'd have to level all the professions I'd need all over again. Now that I've made my decision, I feel a lot better. I'll keep leveling the mage casually, hit 85 before or after MoP is live, and maybe, eventually, I can raid a bit with them if they'll have me. If not, I'll just hang out and chat, because those people are awesome.

In other news, on the Horde server, the BF and I still don't have a raiding guild. We're both in our vanity guild, just enjoying the perks and leveling/gearing characters until the big day. September 25 is two weeks away now, and we've decided to wait before even looking for a guild. We have absolutely no idea what we want to do, and are in no hurry, even though we both want to eventually raid again. We've talked about starting panda monks, or leveling at least one of our 85s to 90, or even start something else completely, like a rogue for me and a druid for him. (Yes, yes, I did create a rogue, don't look at me like that. Let's just see what happens.) I kinda want to rush a couple of 90s as soon as possible so we can queue for the Brewfest boss which is coming on the 28th or 29th if I remember correctly. But whatever we pick, I know it'll be fun. Exploring Pandaria and the Panda's starting zone will be lots of fun, I'm sure. I'm done with my all character's UIs and they all have at least one viable spec. They're all ready to have new adventures and discover new wonders.

*Edit: Corrected typo.

Patch excitement

I've been bad, oh so terribad. Almost two weeks since my last post. How terribly rude of me. Apologies, to all two of you who read this blog. I've just been super busy. And also, words are hard.

The patch hit the live servers last Tuesday, and ever since, I've been doing the Kermit flail.

At first, when I was finally able to log on, I jumped from one character to another, too excited to settle on anything in particular. There was just so much to do! New glyphs, new talents, pets and mounts and achievements! I'm proud to say I've hit the 10k achievement points threshold. It might not seem like a lot to some but to me, it's a big deal. I'm also two mounts away from getting the red dragonhawk, so I really need to work on that as soon as possible. I also need to finish spec'ing and glyphing all my chracters. So far, I've managed to glyph and spec five of my characters. The others are still awaiting some much needed love and attention. But so far, I must say I'm super happy with a lot of the changes to the classes. I'm also very satisfied with the new Raid Finder loot system. There is no more drama over loot, which makes the experience a lot more enjoyable!

So for the last couple of days, I've been tweaking my interface, downloading addons, relearning classes, glyphing, spec'ing, and discovering all the cool things the patch brought.

Oh and I joined an amazing guild. But more on that later.

Is it Tuesday yet?

We are less than a month away from Mists of Pandaria, and there are only a couple of hours left until the patch hits the live servers. 

omg omg omg.

I'm super excited for all the changed happening, and a little scared/worried. A lot of things are changing in the next 36 hours, and we don't know yet if we're going to like it or not. New talents, new abilities, new glyphs, new rotations. And we have four weeks to get our shit together before we go out in and explore a whole new world.  

I don't know about you, but first thing I do when I log on Tuesday, is check out my achievements, mounts and pets. I'm anxious to know how many achievement points I have total across all my characters. I'd also like to work on having 100 mounts for the red dragonhawk, so then I'll see how many more I need. Same for the pets and the 125/150 achievements.

Then I'll have to work on updating my addons. Tomorrow will be dedicated to making a list of all the addons I use, and see which ones can be updated, removed completely or replaced with better addons. I want to wait to actually log on to see which addons are broken before starting.

Then, once my UI is stable, I will be spec'ing my characters and then running some (many) dungeons. I'm really anxious to test out my mage, hunter and shaman in particular. I will most likely try out all my max level characters throughout the next few weeks, though. Then, hopefully, I will be able to determine which character(s) I will be playing in MoP. All of them will be leveled to 90 eventually, if only for professions, but it might take a while. On my main server, I have 9 max level characters, to which will be added a monk very soon. I only hope all those changes will keep me busy enough that the next four weeks will go by a little more quickly. 

Anyone got any special plans for Tuesday, or the following days?

Many yellow dots, handle it!

Look at all the shiny pretties.

The last week has been pretty productive in many ways. 

My priest is now level 69. Mad and I chain-dungeon'd our way to 68, then went questing in Borean Tundra for a while. Now that we can queue for UK, it's back to the dungeons! I loved the Outlands dungeons, but at 68, all you can get is Sethekk Halls or Old Hillsbrad, so we decided it would be faster to just quest a little. 

