WoWGrrl's World » boa gear

The Holiday Period Has Been Lucrative!

Valdesta — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:36:12 +0000

If you're like me, your guild has taken an official break from its raid schedule for the Holiday season, and you've been given an opportunity to do whatever it is you want with your time.

A WoW Christmas Tree

What Have You Done With It?

I've had a very enjoyable holiday season, spending time with family and friends and getting a lot of personal projects done that have been waiting my attention for months.

The weather has been NASTY COLD for the past while, but when my brother and I travelled home to visit the folks for Christmas with family, the weather was quite a bit warmer (well, there's still snow on the ground but what can you hope for this far north?). I'm glad for warmer weather when I travel, because it gets really quite bitterly cold here.

Dad and I Leveling Lowbies

Dad and I have agreed upon a day to play together in the last couple of months, too, and except for that Monday when a patch was released a little while ago, we have been playing together for a few hours every Monday night.

Our little lowbies are now level 50s! We started this playing together thing around level 25 on these toons, and since playing with Dad is the only time I level this guy and we've been leveling pretty evenly (although I have BoA bonus exp), I'm assuming that he's only leveling with this character on Monday nights with me too.

It's been a lot of fun to play with Dad since he got started a year ago, but I sure do hope that the High Speed Internet radio tower that's been erected with the hope of it starting up this month (January) works properly where my folks are! Dad is an infinitely patient man to deal with the number of disconnects and "stranded in the city" issues he faces on his 56k modem.

ZOMG, if their high speed works properly, Dad and I might be able to have a CONVERSATION on vent while we play, without it all coming out choppy, and laggin the heck out of his game!

Gathering The Riches

Another thing I've done during the holidays is keep up with my Auction House rituals pretty well. I cleaned out my bags and have kept up with Gem and Cloth transmutes, and while I'm taking a relaxing break from lots of playing, many other players were playing their hearts out on their holiday time.

And of course, that means that many players are buying and selling in the Auction House. It's the cycle of life in World of Warcraft, the cycle that continues despite the fact that we, ourselves, aren't participating much in the cycle.

I figure, if there's one part of the Cycle I should keep my fingers in during the holidays or during raiding down-time, it's the Auction House cycle.

And it's certainly been paying off well! This screenshot was taken on December 29, and I was at 25k worth of savings at that time - this morning I put it back up over 30k after taking 1000 out for investing yesterday.

My Personal Bank Money Log

Gold Cap? Or Mechano Hogs For All?

One thing I love in online games is the whole "economy" thing.

I've always been good at earning money in games, and have a history of buying some of the most expensive, sought-after items with the fortunes I amass.

After all, after all of your professions are maxed out and you've got gems and enchants on all your toons 40+, and epic flying on everyone over 70, what else is there to do?

As of this writing, I've got one toon with a Traveller's Tundra Mammoth mount, and a different toon has a Mechano Hog mount. All five of my playing toons at 70 and above have Epic Flying. The lowbies, of course, have the now-incredibly-cheap lowbie mounts, but that doesn't even cost much anymore.

With the 30k in the bank I have, I could possibly squeeze out two more Mechano Hogs (or certainly within a week I'd be able to pay for all the mats), but I'm not sure if I'll actually do that.

It might be more fun to go for the Gold Cap and watch the money pile up.

If you were in my position, what would be your vote? Traveller Tundra Mounts for all raiders, and Mechano Hogs for all non-raider toons? Or Gold Cap?

Cranking The Shaman Up To 80

Valdesta — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:11:18 +0000

My Resto/Elemental (dual spec) Shaman has been lounging around in Dalaran in the low 70s for far too long, I've decided.

Not that I want to raid with her or anything much (although I have some friends brand new to raiding that I could join on this toon with, for sure), but just that I want to get her to 80 and have that part be done with.

I want to have her be one of the ones ready at the gate for the release of Cataclysm and its new 80-85 instances.

And who knows, she could be my next "main" raiding toon - depending on what the team I'm in currently values the most at the time.

Bear Won't Drop His Fish!

I know that sounds like I'm letting others decide what toon to play, but that's only partially true - if a toon makes it to 80, that means I have gotten significant joy out of playing it, and not just for a short period of time, either. When WoTLK was rolling in, I made a similar decision between my Mage and Priest and it was largely influenced by the fact that the guild I was aiming to get into for WoTLK (the one I'm in now) had lots of Mages and very few Priests.

Burning Off Rest Bonus

Since my toon has been largely only doing occasional dungeon PUGs (and none in the past 3 weeks at all), she hasn't advanced very quickly from level 70 when I first started into the Northrend PUGs. And of course, she's fully rested, and has a couple pieces of Bind On Account gear as well.

All this adds together to the fact that she has a billion quests that she can do - and many of them that are so fast to whip through because they're a level or so below her - and a lot of rest bonus to burn up.

I spent a couple of hours recently just questing with her, flitting from place to place, delighting in the fact that the last 3 toons that went through these quest series did it when flying could only be obtained in Northrend at level 77.

