The Shattering

I've not been posting nearly enough, but today, The Shattering is happening, which means the game is down while Deathwing bursts from the earth and starts destroying everything. I had a strange feeling last night as I was working on Pilgrim's Bounty with Taurrance, who is going to become someone else later this week as I race change her into a troll; Knowing that it was the last time I was going to see the world as it currently existed. There was a small moment of panic: What if I missed out on something? I'll never be able to do it again! It was an odd feeling, given that I've been anticipating this moment for months with excitement, but when it was finally nigh, it was strange.

Today.. well, today I will be doing several things once the servers come back up. I'll be race changing my Tauren Druid into a Troll, and my Blood Elf hunter into an Undead- remember when Rolf was getting ill? It turns out he died, and he's become undead. It's OK though, he still has the blood elf personality, even if he's a bit drippy about the face.

I'll leave you with this, a lovely screenshot on the beach of Tanaris.. that is no longer there.

Maintenance Tuesday, Kingslayer at last

A lot has happened since I last posted, and I'll just blame my lack of posting on the post-patch work, the fact that I spent the weekend watching Blizzcon, and of course mega real-life aggro. Still, I got a lot of things done, and since the game is down for Tuesday maintenance (and a small patch to fix some of these horrible bugs), I figured I'd take a bit of time to slow down and update everyone on what's happening.

In Cornellian news, I've completed the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline (in the process I got a couple achievements from an AWESOME Onyxia run), I managed to finally snag Rivendare's Deathcharger on my 75th Stratholme run since statistics were implemented (I am a farming slacker), and FINALLY got Kingslayer last night thanks to the Ghostlands guild Relapse (and maybe a little gold ;) Had to grease some palms). I am still hoping I'll be able to find a guild for Cataclysm raiding, and who knows, maybe I'll apply to one of the elite guilds- we wiped once and they didn't seem to be so terribly upset about it, and that's honestly what I'm looking for. I also snagged the last few cooking recipes I needed to learn *all* the recipes in the game (Well, except for Thistle Tea, but only rogues can learn that).

In Holiday news, it is Hallows End, which means I'm killing the Headless Horseman in Scarlet Monastery daily on each of my eligible characters in hope of snagging his mount; Bellavita got one yesterday, and I've gotten the three 80s who still needed the achievement all set with that. So for the rest of the holiday I'm just going to be doing the fight daily (Have I mentioned that I *love* the dungeon finder feature as used for Holiday bosses?) to rake in the Justice Points and hopefully snag a mount for Cornellian.

Anyway, I'm going to save Blizzcon news for another post, because that post will take a lot of work since I'm planning on linking all over- it wasn't quite as epic as last year, but it was still pretty great and I'm enjoying being able to go back and watch the Arena tournaments.

At this point I've done pretty much everything I had planned for pre-Cataclysm, so I'm going to be mostly just trying to keep making money. I am thinking of dropping herbalism on Apiaceae and giving her Alchemy, then dropping Alchemy on Taurrance and giving her mining now that you can double up on tracking. I still need to mull that over, though, because it's going to be kind of a pain if I do that,

The Cataclysm is coming.. or is it?

Well, Patch 4.0.1 is live, and the only thing I can say for sure is that it's not what I expected. The only expected thing is that the Kingslayer run I was purchasing got moved to Thursday- not surprising, really. It also gives me a couple days to get used to playing my toon again. It is quite different. I have to spend some time with my specs and such to see if I need to switch in some gear (get rid of spirit, add hit rating, etc)- this is all with Cornellian. I haven't even thought about my other characters.

In other news, the glyph "rush" turned out to be rather bigger than I expected, and all I can say in that regard is "Thank god for Auctionator". As you might or might not know, Blizzard broke a few of the more popular auctioning add-ons for having too much automation (QA3 could pretty much do all your undercutting for you, and both that and Auctioneer had Batch Posting, which I never bothered to use, though I can see why you would if you sold glyphs on a regular basis, which I don't), but Auctionator was updated for the patch and it has been a lifesaver in terms of getting my stuff listed. As usual, it has features I like better than Auctioneer, but lacks some things Auctioneer has that I like better.. If I were a programmer (I'm not), I'd just combine all the bits I like into another addon, but as it is, I'll have to see what the updated Auctioneer turns out to be like and go from there in deciding which addons to use for my auctioning- I also grabbed Postal (I was using QA3's "open all" option to open my mail) so I don't go crazy with the large numbers of mails I'm receiving on my bank alt.

Like I said before, I wasn't quite prepared for the magnitude of the glyph sales I would get- I've made well over 15k gold and reached my pre-Cataclysm goal for gold on Ghostlands since last night, and am quickly surpassing it, which is nice.