I've also picked her professions. I hesitated a lot, thinking I might make her my second tailor, and fourth alchemist, but then I read these posts over at Just my two copper, and decided I didn't need a second tailor, but should definitely consider making a "pure gatherer" character. At first, I didn't want my priest to be a miner and an herbalist, as I prefer my druid for herbalism and my paladin for mining (for flying form and crusader aura respectively), but it just made so much sense to have both professions on one toon, for faster farming, that I did just that. 

Leveling mining and herbalism at the same time is both awesome and overwhelming. It's nice to see all those yellow dots all over the place on your mini-map, but I was always afraid I'd miss some. At some point I decided to just stick to the routes I found on WoW-Professions, and not just follow all the yellow dots in random directions. I've leveled both professions pretty fast, and it's been fun, but now I want to wait for level 70 so I can buy a faster flying and speed up the process of gathering in Outlands and Northrend. Slow mounts are slow.

I've also cleaned out the transmog tabs of the guild bank and was able to reduce it down to one tab. The rest as been sold, disenchanted or is in my bank alt's bags, waiting to be put on the Auction House. With the ores and herbs I've gathered, I've been able to help Mad with his engineering, stockpile enough herbs to level alchemy on my future monk, and put aside enough ores and herbs in the guild bank for future glyph needs, or simply to put on the Auction House once MoP is here. I also have a tab full of various cloths, which will be used to make bags for all the new pandas, and also to be put on the Auction House in a couple weeks. Hopefully, I can make a decent amount of gold out of it.

I want to try and finish everything before September, so that I can have at least three weeks free of any farming or questing before we start all over again with the gathering and questing and grinding in MoP. 

Which leaves me about three weeks to get my priest to 85, max her professions, gather everything needed for various professions (For my monk's and a few of Mad's characters. Because he's such a slacker when it comes to his professions.) and max my warrior's fishing (because I'm also a slacker).

Hopefully by then the patch will be live and we'll have some new things to play with while we wait for the pandas. I'm hoping the patch hits either on the 21st or the 28th, more or less a month before the expansion. After that there will be much messing around with the new talents, figuring out how to spec each of my toons, and explore all the new changes. I expect there will be some last minute stuff to be done, like squeezing in some quick achievements, hunting down a few more pets, grinding for a few more mounts, or updating addons and such. And that's fine.

Repeat after me : everything is fair game in the Raid Finder.

I was in the Looking for Retards last night, again, because I'm after one last trinket for my hunter. It's all she needs to get rid of her last 378 piece, so every week, I queue for the RF, and hope for the best.

It went pretty smoothly yesterday, for the most part. But there was this warrior tank who rolled on a tier helm token. I didn't bother looking him up, but apparently, he already had a tier helm. Or something. And there was this shaman who kept asking for the token in chat. And lots of people were making fun of him.

Sounds familiar? Probably.

But it made me think. What if the warrior needed that for his offspec? What exactly is the proper etiquette for offspec? Say he's a decently geared tank, but his dps set still has some blues, or God forgive some greens, and he is missing a trinket. What's he supposed to do? Queue as a dps anyway and do what will most likely be terrible dps and roll on upgrades? Or queue as a tank and roll on offspec pieces?

I'm not sure if there is a good answer to that question. People will find ways to complain anyway. About his terrible dps, or about him rolling on offspec pieces. 

In groups, it's usually "need on stuff you can use, and for the spec you're in now, and for offspec only if no one else needs it." But in LFR, you see boomkins rolling on agility trinkets and all sorts of shits. I used to bitch at people doing that. I still kinda do. Because I never roll on stuff I don't need. (The only time I rolled on something I didn't need but wanted for transmog, I felt bad and gave it to someone who needed it.)

It seems that in the Raid Finder, to a lot of people, everything is fair game. If you get in there with the assumption that everyone will roll only on gear they really need for main spec, you will be pissed and disappointed. But if you go in there knowing that most people will roll on everything they can roll on, you won't be as pissed and disappointed when you lose the roll. Well maybe you will, but probably a bit less. 

It's not even a matter of what is fair and what isn't, or even about courtesy and being nice to other people. In the Raid Finder, it's every man for himself. So I've decided to change my expectations, instead of trying to change people. I am willing to give something I won because I feel bad about taking it. Most people wouldn't do that. I can't expect them to.