But then again, with all the flitting around, I'm not getting the incidental experience the others got just by having to battle their way through to the quest object, and then battle their way back out. Thank goodness for lots of quests, and rest bonus ;)

Right now she's at 74, soon to be 75. I only play her once or at most twice a week, however, so it'll take a while to get to that 80 point.

But she's on her way, instead of sitting around in Dalaran twiddling her Troll Toes.

What Toon Will You Play In Cataclysm?

Are you someone who's called the same toon "your main" since you started playing the game, or have you swapped around between characters?

Do you see yourself keeping your current "main" for Cataclysm, or do you think you might take the opportunity to switch to something new?

Flying Through The Lowbie Levels With BoA Gear

Valdesta — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:41:08 +0000

I have to say, I'm loving this Bind on Account gear that has been released into the game with this expansion pack.

Not only is it ugly as anything I've ever seen before in some cases (and yes, that's of value to me), but it goes a long, long way towards reducing the pain of hunting out gear upgrades every 10 levels like I used to do.

I know it's been out a while, but the fact that the weapon, both trinkets, plus the chest and shoulder pieces that I slapped on this character before she hit level 20 will last me all the way to level 80, and possibly even 85 when Cataclysm comes out.

That's a huge load off of an alt-o-holic leveler's mind. There are, after all, at least six other children in this online toon family I'm maintaining, and therefore anything that can cut out a lot of worry for a lot of levels is deemed "good" - nay, "Excellent".

Lowbie Locklier Looking Lovely

Orc Warlock Mid Cast

Orc females are great, aren't they?

I mean, they all look so alluringly innocent and pure! And their dance is so delicate and again - alluringly innocent! (*wipes sarcasm from chin*)

I've got two Orc toons now, but this one is the only one I'm actively playing. The other one is currently Guildmaster of my Guild of One and I only log into her to perform gem transmutes and to move large quantities of money around (ie: anything over 1000g or so).

Since I played my Orc Rogue up to the level 65 that she's at, not much has changed about Orcs - other than the fact that the racial ability is much more use-friendly in group situations. Didn't the old ability increase damage taken and dealt but then reduce healing taken? Now the racial increases my spellpower by a certain degree for 15 seconds instead.

And yes, I use my racial ability all the time on this toon - in fact, on my Trolls and on this Orc I have the racial ability stacked with one of my commonly-cast spells so I'm using the racial whenever it comes off of cooldown.

A 30 Warlock's Dream Of Summoning...er, Raiding

My Wee Warlock recently hit level 30, thanks to some renewed vigor towards getting a Warlock up to raiding levels.

You see, I'm not sure what your realm is like, but our realm's raid PUGs (and even our own guild group) face a pretty regular lack of two classes: Warlocks and Shaman. I don't know why, but if there's a Warlock or Shaman available in a 25 player PUG raid, there's usually only one or at the most two, and a lot of time the Raid Leader has to search specifically for those classes in order to get them in-raid.

Druids and Mages seem pretty scarce as well, but not to the same degree. (Good, because I'm waiting until I can be a Goblin Druid, nice and small)

Of course, with my Warlock only at level 30, I know there's a long ways to go before I could ever think about raiding with her. In fact, with the way I level characters (mostly using rest bonus) it's unlikely she'll even raid during this expansion at all.

Yet I still look forward to the future of being a big strong Warlock able to solo things 15 times my size just like some of the other Warlock WoW Bloggers out there :)

Feeling The 30s Crunch

Right now I'm kind of struggling in my advancement, however - the quests I pick up tend to be 5 levels lower than I am, or to spread out way beyond belief, or 4-5 levels above where I am.

Locklier And Her Blueberry

I've done a lot of questing in Hillsbrad Foothills and Thousand Needles, but have admittedly avoided Stonetalon Mountains (deeming it too spread out) and Desolace (very spread out and boring!). I'm looking at quests from Booty Bay and Hammerfall but they're still mostly red in my quest log, with so few yellow or orange ones to make the journey out worth it.

I'm thinking it might be time to trade some dungeon run-through favors with my friends... so I paid it forward the other day by helping out one of my regular dungeon-trade friends with his 36 Warlock - running him through Razorfen Downs and then all four wings of the Scarlet Monestary using my 70 Death Knight.

I might also jump into some regular dungeon PUGs soon with this character - I did a few at the RFC/Wailing Caverns level but then have been just questing since then.

My Warlock Leveling Spec Questions

Right now I'm stacking my points seriously into Demonology to support my Voidwalker's uberness as a blueberry tank, and that works great for solo questing, but my actual DPS when I don't have my Voidwalker doing damage is quite pathetic.

At what point should I think about switching some of my points more towards a different spec?

And if I were to dual spec at 40 (which is the earliest level one can dual spec I believe) to have a solo spec and a dungeoning spec, would I be better to go with Affliction or Destruction at a low level?