Some Specs To Try

At level 80:

Priest
51/20/0

Mage
17/0/54

;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Crazy Numbers

I haven't been playing my paladin, but when I do start up again, I hope to push to 70 as quickly as possible. In the meantime, check out my current XP. How is this even possible? The probability blows my mind. :o



I got her enchanting to 300 but need to work on getting her blacksmithing up. ;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Necropilises

All over Azeroth, necropolises have been springing up. This follows the start of a ghoul / zombie epidemic that has been spreading throughout both the world of Azeroth and that of Outland. The server has been going through a restart process each evening as more content is introduced.

This heralds the beginning of the Lich King's intrusion and eventual dominion. This Scourge Invasion is similar to that which happened two years ago with the original opening of Naxxramas. Back then, I managed to complete a few of the quests but never acquired a Tabard of the Argent Dawn.

I have acquired the Blessed Mantle, Robe and Gloves of Undead Cleansing and also the Tabard of the Argent Dawn so far. XD

With my mage, I have achieved all of the necessary Hallow's End requirements to complete Hallowed Be Thy Name. This is one of the World Event achievements towards What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, the reward of which is totally drakelicious!

I respecced frost for our Molten Core run on Friday night. It was really cool raiding with some of my old friends from Unknown again. We pugged it to fill out numbers, but it worked out well and Rags didn't stand a chance.

We also ventured into Onyxia's Lair. She went down in about a minute and a half or so.

After that, we shot into BWL and cleared up to Firemaw with about 12 people. I had to log my rogue for the suppression room and kept her in for Broodlord. Unfortunately, neither of our tanks had Onyxia Scale Cloaks so the Firemaw fight itself was a no-go, but at least we all enjoyed ourselves and were able to reminisce about old times. ;)

Gogo, more achievements!

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Characters Rebuilt

Since the patch, I haven't even logged most of my characters, let alone re-talented everyone or tweaked their individual UIs.

However, I will take this time to post my current character specs. I will update this post as I log each toon and put points into their trees. ;)

Gaiwyn -- Level 70 Human Mage -- 10/51/0
This spec is going really well. I still enjoy Fire and will no doubt continue putting points into Arcane, as my support tree.
Selaena -- Level 70 Human Rogue -- 11/50/0
I have hardly touched my rogue since the patch, but this Combat spec has allowed me to kill stuff fast, which is fun.
Ilyaena -- Level 70 Draenei Priest -- 10/51/0
I intend to level to 80 as a holy priest. It will be great as I level and fill the two trees out properly.
Elvanus -- Level 70 Night Elf Hunter -- 0/58/3
Baeryc Level 70 Draenei Shaman -- 51/10/0
Aedrianel Level 70 Night Elf Druid -- 0/50/11
For some strange reason, Omen of Clarity doesn't show up in my spell book. I'll see if it has appeared when I next log my druid. Cat DPS FTW.
Dvaenya -- Level 63 Draenei Paladin -- 0/54/0
Everyone respecced Retribution. I'm going to check out the changes to Protection when I next feel like playing my Paladin. I'd like to get to 70 by Wrath.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Seeing Eye to Eye with Ahn'Qiraj

What did I do last night? Why, I zerged through the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj with a few randoms. Killing Ossirian yielded the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj achievement. We then gathered a few more people and cleared the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj in about two hours. C'Thun was a hard fight. I can't imagine how it would have been at 60. :o Temple of Ahn'Qiraj achieved.

Timbermaw rep has been doubled. Essentially, this means I should be able to grind out Exalted twice as fast!

Armory has had the Calendar feature integrated. You will have to login to your account to access it. A list of your characters as well as character settings will then become available. Click the Calendar tab to see all Calendar events for a character.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Achieving More

I had problems with the game and had to download the client, reinstall it from scratch and get all of the patches from 2.3.x onwards. What a mission!

I'm back in-game now, though and it appears that Hallow's End has started. The festival will run until Halloween itself. That's plenty of opportunity to get the Headless Horseman's Mount. Can you imagine flying around on this baby? :o

I continue to strive towards various Achievements. My current goal is to finish 700 Eastern Kingdoms quests for the Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms Achievement. I am currently 227 quests shy of achieving this. Suffice to say, it will be a long time before I grab this particular Achievement. However, in doing a whole lot of quests, I will no doubt get closer to my goal of becoming Exalted with every Alliance city. ;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Making Progress

It has been a few days now since 3.0.2 went live. Yesterday, I ran two heroics on my mage to secure four more achievements. I still have to run just about every single Outland instance on heroic to gain the Achievements for completion. I've done every instance on heroic at least once with my mage; but I really don't mind running them again, so long as I can find decent groups to do them with. ;)

I also completed a few more Achievements after doing a few dailies and a few quests in a few zones: To Hellfire and Back; Mysteries of the Marsh; Terror of Terokkar; 5 Daily Quests Complete.