I haven't done well with respecs, but Cornellian is almost set to go and I'm spending some time farming herbs and watching the AH for cheap herbs to mill and turn into glyphs. Taking advantage while I can.

Patch 4.0.1 Dropping Today

Well, folks, it's a big day over here for me, because Patch 4.0.1 is dropping today, which means when the servers finally come back up- and I'm making no bets that they'll be up when Blizzard says they'll be up (3pm EST- HA!)- I'll have a lot to do. Such is the life of an Altoholic. Here's a brief rundown by character of what is going to be done:

Cornellian- The first thing I'll be doing with Cornellian is respeccing to fire/frost, and then learning all the glyphs and making sure that her glyph choices are OK for this evening's Kingslayer run with Penetration. I'll write a post in more detail later about why I'm purchasing the run, but the long and short of it is that I'm having trouble finding a guild and I really want the achievement. PS: If you know a good guild on Ghostlands, or an amazing guild on another server, let me know, eh? I'm looking. There's also a good chance that I'll be re-gemming courtesy of my alchemist and jewelcrafter.

Apiaceae- The first thing I'm going to be doing with Apiaceae is hitting up the glyph trainer! Then I'll probably check herb prices (and possibly find that they're still high, but fingers crossed on that one), beg some herbs for milling off my father-in-law if they're too expensive, and make some of the dust (link goes to the cataclysm dust, but there was one implemented in the PTR of a different name) necessary to switch glyphs out. I'll probably work on a respec tomorrow.

After I do these two things, or possibly before, I'm hopping on my bank alt to list all the glyphs I whipped up last night in an attempt to take advantage of the inevitable rush for glyphs there will be now that we don't have to replace them every single time. I imagine that there will be other scribes doing this as well, so I'm not getting my hopes up *too* high in terms of how much money I will make, but I hope that I'll at least make a little profit over what I spent on herbs to mill (which I bought cheaply and then stopped purchasing as soon as the price went up).

Bellavita- This is a character you guys haven't seen yet! Unfortunately I haven't made her avatar, but I'm probably going to get on her and take stock of what changes have been made to gems. I know that ArPen is gone completely, replaced by Crit, and I'll probably be doing some gemcutting as well.

Taurrance- Shame on me, yet another level 80 that I haven't introduced to you guys yet. ;-) This is my druid, who's currently a Tauren but is probably going to die a terrible death in the Cataclysm and be replaced with a mysteriously level 80 Troll by another name ;-) Anyway, she's my Transmute-spec'd alchemist and I'll be confirming that the cooldowns on epic gem transmutes are gone, and probably transmuting a bunch of whatever gem I think is going to be the most profitable- along with whatever gems I need to get Cornellian up to snuff.

And that's just a brief rundown of what I'm going to be doing tonight- it's likely that tomorrow will be even more full of "excitement" in the form of getting *all* my characters respecc'd, taming some more pets with both Gytha and Rolf 2.0, and in general just seeing what I can do to continue to make gold before Cataclysm. I have set a goal for myself of 100k on Ghostlands only, and I'm well on my way to that (Minus the 10k I'm spending this evening to get Kingslayer, a minor setback at most). I'll probably keep farming Zul'Gurub until it goes away for mini-pets and Polymorph Tomes, as well as rep items for a few members of the Discount Heroes.

Oh, and farming Stratholme for The Deathcharger's Reins, which I am already preparing myself for not getting- there is only so much farming one can take and as the moment of truth draws near, I am understandably worried. I'm also only 3 reputations away from becoming Cornellian The Exalted, so I'm working on cleaning those up, as well. Currently I'm doing the Ogri'la dailies, and trying to get my fiance to help me farm for Keepers of Time reputation.

Once Cataclysm drops we will be doing more Discount Heroes guild activities for achievements, leveling, etc, but right now most of that is on hold (Except for the weekly raids and we've added a weekly ZG run as well). It should be fun.

Patch 4.0.1

With patch 4.0.1 on the horizon (probably tomorrow), I'm gearing up to take advantage of a few opportunities for making gold, so I went ahead and compiled a list of glyphs that will NO LONGER be in the game:

Glyph of Siphon Life
Glyph of Arcane Explosion
Glyph of Mana Gem
Glyph of Scorch
Glyph of Fire Blast
Glyph of Volley
Glyph of Posessed Strength
Glyph of Fire Ward
Glyph of Barbaric Insults
Glyph of Last Stand
Glyph of Taunt
Glyph of Dark Command
Glyph of Icebound Fortitude
Glyph of Unholy Blight
Glyph of Disease
Glyph of Survival Instincts
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation

This is mostly for personal reference, but I figured I'd post it for anyone out there who's interested. They will become "Charred Glyphs" and will sell to vendors for a cool 50 silver (...) The rest of the glyphs I'm stockpiling tonight- milling my massive stockpile of herbs and getting glyphs all set to go for tomorrow, which is going to be a crazy crazy auctioning day once the patch drops.