So when I lose a roll, I won't even look at who won it. I won't inspect them. It's not worth it.

Edit: After re-reading my post and a comment, I realized this sounds a lot more pessimistic and grumpy then I intended it to be. Long story short, I don't deserve gear more than anyone else, and should learn to be zen about the whole thing. My expectations about how people act in the Raid Finder is wrong. So this post is basically about me, needing to learn to let go and not get mad when I lose a roll. I blame lack of sleep for this crappily written post.

Turtles, sharks and dragons.

I've been waiting forever for the bf to finally have time to sit down and level his dk to 80 (because I'm impatient and leveled my shaman without him for a while), so that we could start the Cataclysm zones together and eventually reach 85. He was level 72 when he started, and painfully made it to 74 the first night. Then he skipped a day, saying that Northrend was boring, and promised to make more levels the next day. Once he reached level 77, yet again painfully, I was way too impatient to wait yet another day. So while he was napping, I logged onto his account and went questing in Sholazar Basin. Less than two hours later, he was level 79. He woke up, logged back onto his account, and gleefully did some random dungeons until he hit 80.

And then we went to Vashj'ir. We had decided to skip Hyjal this time, mostly because I had just done it on the pally and didn't feel like doing it yet again, but more importantly because we had never finished the zone before. Back in december 2010, when Cata had just launched, we did half the zone before quitting, for many reasons. (It's not enough that I often get lost horizontally, in Vashj'ir, you can get lost vertically?!?) So we went there, and were mostly alone the whole time. 

Some sharks try to eat you...

...and some let you surf on their back!

It was a lot of fun to see some new quests, and some of them are pretty fun. I particularly enjoyed riding a shark and eating Nagas. That was fun. We still have about 40 quests to go for the achievement, but there are probably more than 40 quests to do in Vashj'ir at this point.

So now my shaman is level 83, and Mad's dk is 82. We stopped questing when we reached the guild reputation cap. We could have kept going, but Mad really hates questing, and will only do the bare minimum. And since we're after guild rep to buy heirloom leather helms for our future monks, losing potential guild reputation was a big deal. So now we wait for Tuesday. Hopefully, they will both hit 85 before Midsummer Festival begins next Thursday. 

I also worked on my leatherworking and went farming leather in Hyjal, on the dragonkins of Sethrias's Roost. I must be completely batshit crazy but I had fun killing those mini dragons and skinning them. 

Last night was definitely a good night. Can't wait for Tuesday to keep going!

Tuwtle!

If you have nothing nice to say, just shut up.

Last night, I took the pally out for her first night of heroic dungeons. It was a disaster.

I got Grim Batol as my first heroic. As you might have guessed, we didn't kill a single boss. We kept wiping, because the healer went down, and the herp derp druid couldn't figure out how to battle rez him. I dropped group and re-queue'd. After a couple of dungeons that went relatively well, I was lucky enough to get a group of awesome people. We stayed together for hours, doing something like seven randoms together, netting me lots of gear, and some achievements. We even made the bear run in Zul'aman, and made a warlock very happy.

So in one evening, I went from 330 item level to 358. After Zul'Aman the group disbanded, as everyone was getting tired. But I kept going. I tried to do some Hour of Twilight dungeons, only to get a dps piece get ninja'd by the tank, and the rest went to another dps. 

Now. In all fairness, I shouldn't have queue'd for the HoT dungeons. I was tired. It was late. When I got into End Time, the people in there weren't as nice as my previous group. The healer kept saying something that no one seemed to understand. He kept repeating it, so I told him, not very nicely, that it made no sense in WoW to say that. And he said that he'd been playing WoW for years, and that he'd been saying it for years. I should have just dropped it. 

I mean, sure you can use other game terms in WoW, you can use em for years, but it doesn't mean that other people will understand what you're saying. I haven't played with every single people that play WoW. So I guess it's possible that I've just never played with someone using those terms before. But I've been playing for a very long time, too, asshat. If you have to repeat yourself five times so we get what you're saying, maybe you should take a hint?

Anyway, I was wrong, I shouldn't have told them anything. They can say whatever the hell they wanna say. But everything annoyed me to no end at the time. Especially the hunter who kept posting recount to show how awesome his dps was compared to mine (bite me, my gear is shit, I suck at ret, and you're a goddamn hunter. Anyone with half a brain can do good dps with a low-geared hunter.) and then linked all his gear in chat (one item per line mind you) to show us all the upgrades he needed. 

But I should have just let it go. I shouldn't let this get to me. That's why I'm usually silent in random dungeons. If you have nothing nice to say, just shut up. 

Keeping busy

I spend all my time lately working on my bucket list. So much to do! And it seems like the list is still as big as when I started. So here's what I did in the last couple days :

The mage is finally done with the rep farming (at least for now). She reached exalted reputation with the Keepers of time saturday and finally finished The Burning Crusader. She got some new tabards, for which I'd love to  find some nice transmog outfits to match. Right.

Keepers of time, the Sha'tar and Thrallmar.

The paladin is now level 83, her mining is maxed out and her Blacksmithing is at 517. Not bad at all! Out of the blue last night, when I realized the Faire was coming at midnight, I decided I had to farm all the things and level BS as much as I could. The DMF gives a free 5 points for your professions, and I wanted to use that 5 point for the last part of BS, those last omg-so-close-but-oh-so-much-mats! points, and not the easy turn-bars-into-X-amount-of-other-things part. 

I levelled her fishing to 300 as well, as she got a Bone Fishing Pole from a daily and couldn't use it before level 300. I'm still hoping the Jeweled Fishing Pole will drop for her, as it would fit better than the Bone one.

I also created a baby warlock this week, and finally decided to roll it as a goblin on a whim. I'd been asking myself for days which race it should be, and then I just picked one and ran with it. To get her ready for the Faire, I leveled all her professions to 75...and then kept going. Engineering and Alchemy are maxed at 225 and 240 respectively, as she can't get farther before level 35. I plan on farming the necessary mats soon, before we get the cross-realm zones and all the goodies get taken by people from other servers.

I had planned on levelling her to 15, so she'd be ready to do some dungeons and quests whenever MoP came out, but I wanted to keep doing the cooking and fishing dailies until then, so I levelled her to 20 and bought her mount. Running around Orgrimmar killing boars for their bacon or stealing rice from the trolls really sucks when you're on foot.

The shaman surprised me last night, as she decided she wanted the bear mount from the Darkmoon Faire. I had decided I would only go after the pets, but change of plans I guess! There's no way I'll get it this month though, but I'm confident I can get it in July. So I thought only the lock would need to do her dailies this week, but turns out I have two toons that will be running them! To get the shamy more tickets, I've decided to level her archaeology to 75 so she can do the monthly quest as well. It's only worth 3 tickets a month, but it's better than nothing. It'll save me 6 dailies somewhere!

Levelling Archaeology on a shamy really is no fun when you don't have insta-cast Ghost Wolf. At least on my mage I have blink. But I did get a rare, which is kinda cool even if I wish I had gotten it on the mage. (Sigh) It gave her a title (her first one), Assistant Professor. Doesn't quite fit, but it'll do for now.

It feels like I've done a lot, but the list still goes on! The druid is still running Sethek Halls daily for the Raven Lord, but no luck so far. The pally should be 85 this week, if all goes according to plan. I still need to work on professions a bit, but I need to get the pally and shaman to 85 asap, in part because I want to gear them somewhat before the next expansion (more gear means the mobs die faster!), and because I want to be able to queue for the Midsummer holiday boss in less than three weeks! I love how all those things keep me busy until we get new content, but I swear when I'm done, I won't farm anything for as long as I can.

On cutting tanks some slack

My paladin had almost a level of rested xp, yesterday, and I was itching to get her some levels, so I totally caved and bought her dual spec. She is now prot/ret, and it feels oh so wrong! I completely fail at being a retadin! But she is now level 82 and I've done two dungeons as dps so far and I realized I much prefer to tank in dungeons. 

Watching other tanks do an awful job is just too painful, and makes me wanna slap my shield on just to show em how it's done! - Wow, that sounds vaguely condescending! - I mean maybe they don't know the dungeons that much, and it's only reg, and I'm used to the heroic version, but it's killing me to see the small mistakes they make that I wouldn't make. And then I think about the mistakes I do and don't know about, and then I feel bad for thinking like that and I'm ashamed of myself. 

Bad, bad Lyr!

It can be hard to be a good tank. I know how much crap ppl give tanks in groups. I should really cut some slack to my fellow tanks, now shouldn't I? It's like it's a completely different mindset. When I'm tanking, I'm really hatin' on those stupid dps making my job a nightmare. When I'm dps'ing and the tank is doing a bad job, it annoys me to no end. 

Only recently - since I started tanking to be exact - I've realized how tough it can be to a fairly new tank. To position mobs correctly, to know when to taunt and stuff. Spine comes to mind. I hate when the tank does stupid stuff like getting all nine stacks of blood when the Amalgamation is at full health, or when he fails to bring the exploding Amalgamation close enough to the armour. But maybe it's just that overwhelming. Moving the mob to the bloods might not be an easy thing to do for an inexperienced tank. Maybe it's his first time actually doing the fight and even though he researched it, he just doesn't have enough practice to execute it properly. Or maybe he just panicked. Or maybe it just comes more naturally for some than others.

We are pretty quick to kick a "failing" tank in the Raid Finder. Because everyone wants stuff to go quickly. No time to waste. "I want my easy loot and VPs and get the hell out so I can re-queue with my ten thousand alts." Because if we wanted to spend hours in a raid, we'd be doing heroic progression. But I guess if we'd just let them try again, they might learn from their mistakes. But we usually don't even give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a harsh world, people. Be good fast, or get thrown out. That's why I'm never going to tank a raid for strangers. I'd get eaten alive. 

So to all of you tanks out there, queueing as a tank for the Raid Finder, you have my utmost respect.

Unless you really fail, of course. - You know, the ones for which there is no hope - In which case I'ma vote to kick you.

Quick Post : On my own

After weeks of waiting for Mad to play his DK tank with me, I've decided to just level on my own. My poor shaman was stuck at level 72 for way too long. Diablo kidnapped Mad and won't give him back. He did ask me to play D3 with him, but I just don't feel like it. For some reason. I played the beta a bit and liked it, and from what I've seen/read so far, it's an amazingly good game, but I just don't wanna play just yet. I will though. For sure. Some day. And it will be as a wizard.

But anyway.

My paladin is now level 80, and I'm waiting on her to gather some rested xp before going any further. So until then, I've started levelling the shamy again. I switched to her elemental spec and queued for dungeons. I'm having a total blast pew-pewing monsters with lightning bolts of doom. And I use thunderstorm only when there aren't any mobs around, because I'm considerate like that. It'd be easy to lash out in vengeance for all the times I've had dps knock the mobs out of my reach when I'm tanking (must knock back ALL THE THINGS! /evil laugh) but I don't. 

Even though some tanks kinda deserve it. >.>

The reverse bucket list

I read this post over on Bravetank's blog, and I totally wanted to make my own list. So here goes!

I have never ...

1. levelled a lock or rogue to the level cap. The rogue got to 75 but I was so bored out of my mind that I deleted her. The many locks I tried to level never reached level 41. I intend to change that soon. The lock part, that is.

2. played a worgen, dwarf or gnome character. And never will. Because they creep me out.

3. actually participated in a fight for Tol Barad. I did join one once, a couple minutes before we lost. And I don't even really remember. So it doesn't count.

4. tanked any raids. Nor do I intend to. I might try to tank some heroic dungeons, though.

5. did any of the classic raids except for Molten Core, and it wasn't current content when I did. 

6. finished Vashj'ir. God I hate that zone. It's beautiful and all, but it's just so damn annoying. 

7. even thought about getting a legendary. I'm plain and simply too impatient. But I am jealous and envious of those who do have one.

8. healed properly. (Oh hello cooldowns that I fail to use!) To level it's no big deal. You can heal dungeons with a dps spec until OL, but at endgame, it's another story.

9. tried unholy on my dk. Of all my characters, I think it's the only spec I've never tried. I do have an unholy spec, (in a fit of rage after a failed attempt at dk tanking, I respec'd unholy. Bite me.) but I've never actually used it. I just love Frost way too much.

10. found the right guild for me. Over the years, my bf and I have been in many different guilds, but it never seemed to work out in the end. Either we're too picky, or we've just been unlucky.

Well, that was fun. It took me a while to find 10 things I had never done, as it feels like I've tried a little bit of everything. I'm sure I'll think of more after I hit the publish button, though.

Perspective

I've been pretty busy in game in the last couple of days. I've been working a lot on my bucket list in order to get as much stuff done as possible. And I've had a lot of fun doing it. 

Back in December when I started playing Swtor, I was very bored with WoW. I didn't feel like levelling new toons, the guild I was in was slowly dying, and I just didn't have anything to do in game anymore. Swtor was great, and for three whole months, it made me happy to discover new places, try out different playstyles and get engrossed in my character's stories.

But then, in the fourth month, when everyone started talking about Mists of Pandaria beta, I started missing WoW. I hadn't logged on in a couple of weeks, and I decided to give it another try. In a matter of minutes, Swtor became inadequate. Insufficient.

So my time in Swtor just made me realize how much I love WoW, and how much stuff I enjoy doing in Azeroth. Ever since I came back, I've been farming, levelling, raiding with the Raid Finder, gearing up my characters, and just having a blast. 

This week, I've farmed cloth in Tol Barad and in Icecrown to make bigger bags for my characters, and for some reason, it didn't bore me to tears. I actually enjoyed it and had a couple sessions of "farm all the cloth!" I also farmed elementals in Wintergrasp to gather mats for my blacksmith. I ran BC dungeons for hours to work on my reputations. Working on professions and achievements is suddenly entertaining, when a couple of months ago, it felt like a chore. I levelled fishing in a couple days, and it seemed to go fast! Admittedly, I was watching Supernatural on my second monitor the whole time. I never tire of looking at Dean.

But I digress.

I've levelled my paladin to a whoopin' level 75, and have tanked a couple of dungeons. I'm glad I can't get Nexus or Utgard Keep anymore as randoms because I'm sick of those. They are the only dungeons you can get for something like four levels. Old Kingdom turned out to be fairly chaotic. Especially the first boss. Many mobs, handle it! I think I'm doing a good job, though. I sometimes pull a bit more than I can chew, but not on purpose, honest. And we always survive. Either I'm decent at tanking, or I always get great healers. Maybe a little bit of both? Ya, that's good for my self-esteem. Drak'tharon Keep was a lot of fun to tank,  even with a dk trying to tank everything, and a healer drooling over the fact that I was a girl tank. Sigh. When I got Violet Hold, I was like "Nice! Never tanked this before!" And then I remembered. And I had a tiny moment of "Oh God what was I thinking?" But it went well. The group was on the second boss when I walked in. Maybe I should consider getting an offspec for my paladin, but I've been prot since level 10, and I'm not a fan of ret. I haven't quested since level 15, either. I kinda like the idea of having only one spec. If I even just buy her dual spec, I know I'm gonna end up healing or some shit like that and I really don't want that to happen.

Finally, my cutie druid got lots and lots of gear from the Raid Finder. If I could get my hands on a trinket and the staff off of Deathwing, I would be thrilled. There was a trinket I desperately wanted for my mage, and it took months before I won the roll. My druid? Got it on her first try. What's this, Blizz? Is this your way of telling me I should play my druid more? Message received. Loud and clear.

Too much or not enough

When Mad and I switched servers, we both created new alts. What else can you do on a new server? 

As expected, my baby shaman picked skinning and leatherworking as her professions and I've been having lots of fun farming leather with her. I often made up to two levels per farming session just by getting enough mats to make 50 points of leatherworking. The only part I didn't enjoy as much was the part where I had to kill Nyxondra's Broodlings in Badlands, just behind New Kargath. There's an elite there that kept aggroing me, and even though I had no problem killing her whatsoever, it took a pretty long time, and it felt like a waste of time, as she didn't give more leathers than the small, quickly killed ones. Although, those bastards are swarming the place, and you can't ever run out of mobs to kill, so it was pretty quick nonetheless, even though I needed over 400 leathers from them.

The shamy is now level 71 and healing Northrend dungeons for Mad's dk tank. Outland went by so fast I barely felt it. Mad was tanking and I was healing, so we just chain-dungeon'd our way to 70. We probably won't do the same for Northrend, though, and will probably add some questing into the mix. Healing isn't my favourite thing in the world, and I could really use a break and just go an destroy monsters and collect their hide.

The second alt I rolled was a prot paladin which is now level 60! I got tired of running BRD - which is the only instance you get for something like 6 or seven levels -  so I went to quest for a while in Blasted Land and it was pretty nice. The Tainted Forest looks kinda cool, too.