There are a LOT of Achievements that I will be working towards over the next few weeks as we continue to await the release of the expansion. Some of these will no doubt draw me into oldschool raid instances and re-exploration of the old world of Azeroth. It's a long journey ahead.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Achievements! The Patch is Live

With the patch live, it sounds like a lot of people have had login problems, and other in-game issues. When I get home from work I will be sorting through my addons one at a time and then logging each of my toons to fill in their new skill trees. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

This new patch brought everything I listed last night, and more. There are a lot of achievements that will be easily attainable if enough time is put in. I look forward to the next few weeks until the expansion is released, as we have plenty of opportunity to fill out a number of our achievements before the arduous journey through the frozen wastes of Northrend, striving for that end-goal of level 80 and the end-game content that it will allow access to.

So much awaits. And it is indeed close!

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Exciting Pre-Expansion Changes

Patch 3.0.2 goes live tonight. The servers have been down for a while already and will continue to be down until everything is completed tomorrow. I'm going to be restless all day as I wait to finish work. I'm excited about these pre-expansion changes!

Here's a summary of what is being changed and added:

• You can no longer get bear mounts from ZA


• Hand of A'dal and Champion of the Naaru titles are no longer obtainable


• The Onyxia attunement and Atiesh questlines have been removed


• Naxxramas has been shifted to Northrend and will not be accessible until the expansion goes live


• Barber shops are available in major faction cities


• Graphics have been updated, including the new shadow engine


• Stormwind Harbor is available but ships don't yet go to Northrend


• Mounts and vanity pets are now trainable and will go into your Pet tab when learned


• The entrance to Caverns of Time: Stratholme has been added, though you cannot zone into the instance


• Badges of Justice, Marks of Honor, etc are now Tokens


• The in-game events calendar has been added


• Achievements should be live -- check Wowhead for a complete list


• Healing and Spell Damage stats have been combined into the new Spellpower stat -- this includes school specific damage (nature, fire, frost etc)


• A lot of armour and items have been changed to reflect the new game mechanics


• Buffs, debuffs and auras are all now raid-wide


• TBC raid monsters have had a 30% health reduction


• New talent trees for all classes


• Introduction of the Inscription profession: scrolls, vellum and class glyphs


• Two new arenas: Dalaran Arena and The Ring of Valor


• Honor-purchased gems are no longer BoP or unique-equipped, so can be sold on the AH

Go ahead and check everything out if you haven't already. This is a huge patch with many playstyle-affecting changes. Everyone's toons will have to be re-treed tomorrow; and there will be a lot to take in.

I was going to wait to roll my Death Knight before picking up Inscription, but people are likely to charge exorbitant prices for everything. At least we have another month to hoard our gold in preparation for levelling to 80.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Blizzcontinues

Blizzcon wrapped up today. There were a few interesting things, WoW-related. The Q&A that was recorded was interesting. Arena matches and tournaments don't interest me, but these Europeans won 75K and a replica Frostmourne each. How freaking cool is that?!

Read my Tokyo Game Show Review. It's not WoW-related, but it I was there all of yesterday while people in America were at Blizzcon. Seeing as it ran parallel to the other event, there is a connection -- of sorts.

I have been unable to play WoW this weekend. I go home tomorrow, and have Tuesday off, so that is plenty of time to spend levelling my warrior!

I also want to do some more mage testing. And, if fate smiles upon me, I wouldn't mind killing Kael and Vashj for the title, the achievement of which is being removed this week, with patch 3.0.2 going live on Tuesday. :o

The expansion draws closer -- and I still have not organised getting it upon release. :/

I spent a couple of hours today formatting my forum signature. I tweaked the animated gif a lot, ending up with a file that almost reached 400kb. I dumbed it down again and simplified it (at one point each toon's banner slid into place, which was a pretty cool effect -- but I have since removed this function), so that the file size is as small as I can achieve while it still serves its purpose: scrolling through each of my toons to display their various stats.

Read my thread here, for more info.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Blizzcon '08

Here I am, sitting in a hotel in Chiba, Tokyo, waiting to go to the Tokyo Game Show 2008; while across the other side of the world, Blizzcon is taking place. The opportunity presented to me is amazing; the TGS is going to be freaking awesome.

But this blog is about my biggest timesink: World of Warcraft. And what better time to talk about WoW than now, when Blizzcon is happening.

If you've been keeping track of everything that has been going on -- Diablo and Starcraft aside -- then you probably don't want to re-read what you already know. If you don't know what is going on, head over to MMO-Champion and read the last couple of days' posts. There is a lot of information to take in; and a lot of screenshots to gaze at.

The game is going to take on a whole lot more meaning and will be very refreshing for those that want to stick around for the expansion -- which I assume will be most players. Despite all the QQing about players' main classes and about how OP all the other classes are, things do seem to be progressing -- and be receiving their polish -- quite nicely.