Oh, and I've purchased a Kingslayer run for tomorrow night with Cornellian. Here's hoping the class changes don't screw her over there.

Getting a little out of hand

Most of the time I'm almost completely OK with my altoholism. As you can see, I have four level 80s and a stable full of other characters (that I actually play) spanning 2 servers, with even more characters I don't really play (either because I used to play them or I made them temporarily during a server outage) on 4 servers. Sure, my current four level 80s are all blood elves, but I also have a variety of other tastes; just not really in the horde. I won't like; for horde, I prefer the pretty blood elves, though I do have every race except orc; they're just not 80 yet.

But with Love is in the Air starting this Sunday, I start to think that I might have a little bit of a problem. Since Brewfest, where I worked very hard to get Cornellian the mounts and Apiaceae and Rolf some gear, there has been a family tradition where we take all our characters of an appropriately high level and do a huge mega-run of whatever holiday boss is currently showing, until we get to the point where everyone has what they want- which usually doesn't occur, especially when there are mounts involved. And since MMO-Champion posted a datamined model for what amounts to a love rocket mount, and with a new achievement listed in-game, one can be assured there's going to be a boss farm going down during the event.

On top of this, Cornelladin (Nella), Rolf, and Apiaceae all need to get the Lovefool title. And of course the Lunar Festival happens during this time.. and.. it's a lot of work.

You'll probably hear more from me (and my alts, who won't seem to shut up) about this later- it's certainly going to be a lot of work.

I'm Salty, Baby

Greetings, my fine friends. No, please, don't touch my hair. I know it looks terribly silky and that you just want to feel, but please, I don't want your grease all over it. Now, I should introduce myself. I'm Rolf. Salty Rolf, more precisely (yes, I'm aware that this sounds like puke at times, but you need to get past that and just treat it like anything else). No, I didn't misspell "ROFL" and I am insulted that you'd even imply that. I have a rich heritage and I'm named after my great grandfather, so just leave it.

I'm known as Salty because I am truly a great fisherman. However, this often makes people jealous. When I am merely looking for a brief jaunt in one of the treasure-filled dungeons of Northrend, I often run into people who want to cause me trouble. I mean, I'm a great hunter, a great fisherman.. I'm world-renowned. I can't blame them for being jealous, but that's no reason to be mean to me when I'm merely trying to murder and pillage! Oh, right, and save the Horde from the Lich King. You know, that important stuff.

It doesn't help that lately I've got this nagging cough. I don't know where it came from, though I suppose that I've been spending enough time around those rotting undead that it could be anything. Oh well, no matter, I'm sure it's nothing. I'll stop by the apothecary on my next visit to Dalaran and see if they have anything that might help me.

Those other toons don't work hard enough

I'm Cornellian, and before you call me a bitch just keep in mind that I'm her favorite. Those others- they don't put in half the work I do. They don't even put in a quarter of the work I do. Did they spend over a year going into that hellhole of a troll city called Zul'Gurub, searching high and low for the elusive Zulian Tiger? No. They didn't. Did they spend every spare moment wandering around that frozen wasteland that is Northend, searching for schools of fish, attempting to catch the rare giant sea turtle? Didn't think so. Psh. They're amateurs. I mean, not to brag, but I managed to tame a freaking VIOLET PROTO-DRAKE. Shouldn't that mean something?

Well, you probably didn't come here to hear me complain about how I don't get any appreciation these days, but I suppose I should introduce myself more fully. As I said before, I'm Cornellian. I'm a mage, and I suppose I might be a little paranoid that you'd think I'm a bitch because people think I'm so icy. Just because I have a natural talent for the sub-zero side of the magic arts does NOT mean that I'm cold! In fact I'm very passionate about my art and my achievements. You'd probably say I have a bit of a type A personality, but it's not that bad really. I don't overdo it. I have goals, and I achieve them, but I don't overexert myself just for the sake of showing off. And I only go for what I really want. And that's what I'm going to write about: getting what you want from Azeroth. I swear I'm not trying to show off. I don't accomplish these goals for you. I accomplish them for me.

World of Warcraft breeds Alts

Hi, my name is Bronwyn. I play World of Warcraft, and I'm an altoholic.

Though I'm an altoholic, I do, in fact, have a main. But I also have 2 servers worth of filled character slots, and plans for more characters on the way. It's just how I roll.

I hope you'll enjoy reading about my toons.