For the record, questing as prot is fucking amazing. Avenger’s Shield procs and does insane amount of damage, and I ended up two-shotting mobs of my level.

After that I started tanking Ramparts and the Blood Furnace. It went pretty smoothly. Except for the stupid DKs dying to every single mother fucking bombs in BF. Or the fucktard hunter that pulled everything in sight "because I wasn't pulling fast enough". /stranglekittens

Healers never complained about my tanking, and they never looked to struggle at all. I was also pretty proud of myself for not snapping at the DK that kept death gripping mobs THAT I WAS TANKING OMG LEARN TO DEATH GRIP FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!! THERE’S A CASTER RIGHT THERE! DG IT!! NOT THE MELEE I HAD AGGRO ON!!! 

Tanking makes me rage more than anything else in this game. People just have no respect for tanks whatsoever. (At lower levels anyway. I have yet to level a tank to the max level.) And after that they wonder why there are so few tanks out there. Some groups are great, and don't "order" me to pull faster, or just don't plain pull shit - while I'm waiting for Avenger's Shield to come off cooldown - and then complain that I didn't pick it up. 

Because you just know that if I catch you pulling shit on purpose, I'm letting you tank it. I've heard people complain about tanks that do that, that it's the tank's problem no matter what, but I completely, violently, disagree. I don't have to put up with people's shit. That's not what I signed up for. You wanna be a dick and pull half the instance? Go for it. But don't expect me to clean up your mess. The low level mage aggroes by accident? The lock's pet decided to misbehave and runs into a pack of mob? Eh, no worries, shit happens. But don't stand there, tab-targettting and shooting mobs that weren't pulled yet, and think for just one fucking second that I'll go out of my way to taunt them off you.

I didn't intend this to be a "bitch about fucktards in pugs" post, but there it is. I love to tank. It's a lot of fun. Healers are usually great and really know their stuff, and I can count on them when the shit hits the fan. But for some reason, the dps are often complete idiots and I wonder why that is.

One man army and twenty four others

I love the Raid Finder. I love it a lot.

Why? Simply because… I love free epics. I enjoy being with 24 people that I don’t know, one shotting raid bosses and getting loot. The raid finder is like the friday night T11 alt run that my old guild used to do. You can make a drinking game of it and still win. (ie: you drink everytime someone does something stupid, or dies, or aggroes random stuff. Trust me, you drink a lot.)

I do miss being with people that I know, sometimes. I miss the friendly atmosphere. Most pugs hate your guts, just for being a random stranger. And I get it. I don't particularly like most random strangers, too.

I love doing my thing on my own. But raiding has always been a social activity. You usually have to use Vent or the equivalent, and sometimes people are funny, or plain stupid, and then I mute vent… but that’s besides the point.

In the Raid Finder, you can listen to music and not even pay attention to chat and still win, if you have even just the faintest idea of what you’re doing. Even on spine, if you know what to attack and when, you can pretty much wing it. Most of the time, I like that. It’s like a one person raid. The other 24 people could be NPC’s for all I care. NPCs that steal my loot, mind you.

Sure it can be painful at times. Some groups can't figure out what to do, or just don't care, and we end up wiping to Spine or Madness. I can't tell you how many times I've had the urge to strangle strangers through their monitor. I often fantasize about being able to physically inflict pain on pugs douchebags.

But sometimes, you're lucky, and the pugs will be quiet, or even won't say a word at all, they won't die stupidly and you will kill the bosses in a relatively smooth manner. Just sometimes, things die fast, and you don't have time to actually feel the pain that is pugging. Some people love pugs that talk and are friendly. Me, I prefer the silent ones. It makes it so much easier for me to pretend they aren't people. Now, that doesn't mean I'm a jerk and roll on stuff I don't need or make their lives miserable by standing in bad and hitting the mob the tank had no aggro on. No. I'm considerate towards those "not real people." But I don't feel like I have to be especially nice or friendly to them. It's not that I don't like people. It's just that sometimes, I just don't feel like being social.

I haven't raided in months, other than the Raid Finder, and I like it that way. I got tired of the commitment that is raiding. I find that I don't always feel like raiding three hours a night, three nights a week. I enjoy being able to raid whenever I feel like it. Maybe that will change in MoP. I'll probably try and find a raiding guild at some point. But for now, I'm just enjoying being on my own.