Some features and changes worth noting:
Dual-spec system
To be introduced in a post-release patch, the dual-spec system will allow players to respec at anytime but during an arena match (and, I assume, in the middle of a battleground). This brings a whole new dynamic to the game; especially for hybrid classes, whose roles could change at the press of a button.

The biggest issue I see with this is not one of abuse but rather one of setup. Unless you can also save button configuration, respeccing on the fly will be a wee bit of a nightmare -- in terms of key skill configuration and placement. But I'm sure that the functionality and flexibility will outweigh the encumbrance of skill inaccessibility and re-placement (shuffling).

Raid-wide buffs
Now that classes' buffs will affect the whole raid, juggling classes and finding class "balance" will be much easier. Blizzard have also made it so that you don't HAVE to take any particular class or spec in order to have a successful raid. This is great news, as you can have many more options open to you in terms of who attends a raid and who is sidelined.

They want it to be a matter of bringing a skilled player; not bringing a specific class.

Achievements
This cool addition to the game is going to be a great timesink feature for obsessive players like myself. I know that there are some achievements -- especially particular Feats of Strength -- that I will never reach. But I -- and I'm sure many other players -- will get a lot more fulfilment out of the game in trying to accomplish these tangible goals.

It's not just a matter of getting the points or gaining a unique title; it is the knowledge that you have achieved something that the game has to offer. This will mean repeating old content to a degree, but I am fine with that. Some of it is content that has not been visited for a long time!

I look forward to running Molten Core again after all these years; just as I look forward to clearing Mt Hyjal and Black Temple for the first time. ;)

Keep an eye out for more announcements at Blizzcon and anything else that heralds the release of the expansion.

We're now in the final weeks before WotLK becomes a reality. Anticipation blooms abundantly.

The Tokyo Game Show awaits! Yosha!

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Exalted

Last night, I achieved exalted status with Wintersaber Trainers and purchased my Winterspring Frostsaber. XD That makes 19 exalted factions so far.

Attainable:
Gnomeregan Exiles (Runecloth)
Ironforge (Runecloth)
Stormwind (Runecloth)
Argent Dawn (Cauldron farming)
Hydraxian Waterlords (Molten Core)
Timbermaw Hold (Grinding)
Zandalar Tribe (Zul'Gurub)

Possible, but improbable:
Silverwing Sentinels (lots and lots of WSG)
The League of Arathor (lots and lots of AB)
Ashtongue Deathsworn (Black Temple -- not likely)
Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan, Ratchet (lots and lots of Dire Maul "tannin" runs -- possibly too much effort)
Brood of Nozdormu (Temple of Ahn'Qiraj -- not likely)
Darkmoon Faire (too many hand-ins)
Shen'dralar (too many hand-ins)
The Scale of the Sands (Mt Hyjal -- not likely)
Thorium Brotherhood (too many hand-ins)

I can, without an insane amount of effort, get 26 oldschool factions (Azeroth + Outland) eventually. That leaves 14 new (ie. Northrend) factions to grind out exalted with, in order to get the 40 Exalted Factions achievement (as well as all the other Alliance obtainable ones!). ;)

I wish I could be like this guy. :o

I applied for a raiding guild with my mage. I am not sure that I will get a trial spot, especially this close to the expansion, but it is still worth a try. If I do not find a raiding guild before the middle of November, there is always level 80. ;)

My warrior is level 28 now. I will continue playing her; and probably even more so, now that I am done with my mage's latest rep grind!

There is a new beta patch coming soon. More changes are purported, etc. No need to mention the updates really. Just check MMO-Champion regularly. ;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Build 9038

The classes continue to be tweaked as we draw ever closer to the release of the expansion. And the dilemma of getting my hands on a copy still plagues me. It will be disappointing if I can't pre-order locally and have to get a copy sent over from NZ.

Anyway, the latest release sees a handful of changes to skills and glyphs across the board. Head over to MMO-Champion for a summary of what this patch entails.

Recently, I have not played my warrior much. However, my druid reached exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive and I have been doing dailies with my rogue.

When 3.0 is released, I intend to do some oldschool content on my mage to aim towards some of the achievements before being able to level past 70. I am currently grinding Wintersaber Trainer rep.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Build 9014

The latest build gives us a few changes to every class. Check the updated talents. I will have to log onto the beta tonight and see how different an elemental build (frostfire) is now.

Honour is not going to be reset, but items at level 80 will be much more expensive. Still, if you are sitting on 70,000 honour when the expansion is released you will definitely have the advantage (I'm sure the honour cap will have to be raised to compensate for the price rise, as will the honour gain rate at 80).

More in-game models have been revamped.

Varimathras, grimmer than ever before

Alexstrasza, lookin' hot

I've been levelling a warrior recently. There is no possible way I will get her to level 70 (or even level 60) by the time that WotLK is released. But I can at least have fun in my spare time levelling her. Of course, it means that time is taken away from my Paladin, but I am having second thoughts about taking a Paladin to level 80. Mage, Rogue, Priest, Shaman and Death Knight will be enough. ;)

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore